On Children’s Literature (by Vanesa Aguglia)

Nancy Anderson is a professor in the College of Education at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She teaches courses in children’s literature, and suggests some ideas about that:

 

“Children’s literature consists of all books written for children, excluding works such as comic books, joke books, cartoon books, and non-fiction works that are not intended to be read from front to back, such as dictionaries or encyclopedias.”

 

“Literary elements should be found throughout all of children’s literature. These important elements include characters, point of view, setting, plot, theme, style, and tone.”

 

“Every teacher should have at least 300 books in their classroom library.”

 

Do you agree with her?

 

What is Nationalism? (by Néstor Cevasco)

With regard to the article ‘Satire Nationalism,’ written by Flavia, there is, in addition, a very clear explanation on what satire is, including a list of the most famous satirist writers. But, what is nationalism? To enlarge a bit on this concept, I picked up a text by G. Orwell, a modern satirist English writer, who refers to this matter in his article ‘Notes on Nationalism’. According to him, there are some remarkable aspects of this particular word which I will list as follows:

‘Nationalism is the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.’

‘Nationalism is different from patriotism which is the devotion for a particular place or a way of living that one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.’

‘Nationalism, in the extended sense, includes such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, anti-Semitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism.’

‘Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. In this sense, he spends part of his life in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible (Orwell George;1945)

According to Orwell, it’s worth emphasizing that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. In this sense he quotes: ‘a nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist- that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating- but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.’                                                  

 

Conclusions to Forum 1: Photo of a cannibal?

Our forum discussion on the photograph proposed by Néstor has finally come to an end. I guess we all agreed that we must be careful when using photographs as sources, since photographs are far from being objective reproductions of reality. Among the different ideas you mentioned, I’d like to summarise the following:

• Photographs don’t show the complete context in which a situation takes place.
  
• Photographs imply a person (photographer) who decides what to portray.
  
• Photographs are usually accompanied with a text that may guide or bias our interpretation of the image.
  
• Photographs can be easily altered using digital means.
  

In the case of Néstor’s pic, my opinion is that the label “cannibalism” is forcing us to see something that, according to what you have been discussing, may not be representative of the situation the camera originally captured. As you very well mentioned, the man’s eyes and expression, his posing for the camera, the fact that somebody else is holding the arm, and so, seem to dispel the hypothesis of a cannibal act.

I think this debate should teach us that we cannot blindly trust photographs. As a way of conclusion, I’ve published a post entitled Trusting photographs, which you can read at If I may say so… You’re all invited. And remember we're still discussing the Schism in the Anglican Church? I hope to see you commenting there as well.

The question of freedom

Last meeting in L&C IV, while analysing the basic elements of political systems and applying them to the republican system, the question of freedom arose. That same topic had cropped up at the beginning of the year in L&C III, as a result of our preliminary approach to modernity. On that occasion, the debate moved us to see the short Brazilian documentary "Ilha das Flores," and to continue our exchange in If I may say so…

 

I invite you all to have a look at what we wrote and discussed then, and to resume the debate. You can also watch the video there.  Just click here. 

The Images of Nations in Eighteen-Century Satire (by Flavia Lassati)

The English author and publisher Charles A. Knight wonders whether to see satire in the eighteen century as the ideological tool of nationalism or as a satiric fantasy: 

“Satire addresses history through the literary imagination and this combination of actuality and fantasy gives satiric nationalism conflicting potential functions. The satiric imagination may assemble the diverse features of nationalism, or it may question the unreal connections that nations assert. The satiric nationalism of the eighteen century exploits the vagueness of its terms. It considers a socio-political model with a literary form open to attack, but powerful in obtaining emotions. In its simple form satiric nationalism attacks other countries by manipulating local stereotypes. However, complex nationalism emerges when satire insists on the priority of universal human nature over the eccentricities of national character and interest. Complex satires explore conflicts and connections between local culture and universal humanity. The yoking of imaginative and historical discourses in satire is applied to nationalistic purposes that are questioned in value and changeable in meaning.”

FORUM: Schism in the Anglican Church?

Some months ago, the Anglican Church’s announcement that they would allow women as bishops brought voices of a new schism in this church (the allowance of gay bishops had already begun this crisis in 2003). Interestingly enough is the fact that those priests threatening with leaving the Anglican Church would go to –and be gladly welcome by- the Catholic Church, from which Anglicanism split almost 500 years ago. 

We would like to hear your opinion about all this. Why do you think the allowance of female and gay bishops can bring about so much annoyance? Why would discontented Anglicans join Catholicism?

Here are a few articles on this topic that you can browse if you want to:

On gay bishops: here and here.

On female bishops: here and here.

The Attack (Ruth Castillo)

Everything was dark after the attack.

Lives went dark of unhappiness.

Faces went dark of horror.

Cities went dark of death.

Dark, everything was dark...

 

Everything was broken in the attack.

Hearts were broken.

Families were broken.

Dreams were broken.

Broken, everything was broken...

Everything changes after an attack.

Life can change.

Family can change. 

The country can change.

Change, everything can change.                                                                                                                  

  

Everything in your life can be broken, dark or changed.

But don’t be afraid, you can begin again.