Research Project

From the moment this research paper was mentioned, I knew I wanted to do something with World War I. As a fervent bio major with little to no interest in general history, let alone war, World War I has fascinated me since I first cracked open my 9th grade history textbook to the WWI chapter.

Studying WWI for almost a full year in my Academic Decathlon team piqued my interest in the war and it's effects. Nations acted brashly on their underlying rivalries with each other, men volunteered with nationalist pride under their belts, unknowing of the horrors of war, and America prospered while Germany declined. Before learning about WWI, there were only winners and losers; but WWI and its effects had a fuzzier definition of winning and losing, especially in society.

As a result, there were many men and women who felt the aftermath of the war. Initially fueled by nationalism and the idea that wars beforehand were short and winnable, men came home disillusioned with a need to add meaning to their lives. This can be seen in Ernest Hemingway's post WWI novel, The Sun Also Rises. For my research paper, I will look into the disillusionment of men and women post WWI and how their outlook on life changed the literary and political outlook of the future.

Chinese Name, Korean Race, American Person

If you have met someone with the last name Chi, more often than not, he or she is Chinese. My family and I, on the other hand, are Korean; and to this day I have yet to meet another Korean Chi. 

So how does having a Chinese last name play out in my life when I'm actually Korean? It's both good and bad. On one hand, it's a great conversation starter and has prompted me to have meaningful discussions about race and culture. On the other hand, it leads to a lot of assumptions like when a Korean teacher assumed I was Chinese from the roster and did not attempt to challenge my Korean speaking skills. 

Though I don't know the exact origin of the name, (whether it was a typo from my grandparent's name Choi, or if we somehow descended from a Chinese clan) it has shaped how I felt different from other Korean-Americans as many Korean-Americans are deeply rooted to their Korean half of their identity more than their American side. 

This was evident to me when my eighth grade history teacher asked the class "If you consider yourself American, raise your hand" and only the non-Asian kids raised their hands. The Asian-American kids usually thought of themselves as Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. without the added -American. I was one of the kids who believed she was one of the sole Koreans until I realized that I was more of an American than I thought. I began to realize that I favored American cultural perspectives regarding race, gender, sexuality, and self expression to a greater extent than Korean cultural perspectives. 

For example, the American and Korean perspectives on beauty are vastly different. Now, I'm just generalizing here, but most American media encourages women to be happy with the features she was born with and to enhance the natural beauty that God has so graciously given us (please note the sarcasm). If you look at the statistics on Korean plastic surgery, you can see that Koreans believe that the face that you were born with is just an option. Basically, Koreans believe that if you can fix it, why not? 

My mom is traditionally Korean and she believes that plastic surgery is the best way for a woman to enhance her beauty whereas I believe that it is a woman's confidence and self esteem that lets her beauty shine through. She has pushed me to get surgery on my eyes, nose, and jaw so that I can fit the Korean standard of beauty and be wed to a nice Korean man who likes all those features. I have consistently argued against her that I do not want any procedure done to my face (although I have gotten moles removed).

All in all, my Chinese last name and Korean upbringing has showed me that being an American is the part of me that I feel very lucky to have.  

Prompt #5 Quarterly Reflection

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Ah, the sphere of domesticity. One of my favorite topics from this quarter.

The first  quarter of Humanities Core eluded me completely. Though there was much to learn about what war meant for ancient peoples or how it was studied during the Renaissance, it was never truly interesting to me because all I could think of was: how does it in any way relate to me? I am not a Greco-Roman cultural historian who is trying to find the meaning behind agency in Homer's epics; I am not a playwright studying Brecht to understand how the medium of acting can demonstrate the rawest of emotions; nor am I Renaissance thinker trying to make sense of Machiavelli's texts.

So who am I? And why did I stick with Humanities Core? 

It did not truly occur to me until this quarter just how war can truly effect humanity. I already said this in my last blog post reflecting on the Fall Quarter, but learning about the Civil War and Cold War and the memories behind it has helped me to understand just how much war can still linger on in the hearts and minds of people who weren't even directly involved. Perhaps it is due to my appreciation for America that I find a newer, deeper perspective on war. 

When it came to the Trojan War mapped out in The Iliad and the historical wars in The Prince, my interests were dilapidated because I could not understand how it affects me. But when it comes to the Civil War or Cold War, it is easy to understand because it is so visible in the country's opinion on many issues such as racism and privacy, to name a few. 

As for next quarter's research paper, the most likely topic that I will be focusing on is the Civil War as I am very interested in how the Civil War is remembered in modern day America. 

Prompt #4: Torture Brings Out The Best In Us

Keep in mind that this post has a lot of spoilers.

Torture is an effective way to get someone's attention in media; it is cruel, emotionally triggering, and  inhumane. The media often portrays the hero or an innocent person as the victim of torture so that the torturers can be dismissed as the "bad guys" with little to no contest. However, what if the tables were turned? What if the "good guys" tortured the "bad guys" for the sake of entertainment? What if justice did not just stop at turning over the criminal to the police? When does torture become entertainment? These are the questions that come up when watching Quentin Tarantino's 2007 film, Death Proof. 

The "tortured hero" plot device is often the most simple way to show how evil the antagonist is, as they are willing to put someone through a cruel process for their selfish and villainous desires. This story arc goes back to the most holy and evil characters of the Western world: Jesus and Satan. Jesus was willingly tortured by Satan as Satan "brings evil and temptation". On the other hand, Jesus was the martyr for everyone's sins, essentially being the "ultimate hero" after suffering through the torture that he endured. From this dynamic, we can see that there is a clear divide between good and evil, tortured and torturer.

When torture is used by the good guys, however, it is not seen as a mechanism for evil. Rather, it is seen as a mechanism for justice. Some may ask, "But isn't torture inherently evil in the first place?" To which I respond: yes. Yes because the very nature of torture itself is evil in that it is inhumane and selfish.

The final scene shows the main female protagonists, Zoe, Abernathy, and Kim, driving in a Dodge Challenger, rear end Mike, the antagonist, in his car, pull him out, and beat him up until he lays unconscious and is, presumably, dead. 

Not knowing anything else about the movie, except for the final scene, may lead you to write off Zoe, Abernathy, and Kim as cruel. However, knowing the context of the movie and that Mike is a sadistic, perverted, and diabolical ex-stuntman who has killed and tried to kill many women including our three main female protagonists makes the final scene feel like a sigh of relief. 

So why is it that a protagonist can use something that only the antagonist should be using? To have a protagonist have both good and evil tendencies makes him or her all the more relatable because no one is perfectly good OR bad; instead, we are a mixture of both. Torturing the "bad guy", like Mike in Death Proof, speaks to our inherent nature that justice must be served, the ultimate form of "torture-tainment". So not only does the final scene feel like the denouement of the film, but it also reveals humanity's need for "eye for an eye" justice. 

To this day, Death Proof remains one of my favorite movies because despite the problematic morality, I know it is just a movie, set in an entirely different universe other than my own. So if killing a man by beating him up with high heeled boots and drop kicks means that justice was served in the Death Proof universe, then I'm fine with it. In fact, I find it totally awesome.  

Prompt #3: Response to Torture

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The op-ed piece, by Anne Applebaum, titled "The Torture Myth"  summarizes the pros and cons (but mainly the cons) about the use of torture and its effectiveness in recent wars. This article has shown me that although torture has been a widely used method of obtaining information, it has not necessarily been effective and that not using torture has actually been more effective than using it. It has also pointed out to me that torture only leads to reciprocation from the other warring party. The op-ed piece in itself is convincing by showing the ineffectiveness of torture from the direct experiences of veterans from modern wars. But it does not answer the question: Is torture right or wrong? The piece as a whole suggests that torture wrong from an objective point of view, but does not mention the morality of it. The purpose of this piece has been well fulfilled: it successfully debunked the myth that torture is an effective method of obtaining information. However, for the piece to be well rounded and be more useful to a clueless person such as myself, a section about the morality of torture would improve the piece as a whole.

As someone who did not get into much politics until this year, I do not have a personal, concrete opinion on torture. However, reading pieces from people who have such certain opinions regarding politics made me notice things about torture that I have not noticed before. Reading the pieces by Dershowitz and Scarry has made me realize two things: 1. Torture is immoral but neither is war; and 2. Torture can be justified in the eyes of the American judicial system. Though my personal studies on torture are not as diverse and in depth as Dershowitz and Scarry, I would have to agree with Scarry more as I believe that Dershowitz believes that the safety of innocent people is more important than the safety of guilty people, which takes away from the main fact that we are all, in the end, just people. 

Prompt #2: Response to "Picturing the Civil War 3: African American Soldiers" by Prof. Fahs

While reading through "Picturing the Civil War 3: African American Soldiers," one could see that Professor Fahs' purpose in writing this blog post was to show how the representations of African Americans changed throughout the course of the Civil War; more specifically, the recruitment of African American soldiers changed how African Americans in general were perceived by the mainstream media. Prof. Fahs illustrates how mainstream media before the civil war portrayed African Americans as either stereotypical jokes of themselves or as helpless slaves.

The post proceeds in chronological order  from the beginning of the Civil War to the end, separated by images and Fahs' reflections on them. The recruitment posters and her rhetorical questions are especially intriguing as the rhetorical questions give a new light into how the posters may be perceived. While the ordinary onlooker may see the posters as purely informative, Prof. Fahs' rhetorical questions show how the posters appeal to the emotions and agency of African Americans to recruit into the army. From the posters, Prof. Fahs proceeds to talk about a piece in which an African American soldier is being trained by a white general, the Northern white fascination with the lives of slaves becoming soldiers, daguerrotypes of African American soldiers, and finally, the lingering racism that still existed in America despite the improvement of the general public's perception of black people. Not only does Prof. Fahs use rhetorical questions when referring to the posters, but they are also employed in the very last paragraph so that the reader may come to his or her own conclusions about how the images used in the Civil War were effective in changing perceptions and to what extent.

The questions/comments I have for Prof. Fahs are as follows:
Was having African American soldiers pose in a certain way in the daguerrotypes was intended to create meaning or did it just happen to have an impact on those who viewed it? If the latter, how do you know that the any, if at all, impact was created?
Your thesis is very compelling and putting it in a chronological order is helpful to the reader as one can follow along with your argument easily and effectively.
By pointing out how there was still racism underlying all the progress that had been made in changing the negative perception of African Americans, you successfully create an accurate insight into the societal values of the time.

Prompt #1 Reflections on the Civil War

My APUSH and IB History teacher, Mr. Ludlam with a smorgasbord of desserts.

The majority of my Civil War knowledge was imbued upon me by my junior AP US History teacher Mr. Ludlam. Mr. Ludlam was famous on campus and off for being very impassioned, strict, and a shouter (he would shout for almost every lecture, I kid you not). The Civil War was a topic of great interest to Mr. Ludlam for many reasons, most of which I cannot remember. But I do remember the main reason which was that it was an event that centered around one of his idols: Abraham Lincoln. When it came to learning the Civil War in APUSH my junior year, Mr. Ludlam made sure to make us think about and focus on the causes of the war. Everything from literature, politics, sociology, and economics, was discussed in class and expanded upon in essays.

Mr. Ludlam pounded into our heads the fact that Abraham Lincoln was never for the freedom of slaves from the very beginning of his presidency, but rather a proponent of keeping slavery from expanding; by doing so, Mr. Ludlam got the misconception that the Civil War was fought purely for the freedom of slaves out of our heads. Due to Mr. Ludlam's thoroughness in teaching the many reasons for the start of the Civil War, he was able to teach us to form and prove our own opinions regarding the causes of the Civil War.

Professor Fahs' lectures of the Civil War are a lot more quiet and calm than the Civil War lectures I remember, but they are also filled with detail and insight. Though we went over Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison's impact in the 19th century, it was not the main focus of the APUSH curriculum and therefore not focused on in detail. Focusing on Frederick Douglass and the abolitionist movement showed me new ideas and theories around the causes of the Civil War. Therefore I can supplement my own theories regarding the cause of the Civil War by using Frederick Douglass' actions and African American involvement's contingency as proof that the war was not purely about slavery but a big factor and major driving force.