Dear Dr. Amina Wadud,
On Wednesday night (the 25th), I had the opportunity to attend your lecture, “Islam Beyond Patriarchy,” and today I’d like to share with you the ways in which your lecture impacted me. Your lecture, to me, illustrated powerfully the potential uses and importance of language. While language can limit or distort the understanding of the metaphysical, it also, through metaphor, creates the possibility of transcending those limitations and materially re-forming the realities in which we live. I think recognizing this dual nature (that language both creates the tension and has the ability to solve, or dissolve, that tension) within the discourse on Islam was important for me.
In my own faith as a Christian woman, I have encountered many of the difficulties you mentioned in your lecture. How can one conceive of Allah beyond gender in a language that insists on gendering everything? God must be referred to and, to those people eager to view God through the lens of patriarchy, “He” is naturally the privileged pronoun, despite the theological belief that Allah is neither he nor she and despite the possibility of the occasionally employed “We” who, you mentioned, appears in the Qur'an. Patriarchy also uses this binary to maintain the originary status of (an assumed to be) Adam which in turn creates and maintains the supplementarity of (an assumed to be) Eve. In these ways language, through its binary nature, allows for patriarchy to impose itself in Islam. It also allows patriarchy to instate the male between the female and Allah in the vertical, hierarchical model you counter with your Tawhidic Paradigm.
Your Tawhidic Paradigm helped to impress upon me the power of metaphor in confronting the limitations of the binary. You stated that the goal of your lecture was to examine root metaphors and sacred postulates of Islam in order to discover their manifest potentialities. By looking directly at the text, it seems to me, you found a point of access to a truth and to Allah not clouded by the doctrine of adversarial secularists or of neo-conservative Islamists and, most of all, not clouded by the lens of patriarchy. Rather than imaging a static Islam, to be viewed either as an ideal to return to, or as an obsolete belief system to reject, the text of the Koran allows for the recognition of a dynamic Islam that can manifest justice and our foundational ontological equality in our lived realities.
I find this inspiring, this opportunity you see for Islam to contribute its voice to the debate on international human rights. On a more personal level, I find inspiring the possibility of reclaiming agency within religion as well as our God-given equality. This ability and responsibility to materialize religion within the world, I think, requires walking the Wasatiyyah you mentioned; approaching the relationship between the metaphysical and the empirical with both faith and critical analysis.
Again, thank you for your lecture.
Sincerely,
Alayna Fisher
Scripps College ’11
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Book of Longing
Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Glass,
I attended your collaborative work Book of Longing in February at Scripps College. I intended to write much earlier, but better late than never. I am glad I wrote down my thoughts after seeing the program.
Book of Longing left me in an odd, sympathetic, somewhat depressing somberness. It was the sort of mood that lends itself to brilliant thoughts such as “the state of my dusty post-it notes leaves me in despair.” I considered my identity and myself during and after the program (I recalled that I’m a creative writer/choreographer often at odds with the population). Hearing such individualistic work drew me closer to Mr. Cohen and to myself.
I must confess that I was ignorant going into the theater. Leonard Cohen…how do I know that name? Didn’t he write that song from Shrek? Wasn’t he from the 1960’s? Always open-minded to new things, I thought “I’m probably too young for this. It’ll probably be depressing. I won’t even get it. I’ve only had twenty years on earth to experience angst, what would I know about this?” I didn’t even know what the program was, exactly. I felt pretty awkward picking up my ticket wondering “what am I going to see?” (By the way, I did figure it out once I sat down with the program.)
I read the libretto ten minutes before the program started. Nothing really struck me (of course, a few minutes isn’t adequate time for literary digestion). The words washed over me as stylistic musings from before my time.
Then I watched Book of Longing and found (shockingly) that art cuts across time.
The collaboration with Mr. Glass radically changed my interaction with Mr. Cohen’s poetry. Listening to the text forced me to take in each word and gain a better understanding of the poems. I can skim words with my eyes, but ears don’t work that way. Furthermore, each singer’s performance and expressions gave the text a life that I could not find on my own. The lighting, the musical score, and the singers gave me clues that kept me from getting lost in words. I think seeing a face with the poems kept alienation at bay.
The music also reassured me that my limited understanding of the poetry wasn’t completely off. For example, whenever the music shifted in tone, I thought, “I wasn’t crazy then—that poem did completely change direction.” There were also several lines that weren’t humorous on paper but funny when sung. The program left me with a longing (pun intended) to reread the libretto. This time, I didn’t feel too young to read it. I realized that Mr. Cohen’s poetic tone is far more grounded than I originally thought—he does not take himself so seriously, after all. His work contains more than longing and sorrow, but also humor and triumph.
I’m glad I had the chance to see Book of Longing. I also appreciate the lesson I learned (or relearned)—assumptions get in the way of experience.
Sincerely,
J. Lindsay Brown
I attended your collaborative work Book of Longing in February at Scripps College. I intended to write much earlier, but better late than never. I am glad I wrote down my thoughts after seeing the program.
Book of Longing left me in an odd, sympathetic, somewhat depressing somberness. It was the sort of mood that lends itself to brilliant thoughts such as “the state of my dusty post-it notes leaves me in despair.” I considered my identity and myself during and after the program (I recalled that I’m a creative writer/choreographer often at odds with the population). Hearing such individualistic work drew me closer to Mr. Cohen and to myself.
I must confess that I was ignorant going into the theater. Leonard Cohen…how do I know that name? Didn’t he write that song from Shrek? Wasn’t he from the 1960’s? Always open-minded to new things, I thought “I’m probably too young for this. It’ll probably be depressing. I won’t even get it. I’ve only had twenty years on earth to experience angst, what would I know about this?” I didn’t even know what the program was, exactly. I felt pretty awkward picking up my ticket wondering “what am I going to see?” (By the way, I did figure it out once I sat down with the program.)
I read the libretto ten minutes before the program started. Nothing really struck me (of course, a few minutes isn’t adequate time for literary digestion). The words washed over me as stylistic musings from before my time.
Then I watched Book of Longing and found (shockingly) that art cuts across time.
The collaboration with Mr. Glass radically changed my interaction with Mr. Cohen’s poetry. Listening to the text forced me to take in each word and gain a better understanding of the poems. I can skim words with my eyes, but ears don’t work that way. Furthermore, each singer’s performance and expressions gave the text a life that I could not find on my own. The lighting, the musical score, and the singers gave me clues that kept me from getting lost in words. I think seeing a face with the poems kept alienation at bay.
The music also reassured me that my limited understanding of the poetry wasn’t completely off. For example, whenever the music shifted in tone, I thought, “I wasn’t crazy then—that poem did completely change direction.” There were also several lines that weren’t humorous on paper but funny when sung. The program left me with a longing (pun intended) to reread the libretto. This time, I didn’t feel too young to read it. I realized that Mr. Cohen’s poetic tone is far more grounded than I originally thought—he does not take himself so seriously, after all. His work contains more than longing and sorrow, but also humor and triumph.
I’m glad I had the chance to see Book of Longing. I also appreciate the lesson I learned (or relearned)—assumptions get in the way of experience.
Sincerely,
J. Lindsay Brown
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Coming of Age in a Small Place
Dear Jamaica Kincaid,
I was able to go to your "Coming of Age in a Small Place" talk at the CMC Ath and loved it. To be honest, I wasn’t very familiar with your work and wasn't sure what to expect. But the things you said really captured me completely.
In particular, I loved the way you described your childhood. As a young adult, I have recently been preoccupied with capturing a period of my life that is in many ways intangible. I liked how you were able to talk about your childhood as a very distinct but also a very universal experience. When you transitioned into talking about Manhattan, I loved the description of mornings, and very early mornings at that. To me, these things seemed very simple but the more and more you went into detail I came to realize how complex and very beautiful they were. Thank you for allowing me to see this.
I also especially loved Your Talk Town Story, which I thought was thoughtful and innovative. It was comical how to tallied the Friedman’s up, adding them to your evaluations.
When you spoke of your Father you said that he “talked about himself as if he was a person he used to know well.” I liked how you said that and this line has stuck with me since. I also liked how you were able to also capture the child’s sense that no, parents did not and could not have possibly existed before our own existence.
Lastly, your story about your brother meant a lot to me. I think it is hard to be truthful, especially when you are writing something that many others will read. You described him as someone “I had not wanted to love.” This also really resonated with me.
Thank you for your talk. This was a first time I was able to hear an author read from their work live and I felt that this made what you were saying both very intimate and universal. Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Laura Nolan
Scripps College 2011
I was able to go to your "Coming of Age in a Small Place" talk at the CMC Ath and loved it. To be honest, I wasn’t very familiar with your work and wasn't sure what to expect. But the things you said really captured me completely.
In particular, I loved the way you described your childhood. As a young adult, I have recently been preoccupied with capturing a period of my life that is in many ways intangible. I liked how you were able to talk about your childhood as a very distinct but also a very universal experience. When you transitioned into talking about Manhattan, I loved the description of mornings, and very early mornings at that. To me, these things seemed very simple but the more and more you went into detail I came to realize how complex and very beautiful they were. Thank you for allowing me to see this.
I also especially loved Your Talk Town Story, which I thought was thoughtful and innovative. It was comical how to tallied the Friedman’s up, adding them to your evaluations.
When you spoke of your Father you said that he “talked about himself as if he was a person he used to know well.” I liked how you said that and this line has stuck with me since. I also liked how you were able to also capture the child’s sense that no, parents did not and could not have possibly existed before our own existence.
Lastly, your story about your brother meant a lot to me. I think it is hard to be truthful, especially when you are writing something that many others will read. You described him as someone “I had not wanted to love.” This also really resonated with me.
Thank you for your talk. This was a first time I was able to hear an author read from their work live and I felt that this made what you were saying both very intimate and universal. Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Laura Nolan
Scripps College 2011
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard's Whore: Another look at history
Dear Dr. Stevens,
Reading the title of your recent piece “Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore,” I had little idea of what to expect. Of course, I had read the description of the event, which described it as “an interactive piece...[with] enchanting visual representations...[and an] imaginative score,” but I still entered Garrison Theater this past Thursday night with few concrete ideas as to what to anticipate. The performance sounded like an intriguing and unconventional event - a true “one of a kind” that tends to leave a memorable impression on its audience members. Thus, I was drawn in - eager to experience a break in the monotony of a predictable week.
Much to my delight, that is exactly what “Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” was. It was at once a visual, musical, and literary performance in which all of the distinctive performance devices were inseparable from each other. Different types of verbal, tonal, and visual repetition cued each other and tied together the many personas, settings, and types of audiences to which each character presented itself.
First, the audience was introduced to Claudia Stevens - a contemporary paleontologist delivering a presentation about the deceased and revered (though historically unrecognized and under-appreciated) paleontologist Mary Anning. To me, Dr. Stevens, this role was a dual representation of not only you as the author and performer of this piece (making it more “interactive”), but also as a representation of a modern female in the field of science. The latter was particularly important as a contrast to the character of Mary Anning - a female scientist in the early and middle 19th century.
Claudia Stevens came forth as a learned and respected woman who did not have waste time appeasing or sweet talking her audience feigning delicacy and docility. First off - I want to remark that I loved the sense of improvisation that was present in this initial scene. I do not now how much of the introduction had been written and rehearsed, but I admired your humor in commenting that many of us “paleontologists” had obviously “left the convention early.” It seems the majority of people on campus were content with their more predictable Thursday nights.
The fact that our “presenter” was dressed in pants, a floral top, and a slim necktie showed the disintegration of the divisive lines that exist between gender and professionalism. Your outfit was a visual blurring of the stereotypes and rules regarding gender that are often enforced in clothing attire.
Mary Anning on the other hand, was clothed in a long cloak and hat, showing that a progressive and unorthodox woman was still restricted to the social norms of her time. As opposed to Dr. Steven’s energetic, humorous, and assertive presentation, Miss Mary Anning was careful to speak politely and gracefully as she practiced her acceptance of the small award bestowed to her by the “gentlemen” of the scientific society after all this time.
I really enjoyed how you integrated both language and music to signal scene and time shifts as well as stress important themes throughout the play. The initial three or four notes struck on the autoharp as well as the striking of the hammer were reiterated again and again - both literally by the instruments themselves, but also in your vocal impressions of them. Little Mary Anning was described as being “struck” by lightening, the youthful Mary Anning was constantly “striking” the dirt and sand in hopes of uncovering something unknown, and the older Mary Anning was often attempting to “strike” down the preconceptions and prejudices that she faced being an academic woman. The repetition of the phrase “look up” was used to snap Mary Anning out of her dreamy recollections and to force her back into a more “appropriate” state of delivery. I loved the play on these phrases because they were so contrary to the immediate connotations of “up” and “down.” In this production, “up” was restrictive; it was the direction that society demands be followed in the majority of circumstances. “Down,” on the other hand, often allowed for extra space to and reconstruction of the “norms.”
“Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” is the type of the production that could be viewed multiple times and still hold more jewels to interpret. But then again, as Mary Anning relates, “happiness exists in being misunderstood.” As long as a few questions remain, there will always be something to dig up from under the surface, thus allowing for the congealed standards to be undone and refitted.
Thank you for sharing this production with us Dr. Stevens. Your production was, just as Scripps College requested, provocative, insightful, and artistic. I hope I will be lucky enough to see another one of your pieces in the coming years. I can’t imagine what’s coming next!
Sincerely,
Julie McAleer
Pitzer College ‘12
Reading the title of your recent piece “Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore,” I had little idea of what to expect. Of course, I had read the description of the event, which described it as “an interactive piece...[with] enchanting visual representations...[and an] imaginative score,” but I still entered Garrison Theater this past Thursday night with few concrete ideas as to what to anticipate. The performance sounded like an intriguing and unconventional event - a true “one of a kind” that tends to leave a memorable impression on its audience members. Thus, I was drawn in - eager to experience a break in the monotony of a predictable week.
Much to my delight, that is exactly what “Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” was. It was at once a visual, musical, and literary performance in which all of the distinctive performance devices were inseparable from each other. Different types of verbal, tonal, and visual repetition cued each other and tied together the many personas, settings, and types of audiences to which each character presented itself.
First, the audience was introduced to Claudia Stevens - a contemporary paleontologist delivering a presentation about the deceased and revered (though historically unrecognized and under-appreciated) paleontologist Mary Anning. To me, Dr. Stevens, this role was a dual representation of not only you as the author and performer of this piece (making it more “interactive”), but also as a representation of a modern female in the field of science. The latter was particularly important as a contrast to the character of Mary Anning - a female scientist in the early and middle 19th century.
Claudia Stevens came forth as a learned and respected woman who did not have waste time appeasing or sweet talking her audience feigning delicacy and docility. First off - I want to remark that I loved the sense of improvisation that was present in this initial scene. I do not now how much of the introduction had been written and rehearsed, but I admired your humor in commenting that many of us “paleontologists” had obviously “left the convention early.” It seems the majority of people on campus were content with their more predictable Thursday nights.
The fact that our “presenter” was dressed in pants, a floral top, and a slim necktie showed the disintegration of the divisive lines that exist between gender and professionalism. Your outfit was a visual blurring of the stereotypes and rules regarding gender that are often enforced in clothing attire.
Mary Anning on the other hand, was clothed in a long cloak and hat, showing that a progressive and unorthodox woman was still restricted to the social norms of her time. As opposed to Dr. Steven’s energetic, humorous, and assertive presentation, Miss Mary Anning was careful to speak politely and gracefully as she practiced her acceptance of the small award bestowed to her by the “gentlemen” of the scientific society after all this time.
I really enjoyed how you integrated both language and music to signal scene and time shifts as well as stress important themes throughout the play. The initial three or four notes struck on the autoharp as well as the striking of the hammer were reiterated again and again - both literally by the instruments themselves, but also in your vocal impressions of them. Little Mary Anning was described as being “struck” by lightening, the youthful Mary Anning was constantly “striking” the dirt and sand in hopes of uncovering something unknown, and the older Mary Anning was often attempting to “strike” down the preconceptions and prejudices that she faced being an academic woman. The repetition of the phrase “look up” was used to snap Mary Anning out of her dreamy recollections and to force her back into a more “appropriate” state of delivery. I loved the play on these phrases because they were so contrary to the immediate connotations of “up” and “down.” In this production, “up” was restrictive; it was the direction that society demands be followed in the majority of circumstances. “Down,” on the other hand, often allowed for extra space to and reconstruction of the “norms.”
“Blue Lias - or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” is the type of the production that could be viewed multiple times and still hold more jewels to interpret. But then again, as Mary Anning relates, “happiness exists in being misunderstood.” As long as a few questions remain, there will always be something to dig up from under the surface, thus allowing for the congealed standards to be undone and refitted.
Thank you for sharing this production with us Dr. Stevens. Your production was, just as Scripps College requested, provocative, insightful, and artistic. I hope I will be lucky enough to see another one of your pieces in the coming years. I can’t imagine what’s coming next!
Sincerely,
Julie McAleer
Pitzer College ‘12
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Jamaica Kincaid
March 10, 2009
Dear Ms. Kincaid,
I recently had the pleasure of attending your speech “Coming of Age in a Small Place” at Claremont McKenna College’s Athenaeum on March 4. First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to come and speak at the Claremont Colleges. I’ve been a fan of your work ever since I read Annie John as a freshman in high school. It truly was an honor to hear you read passages of your writing, and discuss some of your experiences as a fresh writer at The New Yorker. Your words captivated me, and I enjoyed your presentation very much.
I have been struck by your style of writing. You are engaging, clear, and wonderfully insightful. Further, hearing your words read aloud gave them a different feel; the tone suddenly became more intimate, and psychologically or emotionally clued in. Your words not only provided a written connection into your thoughts but a verbal one as well; your memories came to life as you read. I found myself being carried away and entering your world. Your words transported me from Claremont, California to Antigua, Manhattan, a train, or wherever you happened to be in your tale. The description of your father, for example, was so meticulous, detail oriented, and well done I feel as if I know him. The specific details you incorporated in your descriptions, such as your father’s stained fingers from smoking, painted him as a tangible person not some fictional character. These clear and meticulous details I found make your style of writing incredibly empathetic and relatable. Further, your ability to express common everyday happenings allows the reader to identify with your writing; yet these occurrences are expressed in a new eloquent fashion.
Instead of feeling intrusive with the insight gained from your writings, I felt connected. The depiction of your experience of losing your brother was emotionally so painful, and yet captured so eloquently. I remember you saying, “for it is the end, yet so many things linger” I was particular struck by this. The language is simple and clear, and yet conveys much. You allowed the world to experience and feel something truly devastating through your writing, and I think that is quite an accomplishment. I felt a strong sense of connection in your discussion of death, and your state of pain; a connection that I was able to feel because of the style of your expression. Your writing connects cross-culturally. I thought your piece on your brother’s sickness and death was deeply moving and beautiful.
I was particularly fond of your comparisons and cataloging of life in Antigua compared to life in America, such as the detailed description of “early” mornings in Antigua, versus “early” mornings in Manhattan. The juxtaposition between life on these two islands was pronounced by providing the same form, allowing their differences to shine through; your writing separated the experiences as different in substance, yet united in form. The “Expense Account” piece was a prime example of the cataloging form being creative, funny and effective.
Additionally, I loved your anecdotes on Wordsworth and Milton. Likewise, I recently read Paradise Lost and was utterly captivated by Lucifer. I agree, he’s definitely the most interesting and engaging character. Your memory of having to write out all of Paradise Lost and memorize Wordsworth poetry then compared to your experiences as a writer of your own words in Manhattan illustrate your growth and strength. I was thoroughly impressed by all of your experiences, and the means in which you expressed them.
Thank you so much for coming to speak at the Athenaeum. I’m truly thankful I had the opportunity to hear you speak, and I look forward to reading more of your work.
Sincerely,
Emma Lord
Scripps College Class of 2010
| to | jkincaid@fas.harvard.edu |
| cc | ssuh@scrippscollege.edu, elord@scrippscollege.edu |
| date | Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:34 PM |
"Blue Lias-or the Fish Lizard's Whore" by Sophia Galano
Dear Ms. Claudia Stevens,
I recently attended your performance “Blue Lias-or the Fish Lizard’s Whore,” and would like to thank you for traveling to Scripps College. I would also like to commend your incorporation of various educational fields, as you successfully blended literature, music, theatre, science and gender studies together in your play. You also addressed important questions pertaining to women’s roles in science and psychology. I was overall very impressed with the unique style and subject matter of your play.
The style and form of “Blue Lias-or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” was both unique and intriguing. First and foremost, I must applaud your acting skills, as you brilliantly performed two very different characters. I loved how you often shifted between the two characters, and changed voice and narration. It was interesting how I found myself questioning the reliability of your narrator, and if she was in fact mentally unstable or simply eccentric. The different tones, narration and voices used throughout the play brought forth questions pertaining to the central character’s emotional state and larger societal issues, such as the gender divide in the scientific world.
Along with the shift in tone and narration, I was compelled by the central character’s poetic interpersonal dialogue, diction and use of music and song. The narrator’s inner thoughts were expressed with a consistent rhyme scheme and evenly distributed intervals. The accentuation and repetition of certain words also established a specific form and emphasized themes of pain and death. Furthermore, I was absorbed by the intervals between dialogues, as they were often divided with music and song. This was a powerful tool that allowed a viewer such as myself to feel sympathy and sadness for the central character.
I found the songs and music to be a fascinating way of handling themes of sadness, grief, pain and death. You addressed these themes in non-traditional methods, as you used theatre as well as audience interaction and interpersonal dialogue. I found that a method such as audience interaction exaggerated and created irony within sadness and grief. Instead of leaving physical and emotional pain in words on a paper, you diligently chose to act, dress and show specific feelings.
One of the most important and absorbing assets of your work was its intersection of various educational fields. I was further intrigued by how the play dealt with issues of gender, psychology and the scientific experience, yet was portrayed through poetry, song and theatre. Your utilization of these different methods fully showed your talent and ability to contrast content and form. I credit you for successfully blurring the boundaries between performance and literature, while still addressing science and psychology.
Overall, I was captivated by your performance of “Blue Lias- or the Fish Lizards Whore.” The work was written in an unusual, yet compelling manner and was remarkably performed. I was also interested in the style and form as well as the themes and questions within your play. The central topic of women’s place in the scientific world was nicely incorporated into various other issues, such as mental stability. Your play addressed pertinent issues in today’s society, was historically accurate and addressed in a unique style. Thank you again for performing this intellectual and unusual work of literature.
Yours truly,
Sophia Galano
I recently attended your performance “Blue Lias-or the Fish Lizard’s Whore,” and would like to thank you for traveling to Scripps College. I would also like to commend your incorporation of various educational fields, as you successfully blended literature, music, theatre, science and gender studies together in your play. You also addressed important questions pertaining to women’s roles in science and psychology. I was overall very impressed with the unique style and subject matter of your play.
The style and form of “Blue Lias-or the Fish Lizard’s Whore” was both unique and intriguing. First and foremost, I must applaud your acting skills, as you brilliantly performed two very different characters. I loved how you often shifted between the two characters, and changed voice and narration. It was interesting how I found myself questioning the reliability of your narrator, and if she was in fact mentally unstable or simply eccentric. The different tones, narration and voices used throughout the play brought forth questions pertaining to the central character’s emotional state and larger societal issues, such as the gender divide in the scientific world.
Along with the shift in tone and narration, I was compelled by the central character’s poetic interpersonal dialogue, diction and use of music and song. The narrator’s inner thoughts were expressed with a consistent rhyme scheme and evenly distributed intervals. The accentuation and repetition of certain words also established a specific form and emphasized themes of pain and death. Furthermore, I was absorbed by the intervals between dialogues, as they were often divided with music and song. This was a powerful tool that allowed a viewer such as myself to feel sympathy and sadness for the central character.
I found the songs and music to be a fascinating way of handling themes of sadness, grief, pain and death. You addressed these themes in non-traditional methods, as you used theatre as well as audience interaction and interpersonal dialogue. I found that a method such as audience interaction exaggerated and created irony within sadness and grief. Instead of leaving physical and emotional pain in words on a paper, you diligently chose to act, dress and show specific feelings.
One of the most important and absorbing assets of your work was its intersection of various educational fields. I was further intrigued by how the play dealt with issues of gender, psychology and the scientific experience, yet was portrayed through poetry, song and theatre. Your utilization of these different methods fully showed your talent and ability to contrast content and form. I credit you for successfully blurring the boundaries between performance and literature, while still addressing science and psychology.
Overall, I was captivated by your performance of “Blue Lias- or the Fish Lizards Whore.” The work was written in an unusual, yet compelling manner and was remarkably performed. I was also interested in the style and form as well as the themes and questions within your play. The central topic of women’s place in the scientific world was nicely incorporated into various other issues, such as mental stability. Your play addressed pertinent issues in today’s society, was historically accurate and addressed in a unique style. Thank you again for performing this intellectual and unusual work of literature.
Yours truly,
Sophia Galano
Journey From the Land of No - Roya Hakakian
Dear Roya Hakakian,
I recently attended your talk, “Journey from the Land of No,” at Scripps College last Tuesday and I wanted to thank you for an engaging presentation. As a Humanities Junior Fellow this year, I have been exposed to a variety of media portraying women and Islam in contemporary society. After reading your memoir of your childhood during the Iranian Revolution, I especially appreciated your lyrical depiction of life in Iran. Through descriptive literature and personal experience, you countered preconceived Western notions of Iranian society with your own memories of beauty and tranquility.
I was struck by the compassion that permeated your descriptions of the people and geography of Iran, despite the hostility you encountered as a Jewish-Iranian from a radical regime after the revolution. Even though you have faced injustice in the ruling regime, you were not confined by your experiences to write a “harrowing” memoir like many of the autobiographical accounts of life in Iran that you referred to in your lecture. In your memoir, you described how you have kept your memories silent for so long to “begin anew” in America. To move on in your new life, you imagine yourself as “a secondhand car whose odometer has been reset to zero by exile, the craftiest of dealers…Within you is all the clanking, hissing, and racket of previous rides. But you muffle it all and press on.” Despite your reluctance to speak about your past, you were able to capture the tranquility, humor, and poetry of daily life in Iran while still giving weight to the significance of the revolution.
As a first generation immigrant with memories of leaving another life behind, I sympathize with your reluctance to relive your memories of Iran by recounting them in writing. I have also struggled with the difficulty of communicating my painful experiences to loved ones, and I understand well that literature can be a liberating outlet for emotions. I admire your courage and determination to delve into your memories and create a work that bridges cultural barriers, despite your fear of reliving traumatizing events. I hope that one day I will also be able to confront and reexamine my past to understand how it has shaped the person I have become. I admire your determination to resist the confines of a Jewish Iranian identity to assume your own identity in the midst of a culture that seeks to categorize individuals into stereotypes.
Your work alerts us to the misconceptions of Iran in the West. The media promotes stereotypes of Iran as a mysterious and backward country where women are silenced and modern technology doesn’t exist. Therefore, Westerners may assume a condescending attitude toward women in the Middle East that essentializes all Muslim women as veiled, silent, and oppressed. In your memoir, you depict the individual experiences of Iranian women such as Farah, who was forced by tradition into an unhappy marriage, and Bibi, who fought actively against the Shah and was imprisoned by the Islamic regime. You paint a humorous caricature of Mrs. Moghadam, the radical Islamist principal of your school who neglected intellectualism. At the same time, you introduce us to Mrs. Arman, a former university professor who encouraged your curiosity and love for words. Through literature, you bring a myriad of perspectives from Iranian women that defy the narrow perceptions of them as powerless beings in need of Western salvation. Instead, there are women who hold strong convictions and act on their beliefs despite the barriers they encounter from society and the state. I was inspired by the beauty of your prose and how you conveyed the hope and courage that persists in an atmosphere of repression and uncertainty.
In difficult times, it may be comforting to lose oneself in another world crafted by words. Literature serves as both a means to understand one’s reality and to escape reality by sympathizing with characters in a book. Your stories of resistance through words showed the central role literature plays in engaging citizens with politics and society. Literature can serve as a subversive medium to communicate secret messages and galvanize a group of people to rise up against injustice. Your description of the symbolic story “The Little Black Fish” especially captured the power metaphors may exert over citizens. Even though “The Little Black Fish” seems like an innocuous children’s story, the government banned the book for its message of grassroots disobedience. While some may view literature as an escapist avenue, you show the ways literature can build community and empower the powerless.
Thank you again for speaking at Scripps College and participating in the Humanities Institute program. In so many ways, your work has been incredibly inspirational for me as a writer and an individual.
Sincerely,
Heidi Hong SC’12
I recently attended your talk, “Journey from the Land of No,” at Scripps College last Tuesday and I wanted to thank you for an engaging presentation. As a Humanities Junior Fellow this year, I have been exposed to a variety of media portraying women and Islam in contemporary society. After reading your memoir of your childhood during the Iranian Revolution, I especially appreciated your lyrical depiction of life in Iran. Through descriptive literature and personal experience, you countered preconceived Western notions of Iranian society with your own memories of beauty and tranquility.
I was struck by the compassion that permeated your descriptions of the people and geography of Iran, despite the hostility you encountered as a Jewish-Iranian from a radical regime after the revolution. Even though you have faced injustice in the ruling regime, you were not confined by your experiences to write a “harrowing” memoir like many of the autobiographical accounts of life in Iran that you referred to in your lecture. In your memoir, you described how you have kept your memories silent for so long to “begin anew” in America. To move on in your new life, you imagine yourself as “a secondhand car whose odometer has been reset to zero by exile, the craftiest of dealers…Within you is all the clanking, hissing, and racket of previous rides. But you muffle it all and press on.” Despite your reluctance to speak about your past, you were able to capture the tranquility, humor, and poetry of daily life in Iran while still giving weight to the significance of the revolution.
As a first generation immigrant with memories of leaving another life behind, I sympathize with your reluctance to relive your memories of Iran by recounting them in writing. I have also struggled with the difficulty of communicating my painful experiences to loved ones, and I understand well that literature can be a liberating outlet for emotions. I admire your courage and determination to delve into your memories and create a work that bridges cultural barriers, despite your fear of reliving traumatizing events. I hope that one day I will also be able to confront and reexamine my past to understand how it has shaped the person I have become. I admire your determination to resist the confines of a Jewish Iranian identity to assume your own identity in the midst of a culture that seeks to categorize individuals into stereotypes.
Your work alerts us to the misconceptions of Iran in the West. The media promotes stereotypes of Iran as a mysterious and backward country where women are silenced and modern technology doesn’t exist. Therefore, Westerners may assume a condescending attitude toward women in the Middle East that essentializes all Muslim women as veiled, silent, and oppressed. In your memoir, you depict the individual experiences of Iranian women such as Farah, who was forced by tradition into an unhappy marriage, and Bibi, who fought actively against the Shah and was imprisoned by the Islamic regime. You paint a humorous caricature of Mrs. Moghadam, the radical Islamist principal of your school who neglected intellectualism. At the same time, you introduce us to Mrs. Arman, a former university professor who encouraged your curiosity and love for words. Through literature, you bring a myriad of perspectives from Iranian women that defy the narrow perceptions of them as powerless beings in need of Western salvation. Instead, there are women who hold strong convictions and act on their beliefs despite the barriers they encounter from society and the state. I was inspired by the beauty of your prose and how you conveyed the hope and courage that persists in an atmosphere of repression and uncertainty.
In difficult times, it may be comforting to lose oneself in another world crafted by words. Literature serves as both a means to understand one’s reality and to escape reality by sympathizing with characters in a book. Your stories of resistance through words showed the central role literature plays in engaging citizens with politics and society. Literature can serve as a subversive medium to communicate secret messages and galvanize a group of people to rise up against injustice. Your description of the symbolic story “The Little Black Fish” especially captured the power metaphors may exert over citizens. Even though “The Little Black Fish” seems like an innocuous children’s story, the government banned the book for its message of grassroots disobedience. While some may view literature as an escapist avenue, you show the ways literature can build community and empower the powerless.
Thank you again for speaking at Scripps College and participating in the Humanities Institute program. In so many ways, your work has been incredibly inspirational for me as a writer and an individual.
Sincerely,
Heidi Hong SC’12
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