Honors Junior Seminar:
336-30000
Cultural Encounters 1999-2000
1. Motivation:
Most cultural encounters fail in treating others as a valuable and necessary resource. Instead of treating the otherís difference as something that might heal an internal wound or fulfill an inner emptiness, the other's difference is primarily seen as a threat. Indeed, regarding cultural others as threats remains our dominant mode of understanding encounters. No doubt there are reasons for this dominance, as, for example, the theory of political realism constantly reminds us. Yet, perhaps it is also true that the actual context of cultural encounters reveals richer possibilities, deeper motivations, and alternative postures.
In Conquest of America, Tzvetan Todorov suggests that since 1492 the failure of discovering our need of the other is sustained by two moments that work simultaneously. On the one hand, the difference of the other is avowed but deemed inferior allowing the creation of a hierarchy that rationalizes treating others as objects for our use. The result is various forms of slavery and colonialism. On the other hand, the difference of the other is denied in the name of equality. This equality, however, serves as a platform from which ethnocentric values are projected and cultural differences cleansed. The result is assimilation. Here, especially, we academics are implicated. This is because, despite our best intentions, teaching others may be intimately entwined with their conversion and absorption into our own ways of thinking and living. Todorov insists that this "double movement" - the way power and knowledge work together to deny difference - remains pervasive today.
Yet, as Todorov also points out, so vividly shows, creative resistance - both inside and outside assimilationist cultures - can match, even transform the forces of cultural assimilationism. Such creative transformation may best occur when we probe more deeply and ask, for example:
- Why and how does difference seem a threat?
- Is it possible that behind the assimilationist project lie deeper, healthier motivations?
- If so, how can we access and display these buried desires?
2. Purpose:
The aim of this course, then, is to examine a range of concrete cultural encounters in order to: 1) examine the presence of assimilationist forces, 2) search for elements of creative resistance against assmilationism; and 3) analyze what this creative resistance suggests for transforming our current habits. While the possibilities are plentiful, the crucial element in any encounter is likely to be the complex motives that inform both assimilation and resistance.
3. The Team and the Two Week Units:
There will be one convener and four teachers. The convener will stage the purpose and motivation of the course, link the various case studies, and evaluate written work. The teachers will offer case studies of cultural encounters each within a two-week period. The five member team includes:
Chip Gagnon (Politics
Susan Swensen (Biology)
Gary Fountain (English)
Marlene Kobre (Writing)
Naeem Inayatullah (Politics)
Naeem Inayatullah: A 500 Year Legacy
My own posture to the complexity and richness of cultural encounters borrows from Tzvetan Todorovís Conquest of America. We will focus on the encounter between the Spaniards and Aztecs during the conquest of the Americas. By examining Spanish and Aztec postures towards each we will attempt to uncover if our contemporary understanding of others derives from this legacy.
Gary Fountain: Defining Caliban
In Shakespeareís The Tempest, Caliban is the native, the primitive the inhabitant of the "New world" to which the Europeans have traveled. For modern writers in the Caribbean, Caliban is the constricting persona that intruders and colonizers from the West have constructed for them and against which they must rebel. Our task will be to trace the origins and evolution of the Caliban figure as the locus for dialogue and misunderstanding between these two worlds. What does the figure of Caliban suggest about the way in which the West encountered the "New World"? In what ways have contemporary Caribbean writers interpreted, challenged, and redefined Shakespeareí character? What elements of post-colonial discourse are present in this history of the figure of Caliban?
Marlene Kobre:
Leslie M. Silkoís Ceremony is about an "Indian" WWII veteran returning to the Southwest and deciding how he wants to reenter his society.
Susan Swensen: Cultural Contact in Ethnobotanical Research
Few of us are aware of the importance of plants to modern medicine, or of the ways in which important medicinal plants are discovered. One of the approaches to discovering new plant based medicines involves studying traditional cultures and their use of plants for medicinal, religious, or symbolic purposes. This "ethnobotanical" approach relies on the ability of researchers to make contact with cultures quite different from their own in order to learn about plant use. The success of such research relies on this contact and the establishment of trust between researchers and local participants. Such cultural contact carries with it certain responsibilities on the part of the researcher to protect, compensate, and respect the traditional societies and the knowledge they share. The failure to protect these cultures may have serious consequences that might contribute to to cultural exploitation, overexploitation of medicinally important plants, and cultural assimilation with irreparable loss of knowledge and trust.
Chip Gagnon: Promoting Democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia?
Since the end of the Cold War a major goal of US foreign policy has been ëpromoting democracy worldwide." These efforts to spread democracy are a major site of cultural encounter. Are these efforts assimilationist? Or, are they merely responding to the desires of populations of these countries for democratic political systems? To what extent is US policy similar to the efforts of religious missionaries? We will address these questions by looking at US efforts to "spread democracy" in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.
For more on Chip's section of the course, go to his online syllabus.
Readings:
Naeemís Section:
Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of American, Harper, 1984.
Gary Fountainís Section:
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Oxford, 1987
Aime Cesaire, A Tempest, UBU, 1969
Various Handouts
Marlene Kobreís Section
Leslie M. Silko, Ceremony.
Susan Swensenís Section:
Rosita Arvigo, Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer, Harper, 1994
Various Handouts
Chip Gagnon:
Reader
Tentative Schedule:
Wednesday, August 25: Naeem Inayatullah
Monday, August 30: Naeem Inayatullah
Wednesday, September 1: Naeem Inayatullah
Monday, September 6: LABOR DAY, no class
Wednesday, September 8: Naeem Inayatullah
Monday, September 13: Naeem Inayatullah
Wednesday, September 15: Naeem Inayatullah
Monday, September 20: Naeem Inayatullah
Wednesday, September 22: Naeem Inayatullah and Gary Fountain
Monday, September 27: Gary Fountain
Wednesday, September 29: Gary Fountain
Monday, October 4: Gary Fountain
Wednesday, October 6: Gary Fountain
Monday, October 11: Naeem Inayatullah and/or Gary Fountain
Wednesday, October 13: Naeem Inayatullah
Fall Break
Monday, October 18: Marlene Kobre
Wednesday, October 20: Marlene Kobre
Monday, October 25: Marlene Kobre
Wednesday, October 27: Marlene Kobre
Monday, November 1: Naeem Inayatullah and Susan Swensen
Wednesday, November 3: Susan Swensen
Monday, November 8: Susan Swensen
Wednesday, November 10: Susan Swensen
Monday, November 15: Susan Swensen
Wednesday, November 17: Naeem Inayatullah
Thanksgiving Break
Monday, November 29: Chip Gagnon
Wednesday, December 1: Chip Gagnon
Monday, December 6: Chip Gagnon
Wednesday, December 8: Chip Gagnon
Final Exam Period: Tuesday, December 14 (We may decide not to use this time.)
6. Evaluation*
- Entry paper (required but not graded) due: September 1;
- Cultural encounter narrative (3-5 pages, required but not graded) due: September 8;
- Eight to ten 2-3 page response papers (40% of your grade) due: any Monday that we meet, but only one a week please. I would appreciate getting half of these before mid-semester (October 15);
- Re-write of your cultural encounter narrative (plus the original) (20% of your grade) due: Monday, November 15;
- Comprehensive take-home essay exam (15-20 pages, 40% of your grade) due: Wednesday, December 15, Noon. Please deliver it to my office, 325 Muller;
- Exit paper (required but not graded) due: Wednesday, December 15, Noon. Please deliver to Donna Freedline in 309 Muller.
*During Gary Fountainís two week section (Sept. 27- Oct. 11), Gary and I will ask you to write four one-page papers on topics we will specify in advance. These four one-page papers will count towards two of your response papers.
7. Writing Suggestions for the Comprehensive Essay Final Essay:
I hesitate to present a set of suggestions on writing essays because they may stifle your style. In addition you may be tempted to follow my suggestions to the letter thereby missing the larger point which has more to do with the attitude you bring to the writing and the tone you create. Nevertheless, I offer these suggestions because you may need and appreciate a certain amount of direction. Also, I wish to emphasize a particular style of writing that I hope you will add to your repertoire of skills - the style of an essay. Please take these instructions as "suggestive" and make your own decision on whether you wish to follow them. I would like to register a warning: While this style of writing may have great personal benefits it is not usually favored. The academy stresses a much more certain and assertive style.