Worlds Held Together, Worlds Torn Apart

Questions to Discuss11 questions

• What holds a culture together, and what might cause a culture to fall apart?
• What culture, or cultures, do you belong to?
• Is your culture the same as your country?
• Where did you develop your culture?
• Are any cultures incompatible with one another?
• Is it ever acceptable to say one culture is better than another?
• What might drive a person to abandon his or her culture?
• Does it mean more to you to see an original artwork than a perfect duplicate?
• What makes a place authentic? How about a cuisine?
• Suppose the original you had died and you were a perfect duplicate who had been created as a replacement—would you want to be told you weren’t the original you?
• Can you think of a symbol or hand gesture that means something to you but would mean something different to your parents—or to people in another part of the world?

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The Ties that Bind13 questions

• Sources of Cultural Identity
  • Frameworks to Evaluate: The Five Dimensions of Culture | Mechanical vs. Organic Solidarity | Sociobiology vs. Cultural Selection | Functionalism
  • Key terms: Ethnocentrism | Cultural Adaptation | Social Structure | Symbol | Pluralism | Ethnicity | Nationalism | Subculture | Enculturation | Rituals | Inversion | Reinforcement Culture Shock | Deviance
  • Examples to Consider: Festivals | Sporting Events | Political and Other Crises
• Socializing Agents in the 21st Century
• Semiotics: The Study of Meaning-Making
  • Signs and Signifiers
  • Icons, Indexes, and Symbols
  • Sample Exhibits: Gendered Bathroom Signs | Hipster Beards| Car and Clothing Colors | Software Design
• Obstacles to Intercultural Communication and Collaboration
  • Trompenaars' model of national culture differences
  • Chronemics and cultural perceptions of time
• The Reemergence of Anarchism

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Break-Ups and Breakdowns8 questions

• Balkanization and the Disintegration of Nations:
  • Exhibit: The Breakup of Yugoslavia vs. the Partition of India
  • Selection: Vaclav Havel, 1995 Harvard Commencement Speech
• Introduction to Postmodernity and Post-Structuralism:
  • Simulations, Simulacra, and Hyper-Reality
  • Selection: Jean Baudrillard, excerpt from America
  • Selection: Umberto Eco, “The City of Robots” from Travels in Hyperreality
  • Sample Exhibits: The Sims | Las Vegas | Amusement Parks

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Additional People to Investigate (Examples)3 questions

• Michel Foucault | Martin Heidegger | Judith Butler
• Charles Sanders Peirce | James Scott | Fons Trompenaars
• Emile Durkheim | Geert Hofstede | Robert Merton | Chie Nakane

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Current Cases and Questions to Discuss9 questions

• Is the Internet a force against Balkanization, or something that encourages it?
• Do the so-called “weapons of the weak” inevitably include terrorism?
• Is the “World Wide Web” the world’s best example of functioning anarchy?
• Do examples such as “jaywalking, the anti-SAT movement or assembly-line slowdown[s]” show that anarchy has a place in modern society?
• How important is a common language to a shared cultural identity? Should countries and/or cultures protect their languages?
• Consider Vaclav Havel’s argument in the speech selected above. Is he setting forth an effective strategy, or simply coming across as naïve?
• Suppose a beautiful natural landscape - such as Yosemite in the United States - were to be destroyed in a freak accident - say, by a satellite falling out of space and blowing it up. Would it be right to reconstruct that landscape for future generations to enjoy? Would your answer be different if it had been destroyed by a natural event (such an earthquake)?
• Should governments try to preserve their country’s cultures? If so, how?
• What does the growing popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction (such as stories of the zombie apocalypse) suggest about today’s world? Is it related to the popularity of superheroes?

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