Melancholy
The presentation begins with two quiz questions concerning Alicia Schmidt’s claims regarding Freud’s concept of melancholy and how this concept can be applied in the analysis of Mexican Immigrants. The question also mentions the need to explain the concept using specific examples from the chapter covering Alicia Schmidt’s work. The second quiz question requires an explanation of Laura Deeb’s main argument as pertaining to feminist organizing and religion.
The second slide discusses migrant melancholia, and begins by providing a definition of who according to Sigmund Freud, could be considered a melancholic person. Freud, describes a melancholic person, as an individual who refuses to acknowledge loss, hence is unable to overcome their psychic burden of loss. The slide proceeds to highlight how Alicia Schmidt links border crossing by immigrants to melancholia; as the immigrants invest desires to return with political significance. Schmidt posits that to immigrants belonging would simply mean being a part of the American dream, in terms of citizenship, as well as being able to express their cultural identity freely. According to the presentation, what the “law” means to migrants is captured on pages 578 and 579. Slide 3 contains a picture depicting migrant slaves engaged as cheap labor in the textile industry, and a migrant running from the law. According to the pages, migrants seem to regard attaining citizenship as the most important step to belonging, although they seem to be of the opinion that the law deliberately stands in their way in the quest for citizenship.
Slide 4 introduces the term orientalism, defining it as a term that is used to describe the prejudicial and imperialistic notions of the East commonly painted by the West in the 19th and 18th Centuries. The ideology exceptionalizes Western religions and cultures, while depicting Eastern cultures as inferior to the West. It depicts the men as aggressive and the women as submissive, and according to the presentation, is one of the main reasons why Islam is considered violent and conservative, marking the beginning of the categorization of citizenship and Muslim as concepts that are in opposition. Slide 5 further highlights how orientalism continues to influence the development of stereotypes regarding Arab women, and further perpetuate gendered images. Slide 5 also recommends two videos and a number of readings on the subject, with slide 6 containing questions on gender, religion and race. Orientalism is according to the book, one of the leading causes of contemporary racism and racial profiling.
The second presentation presents Matsumoto’s views on Japanese culture; specifically Japanese American women to whom he refers to as “Urban Nisei Women”. Valerie Mastumoto covers this topic under the wider topic of youth cultures. Further, the presentation also highlights how the media has played a key role in shaping contemporary racial identities (brownskin).
The book extract is of the chapter discussing the creation of the Urban Nisei culture during the 1930s by Valerie Matsumoto. This is followed by an explication of how brown diamonds, and new racial identities, albeit dependent upon the dominant white culture have been shaped over the years. This is followed by Alicia Schmidt’s discussions regarding migrant melancholia, with specific references being made to Mexican migrants. The chapter concludes with the highlighting of Lara Deeb’s article on silencing religiosity. Lara Deeb attempts to highlight how religiosity is essentially being silenced through pervasive feministic movements and activism, with particular focus being on Arab women. In order to clearly highlight the problem, Deeb does a comparative analysis cutting across a number of racial groups.
