Monday, March 30, 2009
LAST Popular Culture as Mass Culture
LAST The End of Popular Culture?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
LAST Theories of mixture
This weeks three readings on theories of mixture were very intriguing. The term transculturation is brought into use in the firs article on Cuba. Fernando explains that in Cuba there has been so many cultures of which have influenced have been so diverse and overshadow in importance to everything. Following this paper Polar begins to talk about literature. Both indigenismo and Heterogeneous literatures are examined. I felt as though when Polar gave some specific cases of homogeneity and heterogeneity I was better able to understand the concepts better. Later on in this piece a quote by Jose Carlos Mariategui caught my attention. “If an indigenous literature must ome, it will come in due time, when the indians themselves are able to produce it” ( Polar 108) This quote caught me off guard and is highly debatable and I personally feel it to be untrue. There is an assumption made that acknoledable Indigenous literature has not already emerged. Finally there is Millingtons paper. I felt his paper for me was a a paper that brought the prior papers and itself together. Talking about ideas and concepts in the last papers and bringing and metamorphing some new ones. In conclusion it is evident that the perception and ways we think of Latin America has been affected by tranculturation. From here however, I believe we need to anaylize and try to understand the processes that affect cultural views and there social realtions.
Monday, February 9, 2009
theories of mixture 1: metizaje
Monday, February 2, 2009
Popular Culture as Folk Culture.
Monday, January 26, 2009
What is popular culture in Latin America.
Monday, January 19, 2009
L.A.S.T 201 What is the People?
Under this weeks topic of What is the people? two diverse essays were presented. Both essays of, In My Own Words by Evita Peron, and A Celebration of the Monster by Jorge Luis Borges brought with them two very different perspectives. Peron's extremely long essay had great narrative qualities and I found was easy to agree with her arguments and discussions. She makes some extremely wise statements of which are evident that a lot of personal reflection were done by her self to come to these conclusions. As an example "We must convince them that the Nation is not a plot of land with moveable border; but rather it is the people..." I really like this statement as I personally strongly agree with it. Right from the beginning a level of trust is induced between Peron and the reader when she proclaims that it will be her to tell the truth ( with the publics belief or not) When attempting to look at the relationship between Peron and her husband it is evident that she cared about him but was also very skeptical about the people surrounding him as people are not always who they appear to be. Throughout the essay Peron makes some strong conclusions and that in the end its all about the people. That her wish is that exploiters and "backstabbers" should be removed from the picture. I think that Peron’s position of being within the government yet still somewhat removed and able to reflect upon the situation within the government puts her in a good position. The only issue I had with her article was the length, of which I found to be somewhat repetitive and extended. I felt the points she was attempting to bring forth could have been condensed in half. As for Borges essay, a completely different perspective is evident. In Borges essay, a strong perspective of being the presidents wife is of course not occurring but I feel as though an equal amount of insight is conducted by him. Both of these essays fit perfectly under the heading of What is the People? When looking at “the people” it is evident that solely one perspective is not enough. The diversification of these essays show that when labializing something as large like “ the people” as a whole, there is no right or wrong, or one or the other way to classify or attempt to define “the people”. I truly enjoyed reading both of these essays and found them to inspirational in the attempted understanding of people and society as a whole.