Essay Four
Essay 4: ENG 120
No more than 3 pages, No less than 2 pages
Due May 22 at jrcqueens@yahoo.com (or by arrangement)
For this essay, consider the course “Shock and Knowledge” itself, and respond to the following prompt:
In this course, we’ve discussed some of the narratives, strategies, emotions, images, histories, causes, and traumas of the vague and terrible idea called “war.” In the final text we read, Waiting for the Barbarians, we encountered an old man whose war probably best resembles our own – a wandering conflict confined to border lands, and whose effect on the central Empire capital is, at best, only occasional. On the other hand, those effects can be devastating and unforgettable. This is the strange magnification of terrorism; its randomness and infrequency layers one’s fear through the anxiety that anything might be possible, at any time.
In Essay Four, consider first how the old Magistrate attempted to quite literally massage the guilt and terror of the war out of himself, and how he did it with a person quite literally his relational opposite: a gendered figure of the Other, or, if you will, a woman from the “enemy” camp. Select and close-read a passage from the text that, for you, seems to best capture the contradiction of the Magistrate’s position – a passage that, for you, identifies something important about how you understand the Magistrate’s struggle to define some ethic in a space and time of conflict. This might take you about a page, but spend no more than one page on it.
For your second and third pages, relate this passage to some feeling, moment, or experience in your life where you have attempted to think through your own struggle with war and conflict. You are, after all, in a nation almost solely obsessed by its reaction to the horrifying violence of 9-11. Instead of trying to ‘solve’ the problem of the current war on terror, whatever your position or politics, use the second page of your essay to meditate on how one or two moments, experiences, feelings, or thoughts might collapse that huge idea into one manageable space of writing.
Referring to course texts when necessary or when possible, focus on using inventive vocabulary, playful images, and vivid description to poetically concentrate on your unique role as a student on the front edge of history, in a borough bordering the capital of the Empire – a borough that exists as the most ethnically diverse location that has ever existed. You are special and exceptional and you are negotiating your own ethics and beliefs in a world that you can change. Take this opportunity to write whatever you want about this subject – transition from the Magistrate’s struggle to yours, and identify those places, people, and relationships that you use to mediate meaning in your life, as refuge or as challenge. Identity the contradictions of your position, and, in your declaration, embed your ideas with specific events, places, memories, and thoughts. Take stylistic and organizational risks: invent your conclusion, explain what’s shocked you, and write your knowledge.
No more than 3 pages, No less than 2 pages
Due May 22 at jrcqueens@yahoo.com (or by arrangement)
For this essay, consider the course “Shock and Knowledge” itself, and respond to the following prompt:
In this course, we’ve discussed some of the narratives, strategies, emotions, images, histories, causes, and traumas of the vague and terrible idea called “war.” In the final text we read, Waiting for the Barbarians, we encountered an old man whose war probably best resembles our own – a wandering conflict confined to border lands, and whose effect on the central Empire capital is, at best, only occasional. On the other hand, those effects can be devastating and unforgettable. This is the strange magnification of terrorism; its randomness and infrequency layers one’s fear through the anxiety that anything might be possible, at any time.
In Essay Four, consider first how the old Magistrate attempted to quite literally massage the guilt and terror of the war out of himself, and how he did it with a person quite literally his relational opposite: a gendered figure of the Other, or, if you will, a woman from the “enemy” camp. Select and close-read a passage from the text that, for you, seems to best capture the contradiction of the Magistrate’s position – a passage that, for you, identifies something important about how you understand the Magistrate’s struggle to define some ethic in a space and time of conflict. This might take you about a page, but spend no more than one page on it.
For your second and third pages, relate this passage to some feeling, moment, or experience in your life where you have attempted to think through your own struggle with war and conflict. You are, after all, in a nation almost solely obsessed by its reaction to the horrifying violence of 9-11. Instead of trying to ‘solve’ the problem of the current war on terror, whatever your position or politics, use the second page of your essay to meditate on how one or two moments, experiences, feelings, or thoughts might collapse that huge idea into one manageable space of writing.
Referring to course texts when necessary or when possible, focus on using inventive vocabulary, playful images, and vivid description to poetically concentrate on your unique role as a student on the front edge of history, in a borough bordering the capital of the Empire – a borough that exists as the most ethnically diverse location that has ever existed. You are special and exceptional and you are negotiating your own ethics and beliefs in a world that you can change. Take this opportunity to write whatever you want about this subject – transition from the Magistrate’s struggle to yours, and identify those places, people, and relationships that you use to mediate meaning in your life, as refuge or as challenge. Identity the contradictions of your position, and, in your declaration, embed your ideas with specific events, places, memories, and thoughts. Take stylistic and organizational risks: invent your conclusion, explain what’s shocked you, and write your knowledge.
posted by Jrc at 3:25 PM
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