For Tuesday: Harden, Escape From Camp 14, Chs.21-Epilogue

Be sure to finish the book for Tuesday's class (or get close) so we can discuss the closing chapters. Remember to start thinking about Paper #3 (assigned posted in the post below this one).

Answer ONE of the following:

Q1: According to Harvard psychiatrist Judith Lewis Hermann, many concentration camp survivors have what she calls "a contaminated identity." What does this term mean, and how does it play out in Shin's post-camp life, particularly in America?

Q2: Though many North Koreans try to flee the country and make it to South Korea (where they share a language and a culture), they often have a very difficult time assimilating. Besides the freedom, what other cultural factors does a North Korean have to overcome to make it in South Korea? How does this suggest that (like Q1) escape is as much mental as it is physical?

Q3: The South Korean government will pay employers "up to eighteen hundred dollars if they risk hiring a defector" (167). Additionally, the US is very generous in granting residency and green cards to defectors, in the hopes they can put down roots and start again. Should other countries be so willing to take in defectors and encourage what could quickly become a mass exodus of North Koreans, particularly if their government collapsed? Should their problem become our problem?

Q4: Why does Shin ultimately give up on the US and return to South Korea? Does Harden look at his story as a "failure," either to assimilate or to escape his past? Does the book suggest he is on the way to becoming a true "human being" again, or is he still haunted by the camps? 

For Thursday: Escape From Camp 14, Chapters 16-20; also, Paper #3 assignment

For Thursday, read Chapters 16-20 of Escape from Camp 14. There are no questions this time, though we'll do an in-class writing response based on a specific passage in the work. We'll also discuss more writing techniques to help you with Paper #3, which I handed out in class (see below): 

Paper #3: The Conversation of Camp 14

Choose ONE of the following: 

Option 1: “Tibetans have the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Burmese have Aung San Suu Kyi, Darfurians have Mia Farrow and George Clooney...North Koreans have no one like that” (13).

Write a letter to a prominent celebrity (your choice) to interest him or her in taking up the cause of the North Korean camps and refugees like Shin. Why are the camps the “modern day Holocaust,” and why is this an issue that every American should be aware of? Assume that the celebrity knows little to nothing about the camps or North Korean life—it is your job to educate them, explaining the realities of the country, the camps, and Shin’s story. To help verify your story, find at least 2-3 additional sources that can either corroborate, flesh out, or add information to your argument. You should also consider what objections the celebrity would have to making North Korea his or her soapbox issue. What do you think keeps people from talking about it now? How can you address these fears or biases with simple facts and information about the human rights abuses going on in the camps?

Option 2: “Congress passed a law that accepted North Korean refugees for resettlement in the United States, which the North derided as an attempt to topple its government under the pretense of promoting democracy” (144).

Should the US actively encourage North Koreans to flee the country and find asylum in the States? Though immigration has become a dirty word in the current election cycle, is it America’s duty to save these people from human rights abuses? Do people like Shin deserve a chance at a better life where they can become productive (and appreciative) US citizens? Also consider that the more we encourage North Koreans to flee their government, the more the country becomes destabilized, which has long-range benefits to the US. However, many bordering countries, such as China, have begun to discourage refugees and are forcibly returning them to North Korea: what are there “naysayer” reasons for doing so? Are they the same reasons we should discourage bringing them here to the US? Or do the benefits outweigh the potential risks? Use Escape from Camp 14 to make your argument, along with 2-3 additional sources to corroborate, expand upon, or simply flesh out your argument.

REQUIREMENTS

• 4-5 pages double spaced
• You must respond to Harden’s book, Escape from Camp 14, using several passages for support
• Additionally, use 2-3 secondary sources to corroborate or expand upon the conversation of this book
• Use of the Naysayer, as well as consideration of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
• DUE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8th BY 5pm

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape from Camp 14, Chapters 10-15

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape from Camp 14, Chapters 10-15

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Many people who read and/or study the Holocaust wonder why more prisoners didn’t try to escape. The same question could be asked of prisoners of Camp 14 or any other camp in the North Korean system. As if responding to this, why does Harden write in Chapter 15 that “their plan was simply—and insanely optimistic” (109)? Why did Shin and Park’s ignorance play a large role in their escape attempt? And what made Camp 14 particularly difficult, in general, to escape from?

Q2: What does the term “juche” mean and how does it relate not only to North Korea but their famous leader, Kim Il Sung? Related to this, what reality does juche hide from the people—and how does it doom them to starvation and misery both inside and outside the camps?

Q3: Harden writes that “Camp 14 is a fifty-year old Skinner box” (107). What is a ‘Skinner box’ and why is this a useful way to understand the psychology of the camp? Related to this, how could Shin, someone who grew up inside the box, find the strength to escape its physical and mental confines?

Q4: Throughout these chapters, we see Shin trying to act in a more moral fashion: taking a stand against tyrannical bosses, and even refusing to snitch on a fellow inmate. He claims early in the book that he had to learn the meaning of basic concepts such as morality, friendship, etc. So are these passages attempts to write his ‘new’ identity into the narrative? Or are they true without being necessarily the result of a new moral consciousness?

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape from Camp 14, Chapters 3-9

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape from Camp 14, Chapters 3-9

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why was Shin punished repeatedly for 6 months for informing on his mother and brother? Related to this, why didn’t he speak up for himself until the bitter end? How do the answers to both questions say something important about the psychology of the camps?

Q2: How did you react to the information that Chapter 4 is mostly a lie? Why did Shen tell this lie over and over again in South Korea and the US? What do you think made him finally confide the truth—which is introduced in Chapter 5—to the author?

Q3: Early in the book, Shin argues that words like mother, father, brother, son, daughter, etc., mean nothing in the camps. However, as these chapters point out, that isn’t exactly true. Where do we see true feeling and compassion emerging between family members—and even strangers? Why might some people still be capable of this while others, such as Shin, were left emotionless?

Q4: North Korea is a relatively small and poor country, surrounded by some of the wealthiest nations in Asia—China, South Korea, and Japan. According to the book, how does such a modest country amass such incredible wealth for its leaders and the privileged classes? How is the West somewhat responsible for the rise of North Korea, even though the nation vilifies America and all Western powers? 

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape From Camp 14: Preface-Chapter 2 (pp.xi-32)

For Tuesday: Harden, Escape From Camp 14: Preface-Chapter 2 (pp.xi-32)

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What did the education of the schoolchildren at Camp 14 consist of? Similarly, what information was hidden from them? How did this education affect his mental and social development?

Q2: How does the camp re-define basic human relationships such as husband, wife, children, brother, sister, and teacher? What does it suggest about human nature that these relationships, which have universal meanings throughout history, can be altered within a single lifetime?

Q3: Suzanne Scholte, an activist who works in Washington, said that “Tibetans have the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Burmese have Aung San Suu Kyi, Darfurians have Mia Farrow and George Clooney...North Koreans have no one like that” (13). Given all the suffering and horrors of the camps, why do you think there are no celebrity spokesmen/women for North Koreans? What makes this any different than the Holocaust or other genocides and prison camps?

Q4: The author of the book, who is writing the life and experiences of the North Korean, Shin Dong-Hyuk, writes that “In writing this book, I have sometimes struggled to trust him. He misled me in our first interview about his role in the death of his mother, and he continued to do so in more than a dozen interviews” (10). Based on this, how do we know whether any of this story is true? Why is it difficult to verify his story? And related to this, why might Shin be unwilling (at least initially) to tell Harden the actual, factual truth? 

Discussing and Citing "Audrie and Daisy" in your paper

For those of you interesting in responding to Yoffe's essay/conversation for Paper #2, the film Audrie and Daisy might work well as support for your views or as a naysayer to you and/or Yoffe. However, how do you 'use' a film in your paper? It's not enough simply to recount the plot or to say that it exists. You can do one of two things in your paper:

#1: Quote dialogue from the film that you find significant. For example, the Sheriff of Maryville is quoted as saying, 

"You know, unfortunately, you have a lot of people involved in this that are running around telling a lot of stories, and without pointing fingers, it serves to benefit peoples’s causes by making things up that really didn’t exist...But don’t underestimate the need for attention. Especially young girls. There’s a lot of pressure on young girls in our society to be pretty, to be liked, to be the popular one. It’s not fair, but it is how our society works." 

If I wanted to use this, I might write, "As the Sheriff of Maryville explains, "You know, unfortunately, you have a lot of people involved in this that are running around telling a lot of stories, and without pointing fingers, it serves to benefit peoples’s causes by making things up that really didn’t exist" (Shenk/Cohen). 

#2: Or, you can simply focus on a specific scene in the film which you narrate and then discuss. For example,

In a very important scene from the documentary, Audrie and Daisy, we see the police officer interrogating one of the suspects apologize for having to take the suspect's phone. He even says, "I'm afraid I'll have to take this," as if he truly regrets having to do it. While this may seem like an example of playing "good cop" to get the suspect to relax and eventually confess, throughout the interrogation, he seems never to press too hard or demand too much. The suspect, though uncomfortable, seems surprisingly relaxed and under no fear of serious imprisonment (Shenk/Cohen). 

Then, you would cite the film in your paper's Works Cited page like so:

Audrie and Daisy. Directed by Jon Shenk & Bonnie Cohen. Netflix, 2016. 

For more information about the film, check out this website as well (which you can use as a source, but you can't use it along with the film: either us it OR the film, and then find another second source).
http://jezebel.com/audrie-and-daisy-an-infuriating-and-familiar-look-at-h-1787276546) 

Paper #2 assignment: due Thursday by 5pm

Paper #2: The Cultural Conversation

“We cannot escape our history. All of our solutions to the great problems of health care, education, housing, and economic inequality are troubled by what must go unspoken.” (Coates, “The Case for Reparations”)

The three essays we’ve read for class deal with very difficult, divisive topics in our culture: health care, rape, and race. Once you start listening to the conversation, you realize how deeply each one is rooted in history—a history that spans millions of lives and twice as many discussions and conversations. Below, I’ve given you three naysayer responses to each of the three essays in class. I want you to choose ONE of them as the basis for your Second Paper. You can either (a) use the argument as your general thesis, and write a paper supporting it, or (b) spend your essay refuting it, and trying to prove the opposite side. Either way, you need to employ your own naysayer arguments to show both sides of the conversation, and suggest that whatever you believe, the argument is hardly cut and dry.

THE NAYSAYER RESPONSES (pick one):

N1: I feel that with the limited time and funds dedicated to fighting diseases, Alzheimer’s has to rank low on the totem pole. Since this is an “end of life” disease, it’s better to spend the money on those who are just starting their lives, who have more hope and promise rather than those who have already fulfilled it.

N2: It’s better to define rape as broadly as possible, since the more cases we prosecute, the more rapists we are likely to catch. Since so many rapes go unreported anyway, it’s better to risk being wrong rather than let thousands of women go without justice. Besides, as rape allegations become more commonplace, it will drive the serial rapists from campus and eventually stop the epidemic altogether.

N3: The past is the past. We can’t make up for it, we can’t pay money to it, and we can’t move forward by looking backward. While some believe that reparations will heal financial and psychological wounds, the only real way to do that is simply to work hard and stay strong. We’ve come a long way, and reparations are a step backward for everyone, including the victims.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Use the corresponding essay in your paper significantly: quote from it and use it as a way “in” to the conversation.
• 2-3 secondary sources: these should be articles from EBSCO or another trustworthy source (articles/websites with authors). Use these in your paper as support or as naysayers. Be sure to quote and respond to them in your paper.
• See Quotation Handout: Introduce quotes, cite them properly, and respond to each one. Include a Works Cited page.
• At least 4-5 pages, double spaced
• DUE Thursday, October 6 by 5pm