Discussion Class

Discussion Class Topics

- Friday the 13th of September -

(12pm)

- The Kurdish problem in Japan -

Just to be up front about this, I do not know much about this topic. It only very recently came to my attention, but I'm still not 100% sure I even understand the issue.

Apparently there is a somewhat large community of Kurdish people living in Kawaguchi, Saitama. And recently this has been causing problems with both local native Japanese people, and foreign people from Turkey. People have been posting online attacking the Kurdish people claiming they are bad people who want to destroy Japanese society. I saw some stories about people pretending to be Kurdish online, doing bad things, to make Kurds look bad.

Why is this happening? What is the issue?

Link 1

Link 2

Let's discuss this!

- Friday the 13th of September -

(8pm)

- The Kurdish problem in Japan -

Just to be up front about this, I do not know much about this topic. It only very recently came to my attention, but I'm still not 100% sure I even understand the issue.

Apparently there is a somewhat large community of Kurdish people living in Kawaguchi, Saitama. And recently this has been causing problems with both local native Japanese people, and foreign people from Turkey. People have been posting online attacking the Kurdish people claiming they are bad people who want to destroy Japanese society. I saw some stories about people pretending to be Kurdish online, doing bad things, to make Kurds look bad.

Why is this happening? What is the issue?

Link 1

Link 2

Let's discuss this!

- Sunday the 8th of September -

(11am)

- The Western Canon -

In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom wrote The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, wherein he attempts to define a set of authors who compose "the western canon", a literary bedroom to European/American intellectual thought. It was controversial at the time of writing, being actively aggressive towards the so-called "school of resentment" composed of critical theorists. Nowadays, it seems that this western canon is even more under attack, as there has been calls to "decanonize" certain words. Is/was the western canon real? What criteria should be used to determine whether an author is on such a list. Should this canon be set in stone, or should it be allowed to develop?

Also, for those interested in reading the book, it is available for free on the Internet Archive!

Let's discuss this!

9月・10月の不定休日：

9月29日(日) ～10月3日(木)