Week 2
This week we will have our first screening, and, in so doing, will begin by diving into Arakawa Hiromu's 2009 anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I have provided a brief viewing guide for your convenience and would strongly encourage you to peruse it before our 15 January class session, as it will be quite helpful in providing some much needed context. You may also wish to check out the wikipedia entry...
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Also note that this week we will be formally introducing the assignment for our first essay, a Close Reading. By this point, we will have screened Fullmetal Alchemist, with both Black Lagoon, and Code Geass on the horizon. The discussions of writing strategies and the various readings that we have hitherto completed should have indicated to students some of the initial strategies that they can employ in the process of doing a close reading and some of the things that they should be looking for.
Be sure to check out the prompt and rubric for the assignment if you have not done so! |
We will be discussing FMA:B as it relates to issues of marginalization of racially Otherized peoples and doing so in the context of how these folks might view their relationship to their oppressors.
To complement this discussion, we will be reading excerpts from texts by W. E. B. Du Bois, bell hooks, and John Dower.
Pace yourselves with these readings. The Du Bois and hooks pieces (FYI: bell hooks' name is always written in lower-case letters) are short, but rather conceptually dense, so come to class prepared with a list of questions and comments about it that you would like to discuss. The Dower text, by contrast, is a relatively easier read, but is a little lengthier.
To complement this discussion, we will be reading excerpts from texts by W. E. B. Du Bois, bell hooks, and John Dower.
Pace yourselves with these readings. The Du Bois and hooks pieces (FYI: bell hooks' name is always written in lower-case letters) are short, but rather conceptually dense, so come to class prepared with a list of questions and comments about it that you would like to discuss. The Dower text, by contrast, is a relatively easier read, but is a little lengthier.