{"id":80,"date":"2014-12-10T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/michellekofreshmanseminar\/?p=80"},"modified":"2014-12-10T07:06:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T07:06:17","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/michellekofreshmanseminar\/2014\/12\/10\/welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh Sem Final Essay<\/a>\u00a0(click me)<\/p>\n

Michelle Ko<\/p>\n

Professor Ali Asani<\/p>\n

Freshman Seminar: Muslim Voices in Contemporary World Literature<\/p>\n

December 12, 2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welcome<\/p>\n

Welcome to my art blog post! If I need to summarize my art blog post in one short quote, I would have to borrow Aristotle\u2019s words in saying \u201cthe aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.\u201d In all of my art blog posts, my goal was to take one key theme or concept that I personally derived from reading various Muslim voices in contemporary literature and to somehow translate that same message into one of my art pieces. After completing my artistic blog pieces, I realize that there are a bunch of common themes that tie my art pieces together and, moreover, the unique experiences that I have –growing up in a Taiwanese-American family, going to a feminist all-girl high school, and being an undergraduate on a premedical track–have all had significant influences on how I\u2019ve responded to the texts through my art pieces! Moreover, reading these texts and being able to respond to them through art have allowed me to learn more about my own values and to explore my self-understanding more deeply! Some of the large themes that I cover in my blog posts include the importance of differing perspectives, the importance of recognizing complexities in every situation (to combat stereotypes and generalizations), and finally the theme of women.<\/p>\n

An important theme I cover is the importance of recognizing the many different perspectives that come from everyone\u2019s very different background and experience. For example, in my \u201cPersepolis\u201d piece with the pumpkin photographs, I wanted to highlight the importance of how having different perspectives (represented in the piece by the many different camera angles) can change one\u2019s perception of the pumpkin. Similarly, people from different cultures and different religious backgrounds, for example, will respond differently to different situations they encounter. In my \u201cSaint\u2019s Lamp\u201d piece, I have two magnifying glasses showing how different literary figures from different cultures represent and shape people\u2019s view on the world. I have two other magnifying glasses showing how many basic science concepts came from Muslim roots although ironically science is often associated solely with the Western world. Here, I wanted to show the importance of the difference between the attitudes of Ismail Effendi\u2019s initial perspective on how to treat Fatima\u2019s blindness (influenced by his Western education) and his family\u2019s perspective (influenced by their cultural heritage and religion). In my art piece, I wanted to show how there definitely exist different perspectives according to different cultures and different religions, but that science strangely is a source and common root for many different cultures. I think that I responded in this particular way to the text because science has always been a huge part of my life–after working their way up from the bottom of the social ladder, my grandfathers became an engineer and a doctor. Since then the large majority of my family roots have been in the medical field. More than that, I was very interested in science and math in high school (although I also equally loved the humanities courses because my school was a liberal arts high school) and did some biomedical research at a cancer research institute. My high school interest in science, and particularly my chemistry class, also influenced my \u201cReluctant Fundamentalist\u201d and \u201cMy Son the Fanatic\u201d pieces which took advantage of Le Chatelier\u2019s principle, or the idea putting a lot of influences often influences people to want to shift to another influence, such as how American \u201cpatriotism\u201d (which often was synonymous to persecution of Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans) could have potentially and might have influenced Middle Eastern Americans and Muslim Americans to cling more tightly to their roots and heritage. Western influences, for example, encouraged Ali to draw more closely to Islam. The next pieces I worked on definitely reflected how my background influenced my reactions to the text. In my \u201cUrdu Poems\u201d piece, I used what I learned from Professor Asani\u2019s \u201cUrdu Poems\u201d essay to analogize the many different types of poems (\u201cna\u2019ts\u201d) written praising Muhammad to \u201clove poems\u201d in the West. I then tried my own hand at writing a \u201clove poem\u201d praising \u201clove\u201d and written in a specific modern, Western poetic form. In my \u201cBeggar\u2019s Strike\u201d piece where I talked about homelessness and the Salvation Army, I used what I learned from \u201cBeggar\u2019s Strike\u201d and this surprising discussion about almsgiving and having \u201cbeggar\u201d be an occupation in order to better understand the complexity behind \u201calmsgiving\u201d within the American society.<\/p>\n

The next theme I focused on was the idea of understanding the intense complexities in every situation in order to avoid generalizing or stereotyping. For example, in my \u201cComplaint and Answer\u201d piece, I took the \u201ctree\u201d and \u201cgarden\u201d (an important symbol in Islam) that the poet talked about extensively and repurposed it in a charcoal-inspired (but really color pencil) piece to try to explain the complexities behind the Islamic religion–there is no one Islam. The way one person perceives Islam can be entirely different from the way another person perceives Islam. Islam can mean different things to different people. In my \u201cThe Suns of Independence\u201d piece where I drew three different trees from three different areas and connected them with red lines to show their interconnectedness through Islam, I tried to emphasize the take home message from the text–which is that cultural differences can influence how Islam is interpreted in a specific region. I also tried to show how Islam is prevalent in many different countries, including ones that are less associated with Islam such as China. In my \u201cSwallows of Kabul\u201d piece, I tried to explain what happens when you lose the ability to perceive complexities and instead become brainwashed entirely by this concept of the \u201cmob mentality.\u201d My video, which combined some videography special effects and also some flipbook art, basically shows a stick figure being absorbed into this snowball of people. When people become part of a mob, they lose the ability to differentiate themselves with people and they lose the ability to see the complexities associated with individual perspectives and decisions.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I actually talked a lot about the women issue that is prevalent not only in Muslim societies but also in the world in general. In my \u201cWe Sinful Women\u201d piece (which included photography of women dancing), I wanted to emphasize the feelings of isolation women can have when they are called \u201csinful,\u201d especially when ironically they are often the most pious, and also the sense of community and solidarity that currently exists for women in the Muslim and the global community. Another thing I wanted to emphasize with is the fact that the community of women that appear in the third photo show that this issue of sexism is not prevalent only in Muslim communities but in communities around the world today still. I also talked about the Burqa and the Bikini in the \u201cLe Chatelier\u201d pieces that I talked about earlier because I feel it is interesting to consider the fact that each side views the other as oppressed and therefore clings more tightly to their own cultural norms fervently and passionately. In my \u201cSultana\u2019s Dream\u201d piece, I wanted to have the same effect as \u201cSultana\u2019s Dream\u201d in making my reader realize that there is still room for improvement on the woman\u2019s issue but that female empowerment also by no means implies male denigration. I think that I focused on the theme of women and gender in a lot of the texts we read this semester because I went to an all girl school for high school where talk of feminism and girl empowerment was something discussed in depth, whether in town meetings or in assemblies or even in history and English classes! Getting to focus on women\u2019s history in history classes (which apparently is not prevalent in other coed environments) and getting to talk in depth about women in literature gave me a deep appreciation for the education I received in an all-girl environment and also opened my eyes to the unfortunate inequalities women face today. Being in a coed environment for college has definitely been a new and interesting experience, making me both positive for the future of women but also aware of the persisting gender stereotypes that pervade our culture–i.e. Boys telling me that I cannot do something because I am too \u201cweak.\u201d<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I have been very luck to have been able to learn about so many different themes and so many different aspects of the Islamic culture by getting to read Islamic primary texts first hand–this class has been an incredibly personal, rewarding, and cathartic experience for me. I have had the opportunity to meet great people (such as Professor Ali Asani) and the rest of my freshman seminar group who has been an incredible joy to be in a seminar-style class with. I remember the very first day when I walked into class, excited for a smaller class size (which I was more used to) yet hesitant and nervous about jumping into this course with a bunch of strangers. Now, my freshman seminar peers are strangers no more and I feel that I\u2019ve gained so incredibly much from this course. In addition to the theme of perspectives, complexities, and women that I talk about in my blog posts, something else I wanted to address actually pertains to a recurring theme that shows up multiple times in my art works–the idea of the connecting \u201cred lines.\u201d I mention in my \u201cThe Suns of Independence\u201d piece that the \u201cred lines\u201d idea was originally inspired from the Chinese folk myth of the \u201cred string of fate\u201d that strings together destined lovers. Although I am not stringing together lovers in my piece, I wanted to hopefully bring in the idea of stringing in two seemingly unlike concepts together. For example, different cultures can be strung together by a religion like Islam. Homeless beggars and the Salvation Army can be strung together by commonalities. In a sense, I see the entirety of my art blog as a \u201cred string of fate\u201d in itself, connecting just the major themes and things I\u2019ve learned from this class. In many ways, my art blog posts act as a way to string together my love for taking charge of my classes\u2014yes, Professor Asani assigned us specific readings (which were all highly enjoyable and fascinating), but it is also true that as students Professor Asani gave us a great deal of power in choosing how we wanted to respond to the texts in our journal posts and in our artistic responses. Perhaps more importantly, my art blog acts as the \u201cred string of fate\u201d by connecting together what I\u2019ve learned in class (yes) AND in essence connecting me to the class personally; My art blog is entirely a representation of my personal investment into the literary texts in front of me and a clear visual and artistic portrayal of how I\u2019ve responded personally to the texts at hand. My blog post gives a clear sense of the major things I have and will take away from this class (among many other things).
\nTo Professor Asani: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I\u2019ve learned things about Islam and frankly about myself that I hadn\u2019t known previously and it\u2019s been an absolute pleasure. \u2018Til next time! J<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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