Transcript Week7ii - Cara Gillis

May 15, 2008 Humanities Core Course
Today's Plan
1)
2)
3)
The Prospectus -- a fun activity.
Kluger's Still Alive
Midterms
2.Who are the individual members of Kluger’s family and what happens to them?
3. How does she describe torture (18)? Does her definition differ from your own
understanding?
4. Look at the description of the aunt who died in the gas chamber on pp. 18-19.
Kluger is not trying to convey petulance or lack of concern, but she is trying
to convey something important. How do you understand her failure to
forgive her poor murdered aunt?
5. What is the significance of poetry/poems and ballads in this account? Watch for
her use of poetry.
6. Kluger writes of her “shabby, shameful childhood in Vienna” (24-26). What
were the restrictions on Jewish children?
7. She criticizes Judaism for its male-dominated funeral rituals on p.30. How does
this differ from what we have read about Sophocles’ world?
8. (42) What is the significance of her taking the name Ruth?
9. How does Snow White figure in this narrative?
10. (50-52) How does she experience Nazi propaganda?
11. How does she react to the man who is surprised that an Auschwitz survivor in
Israel could hold Arabs in such contempt? (65)
12. (66) She makes some provocative comments about the museum culture of the
camps. Do you agree?
13. What do you make of her comments on p. 71 and elsewhere that her readers
are most likely female?
14. What is Theresienstadt? Name 2-3 things that happen to her there. Why is she
so annoyed by the colleague’s wife who says it was not so bad?
Now, midterms.
Here are the questions if you want to look at them.
1. What was the Peasants’ War, what was Martin Luther’s
response to it, and why is it relevant to reading Michael
Kohlhaas?
2. What is the central argument of Hind Swaraj regarding
civilization?
3. What is Gandhi’s interpretation of “English people”? Are
they to blame for India’s problems? Who, according to
Gandhi, is to blame for colonialism?
4. Give 2-3 possible translations of “Hind Swaraj” and explain
the significance of each. Why might knowing these
translations and what they mean be significant for
understanding Gandhi’s book?
5. What is counterargument? List at least three strategies for
counterargument, with examples.
6. Explain the role of Tiresias in Antigone. What is the crucial
thing that he does?
7. How are the “green glasses” that Kleist says we all wear
similar to the bureaucrats in Michael Kohlhaas?
8. How are the conditions of “doing” different in Antigone’s
Thebes and Michael Kohlhaas’ Holy Roman Empire? Give
specific instances.
See me with particular questions.