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10:001 or 10:003 Unit ~ Cultural Appreciation, Cultural Appropriation:
Mapping the Place of "Others" in Popular and Museum Culture
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Formal Assignments
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This unit examines debates over cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. At what point does “appreciating” a culture turn into “appropriation” or “cooptation”? In what way do both activities hinge on the rhetorical creation of an (exotic) “Other”? Museum displays, especially ones that import artifacts from ancient or distant lands, provide a rich nexus for exploring those questions. In addition, while the ethics/politics of these practices are subject to debate, the grounds for these arguments also need to be explored. Often these arguments as well as the displays (both in museums and in popular culture) depend on the discourses of science as authorization. The unit starts with the appropriation of cultural identity through clothing style and music, and then moves to the museum as a way to enter broader public debates about the adoption and elimination of cultural difference. The unit design presented here is reading-heavy in order to both allow the class to begin to map positions based on shared readings and also introduce multiple controversies based on issues of appreciation/appropriation. Finally, a number of additional controversies turn on the issues explored in this unit, which could either be incorporated as a part of this unit or made into a distinct one. Debates over English-only legislation, both in Iowa and the U.S., threaten to quell cultural diversity. Hate speech, while clearly not demonstrating appreciation for difference, could be used to further explore “Othering” processes explored earlier. Furthermore, as hate speech often invokes the discourses of eugenics, this topic lends itself to previous discussions about science authorizing claims. Contemporary debates over, for instance, the celebration of national holidays such as Columbus Day, could lead from this unit into a discussion of colonization. Other issues dealing with the politics of displaying people could be broached. For example, there is a long tradition of displaying human “anomalies” (quintuplets, deformities, etc.) as well as people from “primitive” cultures at the World’s Fair Exhibitions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This historical lens could be brought into more contemporary treatments of Holocaust rememberance/denial. |