Congratulations to All of You for Creating such Wonderful Readable Responses to the Wide Range of Questions posted Each Week:
Blogging has become a powerful transformative aspect of literary teaching that enables students to not only connect creatively with the energies of the writers that they love, but also to share their own intimate connection with these authors and reflect on how they have impacted directly on their own lived experience. None of this is possible in conventional academic research essays, which offers a pale reflection of the kind of engaged connection with literature and the arts that this process provides.
Listen here to one of our talented students Ellie Mccracken singing a song she has written on the theme of how language is both a prison and a release. This is the story of how a “quiet girl” learns how to find her feet and confidence through music:
https://orwellianthoughtswithellie.wordpress.com/2020/10/21/english-202-assessment-one-part-d/
Read here how another one of our multi-talented students (pianist/ composer/ photographer/ graphic designer)Amadeus Tjong, has described his experience of working on Zoom preparing his part in the Tom Stoppard Play Arcadia which helped all students to be engaged in this unit: https://amadeustjiong.wordpress.com/2020/10/25/summative-entry-2/
Here in these blogs we can read critical and creative responses to the whole of 20th Century Literature written by the young generation who have just appeared over the horizon into adulthood. They are powered by a sense that the literature and art of the previous century can really provide a living resource for dealing with the traumas of our own 21st Century. They are, many of them, aware of how the task of engaging with literature through informal blogging has freed their imaginations to 1/ connect with poets and novelist through learning their craft through imitation 2/ connect with their peers in sharing thoughts and experiences that have arisen from their mutual reading of the same text.
Blogging has here become a powerful transformative aspect of literary teaching that enables students to not only connect creatively with the energies of the writers that they love, but also to share their own intimate connection with these authors and reflect on how they have impacted directly on their own lived experience. None of this is possible in conventional academic research essays, which offers a pale reflection of the kind of engaged connection with literature and the arts that this process provides.
Read Sarah Vella’s powerful recommendations, based on her direct experience, of how reading and writing about 20th Century literature can provide us with the skills and insights needed to deal with the complexities and difficulties of our own age, in 2021. She summarises her outlook in the sentence:
The aforementioned writers are united in their aim to represent how we, “the people, have the power” (Chaplin) to challenge the war around us and inside our head in order “to make this life free and beautiful” (Chaplin); to make our spirit “express itself in unfettered freedom” (Joyce); and to “have some peace” (Yeats). Read the whole blog here:
https://sarahv02.wordpress.com/2020/10/22/sarahs-summative-entry/
Read Alicia Tichhio’s reflections on how studying 20th Century Literature with its landscape of traumas from the 1st World War through the 2nd World War and on to the Cold War has made it possible for her to endure the difficulties of the second decade of the 21st Century. More importantly read her reflections on how the process of blogging has not only helped her to understand her own life better, but has helped her to connect with the community of literature bloggers and learn so much from what others have written. She writes “blogging has been a relieving escape for me this semester.” Thank you Alicia!
https://aliciaticchio.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/summative-entry/
Read Moriah Taylor’s wonderful poem on the way that Yeats’s “Easter 1916” provides a kind of blueprint for our own experience in this bush-fire prone, pandemic-ridden Australian in 2021:
https://moriahtaylorliteratureblog.wordpress.com/2020/09/25/blog-4/
Read one of the top Summative Entries for this Semester by Georgia Houlihan:
https://georgiahoulihan.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/summative-entry-20th-century-literature/
Read another one of the top Summative entries for this Semester by Mariama Biro Saibou:
Read Issa Albaba describing his early childhood in war-torn Syria:
Read Mariama Biro Saibou’s prose poem “Language as agent of liberation or enslavement”:
Here Emily Baker describes a relationship to her child:
Hear Grace Mokdassi’s reflection on how T.S.Eliot’s Prufrock still has a special resonance for the world caught in a global pandemic:
Emily Baker describes the complexities of being a lover of language:
Here Jessica Aramini discusses the painful reality of belonging to two cultures and yet not solidly to either:
https://uniblogjessicaaramini.wordpress.com/2020/10/09/20th-century-literature-blog-4-2/
Read Andrew Carloss’s Summative Entry in which he expresses his sense of Siegfried Sassoon can turn youth today against any sense that war is necessary and also his sense of how Derek Walcott makes a real impact on sensing our responsibilities in multi-cultural Australia:
https://andrewcarlossengl202.wordpress.com/summative-entry/
Read Anna Castagnella’s powerful poem “An Ordinary Day” inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: https://literaturewithanna.art.blog/2020/09/25/an-ordinary-day/
Read Georgia Houlihan’s reflections on being a privileged English speaker in a country where our indigenous brothers and sisters are marginalised through the superiority of language:
Read Andrew Cencic’s thoughts on how our current global chaos will continue to inspire writers in the future:
https://acencic.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/blog-post-5/
Read Menae Niotis’s vision of how a covid-ridden world creates new creative possibilities:
https://literaturewithmenae.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/blog-5/
Read Joey O’Reilly’s Woolfian description of a day in the life of an ordinary person (like the rest of us all- don’t miss it!
https://joeyoreilly.wordpress.com/2020/09/30/a-narrative-in-the-manner-of-woolf/
Read Cate Roche’s reflections on how language can both imprison and release:
https://caterocheblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/19/blog-5-language-as-a-prison-or-release/
Watch Cameron Cole’s fascinating reflections on whether Virginia Woolf presents a case for imagination being a way of liberating humans from their prisons:
Read Holly Ibrahim’s powerful blog on the way using language can be a means of liberating us from the difficulties of our present times. A dramatic rendition:
Hear Andrew Colman’s powerful reflections on the creative and destructive powers of language in his poem “I weave a web of worRead
Read Evelyn Kavvalos’s wonderfully romantic vision of true love inspired by James Joyce’s line “I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can…..” https://literaturetalk.home.blog/2020/10/16/hopes-dreams/
Read Sarah Weaver’s vision of how her wish to express herself “in some mode of life or art as freely as [she] can” (Joyce) will bring some new radiance to a world which seems enclosed in darkness today:
https://sarahweaverengl202.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/blog-5-16-10-2020-an-expression-of-hope/
Hear how Maria Khattar’s Blog 5 responds to the following challenging topic:
Much of the literature of the 20th Century has been written in response to momentous events such as the first and second world wars. Draw up a short list of some of the momentous events that have been hitting our planet in the last 5 years and suggest a few ways in which writers might try to make sense of any one of these events. Your response to this suggestion, might itself be a piece of creative prose or poetry.
Find Maria’s response to this in the second blog on this page: https://mariasblog920751433.wordpress.com/critical-blogs/
Listen to Frances Saad’s frightening picture of how language can imprison us!
Here is Charmaine Laoulach’s amazingly accurate imitation of Virginia Woolf’s writing in a prose piece entitled “Am I OK”: https://charmaineslitblog.wordpress.com/2020/09/25/am-i-ok/
Listen to Delaura Cauchi’s poem on “Challenging the TYRANNY of English Culture”- inspired by post-colonial poets: https://delauracauchi.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/challenging-the-tyranny-of-english-culture/
Here is Vyncianne’s reflections on the prison of language:
https://vynciannecuadra.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/blog-5/
Here is Annie Devine’s questions about a career path which is equally divided between words and gestures:
https://anniedevine978972241.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/hopes-and-dreams/
Listen to Alexandra Licata’s powerful poem, “The Stolen Generation” about the way the imprisoning language of English has had a devastating, negative impact on our indigenous brothers and sisters:
https://alexanderlicata.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/blog-5/
Here is Georgia Houlihan’s letter to W.B. Yeats in which she reflects on the continuing relevance of the poem “The Second Coming” to our own difficult century:
Here is how Isabella Di Giandomenico discovers Woolf’s belief in the power of the imagination can help us in these COVID-ridden times:
Here is Jessica Dilworth’s poem on language as both imprisonment and release:
https://jdengl.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/blog-5/
Here Charmaine Laoulach powerfully describes her response to James Joyce’s line
“I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can…..”
https://charmaineslitblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/heartfelt-desire/
Listen to Teannie Makdessi’s reflections on how Yeats’ “Prayer for My Daughter” connects with her own experience and helps in her understanding of the world in which we currently live:
Read also the way that, for Teannie, James Joyce has helped to give her a real understanding of the importance of creative writing as an element of the way in which we can nurture ourselves and combat the difficulties of our environment:
Here is Marnita Hermiz’s explorations on the theme of language as a prison:
https://marnitahengl202.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/blog-post-5-language-as-a-prison/
Here is Jada Brown’s vision of how following James Joyce’s advice can help overcome the pain of seeing a friend pass away with leukemia: https://jadabrownslitreview.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/blog-post-5-write-a-paragraph-that-continues-this-sentence-by-james-joyce-and-the-expresses-your-own-hopes-for-your-life/
Have a look at Emily McNaught’s pigeon pair of blogs one describing her desperate need to go to her grandparents’ farm to escape the restrictions of Covid- Emily is also an amazingly talented user of visual support for her blogs!: https://emileemcnaught.wordpress.com/2020/09/25/bee-loud-glade-no-cow-loud-paddock-yes/
and here is her powerful Joycean wish to be free, to live as wholly as she can, no more “what ifs”:
https://emileemcnaught.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/no-more-what-ifs/
Here are Caitlin Burke’s reflections on the difficulties of having a multi-cultural background (something nearly all of us share!!): https://caitlinsthoughtsonaustralianlit.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/engl202-blog-post-5/
And here is Teneille Jacobsen’s discover of the real meaning of love in being MC at her friend’s wedding. And this is one of the most beautifully constructed blogs – don’t miss it:
Here also is Jared Marks’s vision of the momentous events of the last 5 years that might trigger some of this century’s great literature:
Finally Read Rhys Weller’s comic poem that takes up the theme of Language as a Prison. Read it right here: https://blgblogblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/14/blog-5/
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 