Vol24 final2

The George Mason Review

E x e m p l a r y U n d e r g r a d uat e W r i t i n g a c r o s s t h e Cu r r i c u lu m V o lu m e 2 4 | 2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5

M i s s i o n S tat e m e n t The mission of The George Mason Review is to capture Mason’s spirit, where “innovation is tradition,” through the publication of diverse works from across the curriculum. The George Mason Review, a publication for undergraduates by undergraduates, seeks scholarship that demonstrates creativity and critical thought.

In its print and virtual form, this cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary journal features exemplary academic work and welcomes submissions that challenge the boundaries of how scholarship has traditionally been defined.

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acknowledgments

This volume would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of the following people: B o a r d Me m b e r s Su b m i s s i o n s ( H o w - t o )

Namita Paul

George Mason Review accepts submissions year around.We accept research writing, literary critiques or analyses, creative nonfiction, and all other forms of scholarship. Please submit your work electronically at gmreview.gmu.edu.

Because The George Mason Review is an undergraduate journal, each submission is reviewed by at least two of your peers. Each submission undergoes a twotiered review: First, it is evaluated by the GMR peer review staff, which consists of peer reviewer’s from across the disciplines. If it is accepted by the peer review staff, it will then be reviewed by the GMR editorial board, which consists of our editor-in-chief, assistant editor, and graduate adviser. More information can be found on our website, gmreview.gmu.edu.

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Editor-in-Chief

Jenny Nguyen

Assistant Editor

Hebatalla Zaky

Marketing Director

Michael Stephenson

Graphic Designer

Advisors Steven J. Corbett Jennifer Ann Messier

Faculty Advisor Graduate Advisor

Pee r Rev i ewe r s Husna Aziz, Aaron MW. Wilson, Samantha Ouellette, Kathy Estes, Abigail Casas, Natalia Arancibia, Michelle Webber, Christine Naulty, Sarah Pineda, and Fareeha Rehman

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Table of contents note from the editor

7

N am it a Pa u l

Path to present

8

cognitive rhetoric method: decision and problem-solving in the mind of the Writer

28

Ti ffa ny D e n h a m

32

catastrophic autonomics: researching possible cures from diabetes and other underlying diseases

N am it a Pa u l - Sta f f Su bmi ssi o n

Visual rhetoric: business logo based on greek mythology

74

An k u r B h at i a

G e o rg e M a so n Pro fesso rs

The economics of the hunger games

indian english literary criticism, indian Realism, and indian poetics

84

92

Co l e Q u i di l l a

J e n ny N gu yen - Sta f f Su bmi ss ion

Layers of Filth in Rising asia someone who cares a whole awful lot: the thetoric of dr. seuss’s political parable

38

on knowing

An a Ca ro l i n a M a c h a do S i l va

Oscar the untouchable: examining the “Ghetto Nerd” Through a diagnostic lens

M ik al Cardi n e - B est Su bmi ssi on - 1st Place Winner

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99

104

Ca i t Wo o ds

K ia Pre s l ey - B est Su bmi ssi o n - 2nd Place Winner

Sources The “Glocalization” of Zumba®: Music, Movement, and Meaning in the Zumba® World of George Mason

54

115

Va r i o u s Au t h o r s

M iran d a Ca r ver - B est Su bmi ss ion - 3rd Place Winner

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preface

Note from the Editor I would like to sincerely thank the office of Student Media for giving me the opportunity of being the Editor-in-Chief of The George Mason Review (GMR). I would also like to thank the GMR team, Jenny Nguyen (Assistant Editor), Hebatella Zaky (Marketing Director), Michael Stephenson (Graphic Designer) and all the Peer Reviewers for their efforts and dedication. All of them made my job easier because of their patience, enthusiasm and commitment towards the journal.

Also, I would like to thank Steven Corbett, the faculty adviser and Jennifer Ann Messier, the graduate advisor for their support and guidance. Lastly, I would like to thank the English department and the OSCAR office for helping us reach out to undergraduate students at Mason.

What makes GMR unique is the fact that it is a cross-disciplinary, undergraduate journal. We not only accept articles from all disciples but also we have a very diverse team who come from various backgrounds. Through the publication of exemplary, scholarly works, the GMR acts as a medium for discussion among us–the Mason undergraduate body–about scholarship. It seeks to re-vision scholarship by exploring and challenging the boundaries separating disciplines from each other, the humanities from the sciences, and academic from creative.

In doing so, the GMR hopes to represent the academic excellence of the Mason undergraduate body.

Two years back, I started working as a Peer Reviewer for GMR and after that I was given the chance of being the Editor. Knowing very little about the journal and Student Media made my first year of being editor adventurous since I was trying to figure out what the next task should be. Being the editor this year was simpler since I was fighting a known devil and I had support from a wonderful team. Each year has been a completely different and enriching experience for me.

This year especially has been bittersweet since it is my last year. The support I received from my team and also from the entire Office of Student media especially Jason Hartsel has made my role effortless. The journey of being the editor gave me the opportunity of being involved with Mason students other than the ones from my classes. I have learnt a lot working so collaboratively with such brilliant people.

I would highly recommend any undergrad student at Mason to be a part of GMR in some way, either by being a team member or by being a contributor.

Namita Paul 6 | The George Mason Review

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path to present

Pat h t o t h e P r e s e n t ; S p o t l i g h t o n o u r P r o fe s s o r s

pat h to P r e s e n t

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Perhaps one of the hardest decisions in any student’s college career is what path of study to pursue. This decision is often influenced by many factors including financial stability, childhood idols, and passionate hobbies. Here at Mason, our professors hail from a variety of backgrounds and professions. Often we forget that the person at the head of the class could help guide our wandering questions regarding our discipline. At the George Mason Review, we decided to explore the backgrounds of our accomplished faculty. We asked seven of them to tell us why they chose their respective field of study, interesting work and research experiences, and their journey to teaching at Mason. On their path to the present, many professors have experienced setbacks, but they have accomplished just as many joys, proving that determination and hard work can help us achieve our goals.

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path to present

characteristics developed and the lessons about creativity learned in building artistic skills carry over into any job that requires flexible and inventive thinking.

Artistic practice is an important resource for living a meaningful and satisfying life. Successful people in fields outside the arts often maintain a personal artistic practice throughout their lifetime—they draw or they dance, they paint on the weekends or sing in a garage band or design lighting for community theater. Albert Einstein, for example, was an accomplished amateur musician.

My own research explores the ways that creativity and the power of the imagination can help bring about a more just and peaceful world. Like many of my students, I am inspired by the complex social issues our world faces; I view my artistic practice as a way of thinking about the values, aspirations, and assumptions that inform our decisions and opinions. The artwork we make is not necessarily meant to convince or offer answers, but to challenge our certainties and lead us to keep looking for new knowledge, new voices, and new answers to enduring questions.

Lynne Scott Constantine, MFA Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts School of Art

Like many people, choosing my field of study was a confluence of aptitude, interest, family influence, and the mentorship of excellent teachers. When I left for college, I intended to study theoretical mathematics; however, the math department at my school focused on applied mathematics. So I followed other loves: poetry, visual art, drama, and philosophy. I soon discovered that the complexity and intellectual challenge that drew me to theoretical math was equally present in the arts and humanities.

My first graduate degrees and my first college teaching job involved teaching writing and literature. Over time, however, my attention returned to visual culture, to the capacity of images and visual art to spark compelling conversations and to elicit powerful emotions. I returned to school to study theory and criticism of visual culture, and then completed another graduate degree in studio arts.

Why would any student today want to pursue art when college is so expensive and the job market so competitive? For one thing, the arts develop a fundamental capacity of all human beings: the capacity to envision possibilities and bring them into being. Becoming proficient in an art form requires persistence, discipline, critical thinking skills, willingness to take risks, and the ability to view failure not as an obstacle but as a tool for learning. Research shows that the personal 10 | The George Mason Review

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path to present

So when it came time to apply to graduate school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I applied to the UDubb MA/PhD program in English Language and Rhetoric. Soon after acceptance, I found myself as a graduate teaching assistant with my “own” first-year writing class full of anxious freshmen. I began applying everything I learned from working with fellow students in writing centers to my new classroom settings: working individually with students as much as possible, and coaching students how to work with each other one-to-one and in small groups. I also continued to write and publish about my experiences. To date, I’ve published and have forthcoming 55 scholarly texts, including three edited collections and a scholarly monograph, Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom Pedagogies. Yet, I will always be a student of writing.

All of my experiences continue to teach me the value of listening to fellow students of writing, and to encourage colleagues in every class to own our course (and the course of our learning) as much as possible.

Steven J. corbett, PH.D Assistant Professor Department of English

Making Every Classroom a Writing Center When people find out I am a university professor, the first question they usually ask is “what do you teach”? Though I’ve been asked this question a lot, I always hesitate for just a moment . . . While I was an English major and received all of my advanced degrees from (and always worked in) English Departments, I don’t answer “English.” I answer “writing.” This is because I belong to a subfield (if you will) of English called writing studies or composition and rhetoric.

I began my career as an undergraduate peer tutor in the writing center at Edmonds Community College near Seattle, WA. Soon I transferred to the University of Washington – Seattle (UDubb), where I continued to work individually with fellow students from across majors on their writing assignments. I even started helping to direct the writing center as an undergraduate. I learned a lot about writing and writers during my years as a peer tutor. I worked with a wide variety of colleagues: multicultural and multilingual learners from all over the world; firstgeneration college students; colleagues (like myself ) from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as more affluent people; colleagues who struggled with writing, but also people who wrote better than me. I ended up getting an essay accepted for publication in a writing studies journal as a junior.

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path to present

Becoming a professional economist is a great life. No career is for everybody, and economics requires a lot of math skill, which of course will rule some people out. It also requires a high degree of dedication. Nonetheless I believe it deserves very serious consideration from people who wish to understand what makes our world tick.

Just keep in mind that economics is far from the end of the story. To be a good economist, you have to know much more than just economics.

Tyler cowen, ph.d Professor Department of Economics

Since I was thirteen or fourteen, I knew I wanted to be a professor and spend my life dealing with ideas, one way or another. But at the time I was torn between philosophy and economics; I loved reading both. Philosophy seemed in some ways more fundamental.

Ultimately practicality won out as I learned pretty quickly that it is much easier to get a job in economics than in philosophy. Furthermore economists usually are paid higher salaries. (Perhaps the fact that I even had such thoughts was a sign I should be an economist!) And so I chose economics in my mid-teens and have stayed on that course ever since.

That said, I have done a lot of writing in the field sometimes called “economics and philosophy.� In that sense I have managed to receive the best of both worlds.

Economics is a good field for having the freedom to explore topics which lie somewhat outside the traditional scope of economics as it might be defined more narrowly.

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path to present

The study of economics isn’t for everyone. That said, I do think that all students should take at least one course in economics because the economic way of thinking will make you a better person no matter what your interests and aspirations. It will help you make better decisions in your own life, both personally and professionally.

It will also make you a more informed citizen. Economics will help you better understand how the world works and what can, and cannot, be achieved through public policy.

So give economics a try. At worst you will be a better person and citizen for your efforts. And at best you will have the same type of experience that I had, and studying economics will be a life-altering experience.

Christopher coyne Assistant Professor, Director of Graduate Programs Department of Economics

I was first attracted to economics as an undergraduate student at Manhattan College. What excited me about the field was that it offered a unified framework for explaining human behavior in a variety of settings and contexts. Many people mistakenly believe that economics is narrowly focused on money and for-profit economic activities. In reality, the economic way of thinking offers insight into all areas of human action and, therefore, is crucial for understanding all aspects of the world. This realization changed my career aspirations and led me to where I am today.

After graduating from Manhattan College, I worked in finance, at J.P. Morgan, for two years. During that time I realized that I wanted to further pursue the study of economics with the goal of eventually entering academics. I pursued my MA and PhD in economics at George Mason University, graduating in 2005. Since then I have held academic positions at Hampden-Sydney College and West Virginia University. In 2010, I had the good fortune of having the opportunity to return to GMU as a faculty member in the Department of Economics.

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path to present

heba el-shazli Assistant Professor (term) School of Policy, Government and International Affiars (spgia)

and understanding leading to improved foreign policy. I am interested in delving into history, politics and socio-cultural topics with my students in order to gain a holistic understanding of this most complex region and its international relations with the rest of the world.

Why are these important to me? I want to contribute to the improved understanding and knowledge of future generations about International Relations, Political Islam, Social Movements, The Role of Civil Society, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: its people, history, culture, economy and politics. It is imperative in the coming years for our future leaders, activists and policy-makers to interact with and understand theory and practices of international relations. In addition, it is imperative to comprehend the MENA region based on sound knowledge, an understanding of the issues, based on facts - not fear, and with a vision of building bridges.

El-Shazli has 28 years of experience working in non-governmental organizations in the field of civic and union organizing, institution building, leadership skills training, labor education and training methodologies, political advocacy, and development, implementation and management of international programs.

The mind is a most precious thing and education is the key to the mind. So that is why mychosenprofessionistoteach,withvigor,enthusiasmandpassion!Withouteducation, we cannot have a fully developed civil society or a fully developed democratic nation.

I thoroughly enjoy teaching and particularly the interaction between teacher and students with the knowledge, facts and information being exchanged, questions being asked for clarification and then the smile on the faces and the twinkle in the eye when you see that the information/knowledge has been received and understood. I also appreciate the nexus between research and teaching. I weave my research interests into my teaching.

My objectives are to inspire a life-long curiosity and learning to continue beyond the courses I teach on: International Relations; Comparative Politics; Impact of Globalization; The Role of Civil Society in Transitioning and Democratizing Nations; Global Social Movements; State, Society and Culture in the Arab World; Political Islam; International Political Economy; and the Politics of the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). I am also interested in helping my students learn to critically analyze and think about the situation in the MENA region and how they, as future leaders and policy-makers, can contribute to improved relationships 18 | The George Mason Review

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path to present

architecture of the classical world. So, my doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was in Classical Archaeology, with an emphasis on Roman Imperial architecture and sculpture. Along with myth, these are the topics that I love to teach here at Mason. I’ve also never forgotten the importance of that study abroad experience; I’ve excavated in Tunisia, Jordan and Italy. I’ve also taught numerous times in Rome and most recently have taken over as professor in charge for the University of Georgia’s Summer program in Rome (www.rome.ugu.edu)— the very program that I went on as an undergraduate; a program that I hope to see Mason students participate in. Introducing students to these ancient cultures is very satisfying, especially when I think of all the people who transformed my life by cultivating my passion for both teaching and the mysteries of antiquity.

Christopher A. Gregg, m.a.

Assistant Professor Department of History and Art History

My fascination with the ancient Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome goes back to my earliest childhood. My mother, who was an English teacher, used to tell me stories from Greek mythology. While most children heard about the three bears, I got Odysseus in the cave of the Cyclops! The first book that I ever bought—through a school magazine in the second grade—was a compilation of Greek myths (I even still have that book). In high school, I took Latin as my foreign language, and that introduced elements of culture and history to my knowledge of Greco-Roman antiquity. Despite all of this, I was very focused on science as well; when I went off to college at the University of Georgia, I was a geology major. At the end of my sophomore year, after both intro level geology courses and some of the upper division classes, I realized I was in the wrong field.

Mythology was to blame again. I had taken a Greek myth survey to fill a general education requirement, and that one class completely redirected my life thanks to a brilliant teacher. I changed my major to Classical Civilizations/Archaeology, and that led to the second great turn of my academic life. In the summer of my junior year, I went abroad, studying in Rome for two months. The museums and archaeological sites that I saw that summer reinforced my love for the Greek and Roman world, but the experience shifted my focus to material culture—the art and 20 | The George Mason Review

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path to present

beth jannery, m.s.

Director of the Journalism Program Department of Communication

I’m a news addict. That was initially why I wanted to become a reporter. I knew back in 8th grade. My idols growing up were Diane Sawyer and Jessica Savage (you may have to Google these women). There was no question in my mind that I would become a storyteller. It’s the best, natural high you can imagine. Endorphin’s pump and energy races. Chasing a story is an absolute joy. The late CBS Anchor Dan Rather compared the addictive nature of our work to that of crack cocaine.

Obviously that’s a stretch, but it certainly is addictive and exciting. There are so many stories to tell. In essence, journalists are storytellers. We are truth-tellers. We are fact chasers. And when it is done right, it can be inspiring. To put a story into context is a valuable skill - almost an art. But when it’s done wrong, well, that’s pretty frustrating.

Sometimes ill-informed people ask me, “Isn’t journalism dying?” I just laugh.

My response: “Absolutely not.” To the contrary, the field has never been more exciting. Stories unfold in real-time in the public eye. Journalists are expected to cover a story from all angles using multiplatforms in our face-pasted multimedia world. I love it. What’s more exciting than that? In the classroom environment here at Mason, student journalists get to learn exactly how this is done. I stress strong writing, original reporting, and context.

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I feel incredibly blessed to be able to work directly with our next-generation of reporters. Perhaps journalism roles in the traditional sense have died.We no longer have spots for single-tracked journalists. Long-gone are the days of a newspaperman. Now our student journalists are expected to report, write, shoot, edit, and promote their work on social media. We get our news via apps. It’s a thrill. And we learn so many of these valuable and real-world skills right here in the classroom at George Mason.

Students can be Communication Majors and Minor in Journalism or work on a Concentration in Journalism. They get to take classes from real-world journalists from CNN and USA Today, for example. We have a student-led Society of Professional Journalists chapter right here on campus. We recently had an EmmyAward Winning Investigative Reporter talk to students on campus as well a wellknown DC-journalist who did a workshop with students on how to tell stories using their iphones. A war correspondent came to campus and motivated student journalists about backpack journalism. It’s a blast.

The overarching message we are sending is that strong writing, original reporting, and solid and multiple sources are the foundations no matter what technology platforms are used. If any students want to talk about any of these skills, or what it was like to cover the Defense Department and interview Admirals and Generals, I’d welcome a cup of coffee. My door is always open to students (Robinson A, 121A & bjannery@gmu.edu) and it’s because of their motivation as well as the diverse and friendly faculty that I continue to smile when I come to work. No kidding. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

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S t a ff s u b m i s s i o n s

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Introduction Re-visioning scholarship is not an easy task. At times, it seems impossible to bridge that gap. How many ideas can one have that overlaps both the sciences and the humanities? And not only must it overlap the two, it should also bring something new to the discourse of both areas. In the end, some papers only end up crossing disciplines rather than the wide divide between the sciences and the humanities, and that still counts as attempting to re-vision scholarship. The editorial board of The George Mason Review realizes that what we’re demanding of the student body is most definitely a daunting challenge. However, we are always amazed at the many students that rise to the challenge.

The GMR editorial board (Editor-in-chief and Assistant Editor) has included their papers as small examples of what they think re-visioning scholarship can look like.

Although the papers do provide extensive research seen in the student submissions, board hopes we hope these samples will guide and encourage future submitters.

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The Economics of The Hunger Games

The Economics of The Hunger Games

Namita Paul Major: Economics Minor: Data Analysis Class of 2015 Editor-In-Chief

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In the movie The Hunger Games, one can see themes such as survival, poverty, inequality, and government control in a nation called “Panem.” This nation has thirteen districts and one Capitol. Each district has their own individual qualities, and many of them struggle with poverty while the Capitol thrives with advanced technology and unlimited resources.Resources were distributed unevenly and there was acute poverty in such example District 12 Two people from each district, known as tributes, are chosen at random to take part in this game and they fight for their lives for two weeks; only one emerges as the winner and gets to go to home.

The President has authority over everyone and everything in this nation and also decides what changes are to be made in the game. The game is broadcasted as a live television show, similar to a reality television show; it is considered entertainment by the people who live in the Capitol. Others either try to survive or are praying for their family members to return safely. The events that take place in The Hunger Games are not only the actions of twenty-four tributes but they are also artificially created calamities for example forest fire and the wild animals that appear at the end. There are a lot of terms related to the discipline of economics that could be applied in order to understand the decision making and explain the movie movie, such as oligopolies, duopoly, game theory, and command economy. In this paper I will be analyzing the movie from an economic viewpoint.

Economic system is defined as a nation’s strategy to provide goods and services, and the method in which a country’s economic plan will be practiced. There are three basic types of economic systems seen in the nations around us: planned economy (also known as command economy), market economy, and mixed economy (Economic Systems, 2010). Most of the nations today follow the system of mixed economy, in which the government system is incorporated in a market economy. The nation ‘Panem’ can be described as a command economy; this is an economy where the production and resources are controlled by a central authority rather than a free-market. Free market is preferred over a central authority, such as a government, because a free market gives choice to the citizens so that they can make rational decisions for themselves rather than a government making decisions for them (Command Economy). North Korea and Burma (Myanmar) are a few countries among many that still follow the command economy system. In most of the sectors in the economy such as health and education we see that the government plays an important part in decisions; for example, health insurance or education in public schools. Government interventions are not always considered to have a negative effect on the economy; they can also protect people from being exploited by the rich and powerful. In the movie, all the districts have to follow the rules and regulations that are decided by President Snow. This is similar to how a command VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 29

The Economics of The Hunger Games

economy works in real life: prices of commodities are set by the government and the demand of the consumer is driven by the fixed price (Marczewski, 1971). In the movie, the President and game makers base their decisions on what would please the people viewing the show. In a command economy, quantity of production and prices are regulated by the government rather than the market.

At the beginning of the movie, we see Effie Trinket welcome everyone and show them a short film which is directed in the Capitol. This film shows the origin of the games and how these games show the courage and generosity of their nation.

The President of the nation thought it was in the best interest of the nation to play these games annually of what they state. However, if the President was acting in the best interest of the people, he would have chosen to protect the citizens and provided them with an environment in which they could live a healthy life.

Alfred Marshall, a well known British economist, defines economics as the “study of men as they live and move and think in the ordinary business of life” in his book Principles of Economics (Marshall, 1890). In his book, Marshall explains that the study of economics concerns how a person makes choices and decides what is best for themselves with the limited information and resources they have.

When a high school graduate chooses to attend a four year university, he bases his decision on the hope that he would earn a salary which helps him to satisfy his needs in the future. In the movie, the people of Panem make decisions, some rational and some irrational.

In the movie, there were many rational and irrational choices that the main character made. At the beginning, we see Katniss volunteer as tribute when her sister is chosen, by random selection, to be a tribute. This shows that her love for her sister is greater than the value of her own life. She knew if her sister participated in the game, she would not be able to survive. She also saved Rue’s (the female tribute from district eleven) life when she was trapped. Katniss could have left her there to die but Rue was at a similar age as Katniss’s sister, which is why she thought of her in the same way. At the very end when Peeta and Cato (male tribute from district two) are fighting, Katniss could have killed both of them and would be crowned the winner but she chooses not to. She wants to win the game with Peeta, as she values their partnership and does not want him to die. Neither Peeta or Katniss kill each other after the announcement that there would only be one winner. This was their idea of revolting against the gamemakers and choosing to make a change.

There is also a formation of oligopoly in the movie. Oligopoly is similar to monopoly, where a group of firms control an entire market. Adam Smith explains what oligopoly is in his book The Wealth of Nations by saying, “People of the same 30 | The George Mason Review

trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” (Smith, 1776). This arrangement is done to capture the entire market and ensure that small firms are not able to make any profits, and also protect themselves. A couple of tributes, from the wealthier districts one, two, and four, form an alliance.

They move together and killed everyone one by one. By doing this, they protect each other and attempt to win the game. This arrangement can be difficult to maintain because there is always an incentive to cheat and gain from another member’s loss. In today’s world we see oligopoly being practiced in many sectors of the economy such as gas, cable companies, oil companies, etc.

When the Gamemakers announce that two people could be winners if they belonged to the same districts, Katniss runs to find Peeta since they are from the same district. When she does find him, they fight until the end together. This is a formation of a duopoly (Smith, 1776). This is the same as the oligopoly which was explained above but involving only two parties; This arrangement can also be hard to maintain. At the end when the Gamemakers decide that there will be only one winner, both Katniss and Peeta have the opportunity to kill each other and win the game but they choose not to. If they had killed each other, the game would have turned out differently. The arrangement of duopoly has high risk because the one party always has high incentive to cheat and gain from the other party’s loss. One of the most famous duopolies that can be seen today exists in the soda industry (also known as bubbly drinks). Coke and Pepsi both sell a similar product at the same price. Suppose Coke decreases their price by $0.50, it would to capture most of the market until Pepsi also decreases their price. By doing this, Coke will increase its profit, but Pepsi could do that same thing tomorrow and capture Coke’s profits.

If Coke and Pepsi sign an agreement and stick together, they would be able to maintain their markets, protect themselves, and ensure that no third company tries to enter the market. Forming a duopoly was a rational decision since this motivated Katniss and Peeta to win.

Each individual observes things around them differently.The movieThe Hunger Games can be explained by using many economic terms. At the same time, the movie can be explained extremely different if we read it from another perspective.

When I saw this movie, I choose to understand it through an economic lens because I am familiar with the basics of the discipline.

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Visual Rhetoric: Business Logos Based on Greek My thology

Visual Rhetoric: Business Logos Based on Greek My thology

jenny Nguyen Major: English Minor: Information Technology Class of 2015 Assistant Editor

Rhetoric can determine the attitudes and values of a group of consumers toward a particular company, especially when using images. While rhetoric is defined as “the art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others” (OED 1.a.), visual rhetoric adds an extra element to the equation. Visual rhetoric examines the way images communicate meaning through its chosen pictorial.

The inspiration for logotypes, also commonly known as logos, can have a variety of origins, including but not limited to personal stories; the product’s function or the business’ services; and mythologies. This paper will focus on logos that borrow their meanings from Greek myths. Specifically, I will examine the logos of Starbucks, Nike, and Goodyear. By examining the origins of these images, we can understand the psychology behind why they were chosen to represent these companies, and perhaps just how successful the image is in persuading consumers.

The Starbucks Siren Although the original inspiration for the Starbucks Siren comes from a 16th century two-tailed Norse mermaid woodcut (Steve M.), the lady is often referred to as a siren. The company wanted the logo to reflect Seattle’s seaports, and the siren encapsulated what they were looking for: seductive, mysterious, and nautical (Steve M.).

Sirens in Greek mythology are not friendly creatures. They were known to “lure sailors to their deaths with a bewitching song” (Atsma) and their enchanting beauty. As symbols, the sirens often meant seduction, addiction, and death. This meaning was probably unintentional to the logo designers. Again, the woodcut is often referred to as a mermaid, or a medieval melusine, rather than a siren. It was simply the image relating to nautical themes that convinced Starbucks it would be an appropriate company representation.

However, ironical or not, the siren does recall the idea of addiction in consumers.

This highly successful coffeehouse chain in growing metropolitans is a popular locale to relax due to the ambience, created with hip and artsy music, comfortable couches, and dim lighting, also contributing to the idea of being mysterious and seductive. The logo’s updated look uses a deep green color and a crown on the siren, giving it regal attributes. This makes consumers feel part of an upper class of coffee-drinkers. Ultimately, the visual rhetoric of the Starbucks icon comes down to equaling a status symbol. An article in the Huffington Post states, “Although Starbucks boasts of its commitment to diversity, the company is often associated with customers who are upper-middle class, white and college-educated” (Rafii).

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Visual Rhetoric: Business Logos Based on Greek My thology

The Nike Swoosh Phil Knight is the creator of the Nike shoe brand but he commissioned Caroline Davidson, in 1971, to design the logo (Hinckner). The name Nike refers to the Greek goddess of victory. She is often depicted in Greek art as a smaller winged figure beside Athena. The Nike Swoosh is supposed to convey a sense of movement and embody the spirit of Nike, otherwise known as Victory.

Andy Payne, logo expert of Interbrand, says of the Nike Swoosh, “it’s one of the only logos without words accompanying it…a logo that can be seen in any color and you still recognize it as Nike.” This is pure visual rhetoric relying on the image rather than the text. And the image have been successful in conveying a sense of power. Athletes all over the world wear Nike like a brand of armor as they go into battle. The U.S. track and field team has their uniforms designed

by Nike. By having the Swoosh prominently exposed and attached to a sport known for speed, the brand’s meaning is reinforced.

The Goodyear Foot Goodyear is a tire and rubber brand whose logo comes from the winged foot of the Greek god Hermes. He is known for his swiftness as a messenger, but also as the god of commerce and trade. Founder Frank Sieberling thought that this symbol as a “fleet herald of good news” was exactly what Goodyear should bring to its consumers. Now, Goodyear is the sole supplier for NASCAR, and is a widely trusted tire brand by consumers. Pierre Jambon, Vice President of Goodyear’s offhighway business, states, “NASCAR is clearly the expert in stock car racing, and it has chosen Goodyear because of our expertise in delivering outstanding performance. Our tire performance on the track validates our brand, inspires confidence for drivers and helps create exciting racing for fans.”

In a hobby known for speed and life-threatening dangers, reliable tires are crucial. NASCAR’s utilization of Goodyear tires would persuade many individuals that Goodyear is the safest since the experts are using it. However, this line of thinking is simply the transitive law of logic (a+b=c, therefore a=c) and ignores the political and business influences. The reality is that people do not consider all the facets of a situation, persuaded only by the visual provided physically and immediately.

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The Conclusion In this paper, there were only three logos examined.Throughout the advertising world, there exist thousands of logos and names referring to Greek mythologies: Trojan Condoms, Venus beauty supplies, and the Caduceus as a symbol of medicine are among others that originated from Greek mythology. The three logos reviewed here have come to generally represent logos of status. Individuals with enough money to afford Starbucks daily; exercise in Nike products; or buy only Goodyear tires would be rather well off, or seem to be. The logo is the face of the company, but also becomes the face of the individual wearing/using it. In this, there is visual rhetoric at play with how people view one another by the images they project.

Although I have touched upon the origins and how visual rhetoric has played into the definitions of these three logos, I have to mention that these images are rather arbitrary. Sirens have nothing to do with coffee, the Nike tick doesn’t truly pertain to shoes, and a winged foot doesn’t have anything to do with rubber manufacturing. The human ability to equate the brand’s idea to a product is what allows the visual rhetoric of these logos to succeed. Humans are semiotic beings, and will continue to find meaning in texts and images.

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student submissions

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Someone Who Cares a Whole Awful Lot...

Someone Who Cares a Whole Awful Lot: The Rhetoric of Dr. Seuss’s Political Parable

Mikal Cardine Major: English Class of 2015

First place Winner About the work The aim of this lengthy, rather convoluted piece can be boiled down to something simple: it analyzes rhetoric. As a Writing and Rhetoric concentration, I have learned that rhetoric - the art of effective communication - encompasses, well, everything. Therefore, writing about it requires a very focused scope. For this essay, my goal was to pinpoint the use of rhetoric in a specific and interesting context.

Of course, Dr. Seuss was the first thing that came to mind as being both specific and quite interesting.

Here, I examine specified elements of his political parables, and how he used parable as a rhetorical tool to teach children politics. I feel that this essay revisions scholarship by exploring a figure who revisioned everything.The thought that complex political agendas could be delivered to an adolescent audience through silly rhymes and outlandish characters is astonishing, and merits attention. I truly enjoyed my journey into the mind of Dr. Seuss, and hope that you may say the same.

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Children’s stories that stand the test of time are alike in having an important dual aim – to both entertain and teach. This characteristic can be found in the works of authors such as A. A. Milne, J. K. Rowling, and C. S. Lewis, all groundbreakers in the world of children’s literature. Milne teaches values of friendship in Winnie-thePooh, Rowling delivers lessons of loyalty and courage in her Harry Potter series, and Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia provides strong Christian ideals. As with these three examples, most of the lessons found in children’s literature teach fundamental moral values that can be ingested by a young audience. However, now and again an author comes along who looks at the highest feat expected of a children’s story, grins, and raises the bar. Dr. Seuss was one of those authors.

Arguably the most successful and well-loved children’s writer of all time, Dr. Seuss expanded the limits of the genre when he combined children’s stories with politics. It was a bold decision and one that could easily have ended disastrously.

Instead, this choice was one of many ingenious moves that launched Seuss’s illustrious career and generated a devoted following that is still maintained today.

While Seuss is best known for the delightful nonsensicality of green breakfast food and a cat in a hat, the backbone of his stories is often much more serious. His success is both exceptional and undeniable, which raises a simple question with a seemingly boundless answer: how did he do it? How did a man who wrote to children about red fish, blue fish, effectively incorporate complex political agendas into his stories?

The rhetoric of Dr. Seuss is a topic that could fill libraries, and I will only attempt to address one aspect of it here. In this paper, I will examine the rhetoric behind Dr. Seuss’s use of parable to deliver political lessons to an adolescent audience.

My analysis will emphasize two aspects of Seussian parables – their entertainment value and their relatability. Seuss never sacrificed charm for a lesson, and his silly rhymes and outlandish characters are as much an important a part of his work as his political agenda. In fact, because this delightful style keeps his stories from being lectures, it ironically upholds the lesson being taught by fostering a more receptive audience. Additionally, Seuss’s parables are relatable to children by transforming complex political situations into clear, elementary messages. He uses basic symbols to represent political figures and positions, and expresses simple sentiments regarding them. I will offer some background on Seuss’s initial career and political bent, and then analyze two of his stories that illustrate his use of political parable: Horton Hears a Who, which supports the struggling Japanese after WWII, and The Lorax, a solemn warning against the dangers of environmental pollution. The first is an example of the charm and light-heartedness Seuss often applied to his agenda, while the second demonstrates a more serious, multifaceted side to the author.

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Someone Who Cares a Whole Awful Lot...

The Beginning Seuss’s initial start as a children’s writer was unsuccessful, and he broke from the genre for a time to be an editorial cartoonist for PM, a left-leaning daily newspaper.

Considering Seuss’s start as a political cartoonist, one could argue that he was a parabolist from the beginning. While his cartoons are far more biting than his children’s stories, both follow the parabolic structure of an oft satirical metaphor that makes a point. His work with PM quickly established Seuss’s own political bent: his cartoons attacked the likes of Hitler and Mussolini, as well as segregation policies and American isolationists who resisted entry into WWII (Dreier). When he eventually moved on to children’s literature, he took his cartoon experience and political agenda with him. Horton Hears a Who is a clear anti-aggression tale, while The Lorax, his later but much-loved masterpiece, addresses environmentalism and consumerism, a twofold issue that particularly incited the author. Horton, the first story due for analysis, could be read as an apology for his racist depictions of the Japanese during his newspaper days. Seuss wrote his first political children’s story about a kindly elephant’s effort to save the tiny inhabitants of a speck of dust, thus paying homage to the plight of the Japanese after the bombing of Hiroshima.

“No Matter How Small”: Addressing Little People in Horton Horton Hears a Who features an elephant named Horton who discovers the Whos, tiny creatures in danger of extermination. Horton promises to help the Whos but is mocked when he tries to involve the other jungle animals. In the end, the Whos are saved when they join voices to validate their existence, giving meaning to the story’s famous line: “A person’s a person, no matter how small” (Seuss 4). Some supposed the story to be a defense of minorities in general, or even a sponsor of the pro-life movement. However, Seuss’s visits to Japan after the war and Horton’s dedication to a Japanese friend indicate that the book is an appeal to aid the struggling country (Fielding 2).

One key aspect of the Seussian parable is that it could be stripped of its agenda (and therefore its identity as a parable) and still retain its value as a wildly entertaining story. By keeping the literary craft of political works like Horton a first priority, Seuss does not simply deliver a story with two fine qualities – rather his work is a double-edged sword with an exponential capacity. Horton’s fantastical nature clandestinely works to propel its message forward, and it is a picture of Seuss’s rhetoric at its finest.

Where but in the world of Seuss could politics achieve such whimsy? Horton includes fascinating characters, many of them animals, like a “sour kangaroo,” 40 | The George Mason Review

“three big jungle monkeys”called the Wickersham brothers, and a“black-bottomed eagle named Vlad Vlad-i-koff” (Seuss 6, 14-15). The charmingly tiny Whos are the most fanciful part of the story, as the mayor of Who-ville attests that “‘I’m too small to be seen but I’m mayor of a town that is friendly and clean’” (12). And of course there is Horton, the kind and faithful elephant who delivers the story’s memorable refrain. When Horton realizes that “the speck voice was talking” (10), the story’s young readers surely experience true awe. When the speck is doomed to “boil in a hot steaming kettle of beezle-nut oil” that awe turns to dread, and then finally to triumph when the Whos prove that “they ARE persons, no matter how small” (22, 33). Finally, the whole enchanting story is delivered in Seuss’s classic verse. He seems to take extra care to make the rhymes crisp and active, as shown in one of the book’s opening passages: So Horton stopped splashing. He looked toward the sound. “That’s funny,” thought Horton. “There’s no one around.” Then he heard it again! Just a very faint yelp as if some tiny person were calling for help. “I’ll help you,” said Horton. “But who are you? Where?” He looked and he looked. He could see nothing there but a small speck of dust blowing past through the air. (Seuss 1-2) By presenting his readers with unique characters, a dynamic plot and singsong verse, Seuss keeps parables like Horton light and fun. Furthermore, when he combines these elements with a political message, it becomes a shrewd rhetorical means of teaching through diversion. Children can enjoy the story of Horton and the Whos without ever knowing that the object of their amusement has an underlying aim.

Another rhetorical feature of Horton – one that does even more work for Seuss’s agenda – is its relatability to children. Seuss does not try to capture the complexity and distinctive nature of Japan’s dire situation. He does not assign a different symbol or character to every detail of the actuality being represented. Instead, he simplifies his political stance with humble, overarching symbols and foundational sentiments that reach the heart of the issue.

From the opening of the story, Horton exhibits kindness and honesty when he overhears the vocal speck and imagines who could be making the sound: “‘… some poor little person who’s shaking with fear that he’ll blow in the pool! He has no way to steer! I’ll just have to save him’” (4). Here, Horton’s simple compassion immediately endears him to the audience, who is also given a very tangible picture of the Whos, described as “…‘a family, for all that we know! A family with children VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 41

Someone Who Cares a Whole Awful Lot...

just starting to grow’” (7). Not only does Seuss personify the invisible Whos, but their invisibility actually adds to their validity by putting them in danger and thus evoking pity. The villains of the story are also soon established, and given negative hallmarks such as “sour” and “black-bottomed” (6, 15). Throughout the story, Seuss invests his readers by appealing to their emotions. The poor Whos undergo many frightening, if appropriately tame, ordeals, from being dropped“somewhere inside of a great patch of clovers a hundred miles wide” to their near demise in a “‘hot steaming kettle of beezle-nut oil’” (16, 22). When they are finally saved “‘by the Smallest of ALL,’” even the kangaroo loses her sourness and here is a true sense of both victory and community (33).

At every turn, Seuss presents his young readers with characters that they can relate to – a friendly elephant, a grumpy kangaroo, and tiny creatures who need help. Most importantly, the uncomplicated notion that even little people matter is ideal because it addresses little people. If nothing else, children surely understand what it is to be small and need all the more love, and it seems that Seuss thought conditions with Japan were equally straight-forward.

“UNLESS”: Seuss Asks For More in The Lorax The Lorax begins by introducing the mysterious Once-ler, who goes back in time to tell about a beautiful land filled with Truffula trees, Brown Bar-ba-loots, and Swomee-Swans. On seeing the bright trees, the Once-ler begins chopping them down and making Thneeds out of their silky tufts, even when a funny creature called the Lorax begs him to stop. Filled with greed, the Once-ler builds a smogemitting factory and chops until there are no trees left, forcing the Lorax and his animal friends to leave.

The Lorax is Seuss’s most respected and inspired story, and while it contains all the hallmarks of his classic style, it does something his other political parables do not. The Lorax is lengthy, complex and even grim. While Horton can be taken to reflect many different situations, The Lorax’s message cannot be mistaken: it is a clear warning against the environmental havoc caused by consumerism and greed.

Like in Horton, Seuss relays his message using entertainment and relatability, but here the entertainment is more solemn and the relatability denser.

Seuss sets the stage by creating an interesting yet eerie atmosphere within the first few lines: “At the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows and no birds ever sing excepting old crows...”

(Seuss 1). The Once-ler is given a similarly sinister description as a hidden creature who “lurks in his Lerkim, cold under the roof” and “peeks out of the shutters” (4). The strange setting combined with the story’s opening question about the 42 | The George Mason Review

Lorax’s identity does much to pique an interest in what’s to come. A different scene is soon presented, one where “the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean” (8). Seuss paints a charming picture of bright-tufted Truffula trees, teddy-bear inspired Bar-ba-loots, and Humming Fish splashing about in a crystal-clear pond. Like in Horton, the atmosphere is pleasant and fantastical, but things soon change for the worse. When the Once-ler begins hacking down Truffula trees, the Lorax is introduced, a “shortish. And oldish. And brownish. And mossy” little creature who speaks for the trees (15). Throughout the story, things go from bad to worse as the Lorax sends the starving Bar-baloots and choking Swomee-Swans away from the barren wasteland that the Onceler’s factory has created. While Horton entertains through charm, The Lorax puts its readers on the edge of their seat, wondering if and how things will get better with each page turned. The story ends with the guilt-ridden Once-ler alone and surrounded by his crumbling empire, and while Seuss fulfills his promise to capture the attention of his readers, they are left with an anticlimactic finale.

Unlike Horton, The Lorax’s political transparency does not allow for seemingly light amusement; Seuss’s readers know they are being preached to. Here, Seuss uses entertainment in a more pointed way. He paints gripping pictures of a beautiful natural landscape, that landscape’s painful deterioration at the hands of pollution, and the empty wilderness that ensues when it is finally destroyed. Furthermore, Seuss keeps his audience guessing from the first page to the last. Who is the cagey Once-ler and how does he know so much about the Lorax? Will the Lorax convince the Once-ler to stop chopping down Truffula Trees? Will the Brown Bar-ba-loots and Swomee-Swans truly leave forever? Will everything be okay in the end? The light-hearted nature of Horton practically guarantees a happy ending, butThe Lorax promises no such respite.

Like its methods of entertainment, the relatability of The Lorax is advanced in that it requires more from its readers. Both the characters and the values are more complex and pointed, as Seuss seems desperate to deliver his political message as clearly as possible. However, like his other parables, he maintains an air of simplicity and universality that keeps The Lorax accessible.

The two title characters exhibit certain intricacies while remaining firmly established as protagonist and antagonist.Whereas Horton’sprotagonist is peaceful and good-natured, the Lorax speaks “with a voice that was sharpish and bossy” (15). Horton attempts to help the Whos through pleas, but the Lorax fights for his Truffula trees. Throughout the story, he actively contests the Once-ler, berating him about the Gluppity-Glupp and Schloppity-Schlopp he is creating, and accusing him of being “‘crazy with greed’” (17). Despite the Lorax’s irritability, his concern VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 43

Someone Who Cares a Whole Awful Lot...

for the wellbeing of the trees and wildlife proves his good nature: “‘my poor Barba-loots are all getting the crummies because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies! They loved living here. But I can’t let them stay…Good luck, boys,’ he cried. And he sent them away” (23-24). Unlike the sour kangaroo, whose very name declares her badness, the Once-ler is given ample room to argue his case.

Seuss uses sarcasm to suggest his corrupt nature, such as when the starving Barba-loots are sent away: “‘I, the old Once-ler, felt sad as I watched them all go.

BUT... business is business! And business must grow regardless of crummies in tummies, you know’” (25). While Seuss does not brand the Once-ler as he usually does his antagonists, the Once-ler’s insistent claim that the useless Thneeds are what “everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs” stands in stark opposition to the Lorax’s care for the living things around him. If there is any doubt about the Once-ler, it is eliminated at the story’s end, when “‘all that was left ‘neath the bad smelling-sky was my (the Once-ler’s) big empty factory’” (34).

Horton relates to children by stooping to their level; The Lorax does so by raising them up with challenging characters that send an equally challenging message.Yet, while The Lorax is undoubtedly Seuss’s most complex political parable, he still achieves a level of ease and strategy that is important for the genre. Seuss begins by creating a pleasant environment, and then communicates the negativity of greed by showing its effect on that environment. He uses the Thneed, a clearly useless creation, to demonstrate the futility of what destroys the Lorax and his friends. He personifies the creatures who suffer simple yet gripping calamities, like being hungry and unable to breathe. Even the Once-ler, who stands to gain from the pollution, is left wasting the years away with nothing, while his “‘buildings have fallen apart’” (37). The Lorax’s message, while more advanced, is still accessible: when we put the value of Thneeds above living creatures, we hurt what truly matters, and we especially hurt ourselves. The Once-ler’s call to action at the end further breaks the fourth wall, and one can imagine Seuss looking directly into the eyes of his young audience: “‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not’” (38).

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The Conclusion Horton Hears a Who and The Lorax are strong examples of the exceptional stature Seuss was able to achieve through children’s stories. His ability to impart politics to children through the captivation and modesty of his parables was truly remarkable, and a strong testament to the power of his rhetoric. Whether or not his young readers come away with a perfect understanding of war, violence, greed, and pollution, Seuss has surely won. He enthralled them with his whimsy, engaged them with his ambiance, and affected them with stories that, for all their fantasy, are somehow real. Sometimes he hid his lesson behind charm and lightheartedness, and sometimes he brought it into the spotlight, but whether his young readers know it or not, Seuss has left an indelible mark on their minds and hearts.

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on knowing

On Knowing Kia Presley Major: English and Minor Linguistics Class of Spring 2015

second place Winner About the work This piece is a special kind of failure—clumsy and disconnected in places, lacking that punch that makes good nonfiction real, but it stumbles onto something else entirely. It was my first attempt at a long creative nonfiction piece since I discovered the genre and I had this grand scheme for what I wanted the piece to do. I wanted it to make the reader evaluate how they know others and mimic these methods of knowing in the 3 different vectors.

And I failed. But I think there’s something a little spectacular about it. I was navigating through this newfound passion for nonfiction. I’m fascinated with creative nonfiction and the work that it does to get at that concept of knowing, of identifying, with others. The girl who pasted and glued this piece together, she was getting at something. Not exactly what she wanted, and not exactly how she wanted but still, something a little beautiful. Something in its infancy, and yet unabashedly honest.

Something valuable.

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David Foster Wallace haunts me. It began almost a month ago. In one of my classes I was assigned to read his piece “Shipping Out” and I completely forgot until 11:30 the night before the 9:00 AM class. As I pulled up the source material that the professor posted, I realized the piece was far longer than I anticipated—24 pages of small fonted words—and I hate the idea of going to class unprepared so I settled in to read.

“Shipping Out” is Wallace’s account of his first experience on a cruise ship.

From the first page he established a strong and distinct voice that slowly began to worm its way into my subconscious. I fell asleep around page thirteen. It was there, I think, between sleeping and waking where I first encountered Wallace as a ghost.

My brain, like a small reluctant child at bedtime, hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that I was asleep and on some level it still believed me to be reading. So instead of the bizarre words and images of deep sleep dreaming, my dreams recreated Wallace’s tone. His textual cadence was embedding and re-embedding itself in my mind. I think this kind of thing occurs very rarely, but I remember trying to capture this anomaly when I was little. I’d record myself reciting the spelling words for the next day’s quiz and fall asleep listening to the tape on repeat. I don’t remember this ever actually working—most likely because these were manufactured attempts— but these failures didn’t seem to stop me from trying.

I woke up the next morning at 7 o’clock and immediately, before I was fully conscious, flipped open my laptop to start in on the piece again. By then it felt like Wallace and I were old friends. He felt somehow known to me. It was like how after spending a lot of time with someone who thinks differently than you, you kind of move about the world seeing things not only as you would normally see them, but also as how they would. So it was with Wallace. *** Jack Kasey is unusually long. Whenever he ambles into his Creative Writing class, he crosses the white classroom in three easy strides. The desks in the room have been shaped into a circle, and from across the circle his exceptional height seems to be the only thing remarkable about him. He’s one of those boys that can commonly be seen wearing those knee length baggy basketball shorts. We sit exactly across from each other and I notice how absurdly skinny his pale legs look in those black shorts. The professor tells us in her vaudevillian voice that we’ll be partnering up to write 6-15 word personal profiles. Jack crosses the classroom to sit in the desk next to mine. We take turns asking questions that we think professional writers would ask in crafting personal professional profiles. I notice that his face is not altogether unremarkable—rather, he’s pleasant to look at. He’s friendly to the eye in that it looks like he’s just starting to shake off the classic markers of VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 47

on knowing

adolescence. The thought that immediately strikes me is that his is a face his mother would be proud to show off. I imagine her at a book club, sitting amongst other women dressed in pastels, passing around his graduation pictures among tea and coffee cake.

When I ask him how he would describe himself in five words, he pauses. He doesn’t say “um” or try to explain his way into an answer. He looks up to the ceiling pensively.This surprises me at first. Jack is young in college years—two maybe three years younger than me. I can tell because he hasn’t yet picked up the quiet aura of the perpetually panicked upperclassmen. I’ve found that it’s rare for people his age to revert to silence unless intimidated or embarrassed. I am an exceptionally small human being, generally incapable of intimidating the majority of the population, and his face doesn’t reflect fear or nervousness. So I assume this silence is reflective of his character, I assume that he’s probably like me. He’s probably grown up on quiet things like books and Sunday afternoons. He’s probably had the time to learn the value of silence. I do all of this assuming at the breakneck speed of the internally processed conversation. It’s the kind of thinking that doesn’t quite reach language in the moment, but instead presents itself as a kind of intuition. I notice that the noise of the classroom swells around us and I turn back to Jack. His fingers ghost count two, three, four, his thumb already extended. Finally, he looks down at me and says decisively, “Searching for my future.” *** After the “Shipping Out” experience, I began to read more and more of Wallace.

I learned that he authored the novel “Infinite Jest”—a book I’d heard mentioned in the offhanded comments of my English professors. From what I gathered, the book had a reputation for being long and difficult—not the kind of thing I generally had an inclination for. Pre-Wallace, I had the idea that “Infinite Jest” would be the type of philosophical, esoteric brand of academic literature that only professors would read at leisure, but after learning more about his life and reading more of what he’d written, my curiosity was spiked. I discovered that he wasn’t the academic bore I had expected him to be. Wallace was a normal guy that communicated the processes and understandings of the internal life extraordinarily. In his writing, I recognized the ability to communicate complex concepts with a kind of simplicity that I had always wanted to adopt in my own writing. But still, “Infinite Jest” was a mammoth of a novel, coming in at 1,079 pages.

I was the kid that brought books to parties and went to the midnight releases for the newest installments of Harry Potter. I remember recognizing up to 75% of the books in the Young Adult section of my local Borders and hefty portions of the other literature sections. My favorite event in elementary school was the Scholastic 48 | The George Mason Review

Book Fair. I’ve been a fiction junkie all my life. But that was before Wallace. That was before I started taking nonfiction classes. My sophomore year of college I took a required nonfiction course and fell in love with the genre. Before that, my understanding was that nonfiction was made up of biographies and travel books.

Obviously I hadn’t given the genre much thought. *** On September 12th, 2008 Karen Green returned to her Claremont California home to find her husband David Foster Wallace hanging by a belt, hands taped together. He left a two-page note, and in his workspace—their garage at the time— an unfinished manuscript of the novel he’d been working on, neatly illuminated by lamplight. David had struggled with a debilitating depression for most of his adult life. After reporting to a doctor that the antidepressant he’d been taking for over 20 years was beginning to present worrying side effects, he was advised to stop taking it. Karen said of her husband, “He was scared out of his mind. There was a healthy person in there who wanted to come off meds. There was a perfectionist who wanted to be a good husband. And there was a sick person that wanted to see how much he could rock the boat.”(Tim Adams, The Observer) David didn’t respond well to this treatment option, so they tried different medications, all with dismal results. After returning to the original drug, he found that it didn’t quench his depression like it had before. In a last desperate effort to shake off the great, looming beast of depression, he attempted electroconvulsive therapy. *** Nonfiction began to seriously edge its way into my literary interests by my junior year and the discovery of Wallace’s nonfiction came at exactly the right time.

One day, a few weeks after the haunting began, I decided to visit the university bookstore in search of books to add to my “to-read” list. The campus bookstore is typically pretty quiet, situated at the back of the largest student center on campus. The top floor is more of a merchandising souvenir shop than a bookstore.

University branded mugs, notebooks, sweatshirts, bumper stickers, water bottles, pencils, pens, and other trinkets line most of the shelves while the books take up only a corner of the store. The bottom floor sells overpriced textbooks. I was dismayed to learn that they didn’t have a nonfiction section—only a few shelves marked as “Biography”. The fiction section, though, was extensive. I perused the familiar books, recognizing a few titles before my eyes fell on the skyscape cover of “Infinite Jest”. It was the only Wallace book in the store and it was the last one left. It sat, large and obtrusive to the eye, among the smaller unassuming books. I wondered how I never noticed it before. After reading half of Dave Eggars six page preface, that describes the book as“a spaceship with no recognizable components,” VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 49

on knowing

I purchased it and began reading. *** Amy, David’s younger sister, talked to her brother while their parents visited him in August of 2008. She said, “I’m a public defender, and I had just lost a trial that I was really upset about. He was really in a lot of pain, but he said all the right big brother things, you know, like how lucky my client was to have me. That was the last time I spoke with him, and it was his last chance to be a big brother. I think it really made him feel better, at least for a few minutes. I know it made me feel better” (Robert Ito, Salon.com). *** It’s unnerving to be honest about myself. It feels trite and distant in a way that I can’t seem to fit words around. I’m trying to align myself with him—with David, with Jack—to approach him, in a way. I want the bits of me that I’m exposing to line up with the bits of him that are already exposed but how much of myself have I hidden away from this piece? And how much of him can I really get? *** Jack leans back into the small desk that he seems to dwarf with his gangly appendages. He asks me which superhero I would choose to be if the opportunity somehow presented itself. I tell him I don’t know much about superheroes but I’d probably choose Green Lantern. Creative problem solving and psychokinetic powers seem right up my alley. I ponder on about the implications of Green Lantern’s powers for a bit longer before I ask Jack what he’d choose.

“Batman,” he says immediately. This is something he’s thought about. “He doesn’t have any powers but he’s respectful. He just has a lot of money and I just think he’s awesome.”

I imagine Jack as a child, playing with Batman action figures and comic books.

He’s the kind of person I can easily picture with younger features. It’s like he’s rewindable—I can still see his childhood lingering behind the corners of his face.

Young Jack has a mop of unruly hair. He has Batman sheets and one of those novelty basketball hoops on the back of his closet door. He’s long since lost the foam ball that it came with, so when the mood strikes him he uses balled up laundry to play.

This habit leaves his small room with a perpetual pile of clothes sitting in the corner that makes the room feel even smaller. I imagine Young Jack completely engrossed in the comic books, laying three or four out at a time, filling up the rest of the floor space. He sits, sunlight cascading through his window from the Northern Virginia neighborhood, completely content among the pages.

When College Jack tells me that his family moved to Poland for two and a half years when he was five, I revise my image of Young Jack. Not much changes really, 50 | The George Mason Review

except that the sunlight has a bluer tint. I start to wonder if he knows Polish and whether Young Jack’s comic books would be changed accordingly but College Jack asks me another question before I can form words around this thought. *** When people ask me about what I’ve been reading lately, it doesn’t exactly feel right to just tell them “David Foster Wallace.” Instead, there’s a small part of me that wants to reply, “I’ve been getting to know David.” It seems ridiculous, but for some reason I want to express a familiarity with him—probably because of the bond created between reader and writer. The bond varies depending on genre, voice, skill, and a number of other factors, but I think Wallace excelled at creating this commonness with his reader. In an interview with David Lipsky, he said: “I gotta tell you, I just think to look across the room and automatically assume that somebody else is less aware than me, or that somehow their interior life is less rich, and complicated, and acutely perceived than mine, makes me not as good a writer. Because that means I’m going to be performing for a faceless audience, instead of trying to have a conversation with a person. [...] It’s true that I want very much—I treasure my regularguyness. I’ve started to think it’s my biggest asset as a writer. Is that I’m pretty much just like everybody else.”

After reading this quote, “Ah!” I said to myself, “He gets it! He wants us to know him—he wants us to get him.” But this is not entirely true. Yes, I think Wallace wanted to establish a connection with the reader for the sake of maintaining relevance, but can we say he wanted his audience to get him? To grasp his person? To invariably know him? I don’t know. The parts of Wallace that we, as the public, have access to—Wallace as journalist, essayist, novelist, the small bits we read about him in interviews as a husband, as a son, as a brother—all present complex, sometimes contradictory facets of his personality. The combination of these facets is only a small glimpse through a muddy porthole at the ground floor of the structure of his person.

There will always be a gap between what is known about a person and who that person actually is, despite relational closeness. There are things about the internal life that simply refuse to be grasped by words. It is these elusive whispers of humanity that separate our deeper selves from one another. Often, sometimes by necessity, our imagination fills in the details. But people are far too complex to ever completely understand and Wallace’s life, publicized as it was, is no exception. *** VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 51

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“And he used to say to me all the time, at night: ‘Don’t die.’” She pauses for a long time. “That’s a hard thing to think about,” she says. “It is hard to remember tender things tenderly.”

that he’d captured the teacher’s instructions well—to describe “the person you know today.” It felt distant and vaguely recognizable as something I would identify with. When he’s finished, I raise my hand eagerly. I read, “His spirit animal may be a lion because they’re calm until they need to attack.”

-Karen Green in an article by Tim Adams in The Observer

*** Jack and I don’t talk. He still sits across from me but we don’t really look at each other. I’m simultaneously comfortable with this and a little confused. Surely, we know each other well enough now to at least nod, no? But even so, maybe that’d turn into a tired game of uncomfortable politeness until it finally just faded away. Maybe we don’t know each other at all. We have become, again, strangers sitting across the room from each other. But I still carry the image of him as a kid, with a Batman sheet draped across his shoulders, reading comic books on the floor of his messy room on a Sunday afternoon. Whenever I see Jack walking around on campus, I can also see the little boy in his features, pushing his messy hair from his eyes, staring down at a book in his lap.

*** I learn that Jack usually dreams about the same kinds of things that I do— normal situations that can be easily confused with reality. I tell him that I don’t know what that says about me. He shakes his head and doesn’t seem to know either. I learn that in five to ten years he wants to be traveling through Europe, spending at least a couple of months in each country. He only wants to go to English speaking countries to cut down on the confusion. He tells me he likes the history of these countries. This bug for travel, I think to myself, probably comes from living in a different country when he was little.

When I ask him about his spirit animal, he leans back to think for a bit. He responds, “Probably a tiger.” The professor has floated over to our desks and we slightly angle our bodies to face her. Now Jack is talking to both of us.

“I’d like to think it was a tiger, or maybe a lion,” he says glancing between the two of us. “Lions are lazy and relax all day until it’s time to eat and, I mean, I’m not like that exactly but, what I mean is, I guess I’m pretty chill until it’s time to attack.” *** As I read Wallace’s work and learn more and more about his life, two things strike me. The first is that he, like everyone else, is a complex human being that I can’t grasp. The second is the overwhelming desire to be able to go back and help him. I know that everything that could have been done for him was done. I know that he was surrounded by people who loved him. I know that I could not have fixed him. And yet, still, I want to. I want to have been able to know him. But invariably, David Foster Wallace exists apart from me. *** When the time comes for us to share what we’ve written with the class, I’m hesitant. On the bottom of the notebook page that I’ve used to take notes, I’ve scribbled: “Jack: lanky with freckles peppered across his nose. He has an unquenchable thirst for travel.” Then I reconsider. I start getting nervous about sharing and scribble a second sentence down a few lines below the first. After listening to a few others read their partner’s profiles, Jack looks at me from across the classroom as if to ask if it’s alright if he shares his. I shrug. He motions to the teacher that he wants to read. I don’t remember his exact words—only the sense

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The “Glocalization” of Zumba®: Music, Movement, and Meaning in the Zumba® World of George Mason Miranda Carver Major: Anthropology Class of Fall 2014

third place Winner About the work This paper is the product of primary research from an independent study I conducted for my world music minor. My major was anthropology, and my world music minor, rooted in the discipline of ethnomusicology, allowed me to explore ways in which humans create, interact with, and derive meaning from music in a variety of sociocultural contexts. The current work draws on my understanding of both disciplines, examining the interaction between “globalization,” the intensification of interconnectivity between peoples and processes, and “localization,” the process by which items and ideas are reshaped in new contexts. I explore these processes as intimately related, considering overarching characteristics of the global phenomenon of Zumba® as well as the ways in which individuals shape experiences for themselves and others in the local context of George Mason University. I used ethnographic methods, the cornerstone of which is participant observation. Thus, throughout the semester, I took part in Zumba® classes and spoke to the instructors and participants about their experiences.

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Introduction In recent decades, scholars have become interested in studying processes of “globalization.”“This term,” write Inda and Rosaldo, “refers (simply for now) to the intensification of global interconnectedness, suggesting a world full of movement and mixture, contact and linkages, and persistent cultural interaction and exchange.

It speaks, in other words, to the complex mobilities and interconnections that characterize the globe today” (2008:4). Many of these scholars have investigated processes of globalization and localization prompted by what could be called the spread of cultural features that have been lifted out of geographical contexts.

Inda and Rosaldo write about the entanglement of the “global” and the “local” in simultaneous processes by which features that become dislocated from one cultural context inevitably become reinscribed in another (2008:14).

Ethnographic studies of specific cultural features that have been reinscribed in contexts other than those in which they formed give us examples of what these processes can look like, and they demonstrate the power of groups and individuals to make what was once “foreign” personally meaningful and a normal part of their local environments. Mary Caldwell, for example, discusses how Russians in Moscow have “domesticated” McDonald’s, drawing it into their lives and also “setting the standards that McDonald’s must meet in order to flourish” (2004:21). Likewise, Ian Condry investigates hip-hop in Japanese urban nightclubs and discusses the ways in which the style of hip-hop resonates with the ideologies and experiences of a particular group of people rather than imposing new ideologies, forms, and meanings on them (2001:383–84). He argues that “‘Global’ popular culture is still subject to important processes of localization” (Condry 2001:373).

The framework of processes of globalization and localization in which various actors interact with, shape, and are shaped by cultural constructs is quite useful for studying a form of popular culture that can be found all over the world: Zumba®. Zumba® is a fitness program that uses four core dance and music styles: 1) cumbia, developed in Colombia (Wade 2008:47); 2) merengue, developed in the Dominican Republic (Morales 2003:238); 3) salsa, developed in New York by Latino musicians experimenting with the Cuban genre son (Chasteen 2004:9–10); and reggaetón, which emerged in Panama as a fusion of reggae, hip-hop, and other styles including cumbia and soca (Samponaro 2009:490–91). However, many other styles from around the world also find their way into Zumba® classes as instructors combine and recombine dance steps and musical features in new choreography for participant audiences.

The purpose of this study was to explore this globalized phenomenon in the local context of George Mason University and the ways in which those who engage VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 55

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with it do so. In this paper, I present information about Zumba® as well as data collected from participant observation, interviews, and focus groups in a “global” to “individual” organization. I explore discourses and actions of the corporation Zumba Fitness LLC, the characteristics of the spaces in which Zumba® is enacted, the roles of the instructors, and the agency of both a reified Zumba® and the participants that engage with it. Taken as a whole, the information presented will demonstrate that Zumba® at George Mason University, like Japanese hip-hop and McDonalds in Moscow, is a phenomenon that has been “globalized” and is simultaneously being “localized” by various agents who interact with it. Critical in this process of localization is the ability of participants and instructors to generate intensely personal meanings for themselves and for others around them. However, my final section demonstrates that while they can be useful as organizing principles, the “global” and the “local” cannot be completely teased apart.

Zumba Fitness, LLC

Ideas and Impacts The phenomenon of Zumba® at George Mason University is only one case situated within a global network of Zumba® instructors, participants, musics, and meanings, all made possible in large part by the corporation Zumba Fitness, LLC. The man behind and at the forefront of this now global company, created in 2001, is Alberto “Beto” Perez (Spencer 2013:T05). The official story on his website, copyrighted by Zumba Fitness, LLC, is as follows: I began as a fitness instructor in my home city of Cali, Colombia. One day I got to my class, and I realized I’d left my regular aerobics music at home.

I looked in my bag, took out some salsa and merengue tapes, popped them into the sound system, and taught the first-ever Zumba® class. After a career as a trainer and choreographer in Colombia, I decided to make the big move to the United States. With only my moves and my passion, I sold all my belongings and moved to Miami in search of the American Dream.

I didn’t speak a word of English. I’m here to better myself and bring the Zumba love to the entire planet. (Perez 2012) In a 2010 interview, Perez stated, “I have this dream. I want to put all the world to dance. I want everybody to have a good time” (Exclusive Interview 2010).

The statistics on the Zumba Fitness, LLC website indicate that this “dream” is becoming a reality, reporting that 15 million people in 180 countries have taken these classes (2014).

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In the same interview, Perez expressed amazement at the effects his program has had since its creation: When people look [at] me and tell me, ‘Beto, thank you for chang[ing] my life. Thank you because I have cancer and Zumba® helped me to feel much better. Thank you because I was depressed. Thank you because I teach classes and I make money… Thank you because I learned different music around the world...’ […] And it’s… amazing. (Exclusive Interview 2010) Zumba® has been praised for its physical benefits, such as muscle control and cardiovascular respiratory health (Itembu 2012:23; Toscano et al. 2014:32).

However, as Perez suggests in the interview, social, emotional, psychological, and even economic factors are also part of the equation. Indeed, the interview data that will be discussed later in this paper reflect these factors, with reports of Zumba® helping participants overcome depression, cultivate friendships, and relieve stress, even “changing their lives.” Responses to Zumba®’s far-reaching influence have been mixed and ambiguous; it has been called“a cultural and educational journey” (Itembu 2012:23) as well as “a movement,”“an empire,” and “a cult” (see Philby 2012:18).

Music and Markets Personal lives are not the only domains affected by Zumba®, and nor is Perez the only driving force behind the directions the company takes stylistically. Gail Gedan Spencer of the Washington Post reports that Zumba®’s popularity has broadened the fan base for artists like Pitbull and Don Omar (2013:T05). She quotes Sergio Minski, head of Zumba Fitness LLC’s music department, as saying, “Inevitably [Zumba® is] getting associated with mainstream music and a lot of artists are just throwing ‘Zumbas’ out there in their songs” (2013:T05). One such song is Don Omar’s “Zumba,” which enjoyed a peak spot of #2 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart (Spencer 2013:T05). In fact, the campaign video for this song features not Don Omar, but rather Beto Perez front and center, flanked by smiling dancers clad in Zumba® branded attire (Don Omar - Zumba Campaign Video 2012).

That the visual features of the music video are Zumba®’s figurehead and branding rather than the artist himself suggests an intimate, potentially reciprocal relationship between the fan-base of Don Omar and that of Zumba®. As the interview data discussed in later sections will show, there is in fact sometimes a reciprocal relationship between artists and Zumba® in the studio. Participants will sometimes download songs that the instructors have introduced to them, and VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 57

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instructors will sometimes choose songs that the participants have heard before based on the notion that these songs will heighten the participants’ experience.

Merchandise and Messages Interested parties can find branded merchandise such as that found in Don Omar’s “Zumba” campaign video on the Zumba Fitness, LLC website. Upon encountering its home page, visitors are greeted with promotions that might encourage them, for example, to“Join the party”by taking a class, or to buy Zumba® clothing items that “move you.” The bottom of the page reads, “180 Countries.

The perfect combo of fun and fitness has made Zumba® classes a world-wide phenomenon… Over 15 million people are taking a Zumba® class around the world.” The sense visitors may be left with is that the activity of Zumba® connects a person to an ongoing global dance party. This “global dance party” concept also appears to be a tool for recruiting new instructors, as the “Instructor Trainings” page features messages such as, “It’s your turn to move the world,” and “Ready to lead the party?” (Zumba Fitness 2014).

Conceptually, this website gives the impression that Zumba® in its various forms has a power in and of itself to cause people to move and that individuals can manipulate that power by engaging with it. As a medium, an instructor can use Zumba® to “move the world.” Individuals can use Zumba® in commodity form by “letting” Zumba® branded clothing “move” them. Perhaps the most powerful incarnation of this reified Zumba® entity is the music associated with it; “Once the Latin and World rhythms take over, you’ll see why Zumba® Fitness classes are often called exercise in disguise,” the website asserts (Zumba Fitness 2014; emphasis added). Indeed, the data from this study reflect the agency of these so-called“Latin and World rhythms” in the minds of instructors and participants.

Methods Because this was a participant observation study, I spent three evenings per week during the Fall 2014 semester participating in Zumba® classes at George Mason University. As I did so, I took note of the music, movements, and interactions taking place. Participating in these classes was critical for this study for several reasons. First, I was able to observe in the classes without occupying the space strictly as an observer whose conspicuous presence may have affected the behavior of the participants.

Second,takingpartintheactivityallowedmetogainperspectivesandhaveexperiences that observation from the periphery would fail to yield. Most importantly, my active and regular engagement created the circumstances necessary for my interviews and focus groups – from which the majority of my data are drawn – to succeed.

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Attending classes every week allowed me to demonstrate an interest in and commitment to this subject and to identify regular attendees to approach for interviews. During the interviews and focus groups themselves, I found that the knowledge I shared with my fellow participants and with the instructors I spoke to facilitated an ease of communication and understanding that would have been impossible had we not spent many hours engaging in the same activity. I was also able to choose a selection of songs that were played regularly in the classes I observed, and I played excerpts of them in my interviews and focus groups with participants to elicit the thoughts and perspectives evoked by the music. This listening exercise was not done with instructors. I spoke to three instructors (all female), two male participants, and six female participants in five one-on-one interviews and two focus groups. These interviews and focus groups lasted between 15 and 50 minutes and were held in mutually agreed-upon locations such as coffee shops, study rooms, and the recreational facilities where the classes were offered. All interviewees gave informed consent and were assigned pseudonyms.

These data were integrated with my observations and other information about Zumba® and its associated musics and movements. In my qualitative analysis I grouped themes by category from the common and structural to the idiosyncratic and personal, as they are presented below. As this paper moves into the realm of George Mason University, the term “Zumba,” unless otherwise noted, will refer specifically to Zumba® within the context of George Mason and within the imaginations of the instructors and participants of the classes on its campus.

The World of Zumba as Gendered Space

The World of Zumba at George Mason University Every weeknight, instructors, university students, faculty, and community members assemble for fitness classes offered at two recreational facilities on the campus of George Mason University. The rooms in which Zumba classes are held are partitioned off from the rest of the facilities by glass walls, and they feature one wall covered by mirrors. At the start of a typical class, participants line up in rows facing their reflections and the instructor, who is sometimes placed on a raised stage. Many regulars make their way over to implicitly claimed “spots” or position themselves amid groups of friends. The instructor, who throughout my own experience at George Mason has been female, will ask for a show of hands of those who are “new to Zumba” and review guidelines for proper technique and safety. Then she turns on recorded music at a high volume, and the dancing begins.

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are often encouraged to verbalize with a “woo” or an “oi oi,” and hesitance to do so is often met with a playful reprimand from the instructor. At the end of a session, a slow song is played as the instructor leads a “cool down.”

There is something about Zumba that cultivates the sense that the activity and the space itself are set apart from other daily experiences and social relationships.

“It’s like a different atmosphere,” said one participant, “Once you walk through the door, it’s Zumba time.” Another participant spoke about a song used for cool-down as getting her “back into the real world,” indicating that some sort of transition was necessary between the world of Zumba and the world that was “real.” This separate space fosters a special connection among those who share it.

One participant expressed, “[L]ike everything disappears, but you, and Katherine, and James, and Helen[…] It’s just us, you know? […] I think the group aspect of Zumba is what makes it so fun[…] Even if you’re not even saying anything to each other, you’re kind of like[…] telepathic communication or something.” Another participant also felt an implicit connection: “You might not even know them on a first-name basis, but everybody knows[…] you share the Zumba blood, you know?

You share the Zumba fever.”

That others are in the room, thus, is significant. Within this separate realm, the participants negotiate spatial boundaries with one another as they follow the steps within a radius around their “spot.” One participant explained the nature of these “spots”: “I’ve been coming for awhile… I found my spot, you know, like you have your spot, and everybody knows about your spot.” Another explained that the size of the “crowd” had an effect on her experience of the class, saying, “Well, with everybody in a crowd, you feel like you look less ridiculous… And then, it’s a lot louder, and I think that’s the whole point of Zumba[…] It doesn’t make sense for the music to be really loud and only five people in a room.” For one participant, the “group atmosphere” of Zumba even had restorative effects: [S]o everyone was really packed, so it literally felt like a party. It was like in this room, it felt like a rave, and I was just in the middle of all these people ‘woo’ing and dancing… I literally – something just snapped. I just snapped out of it, and then it’s like… the mixture of being connected and in that group atmosphere, you know you’re not alone[…] for me, it felt like it brought me back to life in some ways. So it really… I just found so much joy in that.

For others, this separate world and its relationships allow them to temporarily leave other aspects of their lives on the other side of the glass wall. “[I]t’s an escape from 60 | The George Mason Review

all the stress in life,” said one participant, “I would say an one-hour escape, but the[…] breathtaking music, and following other people, it’s like you’re with friends when you dance with them. It’s like another home for me.” “I like taking a break from my homework,” said another, “and it just keeps me from… it keeps me sane, just stable, and especially if I have a hard day, it just makes me have a clear mind.”

As these quotes demonstrate, the real and implicit relationships that exist in this separate space are an important part of the participants’experiences. They can help participants to cultivate a sense of physical and social belonging, relieve stress, cope with difficult emotions, and escape from daily realities. At the same time, the glass walls that enclose but do not conceal serve as a reminder that the “real world” still surrounds this enclave. One participant explained: Zumba makes me happy. It’s strange. It does, just because you’re moving your body, your butt, and nobody cares, and… I hate to say, like, female empowerment, because that’s not what I mean. But it’s like a sense of, “I could do anything, and I don’t care if anything goes wrong.” And you don’t even remember that anyone’s looking at you, except when you turn around, and you’re like, “Oh, wait. There’s a glass wall behind us, guys.”

This quote is especially interesting because it intertwines the features of the space with the issue of gender. When she says, “I hate to say, like, female empowerment, because that’s not what I mean,” this participant reflects something I noticed throughout my data collection: gender relations are at work in Zumba, but these relations are not usually made explicit. My interpretation is that this is due at least in part to the gendered nature of the space, in which female is a normative category that may complicate – though not eclipse – the construction of “female empowerment.”Though the statements offered by other participants are as murky as this quote, in the following section I will explain my reasons for believing this to be the case.

Gendered Space I have attended many of these classes over the past two years, and though there are some instructors whose classes I have not attended regularly, I have been able to discern certain patterns. It is apparent upon looking around in a typical class that most of the participants are female. The instructors are also overwhelmingly female; thus far, I have not come across a class with a male instructor at George Mason despite the fact that nine weekly classes were offered during the Fall 2014 semester. Often, however, there are several male attendees, and the female VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 61

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instructors sometimes express excitement when there is a relatively high number of male participants. In these instances, and in other comments encouraging male participation, maleness becomes a marked category, or a category that stands out as unusual in comparison to the normative category.

While it is true based on my experience that the asymmetrical participation of males and females is common among many of the fitness classes offered at George Mason, there is reason to believe that this local characteristic is not the only thing contributing to the gendered nature of Zumba. The case that best illustrates this point is that of the 2013 song “Work” by Lil Jon, which was one of the only songs, if not the only song, played in all three of the classes I attended regularly during my observations. The words in this recording are transcribed below: Yeah, it’s Lil Jon again, I got ya!

This one here is for the ladies that like to dance.

Hold on, no, no, no – the ladies that like to work!

Roll your body, work those hips. (x 4) Roll! Work! (x 4) Work! Work! Work! Work! Yeah, ladies, yeah! It’s time to work!

If you didn’t come to sweat, what? You need to leave right now. Get out!

But ladies, if you wanna work it out, we gonna need to see your hands up!

Let’s go! (x 3) Left to right, move your body to the bass. (x 2) Up and down, pump your body to the sound. (x 2) Left, right. Left, right. Up, down. Up, down.

Show me what you got, make your body tick-tock. (x 2) Make your tummy flat, put an arch in your back. (x 2) Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Arch your back. Arch your back!

Let’s go, let’s work! (x8) Roll your body, work those hips. (x12) Roll! Work! (x 4) I know y’all not over there actin’ like you tired.

You thought you was workin’, huh? Nah, you not workin’.

Now it’s really time to work! Are you ready?

Roll your body, work those hips. (x 4) Roll! Work! (x 4) Let’s go, let’s work! (x8) ZUMBA! (Lil Jon 2013, emphases added) The language of this song indicates asymmetrical gender considerations. It begins by explicitly stating that it is “for” ladies, and Lil Jon repeats the word “ladies” multiple times in his spoken commentary. Also, some of the terminology suggests a gendered element; for example, this song uses the term “tummy” in “Make your tummy flat,” while a perusal of a Men’s Health magazine revealed a 62 | The George Mason Review

general preference for the terms “abs,” “gut,” and even “belly,” in phrases such as “Torch your flab and pop those abs” (2014:13). These features, combined with the loud, prolonged “Zumba” shouted at the end of the song, indicate that female Zumba-goers are the primary audience for this song.

During my observations, this song was among the most commonly used by instructors at George Mason. For those men that did participate, these lyrics did not necessarily constitute a marginalizing force. One male participant stated upon hearing “Work” played in his interview, “I mean, that’s what you gotta do if you wanna make Zumba a good time and get what you came for out of it. You gotta work that body, move those hips.” The other explained, “There’s a lot of punching involved in this song. So I think of[…] people I hate, and I imagine myself punching them. And I imagine my friends working with me to punch these people out[…] and then when you hear those drums, I’m thinking army or something. [...] Kind of like a drum corps thing.”

It could in fact be argued that the second participant, using concepts such as “army” and “drum corps,” moved the imaginative space of this song into a more traditionally masculine realm. This is not to say, of course, that either hip-working or serving in the army are gender restrictive; indeed they are not. In fact, it is likely that these ambiguities contribute in large part to the ability of these two men to take something that explicitly was not “for” them and make it “for” themselves.

This imaginative ability is a phenomenon that I will explore in a later section.

The Instruc tor as Mediator and Medium

The Instructor as Mediator In a Zumba class, the instructor is the connection between the participants and the global phenomenon of Zumba®. Instructors bring Zumba® to the participants in the form of music and dance, and the ways in which they do so are influenced by the local context. The Zumba world to which these mediators contribute so much is shaped by those on both sides of the connection between Zumba® and participant and also by the physical world in which that connection is embedded.

In this section, I will discuss the various aspects of the instructor’s role.

For one thing, the instructors act as gatekeepers for the music and the dances.

Because they are not restricted by a designated routine or even a list of designated songs and dances, they have a considerable amount of agency in determining the shape and format of their classes. One instructor explained to me, “They used to have this rule called the “70/30 Rule.” 70% of the music is supposed to be Latin – or, you know, international – and then 30% is supposed to be from your own country. [...] And they actually recently got rid of that rule. So now it’s much more VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 63

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up to the instructor however they want to do their class.”

Not only do the instructors have substantial power of choice, but they also have many options available to them. The instructors I spoke to talked about their processes for choosing songs and choreography, and a common practice seemed to be searching YouTube and Pandora for potential songs and for other instructors’ choreography. They make many of their choices based on their own personal preferences and what catches their attention. Instructors also draw upon their own personal experiences like formal dance training and membership in dance teams.

By the time the choreography makes its way into the Zumba studio, the instructors often have modified the steps and integrated them with their own ideas.

Thisprocesshasimportantimplications for the participants because it introduces them to or allows them to explore songs and movements that they can use outside of the Zumba studio. One participant told me, “I’ll go up to the instructor and go, ‘Oh, what song was that?’ and just write it down and go download it afterwards, and then I’ve got my own little running music.” Another, who told me that her favorite dance style was bachata, stated, “It’s because I’m actually – in real life – pretty bad at bachata. So it’s like, the more I do it, I guess the better I get.” Thus, the choices of the instructors can have an effect on not only the experiences of the participants in the studio, but also the positioning of this activity within their lives in general.

However, the instructors revealed in their interviews that the participants – to whom they referred in this context as the “crowd” or the “clientele” – actually have a constraining power on the choices of the instructors. This constraining power did not come from individual participants themselves, but rather from the participants as an aggregate group in the abstract. For this reason, the term “clientele” is more appropriate, and I will adopt that term in this paper when referring to this abstract group for whom the instructors felt the need to tailor their choices.

Important to this process of tailoring is the age range of the clientele and the songs that happen to be popular with this demographic at a given time. Two of the instructors expressed that they use more hip-hop and upbeat rhythms for the college age group at the George Mason facilities than they do for classes they teach at other locations in which the participants tend to be older. By the same token, the instructors tailor their choices to reflect songs they perceive to be popular with their clienteles. One instructor noticed that participants at George Mason tend to be more comfortable with and most enjoy dancing to songs with which they are already familiar and that might be played at a party. Another instructor told me “you just have to” play some of the songs listed among the Top 20, because the participants will request them anyway. The importance of popular songs may be 64 | The George Mason Review

related to the “party” discourse of Zumba Fitness, LLC and the idea that Zumba® should feel like a “party” more than a “workout.” The nature of the instructor’s role puts her in a position to mediate these kinds of expectations through her choices.

The Instructor as Medium The interviews revealed that not only is the instructor a gatekeeper that mediates music and movements based on her own preferences and those of her clientele, but she is also a medium, a source through which energy and motivation can be transmitted. One participant told me, “I’m really glad there’s an instructor, not a video. Because when there’s an actual instructor, it makes me want to make myself work that much harder, you know?”Moreover, the influence of an instructor on the amount of energy in a class varies based on differences in “style.” As one instructor put it: Some people… just kinda want to chill when they go to Zumba and just have a little one-two step. And that’s not my personality. My personality is kind of intense, so I like my classes to be that way. […] I think my class is a little bit more intense than Zumba is supposed to be, because Zumba is supposed to be for everyone, but like I said, every instructor is different, every class is different, so technically, Zumba is for everyone, you just have to find the right instructor.

The participants perceived these differences too. During a focus group, a group of friends recalled attending various classes to identify favorite instructors. Brittany said the instructor of one of those classes wasn’t “hype” at all, and she felt that was slowing her down. Emily added that the instructor kept telling them to “get energized,” and they all laughed, seemingly as an expression along the lines of, “How are we supposed to do that when the instructor isn’t helping us out?”Brittany went on to say, “And it wasn’t like her music choice made it any better, because… sometimes you can get into the music and not what the instructor is actually doing, but it was both of them mutually.” This quote is interesting because it teases out the instructor’s power of transmission, showing it to be separate from that of the music. Thus, the instructor can influence the experience of the participants not only through making choices but also simply by being an individual.

Their part in these relationships is significant for some instructors. One explained, “For me, at this point my favorite thing is, you really can touch people’s lives, even if it’s just for an hour. You can really create that energy and make them either not feel alone or make them feel happy for the first time all day, or week, VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 65

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month, whatever.” Here again, the relationships that exist within this bounded space are both positive and meaningful for participants and instructors.

Zumba as Catalyst and Instrument

Zumba as Catalyst On a personal level, Zumba both exerts influence over the participants and instructorsandactsasaninstrumentbywhichtheycanexercisetheirownphysicaland imaginativeagency.Statementsfromtheinterviewswithparticipantsandinstructors indicate that a reified Zumba exerts its own agency in changing participants’ lives, “moving” them physically, and prompting meanings and memories in their minds.

“It changed my life ever since I started,” said one participant, for example; “I started to do dance moves, I started to follow instructors, and I felt myself moving all over the place.” Two interviewees talked about “falling in love” with Zumba, and two spoke about how Zumba helped them to overcome depression. Another explained, “[I]t just takes one hour before I am happy. That’s it.” Other emotional effects included forgetting the troubles of the day and making one’s viewpoint more positive. Thus, Zumba seems to have the power to inspire positive emotions as well as alleviate negative ones.

Additionally, the music in particular affected participants physically.“It just gets me motivated to do something more”explained one participant,“[…] even though it hurts, it’s painful and you don’t want to do it, at least you have good music in the background.” Another participant agreed: “I like how the music plays out loud, because you will listen to your music when you’re working out, but when it’s playing out loud I feel like it gets you more into it.” For others, the music evoked sensation: “I mean, the music… it’s a lot of nice singing – like, fun singing – and the music just makes me want to move and take deep breaths… it’s just exhilarating, basically.

Like, every time you let it all out.” During the listening section of her interview, another participant exclaimed, “Just listening to this song is tiring me out!”

The music also prompted concepts and memories that the participants had associated with it. This prompting was obvious when I played the music during interviews and focus groups. I often found myself joining in with the participants as they danced and sang along. Some even expressed surprise at how many of the movements they were able to remember once the music began. I also observed that some of the participants who were confused when I asked what the songs and the dances meant to them came up with very interesting responses once they heard the music, using concepts such as “telepathic communication.” Most commonly, the meanings associated with the music were of a social nature. “It makes me think of so many things,” said one participant, “like… I think of my friends by my side doing 66 | The George Mason Review

Zumba with me.” In one of the focus groups, a group of friends expressed that the music made them think of each other. The music and movements of Zumba have a substantial degree of power over the experiences of those who engage with them in the studio and even outside of the studio. However, these individuals are also able to use Zumba as a tool in shaping those experiences for themselves.

Zumba as Instrument Within the physical and imaginative space that Zumba creates, participants and instructors are able to draw upon aspects of the activity and the social relationships embedded within it to achieve goals for themselves, generate meaningful interpretations, and reflect on the nature of Zumba itself. The instructors expressed value in their ability to motivate, help, and inspire the participants of their classes.

“It’s like you’re making a difference with something fun, with something you’re good at,” said one instructor. The participants spoke of meeting new friends, learning about new styles of music, gaining skill with certain styles of dance, losing weight, and achieving other physical fitness goals. “It’s crazy how much you take away from it educationally, as well as physically, you know?”one participant told me.

In addition to supporting the pursuit of goals, Zumba also creates an imaginative space in which participants can cultivate their own personal experiences. Often, the participants were able to engage with the lyrics and place themselves in conversation with the artists. Two participants’ comments about “Work” by Lil Jon demonstrate this point: 1) “In the middle, it’s Lil Jon saying, ‘You think you’re tired.’ I’m like, ‘Yes, I’m really tired;’” 2) “I like these kinds of songs, when they tell you [to work your body, etc.], because it’s just like, ‘All right, you know, you didn’t say please, but you’re still asking nicely.’” These conversations were possible even when the participants did not understand the lyrics: “Even though I can’t understand the lyrics, I can understand that, the way they sing, they want us to have a good time.

They want us to have a nice party. They just want us to be happy, that’s all.” These imagined conversations constituted positive experiences for these participants.

Still more images and concepts came to participants’ minds. One participant connected some of the songs and dance styles to her heritage in a way that was meaningful for her. Others imagined themselves at a party or social event. Another felt himself transported to another place by the song “Zumba” by Don Omar:

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I would say that’s an authentic Zumba song, because of the Latino words, the lyrics… you don’t understand the lyrics, but the upbeat tempo and the happy-sounding music, it feels like you’re actually in Latin America or something… it’s like you’re in that country instead of where you are…

Wherever – like Columbia or something. I think Columbia is the origin of Zumba® so… but yeah, that song makes you feel like you’re in a different place.

This quote not only demonstrates the imaginative space the music creates for participants; it also demonstrates the participants’ ability to reflect on and give meaning to various styles of music in relation to their own understandings of Zumba.

Like the participant quoted above, many were able to delineate boundaries between songs they felt were “authentic” or “belonged” in Zumba and songs that were “not Zumba.” These understandings were often independent of those of the instructors. One participant even had the interesting insight that the instructors have their own ways of making these distinctions in choosing the balance of styles in their classes: “So you have one class, like Laura’s, she does the straight up, like, it’s all Spanish, it’s very… you kinda have the trumpets, kind of the typical of what you would expect of kind of a Spanish/Hispanic kind of a song, but then I go to other classes, and their definition is like, you know[...] Pitbull, Shakira, you know, like these mainstream artists.” That the participants are able to delineate boundaries between “Zumba” and “not Zumba” supports the point that Zumba® in this local context is mutually constituted by a variety of actors rather than flowing unaltered and unquestioned from the corporate level to the individual level. However, this does not mean Zumba®’s global status does not influence its manifestation in the local context. I will explore this interaction in the following section.

The Glocalization of Zumba® I would now like to complicate the schema I have thus far laid out in this paper. While it may be easy or even useful to delineate boundaries between the “globalized” form of Zumba® and the “localized” form, inevitably some features traverse those boundaries. For example, there is reason to believe that the high percentage of female participants in this local context is not the only factor contributing to the status of maleness as a marked category in the Zumba® classes.

For example, consider the following quote from the Sunday Telegraph in Australia, in which the word “men” is physically separated from the rest of the sentence and acts as an afterthought: “[Zumba®] incorporates hip-hop, samba, salsa, merengue, mambo, martial arts and even some Bollywood and belly dance moves for a full68 | The George Mason Review

body workout that millions of women (and men) all over the world swear by” (Zell and Conville 2012:30). Additionally, gendered Zumba®-targeted songs like “Work” by Lil Jon reach and are created for a wider range of audiences than the participants of George Mason’s Zumba® classes. The gender dynamic thus is not limited to the local context of George Mason.

Neither is the nature of the roles and choices of the instructors limited to this context. Indeed, their mediator position is part of the structure of the phenomenon.

Additionally, the choreography they choose often comes from videos posted on an online global network, described by some instructors as the “Zumba community,” so choreography used in a local class could come from an individual across the globe, even if it is modified by the instructor teaching that class in accordance with his or her own stylistic preferences. Moreover, the instructors are affected not only by their local clientele, but also by the decisions and policies of Zumba Fitness, LLC. Especially in the case of using hip-hop, some instructors indicated that there is a fine line between tailoring to the desires of the clientele and“over hip-hopping” after the lifting of the “70/30 Rule.” One instructor told me that members of the “Zumba community” debate about the use of hip hop, further explaining that the music choices of instructors can set popular precedents and expectations that can create difficulties for instructors who make difference choices.

These difficulties likely relate to the branding of Zumba® and its status relative to other fitness programs. This same instructor told me when I asked her why many in the “Zumba community” were upset about “over hip-hopping”: There are so many different fitness programs out there… honestly, they’re just not as popular. There’s like eight different types of hip-hop style fitness classes, all called something different. […] So what Zumba® really sets apart is its Latin roots, is its different flavor, all these different components of different cultures coming in, and now I think people are afraid of losing that.

Thus the choices instructors make as mediators are touched not only by their perceptions of participants’ preferences and the policies of the corporation, but also by the ideas and opinions of instructors around the world and the broader context of fitness programs and corporate branding.

Finally, there is evidence in the data that some of the meanings the participants find in the classes at George Mason are aligned with corporate discourses. The most apparent is the concept of the “party.”This term was used in the commentary of the instructors during the classes and in the imaginings of the participants. Additionally, VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 69

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the worldwide popularity of Zumba® was meaningful for one participant, who told me, “I think about how it’s like this worldwide thing sometimes. Sometimes when I’m doing[...] the routines, I just kinda zone out, and I’ll just be like, ‘There’s so many people in the world that do Zumba.’ It’s like being a part of something that’s a huge kind of global thing. Being part of something bigger, you know?” Thus it seems that even the personal meanings individual participants give to the activity of Zumba® can be intimately related to the globalized nature of the phenomenon.

For the reasons discussed here, the simultaneity and interconnectedness of the processes of “globalization” and “localization” makes “glocalization” an appropriate term for the phenomenon of Zumba®. Just as this process can be complex and messy, so can the issue of its social consequences. It is neither my purpose nor within the scope of this research to determine the costs and benefits of the widespread popularity of a fitness program that 1) draws upon and fuses a multiplicity of cultural forms, and 2) is identified in the popular imagination with a particular part of the world. A review of some of the relevant literature can shed some light on the complexities of these questions.

Daniel Party, for instance, writes about Latin American musicians and styles who travelled to Miami, Florida and adopted its characteristics in a process he calls “Miamization,” defined as “a process of change including Americanization and the adoption of a particular Latino quality that is unique to the city of Miami”(2008:69).

He assumes “a ‘glocal’ approach to cultural production,” recognizing processes of hybridization in this local context (2008:76). When the products of some of these changes reach the artist’s or style’s country of origin, he reports, they can be met with negative responses (Party 2008:75). In the instance of Zumba®, whose figurehead brought his ideas from Colombia to Miami “in search of the American Dream,” (Perez 2012), what might be some of the responses of those living in his home country or in other places in Latin America and the Caribbean with which the core styles of Zumba® and even its branding are popularly associated?

A study conducted by Bock and Borland of belly dancing among white women in Central Ohio and the salsa dance scene in culturally diverse Northern New Jersey suggests that engaging with styles in a process they refer to as the embodiment of the “Other” can sometimes have implications for the peoples with which these styles are associated (2011:27–28). However, they assert that unlike the cases they studied,“North American fitness programs have successfully incorporated a number of ‘exotic’ practices—karate, yoga, and, most recently zumba… These borrowed practices are refigured to such a degree that participants from the donor cultures may find them unrecognizable” (2011:26). When the features of these dance styles are “disembodied” from the music styles and social contexts within which they are 70 | The George Mason Review

typically embedded and are subsequently mixed together in choreography, can it be said that they represent the traditions with which they are associated? More importantly, is it possible that they are so disconnected from their original cultural contexts that it no longer matters that they are associated with a group of people?

The purpose of asking these questions is not to arrive at an answer, and doing so does not exhaust the list of issues that are important to consider. Rather, I wish to demonstrate that the ramifications of Zumba® for the peoples associated with the styles it draws upon are both complicated and far from being understood. This is something that begs for further investigation, given the widespread popularity of Zumba® not only in the United States but also in many places around the world.

Conclusion Zumba®issubjecttoprocessesofglobalizationandlocalizationwhosesimultaneity make this a “glocal” phenomenon that intertwines the choices and experiences of Zumba® instructors and participants with those of other people around the world.

The global aspirations of the corporation Zumba Fitness, LLC have largely been realized allowing its product, the Zumba® fitness program, to affect people around theworldphysically,emotionally,andeconomically.Thecorporationhasalsobecome a major player in the marketing and dissemination of new music by artists whose styles are popular in Zumba® classes. At the same time, there is still a wide variety of styles available for instructors to choose from and to choreograph by piecing together dance styles, ideas from other instructors, and their own stylistic preferences. These instructors act as gatekeepers, making choices that are influenced by a number of different factors, including the policies of the corporation, the demographics and preferences of the “clientele,” and the local context. All of these factors shape the experiences of the participants in the classes in important ways.

This importance is due in part to the agency of Zumba® as a reified and abstract form, a concept evident in the discourses of the corporation itself. The corporation’s website invites participants to “let it move” them and instructors to use it to “move the world” (Zumba Fitness 2014). The choices instructors make expose the participants to new music and styles of dance and enable the music to exert its emotional, psychological, and physical power over the participants as it motivates them and prompts memories and meanings associated with the songs.

At the same time, instructors and participants can use music and movement to influence others through the transmission of energy, develop stylistic preferences, achieve goals for themselves, cultivate their own meaningful experiences, and reflect upon the relationships of musics and people to one another in relation to the activity of Zumba®.

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Thus, the agency of Zumba® is important for the experiences of instructors and participants at George Mason University, but so is agency with Zumba®. Agency with Zumba® can be used to a variety of different ends, including cultivating a sense of personal and/or group belonging within the separate, gendered space of the Zumba® class. However, the agency of participants and instructors is not unbounded, and it interacts with broader structural and sociocultural features such as the instructor’s mediator role, gendered marketing and discourse, and branding meant to distinguish Zumba® from other fitness programs in the public arena.

Thus the intensely personal meanings associated with the“localization”of Zumba® are intimately related to the “globalized” Zumba® form through processes of glocalization.

To consider Zumba® a “glocal” form is also to raise many important questions.

What might be the responses of people living in regions that Zumba® and the dance styles it uses are said to be “from”? What happens to those styles when they are decontextualized and mixed together to the point of being almost unrecognizable without verbal cues from the instructors? What are some of the ramifications of this activity for those associating these styles through heritage or residency? These questions are both interesting and complex, and it is my opinion that they warrant much more research into the phenomenon of Zumba®.

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Indian English Literary Criticism, Indian Realism...

Indian English Literary Criticism, Indian Realism, and Indian Poetics

Ankur Bhatia Major: English and Information Technology Class of 2016

About the work India is my birthplace and original home. Growing up in America, I would often listen to Indian stories told by my parents. I would be mesmerized by the stories I saw unfold in the Bollywood movies I watched. I was overwhelmed by the wisdom and creativity of the mythological stories of my religion. I want to share my culture with the world.

When I began writing this paper, I sought to discover the influence of Indian literature upon the world. Instead, I found an ongoing debate about whether the literature written in English coming from India should be regarded as literature in the eyes of the western world, or Europe and North America. I also gained insight on how realism is incorporated in Indian literature. And finally, I opened the doors of knowledge and found the complex field of Indian Poetics. In writing this paper I sought to explain the ongoing debate, introduce the thoughts on realism, and enlighten my audience on the theories of the rasa and dhvani.

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Introduction Literarytheoryandliterarycriticismencompassmanydifferentschoolsofthought and forms of criticism. As Indian poet and professor Mukarand Paranjape puts it: Literature is no longer confined to poems, novels, short stories, and plays, but also extends to embrace the critical and intellectual activity of a civilization in several fields of scholarship, including political theory, philosophy, sociology, and religion...The critics of today are examining not only literary texts but history, politics, sociology, and psychology in an attempt to come up with a better, fuller understanding of contemporary reality .” (Paranjape 1050) The various schools of thought and forms of criticism can be applied to the study of Indian Literature, including English and vernacular Indian literary works, and the theories and criticism of Indian scholars. Constructing an understanding of these ideologies involves an in-depth analysis of the history of literary theory in India and the evolution of all the forms, studies, and philosophies throughout the ancient, colonial, and postcolonial past works to the present.

When studying the works of a specific culture, it is important to note their influence in Western literary theories, similarities and differences with Western theories, and their worth in Western academics. In my assessment of the terrain of literary theories and critiques of the West but pertaining to India, I found the definition of Indian English Literature and its functions, the question of Realism in Indian Literature, and the theories of dhvani and rasa in Indian Poetics to be influential and prominent.

Indian English Literary Criticism Indian Literature includes the writings originally published in India in any of the myriad of languages prevalent in the subcontinent, including English. A concern of literary theorists and critics across the world is the growth of works written in English, known in this case as Indian English Literature (IEL), which seem to be overtaking the vernacular literary markets in India as well as others around the globe. IEL has “made substantial inroads into the international English literary marketplace” (Paranjape 1049). One of the concerns involves whether these writings should be categorized within the same group of works written in English by authors in Western markets, or as a part of the works which come from India specifically. Since they are written in English, the works can be included in conversations of Western academics on English literature, but since they originate VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 75

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from India, they can also be excluded on the grounds of not being part of the discourse of the Western world. Paranjape argues that the “[IEL] debate is not just about a literature or a language but about the very identity of modern India.

It is a debate about who [India was], who [India is], and who [India wants] to be” (Paranjape 1049). He implies that Indians are writing in English in order to be regarded as intellectuals on the same scale as the writers of the West: Indian English literature is a contest over the nature, identity and ultimately destiny of modern India. … But the real challenge the writers of today face is the enforced homogenization and standardization of culture due to globalization and the new, easy and superficial internationalism which tempts Indian English writers to market themselves abroad. (Paranjape 1049) Paranjape argues that Indian writers are trying to live up to an expectation of what Indian writings should be, and are thus commercializing their works to appeal to an international appetite. Not only are Indians are trying to be recognized by the West according to Western standards of Western literature but also Western standards of Indian Literature. However, the classification of IEL is questionable because it does not originate from Indian philosophies and standards so it is not purely Indian, but since it is written in English to the standards of passable Western literature, it can be thought of as literature. Thus, Indian works done in the other languages could be considered Indian Literature, but not IEL and therefore not on the same platform of intellectual recognition or discourse as Western Literature.

Critics of the debate argue that all literary works from India should be included in academic discourse not as literature from India, but as literature on the same ranks as those works coming from Europe. According to English Professor John Oliver Perry, “English-reading critics of India’s many literatures” have a “mythic notion of often forgotten or misrepresented Indian traditions of thought.” Indian literature, drama, music, dance, medicine, fashion, and societal structure all have explanations and theories originating from or tied to religion and spiritual significance. Indian Literature is often viewed as magical due to the presence of spirituality and religious connections which pervade Indian culture. Critics argue that Indian Literature should not be discredited as mythical, pagan, or exotic because it offers theories and philosophies which are on par with or even ahead of modern intellectual discourse. Post-Colonial literary critic C. D. Narasimhaiah notes that, “Indians have for over a century and a half used English in speech and writing with such conspicuous ability and that as scholars we should try and understand the nature of that achievement, and if the term achievement irritates 76 | The George Mason Review

some, I shall say, effort” (Paranjape 1049). In order to be recognized as a literary presence in the intellectual discourse of the world, Indians need to re-define themselves by clarifying their literary history; they must not try to define Indian literary theories, but understand their evolution in order to continue the discourse of the world (Paranjape 1049). By identifying their own literary contributions and significance, Indian writers will be able to write on a scale that does not seek to imitate Western standards, but which will expand upon their traditional theories and innovate Western standards. Only then will Indian Literature be regarded equally in Western academia.

While I do think it is important for Indians to map out their literary history to better understand their work and goals in criticism, a concern that I have with these suggestions is that in trying so hard to be accepted by the West, Indian writers, theorists, and critics are giving the West too much power to accept or reject them.

If Indians were to recognize themselves as equally important to the academic discourse of the world, then instead of striving to gain recognition, they would be truly pursuing the art of literature. Thus, the intention to clarify their literary history should not be to prove Indians as worthy of the West, but to recognize their own achievements, understand the influence they have had on the world, and continue to pursue literary innovations out of the pure love of literature.

Indian Realism Another debate in the study of Indian Literature is over the realism of literary works. B.V. Srinivasacharyulu, who translates Telugu works into English, states, “Indian literature has been more on the side of the romantic and exaggerated representation of things, rather than on a truthful and realistic portrayal.” Indians love their stories, which are filled with over the top melodrama, often impossible feats of action, and miracles arising from their need to unify spirituality with art; just take a look at their heroes on the silver screen. Such a thing would not pass in the Western world, where the logic of a story is scrutinized and examined with utmost care. Srinivasacharyulu explains that Indians, “deal mostly with Pragmatic reality (Vyavaharikasatya) in literature, except in the case of fantasies and fairy tales, where the reality is illusory (pratibhasikasatya). But this pragmatic reality of the world perceived by each one of us may not be exactly the same and identical.”

Therefore, in Indian literature, one can distort reality, play with the laws of physics, and allow impossible events to occur within the reality of the story. Despite the criticism it receives and the flaws in the stories it creates, Indian literature would not be Indian literature if it did not have its distorted reality. I believe that instead of trying to conform to Western standards of realism, Indian Literature should VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 77

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continue to uphold its standards of realism because by distorting the realities, Indian Literature reveals the ideologies of our own reality and challenges them.

Indian Poetics Poetics refers to literary theory and criticism themselves, therefore Indian Poetics are the literary theories which Indian writers use. Literary theory and criticism evolved in India out of their understanding of Sanskrit grammar. As Indian studies Professor Patrick Colm Hogan explains, “Generative grammar was first developed in India by the Sanskrit grammarians, preeminently Panini, in the fifth century B.C.E.” After establishing the linguistic theories, “Sanskrit theorists developed an elaborate theory of poetics which was closely allied with linguistic study” (Hogan 165). Sanskrit theorists emphasized the importance of the connection between the linguistic aspects of a word and the application of those aspects in the meaning of that word. For example: [the] Sanskrit word for literature is Sahitya, which etymologically means coordination, balance, concord, and contact. Following one of these several meanings, literature is defined by one school of Indian poetics as the art where the words and sense meet on equal terms and enhance one another’s beauty and worth. (Chaudhury 197) Words did not just mean their literal definitions, but also carried the meanings of the morphemes (the smallest meaningful unit of a language) used to make them.

Based on this grammar system, Sanskrit theorists were able to define literature.

Indian Poetics used the term “literature” to encompass all literary works, poetry and prose, which balanced the use of words and meanings in a way which amplified the beauty of each word. Indian theorists believed that the meaning in general was communicated through the use of the sphota. The sphota is “the power which signifies the meaning of sentences and phrases. The complete idea of a sentence or phrase cannot be obtained until the final word is uttered. Thus, the final word, together with the impressions of the previous words of the sentence, reveals the sphota.” (Rustomji 78). The theorists believed that all the sounds used to communicate a meaning through a word or phrase had to be expressed in order for the listener to put all the sounds together and fully understand the meaning.

They stressed the importance of uttering each syllable because, as exemplified earlier, each syllable itself carried a particular meaning used to enhance and define the meaning of the word.

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After the basis of Sanskrit grammar, linguistics, and poetics was established, philosophers Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta expanded the theories of Indian Poetics. “Anandavardhana sought to develop and systematize previous ideas in Sanskrit theory in order to provide an adequate description of poetic effect.

Abhinavagupta took Anandavardhana’s descriptive ideas and sought to provide an explanatory framework for them” (Hogan 166). Anandavardhana expanded the theory of rasa and Abhinavagupta proved that rasa was the true signifier of a poem: Some aestheticians held figures of speech to be the essential mark of poetry, somemoregenerally,indirectionofspeech,whileothersheldappropriateness in the use of words to be the mark. But the theory of rasa, as developed by Abhinavagupta out of the germinal ideas of Bharata and in the light of the theory of suggestion first advanced by Anandabardhan, superseded these earlier notions of poetry and showed that the figures and in-direction of speech and appropriateness have for their end the production of rasa or aesthetic delight, which, therefore, is the supreme mark of poetry. (Chaudhury) Poems were believed to be written in order to express rasa. Rasa was the meaning the poet wished to convey using the tools of speech and figurative language.

AbhinavaguptabuiltuponAnandavardhana’sexpansionofthetheoryofsuggestion, and established the theory of rasa as the all-encompassing and ultimate theory of Indian poetry which integrated the theories of suggestion, meaning, linguistics and grammar previously explored by Sanskrit theorists and applied them all to explain the science, function, and effects of poetry.

Dhvani and Rasa The theory of rasa is one of the single most defining aspects of Indian Poetics.

“According to the dhvani/ rasa school of poetics which has dominated Sanskrit criticism since the ninth century A.D., the soul of poetry is rasa, a sentiment or the essence of an emotion, and this is communicated through dhvani, suggestion or nuance” (Rustomji 75). Anandavardhana combined “two strains of Sanskrit poetics, developing them into a unified theory of aesthetic response, in part, based on the concept of dhvani or ‘suggestion’” (Hogan 167). Anandavardhana built upon the theory of dhvani, which was essentially the theory that one could use a word or work to implicitly state a message. Anandavardhana expanded this idea and hypothesized that dhvani could be used to suggest rasa, the aesthetic response and true intended meaning of the poem.

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The theory of dhvani arose from a school of Indian Poetics: One of the most prominent of the several Hindu schools of literary aesthetic theory is that known as the dhvani school. It teaches that all literary art of the first rank contains dhvani-”tone, resonance, reverberation”-which is something that is not directly said in words, but indirectly suggested; and this “unsaid” meaning always (in first-class poetry) constitutes the prime source of aesthetic appeal. (Edgerton) Dhvani is the unspoken suggestion resonated by a poem in order to communicate a specific aesthetic response, or rasa. As American linguistic scholar Franklin Edgerton explains, “The dhvani-suggesting element may be a word, a sentence, paragraph, or stanza, a longer passage, or an entire composition.” Therefore, a whole poem could be suggesting a certain aesthetic response from the audience or using dhvani to transcend a rasa. Edgerton notes “that they always could be said in plain words: the artist refrains from saying them not because they are “ineffable,” but because he can impress them on the reader more powerfully by not saying them”. Neither an emotion nor a thought, but both, the rasa is a psychic feeling the audience experiences when engrossed in the literary work.

The best description I have of a rasa is the feeling of adventure and excitement I get from watching a film where the protagonist is on a quest for treasure on an island; I do not feel like going to some island and exploring a random jungle, but rather I feel like the adventurous and daring part of me has been triggered, just by watching the hero. The Sanskrit theorists would describe the experience I had from watching the film as me experiencing the rasa of heroism from the dhvani of the film, which was created by the scenario, action, plot, setting, and literary devices such as tone, diction, and metaphor. The film was constructed to resonate the dhvani, or suggestion, of the rasa of heroism which encompassed the emotions of excitement and adventure.The adventurous energy that was triggered within me was therefore the poetic delight, or rasa, which I experienced from observing the emotions of excitement, fear, and hope of the hero in the certain scenarios he was engaged in, which in turn themselves suggested certain emotions that added to the resonance I was sensing.

There is an exact science behind how the dhvani and rasa work. Abhinavagupta explains that “the semantic dhvani” is not explicitly brought to consciousness” but that “the literary work activates traces in the mind of the reader, but does not bring them into consciousness” (Hogan 171). That is how I was able to feel the rasa of heroism, because the rasa was triggered in my consciousness.

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Once these traces are activated, the associated emotions seep into consciousness (again, not as ideas, but directly as feelings). The experience of the rasa of a literary work is precisely the experience of these feelings.

More exactly, developing Abhinavagupta’s ideas, we may say that all speech involves the activation of traces, the consequent seeping of affect, etc.

(Hogan 171) In the aforementioned adventurous film, the work was resonating the dhvani through the plot, scenarios, etc. to suggest the rasa of heroism, thus activating the traces of my mind associated with adventure, action, adrenaline. When the activated traces triggered my memories of past adventures and consecutively made me think of going on a trip, the associated culminating emotions I felt were the rasa.

As stated earlier, rasa is neither emotion nor thought, so the emotion I was feeling was neither the real emotion I felt when the memory actually took place, nor what I would exactly feel if I were truly on a trip, but the emotion my conscious pumped into my body in reaction to the situation of the character. Despite originating from the scenario of the character and the traces triggered within me, the feeling I was experiencing was not attached specifically to any one of them. “Through literature, we experience a version of the effect removed from its direct link with any particular (egocentric) representation in memory, and thus at least partially removed from self-interest” (Hogan 172). For example, when reading horror; we feel the character’s fear but don’t actually run away from the book in reality. This is the same as watching a character lose a loved one; we feel compassion for the character but that does not mean we feel the actual pain associated with this grief.

“In this way, rasa may be re-defined as emotion isolated from such self-interest and may even be compared, in Abhinavagupta’s view, with the experience of religious enlightenment or moksa, where such self-interest is entirely extinguished ”(Hogan 172).

Although my memories of past adventures and fantasies of going on a trip were rooted in self-interest, I was not seriously emotionally invested in them because since they were not actually happening, I was not actually in control of the outcome of the situations. It is also because of this detached attitude that we are able to be captivated by works which may trigger emotions of fear, anger, sadness, or disgust.

It is “[aesthetic] distance which allows the poet to recreate and his audience to enjoy even the most painful of emotions without feeling personally threatened by them” (Rustomji 86).

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dominant rasa. This is not to say that other rasas could not enter; they not only could, but must. However, any additional rasas must function to further the dominant rasa” (Hogan 167). This explains why one piece of literature is able to evoke experience different emotions, but emphasizes only one theme or sets a specific mood throughout the work. Applying these theories to the analysis of modern literature and poetry, one can argue that there is a dominant rasa within every literary work. Also, if a literary work does not contain one of the eight rasas (love, comedy, horror, fury, compassion, disgust, the heroic mood, and wonder) outlined by the Sanskrit theorists, then according to the same theorists, it should not be considered a literary work because it lacks a soul.

Indian Poetics in Western Literary Theory and Criticism Examining the research and theories of modern literary critics and scholars, one can find evidence of similar theories to those of the rasa and dhvani prevalent in western academia: That ideas comparable to that of dhvani exist in the west is undeniable.

Among writers on poetics, one of those who comes closest to it seems to be Lascelles Abercrombie, who in his Theory of Poetry says that if we are to have an unusual degree of meaning in poetic language, it must be by means of its indirect or, as we say, its suggestive powers. (Edgerton 691) Abercrombie describes the ‘suggestive powers’ of poetry but what exactly is being suggested seems to remain a mystery. It seems as if the Western schools of thought also recognize an indescribable aspect of poetry, but do not, or rather cannot, define it as the Indian theorists have with rasa and dhvani. The unusual ‘meaning’ of a poem, which is communicated by‘indirect’means through suggestion, and the experience of‘rasa’, communicated by the dhvani suggesting it, are both correlated terms of separate literary theories which expose a strange phenomenon present in poetry. Theorized as the ‘meaning’ or ‘rasa’, this phenomenon is the feeling or experience a reader witnesses when they read or hear a poem, or in general are engaged in any form or literature, be it prose, drama, or poetry.

The fact that this unexplainable and often ‘unsaid’ aspect of poetry appears in two separate theories indicates that there may be a need to research the psychological reactions to poetry and literary works in order to define and properly categorize this sensation one feels is emitted from the essence of poetry itself. While Abercrombie defines the sensation as a meaning behind the poem which cannot be put into words, the Indian poetics theorized rasa and dhvani to be the mechanisms 82 | The George Mason Review

to communicate it.“That poetry works by suggestion has been noted by Shelley, A. C. Bradley, and I. A. Richards but the Indian aestheticians have studied at length the way this suggestion works” (Chaudhury 202). The fact that many Western theorists recognize that this element of poetry exists not only builds the case for dhvani and rasa, but validates the notion of an inexplicable force contingent in a poem which is somehow communicated to the audience.

The theories of dhvani and rasa have also been used as a lens to analyze Western literature. For example, “[it] has often been pointed out that Homer never describes Helen’s beauty. He suggests it by dhvani, as in the celebrated passage in which the Trojan elders, seeing Helen, say to each other that such beauty was worth all the trouble it had caused” (Edgerton 694). Edgerton tries to explain that the effect of Homer omitting a detailed description of Helen is equivalent to dhvani because the suggestion that Helen was so beautiful that by trying to describe her beauty, Homer would not only not do her justice, but actually insult her. It was better left unsaid.

Conclusion I have attempted to analyze and present various theories and critiques regarding Indian Literature. While I recognize I may not have been able to cover everything on the subject, I have focused on the issues, concepts, and theories which I found significant in their contribution to the modern discourse of Literature in India. My focus was therefore on the definition of Indian English Literature, Indian Realism, and Indian Poetics. In summary, critics and theorists are concerned with the rise of Indian English Literature in respect to how it commercialize Indians and how they can establish a place in Western academia. The study of Indian Realism is an examination of the exaggeration apparent in Indian Literature. Indian Poetics emerged as Sanskrit theorists defined grammar, linguistics, and researched the theory of the dhvani and rasa. While India, the largest democracy on Earth, is still struggling to be recognized among the West as an intellectual contributor to the discourse of literature, it has developed one of the most advanced theories of poetics, which is far ahead of any Western conception of the phenomenon the Sanskrit theorists discovered.

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Cognitive Rhetoric Method...

Cognitive Rhetoric Method: Decision and Problem-solving in the Mind of the Writer

Introduction: Inside the Writer’s Mind The premise to effectively use words to convince through both human creativity and skill is rhetoric. At its most basic form, rhetoric refers to the art of persuasion.

Scholars as well as rhetoricians, when approaching the field of writing and rhetoric, look to the art of oratory persuasion as a means to explore communication through rhetorical analysis, to search for a deeper meaning. Cognitive rhetoric explores the concept that a writer makes certain decisions when experiencing the writing process.

Tiffany Denham Major: English Class of 2016

History of Cognitive Rhetoric Thinking is the first step that leads to writing. One comes up with an idea then develops the idea and writes it down. During the writing process, an individual makes certain decisions that influence what is being written down. A writer’s mind goes through a thinking process that is believed by cognitivists to be separate from language within the mind. “The human cognitive structure has regularities and limitations that shape how natural language can be produced and comprehended” (Eiselt et al., 1999, p. 28). Cognitivists are more concerned with how the things that are written down are developed within the mind alongside how the mind function works.

“Attempts to understand the mind and its operation go back at least to the Ancient Greeks, when philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle tried to explain the nature of human knowledge” (Thagard, 2014). The fascination with the human mind and its operation led to the development of the psychological concept of cognitive science in the 1950s. George Miller expounded what human thinking is, while John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, and Herbert Simon founded the artificial intelligence field, and Noam Chomsky explained that language comprehension comprised of mental grammatical rules (Thagard, 2014). These six individuals expanded on their understandings and research, and can be known as the founders of cognitive science. This field of science offered a foundation for the method of cognitive rhetoric.

The theory of cognitive rhetoric approaches the field of rhetoric as a means to study the thinking process writers go through as they plot, write, and edit their works, as well as analyze various problem-solving strategies the writers apply as they develop their writings. This type of rhetoric encourages an understanding about how authors construct meaning and persuasion as they read and write. A writer makes multiple decisions during the process, so cognitivists want to understand how and why a writer makes the decisions he or she does. Certain factors influence writers as they compose pieces and put ideas together to form coherent thoughts in a written form.

About the work Cognitive rhetoric is an approach to analyzing text through the mindset of the writer based on the psychological understanding of cognition, the mental process of gaining information, and knowledge through mental and physical experience.The cognitive rhetoric method developed from the concept of cognitive science, and the study of the human mind and its operations with a focus on writing. This paper explores the area of cognitive rhetoric through three parts: an explanation of cognitive rhetoric through the background and history of the method, a description of the application of the method, and a discussion of the practical application for me as a writer. This method connects to my analysis ability as an English Major at George Mason University. I have to deeply analyze multiple texts throughout my time at Mason, and the method of cognitive rhetoric, understanding an author’s mental process and why he or she makes certain choices when writing, will help me with analyzing texts to find a deeper meaning.

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“Cognitive rhetoricians believed that there were three elements involved in composing: the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing processes that go into the writer’s mind” (Cognitive Rhetoric). The task environment is the environment around the author that influences and affects the writer’s ability to achieve his or her goal such as where the author chooses to write.

A loud common room crowded with noisy gossiping students and a quiet library with few people can impact the author’s writing either negatively or positively.

The writer’s long-term memory refers to the long-time storage of information that includes facts, knowledge, experiences, and memories that can inspire a writer to write. The writing process is the operational procedure a writer goes through before, during, and after writing.

“There were also three elements involved in completing the writing process: the planning stage, the translating stage, and the reviewing stage”(Cognitive Rhetoric).

The planning stage is the point in which the writer maps out what he or she would want to write about. This includes various brainstorming methods from simple lists to intricate webs. The outlines during the prewriting stage help the writer to free write ideas without concentrating on form and structure. The translating stage is turning the outlined thoughts and ideas into words and sentences. This is basically the drafting stage when the writer turns simple ideas into coherent and complete thoughts. The final stage is the reviewing stage where the writer goes over his or her writing and begins to revise and edit. When one writes, new ideas come to mind, so the writer, while editing for a final draft and presentation, can add and make multiple changes. A writer’s mind is in constant motion as he or she is exposed to other forms of everyday language, such as conversations and multiple written texts in digital or physical forms.

Even though most believe there is no interesting link between the fields of rhetoric and cognitive science, “there is an area of overlapping concern for both rhetoricians and cognitive scientists, and that area is language” (Fahnestock, 2005, p. 160). Rhetoricians use language to persuade and connect to their audience while cognitive scientists use language as a means to understand the human mind and thinking process.“At the same time, cognitivists, and especially the neuroscientists, would be right to insist that elements of rhetorical stylistics correspond to what they already know with some confidence about how language is processed in the brain” (Fahnestock, 2005, p. 164). The brain picks up various changes and differences in sound and words that can be singled out. “Ultimately an understanding of the brain should lead to a better understanding of language, of persuasion, and hence of the complexbehaviorsandhistoricalprocesses, mediated by language, that rhetoricians study” (Fahnestock, 2005, p. 161). Cognitive rhetoric allows the audience to dig 86 | The George Mason Review

deeper into the meaning behind the text to comprehend the processes of the writer by understanding the mind and decision-making of the writer.

Application of the Cognitive Method Cognition is all about the human mind and how it works. Most thoughts remain private within the mind of the writer as he or she writes. People can observe thinking directly taking place through physical facial expression or thinking aloud through open brainstorming discussions, but “...the contents of the thought processes still remain private” (Kellogg, 1999, p. 10). Sometimes thoughts are goal-oriented like performing an assigned task, while other times thoughts drift and wander, as with daydreaming and dreaming. Ronald Kellogg in his book The Psychology of Writing states (1999), “Thinking involves a set of mental skill that create, manipulate, and communicate to others the personal symbols of mental life” (p. 10). Ideas are created, molded and manipulated to become words, and those words in turn are put into text to communicate to a wider audience. The psychology and science behind cognition led a few people in the 1990s to research a newly developing aspect to rhetoric, cognitive rhetoric.

Mark Turner, Director of the Cognitive Science Network and a member and president of various cognitive related institutes, became a renowned scholar researching cognitive rhetoric. He connects in his book, The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science, the method of cognitive rhetoric to literary criticism.Turner explains that (1991), “cognitive rhetoric must be extrinsic to literary criticism” (p.

148). This means that the method of cognitive rhetoric is not an essential part of literary criticism, but works with the literary analysis as a whole to gain a new perspective of the text by gaining insight into the mind of the writer. Because most of a person’s thoughts remain unsaid within the mind and not verbally stated out loud, it is difficult to establish a meaning based on the connection between writer and audience. The audience through critical literary analysis can develop meaning based only on the diction and other syntax choices, but “[t]he study of literature must live within the study of language, and the study of language within the study of the everyday mind” (Turner, 1991, p. 4), linking back to understanding rhetorical analysis based on the level of cognition.

For Turner, cognitive rhetoric refers to “case studies explaining individual works and elucidating in the process three levels on which cognitive studies form the ground of criticism” (1991, p. 239). His levels consist of the level of individual phrases, the level of individual expression, and an overarching level that is made up of two sub levels. One sublevel is the level “at which a literary work is inspired and informed globally by a controlling conceptual connection” (Turner, 1991, p. 149) VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 87

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and the other is the level of“genre study: the project of grouping literary works into kinds and analyzing the nature of the connections between them” (Turner, 1991, p. 150). Turner connected the research findings of cognitive scientists to his own study of literary criticism.

The level of individual phrases refers to phrases taken from various literary works that can stand alone and have a connection to mental concepts. Many authors write sentences that include thematic ideas that reflect their mental processes. MarkTurner in his book, Reading Minds, provides two sentences that demonstrate this concept: “Examples of this would be Donne’s ‘Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom / which brings a taper to the outward room,’ Marlowe’s ‘And what are kings when regiment is gone / But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?’ and Thoreau’s ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together’” (Turner, 1991, p. 149).

These sentences have a deeper meaning hidden within the language that can be analyzed as a stand-alone concept of written decisions. Understanding the processes behind the writer’s literary decisions allows a meaning to be formed in the relation with mental ideas and concepts located within literary texts. Each individual phrases can be criticized and analyzed based on the problems presented in each phrase, such as Thoreau’s phrase that addresses the idea the human strive toward futile goals based on the concept of luck The level of the individual expression connects back to language. Each person has slight speech, word, and other language variations that can be analyzed within a text. A person writes the way they talk, reflecting the thinking and mind processes and writer experiences as they write. This level becomes “sensitive to phrasing in language and to other local phenomena of language” (Turner, 1991, p. 149). Literary texts are full of language variations from multiple cultures and multiple time periods, and understanding the mental processes can lead to a better understanding of language.

The overarching level of literary criticism in made up of two sublevels. One sublevel is about how literary works are inspired by conceptual connections.

“Examples would be the connection between a journey and self-discovery in The Odyssey or between conversational wit and sex in Much Ado about Nothing”(Turner, 1991, p. 149). One could make a conceptual connection based on an analogical standpoint as well as taking“subcategories of some higher category”(Turner, 1991, p. 149) apparent in the text. Literature can be analyzed based on the concepts within the text of the works as well as the groups or genre studies the works are 88 | The George Mason Review

placed in allowing the audience to see connections between grouped works.

Mark Turner’s four levels establish a connection between literary analysis and cognitive science through the aspect of rhetoric. The audience can make deeper connection and meanings by understanding how the levels link to the writing and thinking process in the human mind. Most thoughts remain private, locked behind the wall of the writer’s mind. Cognitive rhetoric enables the reader and audience to slip through a barrier and connect on a new level.

Personal Practical Application of the Cognitive Method Being an English major at George Mason University, the skill to analyze and criticize texts is a necessity. Mark Turner uses cognitive rhetoric to explain and expand the use of literary criticism. Such criticism analyzes literary choices rather than evaluating an author’s personal process to make those preferences alongside the selections themselves. When considering both together, I can gain a better understanding of the analysis of various texts. I can consider different aspects of the texts through the mindset of the authors, what they thought and decided as they wrote. “To ask about the meaning of something (whether it be an experience, a word, a sentence, a story, or a theory) is to ask about our understanding of it. In short a theory of meaning is a theory of how we understand things (of whatever sort)” (Johnson, 1987, p. 190). Cognitive rhetoric will help me analyze and connect to texts and readings on a level of new understanding.

One way to gain a deeper understanding of my own cognitive rhetoric process is to analyze multiple works from various authors in order to gain insights about other processes. How does one write what he or she has written and why has he or she made those literary decisions are the two main questions I ask myself every time I analyze a paper to create a more deeper connection between myself, the piece, and the author. By understanding the mental process behind the decision making of the author, I can gain a better perception of a piece and strive to clarify any misunderstandings or confusions I am left with after reading a piece. Looking at a text, I can connect the author’s mental journey through his or her writing to my own personal writing journey of analyzing, understanding, and composing.

Writing is a mental and physical process that involves time. It takes an intellectual understanding of emotion and logic to formulate coherent thoughts in a textual form. Throughout my time at George Mason University, I have been exposed to multiple differing genres of writings from creative pieces, both fiction and nonfiction, prose and poetry, to academic papers from various disciplines and fields of study. With time and a better understanding of my own personal cognitive writing method, I am able to truly focus on what I want from myself as a writer VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 89

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as well as how to effectively show my readers a deeper insight to my thoughts and ideas as I write. I will continue to think with a cognitive comprehension and write with a new focus on personal composition far beyond my time at Mason.

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Catastrophic Autonomics...

Catastrophic Autonomics: Researching Possible Cures for Diabetes and Other Underlying Diseases

Cole Quidilla Major: Community Health Class of 2017

About the work This work was written for an English 101 composition class as a research paper that was initially on diabetes and it expanded to causes and treatments.

This paper is a thorough analysis and review of various scholarly journals and books that deal with treatments directed toward the root of the problem, the autonomic nervous system, and neurotransmitters. Further investigation suggests that there are ways to directly combat, thus far, incurable diseases.

The research explores the connections between the autonomic nervous system, its disorders, and how treatments directed to it can lead to cures for diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

These diseases currently only have temporary solutions that are very costly and do not offer a lasting cure. By researching how we can alter what neurotransmitters our autonomic nervous system releases, we are able to control and repair dysfunctional body functions that would otherwise cause diseases, like insulin type two diabetes.

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Introduction When was the last time you made your heart beat intentionally? How about digesting that snack you just ate? Our body controls itself more than we consciously do, and that is the job of the autonomic nervous system. Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) relays information from the brain down to the hypothalamus. The autonomics is divided into two parts: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.

When our body is incapable of controlling its neurons properly then autonomic disorders occur. These dysfunctions in our ANS can then cause diseases, those of which affect and kill millions of people around the world. By studying our autonomic nervous system, a possible long term solution to these dysfunctions may be found.

This paper will show how intensive research regarding autonomic disorders can lead to the discovery of treatments for underlying diseases like diabetes that have roots in our autonomic nervous system.

Autonomic Nervous System and Disorders Our autonomic nervous system is the part of our body that controls and maintains all the internal organs we have in our chest, stomach, and pelvic areas.

The brain is the source of all nerve impulses that sends information down to these target organs, such as our heart and stomach. For the ANS to function, the brain sends these impulses and relays it down to the hypothalamus. As I previously stated, the autonomic nervous system is divided into two parts, parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. When the human body is in a state of rest or digestion, then the parasympathetic system is in motion. On the other end, the sympathetic system triggers fight or flight. Rest and digest conserves energy and inhibits functions in our body, while the sympathetic does the opposite: it stimulates and promotes. For example, relaxing at the beach during a nice sunny day is when the parasympathetic plays its role, but when a shark appears all of a sudden, then your body produces adrenaline and increases your heart rate, the job of the sympathetic. The autonomic nervous system carries out mostly involuntary functions such as keeping the heart beating, stomach digesting, and keeping us stimulated by heat and pain. It keeps everything in our bodies running properly.

A disorder is the malfunction of an organ, meaning it doesn’t function to its optimal performance. Not everything is perfect and things go wrong, including our autonomic nervous system. For example, some babies are born with an inferior brain, meaning their brains do not function as well as other brains. This could be the result of wrong nerve impulses being sent throughout the body. The babies grow up with these inferior brains and eventually their brain function gets to the point where it is incompetent and cannot fulfill its proper function, which causes VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 93

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damage to other parts of the body and can result in severe diabetes, which can cause blindness or the need for amputations. The brain is the control system of our body so if it is dysfunctional, then so are other organ systems.

Dysautonomia: Diabetes According to research by Dysautonomia International, “These systems are in balance in a healthy person, and react correctly to outside stimuli, such as temperature, stress, and gravity. When they are out of balance and do not function properly for any number of reasons, autonomic dysfunction or Dysautonomia occurs.� Dysautonomia is the generic term for various autonomic disorders. Many disorders fall under Dysautonomia, such as the inability to remain upright called Orthostatic Intolerance. Research by Mayo Clinic states that autonomic disorders: can be a complication of a number of diseases and conditions . . . refers to damage to the autonomic nerves. This damage disrupts signals between the brain and portions of the autonomic nervous system, such as the heart, blood vessels and sweat glands. This can cause decreased or abnormal performance of one or more involuntary body functions.

By introducing Dysautonomia, I hope to shed light to an underlying disorder that is widespread and deadly called Diabetic Autonomic Neuropathy (DAN).

Diabetic Autonomic Neuropathy affects almost 69 million people worldwide (American Diabetes Association). Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, who works in The Feinberg School of Medicine, presents research on autonomic disorders that suggests Diabetes is not caused by other ANS diseases. Diabetes has roots in our autonomic nervous system and occurs when our pancreas does not create enough insulin, a hormone that lowers glucose levels in the blood. Glucose is the sugar that our body uses for energy. When our body cannot regulate glucose, our blood sugar goes up and causes damage to our organs, particularly the cardiovascular system. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 347 million people worldwide are affected by diabetes. This disease kills more people every year than AIDS and breast cancer combined. To imagine a world without diabetes is to imagine a world without 4 million people dying from it every year.

The question that should be posed is how does an autonomic disorder lead to diabetes? Research and tests by Dr. Carnethon discovered that: Autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction has been correlated with fasting insulin and glucose, independent of clinically diagnosed diabetes . . . There is ample clinical and cross-sectional epidemiological evidence 94 | The George Mason Review

connecting diabetes to subsequent autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

It is generally accepted that hyperglycemia among persons with diabetes causes degradation of the microvasculature that results in central and peripheral autonomic neuropathy. Yet, there are numerous pathways whereby autonomic dysfunction could in turn affect insulin function and glucose regulation . . . Impaired autonomic function has previously been associated with elevated concentrations of serum insulin and decreased insulin sensitivity (markers of insulin resistance), independent of glucose levels. This suggests that autonomic dysfunction may not only be the consequence of but also a precursor to hyperglycemia. At a minimum, autonomic dysfunction is a correlate of insulin resistance that could influence glucose dysregulation as seen in new-onset type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Dr. Carnethon studied the connection between autonomic disorder and type 2 diabetes. He tested men and women with autonomic disorders for their heart rate, glucose, and insulin resistance, and compared the results to people who already have diabetes. The results suggest that the levels of heart rate, glucose, and insulin resistance a person with autonomic disorder has would eventually correspond with what a diabetic person would have; basically these individuals could develop diabetes in their lifetime. He concluded that autonomic disorders causes increased insulin resistance due to glucose and insulin fasting, which has been known to be the direct cause of type 2 diabetes. In summary, Dr. Carnethon found the root problem of diabetes, showing us what needs to be treated.

A permanent cure to diabetes is within reach every day that we research our autonomic nervous system. It is ironic that the thing that controls functions keeping us alive can also be the cause of a disease that can end the life it’s trying to sustain.

If our brain is the main culprit of this disease, then we should also look to fix it and not just the ripple effects. By fixing autonomic disorders, underlying problems such as diabetes can be treated. Not many people have thought of curing diseases like diabetes through our autonomic nervous system, but now it is paying off. It is possible that a cure, not only for diabetes, but other diseases such as hypertension can be found with more research on autonomic diseases.

Diabetes Cure As of right now, the only solution resembling a cure to autonomic disorders are treatments to relieve the symptoms temporarily, like insulin shots. Diabetic patients are at risk of acquiring other complications, such as heart problems and kidney problems due to their high level of blood sugar, and insulin shots can only VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 95

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relieve the symptoms momentarily. A real solution to fully cure the disease is what the research regarding autonomic disorders is capable of uncovering. A recent experiment by Dr. Alistair Ferguson tested that the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus is a potential target for treating autonomic disorders or dysfunctions: The paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus has emerged as one of the most important autonomic control centers in the brain, with neurons playing essential roles in controlling autonomic functions. This review highlights data showing that the PVN has the potential to influence multiple PVN output pathways. (Ferguson)

lead to the discovery of a cure for diabetes but also other underlying diseases. I personally have a family history of diabetes that dates back to my grandmother.

The possible cure for her diabetes means more than the world to me, and surely to other people whose family members are affected by diabetes. I am sure that if you have a family member affected by a disease that cannot be cured, and the only way to find that treatment is through researching autonomic disorders, then you would do anything to help fund this research; For example, donating to foundations such as Stanford’s autonomic disorders program. Research like this needs more awareness and love from the community, especially since it is capable of solving one of the biggest issues in the world.

The discovery here allows us to treat the root of autonomic disorders, located in one of the cell bodies of our hypothalamus called the paraventricular nucleus, by altering the effects of the impulses that the brain sends out. This means that by treating diseases like diabetes at the source of the problem, which lies in the autonomic nervous system, then problems such as the pancreas not creating enough insulin can be cured by commanding our brain to produce impulses that make our pancreas produce the insulin needed. This is a major breakthrough in finally finding a cure for diabetes. This test by Dr. Ferguson proves that researching autonomic disorders yields permanent treatments to diseases like diabetes that we have only dreamt of.

Although this method of treating autonomic disorder is very promising in finding a cure for underlying diseases, it is also a very invasive procedure that infiltrates our brain. This is a surgery that opens up the skull to alter the PVN. One small mistake can cause permanent damage to the brain. Another consequence of this surgery is that it is very hard to be precise with the impulses we want our brain to change and transmit since they are very tiny. These issues can easily be fixed over time by practice and better equipment; finding a cure for a disease like diabetes cannot be perfected in a short amount of time. Eventually the procedure will be perfected like other surgeries, such as open heart transplants, especially with today’s technological advancements.

Conclusion Tiny disorders in our nervous system can cause serious diseases that lead to death. The idea of treating the disease at the root of its existence is what enabled this research to take place. Instead of trying to solve the problem temporarily at its skin, digging deep where we can discover a cure to a disease that has taken millions of lives is the optimal solution. More research on autonomic disorders will not only 96 | The George Mason Review

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Layers of Filth in Rising Asia

Layers of Filth in Rising Asia

Ana Carolina Machado Silva Major: English Class of 2017

About the work Moshin Hamid captured my attention and reached me intimately with his moving narrative, “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia”. The first astounding aspect of this novel is the use of the second person point of view and direct address to the reader; Hamid solely addresses the protagonist as you. Though we gather from various references of his brotherhood and relationship as a father that the protagonist is meant to be male, we are lead to assume the role of the protagonist while reading this text. The pattern lacking character names extends well beyond the protagonist. One of the most prominent characters, the pretty girl, is never given another title, even after aging beyond her age description as “girl.” Hamid solely uses these techniques to add to the novel in particularly nuanced ways, directly replacing the character with the archetype it represents. Lastly, the title and novel never state the location of the narrative. However, from the writer’s description of the setting, personal biography, as well as the various ways he inserts himself into the story, several professors and scholars find that rising Asia probably refers to Pakistan, and the capital, Lahore.

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The modern novel is something that is being continuously reinvented. In How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Moshin Hamid presents a self-help book that turns into a novel, which later becomes a historical nonfiction. He portrays the rise of a modern day man through the tumultuous and subversively filthy environment made by the fast-paced changes seen in a rising area of Asia, assumed through various hints to be Pakistan. Through little glimpses of the background effects of a Rising Asia, we’re presented with a unique perspective on How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia through a self-help format, which is violated at times. What he describes as Rising Asia is in fact Pakistan, and though he speaks of the region rising as a whole in economic markets and the sense of rising from third-world to first, he is personally addressing the rise of the protagonist as a “lucky” man in the area surrounding Lahore, the capital of Pakistan. Hamid makes this point particularly clear early on: the protagonist is lucky, lucky enough to be a son, and lucky to be the third born; these conditions are the initial requirements for his successful outcome.

Hamid utilizes point of view, setting, and diction to give us a personal glimpse of a region complex in nature, and an acutely accurate description of Pakistan in a manner that takes us outside of the American stereotypes that cloud our view of the war-ridden and exploited region.

The use of a second person narrator by Hamid is a vital cornerstone to the story. This ensures the subject remains nameless so the reader can better associate with and project himself upon the protagonist. The use of you as a character, and the description of everyone’s relations to you instead of their names, brings out unique aspects of this novel—characters who are quite common in rising Asia but unique to a Western reader. Later as Hamid introduces details of the location and circumstances of your early life, the protagonist is molded into a definitive character, while maintaining direct and commanding language that resounds with the reader. The use of you and the relationship designations of those surrounding you add to the scope of the common occurrences which shape the protagonist’s life.

These are people that are interchangeable within this time and place in rising Asia, however the background and setting add context to the circumstances that shape them. The commanding chapter titles, such as “Move to the city,” add to this point of view, by portraying a set of actions which propel the protagonist’s financial and career goals forward. The reader is not told to focus on the character’s personal and emotional life—which is shown as lacking more often than not. Hamid makes it known that these actions are instigated, shaped, and highly influenced by the surrounding turbulence and social norms inherent in this region. This lack of a personal emotional narrative from the mind of the protagonist, adds to a sense that this second person point of view is meant to be vague in order to fit the reader or you.

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The second most prominent literary device are the various settings within the novel, and the ways in which they contribute to the narrative. The environmental pollution, unimpeded violence and economic corruption that abound in the urban areas, such as Lahore, are touched upon in a cursory and matter-of-fact manner that emphasizes how these circumstances are so integrated into this societal system. A number of examples of a seemingly hostile environment are given, among them the mention of hazy polluted skies and an ever sinking water table—all of which build upon the impeding of human development bound to occur in a societal system that has failed its citizens. This novel highlights a widening gap between the less fortunate and the wealthy elite. There is a physical gap translated directly into an economic gap between those lacking bricks to fortify their abodes during monsoon season in the rural area and those in the densely populated urban area whose only concern is the quality of their water. Hamid brings the matter to light in precise terms when elaborating on the protagonist’s experience of learning under a master and becoming aware of the serious gap between “my-shit-just-sits-there-until-itrains poverty to which-of-my-toilets-shall-I-use affluence” (78). While the quality of water is disconcerting in the city, and a lack of water a daily threat, the rural area sees considerably worse conditions. The runoff from a factory at the head of the river to the multiple communities farther upstream is the origin of feces and excrement floating down towards rural towns. While the water in the rural area causes a feverish sickness, the urban water crisis becomes the protagonist’s most lucrative source of income. This is just one example of how setting, and a change thereof, is critical to this text.

Beside the geographical location of the citizens of Pakistan, other determining factors of potential advancement include the circumstantial build of one’s family, the upbringing and education provided, and the amount of family members dependent upon one’s salary. While the circumstances of siblings are spoken of briefly, we see a large emphasis on the luck that keeps the male protagonist afloat.

There is the exemplary despondent family structure of the character of the young pretty girl, a daughter of a gambling father and hardworking mother, that keeps her from continuing her education and being able to achieve more due to her emotional underdevelopment. We see how gender plays a vital part in the outcome of one’s future. It has limited women to either be the cause of envious stares by men who demean them to a piece of meat, much like the life of the pretty girl when modeling, or to be the bride to a much older male seen as an economic safety net, as seen during both the marriage of the sister of the protagonist and the marriage of the protagonist to a wife less than half his age and of lower social stature.

Instead of a healthy community environment there is clear evidence of 100 | The George Mason Review

a breakdown in area policing and contrasting strong illegal ties which bind the neighborhoods to malicious and risky business. When every inch of the alleys and apartments have been bought through corrupt dealings, the protagonist manages to seem well-intentioned and a positive force in comparison whilst selling pirated DVDs, selling expired and possibly uninspected foods, and bottling unclean water illegally. All of these serve not only to expand upon the vast market of“underground” businesses made commonplace, but also show the inevitable downfall of the honest man in a society where illegal dealings are regarded in high esteem, and seen as successful when there is profit gain. There is a terrible fissure in a society where a citizen does not seek help from the judicial system or local authorities, and instead purchases the services of safety and comfort from a gang member known for his great aim and defense skills. Moshin Hamid consistently touches upon the ways that the available economic ventures are corrupt and led by corrupt men in broad daylight to extraordinary success. These conditions make it extremely difficult to villainize the protagonist and his attempt to attain success, namely economic stability. The illegal corporations the protagonist takes part in are never in fear of a political or federal investigation, or quality assurance association taking measures against them.

The only fear in the corrupt sales of DVDs, packaged goods, and bottled water is of the competition and their fire power. Instead of seeking a detective or reporting the threat made upon his life, at gunpoint, to an authoritative police figure, the protagonist contacts an equally felonious gang leader to assign him a bodyguard.

Even after a man is killed on the highway, and a picture of him is sent to their opponents via text message, no one is ever tried for murder and no investigation is ever made into the disappearance of the gunman—undoubtedly missed by his mother and sister upon never returning home (133-134). By milling about his day slightly shell-shocked but utterly devoid of panic, the protagonist makes no contact with federal law enforcement of any kind. By giving these extreme situations an air of mundane commonalities, Hamid forces the reader to view the protagonist as a character with a positive mission and outcome.

The use of strong diction sells us on the inevitable uselessness of becoming filthy rich in a society that normalizes the undermining of social systems that keep human rights in place. From the very title, associating filth with wealth, the author emphasizes throughout the book that there is an underlying layer of filth, both in its physical and figurative forms, in the wealth of men. The progression of steps indicated by the “self-help” chapter titles and the uncertified, faux businesses that lead to your wealth are indeed soiled. Words and phrases used to describe the protagonist’s business ventures include: expired goods; the video retailer “at the edge of town” which is “dark and dimly lit”; stolen and “pirated” (pg 39) goods; VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 101

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his ventures as “scam[s]” (91), and the unclean drinking water “on the outskirts of town... [in] a crumbling shed and a rusty… functional tube well” (114).

However, there are intervals of inspired and even poetic language interspersed with the narrator’s simple diction. These breaks of flowing and crafted language seem to be the author’s voice, allowing for his experiences of Lahore and his backgroundtocomethroughandconnectwithusthroughthenarrativesurrounding the protagonist. Hamid, directly in this novel, addresses the craft of writing by saying:

innately human in vicariously experiencing the narrative and truly understanding the various obstacles faced when attempting to emulate positive forces and provide for families in Pakistan. Hamid does an excellent job of reaching the Western populace with the well-known format of the self-help book, all the while weaving a heart-wrenching narrative, making the cause for Pakistan’s residents truly one of humane endeavors.

“this self-help book is a co-creative project...when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped word…to transform these icons into characters and events you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create.

It’s in being read that a book becomes a book” (97).

This highly meta self-reference of his process as a writer within his own writing, directly addressing the reader as the protagonist, effectively uses his voice as the narrator and author to break the fourth wall. We know this not only from his description of his experience as a writer but from the change in diction; from the coarse and simple language used to describe the protagonist’s grueling journey to the flowery language used by a prolific and articulate author. Later on, this tone of wisdom inherent to him returns in a form of reflection, as Hamid narrates that, “We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories…Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes” (219).

A last example of flowery language occurs when we see a touching depiction of the pretty girl on her deathbed:“It costs her to be touched… companionship softly irritating her, like the remaining strand of flesh binding a loose milk tooth to its jaw” (226). Though the pretty girl does not speak English and is not likely a prolific writer, the reader hears the inner monologue she feels upon her departure. These bits of hopeful beauty in such a distraught environment help us see the moments which remain common in humans, no matter what region or hazy stereotype they are blanketed with.

Hamid utilizes point of view, setting, and diction to portray the way filth— in both its figurative and physical form—is present in every corner, alleyway, and niche of Rising Asia. The region of Pakistan seems less like the one read about in the news; the drones so often portrayed partially in American media can be seen as very menacing, violating technology. Instead of perceiving rising Asia and its inhabitants as a people with negative connotations, we see how their society, geographical location, lack of resources, and history have shaped their distrust of federal systems. Though political ideologies may disagree, there is something 102 | The George Mason Review

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Oscar the Untouchable...

Oscar the Untouchable: Examining the “Ghetto Nerd” Through a Diagnostic Lens

Cait Woods Major: Health Promotion Class of 2015

About the work This piece started out as a reaction paper for a literature class, as we were reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. I wrote that the title character reminded me of a person with autism. My professor encouraged me to expand on the idea, since, to the best of our knowledge, no one has written about Diaz’s work from this perspective.

As a Health Promotion major, issues like autism are at the fore of my awareness; teasing out a “diagnosis” of Autism Spectrum Disorder from the text was the easy part of this project. The hard part was, as a non-English major, incorporating the scientific evidence into a cogent piece of literary criticism. This work revisions scholarship by blending two apparently disparate disciplines into a meaningful whole. Writing this article has been one of the most rewarding and richly didactic experiences of my academic career.

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Oscar de Leon, the title character of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is defined by extreme difficulty in social and emotional interactions and situations. While both general readers and scholars have tended to explain Oscar’s difficulties by writing him off as a “nerd”—and indeed the novel invites this reading—this explanation seems inadequate, given the particular nature and severity of Oscar’s problems. Though it is impossible to offer a complete diagnosis, Oscar presents several compelling signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as defined by the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V). An attempt to “diagnose” Oscar’s autism may provide a more robust framework for understanding his social difficulties, and presents a significant contrast to current, mainstream readings of the character. Existing criticism on Diaz’s novel tends to focus on a fairly narrow scope of ethnic and cultural themes. Issues of race, culture, history, and language presented by Diaz undoubtedly deserve the attention they have received and will continue to receive, but a psychoanalytic reading of the title character will work to broaden the focus of scholarship on Diaz to allow examination of other aspects of the human experience, as well as to raise the issue of mental health awareness in the novel’s cultural context.

A note on psychoanalytic literary criticism Given Diaz’s themes and own cultural background, the vast majority of scholarship on his work has been developed using the frameworks and vocabularies of Postcolonial Criticism. A psychoanalytic reading of Oscar therefore cuts against the grain. Furthermore, readings that attempt to “diagnose” authors or characters have largely fallen out of favor in the critical community, in part because they are accused of examining the characters independent of the text. Maud Ellman and others argue that psychoanalytic literary criticism takes character analysis to an almost fetishistic level—that is, focusing on the characters as independent entities and leaving the rest of the text aside. Peter Brooks argues that psychoanalytic literary criticism analyzes the text, but fails to master it. Psychoanalytic literary criticism is also criticized for treating fictional characters as one would actual, living patients.

For example, Ellman points out that attempting to analyze Hamlet’s childhood to explain the supposedly Oedipal overtones of the play is fruitless because Hamlet had no childhood. Furthermore, Brooks points out that a book is not a human mind, that there are no distinct parallels between aesthetic written work and the workings of the human subconscious.

Criticisms notwithstanding and duly noted, the psychoanalysis presented in this essay differs from other essays in the mode in several key ways. Firstly, the argument does not ask the reader to extrapolate about Oscar as if he were a real human VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 105

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being; the argument is based solely on direct evidence of Oscar’s social interactions and habits as portrayed in the novel. Secondly, the argument makes a concrete diagnosis of an established mental disorder, whereas classical psychoanalytic literary criticism typically draws upon the work of Sigmund Freud and meditates on themes such as the id/ego/superego or repressed Oedipal or sexual impulses.

The present argument, rather than focusing on Freudian themes, attempts to make an armchair diagnosis of the titular character by directly comparing evidence from the text to the diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder from the DSM-V. Existing Literature review of the examined novel / Oscar Wao As previously stated, most literary criticism on Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has focused on the work’s cultural motifs, and examined the work in the context of narratives of displacement, postcolonialism, and linguistic play and code-switching between modes of English and Spanish. In part, the relatively narrow scope of existing scholarship on Diaz may be a reflection of his contemporary status; scholars have not had time to examine Diaz as closely as his work might merit. However, the narrow scope of the existing discourse runs the risk of reducing the work and the author’s subject matter, leaving aside the text’s other nuanced depictions of the human experience. Generally, the character Oscar is mentioned only briefly in scholarship on the novel. Authors and critics have by and large dismissed Oscar as a “nerdboy” or “ghetto nerd” without examining the character beyond his gender or the color of his skin; his position as a marginalized human being has not been robustly considered outside of its intersection with issues of race and class.

Much of the academic discussion about Oscar Wao is concerned with the novel’s treatment of Dominican-American history. Jose David Saldivar examines the opposing forces of the Dominican-American cultural identity and “recurring decolonial motifs” which are described in the story as “fuku Americanus.” Saldivar discusses the history of “Americanity” and colonialism in the Americas. The article mentions the characters’ lives as they relate to fuku (a type of Dominican familial curse), but spends little time with character examination outside of that context.

Another article by Ignacio Lopez-Calvo, published in Antipodas: Journal of Hispanic and Galician Studies, examines the history and influence of the Trujillato in a postmodern context, as well as the role of magical realism in the novel. Again, Lopez-Calvo privileges the novel’s historical background over a discussion of its characters. So too Monica Hanna writes in Callaloo about the fragmented nature of Dominican history presented by the narrator, Yunior.

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Other approaches to the text have centered on language and culture. An article

by Eugenia Casielles-Suarez, published in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, considers the way that Diaz implements intrasentential code-switching, and how Diaz integrates English and Spanish in the novel. Casielles-Suarez dubs the technique “radical hybridism.” Though Yunior’s lexicon is directly reflective of his character as a Dominican-American man from government housing projects in New Jersey, Suarez is more interested in the linguistic implications of radical hybridism than in an analysis of Yunior’s character. Dixa Ramirez, in Atlantic Studies, discusses the dynamic between hyper-masculinity and the supernatural, and how these apply to the Trujillato in Dominican culture and the treatment thereof in Oscar Wao. Ramirez’s article deals with masculinity as an overarching theme of the novel. In the journal Critique, Ashley Kunsa examines the construct of race in the novel, the Dominican and American contexts of race and culture, and how hair is used to express racial categorization. While it is impossible to discuss a work like Oscar Wao without discussing the characters, few authors offer in-depth character analysis, as this present essay will attempt.

One exception to the general rule on Diaz scholarship to date is Elena Machado Saez’s article “Dictating Desire, Dictating Diaspora,” published in Contemporary Fiction. Saez analyzes the characters as a means of exploring the themes of dictatorship, narration, and diasporic identity in the novel. Saez is mostly concerned with Yunior as the narrator, and with Oscar as seen through Yunior’s perspective.

Saez points out that Yunior is the true protagonist and dictator of the novel, and we may or may not be able to trust what he says at face value. However, for the purposes of this essay, we assume that Yunior’s portrayal of Oscar is accurate, if colorful. On Oscar, Saez comments that he is “endearingly inauthentic” in the above-mentioned context of diasporic identity; that is, Oscar is so far removed from the Dominican-American male archetype that his character is not authentic in that cultural context. Saez also comments that, at the end of the novel, Oscar is made “authentic” in Yunior’s eyes by his sexual relations with Ybon and the way he unflinchingly faces the violence of his death. Saez writes that Oscar’s “queer Otherness” further marginalizes him within an already marginalized group, which effectively renders him invisible until he is made “authentic” at the end. Saez’s analysis is one of few which call attention to the ways in which Oscar’s character is silenced by others.

Extending Saez’s argument about the marginalization and silencing of Oscar’s character beyond a gender-based reading—and towards a diagnosis of a potential mental disorder—is important because it may fundamentally alter the way Oscar should be perceived. If Oscar’s diagnosis of autism were inherent to the story, it VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 107

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would make the other characters’treatment of him abhorrent, because it is socially unacceptable to treat a disabled person so poorly. (It is necessary to note that some people with high-functioning autism, as I propose Oscar has, view autism simply as a difference rather than a disability or disorder. These people promulgate the acceptance of people with autism, and take offense at the idea of trying to “cure” high-functioning autism.) As Virginia Woolf notes in her essay “On Being Ill”, illness is a part of the human experience, and one that has too often been overlooked in literature. If Oscar can be diagnosed, his “otherness” may become more human.

Discussion of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) In order to understand Oscar as a person with autism, it is necessary to understand the condition of autism. Autism Speaks, a national organization for autism education and advocacy, explains that autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder are both “general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors.” A copy of the full list of DSM-V Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder has been included on the works cited page for the reader’s interest and edification. This section will attempt a “diagnosis” of Oscar’s character based on three fundamental criteria: 1.“Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts;” 2. “Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities;” and 3. “Deficitsinsocial-emotionalreciprocity,ranging,forexample,fromabnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.”

1. Impaired communication skills Among the many challenges to socialization that Oscar faces in the novel is his peculiar mode of speech, which continuously leads him to unintentionally alienate those around him. Examples of Oscar’s speech are peppered throughout, and work to establish his “nerdboy” character. His idiosyncratic vocabulary is not relegated to specific social contexts, but rather seems to be a fundamental part of how he communicates. There are too many instances to fully outline, but a small sample gives a general sense: Oscar refers to himself as a “male unit” (27); he refers to Ana, his love interest as “orchidaceous” (35); he greets his roommate Yunior with a bizarre pun, “Hail, Dog of God” (171); he tells Jenni, another love interest, “Thou art the muse of the muses” (185). His idiosyncratic diction is also noted 108 | The George Mason Review

by other characters throughout the novel (most notably, by the narrator, Yunior, who remarks that Oscar talks “like a Star Trek computer” (173)). While a strong vocabulary is not necessarily indicative of a disorder, Oscar’s (sometimes incorrect or inaccurate) use of verbiage is anti-social. The DSM-V states idiosyncratic speech as one of the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. The idiosyncratic nature of Oscar’s verbal communication style negatively affects his ability to form and sustain relationships, and therefore may classify as an impairment.

The preceding examples illustrate Oscar’s impaired verbal communication skills, however his nonverbal or behavioral communication skills also seem to be impaired.

The DSM-V states in the diagnostic criteria that people with autism spectrum disorder have “difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts;” therefore, it is important to note Oscar’s impaired nonverbal communication skills.

Yunior says that “Oscar’s idea of G was to talk about role-playing games (174),” an example which is strongly indicative of autism spectrum disorder, as this behavior is obviously not suited to the social context. Similarly, on page 180, Oscar throws himself “kamikaze-style at the girls,” also implying a lack of adjustment to social contexts. When we learn the origin of Oscar’s nickname, Oscar Wao, (180), it is evident that the nickname is intended as a pejorative. However, Oscar does not seem to understand that he is being mocked when he “Just sat there with a confused grin on his face” (181), which further indicates a lack of receptiveness to nonverbal communication and context. Both Oscar’s idiosyncratic diction and his lack of social receptiveness indicate impairment in social communication that ultimately leads to his social isolation in the novel.

2. Highly restricted interests Another prominent theme throughout the book is Oscar’s love of genres, particularly science fiction, fantasy, and anime. The DSM-V states that “Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus”are characteristic of people with autism spectrum disorder. It may be argued that Oscar’s love of genres is restrictive, certainly fixated, and seemingly abnormal in intensity and focus. Throughout the novel, genres are Oscar’s only apparent interest in life (aside from his “girlfriends”). Oscar’s love of genres is so all-encompassing that he can talk of little else, regardless of the situation’s context (“Oscar’s idea of G was to talk about role-playing games” (Diaz, 174)). Towards the end of the novel, when Oscar is teaching at Don Bosco, he starts an after-school science fiction club to which not a single student shows up, yet another way that Oscar pursues his love of genres without apparent regard to the situation’s context. Were Oscar’s interests less specific and fixated, and were his social and emotional skills better, he might VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 109

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have realized that the students at Don Bosco would not respond to this type of after-school club, especially since it is nowhere indicated in the text that any of the students had expressed interest.

The prevailing interpretation of Oscar’s love of genres suggests that it simply typifies his “nerdboy” label; of course in popular culture, science fiction and other “genres” are considered “nerdboy” interests. However, Oscar takes his love of genres beyond that of “average nerd,” to the extent that genres negatively impact Oscar’s quality of life. Oscar’s high school friends, Al and Miggs, might provide a useful contrast as“average nerds”who share with Oscar a love of genres, but whose lives extend beyond those interests, and whose lives do not seem to be negatively impacted as such. The novel’s best illustration of this contrast is when Al and Miggs are able to find girlfriends in high school, but Oscar is not. When Oscar finds out that Al and Miggs’ lives extend beyond genres, he also realizes that his only two friends are embarrassed by him. This exchange punctuates the gap between Oscar, possibly as a character potentially exhibiting signs of autism, and the likely non-impaired “nerds” from his school. After this passage, it is clearer to the reader just how “other” Oscar is, and how abnormal his preoccupation. The continuous negative impact of his fixation on genres might then lead to an interpretation of these interests as pathological.

3. Deficits in Social-Emotional Reciprocity Lack of emotional reciprocity is one of the driving forces of the book’s plot; it is also one of the most important indications of the severity of Oscar’s social impairment. Oscar repeatedly forms connections with his peers (especially women), in which there is a marked discrepancy between Oscar’s understanding of the relationship, and the other person’s understanding of the relationship. Beginning in his early childhood, when Diaz describes seven-year-old Oscar’s “relationship” with Olga and Maritza, and he is made to choose between the two girls, he displays “logic as close to the yes/no math of insects as a nigger could get” (15). Oscar’s decision is calculated almost coldly, based on facts such as “Maritza was beautiful, Olga was not; Olga sometimes smelled like pee and Maritza did not” (15), rather than how Oscar feels and how the girls might feel. Although these simplistic binaries could be read as indicative of his young age, in the context of the novel, this can be seen rather as the inception of Oscar’s mode of interaction with the world. Oscar chooses Maritza and dumps Olga; yet, the next day, at the bus stop, Maritza all but ignores Oscar. From this, we can infer that either: a) Oscar misunderstood the nature of his relationship with Maritza, or; b) Maritza misled Oscar. This instance lays the groundwork for the ultimately fatal pattern of Oscar’s social life.

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The pattern beginning with Maritza repeats itself for the rest of the novel, and the rest of Oscar’s life, with increasing severity and amplified misunderstanding of social and emotional context and reciprocity. Continuing in his adolescence, Oscar falls in love “deeply and easily” and has “secret loves all over town” (23). We begin to see that Oscar’s “loves” are persistent despite overt refusals and maltreatment from the objects of his affection, and the fact that his affections are rarely, if ever, reciprocated. Yunior describes Lola’s schoolmates, and how Oscar loves Marisol the most, even though she treats him the worst of any of Lola’s friends (26); this indicates again a lack of social-emotional comprehension on Oscar’s part. Nearly ten years after the Maritza situation, we see Oscar “fall in love” (33) with Ana, another girl on the periphery of his existence. It is stated explicitly that Oscar is intensely in love with Ana, yet she does not reciprocate. She and Oscar spend time together, but their relationship never crosses the line from platonic to romantic.

While the narrative of unrequited teenage love is of course a familiar cliché, the nuances of the situation indicate that Oscar does not fully comprehend the nature of his interaction with Ana. Ultimately, Ana gets back together with her ex-boyfriend Manny, and Oscar is so psychologically damaged that he starts having blackouts.

While teenage love can be a painful experience, the severity of Oscar’s reaction seems out of sync with reality. He misreads her commitment to the relationship and develops expectations that are fantastic and beyond reasonable. The pattern repeats with Jenni. Her and Oscar spend time together, but their relationship does not progress beyond friendship. Oscar misconstrues their interaction as a romantic relationship, his “adoration like the light of a new sun” (185). When Oscar catches Jenni with another boy, he becomes violent. Again, unrequited love is painful, but Oscar’s reaction—beginning with violence and ending with a suicide attempt—is far removed from the reality of the situation, and indicative of his lack of understanding of emotional reciprocity.

While Oscar’s final relationship, with a prostitute named Ybon, is the closest he comes to a true romantic relationship, it is a far cry from reciprocal. And when Oscar tells Ybon how he feels, she becomes crestfallen and says “only his name, Oscar, a little sadly”(290). From this line we can imagine that what Oscar sees as an intimate romantic relationship, Ybon sees only as a short, summertime friendship. Despite the non-reciprocal nature of the relationship, Oscar continues to act like Ybon is in love with him. Oscar considers himself Ybon’s only “real friend” (290), and after Oscar is beaten nearly to death by Ybon’s (actual) boyfriend, Oscar rationalizes that “had he and Ybon not been serious the capitan probably never would have fucked with him. Proof positive that he and Ybon had a relationship” (303). While Oscar’s logic isn’t entirely off-base, the reader is not given any indication that VolUME 24 / 2014-2015 | 111

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Ybon has committed to a relationship with Oscar; his “proof” of her affections is based instead on the violent threats of another man. Even after Ybon tells Oscar that she is getting married to El Capitan, Oscar persists in his pursuit of her, and spends nearly a month stalking her in spite of frantic notes from Ybon telling him to stop. Oscar maintains that he and Ybon are in love, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, right up until the moment he is killed, further indicating a pathological lack of social-emotional reciprocity.

While this analysis chiefly focuses on Oscar’s “romantic” overtures, it is worth mentioning that Oscar does not form friendships, either, as mentioned in the diagnostic criteria for autism. Though on the surface it may seem like Yunior is Oscar’s friend, their relationship is characterized by scorn and mockery on Yunior’s part. Though the two are, at one point, roommates, one can hardly call their relationship reciprocal. Even when Yunior takes on “Project Oscar,” Yunior admits that he uses “Project Oscar” to forget about Suriyan, further indication that the “friendship” between the two young men is shallow and ephemeral. When Diaz introduces Al and Miggs, Oscar’s “only friends” (20), just a few pages later, Oscar realizes that “his friends were embarrassed by him” (29). The fact that Oscar’s only two friends in the world are embarrassed by him is another strong indication that Oscar does not understand the non-reciprocal nature of his social interactions.

from religious organizations and family groups than from the medical establishment (possibly due to lack of access, but also as a cultural establishment). Therefore, if Oscar’s family did suspect something more seriously “wrong” with him than being a “ghetto nerdboy,” it makes sense that they would try to “treat” him themselves.

In fact, one might argue that there are examples of modes of “treatment” in the novel that fall outside of American institutional medicine: La Inca’s prayers (278), Lola’s chiding (25), tio Rudolfo’s advice (24), and Yunior taking on “Project Oscar ” (176). The way Oscar’s otherness, queerness, “nerdiness”, or apparent autism is both pathologized and treated by his friends and family presents a compelling opportunity for further investigation into the theme of mental health in the novel.

Conclusion Oscar Wao presents compelling evidence that as much as Oscar may be a “nerdboy” caught in a chauvinist Dominican-American culture, he may equally be a character with a diagnosable mental disorder, one that is not only invisible to his community but has also so far been invisible to many readers. A 2001 study by the Office of the Surgeon General reports that, among immigrant Hispanic ethnic groups, the rates of mental health disorders are nearly one-half those of white Americans. Among U.S. born members of these same ethnic groups, the rates of mental health disorders rise to meet those of white Americans. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents a compelling instance of a case in which the compartmentalization of the English department reflects a potentially deleterious cultural disconnect in American society. Reading Junot Diaz’s work with an attempt to account for the full human complexity of his characters, particularly Oscar Wao, may not only deepen our reading of his fiction, but also offer an opportunity to further understand cultural differences within American society regarding the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders across different demographics.

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