[English] Text list

Wed May 8 14:46:02 EST 2013

Hi all, especially Lyle,

NOTE: We are still to hear from the text panel that was led by Marion White the Project Manager of English at VCAA regards the decision to take The Reluctant Fundamentalist off the list. The longer that silence continues, the greater the likelihood that people will draw inferences.

Now, in response to Maria Joseph:
Here is what Dr Maria Joseph said in The Age.

·         “Changez was not a fundamentalist before September 11 but grew to be one in response to the attacks. Like Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, it is as if Changez must spin his story through the night in order to stay alive.”

·         “Changez has slowly, if reluctantly, become a fundamentalist.”

·         “In having Changez court his own killer, Hamid has both his lovers commit a kind of suicide. In a world reduced to nostalgia, stereotypes and fundamentalism, all hope is lost.”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/after-the-towers-fell-20130426-2iiqz.html#ixzz2SB4SVVMT

I think that the problem is that Dr Maria Joseph does not problematise the notion of fundamentalism.
Religious fundamentalism
Changez does not become a religious fundamentalist; there is no evidence for that. This is a matter of fact not interpretation. Maria Joseph might associate all Pakistanis who object to America with religious fundamentalism, but that is her issue.
The components of religious fundamentalism are

·         right wing politics,

·         inflexible and selectively literal application of religion,

·         associations with radical, possibly terrorist actions, and

·         determination to revive and apply some basic tenets if religious doctrine.

Of course this does not only apply to Islam, but since America (and Australia’s) “war on terror” the term “fundamentalism” has become strongly associated the Islam and almost
directly connotes Al Qaeda. As Lyle has noted, the text does hardly mentions the Islamic faith directly or by implication. An electronic copy of the text will render scant results when any terms associated with the faith (mosque, Kor’an, prayer, Mecca etc) are searched. Indeed, Hamid works to redefine fundamentalism, and for me that is one of the key point of the text.

Capitalist fundamentalism
The novel directly and explicitly plays with the notion of the fundamentals of profiteering. Indeed, Underwood Samson at Changez is advised to “focus on the fundamentals”. Those fundamentals being projections of profitability: the creed of capitalism. Jim’s parting words are “I’m not a big believer in compassion in the workplace”.

The fundamentals of integrity
Then there is Juan Bautista who has his own set of fundamentals, who in very few words, and partially through metaphor sets out a code of basic principles. This is the perspective that he takes on “I resolved to look about me with an ex-janissary’s gaze” and further, “thankyou Juan Bautista …for helping me to push back the veil behind with all this had been concealed”. When he leaves Chile, Changez makes clear his rejection of his life as an estimator, “All I knew was that my days of focussing on the fundamentals were done.” At a minimum, Juan Bautista asserts the value of culture in particular poetry, he provokes a rethink by Changez of his role in America and suggests that he is a renegade. The man lives his life by some uncompromising fundamental beliefs; his gentle manner bespeaks wisdom and stability.

Changez’ fundamentalism
In the end, Changez must work out what is fundamental for him, who he is, where he belongs, what he believes and how he will live his life. While there may be reasons to regard Changez’ claims with some degree of suspicion, he makes clear statements about his conclusions: “I made it my mission… to advocate a disengagement from your country by mine”. He goes further and suggests an active role referring to “our protests”. However, being involved in “scuffle” does not make him a fundamentalist.

Resolving that which is unresolved
In addition to this conflation of anti-Americanism and terrorism, Joseph also telescopes and simplifies the relationship between the American and Changez. When Joseph says that “Like Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, it is as if Changez must spin his story through the night in order to stay alive” she shows that she has arrived at an interpretation that goes beyond the text. While her idea that Changez is talking to his killer is certainly feasible and even likely, Hamid leaves this clouded. There is a reason that the novel ends with the words “I trust it is from the holder of your business cards”. Indeed, that trust has certainly been undermined but Hamid still leaves an element of doubt. She goes further with her perspective and claims that “In having Changez court his own killer, Hamid has both his lovers commit a kind of suicide.” The problem here is not that she is wrong, certainly when Changez refers to himself as “Kurtz waiting for his Marlow” is hard to make any other deduction. The point is however, that it is a deduction, and nothing more.

It would be far more accurate to forward such interpretations as possibilities which can be supported with the clues, metaphors and descriptions from the text. She states ideas that are possibilities, albeit strongly suggested, as definitive fact and thus reduces whole areas of discussion and nuance to simple fact: hardly useful for VCE teachers and students. I have struggled to have pulled my students back from the sense that they absolutely know what happened and have fought to show them the space for doubt that Hamid always leaves open. Maria Joseph’s article reduces subtlety to simplicity when I endeavour to maintain complexity.

Greta Caruso

From: english-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:english-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Lyle Stebbing
Sent: Thursday, 2 May 2013 10:01 PM
To: VCE English Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [English] Text list

Hi Jenny,
Thanks. I was starting to feel alone!
Regards,
Lyle

From: "Howard, Jenni C" <howard.jenni.c at edumail.vic.gov.au<mailto:howard.jenni.c at edumail.vic.gov.au>>
To: VCE English Teachers' Mailing List <english at edulists.com.au<mailto:english at edulists.com.au>>
Sent: Thursday, 2 May 2013 9:26 PM
Subject: Re: [English] Text list

Hi Lyle,

I have never interpreted the transition to be religious fundamentalism, rather political. Changez so rarely references religion in the text.

From: english-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:english-bounces at edulists.com.au> [english-bounces at edulists.com.au] on behalf of Lyle Stebbing [lylestebbing at yahoo.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 2 May 2013 8:57 PM
To: VCE English Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [English] Text list
Hi people,
I'm asking for some clarity here. I noticed in latest The Age Text Talk that the account of 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist" again states that Changez becomes a fundamentalist. A colleague of mine said that she assumed the same.  However, I see no evidence for this in the book. He never states in the closing or opening pages that he's become more devout, attends the mosque more regularly, prays more often to Allah, etc. He never mentions God as part of his agenda. I believed that Hamid shows him being radicalised - but politically, not in terms of religion. I interpreted his "liberation" from American ideology to involve a left-wing opposition to US hefemony- he calls his supporters "comrades" and the protests he is involved in Pakistan are political rather than religious affirmations. He is fundamentally opposed to the USA but not in Islamist fashion at all. To judge him as such because of his beard - a symbolic defiance of Western attitudes - is surely to fall into the stereotypical thinking Hamid is challenging.
     I'm convinced, too, that the references to Chile and communist poet Pablo Neruda also suggest a poliital radicalism. In fact, it seems to me that the assumption that he's become an Islamist is based on a kind of amnesia, a forgetting that there can be a political opposition to American power and that to oppose America is not identical to being a Muslim terrorist. That binary thinking is, to me, a symptom of the way the American interpretation of all recent conflict (Huntington's "clash of civilisations") has become the prism through which all events must supposedly be viewed - and hence the attention given to the Boston bombers whoich neatly confirms this.
    I see the assumption that Changez has become an Islamist to itself be a symptom of Western stereotyping and a kind of traducing of the political force of the novel.
    What do others- especially Greta -  think?
Regards,
Lyle

From: "Caruso, Greta" <Caruso.G at kingswoodcollege.vic.edu.au<mailto:Caruso.G at kingswoodcollege.vic.edu.au>>
To: 'VCE English Teachers' Mailing List' <english at edulists.com.au<mailto:english at edulists.com.au>>
Sent: Thursday, 28 March 2013 11:33 AM
Subject: [English] Text list

Hi folks,

Past text list issues
The Reluctant Fundamentalist  was on, The Reluctant Fundamentalist  went off, The Reluctant Fundamentalist came back on. Now we have 21 texts on the list. Curious!
The story behind that episode has not been made public, leaving the situation open to speculation about the inclusion, removal, and replacement of a text which shows American capitalism and 9/11 at least partially from an alternate point of view. Curiouser!

Current film text issues
Now, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories has gone off after three years. The reason Sean Box current VCAA English Manager, has given is that few people selected the text.

Some of the original decisions for the selection of The Old Man Who Read Love Stories might come into play here.

My understanding is that
•              there were concerns about the popularity of film texts such as Look Both Ways and Gattaca.  Apparently, it was deemed problem (by some at least)  that so many students did these film texts , that they could be seen as easy access, and that a large number of the students who did them were not highly able students. This apparently informed the decision to attempt to put on a film text that would not be a highly popular  blockbuster.
•              some people  had issues with film text in the English curriculum in general, and thought that film texts belong in Media rather than in English. The decision was made to put on a film text is was possibly worthy but not necessarily popular. If this is true, then an attempt to diminish the role of film in the English curriculum through text selection raises serious questions.

Many people were surprised by the selection of The Old Man Who Read Love Stories and dismayed that the film text seemed aimed at a very narrow cohort.

I am really happy with All About Eve, and think it is a pretty good choice and my guess is that it will be popular.  My problem is the process and the backstory.

Anyone who is on this list and was on Text Selection Panel chaired by the previous Manager of English, Marion White, who has any specific knowledge might like to write in and tell us more about it.

The broader issue
The broader issue that I want to raise again is that if texts are put on the list they should be there for four years. Even if only one teacher is doing it with one class, it needs to be there for the time.   This discussion needs also take into consideration that when teachers might have a text going off the list, they do not necessarily replace it with a brand new one, for instance, they may replace it with one that is in its second year, his gives even less running time.

I know sometimes texts are put up that turn out to have very few takers ie Voices and Visions, but I want to support those colleagues who make brave choices and expand the way we think about the text list. So even if texts turn out to be poor choices, we need to leave them on for the four years. The only exception I can see for this is if not a single student has written on it at the end of year exam, even then I would suggest that we think twice.  If teachers cannot be guaranteed the time, then why would anyone select a new form, or different style of text.

The Theme
All of these threads combined could be read as a reflection of VCAA making very conservative decisions

Greta Caruso

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