Class Summary 9/15

Today in class we discussed two main things: the importance of note taking and the article “The Dark Side of ‘The Arabian Nights’”. In regards to note-taking, we talked about how in a lecture-style class it is very easy to sit and take notes while in a discussion-based class note-taking is more difficult. Professor Albert shared a new way to take notes. She recommended writing down bullet points in class and after class writing a summary of what was discussed. After we discussed that a little bit more we transitioned into a discussion about the article. Based on the article we asked questions such as, why was the book written?, Can you fact-check a book like this?, Are these stories true?, and many more. A big issue that we discussed was racism. We talked about how the theme of racism is already playing a big role in the book “Arabian Nights” and how we will continue to see this theme as we read more. In regards to that, we talked about how race played a role when the text was written. This was a complicated question because the book was compiled over many years. We also discussed how writings regarding race are viewed in modern eyes. Overall we had a very interesting discussion about the complexities of reading a book that was written in such a different time period. I look forward to continuing to read more of “Arabian Nights” and seeing how a modern perspective interprets the text.