What is Culture?

Let's define culture. What is culture? In your own words, describe this term. Share your response with a partner. In your notes/journal, brainstorm some cultural groups you belong to. What cultural groups (hegemonies) do you belong to? You will need this list a little later today. Brainstorming is the first step in the creative process. Brainstorm now!

Much of our class will use our reading to brainstorm ideas for stories, poems, plays, films, non-fiction and other writing projects. Let's try that with an article about multicultural education. After reading, respond to the article in writing.

• A few ideas might be: think about your own educational experience. How multicultural has your experience been? 
• Is there value in having a common culture (for example stressing the idea that we are all 'Americans' over fragmenting our culture)? 
• Choose a side and argue for or against it. Who is right in your opinion? 
• Does this idea need updating? 
• Is this issue still important--and, if so, why? Etc.

The fundamental idea of this course is to use our research and responses to a variety of topics to inspire our artistic and academic impulses. Secondly, it is a course that urges the artist to depict him or herself in relation to or as the other. We will be examining power structures and hegemonic cultural groups in relation to each other, using this topic to reach a more universal and engaged POV about our own selves, our own cultures, and the world audience itself.

This course is a literature course, a course in ideas, as well as a practice from which to write and capture authentic voices. It also fulfills the criteria for a college composition and literature course. This means, that this course is treated and delivered as an actual college course (because it is). Had things worked out differently, you would be able to obtain college credit for this course through MCC. Instead, you'll certainly be prepared for college if you can pass this course--at least that I can promise you.

All students will be creating a writing portfolio. You will be allowed in many cases to make your own path as you build a writing portfolio for this course. The idea is that you should feel free to create the Art you like to create. You know how to write plays, make films, write essays and short stories, create poems, blog, create podcasts, work with technology, perform, and many other writing tasks.

But first, let me introduce to you the field of cultural studies.

Culture: What is it?

Culture Scientists and Anthropologists define culture as learned behavior acquired by individuals as members of a social group.

According to Edward Tyler in 1871: culture includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities or habits acquired by a group.

• Culture is a learned behavior.
• Culture is also used to refer to a highly cultivated person versed in art, philosophy, etc.
• Culture includes insignificant behavior such as behavior traits, etiquette, food habits, as well as refined arts of a society.
• Culture can also be considered as the sum total of human knowledge and acquired behavior of humankind.
• Habits or behavior is generally transmitted from members to the young or outsiders until the outsider is also an insider, part of the group.

Language: Language is a system of verbal and nonverbal symbols used to communicate ideas. The study of these symbols is what is known as semiotics.

Taboos: strict mores or behavior that is looked down upon in a culture (usually sexual)

Hegemony: an influential social group to which one owes allegiance.

Often used to discuss how these groups use power or dominate other groups. We all belong to several hegemonic groups, depending on time, place, and situation. For example, you and your classmates belong to the social group: SOTA. "We are School of the Arts" as the slogan goes. The capital Hegemony refers to our own cultural group that holds power over others. This may be the 1%, the government, or the institutions that support this system.

This morning write a poem draft about an aspect of your culture or a ritual or observation from one of your hegemonic groups. Your speaker should be the mouthpiece for your experiences. Don't feel like you need to grasp at the giant ideas--what does the experience you chose to write about mean? In a single "cultural" moment what does it mean to be you? Or part of your group or clan or tribe or gang? Or what might it mean to recognize your place in the world?

Before you begin, take a moment to read some of these poem examples:

• Emily Dickinson: "I'm 'Wife'--I've Finished That" (pg. 465)
• Thomas Hardy: "The Man He Killed" (pg. 479)
• William Carlos Williams: "The Last Words of My English Grandmother" (pg. 579-580)
• Langston Hughes: "Mulatto" (pg. 692)
• Elizabeth Bishop: "In the Waiting Room" (pg. 726-728)
• Gwendolyn Brooks: "The Mother" (pg. 750-751)
• Frank O'Hara: "Autobiographia Literaria" (pg. 779)
• Donald Hall: "My Son, My Executioner" (pg. 794)
• Lucille Clifton: "Homage to my Hips" (pg. 845)
• Carolyn Forche: "The Memory of Elena" (pg. 880)
• Askold Melnyczuk: "The Enamel Box" (pg. 888)
• Cathy Song: "Lost Sister" (pg. 889-891)

There is no wrong way to write a cultural poem. Everyone's experience and subject matter will be unique. It's okay to get personal. Avoid over-dramatizing your poem. This is not a life or death situation in most cases, but a subtle understanding of your (or your speaker's) own place in the world. You may tell a story, use fictional elements like dialogue, use traditional phrases or family sayings or idioms, etc.

What you'll need is a strong setting. How is your room (or a room in your house) a reflection of who you are and what your family values, for example? How is the setting significant to the speaker of your poem? If you can't answer this, make the setting significant.

TIPS/RULES/GUIDELINES:

• Allow your speaker to witness a single significant action, tradition, or cultural moment that is unique to you, your family or family members, your group, your "homies" or your own personal experience. 
• Describe that moment using different kinds of imagery (choose at least one, but you can mix them: visual imagery, sound imagery, tactile imagery, gustatory imagery, kinetic imagery, olfactory imagery...)
• Allow your speaker to reflect on the meaning of this action. Your "volta" or turning point should come near the very end of your poem (if not the last shocking line...where your speaker realizes something significant--perhaps something now found that had been missing in one's life, a recognition of belonging, for example.)
• Your poem must be at least 10 lines in length. It can be longer than 10 lines.
• Proofread and title your draft.

More models to follow next class.

Regardless of culture, all cultures include:

• a primary means of subsistence
• a primary family
• a system of kinship
• a set of rules of social conduct
• religion (belief)
• material culture (tools, weapons, clothing)
• forms of art

cultural relativism: All cultures are rational in their own terms.

Culture Wars: the term coined for the conflict between traditionalist or conservative values and progressive or liberal values (specifically in politics, but also in social philosophy and the media)

Back to reading.

Please read the very famous essay: "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston in class (or as homework if we run out of time to finish it...)

For our next creative writing assignment, we'll be in the lab upstairs. Generally, 1st period will be used to give you some lab time. Next class, we will write a personal creative nonfiction essay on an aspect of you. The task will be to write an essay* about your experience within a specific hegemonic group or culture that you identify with (one, perhaps, that you listed earlier in the class). This can be an examination of your gender, your "race" or "class", your heritage, your identity or involvement in a sub-group or minority, your religion, a family tradition, etc.

In order to begin thinking about this, consider how you identify yourself. What part of your personality/tradition/culture is unique to you. Focus on this idea in your creative essay. Remember:

• Non-fiction is creative--remember to use poetic/literary devices (imagery, metaphor, detail, tone, character, etc.)
• Non-fiction tells an interesting story--show us the scenes, paint them with imagery, remember to use your writing skills and make your audience appreciate your story. 
• Non-fiction includes dialogue, description of setting, and can include teaching new ideas to your audience
• Non-fiction includes reflection of the subject matter

Length and style is up to you, but you should develop and tell a good story.

HOMEWORK: Come to next class ready to write about "How it feels to be...you"--We will start in the creative writing lab. Also, please begin reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri or The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. For Monday's class, please complete the first chapter (pp. 1 - 21 Namesake, or 17-44 in JLC). As you read, notice how the author introduces ideology and culture as a frame for the theme of this book. Next class, we will also work on the technique of summarizing and discuss chapter one in each novel along with other writing prompts/exercises. Have a great weekend!