Let’s catch up! 
(The Myth of Sisyphus and
Movimientos de Rebeldia)
Albert Camus
- French Algerian author,
philosopher and journalist
- Awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1957
- Second youngest recipient of the
aforementioned prize.
- Also the shortest- lived Laureate
to date, having died two years
after receiving the Nobel Prize.
- Proponent of “Absurdism”
The Myth of Sisyphus
- is comprised of 120 pages.
- was published in 1942 in
French as Le Mythe de
Sisyphe.
- Translated into English by
Justine O’Brien in 1955
- In this work, Camus
introduces his philosophy
of the absurd.
Who is Sisyphus?
The gods had condemned Sisyphus
to ceaselessly rolling a rock to
the top of a mountain, whence
the stone would fall back of its
own weight.
Sisyphus is the absurd hero.
Three reasons why Sisyphus was
condemned:
He is accused of certain levity in regard to the
gods. He stole their secrets.
Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death
in chains.
It is said also that Sisyphus, being near to death,
rashly wanted to test his wife’s love.
Sisyphus’ punishment
His scorn o the gods, his hatred of death, and his
passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in
which the whole being is exerted toward
accomplishing nothing.
At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless
space and time without depth, the purpose is
achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush
down in a few moments toward that lower world
whence he will have to push it up again toward the
summit. He goes back down the plain.
Absurdism
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me.
That hour like a breathing space which returns as surely as his
suffering, that is the hour of consciousness.
The workman of today works every day in his life at the same
tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at
the rare moments when it becomes conscious.
There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.
Happiness and absurd are two sons of the same earth.
« All is well, » says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred.
Absurdism
It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has
no been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it
with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a
human matter, which must be settled among men.
The absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.
If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but
one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he
knows himself as the master of his days.
One always finds one’s burden again.
Absurdism
This universe henceforth without a master
seems to him neither sterile nor futile.
The struggle itself toward the heights is
enough to fill a man’s heart. One must
imagine Sisyphus happy.
UNIT 2: THE TEMPLE OF MY
FAMILIAR
As a person matures and develops, the individual is
socialized into meaningful relationships by the
significant others in one’s life.
Whether in church, school, or home, relationships
are negotiated in such a way that acceptance and
affirmation create positive effects on person’s
self- valuation, while rejection and oppression
have detrimental outcomes on one’s attitude
towards self, others, and the world.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
- Born
in Rio Grande Valley of Texas,
USA
- leading scholar of Chicano cultural
theory and Queer theory.
-Writes in “Spanglish”
- One major contribution was the
introduction of the term “mestizaje”,
meaning a state of being beyond binary
(either- or) conception, accepted into
academic writing and discussions
Movimientos de Rebeldia
But despite my increased tolerance, for this Chicana the war of
independence is a constant.
I was the first in six generations to leave the Valley, the only one
in my family to ever leave home. But I didn’t leave all the
parts of me : I kept the ground of my own being.
There is a rebel in me – the Shadow- Beast. It is a part of me that
refuses to take orders from outside authorities.
Cultural Tyranny
Culture forms our beliefs. We perceive the version of reality
that it communicates.
Culture is made by those in power – men.
The culture expects women to show greater acceptance of,
and commitment to, the value system than men.
Humans fear the supernatural, both the undivine (the animal
impulses such as sexuality, the unconscious, the unknown,
the alien) and the divine (the superhuman, the god in us).
In my culture, selfishness is condemned, especially in women;
humility and selflessness, the absence of selfishness, is
considered a virtue.
Cultural Tyranny
The queer are the mirror reflecting the
heterosexual’s tribe’s fear: being
different, being other and therefore
lesser, therefore sub- human,
inhuman, non- human.
Half and Half
There was a muchacha who lived near my house …
What we are suffering from is an absolute despot
duality that says we are able to be only one or the
other. It claims that human nature is limited and
cannot evolve into something better.
But I, like other queer people, am two in one body,
both male and female.
Assignment:
WHO/WHAT IS YOUR
SHADOW- BEAST?
On a short bond paper, draw or find a
picture (that is an equivalent) of your
SHADOW- BEAST. A short paragraph
explaining your SHADOW- BEAST
follows.
To be submitted next meeting. And
yes, for discussion. 
(cont) Fear of Going Home:
Homophobia
Being lesbian and raised Catholic, indocrinated as straight, I
made the choice to be queer (for some it is genetically
inherent). It’s an interesting path, one that continually slips in
and out of the white, the Catholic, the Mexican, the
indigenous, the instincts.
To avoid rejection, some of us conform to the values of the
culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows. Which
leave us only one fear – that we will be found out and that the
Shadow Beast will break out of its cage.
Intimate Terrorism: Life in the
Borderlands
Woman does not feel safe when her own culture, and white culture,
are critical of her; when the males of all races hunt her as prey.
My Chicana identity is grounded in the Indian woman’s history of
resistance …
To separate from my culture, I had to feel competent enough on the
outside and secure enough inside to live on my own.
I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the
bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of entrails.
The Wounding of the IndiaMestiza
The meat Indian Mexicans despise us and despise and condemn
our mother, Malinali. We condemn ourselves. The conquered
race, enemy body.
Not me sold out my people but they me.
The worst kind of betrayal lies in making us believe that the Indian
woman in us is the betrayer.
Here in the solitude of his rebellion thrives.
In solitude she thrives.
Time for the report. 