Yet another cultual text...

Because I am interested in pursuing a major (or minor) in writing, I would like to research a literay text as my cultural object. Lately, I have been reading a lot of short stories by an Israeli writer named Etgar Keret. Not only is Keret a celebrated for his quirky and poignant prose, but he is the qunitessential voice of Israeli culture. In a tiny country where nationalism is hyper-magnified, Keret's stories are viewed as small microcosms of the conflicts of life in Israeli society. His latest collection, "The Nimrod Flipout," is a delectable array of shorts that preview Israeli society from all angles. Although Keret avoids forwarding political opinion in his work, he illustrates a realistic picture of huge issues on the Israeli conscious--immigration, the army, repercussions of the Holocaust, the hi-tech industry. Yet despite the focus on Israel, Keret, like any good author, explores the conflicts of the broader human heart such as love, betrayal friendship, infidelity, aging, war, peace, nature--all of literature's major themes. As a thesis for a paper, I would choose a selection of Keret's writing that reflect a specific theme and examine how he superimposes this theme over Israeli society.

The REA Assignment

The basic purpose of this assignment is to choose a cultural text or object and explain how it embodies a certain aspect of culture. This can manifest itself in different ways. First, the object can act as a mirror for a certain cultural element, and can shed led on that culture. If one chose a Bob Dylan Album, he could write about Dylan's reflection of folk music in the 1960's, for example. Moreover, the cultural object could be more of a sum of cultural forces. For instance, a Michael Moore movie is always a response to various issues. In some way, the swirling dimensions of an issue in society culminate in Michael Moore production. In my previous considerations of a cultural object, namely the W.I.L.D. ad, I talked about using it more as a jumping point for a larger discourse of society's view of alcohol. For this assignment, it would be better to use the ad more centrally, specifically as a focal point in the discussion of campus alcohol policies (or any related topic).

New Cultural Texts...

My first item is the campus music magazine, "Eleven." This magazine had a special on a WILD preview, with the main picture a student lying on the grass, presumably passed out drunk. Around his sprawled hand, personal objects lay askew, forgotten temporarily in the wake of drunken stupor. Implied in this (staged) picture is a bevy of information and argument about Campus drinking policies. If I used this picture, or something like it from a student publication, I could write about college drinking policies and the students' perception of them. Are they feared or considered a joke? Are their rules well-known or obscure? Especially at Wash U, where the drinking policy has a unique bent, this paper topic would be interesting.

My second cultural object is concerns the CD jackets of two albums I recently downloaded from Ruckus--"Let's get free" by the rap group Dead Prez, and "At war with the mystics" by the Flaming Lips. When I looked up the corresponding album jackets, I was very surprised at their differing themes. The Flaming Lips, a staple of indie rock, had a dreamy image of a small figure facing some sort of large explosion of color. The overarching theme of this picture is the figure's inferiority to whatever force is threatening to overtaking. Needless to say, the album cover is very abstract. On the other hand, the Dead Prez album depicts ranks of young, black soldiers pointing their guns to the air and yelling. These soldiers are probably child soldiers in Africa. This image gives an entirely different feeling than the first. It obviously has more of a concrete, cultural message, one that coincides with Dead Prez's nationalistic lyrics. In a paper I would explore the larger differences between the rock album and the rap album--namely in meaning and intentions of the lyrics.

Interview with a confused upperclassman

Q: What was the topic of your research paper last year?
A: I wrote mine as an examination of the fast food industry. Specifically, I argued that fast food plays a prominent on the American conscious and helps define America as a society. The primary sources I used were the movie "Supersize Me" and the book "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser.

Q: What advice would you have for beginning research?
A: Don't put yourself in a position when you have to read multiple books to gain information. You probably do not have time to fit in all of that supplemental reading. Scholarly articles are the best options for research because they encapsulate everything you need to know in a shorter length. Use any type of media you can: Movies, magazines, commercials, newspaper articles. Especially for a topic like mine, such cultural objects were immensely helpful.

Q: How did your paper evolve over the semester?
A: At first I had a very narrow scope of my topic. But as I did research, I realized the extent of fast food's impact on the country. I talked more about its medical connection to obesity than I would have thought at the beginning. In this way, a lot of my paper was devoted to America's obesity problem. One last thing: over-research! You can never have too much info, and you always want different options of direction for your paper.

The Interpreter of Maladies

The Interpreter of Maladies by Nobel prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri is a collection of short stories that depict the Indian experience in America and throughout the world. In many of the stories, Lahiri melds the themes of cultural tradition and assimilation with the universal themes of relationships, betrayal, and friendship. The style of the her works is elegant yet completely unpretentious. Her stories are far from esoteric, yet they can be interpreted on many different levels. Examination of her stories reveals her prominent use of foreshadowing and symbolism. My favorite story, "A temporary Matter," tells about an Indian-American couple who reconnect when their electricity goes out. Near the end, the husband-narrator believes that his failing marriage is saved, yet his wife presents him with divorce papers. The bluntness of the ending engenders endless interpretation of the stories meaning. If I chose to research this book, I would place it in the greater thesis of the Indian immigrant experience in America.

Fargo

This is a compilation of youtube clips, from the movie Fargo (by the Coen Brothers, the same people who brought you The Big Lebowski). I could not figure out how to only select one, so here are a few. Aside from many other social comments this movie proffers, it parodies midwestern culture. The accent, congeniality (which only masks pent up frustration), and omnipresent snow are all prominent parts of this movie. If I chose this topic, my thesis would probably concern the American perception of the Midwest. The second movie from the left is a series of every clip in the movie where the word "ya" is said in a medley of ridiculous Minnesotan accents. It's brilliant.

Writing 1

As his article is an example of historical revisionism, James Loewen displays a bias towards the unknown and unappreciated "underdogs" of American History. Loewen subtly proffers that the giants of American history should be reappraised for faults while the obscure should be ushered to the spotlight. Is this underlying generalization dangerous? Loewen even mentions that there exists a "characteristic American sympathy for the underdog." Do Americans sometimes do the exact oposite of Loewen's textbook's and heroify the underdogs?


"We name institutions after him, from the Woodrow Wilson Center at the Smithsonian Institution to Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Decatur, Illinois, where I misspent my adolescence." In this sentence, James Loewen uses humor to censure Wilson. By association, the bitterness of his joke portrays Wilson negatively.

"But replying 'none' is too glib, too nihilistic for my taste. It is, however, an understandable response to heroification."