Dear Group,
Your final writing assignment is about memory. What is your most striking visual image that is now attached to a memory about Rome (or Naples, Florence, Venice, Prato).
Here is a prompt to get you started:
Suppose you lost all your photos from Italy (!). What “image” would stay with you without a photo to reference. What do you want to remember about Italy and how would you share this "image" of Italy with others now that you are back in Seattle? Again, take your time with this assignment. Find a quiet moment to think back on your time in Rome, What is a specific memory that brings with it sensory images and sounds (it does not have to be a "dramatic" moment or experience; it can be a subtle thing that might tell you a lot about the depth and complexities of your experiences in Italy).
Remember the details of this memory and the nuisances of the images that come to you.
For example, I dropped and broke my camera midway during the program. I was reliant on others to take photos, and, now I am realiant on my memories of Rome to deconstruct the experiences and my discoveries. Now, that I am in Marrakech, I remember vividly the image of St. Peters from my apartment window. St. Peters is layered with the images of the mosques and the sounds of the "call to prayer" that I hear several times a day in this city. The memories of Italy are now combined with my current experiences in Marrakech. When I return to Seattle, there will be more layers to add.
This last assignment does not have to be a long assignment. Make it meaningful to you and dig deep, be honest, and reflective. What did you gain from your time away? What did you bring back with you and what will stick?? Are you different now? How is Seattle now that you are back in the "comfort zone"? Is it comfortable or does the familiar now seem foreign?
Again, take your time and sit with all of this, then write....
It was a pleasure sharing this experience in Rome with all of you. Please do come visit me in Seattle. Honors Suite, Mary Gates Hall. I will be there!
I will send comments on your writings when I am back in Seattle next week.
ciao, and salaam,
Julie
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Writing #9
Writing assignment #9 asks that you contribute a chapter to a travel writing collection. This anthology* captures the theme of Italian identity and will illuminate the complicated and ongoing discussion of "what and who is Italian?"
Think through all that you have experienced here in Rome and other cities you have visited these past view months (both inside and outside of Italy). What is your take away and what do you want others to know about Italy and this topic? What have you discovered about the topic of identity and borders through the various components presented in the class: stories (Clash of Civilizations with author visit; Multicultural Literature short stories); theoretical readings on identity (South/North reading; "The Other"; etc.); films (Facing Windows and The Golden Door); presentations on border studies, contemporary art, Caritas and the migrant experience, Campo Nomadi and the Romas (Gypsies) in the city, Jewish presence/identity in Rome; excursions to discover street art, urban gentrification and the periphery, Riones and Rome communities; presentations from your AH course; independent research; and, as always, your own personal explorations and what you have seen through your perspective as an American in Italy.
Consider the questions with which we started the course:
•Where are the covert and overt borders in Rome? (Physical, psychological, cultural, and national borders).
•How is "insider" or "outsider" status determined?
•Borders are at the same time becoming more rigid and also more fluid. What are the dynamics behind this and how is this fluidity and ambiguity expressed.
Your chapter in this collection will give another glimpse into identity politics in Italy and will showcase your now more informed perspective on this moving target, this ambiguous, contradictory, paradoxical topic of identity. And, finally, show us the connections that this topic of identity has between the local, national, and global contexts.
From your reading in THE OTHER by Ryszard Kapuscinski, pages 91-92):
"Perhaps we are tending towards a world so completely new and different that the experience of history to date will prove inadequate for understanding it and being able to move about in it. In any case the world we are entering is the Planet of Great Opportunity--not an unconditional opportunity, but one that is only open to those who take their tasks seriously, proving by this token that they take themselves seriously....we shall constantly be encountering the new Other, who will gradually start to emerge from the chaos and confusion of modern life. It is possible that this Other will be born out of an encounter between two opposing trends that form the culture of the modern world--one that is globalising our reality, and another that is preserving our dissimilarity, our differences, our uniqueness....Who will this new Other be? What will our encounter be like?"
This writing assignment is due by Saturday, March 13.
* title suggestions welcome
Please note: Writing Assignment #10, your last writing for this course, will be posted on the blog by Thursday March 12. It will be due when you return to Seattle, but no later than March 27.
Think through all that you have experienced here in Rome and other cities you have visited these past view months (both inside and outside of Italy). What is your take away and what do you want others to know about Italy and this topic? What have you discovered about the topic of identity and borders through the various components presented in the class: stories (Clash of Civilizations with author visit; Multicultural Literature short stories); theoretical readings on identity (South/North reading; "The Other"; etc.); films (Facing Windows and The Golden Door); presentations on border studies, contemporary art, Caritas and the migrant experience, Campo Nomadi and the Romas (Gypsies) in the city, Jewish presence/identity in Rome; excursions to discover street art, urban gentrification and the periphery, Riones and Rome communities; presentations from your AH course; independent research; and, as always, your own personal explorations and what you have seen through your perspective as an American in Italy.
Consider the questions with which we started the course:
•Where are the covert and overt borders in Rome? (Physical, psychological, cultural, and national borders).
•How is "insider" or "outsider" status determined?
•Borders are at the same time becoming more rigid and also more fluid. What are the dynamics behind this and how is this fluidity and ambiguity expressed.
Your chapter in this collection will give another glimpse into identity politics in Italy and will showcase your now more informed perspective on this moving target, this ambiguous, contradictory, paradoxical topic of identity. And, finally, show us the connections that this topic of identity has between the local, national, and global contexts.
From your reading in THE OTHER by Ryszard Kapuscinski, pages 91-92):
"Perhaps we are tending towards a world so completely new and different that the experience of history to date will prove inadequate for understanding it and being able to move about in it. In any case the world we are entering is the Planet of Great Opportunity--not an unconditional opportunity, but one that is only open to those who take their tasks seriously, proving by this token that they take themselves seriously....we shall constantly be encountering the new Other, who will gradually start to emerge from the chaos and confusion of modern life. It is possible that this Other will be born out of an encounter between two opposing trends that form the culture of the modern world--one that is globalising our reality, and another that is preserving our dissimilarity, our differences, our uniqueness....Who will this new Other be? What will our encounter be like?"
This writing assignment is due by Saturday, March 13.
* title suggestions welcome
Please note: Writing Assignment #10, your last writing for this course, will be posted on the blog by Thursday March 12. It will be due when you return to Seattle, but no later than March 27.
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