When I read the text of Amin Maalouf called ‘Deadly Identities’, I had a time to think about these questions:
What is the meaning of identity? Is there something like that or is it just a product of humanity? Is it something genetically transferred by our genes or something which develops with our experiences, culture, environment..?
I think the identity occurs in time. As Maalouf said identity forms with the beliefs we acquire, our preferences, our sensitivity, our life, our language, our lifestyle,… So with the combination of all of these we can say that a person can have only one identity which composes him.
We also saw in SPS 102 lesson which is about nations and nationalism. There is a group of people who think that there is no nationality, it is just a product of humanity. It is used to make people to feel faithful to somewhere and obey the rules. I think they had a reason. In the past, it was hard to rule the people so this was a good idea to create nationalism.
But it doesn’t exist anymore, especially in these days, the world becomes more and more global. So people started to be in more contact with the others. Therefore, the interaction increased which is very effective to our identity.
Finally, I can say that we cannot only belong to one nation or one group, but we can have only one identity which includes our life…
Friday, March 26, 2010
6. Identification
Thursday, March 18, 2010
5. Sporty Day!..
Well today was pilates day for Ezgi , Ela, Belmin and me which was really nice. Today it was little bit more difficult than the last week's classes. But I think that this one was the best because we tried new moves with elasticated and we also played with pilates balls too. At the end we finished by adding yoga movements which made us very relaxed (Ezgi was about to sleep=)) After one-hour pilates class Ezgi and I had a reservation for the squash courts. As this was our first time we had really funny moments=) And it made us so fatiguing. But anyway I am really happy to have passed my day by sports because it makes me so happy=))
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
4. My Presentation Group
Hi there,
In Monday class we have chosen our presentation groups. In these presentations I will work with Beri, Ezgi and Janbek. Our Practice Presentation is about George Orwell’s “Shooting an elephant” which Beri said that he read it before (so I wait a really good performance from him=)). This presentation is for 12th April and our Seminar Presentation is for 24th May. So it seems that we have plenty of time but we should be careful. Because I don’t want to make the same mistakes like the first term. Every time I was saying ‘Oh we have lots of time’ but then every time we were doing our project at the last time. So lots of adrenalin=))
Anyway, I am calling my group friends: Please this time can we finish do our preparation a few days before the presentation!...=)))
Good luck everyone!...
Sunday, March 14, 2010
3. A review of the 4th week
For Thursday class we read two texts which are called “Hailing while black” and “Black men and public space”. These two texts are belonging to two African-American writers who have different political views. Shelby Steele is the writer of the first text and he supports the conservative idea and Brent Staples who supports the liberalism is the writer of the second text. Although their views were different they were talking about the stereotypes for the African-Americans in United States. In these texts we can see the social conditions of ‘black’ men. Also in the “Black men and the public space” Staples gave point to the conditions of the women in the public which is as worse as ‘THEM’.
And also for this class Sonja prepared a game for us which is to make to review for these texts and the vocabulary of the “Race Identity” topic. I think that this was a really good idea because it helped me to learn better by enjoying. Plus, as we played this game with a group it helped us to recognize our class mates better. I hope to play more games in class =))
Monday, March 8, 2010
2.RESEARCH PAPER
As my research paper I will write about the topic;
‘Analyse how a particular cultural group of your choice is typically stereotyped within its own society (consider media and/or cinema and/or literature) and examine some of the implications of this stereotyping.’
In this aspect I am interested in German Turks. I will analyse their social, cultural, living and physiological conditions. During this research I will consider media and cinema.
I am interested with this topic rather than the others because I think that with this research I will have a chance to understand the situation of Turks in German.