Chulalongkorn University is a mythical place for young Thai students who aspire to come here. What is it to actual students, past and present? Please share your story.
What is the meaning of the title of Ali Smith’s novel Girl Meets Boy?
Passages to consider:
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, in her short story “Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology,” presents, among other likewise individual characters, Riley, an engineering Caltech student who
wore blue contacts lenses and bleached his hair—which he worked with gel and a blow-dryer and a flatiron some mornings into Sonic the Hedgehog spikes so stiff you could prick your finger on them, and sometimes into a wispy side-swooped bob with long bangs—and he was black. But this wasn’t any kind of self-hatred thing. He’d read The Bluest Eye and Invisible Man in school and even picked up Disgruntled at a book fair […] He was not self-hating; he was even listening to Drake—though you could make it Fetty Wap if his appreciation for trap music changes something for you” (1) […] who in addition to black women liked cosplay—dressing up as characters from his favorite books and movies—and Dr. Who and Rurouni Kenshin and the Comic-Love convention, and especially Death Note, his favorite manga and anime series. (2–3)
In a knowing and self-aware voice, the narrator acknowledges that “yes, there are black people who have both of these things [blue eyes and blond hair] naturally, without the use of artificial accouterments, so we can move past the whole phenotypically this or biologically that discussion to the meat of things” (1–2).
Write a “fancy sketch” or two or five of Chula students à la Thompson-Spires, moving past the stereotypes to the meat of things. Give a detailed, vivid, and unique picture/account of a real Chula student. What can they be? Anticipate and acknowledge what the stereotypes and misconceptions would be and write past that correcting-the-misperceptions point to tell something significant about the individual person. What discussions should we already move beyond to some serious issues revolving around perceptions, behavior and story of a Chula student? What is the heart of the matter for you?
Space for questions and answers about Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s book Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins’s Watchmen. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Bruce Chatwin’s novel On the Black Hill. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Angela Carter’s short story “The Snow Child.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Muriel Spark’s short story “The House of the Famous Poet.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Samuel Beckett’s short story “Ping.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Hide and Seek.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Frank O’Connor’s short story “Guests of the Nation.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Virginia Woolf’s short story “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Agatha Christie’s short story “The Witness for the Prosecution.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about W. Somerset Maugham’s short story “Louise.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about David Ives’s short play Time Flies. Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Gillian Clarke’s poem “Neighbors.” Reply below to share your ideas.
Space for questions and answers about Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “The Chicago Picasso.” Reply below to share your ideas.
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Roundtable Conversation 