Midterm ENGL 224 Monuments, Memorials and Monstrosities Al-Kassim #620 BuTo

This is a take home, open book midterm exam.

Please use 12pt font and double space. The exam is in two parts with an extra credit at the end. The essay response should be 4-5 (not longer) pages double-spaced. Bring your hard copy to class on Tuesday. Failure to do so will result in points taken off of your final grade.

Failure to appear in class and to bring your hardcopy will result in points deducted. Do not forget to reply to the extra credit. This is an open book, take home exam.

I. Short Answer Questions, 60 points/100 Answer the questions below in a few complete sentences. Be as detailed as possible, offer concrete instances.

1. Explain how the Khoisan have figured in Afrikaner claims to self-identity as argued by Coombes. Be attentive to historical shifts in such claiming. Include dates.

Page 208

2. What links exist between ANC and IRA political prisoners and how did they describe this linkage?

3. According to Coombes what are the reasons for including working-class people and sensibilities in the Franco-British exhibition?

4. The exhibition “Miscast” engaged what forms of restaging or mining the museum?

Page 230

5. Fusco organizes the reactions to their performance according to type. What categories of response and reaction does she list? Be as specific and concise as possible.

The Other History of Intercultural Performance, FUSCO6. In Unconfessed references are made to dates (p.65) and history of British/Afrikaner relations (p.102) by Sila and as reported conversation between Oumiesies’s slaves. Explain the historical significance of these dates as well as their significance for Sila and the other slaves.

1806 – Sila+will people becomes free1808 – Theron let’s Sila work for Hancke1810 – Carolina born (Spaasie chose name)1814 – Camies born1813 – Baro born

“..remember, when the English took the country from the Dutch they ended all torture, in 1798”

Also the year Sila moved from Neethlings to Oumiesies

Spaasie says “ the Dutch will have the country again anyway and no English care about us anyway”

Sila and Babies, Mother selling babies

1800 July, Theron threatens Sila (before will)1802 paper will almost burns, Omousies takes it back English take country from Dutch, key hidden behind headboard. Theron denies paper will.

Page 114 animal comparison

Essay Question, 40 points/100 In 1 focused essay of no more than 5 pages please respond to one of the following 2 questions. Do not forget to reply to the extra credit. This is an open book, take home exam.

1. In “Theory of Infantile Citizenship” Lauren Berlant states, “the transformation of consciousness, sensuality, causality and aesthetics [that] Lisa experiences is, again, typical of the infantile

citizenship story, in which the revelation of the practical impossibility of utopian nationality produces gothic, uncanny, miraculating effects on the infantile persons whose minds are being transformed by ‘true’, not idealized, national knowledge” p. 43. In your own words, explain what Berlant means by 1. “national knowledge” and 2. “infantile citizenship story.” What role does the “gothic, uncanny, miraculating” play in the relationship between these elements? In your analysis of the passage be sure to offer some explanation for her claim that “utopian nationality” is deemed impossible in the narrative.

2. Annie Coombes explains the intent of her research on p. 10. Describe and analyze the two poles of representation of historical trauma in the public sphere that she articulates there. Then link this account of two different kinds of history to her statement on p. 245 where she makes the case for fine arts as a practice of the representation of traumatic history. How do the fine arts resolve the dichotomy presented on p.10? From the reading for this class offer an example not discussed by Coombes that illustrates this resolution.

EXTRA CREDIT for 5 points. Identify the passage below, describe its context in the text in which it appears and explain how the tension presented functions in the text.

“Two stumbling blocks in particular are frequently encountered in this kind of commemorative project. On the one hand, the abstraction of the designs is seen as inappropriate to either the conceptual or the actual task of embodying the experience of the survivors. On the other hand in most instances survivors are attached to the idea of some kind of monument because it provides a focal point for enactments and rituals that themselves are the symbolic and abstracted embodiment of their experiences.”