Last Thursday, I attended the Literature Is Alive event presented by OOMPH! This poetry recitation was interesting for several reasons, the main one being that the poems were in Spanish. Having not taken Spanish since the fifth grade, it was at first very disorienting. While there were English translations, it was not easy to follow along while listening to it in Spanish. I soon realized that it was better to just skim the English translation and then just listen to the Spanish reciting. Because these poems were written in Spanish, it is difficult to capture the melody and harmony of the poetry in English and thus the true meaning of the poems can only be captured by being recited in the language it was written and produced in. Despite not understanding most of the meaning of the poems it was still interesting to hear the poems recited. One thing I realized that was really interesting was that even though I could not understand the meaning, just by hearing someone recite the poems aloud allowed me to differentiate between the tones and moods. Each author recited his/her poem in a different fashion with a different tone of voice and just from this I could detect the tone/mood of the poem without even knowing what the poem was about. I thought at the beginning that because I had no idea what they were talking about I would not be able to really detect a difference, but I was very wrong. I realized how similar it is to hearing a poem in English and detecting the different ways a poet recites it. I also thought the conversation at the end about translation was really interesting. Especially with poetry, I realize how difficult it must be to translate between two different languages and having to decide whether to try to translate word for word or try to capture the meaning. Overall, this presentation was really interesting and I’m glad I had the experience of going and listening to everyone’s commentary as well.

In my research paper, I plan on showing how Shteyngart’s ideas of seclusion and isolation due to overuse of technology in Super Sad True Love Story are echoed in today’s society. In the introduction, I would briefly discuss how the characters in the novel, specifically Lenny and Eunice feel a sense of seclusion, and how this could be connected to the abundance of technology and social media. I would then introduce some of my sources, which consist of multiple studies that show how social media and technology can create lack of self-confidence and retract from face to face interactions among those who use it most. My thesis is built around Lenny’s privacy and his being harshly judged by the information available to others due to the technological advances, as well as Eunice’s lack of normal relationships and inability to connect to others without technology.

I think that it is important to first explain the real life evidence that technology is damaging the communication skills of the younger generations, as this will allow me to then show how Shteyngart highlights these occurrences in SSTLS. In order to do this, I will quote Margie Warrell’s article, ”Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely?”, which explains how people who are more active on social media have a harder time forming close relationships with others. I would also quote “The Social Media as Echo Chamber: The Digital Impact”, which talks about the effects that technology and social media use have on students in particular. Quoting these articles will give me a basis to build upon and explain how these effects of social media are seen in SSTLS.

After discussing some of the studies that show how technology can affect our intimate relationships in real life, I would then show how this is seen in the novel. I plan to focus on instances when Lenny is ostracized for being different through the use of social media. For example, when he is in the bar with Eunice and she is overall rated high based solely on what the information that others can see about her, while Lenny is rated extremely low. Also, I would reference the entries where Eunice and Lenny cannot connect with anyone because none of the apparats are working. These scenes in particular portray the damaging effects that reliance on technology for communication can have on personal relationships with people.

In my research paper, I would like to demonstrate how Mary Shelly teaches people to master technology through humanity via the novel Frankenstein. My main theme is humanity, and my thesis statement is also built around that theme. I would like to give a brief introduction about how people generally view this book as an “anti-technology” novel. After that, I will bring in the scholars’ ideas and indicate the difference. I will then implement my thesis statement in order to show my perspective.

After the introduction, I will first talk about how the monster is driven by Victor’s personalities and characteristics in order to show how humanity can lead artificial intelligence. I will choose a passage from the novel which I haven’t decided which and analyze it. Furthermore, I will quote from Vargish’s article to introduce the idea of seeing the monster as the extension of Victor’s core values. By fusing Vargish’s article and the novel, I will conclude that technologies are only aids to extend humanities instead of eliminating. However, I will mention that the public usually see technologies as potential dangers which contradicts most of the scholars’ ideas.

I will explain why public and scholars think differently by quoting from Nerlich’s article about how fictional works foster the fear among public. In order to support this idea, I will quote the passage about the appearance of the monster from the novel. I will mention how people judge the monster by its appearance instead of its characteristics to create a parallelism between people in the novel and in our society. In order to further emphasize how fictional works cause people panic about technology, I will quote from Orlin’s essay and criticize some points he made by referring to Nerlich’s article.

Last but not least, I will quote from Julian’s article and point out that the lack of humanity is the major issue that causes artificial creatures to become rampage. I will also use Victor’s story and show how his lack of responsibility and humanity causes the monster’s rage and thus leading to destruction.