Intercultural Conversation on the Topic of Limits

On Thursday, September 25, the Advanced Reading class of the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP) enjoyed our first Intercultural Conversation of Fall 2014.

An Intercultural Conversation is an opportunity for our LIEP students to engage with other members of the Loyola University community and with interested New Orleanians, who are invited to join us in discussing topics that our LIEP students have read and talked about in class. We meet in the Library Living Room of the Monroe Library at Loyola University New Orleans, where we are served cookies with coffee or tea. We begin with a time of informal chatting to get acquainted in small groups.

New Orleanian Dee Smith, Loyola University student Mary Beth Brungardt of Atlanta USA, and LIEP students Ana Pereira of Brazil, Ryota Kojima of Japan, and Sister Theresa Le of Vietnam are getting acquainted.

The whole group then comes together to discuss our Intercultural Conversation topic.

The whole group has gathered for our Intercultural Conversation.

Last Thursday's Intercultural Conversation topic was limits, a prominent topic in our September class readings and discussions. During this Intercultural Conversation, we talked about outer-imposed limits, such as traffic speed limits; inner-imposed limits, such as limits on amounts and kinds of food we eat; and limits that we discover, such as how much alcohol our bodies can handle. We talked about how we respond to other- and self-imposed limits and to discovered limits, as well as how and when we strive to stretch our limits. We talked about how it felt to learn society's limits as children, how it feels to be faced with a different set of social limits in a new culture, and how it feels to return home and re-adjust to one's own culture's social limits after becoming accustomed to different limits in another culture.

Dr. David O'Donaghue

We are very fortunate to have Dr. David O'Donaghue lead our Intercultural Conversations. Dr. David O'Donaghue is a philosopher, a psychologist, and an artist. As the founder and director of two life-long learning initiatives, the New Orleans Lyceum and Chautauqua New Orleans, he has organized many such discussion groups in New Orleans coffeehouses, libraries, and homes.

Thank you to Dr. David O'Donaghue, to our New Orleans and Loyola friends, and to our LIEP students and faculty for making our Intercultural Conversation such a rich time of sharing ideas!

Conversation with Professor John Biguenet, Author of "I Am Not a Jew"

Our Advanced Reading class in the Loyola Intensive English Program has been reading short stories and articles about how we respond to differences, particularly to people who are different. One of the most poignant of these has been "I Am Not a Jew," from the short story collection The Torturer's Apprentice by John Biguenet.

The Torturer's Apprentice
by John Biguenet
A collection of short stories,
including "I Am Not a Jew"

In "I Am Not a Jew," Mr. Peter Anderson, a U.S. tourist in Germany, takes an evening walk alone outside the town of Waldheim and comes across a Jewish cemetery. Attracted by its beauty and peacefulness, Anderson enters and strolls meditatively among the graves. Suddenly, he is confronted by a group of four tough neo-Nazis, who threaten him. Terrified, Anderson saves himself by crying out, "I am not a Jew!" This is true -- Anderson, in fact, is not Jewish. Later, however, he feels guilt about his response. The story leaves Anderson -- and us -- with the question: What should I have done?

John Biguenet
Professor and Author
Loyola University New Orleans

On Monday, September 22, we had the wonderful opportunity to meet and talk with John Biguenet, the author of "I Am Not a Jew." Professor Biguenet is also Chair of the English Department at Loyola University New Orleans. He spoke to us about how he came to write this story and explained how its many vivid descriptive details come from his own experience visiting Germany.

Professor Biguenet told us that he wrote "I Am Not a Jew" in response to the war in Bosnia during the 1990s. This war raised disturbing but important moral questions for him. In grappling with the complexities of writing about Bosnia, Professor Biguenet realized that he could examine the moral questions more effectively by situating them within a context more familiar to readers -- that of post-World War II Germany.

The details of "I Am Not a Jew" include the picturesque ice creams sold in the town's shops, the ambiguous angel/demon figures surrounding the town fountain, the elaborate but somewhat sinister mechanical clock above the town square. Professor Biguenet explained how these and other details came directly from his experience and observations in Germany and how he used them in "I Am Not a Jew" to create an environment that is just unfamiliar enough to be slightly disconcerting.

Most importantly, Professor Biguenet stressed that his purpose as an author is not to provide answers but to ask questions.

Thank you, Professor John Biguenet!

Professor John Biguenet with the Advanced Reading class

Reading Novels

In the Advanced Reading class of the Loyola Intensive English Program, small groups of students have chosen a novel to read for the semester. Each group meets on Wednesdays to talk over the week's chapters.

Five students have chosen to read The Braided Path by Donna Glee Williams. The Braided Path is a light fantasy that takes place in a craft-based society living in a physically steep vertical world, where a single path connects one's Home Village with the villages above and the villages below. The novel explores what it means to find and follow one's passion and path in life and to determine and then stretch one's limits.

Below are two photos of the students who have chosen Williams' The Braided Path.

Students in the Advanced Reading class of the Loyola Intensive English Program meet with their group to discuss the week's chapters of The Braided Path by Donna Glee Williams. 

The Braided Path reading group. Seated left to right: Ms. Azusa Kurosawa of Japan, Mr. Marco Frick of Switzerland, and Mr. Murtadha Almohammed of Saudi Arabia. Standing left to right: Mr. Haotian "Lee" Li of China and Mr. Ryota Kojima of Japan.

Another five students have chosen to read The Night of the Comet by George Bishop. The Night of the Comet takes place in the bayou country of Terrebonne Parish in southeast Louisiana in 1973, the year of Comet Kohoutek. The approach of the comet is the catalyst for igniting latent conflicts in the Broussard family: 14-year-old Junior (our narrator), his awkward but passionate science teacher father, his socially ambitious but frustrated mother, and his talented but alienated 17-year-old sister.

Below are two photos of the students who have chosen Bishop's The Night of the Comet.

Students in the Advanced Reading class of the Loyola Intensive English Program meet with their group to discuss the week's chapters of The Night of the Comet by George Bishop.

The Night of the Comet reading group. From left to right: Mr. Hikaru Yokoyama of Japan, Sister Theresa Le of Vietnam, Ms. Maria Paula Posada of Nicaragua, and Sister Pauline Phan of Vietnam. Not pictured: Ms. Ingrid Rodriguez-Fierro of Guatemala.

In mid-November, our authors -- Donna Glee Williams and George Bishop -- will visit the class to talk with the students reading their novels. We will report on their visit!

Traditions of Naming

The Intermediate Listening & Speaking class of the Loyola Intensive English Program has been working with traditions of naming: meanings of names, good names for babies, ceremonies for naming babies, formal and informal ways of addressing people, legal name changes, effective business names, hurricane names.

Below, three students display and explain their names.

Mr. Dong-Joo Lee of Korea has written his name in the Korean script, in the English alphabet, and in Chinese characters. In Korea, the family name, in this case Lee, is placed first. Dong-Joo explained that there are several Lee families in Korea. He belongs to the Gyeng-Ju Lee family group. Dong-Joo also explained that his family consulted a naming specialist to give him his individual name. The name Dong-Joo was chosen for him. Dong-Joo means East Pillar.

Ms. Ekaterina "Katya" Yurevna Dashkovskaya of Russia is married. Her original family name is Vasileva, but since her marriage, she uses the family name of her husband, Dashkovskaya. Katya explained that her first name, Ekaterina, means Purity. She told us that nearly all Russians use a nickname, or a short form of their first name. She herself is called Katya, a short form of Ekaterina. Katya also explained that Russians have a middle name, based on the first name of their father, with a masculine ending for a son and a feminine ending for a daughter. Because Katya's father's first name is Yuri, Katya's middle name is Yurevna.

Ms. Sonia Maria Clemente of Brazil explained that her first name, Sonia, means Dreams Come True. Her middle name, Maria, comes from her family's Catholic religious faith, where it is common to name a child after a holy person. Maria was chosen as Sonia's middle name to honor the mother of Jesus. Clemente is the family name of Sonia's father.

Thank you to Mr. Dong-Joo Lee, Ms. Ekaterina "Katya" Yurevna Dashkovskaya, and Ms. Sonia Maria Clemente for sharing the meaning of their names with us!