Over the past year Zivia and I have been planning our a mini course that we taught to the freshman at SLA, showing them how properly to create a mural from start to finish. The full class lasted 8 weeks, where the students were learning and working to create a set of murals that reflected the SLA student body as well as the 5 core values at SLA: Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation, & Reflection. We began at the beginning of 2023, after researching and preparing for several months, by teaching the students the basics on sketching and color theory to make sure they understood how to design and create a mural. We touched topics such as simplifying forms, movement, texture, and Layers. We worked together to come up with designs that fit our space and painted them on the 4 columns in the SLA common area. The final Mural that sits along the short staircase at the entrance of the school displays a road map of the current SLA seniors and all the bumps in the road that affect each and everyone of us. On each column is roughly a 4x4 ft design that reflects the SLA core values.

Here is a list of some of my favorite films and how they had an influence on me.

Hosts: Nick, Jet, Terrance, & Sun-ra

In the final podcast we discuss the authors intent. At the end of the book we see that Balram has gone full circle, becoming the rich business man that he hated and murder yet he still feels free. We also talk about how he justifies his action and whether or not his reasoning are valid.

This week we are discussing the “White Tiger” through the Marxists lens. We talked about Balram and his journey through the business world.

Nick -

“Marxism in India.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00472337485390621?journalCode=rjoc20.

As said in the article Marxism has been an active intellectual force in India for over 50 years. Throughout “The White Tiger” We get glimpses of it as Balram progresses the life of a business man. He starts of works in a tea shop and works his way up by uses murder as his number one tatic. Marxism is “characterizes as the philosophy revolutionary social action, the activities of the Marxists as thinkers organizers.”

Sun-Ra -

Butt, Shaehroz Anjum, and Zarina Qasim. “Rise by Sin or Fall by Virtue: A Marxist Study of Class Consciousness in The White Tiger, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.” Journals.uop.edu.pk, 2021, http://journals.uop.edu.pk/papers/3(19).pdf.

The Article “Rise by Sin or Fall by Virtue: A Marxist Study of Class Consciousness in The White Tiger, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” illustrates the divide between the rich and poor in Adiga’s White Tiger by using the Marxist lens. The authors highlight how the main character, Balram, segregates people based on their social status, “Balram learns that the rich are able to digest everything and everyone who comes in their path while the poor owing to their lack of desire for material possessions remain helpless in the capitalist jungle.”(Page 7). This provides additional insight into both the novel and the Marxist lens because it analyzes Balram’s division of society based on other characters’ income.

Nat -

University, Perdue. “Georg Lukács – ‘the Ideology of Modernism’ (1962).” Taste to Waste, Perdue, 23 Feb. 2012, https://tastetowaste.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/georg-lukacs-the-ideology-of-modernism-1962/#:~:text=A%20very%20compelling%20critique%20of,the%20form%20of%20social%20protest Links to an external site..

This article summarizes Lukacs’ points about modernism, and because the article was written in 2012 it does offer some potential to compare the two eras. I wish it did more compare and contrast rather than just summarizing key points he made, however, I noticed a lot of articles regarding Lukacs’ work seemed to summarize rather than analyze. The article talks about how Lukacs’ gets so in depth with his analysis that he “manages to overshoot its mark and reveal Lukács own allegiance to art…” This suggests that Lukacs’ own bias is shown through his work and his arguments, even if he has a legitimate point.

Hosts - Jet, Nick, Terrance, Sun-ra, & Nat

In Episode 1 of In the Eye of the Tiger we start discussing the book ” The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga. In our discussion we talked about the Literary and Figurative components in the book. Listen as we dive deep into our Narrator past, revealing his trauma that feeds into his murderous tendencies…