Solidifying AOI

Flirting with the idea of fatherhood for AOI.... Garp grows up fatherless, thus leaving him in an odd situation. Some comments on my old post mentioned ideas of what makes a parent/importance of parenthood/absence of parents which I think all draw well into Garp's situation. Interesting to see where this goes.

AOI

AOI: Power structure in government (what is the extent of power, and who really has control) 

Questions:  

What is government?

What is the role of government v. what should it be?

What is the extent of power?

When is it too much?

How does a government control individualism?

Is there really privacy?

How does power corrupt?

Can a bad gov. start out with good intentions?

Is it real power?

Do people really need to be controlled?

Where does the power come from?

Do the ends justify the means?

Primary Sources: I think I am going to use The Giver (Lois Lowry) and 1984 (George Orwell) 

My AOI

My AOI is about freedom, motivation, self determination, and what makes someone free.

Primary Source: Invisible Man, Stranger, The Giver (one or two of these)

Questions:
What makes someone free?
What motivates someone if they aren't free?
How do you determine freedom?
Can you really be free?
Does society enslave?
How does one enslave?
others that are escaping me at the moment feel free to comment with some other questions.

Sort of new AOI

From researching value and words I found that characters have a different level of self awareness that motivate them, Hamlet having the most and Tom Buchanan having the least. I thought I could work that in to this weird theory I'm working with that connects cognition and mental peace and stability with material items (its hard to explain it on the blog because its not really done or anything) anyways does anyone have a few questions or places I could go regarding self awareness?

Chris Gio; does he even go here anymore?

Hey everyone, sorry for my disappearance from class this past week and inability to contribute to class brainstorming! I've been battling an illness--thankfully tested negative for mono, seems to be a virus that should be out of my system soon--and should be back in class for good next week.

As far as Thesis discussion;

                  My Odessa; The World According to Garp -John Irving

Asha mentioned to me, not that it surprises me, that no one in class is familiar with the novel. It's hard to really summarize all 600 or so pages of the story but it really captivates me as a reader because it is so un-generic. The novel follows the life of T.S. Garp from his beginning--the result of his uber-feminist mother inseminating herself by the means of a mentally-wounded war veteran, who ironically is known as Garp(this scene is borderline rapey because Jenny(T.S. Garp's mom could in a sense be taking advantage of Garp[dad])-- to I'm not sure how far into his life, maybe his death, because it has been years since I've read the book. Anyway, the crude picture of how Garp was conspired accurately foreshadows the unorthodox and strange events that follow. This is why I love the book, because our lives are also quite strange.

                     Almost forgot AOI

I'm very interested in Character and Identity, furthermore Parent Relationship. An Idea that really interests me is something like; The relationship between a child and their parent(s) serves to be the most accurate window into their true character and identity. I'm going to keep this in the front of my mind while reading but I'm not going to put blinders on and focus in on only this. But I also like to challenge the idea of Character and Identity. Is character a property of a person, binding and everlasting, or is it moreof a broad description we assign to people for the sake of organization?

                  FOCI Questions!
Is character more of a description of a person and their doings or an explanation?
(someone has a certain character because of what they do vs someone acts specific to their character)

Does interaction with parents reveal true character?

Nature v Nurture?

This might be where I need the most help so fire away!

My Very Rough AOI

So i'm still on the fence about my primary source (mainly because I've only read about 30 pages of it) but my AOI is still definitely the deconstruction of Humanity and the consequent search for morality. In other words, dystopian society and why we as humans try to create a code of conduct (morals) only to eventually discover that order is just an illusion.  My Odessa hopefully will be "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and here are a couple of my questions:

1) How and Why does humanity decay?

2) Are dystopias a result of conscience human choice?

3) How do we navigate a world with no rules?

4) How and Why do we attempt to restore order?

5) Do we Utilize religion as a medium for correction?

6) If so, how and how pervasive is it?

Julianne: AOI, Primary Source, Foci Questions

AOI: The influence of science/technology on society and the morality of scientific advancement.

Primary Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Questions:
~What is intelligence? What distinguishes rational vs. emotional intelligence?
~What is "darkness"?
~How can we overcome "darkness"?
~Is science/technology improving the world? How can we tell?
~Can we control (in any way) the trajectory of society once technology is improved/introduced?
~How will our morals/values be tested as science advances? (genetic engineering, space travel, etc)
~Is necessity really the mother of invention? Does intellectual curiosity play a bigger role in the process of innovation?

AoI, Primary Source, and Foci Questions

Area of Interest: the formation of identity in the most oppressed position in society and the ensuing quest to reach something he/she can never attain (i.e. Sisyphus and the image of potential)

Primary Source: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, specifically through the lens of Albert Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus and its corresponding absurdist philosophy.

Foci Questions

• How is beauty defined and to what extent is it a product of a social hierarchy? Is it really "in the eye of the beholder" or has it been utterly standardized?
• Who defines beauty and how do they perpetuate it throughout society?
• Specifically looking at beauty in a racial context: who teaches "racial self-loathing?" How is it created and why? Is it consciously used as an instrument of power and control? What is the role of beauty in minority groups in the U.S., particularly historically?
• How can a perception of ugliness affect character?
• Is the ownership of material wealth a substitute for the intangible loss that comes with systematic disempowerment?
• More broadly: Why does identity matter and how is one supposed to create identity? Can identity and identifying factors be changed, either willfully or accidentally?
• If identity is based on class, race, gender, appearance etc., can these end up being factors someone can control, as Pecola attempts to do?
• Finally: Is Pecola's quest to make herself beautiful through achieving blue eyes just a Sisyphean struggle to change that which cannot be changed?

when u come up with an idea for thesis

Cole & The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle -- Area of Interest, Topic, & Foci Questions

Area of Interest: "Narrative distance," in other words, how authors create distance between themselves and their reader--how they make the reader feel closer or farther away, and how that's reflected in the text.

Topic: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Foci Questions: 

• Can the text exist without the reader? (reader-response theory--I'll post a little definition at the bottom...)
• Why might an author want to or not want to change the "narrative distance" throughout a text?
• Where does The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle's existence as a postmodern novel come into play?--In what way does this concept of "narrative distance" fit into postmodernism as a literary movement?

Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work. 
Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance.

AOI and such

Area of Interest: Value and communication
Questions: What makes affective communication, how does it benefit the listener and writer?
How does value of life play into the way we communicate and how does it play into the actions that people take?
How does the way one values others affect their actions?
What speaks louder? (actions or words)
How does one measure the value of a story (of life)?
All of these I am applying to Hamlet, Horatio, Gatsby, and Nick
I am struggling to keep the ideas together without falling into a boring comparison of word vs deed, and whether or not to take it away from the story specifically looking at the words of the author, (speeches narration, dialogue) or to stick to how the character in the stories value words and their own story, and the story of others if that makes sense.

A(rea) O(f) I(nterest)

    Like I said in class, my Odessa is The Scarlet Letter, and my AOI is how the archetype of the Scarlet Letter is a coming of age story that has shaped the basis for all teen movies today.

Questions:
- How does The Scarlet Letter define teen movies?
- Is this archetype endless?
- Has the way people fight social boundaries changed?
- How is this a coming of age story?
- For who is this a coming of age story?
- Has this changed?

Need some help

While at Model UN i lost my questions that y'all helped me make for thesis. my book is Enders Game by Orson Scott Card and my AOI is dealing with acceptance, race, perception, and the prejudice about anything different. The novel is about a dystopian future where the world has been attacked by an alien race once before, and in an attempt to have an advantage, take young children into space for training to become commanders. All the children see is the evil and foreignness of the aliens, but Ender is able to defeat them by understanding them and essentially thinking like one. Ultimately, the humans end of completing a genocide and kill all of the alien race save one queen egg ( which can respawn the species) that Ender finds and decides to take care of in an attempt to make up for the horrific crimes he has committed against a foreign culture. once again just looking for leading questions like the ones we did in class.
thanks in advance,
Mike

My AOI

My AOI right now is basically the 'myth/illusion' (that people either recognize or don't) that prevents characters from really living and/or experiencing genuine emotion. If I decide that I don't find to much to go with this I will reform my AOI to be what prevents people from truly living, etc.

Questions:
- Do they recognize what is happening?
- (if yes (to the previous question)) Why do they continue to live in ignorance? (possible answers: pain, its easier, protection, etc)
- Do you have a choice?
- What is the result of living in the myth?
- Is it better to live in ignorance or face reality? (aka is ignorance actually bliss)

Primary source: I haven't actually picked one yet, but I have a pile of books in front on me (new and old) that I will begin to look through today.

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