A 10:001 or 10:003 Unit ~ Cultural Appreciation, Cultural Appropriation: Mapping the Place of "Others" in Popular and Museum Culture

Overview	Schedule	Human Likert Scale Activity	Formal Assignments		Readings
			Paper	Speech

Schedule

Five-Week Syllabus Overview Week 1: Appreciation/Appropriation in the Culture Industry This week opens the conversation about appreciation and appropriation by looking at issues in youth culture that students are likely to be quite familiar with. Instruct students before they begin reading to find out the original context of publication for each of the readings in In Context (they are listed in alphabetical order starting on page 677). “Goin’ Gangsta . . .” is a popular ethnographic essay that focuses on teenage “wannabes”—white youth who dress and act like non-white, inner city “gangstas”, and their reasons for doing so. Day 2’s texts focus on the marketing phenomenon surrounding this appropriation of urban street style. The article from American Demographics gives students a perspective about the issue from inside the marketing industry. “The Merchants of Cool”, a PBS Frontline special available in Media Services at the Main Library, has segments that explore how marketing and advertising agencies track youth culture in order to re-package and sell it back to youth. The week’s reading concludes with Ledbetter’s “Imitation of Life”, which analyzes the “wigger” phenomena among contemporary white, suburban, male youth. It concludes by arguing, if these privileged youth were really interested in African American culture, they would work to end various discriminatory practices in the U.S. Other readings from this section of In Context could be added or substituted, such as Gerald Marzorati’s “Tropicalia, Agora!” about world music or the other historical reading which tracks youth culture in the 1960s, taking issue with the common argument that what happened then was simply cooptation by capitalist interests. Use the readings about white youth interest in rap and gangsta culture to explore with students differences between “appreciation” and “appropriation”, especially as it functions in consumer culture. What is the difference between appreciating and cooptation? In what way does a language of “authenticity” authorize one, while de-authorizing another? Consider the kinds of artifacts (clothing, language use, music, bodily performance) that are used to perform cultural identity. Connections could be made here to J. Crew’s appropriation of grunge clothing; Eminem’s success in rap, a traditionally African American art form; or the recent ascendancy of street or playground basketball in the NBA and in the wider (marketing) culture. In addition to “The Merchants of Cool”, other visual artifacts could be used, including Nike’s Stomp ads, featuring playground basketball legends like The Future in addition to current NBA stars; Mountain Dew’s Code Red ads; MTV’s Cribs or the MTV Cribs special: How to Live Large (a step-by-step guide to rap star living). By the end of the week’s discussion, the class should work to discuss the relations between the various authors’ arguments and ways of arguing (“Mapping Discussion”). Week 2: Appreciation/Appropriation in Museums This week features a visit to the Pre-Columbian/African exhibit at the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Use this visit to extend the discussions about rap music and issues of authenticity. The reading for this week will offer students terminology about ethnographic exhibitions in museums, and it does an example analysis of one such exhibit. The apparatus in the chosen pages of the chapter should be useful in guiding student questions and discussion about the article in preparation for the museum visit. Also, give students some questions to consider about the politics of display before you go. For example, in what way does the discourse of science authorize the display of artifacts obtained (sometimes stolen) from other cultures? How does the Museum set the artifacts in context (through various arrangement strategies, like historical references, diagrams, docents’ tour presentations, etc.)? How do these contextual practices try to generate appreciation for artifacts whose value might lie elsewhere? A visit to the UI Natural History Museum is another possibility. After the museum visit, ask students to make impromptu speeches or debate the following question(s): In what ways do the Museum display strategies encourage visitors to appreciate the culture? In what ways do they participate in appropriation? Or, is it ethical for any museum to display artifacts it did not receive permission to display or that it may have obtained through thievery (even decades or centuries ago)? Week 3: Museum Controversies continued After having a workshop day, this week continues with readings from the course pack that further explore issues of museum collections. The readings are sequenced to move from a thorough introduction of various issues and controversies, to the national context and American Indians’ efforts to reclaim objects from U.S. museums. Finally, issues of international thievery, reclamation of artifacts, and cultural heritage are addressed. Have students parse out the various sets of issues at stake in debates over national/international ownership of cultural artifacts. What are the various arguments made for determining ownership? What logics (nationalism, education, appreciation of others, oppression) support the various arguments? How does the position about ownership expressed in the editorial compare and contrast with the other newsreports and arguments this week? Other options for reading, for instance public arguments about excavating King Tut’s tomb and putting the contents on world tour in the early 1980s, could be used. The week ends with a flexible day, allowing instructors to catch up, spread out the suggested readings more or have another essay workshop, etc. at her/his discretion. Week 4: Concluding Thoughts While you have been working on mapping all along by discussing similarities and differences among the various texts that you have been reading and seeing, this week is the climactic moment of mapping various values at stake in the debates over both popular cultural and museum-based appropriation/appreciation/use of artifacts from often marginalized groups. Write all of the main arguments of the authors you have read as a class on the board to review. Then students can do the Human Likert Scale activity (also see the Mapping Exercise). Finally, there are two days of speech workshops scheduled. Because the speech is geared toward making a variety of complex information interesting to this student audience, what better way to get feedback about how to accomplish this task than by asking other students? Note: DAY = HOUR Week 1: Appreciation/Appropriation in the Culture Industry Day 1: Read Nell Bernstein, “Goin’ Gansta, Choosin’ Cholita”, pp. 78-84. Day 2: Read Marc Spiegler, “Marketing Street Culture: Bringing Hip Hop Style to the Mainstream”, pp. 122-133. Watch “Merchants of Cool” (PBS Frontline 2002, 60 minutes). Day 3: Read James Ledbetter, “Imitation of Life”, pp. 134-139. Mapping Discussion Day 4: Hand out Paper Assignment Week 2: Appreciation/Appropriation in Museums Day 1: Read Henrietta Lidchi, “The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures”, pp. 153-179, 209-213. Preview Museum Visit Day 2: Museum Visit Day 3: Museum Debrief Day 4: Hand out Speech Assignment Week 3: Museum Controversies Continued Day 1: Workshop Paper Assignment Day 2:  Read “Museums as Centers of Controversies” and “This Land is Their Land”. Day 3: Read “Problems and Possibilities in Recovering Dispersed Cultural Heritage” and “Editorial”. Day 4:  Flexible Day Week 4: Concluding Thoughts Day 1: Paper Due. Discuss Speech Assignment. Day 2:  Workshop Speech Assignment Day 3: Human Likert Scale: Eminem, Mountain Dew Code Red, Art Thieves . . .: What’s the Difference? Day 4:  Workshop Speech Assignment Week 5: Speeches

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