When approaching my portfolio of work, it may be useful to begin with my background as a student coming into this class. I, like most students at Harvard, was never well-versed in Islam, but perhaps unlike most students, I was also never well-versed in any religion. I was raised secular and most of my studies […]
This same week we also read Persepolis, an engaging and charismatic graphic novel featuring a young girl embroiled in religion and politics and the clashing ideologies of her native Iran. One conflict in particular of hers that resonated with me was this panel, in which she contemplates the two sides of her that she feels […]
This week we discussed “Sultana’s Dream,” a short story describing a women’s utopia. On my first reading of the story, I was unsure as to what I was intended to take away from it. On the one hand, it described a seemingly perfect world, in which all energy is renewable, and there are no wars, […]
This week we read the epic The Conference of the Birds. My immediate impulse was towards a strongly visual, if somewhat obvious, visual representation of the story. The culmination of the story is when the thirty birds reach the valley of the legendary Simorgh and are met with only their collective reflection. Beyond the pun […]