HUM 3320H

HUM 3320H

Honors Contemporary Multicultural Studies

Daniel White

COURSE OUTLINE: This course will contribute to the Honors curriculum by providing a detailed study of primary sources focused on the confluence of communications technology and cultural diversity in the contemporary United States. It fulfills 6,000 words of the Gordon Rule writing requirement. Prerequisites: Honors standing and consent of advisor.

Contemporary American culture is marked by multifaceted changes in literature and the arts, in science and technology, in personal values and identities, and in the signs and symbols in terms of which we organize our lives. Our civilization is now undergoing an extraordinary transformation, one which could lead to a utopian technological paradise or to ecological catastrophe--or to some disturbing combination of the two. Whatever the present and future hold we are challenged by the complexity of our experience to describe, reflect and act in new ways. Invention is now the mother of necessity, science often sounds like fantasy, and artistry is converging with technology. Human beings have discovered that they are not necessarily the lords of creation but one among the community of living beings that make up the biosphere, and that the earth is not the center of the universe but, as architect Buckminster Fuller once said, a speck of pollen in space. Western civilization has discovered that it is not the measure of culture or the center, let alone the majority, of the world, and men have been reminded that they must share power with the "weaker" sex. In this topsy-turvy world, we might agree with Hamlet that "The readiness is all." Perhaps some of us will be able to say in a tragicomic tone, as R.E.M. did eons ago in MTV time, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." Whether the result of our study will be tragic or comic, or some combination of both, our intent is to come to terms with the contemporary, some would say "postmodern," human condition.

Closely related to the issues of postmodernity are those of multiculturalism. The United States is a cultural tapestry made up of various traditions stemming not only from Europe but also from Native America, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Canada, Asia, and the Middle East. What is more, threading through these various patterns, the cultures of women, traditionally excluded from the dominant histories of the West, are emerging into the light of its recognized cultural tradition. We shall therefore address not only the aforementioned relationship between technology and culture but also the fracturing of the "grand narratives" that have created the dominant tradition of the Occident: salvation, progress, utopia, reason, universality, individualism, Eurocentrism etc. We shall study these ideas in light of the narratives provided by the various cultures that have contributed to and now are increasingly in the mainstream of North American life. It is necessary to be selective, of course, so that in a given semester we cannot address all of the traditions making up the rich conversation of our present culture; nevertheless, each term we shall be focusing on some principal contributions to the multicultural landscape.

Thus we shall be reading Salman Rushdie’s testament to the multicultural imagination, Haroun and the Sea of Stories; Haruki Murakami's Dance, Dance, Dance, which fuses the imagination of contemporary Japan with the popular culture of the US; Buchi Emecheta's story of intercultural passage and gender conflict in New Tribe; Kazuo Ishiguro’s search for parents and identity from China, to England, to Japan in When We Were Orphans, along with James Ivory’s film of Ishiguro’s novelistic meditation on class, love, ritual, and cultural divisions, in The Remains of the Day; Divakaruni Chitra Banerjee’s imaginative portrait of India’s meeting with America among the shops of LA, in The Mistress of Spices; Thomas Sanchez's Mile Zero, which focuses on the Caribbean and Latin American roots of Key West culture; and Canadian/American William Gibson's All Tomorrow’s Parties, light-sculpting a vision of a new counter culture amidst the ruins of a post-quake LA; in addition, we shall view Trinh Minh-ha's portrait of Africa in the film Naked Spaces, John Sayles' powerful depiction of immigration in Lone Star, and if it’s still in the theaters during the semester, his new film that is set very close to home, Sunshine State; Momoru Oshi's Japanimated vision of the fusion of biology and technology in Ghost in the Shell, and Tom Graef's "chilling" portrait of the generation gap of 1959 as an extraterrestrial invasion, Teenagers from Outer Space. We shall also be studying the cultures of popular music and video (MTV)—especially hip hop, in light of Nelson George’s Hip Hop America. We shall, finally, be viewing contemporary art and architecture reflecting culturally diverse influences, as fused in new urban formations, through the lens of Nan Ellin’s Postmodern Urbanism. Overall we shall engage in the richest possible appreciation of the cultural diversity that makes up our emerging present.

Specific Course Requirements and Grades:
1) A series of reading/viewing/listening responses, each at least 300 words in length (3,000 words minimum total) = 50% of final grade;
2) A final essay, 1,500 words in length, on interdisciplinary subject matter = 20% of final grade.
3) A series of in-class writings (essay quizzes, paragraphs in response to materials studied in class, etc., equaling 1,000 words) = 10%.
4) A presentation, including a 500 word outline and list of works cited = 20%.

Required Texts:
Divakaruni, Chitra Banarjee, The Mistress of Spices
Ellin, Nan, Postmodern Urbanism
Emecheta, Buchi, New Tribe
George, Nelson, Hip Hop America
Gibson, William, All Tomorrow’s Parties
Ishiguro, Kazuo, When We Were Orhans
Murakami, Haruki, Dance, Dance, Dance
Sanchez, Thomas, Mile Zero
Rushdi, Salman, Haroun & the Sea of Stories

Films:
Barzyk, Fred (and Ursula Le Guin), The Lathe of Heaven
Graef, Tom, Teenagers from Outer Space
Ivory, James (and Kazuo Ishiguro) The Remains of the Day
Lang, Fritz, Metropolis
Lang’s Metropolis online: http://www.persocom.com.br/brasilia/metropo.htm
Bibliography of and other information on the film: http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/Metroa.html
Metropolis Reconstruction Site: http://www.kino.com/metropolis/index.html
Oshi, Mamoru, Ghost in the Shell
Sayles, John, Lone Star
---. Sunshine State
Tetzuka, Osamu, and Rintaro (Hatyashi Shigenyuki): Metropolis
Review of Tetzuka’s Metropolis: http://www.theblackmoon.com/Deadmoon/metro.htm
NPR’s Report on Tezuka’s Metropolis, with images: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jan/metropolis/020124.metropolis.html

Concert Footage and Music Video:
The Beatles at Shea Stadium
The Clash: Rude Boy
Public Enemy: PETV
Fugees, “Ready or Not,” (from The Score)
Other MTV videos and CD tracks by Dead Prez, Lauren Hill, Tupac, NAS, NWA et al.

Syllabus

Week / Date (Responses will be assigned as we proceed in response to material studied in class.)

1 August 22
Story-telling and contemporary culture: the multicultural imagination. Course overview. The idea of metropolis, ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern. Reflections on films to come: Excerpts from Metropolis by Fritz Lang and Osamu Tezuka. Urbanity and identity. From modern to postmodern urbanism.

2 August 27-29
Cybercultures: Begin William Gibson's All Tomorrow’s Parties: Culture in the Information Age, emerging transnational patterns of communication in electronic media and their effects on textual constructions, including traditional artifacts like "book.” High technology and low culture: cyberpunk. Billy Idol, revisited. Nan Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism, Forward. Film: The Lathe of Heaven.

3 September 3-5
Film: Teenagers from Outer Space: new technologies, the Cold War, and the seeds of the Generation Gap in US Culture of late 1950's; the cultural transformations of the 1960’s. The Beatles at Shea Stadium; the 1970’s punk, The Clash from Rude Boy; 80’s, Public Enemy from PETV. George, Hip-Hop America chs. 1-8. Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism, ch. 1. The Modern city and reactions to it. Complete All Tomorrow’s Parties.

4 September 10-12 (Advisory: Hip-hop music, video, and literature may contain lyrics or images offensive to some listeners, viewers, or readers; if you are likely to be offended, please confer with the instructor for alternative assignments): Hip-hop styles, cultures, music, video, and literature. Music / video by Dead Pres, KRS-One, Fugees, Anita Hill and others. Excerpt from George Pelecanos’s novel, Hell to Pay http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=68DB2VCH2R&isbn=0316695068&displayonly=chapter . Hip-hop lit in DC. Nelson, Hip Hop America, chs. 9-16.

5 September 17-19:
Hip Hop continued. Study of selected music tracks and videos. Begin Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance.

6 September 24-26
The postmodern Japanese novel, with American music: Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance complete. On reserve: Jay Rubin, Murakami and the Music of Words (read relevant excerpts). A further look at Metropolis by Lang and Tetzuka. Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism, ch. 2. Modern and Postmodern European and Japanese architecture. See links above. Contemporary World Architecture, on reserve. Japanimation: Ghost in the Shell: Cultural hybridity in film and video: Blade Runner as intertext; biotechnology, the Human Genome Project, and the postindustrial imagination, East and West.

7 October 1-3
An Englishman of Japanese descent remembers: the search for identity between Europe and East Asia: Ishiguro, When We Were Orphans. Ellin, Ch. 4, “The Postmodern Reflex.”

8 October 8-10
Film: Ivory and Ishiguro, Remains of the Day. When We Were Orphans, continued. Class, power, memory, desire, and critical distance in novel and film.

9 October 15-17
Opening the critical imagination: postmodern Arabian nights: Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Hybrid identity: Indian and European, in the mode of satire.

10 October 22-24
South Asian flavors in LA, love, vision, and social conscience in the New World: Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices. Ellin, ch. 5, “Themes of Postmodern Urbanism.” Views of LA.

11 October 29-31
Women, men, children, and cross-cultural odyssey-from Nigeria to London, self-discovery in a new world: Emecheta, New Tribe, complete. Views of Lagos and London. Ellin, ch. 6, “The Modern Project: Continued or Abandoned?”

12 November 5-
Haitian refugees observe the ascent of the Space Shuttle: Technology, Ethnicity, Gender, Culture, Nature and Power in south Florida: literary ecology in Thomas Sanchez's Mile Zero.

13 November 12-14
"Lives in the Balance": the meeting of North and South at the Rio Grande: Film: Lone Star: multiple Americas in conflict. Ellin, ch. 8, “Reconceiving the City and Culture.”

14 November 19-21
Presentations & Discussion

15 November 26-28 (Nov. 28 is Thanksgiving holiday)
Presentations & Discussion

16 December 3-5
Presentations & Discussion

17 December 6-12 Exam Week
Final Essay Due by class time on Tuesday, December 10.