Play in the City 2013

Eastern State Penitentiary was an innovative attempt at changing the very hearts of prisoners, but which failed to take into account the role of kindness.

Prison reform in Eastern State was one of the cruelest and severe. Prisoner’s lack of communication and isolation did not aid in improvement but rather inspired rebellion.

It’s an inspiring and illuminating pioneer in reforming the prisons although it failed.

From the POV of a contemporary American citizen interested in prison reform, ESP was a place that shouldn’t be glorified as a breakthrough design.

The morals of Eastern State are questionable, and the role of success of reforming prisoners (rather than simply punishing them) is disappointingly low for how many people were forced to stay there.

“Freedom belongs to everyone, no matter who made mistakes or not.”

It is a place built to reform prisoners, and gives us hope since US has been striving to do so for a long time.

From the POV of a contemporary citizen who is interested in prison reform, ESP was a place that stripped people of what made them human, and prevented people from performing acts that keep people sane. It could almost be seen as a method of torture, where instead of helping people as the founders had hoped, it took away every liberty a person has.

Testament to the failure of the American Dream.

Like all the others, it ended up a very expensive storage areas for criminals.

Is it practical?

Today this pattern still continues but in a subtler way.

There are still hundred of thousands of prisoners today kept in dungeons, medieval-like conditions, for years, huge portion of their lifetimes, with nothing but (conditions?) for their brains to to (ziet?), be warped, and emerge with hatred, anger, and frustration toward the world.

(I couldn't read two of the words.)

Once prison was reform, now it is anti-recidivist and a source of income.

These two things (great conditions and to be pentitent) are irrelevant, and may lead people to thinking committing a crime isn't a big deal, because prison isn't too bad anyway. 

It started out as an attempt to reform individulas but even now the corruption and evolution of corruption is visible in the empty space. 

It might be easier or safer for some of them to stay in jail. 

The original idea of build such prison is good. But the truth is, it overlook the prisoners' crazy behavior. 

I disagree with the way prison is ran by today, but I'm quite confused whether as before, far more strict, is better because less people were imprisoned or if today's system, a better sustained prison life is a better alternative yet having more prisoners.

Marriage as a company

When I started reading NW, I ‘m interested in the relationship between Leah and Michel and I think it would be interesting to apply economics in their marriage.

Leah and Michel decided to get married after they had multiple sexes, and their rely for each other is based on sex:“It was hard to get used to the fact that the pleasure her body found in his, and vice versa, should so easily overrule the many other objections she had, or should have had, or thought she should have had.”It seems like a random decision, but the consequence of their marriage is satisfying: They became an accepted couple by the society and their own families. As an immigrant, Michel got a social position wit his marriage with a white woman, and with Michel’s job, Leah is also enabled to release the pressure in her life. Basically they are satisfying each other’s needs socially and sexually. The marriage did improve the productivity of them. When they get married, it’s more than the sex relations they have, they start to share social connections, take care of each other, and inevitably, influence each other. Getting married is like setting up a little company--- each of the family members have different functions, and they came together to maximize their efficiency. And it was efficient at first, the problems followed up with their likely successful business.

Co-authored  with Yancy

How do people become friends? It occurs to me (Amy) that I don’t intentionally make friends, but just become friends with certain people after living, studying or doing other things together for a while. It is one personality that chooses another personality. So choosing friends is actually a subconscious process. The principle of making friends is “Let it be.” If two are meant to be together, they will finally be together. From NW, it is obvious that Leah and Keisha are very good friends from childhood to adolescence, but their bond became weaker as they grew older. Is it because of they are different initially or they become different as they grow up? How does their relationship change during time? Is it because of age? Is it because of different experience?

“In childhood, friendships are often based on the sharing of toys, and the enjoyment received from performing activities together.”(Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship) Leah Hanwell was a person willing and available to do a variety of things that Keisha Blake was willing and available to do.(NW. Zadie Smith 209) That is how they become friends initially. Children have less concern of attitudes and values, and care more about if they can play together.

                For thousands of years, people have been coexisting with animals for the mutual material benefit of both.  Whether we are talking about the herding of sheep and cows for meat or the cultivation of micers and rat-chasers, humans insisted for years on the usefulness of other creatures.  Yet, somewhere along the course of history, people began to keep animals for companionship, forsaking utility, and they thus created what modern society calls pets.  In Zadie Smith’s NW, Leah owns the solitary pet in the entire novel, a dog named Olive, but her relationship with her dog is not simply about utility versus companionship.  Rather as Barbara Smuts says in her essay about inter-species relationships, the bond between Leah and Olive is about transcending “the narrow set of assumptions about what [animals] are capable of, and what sort of relationship it is possible to have with them” (Barbara Smuts 115)

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Smith Meets Kierkegaard: Existentialism in NW

            Chapter number 138 in the section titled Host, in NW by Zadie Smith, is titled with a long URL. The URL, when typed into the web address bar of a browser, is merely a Google search on Søren Kierkegaard. The chapter itself is not about Kierkegaard at all. It is short, only 60 words:

Such a moment has a peculiar character. It is brief and temporal indeed, like every moment; it is transient as all moments are; it is past, like every moment in the next moment. And yet it is decisive, and filled with the eternal. Such a moment ought to have a distinctive name; let us call it the Fullness of Time. 303

What exactly this moment is, is somewhat unclear. The preceding chapter talks about the difference between a moment and an instant, but does not mention any particular type of moment that Smith might be describing now. If ‘Such a moment’ is all moments as opposed to instants, then it might describe the “special awareness” that beauty invokes in Natalie. “The fullness of time,” on the other hand, is rather easier to understand and to relate to the title: it references a Bible verse, Galatians 4:4.5, describing the timing of God sending Jesus to Earth.

Co-authored by Muni

Zadie Smith begins and ends her novel, NW, with each half of a friendship. The novel opens with Leah, grown up and on her own, listening to a radio that at some point mentions what it is to define oneself. The novel closes with Keisha (now Natalie), going through an existential crisis. A large portion of the middle of the novel is devoted to the events that lead to the beginning and the end of the novel, toward the adulthood of these characters. In this way, the book appears to almost grow from the inside out, which parallels the theme of existentialism throughout the novel. Existentialism is the idea that one is defined through one’s own actions; what one chooses to do internally is observed by an “Other,” who then is able to define the other. In this way, one cannot be defined without an Other (in this case, a close friend). When one loses their Other, they also lose a large part of their identity and fall into despair, which leads to an existential crisis. This can cause one to try to find meaning in sources apart from their Other or to abandon the search for identity completely.

            Existentialism is a philosophical movement focused on the “analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.” (Existentialism) This particular movement deals heavily with the idea that human existence is as it is perceived and there is no general human experience, just individual’s experiences. (Crowell) A significant philosopher and proponent of this idea was Jean-Paul Sartre who first created the idea that “existence precedes essence.” (Crowell) This means that humans are not born with any predefined essence or nature, it must be created through their actions and decisions.

            In the book “NW” by Zadie Smith, all of the main characters go through their own form of identity crisis, however, none quite as explicitly or extensively as Keisha Blake. From very early age Keisha had trouble figuring her identity and how her own perception of herself was related to how other saw her. As she continued thought her life, this crisis followed her, even after she changed her first name to Natalie in an attempt to leave her past behind her. She spent her whole life trying to cover one identity with another only to end up with a completely different identity that she did not want to have.

Jessica Bernal

ESEM- Play in The City

As I was growing up, every achievement I'd receive whether it was in school or with anything really, my mother never failed to say, Nunca te olvides de donde vienes ni quien eres, Never forget where you’re from or who you are. After a while, you get tired of hearing it and I never really understood why she would always get so serious and make deep eye contact as she’d say it. To be honest, I didn’t care, I thought it was just one of her silly dichos.

Anywhere you live, whether we’d like to acknowledge it or not, defines us as individuals. It either speaks for your race or your socioeconomic status in society. In NW, Zadie Smith splits the book into three major parts, Visitation, Guest, and, Host, each section focusing on a different main character, Leah, Felix, and Natalie (Keisha). Each one of them has a story of their own to share. But Natalie and Felix both have one particular thing in common, they’re both trying to get out of either their social, or economic status stagnation in life. They feel trapped and unsatisfied with themselves. Through the lens of a minority myself and other examples like rappers, NW’s Natalie, Felix, and Zadie Smith herself we determine whether race and socioeconomic status ultimately determine you’re success and setting in life or whether you really can escape stagnation.