The students in the colloquium comps group met twice a week to talk about works that the English department had previously assigned on the theme, “Imagining the Nation”. These works were from different periods, from all over the world, and in different genres. We watched movies and plays and read poems, novels, and speeches. At the end of winter term each student then wrote two papers 7-10 pages long that featured at least two works in each paper.
The colloquium was comprised of the following students: Jonathan Grinde, Emma Wasend, Kelly Buck, Alleana Austin, Luke Webb, Bethany Bobo, Malcolm Mitchell, Erica Helgerud.
In the video that follows, Jonathan, Emma, Kelly, Alleana and Luke talk briefly about the essays they wrote. Transcripts of Jonathan, Emma, Kelly and Luke’s sections can be found below the video.
Transcript
1. Hello, my name is Jonathan Grinde and I am a part of the colloquium comps English symposium.
I, like my seven peers, participated in reading works that included poetry, novels, short-stories, prose non-fiction, plays, and even a movie.
For my two papers, I chose four works to analyze. In my first paper I wrote about the pervasiveness of longing that immigrants feel as illustrated in the short story by Achy Obejas titled “We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?” and the novel The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon.
In my second paper, I compared the character traits of the leading daughter-persona in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis and Anne Bradstreet’s poem “A Dialogue Between Old England and New.”
These four works span over 350 years, come from four unique countries, and offer a wealth of perspective, thoughtfulness, and joy in reading. It was a pleasure to create my own driving questions and develop these papers out of the works that fell under the theme of “Imagining the Nation”.
I want to thank my fellow colloquium peers, Beth McKinsey, Meggan Clapp and the English department.
2. Hi. My name is Emma Wasend, and I did the colloquium for my English Comps. Like Jonathan said, we read all kinds of things, united by the common theme of nationhood. We watched plays and movies and talked about them twice a week in a study room in Upper Sayles. We invited some profs to talk with us about the pieces we were reading and took notes as a group as well as individuals. We were there to help each other with our analysis and our questions, and the sense of community was something I’d never experienced when writing an individual paper. For the first of my two papers, I looked at the corrosive political power in Henry V and Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People. For the second, I compared gender, violence and unity in constructing nations in the play The Plough and the Stars and Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the troops at Tilbury. I want to thank the English department and Carleton for this experience and for a great four years. Bye.
3. Kelly Buck
In my first essay, entitled “‘Ripe and Impatient’: Objectification of Women as Extensions of Ambition in A Man of the People and The Plough and the Stars,” I discuss how women and nations are objectified in a similar way in both Chinua Achebe’s novel and Sean O’Casey’s play. Though women operate in different ways in the two texts, in both works they are extensions of the men’s desire. Because of their shared objectification with the nation, and, through the men’s selfish actions, we see that both, therefore are connected to personal ambition rather than pure love for the nation.
In my second essay, “‘In Fact a Fiction’: How Central Contradictions in ‘The True Born Englishman’ and ‘His Excellency General Washington’ Allude to the Falsehood of Nationhood,” I argue that in both poems a thematic contradiction illustrates the inconsistency of national character and thus connects to the falsehood of nationhood that Benedict Anderson claims. In Defoe’s poem the contradiction is between virtue and violent lust, while in Wheatley’s it is between freedom and regality.
4. Luke Webb
I wrote one essay analyzing Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis and Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners as transversal works of literature, comparing and contrasting how the two pieces deconstruct prejudice. My other essay was about political motivation in China’s Achebe’s A Man of the People and William Shakespeare’s Henry V, arguing both works illustrate the dangers of unrestrained ambition.
Such a rich experience you all seem to have had! The variety of texts and the variety and sophistication of critical responses is impressive.
Great job by all of you! The range of topics in your essays suggests both how broad and thought-provoking the Nationhood list was for you and how well you seemed to work together. This was a lovely “taste” of what your Colloquium group was like. The process of studying these texts together was clearly as important as the essays you each wrote. Congratulations to each and every one of you. This was a fine way to finish up the major.
It’s a pleasure to hear you describe your comps experience and your individual essays – and to be reminded of the pleasure I had in reading your essays! You did a tremendous amount of reading and thinking and crafting your papers and I hope you feel very justly proud of your accomplishments! Congratulations!
To the entire Colloquium group: Warm congratulations and Best Wishes!
This report in several voices shows both your collaborative process and your richly individual approaches, both to the texts and to the virtual symposium. You showed how many compelling interpretations can result from close reading. Well done!
It’s terrific to hear about your work. It sounds as if you had a rich collaborative experience and also distinctly different approaches to your individual essays. Congratulations to all of you!