Although I unfortunately missed the Thursday class, I would still confidently say this was one of my favorite weeks overall! I enjoyed our discussion of Giovanni’s room, and had so much fun with lunch afterwards.
I also enjoyed Midnight Cowboys a lot! I might be biased, since I love cinematography and am obsessed with surrealist aspects in any media, but I found the parallels and differences between the film and Giovanni’s Room fascinating, albeit a little sad.
Working through my scholarly question was incredibly helpful to me! Being able to discuss with the class gave me a real opportunity to be exposed to new ideas and thoughts about the book. It also helped me evaluate which elements I focused on were strong and which were not.
I did not like Midnight Cowboy, because it was sad and I tend not to watch sad media! That being said, the main character was very relatable for his out-of-place-ness. Being a Texan in the northeast is a cultural shock for sure.
I liked lunch! It was very fun.
As always, I really enjoyed our completely unrelated conversations to start off class and I thought having a class lunch gave us a chance to continue that.
I found that I enjoyed Midnight Cowboy more during our discussion of it–and even when we were talking about Giovanni’s Room without mentioning the film at all–than while I was actually watching it, which was interesting. All of the parallels in characters and themes are really fascinating, but this movie (as with Sin Nombre) had very overwhelming moments so I found it difficult at times to make as many connections while watching as I could later.
I enjoyed the discussion on Tuesday of Giovanni’s room and the sample essay questions. It is very helpful to break down essay questions as a class and I’m looking forward to doing that with our introductions. I also enjoyed watching the movie Midnight Cowboy, I thought it was a relevant pairing with Giovanni’s room and it had me thinking about gender roles and how masculinity is thought about in both mediums.
I really enjoyed our conversations about Giovanni’s Room, especially in relation to Midnight Cowboy. The similarities between gay media during this time period is really interesting and I am fascinated to learn more. I also really liked our discussions about Biblical allusions at the end of Giovanni’s Room, because I am not Christian and do not know much about Christianity. It was nice to learn more, especially because Biblical allusions are so common in literature.
As an aspiring English major/film minor, I deeply enjoy pairing a text with a visual medium. This week, Midnight Cowboy completely wowed me! I loved the soundtrack, camera techniques, color grading, and of course, parallel themes to Giovanni’s Room: such as isolation, queerness, and masculinity. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed our class discussions to wrap up Baldwin’s novel, and am looking forward to Citizen on Tuesday!
I enjoyed our discussion on Thursday and really digging into the final pages of Giovanni’s room. I think that there is so much in those last couple of pages in regard to religious and sexual undertones that can be analyzed for hours. I also really enjoyed tying Midnight Cowboy into Giovanni’s Room, and how many similarities there were. I think that stories like Midnight Cowboy and Giovanni’s Room are not uncommon at the core, as many people do not feel like they can be open about their true desires, but there are so many different ways this struggle shows itself.
** I would like to make a post clarifying that I mistyped the apostrophe in “author’s” from my previous post. Sorry everyone, it was going to bother me if I said nothing. It should just say ‘authors.’
One of my main takeaways for the week was our discussion of race in “Giovanni’s Room.” I found that the climate in which the book was released very much influenced the way Baldwin wrote it, and it’s led me to wonder more about the identities of other book characters and what leads author’s to choose a specific identity for a character, as it is not always a reflection of themselves. I also enjoyed reading the sample essay on this topic, it was very insightful!
On a side note, it was great having lunch with everyone! Enjoy your weekends.
I enjoyed talking about Giovanni’s room with the framework of various scholarly questions that we wrote on the board. I felt like it allowed for a more focused close-read than the typical free-flipping through the novel. I also found it really interesting to talk about David’s identity as a cisgender, white queer man as opposed to a black queer character. Considering why Baldwin would have made such a choice for the time period added a layer of complexity to my processing of the novel. Speaking of identifiers, I find it difficult to not bring up the label-packed professor bio we got to experience in our lunch as a class this week. Some of the terms I heard/learned will stick with me as a long-term takeaway and make me giggle.
I really enjoyed watching Midnight Cowboy in relation to Giovanni’s Room. Even though the relationship between Joe and Rico wasn’t explicit, I liked watching the parallels between theirs and Giovanni/David’s relationship. I was also really fascinated by the construction of the film and specifically the use of flashbacks. I would be interested to analyze that further or understand what was happening.
I thought Midnight Cowboy was such an interesting film to pair with Giovanni’s Room. The chosen displacement of the main character to an exotic place, the claustrophobic rooms, and the male damsel in distress all paralleled so perfectly in the two texts. I hadn’t thought too much about Giovanni holding the role of the damsel in distress in Giovanni’s Room, but the way he said that David was the reason he was alive and then the fact that he died soon after their separation mirrors the damsel in distress archetype but in a story where the damsel is not saved. In Midnight Cowboy, however, although Rico is the damsel in distress, I found it interesting that Joe so easily gave up on trying to save him despite his desire to be a cowboy—a character who is supposed to save the damsel in distress by any means necessary. But I guess that’s why he sheds his cowboy attire once he gets to Florida—because he realizes that he will never fit the mold of a cowboy.
Although I unfortunately had to miss our first class this week, I enjoyed watching the movie in relation to Giovanni’s Room. They were both different (and I definitely had a preference for the novel), but the two’s relationship with time was interesting to compare. Although both had repeated flashbacks to the past, Giovanni’s Room was told almost entirely in retrospective with only slight bits of the present, while Midnight Cowboy takes place in the present, and the reader is invited to learn more about Joe from the small glimpses they receive of the past.
My takeaway from this week was from our discussion, on the ending of Giovanni’s Room which really opened up the significance of the book for me. Especially the conversation of how Giovanni’s physical death was David’s mental death. There was so much to unpack in the last couple pages, that I didn’t notice all of the undertones of Giovanni going to heaven/hell.
The movie! I actually really enjoyed it! I was so nervous to watch another movie for this class, because of how intense the last movie was. However, it actually added a lot of depth to my understanding of Giovanni’s Room by seeing the parallels through characters.
It was also a lot of fun getting lunch, thank you for letting us do that! Have a good weekend/break!
Although I unfortunately missed the Thursday class, I would still confidently say this was one of my favorite weeks overall! I enjoyed our discussion of Giovanni’s room, and had so much fun with lunch afterwards.
I also enjoyed Midnight Cowboys a lot! I might be biased, since I love cinematography and am obsessed with surrealist aspects in any media, but I found the parallels and differences between the film and Giovanni’s Room fascinating, albeit a little sad.
Working through my scholarly question was incredibly helpful to me! Being able to discuss with the class gave me a real opportunity to be exposed to new ideas and thoughts about the book. It also helped me evaluate which elements I focused on were strong and which were not.
I did not like Midnight Cowboy, because it was sad and I tend not to watch sad media! That being said, the main character was very relatable for his out-of-place-ness. Being a Texan in the northeast is a cultural shock for sure.
I liked lunch! It was very fun.
As always, I really enjoyed our completely unrelated conversations to start off class and I thought having a class lunch gave us a chance to continue that.
I found that I enjoyed Midnight Cowboy more during our discussion of it–and even when we were talking about Giovanni’s Room without mentioning the film at all–than while I was actually watching it, which was interesting. All of the parallels in characters and themes are really fascinating, but this movie (as with Sin Nombre) had very overwhelming moments so I found it difficult at times to make as many connections while watching as I could later.
I enjoyed the discussion on Tuesday of Giovanni’s room and the sample essay questions. It is very helpful to break down essay questions as a class and I’m looking forward to doing that with our introductions. I also enjoyed watching the movie Midnight Cowboy, I thought it was a relevant pairing with Giovanni’s room and it had me thinking about gender roles and how masculinity is thought about in both mediums.
I really enjoyed our conversations about Giovanni’s Room, especially in relation to Midnight Cowboy. The similarities between gay media during this time period is really interesting and I am fascinated to learn more. I also really liked our discussions about Biblical allusions at the end of Giovanni’s Room, because I am not Christian and do not know much about Christianity. It was nice to learn more, especially because Biblical allusions are so common in literature.
As an aspiring English major/film minor, I deeply enjoy pairing a text with a visual medium. This week, Midnight Cowboy completely wowed me! I loved the soundtrack, camera techniques, color grading, and of course, parallel themes to Giovanni’s Room: such as isolation, queerness, and masculinity. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed our class discussions to wrap up Baldwin’s novel, and am looking forward to Citizen on Tuesday!
I enjoyed our discussion on Thursday and really digging into the final pages of Giovanni’s room. I think that there is so much in those last couple of pages in regard to religious and sexual undertones that can be analyzed for hours. I also really enjoyed tying Midnight Cowboy into Giovanni’s Room, and how many similarities there were. I think that stories like Midnight Cowboy and Giovanni’s Room are not uncommon at the core, as many people do not feel like they can be open about their true desires, but there are so many different ways this struggle shows itself.
** I would like to make a post clarifying that I mistyped the apostrophe in “author’s” from my previous post. Sorry everyone, it was going to bother me if I said nothing. It should just say ‘authors.’
One of my main takeaways for the week was our discussion of race in “Giovanni’s Room.” I found that the climate in which the book was released very much influenced the way Baldwin wrote it, and it’s led me to wonder more about the identities of other book characters and what leads author’s to choose a specific identity for a character, as it is not always a reflection of themselves. I also enjoyed reading the sample essay on this topic, it was very insightful!
On a side note, it was great having lunch with everyone! Enjoy your weekends.
I enjoyed talking about Giovanni’s room with the framework of various scholarly questions that we wrote on the board. I felt like it allowed for a more focused close-read than the typical free-flipping through the novel. I also found it really interesting to talk about David’s identity as a cisgender, white queer man as opposed to a black queer character. Considering why Baldwin would have made such a choice for the time period added a layer of complexity to my processing of the novel. Speaking of identifiers, I find it difficult to not bring up the label-packed professor bio we got to experience in our lunch as a class this week. Some of the terms I heard/learned will stick with me as a long-term takeaway and make me giggle.
I really enjoyed watching Midnight Cowboy in relation to Giovanni’s Room. Even though the relationship between Joe and Rico wasn’t explicit, I liked watching the parallels between theirs and Giovanni/David’s relationship. I was also really fascinated by the construction of the film and specifically the use of flashbacks. I would be interested to analyze that further or understand what was happening.
I thought Midnight Cowboy was such an interesting film to pair with Giovanni’s Room. The chosen displacement of the main character to an exotic place, the claustrophobic rooms, and the male damsel in distress all paralleled so perfectly in the two texts. I hadn’t thought too much about Giovanni holding the role of the damsel in distress in Giovanni’s Room, but the way he said that David was the reason he was alive and then the fact that he died soon after their separation mirrors the damsel in distress archetype but in a story where the damsel is not saved. In Midnight Cowboy, however, although Rico is the damsel in distress, I found it interesting that Joe so easily gave up on trying to save him despite his desire to be a cowboy—a character who is supposed to save the damsel in distress by any means necessary. But I guess that’s why he sheds his cowboy attire once he gets to Florida—because he realizes that he will never fit the mold of a cowboy.
Although I unfortunately had to miss our first class this week, I enjoyed watching the movie in relation to Giovanni’s Room. They were both different (and I definitely had a preference for the novel), but the two’s relationship with time was interesting to compare. Although both had repeated flashbacks to the past, Giovanni’s Room was told almost entirely in retrospective with only slight bits of the present, while Midnight Cowboy takes place in the present, and the reader is invited to learn more about Joe from the small glimpses they receive of the past.
My takeaway from this week was from our discussion, on the ending of Giovanni’s Room which really opened up the significance of the book for me. Especially the conversation of how Giovanni’s physical death was David’s mental death. There was so much to unpack in the last couple pages, that I didn’t notice all of the undertones of Giovanni going to heaven/hell.
The movie! I actually really enjoyed it! I was so nervous to watch another movie for this class, because of how intense the last movie was. However, it actually added a lot of depth to my understanding of Giovanni’s Room by seeing the parallels through characters.
It was also a lot of fun getting lunch, thank you for letting us do that! Have a good weekend/break!