Writing Across Cultures

After listening to Ewan McGregor read Chekhov's "His Wife." consider the elements of the fine fiction story. In normal fiction, character is exposed when conflicting forces meet in a cause/effect situation. What is most important in standard fiction is not the PLOT or events of the story, but how these events or conflicts AFFECT a character (i.e., how the character reacts to a situation). In Daniil Kharms "Mini Stories" this is not the case. Instead, he is poking fun of the fictional form. Each mini-story is constructed like a joke, with a powerful punch line at the end. Characters, plot, and conflicts are simply there to create the illusion of importance, significance, and relevance that one expects from a standard story. In this way, Kharms is at once writing meta-fiction (fiction about fiction), but also commenting on the absurdity of human beings and the odd way our brains work. These stories are sprinkled with overstatement, understatement, hyperbole, incon...

By far, the most influential film maker of early Russian film was Sergei Eisenstein . Here's a few clips from some of his films: Battleship Potemkin (1925) Oktober Alexander Nevsky (battle on the ice sequence) - Music by Sergei Prokofiev Ivan the Terrible Please read this article on the state of contemporary Russian Film . Then take a look at this clip. Top 20 Russian Film clips. HOMEWORK: Please watch these clips, read the article on the state of contemporary Russian Film and respond in a few short paragraphs about about the content here, your own experience with foreign films, or other opinions and personal experience with Russian culture (particularly as depicted in film).

Please continue to write and/or read. Portfolios are due Wednesday (2nd period; i.e. you will have time to print out your work). Please start or keep reading All Quiet on the Western Front .

Please work on your portfolio pieces. The portfolio will be due Wednesday, after period 1. (Period 2 we will be returning to the classroom to view a film). Next class we will continue working in the lab. What needs to be in your portfolio? Yes. As always, you want a selection of NEW work (we have spent much of the marking period solely in Germany reading everything from fairy tales to epic theatre. Issues of sexuality, gender, genocide, propaganda, insanity, and war have filtered our stories. So, too, have short lighter fiction and poetry.) Also, remember that the work you have written in the past 3 marking periods can be revised, rewritten, restructured. Try a new draft from an old work. Turn a story into a play or a play into a poem or a poem into a non-fiction narrative, or a non-fiction narrative into a film, cartoon strip, or media project. The possibilities are only limited by your own time, energy, motivation, and creativity. Like always. Oh, and remember that writing can be fun...

Test on Bent is Friday. Please complete the play. In class we will be reading The Visit . Consider social pressure. How susceptible are you to peer or societal pressure? How does a group mind sway the way we think or behave? How can or is this be used by various power structures? Your family? Neighborhoods? Churches or Temples? Banks? Schools? Government? Your own hegemonic group? Write about one of them and how your behavior or mind has been or will be subjugated.