This photograph was taken during my Hong Kong Cinema class trip at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Like many of the tourists climbing the stairs to the monastery, I took dozens of pictures of the golden figures lining the pathway. At the time, I mostly experienced the site visually. I …
Writing about this issue forced me to confront how much my understanding of conflict is shaped by proximity, cultural background, environment, and personal relationships. Before coming to Wesleyan, I had very little direct exposure to Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, or Muslim communities. Growing up in Iowa, conversations about Israel and Palestine felt distant and abstract, and …
Today Phyllis is still my best Middletown friend. I have grown in my Wesleyan four years with her in the periphery. She will host my parents when they visit for graduation, as she had hosted my Dad for a year when he went to school at Wesleyan. While not engaging with her on my own …
The question was, “What formal or thematic questions related to the film would be useful to explore in discussion?” Comparing One-Armed Swordsman and Come Drink With Me made me think more critically about the relationship between violence, class, and tradition in wuxia films. At first, I mainly focused on the action and stylistic differences between …
These questions are from my Hong Kong Cinema class in response to the film Come Drink With Me. The class was the first class I had that challenged the assumptions I make when viewing art. Watching Come Drink With Me changed the way I think about action films and the role women play within them. …
Making my cultural self-portrait forced me to think about my identity in a more representational way than I usually do. Instead of using language to describe myself with nouns, I had to choose images that actually represent or serve as evidence for various parts of my life I deem worthy. I realized we do this …
At first, choosing my camera as my object felt obvious. It’s something I use all the time, and it clearly represents my interest in photography. While taking 205, I was also in the documentary photography class Photo 3. Thus, I always had it on me anyway. On the surface, it’s just an expensive tool I …
Prof. Anita assigned our 205 class a UCaSal Zoom conversation. Going into the Zoom story circle with students from Argentina, I expected the conversation to highlight clear cultural differences. I thought I would walk away with new facts about Argentina that felt distinct from my own experience. Instead, the conversation felt familiar to conversations I …
