Parting is such sweet sorrow

     I am so thankful for the things this class has taught me, for opening my eyes to the endogenous nature of culture. Although class breakout groups were my favorite part of this course, I thank these blog posts for giving me a space to fully flesh out my ideas and think through my stance before having discourse with my peers. I hope everyone reading this and writing their own can look at the work completed throughout the semester with pride. I came into this class disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take it in person, and leaving with a sense of completion and gratefulness for the work of my fellow classmates and professor. 

    Although I particularly enjoyed the weeks about comics, stamps, and religion, my favorite week was week 5 surrounding drug culture and the cultural life of coca. The display of the United States simultaneous reliance on Latin America for drugs and the heavy policing and criminalization of those drugs highlights the insidious scapegoating promoted in the United States. Learning more about how culture is created from multiple influences assists in seeing culture as a product of institutions. As someone who used to hear much negativity about happenings on the boarder, actually learning about the history of why things are the way they are makes me indignant that so many get painted in a negative light because western perceptions of "drugs". 

Comments

  1. MagaleeApril 16, 2021 at 2:01 AM

    Hey there! I also really liked the dicsussions on drug culture and cultural life of coca! I feel like understanding the presence of the U.S. in Latin American history is underratedly important to understanding Latin American culture in general. I also agree with you that learning about cultures from multiple influences helps in seeing culture as a result of these insitutions!

    Hope you have a lovely summer! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

rhythm of the heart

In this week's readings "Peruvian Punk as a Global Means of Underground Production", Shane Greene (2016) discusses the origins and intentions of punk music. He iterates the essence of punk as an intentionally underproduced subculture performed in retaliation to social norms and a mass society generated by global capital. I appreciated that Greene stressed the diversity found within punk culture despite the male centric spotlight shone by the global North. As someone whose brother has been in punk bands for many years, I have been to my share of DIY shows. I have heard the underproduction, raunchy vocals, and small-scale venues for myself. Although these shows weren’t held in stadium you could fill the room ten times over with the support from the crowd, often filled with members from other bands on the line up moshing, chatting, and head-banging. My brother’s dream is to open up his own venue to host shows at. He currently puts together a small festival in Dallas called...
Read more

The breadth of death

      From the comic Eternaut by Hector German Oesterheld comes a framed narrative of a man, his friends, and immediate family finding themselves stuck in the middle of an apocalypse. In the mass hysteria of nuclear war, Oesterheld confirms the world's greatest fear, and in doin so, reveals truths in human nature in the face of impossible odds and certain death.      Although I enjoy the prologue as it provided context of who the protagonist is (the collective), as it assists the tone of conflict throughout the comic. Instead of solely rooting for the "main character" we understand that in a nuclear fallout the strongest will survive regardless of who the narrative centers around. As the initial narrative of the story suggests, we as the audience know that the main character, the Eternaut has somehow survived, as he has lived to tell his story. The Eternaut's origin story self is in much a stark contrast to the self that sits in front of Oesterheld. He...
Read more