Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • Cultural Studies or New Historicism

    Uploaded by

    Charles Mwiti
    81 views4 pages
    The document discusses the poem "Reaching Guantanamo" by Solmaz Sharif and how it relates to New Historicism and cultural studies. It analyzes how the poem uses erasures to represent gaps in history and mistreatment of Guantanamo inmates. While cultural studies examines political dynamics, the poem better fits New Historicism by situating the literature in its historical context of the Guantanamo prison and understanding intellectual and cultural history.

    Original Description:

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    The document discusses the poem "Reaching Guantanamo" by Solmaz Sharif and how it relates to New Historicism and cultural studies. It analyzes how the poem uses erasures to represent gaps in history and mistreatment of Guantanamo inmates. While cultural studies examines political dynamics, the poem better fits New Historicism by situating the literature in its historical context of the Guantanamo prison and understanding intellectual and cultural history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    81 views4 pages

    Cultural Studies or New Historicism

    Uploaded by

    Charles Mwiti
    The document discusses the poem "Reaching Guantanamo" by Solmaz Sharif and how it relates to New Historicism and cultural studies. It analyzes how the poem uses erasures to represent gaps in history and mistreatment of Guantanamo inmates. While cultural studies examines political dynamics, the poem better fits New Historicism by situating the literature in its historical context of the Guantanamo prison and understanding intellectual and cultural history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Surname 1

    Student Name:

    Institution:

    Course:

    Date:

    Cultural Studies or New Historicism: Reaching Guantanamo

    Generally, the topic of “Reaching Guantanamo” relates very well with the New

    Historicism since this theory is a form of literary theory whose objective is to recognize

    intellectual history through literature and the latter through cultural context. I also see “Reaching

    Guantánamo” by Solmaz Sharif to be related to cultural studies. Cultural studies are defined as

    the innovative interdisciplinary field of research and teaching which explores how culture creates

    and alters individual experiences and everyday life.

    To begin with, the author of the “Reaching Guantanamo” uses erasing imagined words

    and as a result the audience have to fill in the blanks. Indeed, Sharif is not private to most of the

    details since she does not make words from the original letters. In the process of formulating

    these letters, the author skips some information to show the affection and the gaps that exists in

    the history of Guantanamo prison. Surely, the history of Guantanamo prison provides details of

    how inmates were treated unfairly for many years and accusations of violations of human rights

    up to today.

    Historically, the Guantanamo Bay was a United States Naval Base with the establishment

    of Cuba occurring in 1898 when United States took control of the country from Spain at the end

    of Spanish-American war. At the end of 20th century, the base was used as a detention centre in
    Surname 2

    which the Cuban and Haitian refugees until when the camp was declared unconstitutional by the

    government of United States. Today, the prison remains running with inmates housed being

    mostly the terrorists with most of the inmates accusing the prison officers of mistreatment,

    torture and abuse. In fact, the inmates claim that they were not allowed to have any pen or paper

    and had to write using spoons and used cups as the writing materials. Those who were

    imprisoned claimed of solitary confinement which forced the US to declare the place not only

    inhumane but also changed the policies there.

    In this letter which is in the form of a poem it is possible to imagine of what the inmates

    feel and imagine. I had hard time since at first, I thought it is a sweet poem only to realize that it

    is a message which is coded. In prisons when inmates wish to communicate while inside the

    walls or when outside they usually send coded messages. For instance, the author states in the

    poem:

    I have enclosed some -made this

    batch just for you. Please eat well.

    Upon reading this section of the poem I thought of the message as a code since first it

    could be an illegal drug which the inmate had sneaked into the prison and the sender wants the

    parcel to remain unanimous. More so, it could be an inmate who is hungry and has decided not to

    eat as way of protesting against the mistreatment they face in the Guantanamo bay prison.

    Therefore, the “batch” made could be coded so as to mean the weapons or escape tools.

    To sum it up, Solmaz Sharif piece “Reaching Guantanamo” is New Historicism since it

    attempts to situate the literature text as a product of historical context as it is the case of

    Guantanamo bay and also as a means of understanding cultural as well as intellectual history
    Surname 3

    (Veeser H.,23). Cultural studies engages the concentration on political dynamics of the

    contemporary culture but the piece “Reaching Guantanamo” does not have much of political

    dynamics to fit in cultural studies category.


    Surname 4

    Works Cited

    Sharif, Solmaz. "Paperbag No. 1 // Solmaz Sharif." Paperbag // Issue No. 13, 2014,

    paperbagazine.com/paperbag_1_solmaz_1.html.

    Veeser, Harold, ed. The new historicism. Routledge, 2013.

    You might also like