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
Definition: Act of placing 2 or more items side-by-side or near
each other.
Juxtaposition
About the Author: Pico Iyer
Pico 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.
SB V U2 L6 Theatrical and Cultural Elements in Film
Agenda
Voices of Modern Culture
Essential Question: What are some ways films
depict elements of culture?
I. Making Connections: Film and Text
II. Making Connections: Film and Text (Writing)
“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
Making Connections: Film and Text
Title of film_______________________________
Name of characters_________________________
Costumes/Makeup
Props/Sets
Acting Choices
Cultural Elements
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 spend
http://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
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.
Conflict Zone Part 1
Conflict Zone Part 2
Conflict Zone Part 3
VI. Major Genocidal Events
Definition: Systematic killing of ALL people from a national,
ethnic, or religious group (or an attempt to)
A. Native Americans
1. US expansion: led to removal to reservations
or extermination
B. Armenians: Early 20th century
1. 2.5 million Christian Armenians in Muslim Turkey
a. Turkey expelled them across the deserts
i. Thirst, exposure, starvation, disease killed many
b. Rounded up all educated & able-bodied men &
slaughtered them
c. 1.5 million killed
C. The Rape of Nanking: December
13, 1937
1. Japanese captured: Capital of
China
a. Killed all Chinese POWs
b. Attacked civilians
i.
Murder, decapitation,
torture
ii.
80,000+ cases of
rape
c. 200-300,000 killed in 7
weeks
D. Tibet
1. 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 &
shrines
b. Cruelty continues (2-6 million killed)
E. Cambodia: 1975
1. Khmer Rouge Communist take over:
Pol Pot
a. Urban life is destructive = must end
i.
Massacred Westernized &
educated
ii. Expelled city dwellers to rural
b. Outlawed Buddhism
i. Executed priests & destroyed temples
c. 2 million killed in 4 years
F. Rwanda
1. 2 social groups: Hutu (majority) &
Tutsi (minority)
a. Tutsi were in control until 1962
2. 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 1991-92
a. Ethnical cleansing of Serbs
4. Bosnia declared independence: 1992
a. Milosevic invaded and removed all Muslims from the area
5. Milosevic voted out in 2000 & stood trial for war crimes
a. 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