Advanced Literature and Composition 

Advanced English Literature and Composition: 

English Literature and Composition focuses primarily on American literature and American authors. As a result, a lot of the texts we read focus on “The American Experience”. The term, The American Experience, is often used to describe a white middle class American “standard”. The content we read in class challenges this idea through presenting The American Experience using American characters belonging to different ethnic groups other than white. The most stand out example thus far was the novel Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. Love Medicine focuses on one Native American family belonging to the Chippewa tribe. The novel rotates perspectives from different members of the family. The one character that connects each individual is June. June is the first character the novel introduces in the story and she dies almost immediately. Reading the book, you learn June’s story through the perspectives of her sons, adopted family, and husband. Her “American Experience” (and those around her) is not representative of the white “American Experience”. June is exploited and used by white men as a result of her race. None of the members of the family are given equal opportunities to their white counterparts. This is reflected in Marie’s story (June’s adopted mother). At the age of 14 Marie travels to a Convent in an attempt to become a nun. She is abused by an older white nun named Leopolda who seeks to assimilate Marie further into white Christian culture. Love Medicine is beautifully written, but has an underlying powerful message about the impact a “white normal” can have on the lives of the many Americans who do not fit under this narrow umbrella. 

My Global Scholars Diploma project is focusing on genocide. One of the primary genocides I am focusing my research on is The Holocaust. During The Holocaust one of Hitler’s visions for the future of Germany was an Aryan race. Aryan (in Nazi ideology) refers to someone of Northern European descent typically with blonde hair and blue eyes. Hitler wanted to create a pure white society and did this through the genocide of anyone who did not fit this ideal (specifically Jews of Eastern Europe). Similarly the characters ancestry in Love Medicine were all victims to a different white colonial genocide. After this genocide characters in the novel were sent to boarding schools to teach them how to further assimilate into white culture. Unfortunately the novel expresses that these characters never have the capability of fully being “fully American” as a result of their race. This novel focuses on the theme of white purity and the exclusivity of white culture. Although the genocide of the Native Americans was before The Holocaust similar ideas were promoted to justify the killing of other human beings.