The plan that I have for the rest of the semester includes looking at autobiographies of people under different circumstances and people in different periods in time. I would also like to look into documentaries that reflect either the life of a whole population or the experience of one person. I would be interested in focusing on either feminist film documentaries or conflict zone documentaries. The conflict zone documentaries usually involve a lot of emotion and can be partially biased, which might distort the truth and reality. I am also very interested in looking at journalism as a medium of reporting the truth.

 For the rest of the semester, I would like to read and discuss:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley: This book is an account of Malcolm X’s life as told to Alex Haley through interviews with Malcolm X. In researching this, I found that there has been controversy over if the book is a fully “accurate” representation of Malcolm X’s life when chapters were omitted from the novel that are to be published soon.  This could create a productive discussion on if an omission of knowledge falsifies a “true” account.

In the Ecology of Wisdom we discussed some major issues with the wording and its connotation it has and the thoughts that are evoked based on that connotation. A good example of this is portrayed throughout the book in “deep” and “shallow” ecology. Those terms give a hierarchy to the terms and to the people who practice it. No one wants to practice shallow ecology because it seems to be superficial and self serving rather than a direct attempt to help the environment. It evokes the feeling that you only want to help the environment because you want to make life better for yourself and increase your quality of life, rather than doing it because it is right or better for the trees, plants, etc.

For the remainder of the semester I think that we should look at different "types" of non fiction, to see how and if they differ:

A. Biography or Memoir - one in a format other than the graphic novel we read, as a sort of comparison

A possible course outline for the final 6 weeks should explore the multiple ways that non-fictional prose can be written. I think continuing our exploration of the different possibilities available to us will be beneficial because we have already seen such amazingly distinct methods of composing (Bechdel's tragiocomic to Shield's). I think that seeing more of this variation will broaden our horizons so I chose books that interest me, but are written differently and cover different topics.

Biology in Society Senior Seminar

Bryn Mawr College, Fall 2010

Session 6

 Mental illness and Stigmatization

 For the rest of the semester, I propose that we read a variety of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs in order to explore the experiences of people telling their own and other people’s stories throughout history. My suggestions for reading are:

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