Event Blog

Last Tuesday night I attended Ina's presentation of research from her dissertation. I'm so glad that I went; Ina was wonderful. There was two presentations, one on medieval texts and video games and Ina's on the life writing of immigrant women. I'm not very versed on medieval texts or video games so the first was a bit over my head. The overall assertion seemed to be that video game narratives are in fact heavily related to medieval texts. The presenter said that video games are most often looked at from a psychological perspective and rarely analyzed as literary narratives. He said that we can in fact "read video games and play stories". Although I understood this point, as a Psych and Gender Studies major I couldn't help but then revert this back to psychological and feminist thought. I can't say that I followed everything in his presentation, but I kept thinking if you want to look at video games through a literary standpoint, then why are we still "reading video games and playing stories" that are so sexist, violent, and over-sexualized?! Maybe medieval literature is actually to blame... (just kidding)
On to Ina’s presentation! The presentation covered the first-person narratives of immigrant women, asserting that this type of story telling can be a powerful tool to challenge stereotypes and change the political climate surrounding immigrant women. I think that this is a very important topic. I agree that oftentimes the only way to truly understand another is through their own words. In my Wikipedia project I was so disheartened by the way that the hijra were characterized and brought up in my paper that the only way to truly understand them or re-humanize learning about them is to look at first-person sources. I think this idea also connects to the consciousness raising in the feminist movement. The telling of one’s experiences can be extremely powerful. When looking at oppression in our society, it can most often be traced back to the deeply rooted mindsets of the people and culture as a collective. It seems very important to me to suggest that sharing the individual and relatable stories of those oppressed can truly achieve change on a deep level.
Ina’s presentation covered three books, which would probably be great books to read over break!!! I found it most interesting that one author, born in Korea and raised in Minnesota, through the telling of her story raises awareness about how damaging cross-cultural adoption can be. I’ve never actually thought of adoption from this perspective and it made me feel ashamed of my immediate Western notions of adopting children from other cultures as “saving” them.
Here's the books if you want to check them out...

Journey of Hope, Memoirs of a Mexican Girl: an autobiography of an illegal immigrant girl from Guanajuato, Mexico who immigrated to Los Angeles, California and eventually became an American Citizen by Rosalina Rosay 

Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka

Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin