<em>A Touch of Green</em>
While doing research in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province in China, I made a visit to a local neighborhood called Dafang Lane. There's no famous tourist spot here, but I was drawn to it by a Taiwanese TV series that I watched years ago -- <em>A Touch of Green</em>. <br /><br /><em>A Touch of Green</em> is a 2015 TV series that is based on a novella of the same name by Pai Hsien-Yung, a phenomenal Chinese writer. The story unfolds the life of three Republic of China Air Force pilots and their wives from the Chinese Civil War period (1945-1949) to the White Terror period (1949 to 1987) in Taiwan. The story is not an ode to China's revolutionary past, but rather to the tumultuous and miserable lives of ordinary Chinese people who left their homeland and migrated to a new island after the KMT lost the Civil War in 1949. It is not centered on the bravery of the pilots or the strength of their wives. Instead, the drama portrays their anxiety and weariness over the war, their helplessness when confronting fate and history, and their grief over their loved ones' deaths. It touched me because it transcends macro-historical frameworks and narrates the bond, love, pain, and survival hardship of an ordinary group of people. <br /><br />In the original novella, Dafang Lane is the military dependents’ village where the wives of the pilots resided. The old buildings still exist today, and there is a brief introduction on the wall explaining that they were constructed in the 1930s and are now protected historical sites in Nanjing. I walked around Dafang Lane, as if I was walking down the memory lane of modern Chinese history. The dripping sound of life echoed here, as I imagined how the wives of the pilots anxiously awaited their husbands' safe landing or their deaths. For me, the Dafang Lane is not just a place; it's also a humanities moment that intertwines the TV drama, the novella, and the untold history of a group of pilots and their families.
<em>A Touch of Green </em>(television series and novella by Pai Hsien-Yung)
May 2021
Jinghong Zhang, 26, history Ph.D. student
touch-of-green
All Thanks to Olivia Pope
I decided to go into academia at a panel about Scandal. It was 2015 and I was a college senior.
Like millions of other fans, one weekly joy was Shonda Rhimes’ Thursday night primetime takeover: Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. The thrill of these Thursdays was not only the juicy and ridiculous plots, but the chance to see dynamic stories of Black women on television. Between my friends, my mom, grandma, and Black Twitter as a whole -- we all had something to say. Yall remember the episode when Olivia is kidnapped, locked in a basement of sorts, but her hair remains frizz and kink-free?
The Shondaland symposium, hosted on my campus, brought together Black women scholars from an array of academic disciplines ( History, Women’s Studies, Law, Cultural Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, and Media Studies) to discuss this beloved tv takeover. As speakers framed the moment, I learned how historic this cultural production was. There hadn’t been a Black woman lead on primetime TV in more than forty years. That day I entered a great cipher (as Gwendolyn Pough would call it)… brilliant Black feminists came together in the intellectual and honest riffing of ideas. The discussions were, of course, genius. No stone went unturned. These scholars took up everything from what it meant to envision a Black woman with the power to run the State, how Rhimes’ complex characters transcend archetypes of Black womanhood, to Black women's still unprotected status under the law. The panelists engaged in the more pressing issues too: Fitz or Jake?, favorite sex scenes, hand-bags, petticoats, and iconic Poppa Pope speeches. Between giggles, I feverishly jotted down notes.
In the humanities, we take up questions pertinent to the dynamism of personhood and complexity politics. Yet, Black women are often left out of the mix. By senior year of college, I had come to know that I loved the humanities. This moment was the moment I learned that the humanities could love me back.
ShondaLand Symposium
2015
Sarah Scriven, 26, PhD Student in Women's Studies
all-thanks-to-olivia-pope
Genre: Control or Chaos
<p>This episode of <i>Westworld</i> had me at its title, "Genre." I have been thinking about genre as part of my academic work since my dissertation, which became my first book, on contemporary (post-1980) neodomestic fiction, and most recently in my work on the contemporary (post-1970) American adrenaline narrative. So, as I sought a moment of escape from home and work via immersion in the alternate reality of a popular television series, my work and entertainment worlds—as so often happens in the humanities—collided.</p>
<p>While the shift from thinking about the American home to extreme sports to a futuristic world may initially strike one as nonsequiturs, our current social distancing reality highlights the distinct and blurred lines between such genres. Our lives are shaped by shifting and competing narratives about home, risk, and our control or lack of control of the future. We engage narrative—via family stories, the news, fiction—to make sense of the chaos. Yet, as the episode from <i>Westworld</i> demonstrates, knowledge may also produce panic, if not pandemonium. Laurence Gonzales in <i>Deep Survival</i> claims, "We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel" (64). This is the power and danger of narrative.</p>
<i>Westworld</i>, Season Three, Episode 5, Genre
April 12, 2020
Kristin Jacobson, Professor of American Literature, Stockton University
genre-control-chaos
Make Today Beautiful
At the beginning of my journey, I never would have imagined ending up here writing this paper. Through all of the ups, downs, and turnarounds, lessons have been learned the hard way. No matter what is going on in life, there is always something to be taken away. Coincidences don’t happen. Everything has a reason, a learning curve, a seed, that if taken care of properly, will flourish into an abundance of beautiful growth. One person in particular has helped me keep my mind and soul nourished: Mr. Rogers.
Throughout 895 episodes of wisdom, only being able to watch a few, changed the way I go about everything (NPR). He always illustrated who we ought to be: a caring, compassionate, loving, accepting, patient, gentle, kind human being to all whom we come in contact with, even if they are rude. There was never an excuse to raise his voice or to get angry, but he taught us to appreciate their point of view. “Everyone’s special in this life. Everybody you meet has something special to give and receive” (9). No matter how the interaction between another goes, he appreciated their worth because there is good in everyone if you look for it. Even if people are wrong, good still exists inside, we must find that good, and let them know they are loved. “You are a very special person. There is only one just like you. There's never been anyone exactly like you in the history of the earth, and there never will be again. And people can like you because you’re you” (19). Once again, he shows us our worth. Mr. Rogers reminds me, us, that we are unique.
Generosity can never be overdone. Mr. Rogers modeled the importance of saying ‘thank you.’ “Thank you. Two of the best words we can ever learn. In fact, ‘thank you’ is a way of saying ‘I love you” (31). He always had a way with words. His gentle, yet powerful statements embedded themselves into my mind. Our friendly neighbor, Mr. Rogers also exhibited that helping is loving. Small acts of help can brighten someone's day, even if it’s just with a smile. One of his neighborhood friends, from the land of make believe, Aber, said, “When anybody’s in trouble, we try to do what we can” (49). When we love ourselves, we can love others more fully and when we do that, we can do anything. We can become everyday heroes. And the more we can contribute, the more we can see the needs of others. “There are many helpful people in this world, aren’t there? The more you grow into a helpful person yourself, the happier you’ll find this world of ours is” (51). Magically, Mr. Rogers knows how to ease one’s mind. I have found that the more we love, the more we care, the more we realize how many happy people are out there.
Beauty is found everywhere. Everyday beauty such as the birds chirping a melody or the moon shining down on us. “Wondering and marveling is never a waste of time” (105). Taking a deep breath of air to admire the clouds, listening to the wind brushing against the leaves, and hearing the crickets chirp can help us feel peace; connecting to nature lets us feel at home. Taking time to see, helps you and me to slow down so we can realize what is truly important. It takes us from the worries of the world and puts us at peace with the world.
You see, everyone is our neighbor. “Everybody’s different. And there are some things about everybody that are the same. That’s what’s wonderful. That’s what helps us to understand each other. That we’ve got some things inside of us that are the same as somebody else’s. We’re all human beings” (115).
Thus, Mr. Rogers opened my heart and mind to see everyone with a new pair of eyes; to have a continual desire to love and help them appreciate their worth. Daily, his example makes me know I am unique, I am enough, and people can love me for who I am. His example is one to always follow because you can never love enough. All of the lessons he taught will never be forgotten because he is my everyday hero, an ordinary man with a soul full of grace.
Works Cited
Rogers, Fred. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Clarkson Potter, 2019.
Burns, Asia Simone. “Mister Rogers Still Lives In Your Neighborhood.” NPR, NPR, 18 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/02/18/584669284/mister-rogers-still-lives-in-your-neighborhood.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Graci Mills, 18, High School Student
make-today-beautiful