It seems as though it was yesterday when I had initially signed up for fall classes, one of which would be HumCore. I must admit, initially I did not know what to expect. Would it be like the AP Lang. and Comp. Class I took in high school? Would it be like similar to AP literature? With an apprehensive note, my year began, and I can say three quarters later, HumCore has been more insightful than any previous english or history course I have taken. While in high school the topics and the format of analyzing primary sources and reading novels were similar, HumCore differs in that in integrated information from a vast array of perspectives and disciples into a truly interdisciplinary experience. As a Bio major, I appreciated the ability of looking at the events discussed this year, such as the Inca Civilization, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women without Men, through countless lenses: historical, economical, political instead of merely the common literary lens. Ultimately, one of my favorite aspects of HumCore was indeed the theme Empire and its Ruins. I was able to embrace the theme in my blog website; Empire in Everyday Life. Throughout the year, I explored the topic of empire in various fields: pharmaceutical, retail, national, and in literature through a humanistic perspective. This ability to attribute a common theme to a number of diverse areas of life translated into a deeper and better understanding of topic discussed during lecture. For example, in highschool, I had read Shakespeare’s The Tempest through the typical literary nature, analyzing Shakespeare’s use of metaphors and character development. However, in HumCore, my analysis was complexified and broadened to analyze the power dynamic between the conqueror Prospero and the conquered Caliban, as well as the role of female characters both absent and present, Miranda and Sycorax, and ultimately the effect of language on the establishment and reestablishment of identity of the conquered. In essence, this new analysis allowed for the integration of feminism, the power of language, power dynamics, social hierarchies all into the discussion of literary analysis. This increase in the breadth of analysis has ultimately enriched my individual perspective in not only this humanities course but ultimately in other courses as well. Analyzing different empires, from Roman to American, throughout the three quarters of HumCore have led to an increase in my interest in the politics of language and the notion that the educated conquerors often write the entire history, in the process shunning or misconstruing the experiences of the illiterate and educationally disadvantaged conquered population. I decided to address this specific topic in my final Spring Research project. In choosing Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, I decided to explore one of the few slave narratives that exist and how the perspective of the silent oppressed population of slaves was finally able to be voiced through men and women such as Douglass. While it would be simple to classify the African American race as the oppressed and the white European race as the conquerors, these generalizations are far from accurate. In the Abolition movement, former slaves joined forces with white abolitionists who in essence formed and shaped the narratives of the slaves to be tasteful and attractive to a white audience. While this in turn allowed for the furtherance of the slave voice, these white abolitionists ultimately also ended up restricting the true narrative of the slave population by filtering it extensively. Therefore, the complex dynamic and the extent to which the white population continues to filter the narrative of the African American Population is still relevant today, centuries after the abolition of slavery. In short, HumCore has helped me develop a more complex individual perspective and has allowed for me to better understand global historical empires through a wide variety of lenses. I am grateful for the incredible lecturers and amazing seminar leaders who have helped facilitate this transformation and look forward to what the next year brings.
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