This document provides an overview of literature from the Global North and South. It begins by defining the Global North and South, with the Global North referring to rich, developed countries and the Global South comprising developing nations, former colonies, and areas affected negatively by globalization. The main lesson then discusses literatures from the Global North, noting that contemporary European and American fiction still utilizes realism as a mode alongside postmodern experimental forms. It asks the reader to define realism and representation, and whether their meanings are related. Realism depicts life realistically while representation portrays people and societies.

1. CROSSINGS IN
WORLD LITERATURE
TODAY
UNIT III

2. LITERATURE
Lesson 1

3. Lesson Outcomes:
1. Define “Literature”.
2. Identify the different genres of
literature.
3. Write a literary piece based on the
chosen genre of literature.

4. Activity:
LITERATURE
As many as you can, write down your
ideas about the given word above.

5. introduction
Literature is a term used to describe written and
sometimes spoken material. Derived from the Latin
word literature meaning "writing formed with letters,"
literature most commonly refers to works of the
creative imagination, including poetry, drama, fiction,
nonfiction, and in some instances, journalism, and
song.

6. introduction
Simply put, literature represents the
culture and tradition of a language or a
people. The concept is difficult to precisely
define, though many have tried; it's clear that
the accepted definition of literature is
constantly changing and evolving.

7. introduction
For many, the word literature suggests a higher
art form; merely putting words on a page doesn't
necessarily equate to creating literature. A canon is
the accepted body of works for a given author.
Some works of literature are considered canonical,
that is, culturally representative of a particular genre
(poetry, prose, or drama).

8. Main Lesson
The GENRES of literature

9. Main Lesson
A. Literariness
By “literary” we strictly mean artistic written
expression as opposed to traditional forms like
myths, epics, folktales, legends, ballads, proverbs,
folk drama, which had oral culture as their life and
basis.

10. Main Lesson
In the formalist view, literariness is the apt use
of devices, techniques, and figurative language in
the careful shaping of the elements od a poem or
story to commicate a point or insight. The use of
creative techniques must not feel forced or artificial;
verbosity or shallow, decorative applications of
figurative language do not qualify as literariness.

11. Main Lesson
B. Fiction
Fiction is basically prose narrative, its
distinctive feature being the centrality of plot action.
The propeller of plot action is the presence of
conflict (a disturbance in the status quo or the way
things are), and the narrative proceeds
acomplications arising from the conflict add up and

12. Main Lesson
reach a climax wherein the situation becomes
finally unbearable and begs to be resolved.
This is the turning point of the story, when the
protagonist arrives at a very important
realization or makes a decision that changes
the course of events, and the conflict is
resolved.

13. Main Lesson
Fiction is not just about plot, however. Fiction is an
interplay and interlayering of other elements like
character, setting, point of view, and tone. Like the
other genres, fiction makes use of figurative language,
especially symbol (when an ordinary object in the story
acquires great significance, for example a house
whose physical features are symbolic of what the
family members are like)

14. Main Lesson
and irony (or a disparity, which is usually
a sight of complexity or critical insight, for
example characters wose words conflict
with their actions, or events that turn out
to be the opposite of expectations).

15. Main Lesson
C. Creative Nonfiction
This is the genre that incorporates elements of
fiction and poetry in the retelling of a personal
experience. It is through the use of literary devices
that insight about real people (oneself included)
and events are best teased out.

16. Main Lesson
D. Poetry
Mina Roy defines poetry as “prose bewitched.”
If fiction is mainly concerned with plot action, poetry
is “life distilled” (says Gwendolyn Brooks) through
words and language. (This is ocourse not to say that
action is not present in the poetry, and that language
play is not used in fiction.)

17. Main Lesson
Poems are primarily relished as words as the
building blocks of this art---how their meticulous
selection, arrangement, and calculated interplay
deliver ideas, feelings, perspectives, shades,
flavors, and layers of meaning.

18. Main Lesson
Three General Types of Poetry:
1. Lyric Poetry - expresses the thoughts, ideas, or feelings of the
speaker or persona. It is often in the first person,with the
speaker either directly involved in the dramatic situation or
speaking from a detached observation point. Whereas lyric
poetry tackles a condensed moment, draws a single scene, or
focuses on a single event;
2. Narrative Poetry - deals with a series of events (i.e., plot
action).

19. Main Lesson
3. Dramatic Poetry - the speaker is an imaginary character
addressing another imaginary character who remains silent;
this is also called drammatic monologue. If the listener
replies, or if there is a conversation, the poem is called a
dialogue.

20. Main Lesson
E. Drama
Like poetry, drama is also an ancient form of communal
expression. Unlike modern fiction that encourages reflective
isolation and individualization in the act of reading, poetry
and drama are best enjoyed when performed (or read aloud
rather that using just the eyes), with the sounds and
rhythyms in poetry heard and the spectacle in drama seen by
an embodied audience.

21. QUESTION
 What is the differences among
fiction, poetry, and drama?

22. evaluation
 Select one genre of literature and write your own
piece based on it. The criteria for the paper
should be as follows:
• 50% -- content;
• 20% -- language;
• 20% -- organization; and
• 10% -- mechanics.

23. enrichment
 Go online and search for the elements
of fiction, poetry, and drama. Write the
ideas on your notebook and discuss it
with your classmates.

24. Summary
 Draw a diagram showing the summary of
the lesson.

25. THANK YOU! 

26. WORLD LITERATURE
Lesson 2

27. Activity:
 As many as you can, list down the names
of the world's famous writers you have
known. Try to include the title of the
literary works they have written and a
simple gist of what are those pieces all
about. Write your answer on a yellow
paper.

28. Lesson Outcomes:
1. Define “World Literature.”
2. Recognize the different literary works done by
various writers in the world through reading
activities.
3. Create a collage that best translates the theme of
the poem “His T-shirts” into another artistic work.

29. introduction
What exactly do we mean by “world literature”? It
carries with it two possible meanings. First, it may refer to
the vast literary production across the world; second, it
might only contain what is deemed “the best” of what the
world's literature can offer. In reality, world literature
subscribes to both definitions and so one can imagine the
internal contradiction of the phrase “world literature”--it is
inclusive of all literary works produced across time and yet

30. introduction
The phrase is also rigid in selecting what works can
be deemed truly representative of the literature of the
world.
What is self-contradictory about
“world literature” as a concept?

31. MAIN LESSON
The phrase “world literature” comes from the German scholar
and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's phrase Weltliteratur.
In his use of this phrase, Goethe envisioned literature that is
truly global in scope but deeply rooted in the Indo-European
classics, especially those of Ancient Greece.
From the mid-1990s, scholars of literary study have gone back
to Goethe's concept of Weltliteratur o make sense of the
increasingly global characteristic of literary works being written.

32. Main Lesson
“World literature is not an infinite, ungraspable canon
of works but rather a mode of circulation and of
reading , the mode that is as applicable to individual
works as to bodies of material, available for reading
established classics and new discoveries alike.”
- Damrosch, David: What Is World Literature (2003)

33. Main Lesson
 It must be pointed out that a literary texts may
cross boarders (i.e., it will be circulated across
countries) for a number of reasons.
 Some of these reasons include the artistic merit
of the literary texts (e.g., it wins an award), the
political situation surrounding the text (e.g., the
text comes from an influential country),

34. Main Lesson
or the popularity of the work (e.g., it has been made
into a film), among other reasons.
 Damrosch also notes that world literature is a
“mode of reading”.
Following this argument, what kind of preparation do
we need to read world literature, especially if a literary
work is outside our literary comfort zone?

35. Main Lesson
 Can you identify at least one play by William
Shakespeare? You can perhaps identify at least one
title of the thirty-seven plays attributed to shakespeare.
(If you have actually read an excerpt or the complete
play itself, or if you have viewed a theatrical
presentation of any of Shakespeare's work, well kudos
to you! Good job!)

36. Main Lesson
 Meanwhile, can you identify who is the poet of the poem
collection Gitanjali (Song Offering)? This poet happens to
be the first Asian and first non-European to be awarded
the Nobel Prize in literature. If you cannot identify who
this author is, the answer is Indian writer Rabindranath
Tagore, a contemporary of Jose Rizal.

37. Main Lesson
The Case of Two Literary Giants
Shakespeare's works endure in our collective
consciousness because Shakespeare has always been
a staple in our education, in English and literature
subjects. There are even a good number of translations
of Shakespeare's plays into Filipinos by scholars such
as National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbrera,
Rolando Tinio, and Ron Capinding.

38. Main Lesson
On the other hand, very few classes read any work by tagore.
although there are translations of his works into English, Tagore's literary
works almost never make it to our English and literature classes.
Tagore is a multi-talented artist who wrote an array of novels,
poems, plays, and stories in hiss native Bengali language. He acted in his
theater and composed music. Ian Jack described Tagore as “a fine
essayist; an educationist who founded a university; an opponent of
terrorism that then plaqued Bengal; a secularist amid religious divisions;
an agricultural improver and ecologist; a critical nationalist.”

39. Main Lesson
For someone who was a literary trailblazer in his
country, in Asia, and the world, it appears that some
150 years after tagore's death, not a lot of people
outside of his ethnic group are reading him. Ian
Jack's article title about Tagore's case is very apt:
“Rabindranath Tagore was a global phenomenon, so
why is he neglected?” Why indeed?

40. QUESTIONS
What kind of forces affect a literary
work's circulation and reception?
What forces at play can make a
literary work “global”?

41. MAIN LESSON
Let's conclude this section with a reminder. When
reading a literary work from a different country or region, you
may need to read “around the text” by considering the
following contexts, whatever applies: culture, thought,
politics/government, social structure, gender roles, traditions
and customs/etiquette, history, economy, philosophy, religion,
art, popular culture, education system, myths and folklore,
family structure, and values.

42. Main Lesson
To do:
Read Israeli fictionist Etgar Keret's “Suddenly, a Knock on the
Door” (go online and use the link below) and Hong Kong poet
Tammy Ho Lai-Ming's “His T-sirts” (see next slides). Pay attention to
how both authors sensitively yet comically portray cross-cultural
encounters and in Keret's word, “the human situation.” What
particular “human situations” created by intersecting cultural traces
were drawn by each of these two works?
• <https://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/keret_3_1_12/>

43. Main Lesson
His T-shirts
by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
Medium-sized t-shirts on his dark body.
He's totally Chinese--more so than me.
But in periods when his building bridges,
fixing window panes or drilling roads,
I think he's from Africa.
Yellow skin is black in the sun.
Who said colours are God-given?

44. Main Lesson
Medium-sized t-shirts he has aplenty.
Elated, in countries foreign, we do not forget
at home he's suppressing his worried lips.
He wants nothing from us, but
we like the idea of giving. And so he's
wearing t-shirts from London, thailand,
Auckland, Japan, finland, India,
Malaysia, Poland, Korea...
'Where are you from, father?' We are
teasers. Names of places bold

45. Main Lesson
in English on his chest. He doesn't know.
'China,' he answers. We laugh.
We laugh. Bad daughters.
Medium-sized t-shirts on top of Large
-sized ones in his drawers.
He once stood huge
in front of a snack bar,
buying us coca-colas,
and we cheered.

46. evaluation
 Pair up with your classmate. Brainstorm with your partner on
what demands on a reader a literary work from a different
culture makes in order to better comprehend the text.
Specifically, what should the reader be prepared to do in order
to make better sense of the literary work, such as this
(Suddenly, a Knock on the Door) story? (you should have
read and analyzed the story) Identify at least one way of
preparing to read a nonlocal literary text. Record your
thoughts in a short bondpaper.

47. enrichment
 Create a collage. You are an artist commissioned by an Asian art
exhibition to create a collage (an artwork composed of different
materials) inspired by the poem “His T-shirts” by Tammy Ho Lai-
Ming. Having read the poem carefully, your task is to make a
collage that best translates the theme of the poem into another
artistic work. Your collage will be displayed along with other worls
from the region. Provide a titile to your artwork. Your collage should
clearly show the influence of the theme of His T-shirts, in addition
to its being a fitting addition to an art axhibit about contemporary
Asia.

48. Summary
One thing that is constant if we are to survey the
literature of the world across the premodern age to
the 21st century is that humanity has an
unquenchable thirst for self-expression that has led
them to immortalize the human experience through a
rich variety of literary production. World literature is
the story of us as a species.

49. THANK YOU! 

50. LITERATURES OF THE GLOBAL
NORTH AND SOUTH
Lesson 3

51. Lesson Outcomes:
1. Identify the literary works of the Global North and
Global South.
2. Determine the difference between the literatures of the
Global North from the literatures of the Global South.
3. Appreciate the importance of reading various literary
pieces of other countries.

52. Activity:
 Go online and search the terms “Global North”
and Global South,” which of late have replaced
the more familiar terms “First World,” “Second
World,” and “Third World” especially in
discussions involving post-Cold War
globalization. What is the significance of the
word “global” in these two terms? Which
countries are classified under Global North and
Global South?

53. introduction
In globalization debates and critiques that polarize the
Global North from the Global South, the latter refers to areas
that tend to bear the brunt of the negative effects of
globalization. Unlike the superpowers and rich countries of
the Global North, the poor countries of the Global South are
historically diadvantaged to begin with. they include
developing nations (formerly the “Third World,” an obsolete
Cold War term), war-torn areas, and former colonies in Asia,
Latin America and Africa.

54. introduction
Challenges facing the Global South include mass
poverty, human and civil rights abuses, environmental
degradation, political instabilities, and other kinds of internal
conflicts. Movements for global justice and “deglobalization”
(Bello 2004) as a more equitable alternative to globalization
focus on the plight of the Global South or the “globalization
losers,” and push for policies that aim to narrow the gap
between the North and the South.

55. Main Lesson
literatures of the global north

56. Main Lesson
In this lesson, we will cover recent developments in European
and Anglo-American fiction as specimens of literary work from the
Global North. Although contemporary European and American
fictionists have turned to experimental, new, or alternative forms
or modes associated with postmodernism (e.g., metafiction),
realism is able to maintain its solid footing well into the 21st
century. “Realism,” like “representation,” has become over time so
much a part of our general vocabulary that both have acquired
commonsensical meanings.

57. QUESTION
 Based on common knowledge, how
would you define these two terms:
“realism” and “representation”? Are
their meanings related to each other?

58. Main Lesson
 “Realism” denotes a lifelike, immediate quality while
“representation” simply means a “re-creation,” a
“rendering” as when a painter captures a subject
“realistically” in an oil portrait.
 Realism seems to be the most spontaneous and honest
kind of representation. If the point of representation is to
reflect objects without change or distortion, then realism
is, in essence, the most effective type of representation.

59. Main Lesson
 Realism depicts the “real world,” a fidelity to setting,
and the widest possible scope of social life. Thus,
realists stories are concerned with capturing the
everyday in all its minutes details.
 Realism's rigorous attention to detail extends to a
thoroughgoing exploration of individual psychologies
and relationships within a given social structure.

60. QUESTION
 What is stream of consciousness? How does this
point of view change realist assumptions of an
objective reality?
New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield employs
stream of consciousness in her story “Miss Brill” (1920). Go
online and search for an excerpt of this story. Read and
analyze the story.

61. Main Lesson
 Postmodernism, as an aesthetic, reworked writers to
engage representation in a manner different from the
verisimilitude that was assumed by realism.
 It is the cultural dynamic of a period designated as
postmodernity.
 Postmodernity is said to have emerged in the period after
the Second World War when society came to rely, in an
unprecedented degree, on technology, consumer culture,
media, and images.

62. Main Lesson
 French critic Jean Baudrillard, in describing how
representation had replaced reality, coins the term
“simulacra” to refer to “the generation by models of a real
without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (1994. 1).
 We live in a hyperreal when we “experience” how other
people live when we watch TV and converse with people
we haven't met through e-mail or in chatrooms.

63. QUESTION
 How does Baudrillard's concept of the
hyperreal critique our notions of “reality” and
“representation”?
Recommended readings for this lesson are a short story and a novel, both
with storytellers as main characters. Read Czech-born author Milan
Kundera's story “The Apologizer”
(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/the-apologizer) and English
novelist Ian McEwan's Brooker Prize-nominated novel Atonement.

64. Main Lesson
literatures of the global SOUth

65. Main Lesson
In this lesson, we'll consider certain issues being brought
up in 21st century Latin American and African literature.
Postcolonial Latin America has produced Hispanophone,
Anglophone, and literary works in the vernacular and other
languages like Portuguese, as well as migrant and mixed-
race literature (e.g., Chicano/a literature or Mexican
American literature, or more broadly, Latino/a literature of
Spanish Americans in the US).

66. Main Lesson
Latin american literature
 The literature of Spanish America is remarkably diverse
then and now.
 The accummulated burdens of history demanded
expressive relief in the form of fiction that (for western
readers) combined European realism and modernism with
mythic, folkloric, indigenous, everyday magical elements.

67. Main Lesson
 The aesthetic level for this is magical realism, a term that is
somewhat falling out of favor becse of connotations of an
artificial-sounding experimental “style”; the more preferred
term is “the marvelous real” (lo real maravilloso coined by
Alejo Carpentier) which suggests an organic outlook that
even common Latin Americans possess (for example,
Gabriel Marquez's grandmother who in his boyhood had told
him magical stories that she never doubted were true.

68. Main Lesson
african literature
 Studies of African literature emphasize the need for African-
centered rather than Eurocentric perspectives in rreading
works produced from the African continent and the African
diaspora.
 This is because African literature registers very deep historical
scars and active recuperation from the violence of slavery,
Western colonization, and institutional and cultural racism.

69. Main Lesson
 An African-centered perspective may involve any of the
following:
A. Identifying Indigenous African Aesthetics
This calls for the appreciation of African folklore and how
African oral traditions fold into modern African literary works.
B. Responding to Colonial and Racial Discourse
This mode of reading involves critique of negative
stereotypes of Africa and its people, as well as of neocolonial
power structures in post-independence Africa.

70. Main Lesson
C. Recognizing Transnational Black Subjectivities
Apart from Afrocentric ethno-nationalist cultures, there are
also transnational, diasporic, hybrid cultures referred to as the
“black atlantic,” a term coined by Robert Farris Thompson but
developed by Paul Gilroy to mean “culture that is not
specifically African, American, Carribbean, or British, but all of
these at once; a black Atlantic culture whose themes and
techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce
something new.”

71. evaluation
ESSAY: In a minimum of 200 words,
differentiate the literatures of the Global
North from the literatures of the Global
South. Write your answer on a yellow
paper.

72. enrichment
 Compare and contrast these two literary
movements: modernism and
posmodernism. What makes stream of
consciousness a modernist literary
device?

73. Summary
 Write the summary of the lesson
using a text outline. Do not forget to
discuss what you have learned from
the topic.

74. THANK YOU! 

75. LOVE IN A STRANGE
PLACE
Lesson 4

76. Lesson Outcomes:
1. Compare and contrast how cross cultural
romance was dealt with in the movie the Last
Samurai and the novel Silk
2. Create a brochure about different cultures
around the world

77. ACTIVITY:
1. What do you think is the concept of “love at
first sight”?
2. Is it possible to fall in love with someone
even if you do not share a common language
or culture?
3. Do you think romantic relationships among
people from different countries are doomed to
fail? Explain.

78. introduction
Show and Tell:
Bring the actual objects/photos of the
following.
1. Japanese teacups
2. Japanese silk
3. Silkworms
4. Silkworm eggs
5. Fish eggs
6. Samurai
7. Japanese women in a traditional
dress
8. Japanese house with rice-paper
panels
9. Kimono
10.Bow in Japanese culture

79. Main lesson
silk
by: Alessandro Barico

80. MAIN LESSON
Background knowledge
Silk is a novel about a man who travels the world, falls
illicitly in love, succumbs to obsession, and learns the true
worth of the woman he already has. The bulk of the story
covers the years 1861 to 1865, but there are a few chapters
that address the personal history of some characters and follow
more extensively the lives of others. It is set primarily in
Lavilledieu, in a small town in France.

81. MAIN LESSON
It describes the romantic adventure of a traveling silkworm egg
trader, Hervé Joncour, a Frenchman who falls in love with the
mistress of a Japanese man.
The novel opens in 1861. Thirty-two-year-old Hervé Joncour is
a silkworm trader. He lives in the town of Lavilledieu in the
south of France with his wife, Hélène. Each January, Joncour
travels thousands of miles across Europe and Asia to purchase
silkworm...

82. Main lesson
To further understand the story SILK by
Alessandro Baricco, let us watch it.
Here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/8Cr_JcpAVe8
https://youtu.be/i4Sgq3tN7YU
https://youtu.be/K4iQzQI2-r4

83. MAIN LESSON
There was a time when Japan was closed off from the world. This
lasted for 200 years, from the early 17th century to the year 1854.
this policy was called sakoku (isolation). They did this because
they mistrusted the foreign traders they came in contact with and
were suspicious of Christian missionaries as well. This suspicion
was based on the actions of the Christian missionaries figuring out
ways to colonize other countries, with the help of Christianized
natives, such as what happened here in the Philippines. (Skwirk
Online Education n.d.)

84. MAIN LESSON
Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open their shores to
foreign trade and diplomacy. In 1854, he had succeeded in making
the shogun sign the Treaty of Peace and Amity at the Convention
of Kanagawa. According to Ayako Mie (2014). “Silk became one of
the nation’s most important exports after the Tokugawa shogunate
dropped its policy of isolationism in 1854. Demand for Japanese
silk surged after European silkworm stocks were ravaged by
disease and Chinese silk exports were crimped by political
instability in China”.

85. QUESTIONS
 What did you feel when you were watching the
short video? Do you think what they were
experiencing was love or lust?
 What does this reveal about the possible
attractions of being with someone from different
place?

86. evaluation
BROCHURE
Find out about body language and their meaning across cultures.
Compile it, showing how different cultures show politeness, greetings, love,
and contempt. The following are suggested cultures that you may research
on:
1. French culture;
2. Philippine culture;
3. American culture;
4. Japanese culture; and
5. Arabian culture

87. enrichment
Watch the movie “The Last Samurai”, and compare and
contrast how cross cultural romance was dealt with in this
movie and the novel “Silk”. Which one is more realistic?
Write it on your activity notebook with 2-3 paragraphs.

88. summary
The novel Silk by Alessandro Baricco takes place in Japan
when they had just opened the country to foreigners. The
protagonist, Herve Joncour, is a French adventurer with the
dangerous mission to smuggle silkworm eggs from Japan. At that
time, bringing silkworm eggs outside of Japan is considered a
crime. He meets the samurai of the community to reassure him
that he is not smuggling eggs. But upon meeting the samurai’s
woman, he falls in love with her at first sight.

89. THANK YOU ! 

90. THE BODY
Lesson 5

91. Lesson Outcomes:
1. Discover the story The Good Body by Eve
Ensler.
2. Appreciate the beauty and the difference of
every women.
3. Display awareness in body shaming through
social media sites.

92. ACTIVITY:
1. How do you feel about your body? Are you
proud of it? Why or why not?
2. What kind of body is idealized in today’s
society? Do you agree with this ideal? Why
or why not?
3. Who do you think has an easier time dealing
with standards of beauty and body image in
our society? Males or Females? Explain your
answer.

93. introduction
Bring magazines and newspapers that can be cut out.
Pick images that you think conform to the standards of society
regarding beauty and body image. Put them aside.
Pick images that you, believe to be good images, either
because of the face or the body portrayed. Then, create ones
poster that compares the two-using two collages where you cut
and paste the images above. Decide on promotional statement
for your poster, encouraging positive body image.

94. introduction
Let us watch this:
https://drive.google.com
/file/d/13e7q9IP-
x8TFSOm9qSxiWEddA
9pJr0Au/view?usp=shar
ing

95. MAIN LESSON
Background knowledge
Many people believe that the fashion industry and
women’s magazines construct a negative body image for women.
The standard of beauty around the world tends to lean toward fair
skin, western features, and thin bodies. This has resulted in
women opting for skin whitening creams and plastic surgery; in
worst cases, suffering from eating disorders, such as anorexia
and bulimia.

96. MAIN LESSON
Although there are products that try to promote a positive
body image by celebrating differences in body types, skin color,
and features, these are few compared to those that feature the
opposite in commercials, magazines, fashion shows, and the
media. In this modern age, this has become the case for men as
well.

97. Main lesson
The good body
by: Eve Ensler

98. MAIN LESSON
My body will be mine when I’m thin. I will eat a little at a
time, small bites. I will vanquish ice cream. I will purge with green
juices. I will see chocolates as poison and pasta as a form of self-
punishment. I will work not to feel full again. Always moving
toward full, approaching full but never really full. I will embrace
my emptiness, I will ride into holy zones. Let me be hungry. Let
me starve. Please

99. MAIN LESSON
Bread is Satan. I stop eating bread. This is the same as
not eating food. Four days in, a scrawny actress friend tells me,
“Eve, your stomach has nothing to do with diet.” What? “It’s the
change of life,” she says. “All you need is some testosterone.”I try
to imagine what I would be like, totally bread deprived and shot
up with testosterone. “Serial killer” comes to mind.

100. MAIN LESSON
I’m walking down a New York City street, and I catch a
glimpse of this blond, pointy-breasted, raisin-a-day stomached
smiling girl on the cover of Cosmo magazine. She is there every
minutes, somewhere in the world, smiling down on me, on all of
us. She’s omnipresent. She’s the American Dream, my personal
nightmare. Pumped straight from the publishing powerplant into
the bloodstream of our culture and neurosis. She is multiplying
on every corner.

101. MAIN LESSON
She was passed through my mother’s milk and so I don’t
even know that I’m contaminated. Don’t get me wrong. I pick up
the magazine. No, no, no. It’s the possibility of being skinny good
that keeps me buying. I discover a Starbucks maple walnut
scone expanding in me, creeping out. Flabby age leaking through
the cracks. Big Macs, French fries, Pizza Land, four helpings,
can’t stop. My stomach is America. I want to drown in the
cement. Obviously I’m missing something. Maybe if I go find the
woman who thought this up, she’ll reveal the secret.

102. evaluation
1. How does the narrator feel about her body?
2. What is Cosmo? Why does she feel haunted by it?
3. Why is it ironic when we connect her perception of “the
American Dream” and that her stomach is “America”?
4. Do you think that this body shaming is only applicable to
women? Is it also applicable to men?

103. enrichment
Let us take a Groufie
Take a picture with your
family, friends or classmates that
fought against “body shaming”. And
explain the picture.

104. summary
Let us fight body shaming
through a social media presentation

105. summary
Choose a song to sing that is suited to the theme. (sing only
first verse until chorus)
Post it your social media accounts to raise awareness and include
the hash tag
“#LetUsFightBodyShamingThroughSocialmediaPresentation”.

106. THANK YOU ! 