World Cultures

Unit 5: Cultures in Conflict

Exploring Knowledge: Writing Prompts

By yourself, write down your own answer to the following questions:

• What is an example of two cultures colliding?

• Can cultures collide in a good way? Give examples.

With your partner discuss your answers.

Word Map: Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition

Definition: Act of placing 2 or more items side-by-side or near each other.

About the Author: Pico IyerPico Iyer (born 1957)

is a British-born essayist and novelist. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk and The Global Soul. An essayist for Time since 1986, he also publishes regularly in Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and many other publications.

Shared Reading: “Where Worlds Collide”

You will begin this activity by reading from Pico Iyer’s essay “Where Worlds Collide.” In this piece, Iyer describes what people experience as they arrive at Los Angeles international airport (LAX).

While you are reading, mark the text by highlighting or underlining images that create a picture of the scene. Think about how Iyer uses juxtaposition in his description of unlike images. You may want to record these words and or phrases in the margins of the pages.

Shared Reading: “Where Worlds Collide”

Chunk the text: stop at the end of each paragraph. • After reading each chunk, sketch images from

the text. • When you are done sketching, quickly scan the

text for specific words, phrases, or sentences that correspond to your pictures and write them next to or below the drawing.

Developing Knowledge: “Where Worlds Collide”

In your small groups, share your drawings with your partners and respond to the following questions:

• How are your pictures similar or different?

• What words would you use to describe the atmosphere in the essay?

• What is Iyer’s (implied) opinion about Los Angeles International Airport as a junction for colliding worlds?

Developing Knowledge: “Where Worlds Collide”

Who are the “You” that Iyer refers to in the opening line?

How does point of view affect meaning?

This essay is told from the third-person point of view. How would it be different if told from another point of view or perspective?

Developing Knowledge: “Where Worlds Collide”

• To what extent does one’s cultural makeup determine the way a person views others and the world?

• A text can contain more than one theme. What universal ideas about life and society does the author convey in this essay?

Reflection: “Where Worlds Collide”

By yourself, imagine yourself in the role of a traveler getting off of the plane at LAX (Los Angeles). Consider how your own experiences would affect your perception. What would you think about what you saw? How would you feel? Provide specific examples from the reading to illustrate your points.

Or think about an experience in which you were put into a culturally foreign situation. In what way(s) was the experience similar to or different from the disorienting experience described in “Where Worlds Collide"? How were your perceptions changed as a result of the experience? Provide specific examples from the reading to illustrate your points.

Voices of Modern Culture

Essential Question: What are some ways films depict elements of culture?

I. Making Connections: Film and TextII. Making Connections: Film and Text (Writing)

SB V U2 L6 Theatrical and Cultural Elements in Film Agenda

“One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood’s heroes slaughter red Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing continents, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. “

Kwame Nkrumah 1965

Title of film_______________________________Name of characters_________________________Costumes/Makeup Props/Sets Acting Choices Cultural Elements

Making Connections: Film and Text

The media can change lots of things including:

How people see the world

How people see their prospects

How people understand their roles in society – What is just and fair what is not.

How people view politicians and parties and who to vote for

People’s desires or what their desires should be/ aspirations(Homework:: Watch How TV ruined your life ep3 aspiration)

What a ‘proper life’ is and what a ‘weird life’ is.

How we should spend our money and how much we should spendhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xyUUfmCh2E

2. How is the media a mechanism of neo-colonial control? Consider films and the news

I. Stereotype

A. A generalization about a person or group of people

B. It is a mold that we force other people into based on our ideas

1. Stereotypes are usually worded:

a. All __________ are ___________

C. How are they created?

1. When people are unwilling to get all the information needed to make fair judgments about people or situations

D. Can lead to discrimination or persecution

II. Prejudice

A. When you pre-judge someone based upon a stereotype about that person or their group

III. Discrimination

A. When we treat people differently because of a stereotype

B. Forms:

1. Preventing a group from living in a certain area

2. Refusing to hire a person based on their race, ethnicity, or gender

3. Refusing to befriend someone because of their race, ethnicity, or gender

IV. Racism

A. Belief that one race is superior to all others

B. People who have these beliefs often engage in discrimination, persecution, & violence against races that they feel are inferior to their own

C. Examples:

1. African-Americans as slaves

2. Treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust

3. Extermination or removal of Native Americans in the United States

V. Propaganda

A. An organized, widespread attempt to influence people’s thinking or behavior

B. May be considered good or bad depending on:

1. The intentions of its creator

2. The way it is used

3. The way an audience receives it

C. Most effective propaganda appeals to the emotions of an audience instead of logic or reason

D. Types of Propaganda

1. Name calling

a. Attaching derogatory labels

2. Glittering Generalities

a. Using vague words or ideas to make something acceptable

3. Transfer

a. Associating a person or idea with something everyone thinks is good

4. Testimonial

a. Getting will-known persons to endorse something

5. Card-Stacking

a. Showing only the good side of anything

6. Bandwagon

a. Convincing people that “everyone else” is doing the same thing

7. Loaded Words

a. Using words whose meaning is accepted by the audience as positive or negative in order to create a subconscious association

8. Picture Perfect

a. Creating a photograph or drawing which presents a desired image

9. Self-appeal

a. Selling an idea based on human desire for safety, comfort, pleasure, health, personal appearance, or social status

10. Plain Folks

a. Spokespeople going our of their way to be “just like us”

Israel vs. Palestine

Conflict Zone Part 1

Conflict Zone Part 2

Conflict Zone Part 3

Ongoing and wide ranging struggle that began in the early 20th century.

Remaining key issues are: mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian freedom of movement, and resolving the refugee question.

Violence resulting from the conflict has prompted international actions, against both sides and in addition, the violence has curbed expansion of tourism in the region.

VI. Major Genocidal Events

A. Native Americans

1. US expansion: led to removal to reservations or extermination

Definition: Systematic killing of ALL people from a national, ethnic, or religious group (or an attempt to)

B. Armenians: Early 20th century1. 2.5 million Christian Armenians in Muslim

Turkeya. Turkey expelled them across the deserts

b. Rounded up all educated & able-bodied men & slaughtered them

i. Thirst, exposure, starvation, disease killed many

c. 1.5 million killed

C. The Rape of Nanking: December 13,

19371. Japanese captured: Capital of China

a. Killed all Chinese POWsb. Attacked civilians

i. Murder, decapitation,

tortureii. 80,000+ cases of rape

c. 200-300,000 killed in 7 weeks

D. Tibet1. Buddhist rule until Chinese invasion in 1950

a. People revolted led by monks in 1959

2. Chinese used harsh tactics to restore their control

a. Killed priests, monks, & nuns, & destroyed temples &

shrinesb. Cruelty continues (2-6 million killed)

E. Cambodia: 19751. Khmer Rouge Communist take

over: Pol Pota. Urban life is destructive = must

endi. Massacred Westernized & educated

b. Outlawed Buddhismii. Expelled city dwellers to rural

i. Executed priests & destroyed templesc. 2 million killed in 4 years

F. Rwanda1. 2 social groups: Hutu

(majority) & Tutsi (minority)a. Tutsi were in control until 19622. 1973: Juvenal Habayarimana became president

a. Gave Hutus the power & excluded Tutsi from positions of power or education

3. April 6, 1994: Presidential plane shot down

a. Hutus blamed Tutsis & attacked (100 days)b. By mid-July 1994: 1 million Tutsis killed (1/3)

G. Yugoslavia: “Ethnic Cleansing”1. Created after WWI: joined 6 republics together = tensions

2. 1989: Slobodan Milosevic became president

a. Wanted Serbia to be dominant & would not allow independence

3. Croatia tried to break away 1991-92a. Ethnical cleansing of Serbs

4. Bosnia declared independence: 1992a. Milosevic invaded and removed all Muslims from the area5. Milosevic voted out in 2000 & stood trial for war

crimesa. 250,000 killed in Bosnia, 3 million refugees

H. The Holocaust:

1. A specific genocidal event in 20th century history (1933-1945)

a. Systematic & State-sponsored

b. Persecution & annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany

i. Jews were the primary victims (6 million were murdered)

c. Gypsies, the handicapped, and Poles

i. Targeted for destruction or annihilation

a. Racial, ethnic, and national purity

d. Oppression and death for millions more

i. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet POWs, Political dissidents, homosexuals

Lithuania, 1941

Mauthausen Labor Camp - crematoria