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Class Summary-March 25

Molly's picture

  Class began with some discussion of genre, as well as what we'll be reading in the future.  Anne discussed how all of us are thinking about what it means to read, and how different genres, forms, and platforms could change that.  Anne also said to think about how different genres (particularly genres that put more emphasis on senses) might change one's understanding of a genre.  Movies, it was said, have more sensory input than books, and teal noted that one doesn't have much space to imagine while watching a movie.

As for what we're going to be reading for the remainder of the semester, Anne suggested another graphic novel (both books of "Persepolis") after we finish "A Game of You," followed by selected stories from "The Thousand and One Nights," which will give us a sense of oral literature.  The class was in general agreement on these choices.

We then broke up into small groups, each group containing people who had seen different movie interpretations of "Alice in Wonderland." We discussed how the experience of watching a film differs from the experience of reading a novel, and what happens when the story is put into pictures.

After talking about the movies in our small groups, the class got into an interesting discussion of how movies can change our reading of a book.  There are things that you can do with a movie that you can't do with a book.  Shayna S, who had watched the Czech surrealist film version of "Alice," said that the claustrophobia was much more real in the film than in the book.

The class ended with an interesting point.  aseidman highlighted the difficulty in making a movie of something like "Alice in Wonderland," and Anne added that since the book itself is about things that are imaginary, it makes it that much more difficult to make it a movie.