Rebekah brought up an interesting aspect of cultural literacy the other day when she spoke of the role of game shows in building cultural awareness, which I think is definitely true. I'm certain that many Americans learn a great deal about their own culture from watching the show.
On the other hand, this reminded me of something I saw when I was younger that always stuck with me and puzzled me. I was watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when a contestant was asked this for his first question: "What character is famous for singing about his rubber ducky?" Now the game show always asked the easiest questions first, but this particular contestant, who was Asian and perhaps had not grown up in the United States, did not know that the answer was Ernie from Sesame Street. I was flabbergasted because I hadn't really considered the limitations and scope of culture and my cultural literacy skills were underdeveloped.
This experience begs a particular question: do game shows (and other entertainment) help to build culture or do you already have to be inculcated in the culture in order to understand the shows? For any of you that have seen Slumdog Millionare, for example, a specific cultural knowledge is required to be successful at the game. Most likely, of course, the answer is both, but this brings up the extremely complicated process of cultural formation and assimilation.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
The Danger of Restrooms
There are times in which cultural literacy can be a matter of life and death. For example, here is a sign that you might see while traveling through Russia:
If you recognize that this is a 'Stop' sign, you're in good shape. If you don't, your day might suddenly take a turn for the worse. The free market may have brought blue jeans and rock 'n roll to Moscow, but red octagons have yet to arrive.
As I mentioned earlier, I recently moved to Clemson in August and so I'm still familiarizing myself with Southern culture and Upstate culture in particular. While I was preparing to teach this course, I found something rather disconcerting in a blog post from a past student who presented a list of things that might need to be explained to someone new to Clemson: "What a boiled peanut is, why Tigers hate Gamecocks, don't ever order a milkshake at Mac's Drive In, and use your Maams and Sirs." I'm afraid to admit that I still do not know what a boiled peanut is, but the part that really stopped me in tracks--much more effectively than a Russian stop sign--was the prohibition against Mac's milkshakes. I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat because my family and I had recently eaten at Mac's Drive In. I remembered because we paid by check, which is unheard of in California. But had we ordered a milkshake? What was going to happen to us if we did? Did I need to see a doctor, STAT? I'm still not quite sure what exactly is wrong with Mac's milkshakes, but a couple months have passed and I feel relatively okay, so maybe I'm out of the woods.
The point is that cultural literacy can save your life, it can prevent a trip to the hospital, and it can help you to avoid significant embarrassment, which brings me to my main point about the dangers of water closets (If you're not sure what a water closet is, then you'll soon find out exactly what I mean).
The French psychologist Jacques Lacan likes to tell a story about restroom signs when speaking of his theories on semiology: "A train arrives at a station. A little boy and a little girl, brother and sister, are seated across from each other in a compartment next to the outside window that provides a view of the station platform buildings going by as the train comes to a stop. 'Look,' says the brother, 'we're at Ladies!' 'Imbecile!' replies his sister, 'Don't you see we're at Gentlemen.'" This is a question of signs for Lacan, linguistic signs mainly, but visual signs cause the same problem. At the Carolina Ale House in Greenville, I took these photos of the restroom signs:
Pick-Ups for the men, I hope, because that's the one I used. Of course, there's no inherent characteristic of trucks or sportsters that makes them either feminine or masculine, which is the reason that the pictures include their corresponding gendered drivers. In this case, the signs must be read according to the culture in which they exist, but even this is pretty sketchy in this case (although I suppose there might be a law in S.C. that prohibits men from driving Mazda Miatas).
For those of you in France, things get even worse once you've actually made it through the correct door. Here is a list of the toilets I encountered while living in France and Italy:
1. low tank/center button
2. low tank/dual center button (I still haven't figured out what that second button is for.)
3. low tank/side lever
4. low tank/wall button
4. elevated tank/pull chain
5. elevated tank/side lever
6. elevated tank/wall button
7. ceramic hole with molded foot traction
8. automatic flushing with optional manual wall button
9. broken automatic flushing (the manual wall button also did not work, which I guess would place this one in the hole category)
10. In Florence, our hotel room had a toilet whose flush was so weak that management had added an auxiliary tank that sounded exactly like a 747 taking off from O'Hare.
11. low tank/rubik's cube lever (you have to complete at least two side in order to flush)
Once, in Palermo, I found a toilet that I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to flush, unsuccessfully I'm ashamed to say. I'm not sure if my cultural literacy skills were simply not developed enough or if the toilet was actually non-functional, but I sincerely hope that you'll have better luck during your water closet adventures throughout the coming months.
As I mentioned earlier, I recently moved to Clemson in August and so I'm still familiarizing myself with Southern culture and Upstate culture in particular. While I was preparing to teach this course, I found something rather disconcerting in a blog post from a past student who presented a list of things that might need to be explained to someone new to Clemson: "What a boiled peanut is, why Tigers hate Gamecocks, don't ever order a milkshake at Mac's Drive In, and use your Maams and Sirs." I'm afraid to admit that I still do not know what a boiled peanut is, but the part that really stopped me in tracks--much more effectively than a Russian stop sign--was the prohibition against Mac's milkshakes. I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat because my family and I had recently eaten at Mac's Drive In. I remembered because we paid by check, which is unheard of in California. But had we ordered a milkshake? What was going to happen to us if we did? Did I need to see a doctor, STAT? I'm still not quite sure what exactly is wrong with Mac's milkshakes, but a couple months have passed and I feel relatively okay, so maybe I'm out of the woods.
The point is that cultural literacy can save your life, it can prevent a trip to the hospital, and it can help you to avoid significant embarrassment, which brings me to my main point about the dangers of water closets (If you're not sure what a water closet is, then you'll soon find out exactly what I mean).
The French psychologist Jacques Lacan likes to tell a story about restroom signs when speaking of his theories on semiology: "A train arrives at a station. A little boy and a little girl, brother and sister, are seated across from each other in a compartment next to the outside window that provides a view of the station platform buildings going by as the train comes to a stop. 'Look,' says the brother, 'we're at Ladies!' 'Imbecile!' replies his sister, 'Don't you see we're at Gentlemen.'" This is a question of signs for Lacan, linguistic signs mainly, but visual signs cause the same problem. At the Carolina Ale House in Greenville, I took these photos of the restroom signs:
Pick-Ups for the men, I hope, because that's the one I used. Of course, there's no inherent characteristic of trucks or sportsters that makes them either feminine or masculine, which is the reason that the pictures include their corresponding gendered drivers. In this case, the signs must be read according to the culture in which they exist, but even this is pretty sketchy in this case (although I suppose there might be a law in S.C. that prohibits men from driving Mazda Miatas).
For those of you in France, things get even worse once you've actually made it through the correct door. Here is a list of the toilets I encountered while living in France and Italy:
1. low tank/center button
2. low tank/dual center button (I still haven't figured out what that second button is for.)
3. low tank/side lever
4. low tank/wall button
4. elevated tank/pull chain
5. elevated tank/side lever
6. elevated tank/wall button
7. ceramic hole with molded foot traction
8. automatic flushing with optional manual wall button
9. broken automatic flushing (the manual wall button also did not work, which I guess would place this one in the hole category)
10. In Florence, our hotel room had a toilet whose flush was so weak that management had added an auxiliary tank that sounded exactly like a 747 taking off from O'Hare.
11. low tank/rubik's cube lever (you have to complete at least two side in order to flush)
Once, in Palermo, I found a toilet that I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to flush, unsuccessfully I'm ashamed to say. I'm not sure if my cultural literacy skills were simply not developed enough or if the toilet was actually non-functional, but I sincerely hope that you'll have better luck during your water closet adventures throughout the coming months.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Who says up is up?
As you saw from the maps that you were assigned to take a look at this week, there has been a tendency in cartography to place the northern hemisphere at the top of what we consider "normal" maps or globes of the world. In the case of globes at least, this is a practical matter because the lion's share of landmass on Earth is in the northern hemisphere, and, if you've ever tried to locate New Zealand on a globe, you'll probably recall the crick in your neck that you received for your efforts. For flat maps, however, there is no valid reason it shouldn't look like this:
In the case of Stuart McArthur's "Universal Corrective Map," the alteration was prompted by the ridicule directed at the Australian McArthur for coming from the "bottom of the world." And so he designs an upside-down map that places Australia at the top center. His map follows a long pattern of humanity's urge to place itself at the center of things, beginning with the geocentric model of the universe.
In general, the upside-down map is a good exercise for breaking out of the notion that any particular region has a central place in the world or that North always has to be up, but this brings up, for me, another cultural issue that founds the whole question of what (or where) should be at the top of the map. Why is better to be at the top at all? What I mean is that the argument about whether to place Australia at the top or bottom of the map is already predicated on the cultural belief that somehow "up" is better than "down," isn't it?
Here's an experiment that illustrates the cultural foundation of this dichotomy: If, right now, I asked you to point to Heaven, which way would you point? Some of you might point to the local brasserie where you've just discovered moules-frites or foie gras, but most of you would probably point straight up despite the fact that there's no earthly reason for doing so. Likewise, if I asked you to point to Hell, you might point to some fiery, sulfurous cavern beneath the crust of the Earth. Both of these conceptions are culturally determined and based on a long tradition of depicting Heaven and Hell as actual locations. For example, here's Gary Larson's take in The Far Side:
"Up" feels somehow more desirable than "down" even though there isn't any true justification for it, and the same thing goes for other dichotomies such as "left" and "right" (in Italian, the word "sinistro" can mean either "on the left" or "threatening evil").
Worrying about why "up" is more preferable to "down" might seem like a silly exercise, but the tendency to dichotomize can have some troublesome real-world effects. More specifically, here's how the Geert-Hofstede "Masculinity v. Femininity" index is defined: masculine cultures prefer "achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material reward for success," while feminine cultures favor "cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life." Isn't it problematic that these particular characteristics are labeled either "masculine" or "feminine"? This is not to say that any of them are inherently good or bad, which I think is the point, but the title of the index seems to me to be a little counter-productive. What do you think?
In the case of Stuart McArthur's "Universal Corrective Map," the alteration was prompted by the ridicule directed at the Australian McArthur for coming from the "bottom of the world." And so he designs an upside-down map that places Australia at the top center. His map follows a long pattern of humanity's urge to place itself at the center of things, beginning with the geocentric model of the universe.
Here's an experiment that illustrates the cultural foundation of this dichotomy: If, right now, I asked you to point to Heaven, which way would you point? Some of you might point to the local brasserie where you've just discovered moules-frites or foie gras, but most of you would probably point straight up despite the fact that there's no earthly reason for doing so. Likewise, if I asked you to point to Hell, you might point to some fiery, sulfurous cavern beneath the crust of the Earth. Both of these conceptions are culturally determined and based on a long tradition of depicting Heaven and Hell as actual locations. For example, here's Gary Larson's take in The Far Side:
"Up" feels somehow more desirable than "down" even though there isn't any true justification for it, and the same thing goes for other dichotomies such as "left" and "right" (in Italian, the word "sinistro" can mean either "on the left" or "threatening evil").
Worrying about why "up" is more preferable to "down" might seem like a silly exercise, but the tendency to dichotomize can have some troublesome real-world effects. More specifically, here's how the Geert-Hofstede "Masculinity v. Femininity" index is defined: masculine cultures prefer "achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material reward for success," while feminine cultures favor "cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life." Isn't it problematic that these particular characteristics are labeled either "masculine" or "feminine"? This is not to say that any of them are inherently good or bad, which I think is the point, but the title of the index seems to me to be a little counter-productive. What do you think?
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Culture Shock in Rome
When I was 22, my sister and I learned the hard way about the Italian festival surrounding Assumption Day, which takes place on August 15th and continues throughout the rest of month. Two days earlier, we had arrived in Rome, having moved there so that my sister could study art history at John Cabot University. I had gone with her because I spoke a little Italian (very little, in fact), and she was only 18 and leaving home for the first time. The problem was that we had no place to live when we arrived. Ah, the folly of youth.
We had gone with the intent of staying in a hostel for a week while we explored the city and looked for a reasonable room to rent during our stay. We arrived early in the morning lugging all of the belongings that were to last us for the nine month stay. My shoulders bore strap-shaped bruises for a week afterward as though I were wearing permanent suspenders. Dead tired from the jet-lag, we dragged ourselves along the cobbled streets to a sort of welcome center for English speaking tourists where they recommended a small, inexpensive albergo nearby--the Hotel Castelfidardo. And then, as we were leaving, they gave this ominous warning:
"By the way, the Ferragosto holiday begins tomorrow, so most everything will be closing down for at least a couple of days. You may want to get some food to last you because you'll be hard-pressed to find a restaurant or even a market open until Friday."
She might as well have told us that the zombie apocalypse begins tomorrow and good luck with all that. We had arrived in a new city with no place to live only to discover that it would be functionally shuttered for the next several days. We didn't even know where to find a market to buy food, let alone have a refrigerator or a stove to cook it. While all of Rome would be celebrating Mary's bodily assumption to heaven, our own bodies were in grave danger from lack of sleep and a scarcity of food.
In the end, it turned out to be not so bad as all that. We found a little place where we bought a crusty baguette and some jam, which was what we ate for six meals running over the next two days, much of them spent in a jet-lagged stupor.
We tried to get our body clocks on track, but we still woke up at 4:00 in the morning on the 17th, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Most businesses remained closed, but, thanks to Mussolini, the buses were still running on time, and so we caught one to Vatican City and Piazza San Pietro, which was completely empty for the first and only time in all of my visits there. My sister and I strolled around, taking in the ancient old city and, of course, scrounging about for food.
Then a miracle occurred.
At 5:30, a gentleman appeared on the horizon of the Via della Conciliazione. He was whistling, I think; I imagine he was whistling, anyway. He stopped at a food truck, opened it up, and began preparing for a long day of selling overpriced snacks, soda, and water to unprepared American tourists. My sister and I had never run so fast in our lives. We each bought a terribly expensive and unimaginably hard pastry coated with fat crystals of sugar.
Oh, how those crystals sparkled in the morning sun! I felt like Bella seeing Edward in the sunlight for the first time.
Now, the Italians can make pastries like nobody's business. Even the French have trouble keeping up, in my opinion. This, however, was not one of those pastries. Despite its lovely shape, it was a hard-hearted breakfast and the sound of each crunching bite echoed off the sacred walls of St. Peter's. I would not have been surprised, in fact, if Pope John Paul II had not been awakened in his private bedroom by the noise. I can hear his valet apologizing on our behalf: "Scusa, Signore, but the Americans have got at the pastries somewhat early this morning."
It cost nearly $7.00 to boot. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, I've never tasted anything so delicious in my life.
We had gone with the intent of staying in a hostel for a week while we explored the city and looked for a reasonable room to rent during our stay. We arrived early in the morning lugging all of the belongings that were to last us for the nine month stay. My shoulders bore strap-shaped bruises for a week afterward as though I were wearing permanent suspenders. Dead tired from the jet-lag, we dragged ourselves along the cobbled streets to a sort of welcome center for English speaking tourists where they recommended a small, inexpensive albergo nearby--the Hotel Castelfidardo. And then, as we were leaving, they gave this ominous warning:
"By the way, the Ferragosto holiday begins tomorrow, so most everything will be closing down for at least a couple of days. You may want to get some food to last you because you'll be hard-pressed to find a restaurant or even a market open until Friday."
She might as well have told us that the zombie apocalypse begins tomorrow and good luck with all that. We had arrived in a new city with no place to live only to discover that it would be functionally shuttered for the next several days. We didn't even know where to find a market to buy food, let alone have a refrigerator or a stove to cook it. While all of Rome would be celebrating Mary's bodily assumption to heaven, our own bodies were in grave danger from lack of sleep and a scarcity of food.
In the end, it turned out to be not so bad as all that. We found a little place where we bought a crusty baguette and some jam, which was what we ate for six meals running over the next two days, much of them spent in a jet-lagged stupor.
We tried to get our body clocks on track, but we still woke up at 4:00 in the morning on the 17th, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Most businesses remained closed, but, thanks to Mussolini, the buses were still running on time, and so we caught one to Vatican City and Piazza San Pietro, which was completely empty for the first and only time in all of my visits there. My sister and I strolled around, taking in the ancient old city and, of course, scrounging about for food.
Then a miracle occurred.
At 5:30, a gentleman appeared on the horizon of the Via della Conciliazione. He was whistling, I think; I imagine he was whistling, anyway. He stopped at a food truck, opened it up, and began preparing for a long day of selling overpriced snacks, soda, and water to unprepared American tourists. My sister and I had never run so fast in our lives. We each bought a terribly expensive and unimaginably hard pastry coated with fat crystals of sugar.
Oh, how those crystals sparkled in the morning sun! I felt like Bella seeing Edward in the sunlight for the first time.
Now, the Italians can make pastries like nobody's business. Even the French have trouble keeping up, in my opinion. This, however, was not one of those pastries. Despite its lovely shape, it was a hard-hearted breakfast and the sound of each crunching bite echoed off the sacred walls of St. Peter's. I would not have been surprised, in fact, if Pope John Paul II had not been awakened in his private bedroom by the noise. I can hear his valet apologizing on our behalf: "Scusa, Signore, but the Americans have got at the pastries somewhat early this morning."
It cost nearly $7.00 to boot. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, I've never tasted anything so delicious in my life.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Welcome to CLAM!
Hello, Clamson Tigers! Welcome to the course blog for CAAH 201: Cultural Literacies Across Media (or CLAM, for short). This is the spring semester 2013 version of this course, naturally, and this blog, which I will maintain throughout the semester, will be the home base for our discussions about cultural literacy and multi-modal compositions.
Although you will receive email announcements from me on a weekly basis, you should also get into the habit of checking this blog and the blogs of your classmates so that you can see what everyone else is up to in their respective host cultures.
Please remember that posting regularly to your blog, as well as participating in the blogs of others through commenting, is a large part of your overall course grade. Take advantage of the many tools that are available for designing and improving your blog, many of which are covered in the "Blog Set-up Tutorial," which you should watch during the first week of class. Feel free to incorporate multi-media such as photos, videos, links, or animations into your weekly blog posts. For example, here is photo my family in front of the Basilica Santa Croce in Florence...
In the background on the left side of the basilica, there is a statue of Dante, whose importance to Italian culture we'll take a look at next week.
Lastly, be aware that this blog and each of your blogs is a public space viewable by anyone who goes to the appropriate website so please make sure that all posts contain material appropriate to a public venue. Any private or personal information, including formal course business, should be handled through email. In addition, all comments on the blogs of other classmates must be respectful and constructive.
I'm looking forward to sharing your traveling experiences with you and also to seeing what kind of multi-modal compositions you'll come up with before the end of the semester.
Although you will receive email announcements from me on a weekly basis, you should also get into the habit of checking this blog and the blogs of your classmates so that you can see what everyone else is up to in their respective host cultures.
Please remember that posting regularly to your blog, as well as participating in the blogs of others through commenting, is a large part of your overall course grade. Take advantage of the many tools that are available for designing and improving your blog, many of which are covered in the "Blog Set-up Tutorial," which you should watch during the first week of class. Feel free to incorporate multi-media such as photos, videos, links, or animations into your weekly blog posts. For example, here is photo my family in front of the Basilica Santa Croce in Florence...
In the background on the left side of the basilica, there is a statue of Dante, whose importance to Italian culture we'll take a look at next week.
Lastly, be aware that this blog and each of your blogs is a public space viewable by anyone who goes to the appropriate website so please make sure that all posts contain material appropriate to a public venue. Any private or personal information, including formal course business, should be handled through email. In addition, all comments on the blogs of other classmates must be respectful and constructive.
I'm looking forward to sharing your traveling experiences with you and also to seeing what kind of multi-modal compositions you'll come up with before the end of the semester.
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