Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 98-104
Author(s):  
Michael C. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
American Culture ◽  
Youth Leadership ◽  
Leadership Program ◽  
The World ◽  
Louisiana Purchase ◽  
Louisiana Purchase Exposition

This epilogue reflects on the author's experience while serving as a supporting participant in a grant project known as the Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP). In the closing days of the program, all Filipino participants came together to perform a “Philippine Culture Night.” A conversation between the author and an observer revealed the supposed ubiquity of American culture around the world. If “American” culture is so ubiquitous, then Americans are in no need of discovery, definition, or exhibition, by themselves or by others. This creates an uncomfortable lack of reciprocity in which the dynamics of cultural exhibition are reduced to an asymmetrical “you dance for me, but I never dance for you; I discover, observe, define, and preserve the things of this world, but I am not subjected to those processes by others.” Yet this notion betrays a certain postcolonial cultural narcissism in which the legacies of empire often loom larger in the minds of former colonizing nations than they do in the minds of nations formerly colonized. It cannot be forgotten that “live exhibits” and cultural performers are ultimately agents unto themselves, choosing and participating in representations that are independent of how observers may attempt to objectify them. This was certainly the case for the Moros at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

MYTH IN SAM SHEPARD’S “THE GOD OF HELL” AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATION

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-38
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Political Implication ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Sam Shepard ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Political Myth ◽  
The World

The article introduces the creative work of the famous American playwright Sam Shepard, whose works are almost unknown to our Uzbek reader. His plays are well known throughout the world; they influenced the formation of the worldview of readers of different nations and show the peculiarities of American culture. Despite the worldwide fame of Sam Shepard’s works, they are not studied well by literary critics. In America and Europe his works have been studied in details for a long period, and even several monographs in English have been written. However, neither in the Russian speaking, nor in the domestic literary criticism there is yet no major work on Shepard's works. The article also deals with the artistic features of the political myth of the “American dream” in one of the most scandalous plays, “The God of Hell,” dedicated to the protest against the war in Iraq. Thus, this study, which touches upon some issues of Shepard's creative work in connection with his innovative artistic originality, to a certain extent, seeks to fill this gap.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael C. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
World's Fair ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Interactive Display ◽  
Hunting Dog ◽  
Louisiana Purchase ◽  
Cultural Affirmation ◽  
Soft Spot ◽  
The One ◽  
Louisiana Purchase Exposition

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Philippine Village exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Despite the supposedly comprehensive nature of the Philippine display, the exhibit was ultimately called upon to serve two sometimes divergent scientific and pedagogical functions. On the one hand, the Philippine Village was a self-contained exhibit, set apart as an inclusive continuum of indigenous types ranging from the “head-hunting,” “dog-eating,” savage Igorots to the highly civilized Philippine Scouts and Constabulary. By viewing these communities in quick successive comparison, onlookers could draw broad lessons from the “demotic” differences in dress, materials, cultural customs, and habits. The Philippine exhibit was also meant to be an interactive display promoting a sense of otherization and cultural affirmation. This book examines a particularly soft spot in the subjective and contested colonial discourse between colonizer and colonized at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition—that of the Philippine Muslims, also known as Moros. The chapter then describes the Moro Village, which was constructed to effectively commodify and exoticize the mundane aspects of Moro life.

6. The world wide web of American culture

2018 ◽  
pp. 105-126
Author(s):  
Eric Avila
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
World Wide ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Aids Crisis ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Impact

If the sixties radicalized the content of American culture, the nineties revolutionized its form. The digital revolution began in California and enveloped the entire world, creating unprecedented opportunities for instantaneous communication and self-expression. “The world wide web of American culture” first describes the impact on American culture of 1970s counterculture; the music genres of disco, pop, and hip hop; the AIDS crisis; and the excesses of 1980s culture. It then explains how the rise of the Internet fostered a new plurality in American society. American culture continues to unite diverse and disparate segments of the population, even as it remains a battleground, fraught with the very tensions and conflicts that define the nation’s history and identity.

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