Help Me teach My Class

Mad Drama Teacher

We're currently in a genre study unit in 10th Grade World Literature with Elie Wiesel's "Night" as the centerpiece.The essential question of the unit is "How do different mediums emphasize parts of similar experiences?"My secondary question for them has been "How is the human spirit lifted and/or crushed in times of immense control?"Here's where I need your help: I want them to be able to take this outside of the Third Reich and explore persecution and oppression and how the arts fit into it from really any time in history. They will be doing a group presentation by setting up a makeshift museum in the classroom, putting their presentation into visual formats on the wall, and creating informative audio to be listened to on iPods while the students walk around -- like those guided audiotapes in real museums.I need to move quickly on this, and my knowledge of oppression in the arts is fairly shallow, so I know you guys will have fascinating contributions.Will you guys help me out with this one?

Brian

have them read one of 'sheid's texas rap posts and the responses that follow

BreakSelf

My first inclination is to recommend that you spend some time examining the last 50 years of the Sino-Tibetan conflict. This should resonate nicely with the themes you're addressing in class, because it deals with what is effectively an ongoing campaign of cultural genocide.

Art and religion in Tibet have been virtually inseparable since the unification of Tibet in the 7th century by Songsten Gampo. Since the invasion of the Red Army in 1950, Tibetans have been living in an atmosphere of severe religious and artistic persecution. Sources for related material can be easily found on the net.

People often make light of the situation in Tibet because the Free Tibet movement has come to be associated with shiftless hippies and dopey idealists. In reality we are bearing idle witness to the steady dismantling of an entire race.

Flomotion

Communist Russia (particularly under Stalin), the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia all aimed to replace 'decadent' art, literature, film , music and even dance with sanctioned and sanitised alternatives that better fitted the political ideologies of the time. Plenty of information around.

Mad Drama Teacher

My first inclination is to recommend that you spend some time examining the last 50 years of the Sino-Tibetan conflict. This should resonate nicely with the themes you're addressing in class, because it deals with what is effectively an ongoing campaign of cultural genocide.

Art and religion in Tibet have been virtually inseparable since the unification of Tibet in the 7th century by Songsten Gampo. Since the invasion of the Red Army in 1950, Tibetans have been living in an atmosphere of severe religious and artistic persecution. Sources for related material can be easily found on the net.

People often make light of the situation in Tibet because the Free Tibet movement has come to be associated with shiftless hippies and dopey idealists. In reality we are bearing idle witness to the steady dismantling of an entire race.

That's what I'm looking for. Thanks!

Anyone else?

verb606

Anyone else?

I gotta say I'm riding for heteronormative, hegemonic, post-modern dialectical cultural imperatives and their impact on socio-political transitivity.


But that's just me.

bassie

The essential question of the unit is "How do different mediums emphasize parts of similar experiences?"

My secondary question for them has been "How is the human spirit lifted and/or crushed in times of immense control?"

Iran has had varying degrees of censorship since the revolution*, so filmmakers have had to be very creative to not only get films made, but to tell relevant stories about women's lives, dissent, etc.. Iranian films have been the flavour of the month for a while now, though it is calming down, so there is quite a lot of ink on it and if you live in a major city, they should be easy to rent.

*Not just since the revolution, but in the interest of available information and films, it is easier to deal with recent ones.

And if the art can be a commentary on wrongs done in the past - as opposed to art made in 'real time', direct reactions to what is happening right there in the artists' time - Kara Walker is a must. Do the research though, because the school will not think all her work is appropriate for 15 yr olds.

batmon

My secondary question for them has been "How is the human spirit lifted and/or crushed in times of immense control?"