Edwidge Danticat Bio

Edwidge Danticat was born to Andre and Rose Danticat on January 19th, 1969, in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. When she was two years old her father immigrated to New York, Fleeing from the oppressive regime of Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier.   He was followed by Danticat's mother two years later, who joined him in a heavily Haitian American neighborhood in New York City. At the age of 4, Edwidge and her younger brother Andre Jr. moved in with their aunt and uncle. Edwidge would remain in Port-Au-Prince until she was 12 years old, when she moved to New York City to live with her mother and father. It was while she was living in Haiti that she discovered and honed her passion for writing, and her love for the subject would remain a constant in her life. She published her first short story at the age of 14, in NYC's New Youth Connections, a magazine for teens. Danticat would later receive a bachelor's degree in French Literature from Barnard College and a Masters in Creative Writing from Brown University.

Danticat's experience as a refugee and immigrant had a huge impact on her life and as such the immigrant experience features as a common theme throughout her writing. Danticat also heavily incorporates Haitian culture and tradition into her writing. She has taught creative writing at NYU and the University of Miami in supplement to her career as an author. Her writing has won international acclaim, racking up an impressive list of awards and commendations that includes two National Book Awards and an a=honorary degree from Yale University. Her most famous works are Breath, Eyes, Memory, Krik? Krak!, and The Farming of Bones.


"Edwidge Danticat." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.

Biography.com Editors. "Edwidge Danticat Biography." Biography.com. A&E Television Network, n.d. Web.

Questions:

1. How would Ka react to her father throwing out her sculpture if she were her man?

2. Is Ka's father the oppressed or the oppressor? How is his character an analogue for colonialism?

3. How do the lives of the narrators parents reflect the social disorder and poverty found in Duvalier controlled Haiti?

Comedy-Sydney Taylor

My favorite line in The Importance of Being Earnest is what Jack says to Algernon after insulting his aunt. "My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused.  It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all.  Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die." I find it funny because of how relatable it is. That is exactly how I feel about my own relations, put it in a much wittier statement.
For modern humor, I'm a fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's a satirical talk show that analyzes all the important events of the previous week and usually ends with some new mascot running around the stage or someone singing to overly-dramatic music.

Comedy - Anthony Tamasi

In the Importance of Being Earnest, I enjoy the puns, especially in the name Ernest. Wilde uses some humor just for fun like the play on words in "As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is not my forte." However, with the name Ernest, it is a longer running pun, and wraps it all up at the end, completing the joke and the story. I also enjoy the higher comedy in the play, with the attack of the high class people of the time. Being of high status, they seem to think they are intelligent and overall better than others, however are generally just greedy and ignorant, and are the brunt of many jokes by Wilde. 

I never really think of myself having a particular fondness for certain types of humor; really, whatever is funny is funny. However, I guess I tend to gravitate to jokes that continue in a series, building on itself and within a longer period of time. For example, in the show Archer, this is done often with Archer mentioning the Danger Zone (song by Kenny Loggins) whenever he can in witty ways. 

Saving Sourdi Bio

Isabelle Rinker, Emily Salamanca, Kate Sommer

May-lee Chai

May-lee Chai was born in Redlands, California and is the oldest daughter of an Irish American mother and Chinese political scientist father. She has lived in fourteen states in the U.S. and four countries. She majored in Chinese and French Studies at Grinnell College in Iowa, then went on to receive an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale. Chai is both a writer and professor. She has taught at San Francisco State University, the University of Wyoming, and Amherst College in Massachusetts. She has published multiple short stories, journals, magazines, anthologies, essays, and books. Her eight books, including three novels, My Lucky Face, Dragon Chica, and Tiger Girl and two works of memoir, The Girl from Purple Mountain and Hapa Girl; document the lives of East Asian immigrants and Chinese culture. May-lee is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Literature. She is currently working on a character-oriented crime novel dealing with international cover-up. 

When asked about what advice she would share with upcoming writers, she responded,

"1) Write every day. Even if it’s just a paragraph, start writing! Then keep writing every day so that it becomes like eating or breathing, a part of your life that you can’t live without.

2) Write what you love and want to write about. Don’t try to second-guess the market. Your passion will come through if you’re writing about something you truly care about.

3) When you revise, think of it as an opportunity to re-envision your story, to explore a new path. Don’t think of it as a chore.

4) Don’t give up!"

Chai, May-lee. "May-Lee Chai Biography." May-Lee Chai Biography. 2007. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

"May-Lee Chai Biography." May-Lee Chai Biography. University of North Carolina Wilmington. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

Chai, May-lee. "Author Bio." May-lee Chai's Blog. 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

Sharif, Medeia. "Interview with Author May-lee Chai." Medeia Sharif. 3 Oct. 2010. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

Chai, May-lee (mayleechai). "@typicalgirlname just sent you a direct message! Thx!". 26 Oct 2015, 20:29 UTC. Tweet

Questions

1) How would Nea's relationship with her family change if she were male?

2) How is Nea's family defined by cultural constrictions?

3) How would you describe the relationship between the two sisters?

Comedy | Gates Sweeney

Oscar Wilde's excellent usage of satire, farce, comedy of manners and puns all contributed to a hilarious critique of upper class society. Elements of satire were scattered all throughout the play, with absurd lines like "I never travel without my diary. One must always have something sensational to read in the train."  I also liked Gwendolen's comment near the end of "I never change, except in my affections." and Cecily's reply of "What a noble nature you have, Gwendolen!" I enjoyed this obvious, exaggerated sarcasm that came with it.

For me personally, humor is a part of not every day of my life, but rather every 10 minutes of my life. Throughout the day, I bet I get a laugh in every 10 minutes on average, thanks to all the types of humor I enjoy. Irony, wit, sarcasm, cynicism, satire, parody, dry, etc. I love 'em all. Much of this humor comes from social media sites like vine and twitter, but some also comes from YouTube. Some of the funniest things I've seen are just random accounts on YouTube, but one of my favorites is a satirical account called doctordub.

Comedy Blog Post

To be quite honest, I very much enjoyed Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. The writing and the subjects the play broaches are far ahead of it's time, given the Victorian Era in which it was written. Despite its age, the play was accessible and exceedingly humorous, and in my opinion so much so that I'm hard pressed to pick a single scene from the play as my favorite. Needless to say, I was quite impressed (and very amused) by the play. The scenes that immediately come to mind are the exchange between Jack and Algernon regarding the consumption of muffins in a calm manner and the multiple quips about the irritating nature of relatives. I'm especially fond of Algernon's observation on the subject: "....I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct on when to die.' Not only is it amusing (and more accurate than I'd like to admit), but it is incredibly accurate given the fact that the plot centers around Jack's invented brother Ernest, whom he intends to "kill off" but never seems to be able to rid himself of.

I love all types of humor, from the farcical and outlandish to the high brow and dry. Irony, wit, sarcasm, cynicism, satire, parody, you name it. I even have a running list of jokes that are so bad they're funny on my phone. My general philosophy on comedy is that if it makes me life, I like it. I really enjoy reading The Onion and watching Monty Python, as well as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They all satirize different aspects of society, dare I even say all aspects of society given how varied each form of media is.

Comedy Blog Post- Kayla Beebout

The Importance of Being Earnest is full of every type of humor, and I personally think it was all done well.  However, if I had to choose a scene that amused me the most, it would be the classic muffin scene.  This scene includes satire, comedy of manners, and physical humor; aspects of both “low” and “high” comedy.  Algernon and Jack have just been exposed as frauds to their fiancées, and Algernon begins eating Jack’s muffins to console himself.  When Jack berates Algernon for calmly eating muffins after what they just went through, Algernon responds that he “can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner” because “the butter would probably get on [his] cuffs” (pg 67).  This satirizes the lack of emotion men were expected to have at the time, in order to keep up their appearances.  The comedy of manners comes in when Jack expresses his wish to eat some of the muffins.  Algernon tells him to eat tea-cake instead, but Jack responds that he doesn’t like tea-cake.  Algernon then exclaims that he shouldn’t be serving things he doesn’t like to his guests, which Wilde used to criticize the habit the upper class had of acting generous while really just getting rid of things they didn’t like in the first place (like clothes or food).  The physical humor is, of course, the way the two men fight over the muffins, taking the plate from each other and acting, yet again, like children bickering over a toy.

The YouTube channel “How It Should Have Ended” creates very clever videos critiquing the most popular films in Hollywood.  Many of these films have plot points that seem very convenient, or that fall apart with a bit of thought.  For example, in “How Thor the Dark World Should Have Ended,” they point out the absurdity in Thor believing his brother Loki was dead, after he had just displayed his powers of illusion pretending his hand had been cut off.  This satirizes the superficiality in our culture as seen in mass media: our entertainment no longer has to abide by logic or reason, it merely has to keep the plot moving.  If the characters had done the logical thing and checked to see whether Loki was really dead or not, there wouldn’t have been a plot for the next movie.  In “How The Battle of the Five Armies Should Have Ended,” they satirized the shallowness of Tauriel’s love for Kili.  She insists her love was real, but when asked what his last name was, she can only respond with “the Dwarf?  Kili… the Dwarf?”  This can also be seen to satirize the trend in modern culture of creating romances that have no substantiality to them.  Check out the link below to enjoy parodies of your favorite movies:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HISHEdotcom