Asalaamu alaykum wa rahmatallahi wa barakato~
May the peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you~
Oooff, I have been too busy lately. I moved this weekend, have several 10-15 page papers due for university in the coming weeks, and I graduate in May, insh'Allah. Which just means searching for jobs like a nut...
So perhaps I'll just update ya'll on my papers for now. Some of the topics I'm writing about are interesting -- some not so much. This semester I took three graduate level courses, ay yay yay. They were challenging but rewarding.
One paper will be about ethnocentrism in digital media -- such as video games, movies, online, etc. This sounds weird for an upper-level paper, but my class is digital rhetoric. Yup, I spent a semester learning about video games and social networking, he he he.
I thought that it was important to write about this topic because of all of the war video games we learned about in my course. I find the trend very disturbing, especially when there is no balanced option to show the moral implications/repercussions of war. All war games nearly played in the U.S. are of U.S. soldiers attacking the Middle East, including mosques, etc. This leads to racial profiling, misconceptions of Islam and Arabs/Muslims, and generally reinforces a spirit of "them vs. us" without the players of these video games possibly ever realizing what is being put into their minds. Disturbing...
Another paper I'm working on will be about how social media is affecting power relations, specifically in education. This is for my Governmentality/Foucault philosophy class.
And I'm also writing a paper for my Migration in Film and Literature about a novel by Bharati Mukherjee called "Jasmine." It's due next week and I haven't even read the book... ;) I guess it's about an Indian immigrant to the U.S.
For my Advanced Arabic course, I'm supposed to make a video final project of myself speaking Arabic about something.
We shall see how it all goes...
Showing posts with label term paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label term paper. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Term Paper Simplified...
Sooo, about that term paper...
It was enormously long. And more or less unreadable if you have taken the class (Literary Criticism), but in short:
A vacuum was created after the Cold War for an ideological "other"* in the political landscape of Europe, and North America. In France, Muslims filled the void after they came to be viewed as a threat in the 1970s, after Muslims in the Eastern European/Turkey region were said to have supposedly been planning a genocide of Serbs. After this, the political climate in France demonized Muslims. Certain fringe groups sent out pamphlets warning of the dangers of Islam (1970s to 80s). An anti-Islamic view has been used as a platform for many politicians since then, and has led to the much-publicized anti-hijab and anti-niqaab legislation. Recently, the politician Marine Le Pen called supposed Islamic threats "nauseating," and "disgusting." (Of a murder of a politician that occurred -- that her political party claimed was committed by a Muslim, although evidence said otherwise.)s
The French justify the stigmatization of Muslims through two ideas: secularism, and xenophobia. Secularism is the belief that governments should operate entirely outside of the realm of religion. This, applied in France, has led to the justification of the banning of hijab, as it is said to represent a "threat" to French society. The irony is, the French government heavily subsidizes French schools -- most of which are Catholic. So clearly, Muslims are being targeted. Xenophobia is the fear of the foreign. This is part of the culture of France, and is actually a part of their education program. Young students are taught that it is perfectly natural to be scared or suspicious as things deemed foreign. One of my sources was actually a Jewish-American woman living in France who was assured that she was not an immigrant, "because she was white, and middle-class." So really, xenophobia is used as a way of justifying racism against Northern African and Middle Eastern immigrants, as justified by secularism, as justified by anti-Islamic politicians. All of this leads to strong anti-Muslim sentiments and the laws to back these sentiments up. And this, my friends, is all part of "French Nationalism."
Sickening...
*An ideological "other," in terms of literary criticism, is basically idea that exists in direct opposition to another idea. So, in racial terms, white people sometimes view people of color as an ideological "other:" something that is unknown, foreign, and exists in opposition to them.
It was enormously long. And more or less unreadable if you have taken the class (Literary Criticism), but in short:
A vacuum was created after the Cold War for an ideological "other"* in the political landscape of Europe, and North America. In France, Muslims filled the void after they came to be viewed as a threat in the 1970s, after Muslims in the Eastern European/Turkey region were said to have supposedly been planning a genocide of Serbs. After this, the political climate in France demonized Muslims. Certain fringe groups sent out pamphlets warning of the dangers of Islam (1970s to 80s). An anti-Islamic view has been used as a platform for many politicians since then, and has led to the much-publicized anti-hijab and anti-niqaab legislation. Recently, the politician Marine Le Pen called supposed Islamic threats "nauseating," and "disgusting." (Of a murder of a politician that occurred -- that her political party claimed was committed by a Muslim, although evidence said otherwise.)s
The French justify the stigmatization of Muslims through two ideas: secularism, and xenophobia. Secularism is the belief that governments should operate entirely outside of the realm of religion. This, applied in France, has led to the justification of the banning of hijab, as it is said to represent a "threat" to French society. The irony is, the French government heavily subsidizes French schools -- most of which are Catholic. So clearly, Muslims are being targeted. Xenophobia is the fear of the foreign. This is part of the culture of France, and is actually a part of their education program. Young students are taught that it is perfectly natural to be scared or suspicious as things deemed foreign. One of my sources was actually a Jewish-American woman living in France who was assured that she was not an immigrant, "because she was white, and middle-class." So really, xenophobia is used as a way of justifying racism against Northern African and Middle Eastern immigrants, as justified by secularism, as justified by anti-Islamic politicians. All of this leads to strong anti-Muslim sentiments and the laws to back these sentiments up. And this, my friends, is all part of "French Nationalism."
Sickening...
*An ideological "other," in terms of literary criticism, is basically idea that exists in direct opposition to another idea. So, in racial terms, white people sometimes view people of color as an ideological "other:" something that is unknown, foreign, and exists in opposition to them.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
End of the Semester Blues...
Ohhhh mannn. It's that time of year again. Finals week + a bunch of 10 page (minimum) papers = exhaustion and I'm a grumpy gills.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this is because I'm actually writing one of my term papers on hijab for my Literary Criticism course (which by the way, should actually count as a foreign language, too :P). So I plan on sharing this paper, or a shorter, more readable version of it, when the time comes. Insh'Allah.
The focus of my paper will be specifically the legislation against wearing hijab in France, and secularism, and what exactly that all means. So stayyy tuned!
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this is because I'm actually writing one of my term papers on hijab for my Literary Criticism course (which by the way, should actually count as a foreign language, too :P). So I plan on sharing this paper, or a shorter, more readable version of it, when the time comes. Insh'Allah.
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