SPAN 312

Hi everyone!  I can't believe I am writing my last blog post for this term. Keeping with my consistency throughout this term, I think it is only fitting that I am writing this at 11 pm :) and I am very sorry in advance for you reading this so late Daniel! I want to start off by using this post as a chance to thank both Jon and Daniel for all of their incredible help, support and teaching this term. Every week this term I got to attend a lecture where Jon would welcome us to the class with music and a smile. We got to learn even more about the book we had read in a way that was not stressful or a test. Last week we were lucky to get to learn from Daniel and I really appreciated that as his responses to our blogs are always very timely, interesting and supportive, so it was great to have a lecture taught by him! In university our understanding is almost always measured with a test or a rubric, and I truly cannot express how much I appreciate that this was not the case for SPAN 312. I

 Hi everyone! (Sorry my first try was publishing with a weird format so I uploaded it again here!) I hope you all had a lovely weekend! For this week's book I read Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. I thought that this book was a perfect way to wrap up the semester. I will say that it was a little difficult to keep track of what was going on in the book, but I am definitely more used to that with all the books weve read this term (Labyrinths…  I not only enjoyed reading the book for its mysterious plotline but also for its semantics and writing style. The novel held my attention through a variety of ways, including the somewhat fragmented and reflective storyline, the intense bond and love between Amanda and her daughter, the difference between female characters and male (Amanda’s demeanor vs. Davids) and the environment symbolism. It soon became clear that the setting in which the novel took place served more of a purpose than just descriptive imagery . Schweblin paints the picture

This week I read My Tender Matador.  What I found most interesting about this book was how Lemebel uses names to create a sense of insecure positioning that encourages the reader to understand varying genders, sexualities, experiences and perspectives within Chilean society at the time. In My Tender Matador names are more than just identification, I interpreted them as indicators of the character's placement in society, literal spatial positioning, their gender as well as how they are viewed by others. Names are not only important to how we perceive these characters, but also how we sympathize to their experiences, identify discrimination towards them, and understand their struggles and how their positionality thus affects their perspective on the Chilean dictatorship. Additionally, as said in the lecture, Lemebel makes the choice to make a “loca” the main character of his novel, when these people are often heavily discriminated against, marginalized and disregarded.  The fact that