I picked the ad about the little Atheist girl that reads the Bible to make a statement. It caught my eye because of my beliefs and was intrigued by what a pre-teen would have to say about the Bible. First of all, I found this little girl to be very sharp and to have a strong personality. The rhetoric she uses is very modern, it’s a mixture of girl talk and media talk all mixed up. How to explain this? Well, first of all she speaks like a 12 year old girl, very simple language that anyone can understand and her pose is also very childish, lying on her bed with sweat pants on. She also plays with the sound effects and video effects that she has at hand, making the video red and her voice devilish to make her point.

Her basic argument is that young people should not have religion spoon fed to them and that they should form their own decisions later in life. She mentions how violent, sexist and overall contradictory the Bible or any religious book can be by simply exploring the pages of one. She does not try to pass as a Bible expert or anything of that sort, just a kid, exploring knowledge by opening a book to any page.

I believe that she knows that her audience could be anyone who has access to the internet and the reaction will vary depending on age and/or religious belief. Some will probably react by being offended by her comments, maybe even thinking that her parents did not raise her well; others, like my 11 year old daughter reacted by feeling very identified her words and by feeling that this girl reinforced her own beliefs. There will be many reactions to this video, maybe she will get kids to think a bit of what is being taught to them, maybe parents will shut down access to the internet to avoid having this type of talk in their home and maybe, just maybe, this little girl, as one of the comments said, will start a Secular Student Alliance somewhere.

Posting 5 WGS

I am not quite sure I am ready to do this blog but will write something about what I’m planning to do with my paper.

I am planning to discuss the social and political environments in which both Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and Catherine of Siena lived. Although separated by time about three hundred years and also from different continents, these two women used their writing to argue the rights of women before the Church. Catherine of Siena in medieval times in Italy and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in the 17th century in Mexico seem to communicate similar concerns about the religious leaders of their time.

I guess with Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz I have a close relationship because I have read her work before. I also have the advantage of reading it in Spanish for better understanding and I also feel like I can really related to her work having lived in a colony of Spain. I thought it would be interesting to compare her work with Catherine of Siena because they both use religion as a vehicle for their message. Some of the works that I have read are somewhat difficult for me to understand because of my ignorance of script, however, I find it fascinating that since medieval times women have had issues with the Roman Catholics and their discrimination against women. Today, we still hear voices of women trying to win that battle and the Church has yet to listen.

Posting 5

Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana or, The Traps of Faith. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988.

This book by Octavio Paz was written with great admiration for Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. He throughly describes the social context of the Sor Juana's period and her odacity to write to Popes as well as write profane poetry. He writes about the unique society, her family, and her life in the convent.

This is exactly what I was looking for, he does a great job especially describing Mexican society of the era and its connection with the Spanish Empire. The admiration again that he has for this woman is especially due to the recognition of the political, social and cultural contexts that surrounded her.

Henry, Madeleine M. Prisoner of History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Madeline Henry does a great job placing Aspasia of Miletus in Greek history. For as little as we know about this writer, Henry. The analysis for each mentioning of Aspasia through Plato, Cicero and Socrates in addition to the intersting comments on the stories told by comedy, make this book easy to read and very detailed.

I am not sure I'll use this book due to the fact that I am debating if to change Aspasia for another writer. The reason for this is because of the book itself. It made me realize that a parrallel connection between Sor Juana and Aspasia might be very complicated to do. There is too much missing of Aspasia's writings. Maybe I'll change my mind when I finish the book.

Week 4 Posting 4

I was not born in this county so I find this assignment I bit difficult. However, I came to this country when I was 12 years old and remember some things that I was taught in school that didn’t make sense to me. I am not criticizing American, I am a proud American citizen just expressing constructive criticism, believe me, there are terrible things being drilled into your head in my country too; but these stood out for me even when I was young.

First is the narrative of the Constitution where it says “all men are created equal”, teachers proudly present these words to you as a wonderful phrase from our founding fathers. Well, this was written by white high and middle class men, some of them slave owners. It doesn’t make any sense in a country where there is still so much racism and discrimination. Not only am I talking about the whole race thing but “all MEN” meant just that, not women. Why all men and not all people? There is no doubt these people were smart and carefully picked their words when writing the Constitution. Chomsky once said that is difficult for people to tell you directly that they are proud and like to own slaves and make them work for free; instead, they use persuasive speech to make sense of the atrocity.

The other narrative I remember was the Pledge of Allegiance. This was attributed to the patriotism of our founding fathers however; it was not until 1954 that “one Nation under God” was added. This not only did not come from our founding fathers which by the way were for the most part not Christian but was a deliberate attempt to differentiate the policies of the United States from those of communism around the world. Leaders specifically wanted the “under God” part added because communist countries were known to refute religion.

All that said, to answer the question of what values are taught in our educational system, one can deduct that “all men are created equal” and “one Nation under God” have instilled a false sense that all Americans are the same, treated fairly and this is the ideal place for any human being to be. Discrimination and racism become issues that are not important and serious enough to take action against and our way of living is the correct way, everyone else around the world who does not look like us, or act like us or believe in the same God as us are just wrong.

In my humble opinion, this rhetoric was and is being used in schools with good intentions; however trying to instill patriotism in this way is very harmful especially for ethnic minorities and women. Furthermore, the image that Americans portray overseas keeps getting worse, through our international policies and even many times as tourists we present ourselves as self centered ethnocentric individuals.

One last thing, did you guys get the email on the lecture this coming Wednesday? Associate Professor of History and Director of the Ancient Studies Program Sviatoslav Dmitriev will give a public lecture entitled "The Origins of Modern Democracy: the Modern Myth and the Ancient Reality on Wednesday, February 9th, beginning at 3:30 pm in Burkhardt Building Room 109. He will be talking about this idea of Democracy which we adopted from the Ancient world, unfortunately we also adopted all the flaws, democracy for all does not really mean for all, just for a few. Our educational system has always used the word "Democracy" as the ideal type of society but is it really?