Blogs

     I am so thankful for the things this class has taught me, for opening my eyes to the endogenous nature of culture. Although class breakout groups were my favorite part of this course, I thank these blog posts for giving me a space to fully flesh out my ideas and think through my stance before having discourse with my peers. I hope everyone reading this and writing their own can look at the work completed throughout the semester with pride. I came into this class disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take it in person, and leaving with a sense of completion and gratefulness for the work of my fellow classmates and professor. 

    Although I particularly enjoyed the weeks about comics, stamps, and religion, my favorite week was week 5 surrounding drug culture and the cultural life of coca. The display of the United States simultaneous reliance on Latin America for drugs and the heavy policing and criminalization of those drugs highlights the insidious scapegoating promoted in the United States. Learning more about how culture is created from multiple influences assists in seeing culture as a product of institutions. As someone who used to hear much negativity about happenings on the boarder, actually learning about the history of why things are the way they are makes me indignant that so many get painted in a negative light because western perceptions of "drugs". 

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     I am so thankful for the things this class has taught me, for opening my eyes to the endogenous nature of culture. Although class breakout groups were my favorite part of this course, I thank these blog posts for giving me a space to fully flesh out my ideas and think through my stance before having discourse with my peers. I hope everyone reading this and writing their own can look at the work completed throughout the semester with pride. I came into this class disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take it in person, and leaving with a sense of completion and gratefulness for the work of my fellow classmates and professor. 

    Although I particularly enjoyed the weeks about comics, stamps, and religion, my favorite week was week 5 surrounding drug culture and the cultural life of coca. The display of the United States simultaneous reliance on Latin America for drugs and the heavy policing and criminalization of those drugs highlights the insidious scapegoating promoted in the United States. Learning more about how culture is created from multiple influences assists in seeing culture as a product of institutions. As someone who used to hear much negativity about happenings on the boarder, actually learning about the history of why things are the way they are makes me indignant that so many get painted in a negative light because western perceptions of "drugs". 

read full post >>

Writing this it’s hard to believe it’s been a whole semester. It seems like just yesterday I was trying to figure out how to set up this blog. I really enjoyed going through this course content and exploring different viewpoints with classmates. It was very interesting to come together and discuss in the format that […] read full post >>

Writing this it’s hard to believe it’s been a whole semester. It seems like just yesterday I was trying to figure out how to set up this blog. I really enjoyed going through this course content and exploring different viewpoints with classmates. It was very interesting to come together and discuss in the format that […] read full post >>

The past 14 weeks have no doubt been busy and unusual for everyone, and adjusting to the online format is something most people are finding quite difficult. In these times I found that this course and its format has been really a gift for me, since most of my classes are largely asynchronous, it was …

Continue reading "Final Thoughts"

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This is it, the last blog post for this course, for my undergraduate university career, and probably for this blog.... read full post >>

The article was both an academic and informing in presenting analyses on location aware mobile media and its relations to the common Havana internet cultures. I found the fact that “location -aware mobile applications will increase communication and coordination, facilitate … Continue reading → read full post >>

The article was both an academic and informing in presenting analyses on location aware mobile media and its relations to the common Havana internet cultures. I found the fact that “location -aware mobile applications will increase communication and coordination, facilitate … Continue reading → read full post >>

What excellent topics to round out the semester! Television and internet, my only two pastimes these days (or ever, if... read full post >>

Nick Morgan’s article on the culture and sensationalism of an ever-growing, rapidly popularizing subgenre of telenovelas, the narconovela, reveals some fascinating insights into the nature of the relationship between television and society. Specific to Colombia, Morgan discusses the narconovela and the significance of its departure from more conservative, ‘socially moral’ novelas of the past. As […] read full post >>