...Lecture 1: Introducing Culture and Globalization Globalization: the increasing interconnectedness of the world (interconnectivity) Culture: shared ways of understanding and doing things (conceptual lense) and is socially constructed, hence changeable Culture Core question of course: does increasing globalization lead to the spread of new global cultures (more cultural sameness) or to more cultural differences? Globalization increases cultural similarities and differences the four main characteristics of globalization ~ Cochrane and Pain 1. stretched social relations, 2. intensification of flows, 3. increasing interpenetration of cultures, 4. an development of global infrastructure Globalization is driven by modern science, capitalism, and industrialism The four power players in globalization (‘nation states’, ‘military’, ‘division of labour’, and ‘capitalism’) ~Giddens Two main forms of culture contact: hybridization and differentiation Globalization involves reflexivity, i.e. ‘old certainties’ disappear Reflexivity is the idea that both individuals and society are defined not just by themselves, but also in relation to each other. Therefore they must both continually redefine themselves in reaction to others and to new information Lecture 2: Is There a Global Culture? • • • Power relations: having the ‘right’ to define what things are (Giddes, lecture 1) ‘Us – them’ distinctions The power relations of four groups in society: Majorities and elites are dominant...
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...The Location of Culture, by Homi K. Bhabha; 285 pp. New York: Routledge, 1994, $49.95. This book assembles several of Homi Bhabha's most significant essays, allowing for an examination of his contribution to contemporary literary theory. As a self-described postcolonial critic, often compared with Edward Said or Gayatri Spivak, Bhabha is perhaps most well-known for his theory of cultural hybridity, which he develops in "Signs Taken For Wonders" and several other essays included in this collection. Bhabha argues that hybridity results from various forms of colonization, which lead to cultural collisions and interchanges. In the attempt to assert colonial power in order to create anglicized subjects, "[t]he trace of what is disavowed is not repressed but repeated as something different--a mutation, a hybrid" (p. 111). This hybrid trace contradicts both the attempt to fix and control indigenous cultures and the illusion of cultural isolation or purity. His project thus adapts poststructuralist challenges to stable or fixed identities, attempting to "rename" postmodernism from a postcolonial perspective (p. 175), and allowing sustained attention to the ways in which race, gender, community, and nationality converge. One of his major contributions to theories of cultural production and identity is that he examines these various intersections closely, and avoids simply listing them or elevating one aspect of his analysis over others. Eight of the twelve chapters in this volume have...
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...Diasporic Cross-Currents in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Anita Rau Badami’s The Hero’s Walk HEIKE HÄRTING N HIS REVIEW of Anil’s Ghost, Todd Hoffmann describes Michael Ondaatje’s novel as a “mystery of identity” (449). Similarly, Aritha van Herk identifies “fear, unpredictability, secrecy, [and] loss” (44) as the central features of the novel and its female protagonist. Anil’s Ghost, van Herk argues, presents its readers with a “motiveless world” of terror in which “no identity is reliable, no theory waterproof” (45). Ondaatje’s novel tells the story of Anil Tessera, a Sri Lankan expatriate and forensic anthropologist working for a UN-affiliated human rights organization. Haunted by a strong sense of personal and cultural dislocation, Anil takes up an assignment in Sri Lanka, where she teams up with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, to uncover evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s violations of human rights during the country’s period of acute civil war. Yet, by the end of the novel, Anil has lost the evidence that could have indicted the government and is forced to leave the country, carrying with her a feeling of guilt for her unwitting complicity in Sarath’s death. On one hand, Anil certainly embodies an ethical (albeit rather schematic) critique of the failure of global justice. On the other, her character stages diaspora, in Vijay Mishra terms, as the “normative” and “ exemplary … condition of late modernity” (“Diasporic” 441) — a condition usually associated...
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...language conditions thought and that language and thought is bound up with the individual culture of the given community would mean that translation is impossible. We cannot translate one's thought which is affected by and stated in language specific for a certain community to another different language because the system of thought in the two languages (cultures) must be different. Each language is unique. If it influences the thought and, therefore, the culture, it would mean that ultimate translation is impossible. Another point of view, however, asserts the opposite. Ironically this also goes back to Humboldt's idea bout inner and outer forms of language. Later it is developed into the concepts of deep structure and surface structure by...
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...CURATORS: THE WORK OF HYBRIDITY IN THE 21 ST CENTURY Ruth B. Phillips Article #19 AHMED MASOUD 1 Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Art in early years of the 21st Century .............................................................................................. 4 Actor Network Theory .................................................................................................................... 6 Networking art connections in museums ....................................................................................... 8 Dhari a Krar ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Strategy for translation ................................................................................................................. 11 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 13 2 Abstract This paper will attempt to highlight in what manner western museums curate contemporary indigenous art in this modern setting. The main focus of this paper is how current means of understanding of non-western indigenous art does not completely allow to translate the culture successfully in order for museums to represent other cultures not just to appreciate...
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.............................................................................. 3 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 4 1.1 Globalisation and hybridization explained from a cinematic perspective ...................................................................................... 4 1.2 The difference between deculturalisation, acculturalization and reculturalisation explained from a cinematic perspective.................. 6 2.1 Three theoretical approaches to the study of the digital divide explained ......................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Culture shock explained .................................................................. 11 2.2.2 How to overcome culture shock ...................................................... 13 2.3 The role of international media in setting the news agenda of local or...
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...University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2010 Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context Leah Rang University of Tennessee - Knoxville, lrang@utk.edu Recommended Citation Rang, Leah, "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/655 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisi Schoenbach, Bill Hardwig Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council:...
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...intellectual energy has been invested in cultural mixing during the last decades. Reacting against an idea of boundedness, internal homogeneity, and stability that has been associated with mainstream twentieth-century anthropology, hundreds—possibly thousands—of anthropologists have tried to redefine, reform, revolutionize, or even relinquish that abhorred “C” word—”culture.” The range of engagement is suggested in the apparent congruence between postmodernist American anthropologists (for example, Clifford & Marcus 1986) and their now classic critique of the Geertzian notion of cultural integration, and the older European critique of the structural-functionalist idea of social integration, which was led by people such as Barth (1966), whose rationalism and naturalism is everything but postmodernist. In both cases, presuppositions of integrated wholes, cultures or social structures, have been debunked. From being a discipline concentrating its efforts on understanding nonliterate societies, often implicitly positing the uncontaminated aborigine as its hero, anthropology increasingly studies cultural impurity and hybridity, and the dominant normative discourse in the field has shifted from defending the cultural rights of small peoples to combating essentialism and reifying identity politics. While this development has been important and necessary for a variety of reasons, the perspectives 154 CREOLIZATION developed risk being one-sided and inadequate.1 A focus on mixing and flows...
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...Homi Bhabha and His “The Location of Culture” Homi Bhabha, who was born in 1949 in Mumbai, India, is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language. He is also the Director of the Humanist Center at Harvard University. As one of the most important figure in contemporary post-colonial studies, he has coined many neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, and ambivalence. These concepts describe ways in which the colonized people have resisted the power of the colonizers. As David Huddart claimed in his book, because “its histories and cultures constantly intrude on the present”(Huddart,2006:1), being considering the present situation, for example, violently proclaimed cultural difference is combined paradoxically; the globalization has complexly interconnected networks, colonialism could not be understood as something only existed in the past. When people attempts to understand it, Homi Bhabha suggests that transformation of the understanding of cross-cultural relations is demanded. Some Honi Bhabha’s writing on, for example, colonialism, race, identity and difference, are collected into the volume The Location of Culture. This essay will focus on several issues that Bhabha has mentioned in his book. At the very beginning of the introduction of The Location of Culture, Bhabha says “It is the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the beyond” (Bhabha, 1994:1). So, what does beyond...
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...meets West: a Study of Dual Identity in Mohsin Hamid’s the Reluctant Fundamentalist Abstract This essay will present a postcolonial study of how Eastern identity and Western identity clash in The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, the Pakistani- American novelist, and make the character of the protagonist a glocal one, (A mixture of global and local), a term newly coined by Postcolonial scholars to show the ever clashing mixture of global and local dualities in immigrants’ personalities. The basis for this research paper is the postcolonial theories of Edward Said, Fanon and Homi K. Bhabha. The aim is to question simply and sardonically the human cost of empire building, moreover it is discussed how the people in a totally alien culture are faced with different cultural predicaments, dilemmas as well as contradictions threatening their identity. Identity is supposed to be stable, while as this novel indicates, it is more of glocal identity which is at risk due to the cultural conflicts, as a result of which identity and ethnicity are subjected to change for the benefit of the hegemony. In line with Edward Said’s: “the East writes back” it is shown how this novel is a reaction to the discourse of colonization from the Pakistani side (which stands for the East) and welcomes de-colonization. Moreover it reflects the laments of the author for the terrorist label ascribed to Muslims, in terms of globalization, supported by the hegemony, being interpreted as * Email: dhayati@iaulamerd...
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...KEY TERM and WHY YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT Global business is more than just selling goods and services across the world. At the very core of global business lies relationship. When an organization decides to sell or invest in a different country there has to be an understanding of the culture and personal relationships need to be formed for the company to be successful. There are three major cultural models that guide globalization and the specific model that stood out to me was polycentrism. I, personally, encounter these different cultures in my daily work as a translation specialist. The company I work for has dealerships all over the world and I am responsible for coordinating the formatting all of the translated manuals for the equipment we sell. I am regularly communicating with dealers from Brazil, Germany, Italy and many more countries. Due to this interaction with various individuals and cultures I wanted to explore more in depth how a polycentric organization functioned. EXPLANATION OF THE KEY TERM Polycentrism is one of three cultural basic managerial paradigms in international business. This type of culture is very open and accepting of different ways of life and believe that conducting business can vary based on the cultural environment of where each business branch is located (Satterlee, 39). A polycentric business model would hire and promote individuals that are natives of the host country that owns and operates the business. This type of model...
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...Metaphorical Predicate: * Familiar domain of experience of everyday life that is used to clarify the subject Key Metaphor: * Can Serve as the foundations of a worldview Societal Metaphor: * World-View metaphor whose model for the world is the social order Organic Metaphor: * Applies the image of the body to social structures and institutions. Comparing a living body with parts to the functioning of society Huichol Religious Thought * Deer, Maize and Peyote are all important and interconnected Syncretism * Synthesis of old and new religious practices introduced from outside, often by force Revitalization Movements * Ghost Dance was conscious, deliberate, and organized attempt to create a more satisfying culture in a time of crisis Secularism * Refers to the separation of religion and state including a notion of individual agency of citizens. Secularism is always understood within the idea of the modern national state operating within a capitalist economy Symbols * Represent a whole semantic domain and invite us to consider the various elements within it ( ex: Canadian Flag) Worldviews * Encompassing picture of Reality created by members of society. Attempts to Bring “Order, Regularity and Predictibility” to daily life and all aspects associated with it Domination * Hegemony * A system of leadership in which rulers persuade subordinates to accept the ideology of the dominant group by offering mutual accommodations that...
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...people, information, technologies, capital and ideas across national borders (Appadurai 1996). The contact between cultures following these transnational flows has resulted in the widespread exchange and transformation of cultural forms (Appadurai 1996, Featherstone 1995). Responding to the call from some transnationalism and globalization writers, such as Cook and Crang, for the need to ground globalization theory in specific empirical materials, this paper seeks to analyze globalization through the mundane, everyday consumption of food and drink, and by following a form of cultural commodity – Thai food, or Thai cuisine – on its transnational routes. I start by giving a historical overview of how Thai food has become internationalized and has reached a global audience in cosmopolitan cities around the globe. Based on empirical observation of Thai restaurants in Vancouver, I explore the processes Thai cuisine has undergone when it enters transnational space and serves a global clientele. My field research reveals that Thai restaurants in a North American city highlight the authenticity of the Thai taste while at the same time adapting to local food customs. 2 Although creative adaptation by ethnic restaurants in metropolitan cities might have led us to imagine endless fusion and hybridity of cultural forms, I would like to point out that there is no ‘pure culture’ to mix. Selected forms of Thai food along various class lines and among regional diversity are constructed as “Thai...
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...However, despite all the advancements that have occurred through Globalization, there are a few negative implications that have caused many to fear its continuation. For example, outsourcing has become a popular means of finding cost- effective employment for multi-national corporations; yet has taken away a large amount of jobs from nations that have higher standards of living. A factory worker in the U.S. can’t possibly live off pennies a day like those in Asian countries (Ehrenreich, 2001). Also, there is little regulation in regards in international affairs; which could lead to the spreading of disease, invasive species, and national security issues. Most prevalent however is the loss of individuality amongst people and cultures. In some instances, the culture of the more powerful nation can be so forceful and overbearing that it can be regarded as culturally imperialistic (Bowe, 2007). Imperialism is a negative term that is defined as a geographical relationship in which one nation or...
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...system is weak. A risk factor of social security in such rich countries increase due to the forces of globalization. Rich countries offer imports from low labor countries and remain competitive by enforcing lower social security standards to the labor. These tricks develops a pressure to scale back the countries having higher social security system. Resultantly, competitive pressures arising from globalization is slowly destroying the social security. However, if the situation prevails, social achievements of industrialized countries could be destroyed and their ability to generate income would become unfavorable (1). Sociology The study of social relationship of human in any aspect of life that is family, friends, religion, education, culture, values and etc. is called sociology. Sociology is an interesting field which analyses about every aspect of human life like matter of routine life, interaction of communities and social causes of gender identity, aging, religious faith, family conflict, poverty, wealth and social activities (Featherstone, 1990). While it also covers population growth, global peace and war...
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