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Together Apart: Freshman Colloquium

Panel 5: Literary Studies / Literature and the Power of Representation

Literature has a unique ability to shape the way we view the world around us. Yet, as these essays show, language acts as a force of domination or liberation in every society. This panel explores how literary representations can control and marginalize individuals (by race or gender) on the one hand, while providing space for political imagination and individual healing on the other. In so doing, they urge us to consider the relations between language, power, and social change. --Z. D.

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By Lauren Malkoun

My analytical essay will pinpoint specific moments John Milton's epic Paradise Lost to see whether or not he succeeds in his plans to justify God. Milton, the narrator, constantly parallels himself with his version of the character Satan. Although this makes it appear that Milton is of the Devil's party, in reality, this parallel is a vital way the Milton is able to justify God. It is in this comparison that Milton makes apparent God's grace. In the end, in an unlikely turn of events, through the similarities between Satan and the narrator, the ways of God are justified and John Milton's intent that is stated in the opening lines of Paradise Lost is fulfilled.
By Tushar Gupta

My essay explores the development of an artistic movement that originated in France, with the intention of depicting nature truthfully. Gustav Courbet's paintings were at the forefront of this movement, while Charles Baudelaire and Champfleury were art critics who promoted the ideologies of Realism. A Burial at Ornans captures the mourning of a villager's demise, as members from different strata of society gather for the religious traditions. However, to intrinsically showcase ordinary subject matter, the genre painting defies the conventions established by the authorities.
By Poorvi Singh

Orientalism is a heuristic that helps one understand how power works in a cultural sphere such as novels or artwork. Saidean Orientalism helps us to map how the relationships between economic, historical and political context, forms of valuation, and power dynamics shape not only the context of art but what was deemed as art in British India, and how this continues to seep into societal values and interactions today. In my essay, I unpack through Orientalism how the British employed colonial art to document the Indian natural world and project white saviorism, categorize South Asians to facilitate colonization and impose the European imagination, and influence coveted Indian artists and the representation of their cities.