“Cotton and Iron” by: Trinh Minh-Ha

1. “Cotton and Iron”by: Trinh Minh-Ha Presentation by: Prenya Rajendran and Edited By: Laura Pratt and Dr. Kay Picart

2. Words to Know… • Binary Opposition - • Marginalization – • _________________________________________________ • _________________________________________________ • _______________________________________________ • Cultural Marginalization - ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dictionary.com

3. Just one more term… Center (has many definitions…)- • ______________________________________________________________________

4. Who is Trinh Minh-Ha? She is an… http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/events/2005/0302/

5. About Trinh Minh-Ha • Born on Jan. 1,1953 in Vietnam • Emigrated to America in the 70’s • Studied ________ and _______ • Worked as a professor at the _______________________________

6. To get a better idea of her… • “The mutual challenge of the theoretical and the poetic, discursive and "non-discursive" language tell of Trinh T. Minh-ha's resistance against the categorizations and limitations that determine the lives of all of us.” --Wiener Secession http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitionInfo/exhibition/16081

7. Trinh Minh-Ha as a writer • What has Minh-Ha tried to do structurally with the thrid voice? • Regarding her style as a writer, Trinh Minh-ha asserts: "one movement is to go forward in an argument; another movement is to constantly come back to oneself; and the third, for example, is to create form and with the unintended reflexive communication among words themselves" (p.37). http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v5i1/regest.htm

8. About Cotton and Iron • What does it reflect concerning her otherness as an outsider?

9. Cotton and Iron Binary Oppositions “S/he who speaks, speaks to the tale as s/he begins telling and retelling it. S/he does not speak about it. For, without a certain work of displacement, ‘speaking about’ only partakes in the conversation of systems of binary oppostion (12).” Ex.

10. Cotton and Iron • Cotton and Iron The whole article stems from the title in that everything in life is a binary opposition. Ex.

11. Identity Redeparture: Marginality: Identity: (p.14)

12. Identity • **Identity is a way of ____________**

13. Discussion Question • When some of us call ourselves Asian Americans, or gays and lesbians, are we simply endorsing the labels that we have been given, or are we re-appropriating these labels, thereby situating politically such namings, not in the phase of assimilation-for-survival, but rather in a phase of struggle where marking is also affirming ourselves critically?

14. Margins and Centers • How does Minh-ha refer to the Western thinkers?

15. Margins and Centers • The center itself is ________. • The struggle is always ________ and ____________. p.17-18

16. Discussion Question • “How possible is it to undertake the process of decentralization without being made aware of the margins within the center and the center within the margin? …Without encountering marginalization from both the ruling center and the established margin?(18)”

17. Work Cited Minh-Ha, Trinh T. “Cotton and Iron.” When the Moon Waxes Red. Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics.” New York & London: Routledge, 1991. 11-26.