SPAN 312

  This course has felt really short considering the amount of books we have read. I am truly going to miss this class. I have never felt so happy with the way a course has ended in university before. I really struggle with finding motivation, especially when you are surrounded by overwhelming stress and anxiety around courses, but with this class I actually found myself enjoying what I was doing. I am not that big of a reader, so I did fear that I would really struggle with this type of class, but Jon and his “choose your own adventure” style helped relieve so much of this stress.  I really have to commend Jon and Daniel for their passion and commitment to the content in this course. How engaged your students are in a class is solely based on the teacher's attitude towards it, and I think this helped me with wanting to understand just what I was reading and learning. Although most of the time I struggled with understanding, especially with Borges, I am still glad I pushed my...

  Hi everyone! I am so shocked that our last week is here! I hope that everyone has had a really good term and wishing you all the best of luck on any exams or papers that you guys have left! This week I chose to read “Fever Dream” by Samanta Schweblin. I personally, like Jon briefly mentioned in the lecture, found it so disorienting. The lack of chapters and context within the book made me really struggle to keep reading and follow along. However, that being said, I think I still enjoyed it? Honestly, the whole time while reading and then after listening to Jon’s lecture I just kept thinking about this film course I’m in this term. The course is about the Anthropocene in Asian and Australian cinema, and I felt like a lot of the films that I watched in this course reflect this disorienting experience, whether through narrative or visuals.  Particularly there was this one super low-budget horror film titled Three Days of Darkness. The majority of the film was almost in comple...

  Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a good start to the week. We are almost done this semester, we can do it!! This week I chose to read My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel. Personally, although this book had an interesting story line and dealt with really important themes I found myself struggling to read it. I kept getting pulled out of the trance of the story and had to keep going back to reground myself back into the book. However, I did get some clarification and background on the political scene and attempted assassination from Jon’s lecture which helped me to understand Carlos’ character a bit better. I found his relation with Queen of the Corner to be quite toxic. He was always just using her either for her space to keep his weapons, or as a distraction from getting caught by the police checkpoint, and always just coming and going as he pleased. I think it was obvious that she was in love with him from the start yet he kept on controlling her for his own personal benefi...