ENGL360

[swolf360-blog]

In this drawing, I wanted to try to represent the layers of maps that Manzanar sees, as well as the chaos that his orchestra is described as. I tried to incorporate “the very geology of the land, the artesian rivers running beneath the surface… the man-made grid of civil utilities… sidewalks, bicycle paths, roads, freeways, systems of transit both ground and air…” (Yamashita 57). Manzanar sees the world in a very unique way. Here, I attempted to combine Manzanar’s vision of the world with a realistic interpretation of it.

[swolf360-blog]

Manifest destiny originated as the territorial expansion in the western part of the United States prior to the Civil War. Despite the presence of individuals already living on the land, the United States saw fit to “overspread and to possess the whole of the continent”, endowing the land with the culture and beliefs of the American colonizers while occupying and annexing Native American lands (Pratt 795).

In this research paper, I will be providing a history of manifest destiny as apparent in the United States in the pre-Civil War era, and will be comparing this to American neocolonialism in the modern day (for instance, the Iraq War and the United States military intervention against ISIS). The two time periods show remarkable similarity, with much of the motivation stemming in both cases from a desire for natural resources to benefit the United States.

I’m not sure what my overarching thesis will be, though I will likely argue that the comparison between the old and the new wars sheds light on globalization in modernity; rather than a shining picture of global acceptance, the response to a more connected world has been to assume superiority over countries who do not share a Western worldview. Globalization, through the lens of manifest destiny, is an attempt to assimilate the non-Western world, rather than accept and recognize diversity. The front of this ‘white saviour’ ideology hides underlying capitalist intentions of exploitation of countries with abundant natural resources. Therefore, the idea of Manifest Destiny is inherently tied to neocolonialist and neoimperialist expansionist ideologies.

 Source:

Pratt, J. W. (1927) The Origin of “Manifest Destiny”. The American Historical Review 32(4): 795-798.

[ienjoyfruits-blog]

Is History Real?

I enjoy listening to Alan Watts. I have never watched his videos before. I find I have a more difficult time watching him than listening to him. When I listen, I am more able to absorb him on a conceptual and intellectual level and his work satisfies me on that wavelength.

As I watch, however, his presence and ideas seem much more a social game than an intellectual discourse. I cannot help to to notice how white and British he is and how appropriated his livelihood can be interpreted as. He is a philosopher of the East, yet he is white and British. Given his relationship to history can he be a great or even ethical philosopher?

HIs video argues ideas ought to be taken at face value, in the present, of the present, and for the present. 

I think this viewpoints that Watts briefly expounds, very closely articulates Hall. And I have found Hall’s essay to be among the most moving works I have read this semester. 

I think it is powerful to the extant that it is true. It deploys a wisdom that academic papers do not always have. It can be difficult to articulate exactly what makes this paper wise as compared to another, say Katz’s counter topography. But, the intuitive sense I have after reading Hall’s essay, as with any good essay, is that it evokes ideas and conceptions from within. Hall is helping me to understand what I feel I already knew, whereas Katz essay reads to me with a sense of conceptual distance.  

I would like to make a connection between Watts and Hall. Watts is lecturing as a white, British academic, specializing in Hindu and Buddhist history and philosophy. He lectures mostly in the US to an American audience of the 1950s-1970s. Hall, also a British Academic, specializing in cultural studies, Black, and born and raised in Jamaica, writes for a presumably academic audience, in 1990.

I found it interesting how two people with different histories, in different times, and with different academic specialities, could espouse such a similar theory for potentially such different aims.

Watts aims to essentially enlighten a Christian audience into hindu and buddhist philosophy. Hall aims to salvage and revitalize the ethos of African diaspora.

Yet they both rely heavily on this one, potentially simple idea. History does not exists. There is only the present, and history only exists to the extant that the present is aware of it.

As hall beautiful evokes, “meaning is never finished or completed, but keeps on moving to encompass other, additional or supplementary meanings” (229).

What is interesting about this interpretation of history or a lack there of, is that it potentially undermines globalization and diaspora. Taking these ideologies towards there extremes, one could posit, everything always was and is a function of the global, and everyone never was or will have home or a from. There is no such thing as from. There is no such thing as was. There is only the place you are. 

I don’t know if I like these frameworks though. They are provocative, and I do prefer them to their polar extreme; history is embedded, entrenched, and here to stay. 

But, I can’t help but to feel disheartened by the idea that history can be forgotten, because as the adage goes forgotten history is doomed to be repeated. 

I do find myself ruminating over ideas of imperialism and appropriation. They certainly happened, it certainly is horrid beyond speech. But, is imperialism essentially European, or white?

I really don’t know, and I’m not sure we can. I discussed this in a previous comment, about how conquest and power are synonymous with written history, and have manifested in essentially all cultures to some degree.  

It is uncomfortable to minimize imperialism and violence. But all it takes is nihilism or a massive historical time scope, say one million years, to do just so. It’s just, I also cannot but to have the feeling that, if it wasn’t Spain, it would have been China, and if it wasn’t China, it would have the Incas, and if it wasn’t the Incas, it would have been the Ottomans, and if not the Ottomans it would have been the caliphate, and if not the caliphate the kingdom of Ghana. 

And yet, it was Europe, and this reality is now, probably not forever, but certainly here now.

[swolf360-blog]

The points brought up about whiteness (or Western-centric focus) and the erasure of history are really fascinating and thought-provoking. I feel that there is an important connection between the two. History, in general, only reflects the victor in any particular conflict. As the West (and, of the West, predominantly white individuals) has become such an overpowering political and military force in the world, other histories are erased in favour of perpetuating the idea of white individuals as the victors. This ties in directly with imperialism and appropriation. Upon conquest, cultural markers are either absorbed into the victor’s culture, or are erased.

Every world power has seen a downfall, but because of the systemic xenophobia and resistance to dialogue about introducing or accepting diaspora within communities, the United States (and other Western nations) refuses to see that history could indeed repeat itself once more.

[happymealhegemony-blog]

Visit Original Link

If we allow ourselves a more flexible working definition of diaspora, perhaps an answer may come more clearly into focus, regarding the causes and effects of diaspora. In my last post I examined the nature of local borders—how they come about, and why, and where. And in light of the emphasis made in Teju Cole’s Open City on the city scape and its daunting effects, perhaps urban borders deserve a second examination. 

The audio attached above was recorded in New Orleans, Louisiana. Specifically, it was recorded as I walked one block down an alley street, one block down the infamous party-centered Bourbon Street, and then one block back down an alley.

The sonic border of amplitude is most notable when listening. There is quiet, and then there is not, and then it returns.  But beyond that, what other borders can be heard? As you listen, you will hear drums. There is an interesting law in New Orleans, specific to this street: you cannot beg, but you can perform for tips. And so what many of the homeless do (most of whom, notably, are kids), is beat on a paint bucket with a drum stick and put a jar for tips before them. The result is an endless racket. The moment they stop drumming, they can be arrested. Desperation bleeds into their rhythms. It is a tired beat, like that of a war drum. 

Second, bouncers at bars can be heard shouting, advertising what they have inside (drinks, women), and announcing who is allowed to enter (21+, those who can afford a cover charge). 

All of this made me think of a recent article by Allison Arieff for the NYTimes titled, “Designing a More Inclusive City”. 

It may be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/designing-inclusive-cities.html?_r=0

In this article, Arieff describes the “weaponry” used in San Francisco’s war on the visible homeless population. In the 1990′s, for example, all of the benches in the Civic Center Plaza were removed. There is no longer any place for people to sit, or, more importantly, sleep. And of course there are the same amount of homeless people. So where do they go? Enter the rise of tent cities. Tent cities abound in San Francisco, with the largest containing around 350 residents of the 6700 total homeless. Their diaspora is that of safe-place to safe-place, anywhere they can pitch their tents. But these places are disappearing. Prop Q, which was recently passed, banned the pitching of sidewalks on tents… San Francisco borders are like boa constrictors, always tightening… 

Where then, is there left to run to? Can you be a refugee in your own city? When there’s no place to find quiet, or no place to make money, or no place to sleep, well, then my answer is yes. 

Thoughts? 

[swolf360-blog]

I do agree that the issue of homelessness, especially in the United States, is certainly connected to diaspora and, to an extent, globalization. In particular, I feel that internal diaspora is limited for those who cannot afford it. For instance, as you described, individuals in New Orleans must work, or perform, in order to receive some form of cash influx or avoid arrest. Literal mobility is therefore limited; if one must perform to live, there is no respite from the work, nor a support system if one cannot work. Social mobility is also affected in the sense that it is extraordinarily difficult to move from one ‘caste’ to another; if an individual is born into a certain socioeconomic status, economic mobility can be very difficult. This relates to globalization and diaspora on a larger scale. People in communities of individuals like themselves, with a similar culture and similar socioeconomic status, find it difficult to move out of these communities, and therefore do not interact with people of other communities. In this way, I would say that globalization is limited in the United States; there is no blending of cultures on a large scale, as individuals generally remain in the social class that they know and are comfortable with.

The map that I attached is of Milwaukee, one of the most segregated cities in the United States. I found it interesting that because of racism, cultural differences, and socioeconomic status, white and black communities are so segregated, and show no signs of changing this.

[neoliberal-dog-blog]

Globalization and diaspora exist as amorphous, contradictory, contested concepts, which makes drawing conclusions on their relationship to each other even more difficult. Given the theoretical frameworks we have engaged—Fukuyama, Appadurai, and Katz to name a few—I believe it is implied that many different interpretations of joue these terms interface have to be employed to constitute their respective meanings. As terms and concepts, globalization wouldn’t be globalization and diaspora wouldn’t be diaspora if they did not exist as contested ideas. What is important then is to hold constant a critical, historically-informed, culturally sensitive reading when invoking their discussion in pertinent contexts.

Globalization and diaspora are not only concepts but processes, constantly constituting or annihilating their subject matter given the context. Thus, because of globalization’s power to disrupt, disperse, and condense aspects of sociocultural and physical space across time, it is possible to construe this work as an active maker in constituting the processes of diaspora and diaspora-making. However, this somewhat unilaterally assumes that globalization came before diaspora, and that diaspora cannot exist without or before globalization. This is a highly-flawed, Western-centric view, for it discounts the global flows and processes of diaspora that took place before the genesis of globalization as a Western concept. Vestiges of those cosmopolitanisms, and new cosmopolitanism that grow out of the processes of globalization, have the opportunity to act as a form of resistance to the hegemonic forces that oppress those whose cultural fluencies run counter to such dominant forms.

For my own sake in attempting to digest these concepts, I have found engaging them through our fictional texts to be immensely helpful. Because books like White Teeth, Diary of a Bad Year, and Open City all confront ideas surrounding globalization and diaspora through radically different aesthetic forms, textual operations, and interpretations of postmodern literary space, I (the reader) feel that I have been given the appropriate space to make critical linkages through and between these concepts that have helped me better articulate issues surrounding them. This does not mean those articulations are all-encompassing; unraveling how these ideas interface comes with the acknowledgement that specific (literary) context doesn’t allow us to make sweeping conclusions. But the ephemerality of globalization and diaspora as concepts in both literary and real-lived time are what make them what they are, and we must take that at face value.

[swolf360-blog]

I think that it’s particularly interesting that you noted that globalization is a Western-centric idea in describing the connection between globalization and diaspora. It might also be useful to think of diaspora as being a ‘hidden majority’ in Western countries; diaspora is connected with movement and heritage, which, as the United States is historically referred to as being a ‘melting pot’, would theoretically mean that the United States is indeed a diasporic space. However, the focus on assimilation and the lack of attention to cultural differences (or simply blatant xenophobia) within cosmopolitan communities in the United States has indeed discounted global flows. I would certainly hope that renewed dialogue about culture and diaspora within the framework of globalization in cosmopolitan centres would act as a resistance to counter the blanketing of cultural differences, but on the other hand, the Western view of globalization as you described is a huge obstacle to surmount.

[swolf360-blog]

Reflection pt 2

As this course has progressed, I have certainly been able to develop and articulate more critical thoughts on analyses of the texts that we are reading. I have found that literary analysis through the lens of globalization is particularly interesting, as it is not often something that I have looked at when trying to analyse a text. I’m currently also taking a course on regionalism in Antebellum New England and New Orleans, and there is quite a bit of overlap in terms of regional thinking and globalization.

Globalization, as a whole, is still a bit of an abstract concept to me, in that it can be bent and stretched to fit various uses. For instance, I just recently used it to analyse politics, but it can be looked at in terms of so many other concepts, such as technology and modernization, as well as cultural identity and the idea of a homeland.

For the upcoming paper, I still am developing an idea of what I want to look into. I was particularly captivated by “White Teeth”, but I was also thinking of writing my final research paper on manifest destiny as the expansion of ideas and the normalization of culture through the lens of globalization. “White Teeth” does not seem to fit particularly well into that topic; therefore, I certainly have some thinking and re-reading to do before this coming week.

[swolf360-blog]

The internet has become an important tool in communication, interconnectedness, and building a sense of community. However, it is incredibly fast-moving. Although the internet has increased accessibility to information and allowed people to connect over common interests, it has also caused rapid divergence and decentralization of culture. I would argue that the development of the internet has caused global groupthink, in that it has managed to bring small groups together while forcing large groups apart. This trend towards groupthink had led to closed-mindedness and pressure towards uniformity within specific groups. It has also led to the propagation of extremist rhetoric. In the United States, this is particularly apparent in politics, wherein political parties have begun to separate more and more. For instance, during the 2016 presidential election, there were initially seventeen Republican candidates, each representing the political beliefs of a large population of citizens of the United States. The internet, I would argue, has caused fragmentation of the party, to the extent where there is no longer a unifying basis for either political party; every sub-group has their own ideals and expectations of what their party ought to deliver. This relates to groupthink, in that individuals are pressured to conform to all of the beliefs of the party that they identify with. Additionally, the dissemination of so-called “fake news” has been amplified with the internet, as individuals are able to find an audience for their opinions, no matter how deeply rooted in fact they are.

This being said, the internet has truly allowed for globalization to occur. People are now able to connect with other individuals of different cultures and nationalities, allowing for sharing of ideas and dialogues. It has also led to globalization in terms of the economy; vendors can be from anywhere in the world, made accessible with a few clicks.

[happymealhegemony-blog]

A Tour of the Border

Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory—precession of simulacra—it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable [On Exactitude in Science] today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map.

-Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulation”

“Generally speaking, I feel safe in Oberlin,” explains a friend. “During the day I can walk anywhere by myself and still be fine. But after the sun sets, I don’t feel safe anywhere east of Tank.” With these words she constructs a border. It is a border that for some time only she could see. With these words, I construct a border, too, indelibly. 

It goes: West of North Park Street, safe. East of it, lawless, dangerous. Civilization, wasteland. Here, there. Us, them. Us, other. 

Now I cannot, on an eastward path, pass Tank and help but wonder: how did this border come about? What makes the house on the western side of the Park street any different from the house on the eastern side? Or is it more of a gradient, a sliding scale of danger? So that the farther you wander east from there, the more likely you are to be—what?—mugged? Assaulted?

I set out to see for myself. The attached photos were taken during my tour of this imagined border, starting from the southern end, and ending at the northern one. There is a Church, a park, a laundromat, an apartment complex, a water tower, and a football field. The rest is residential.

I tutored a family on the eastern side of this border. They went to school over there, too. See how it is when such borders are made? I speak of them as though they are lost. I speak of their school as though it were more than five blocks from my home. 

So, again, I pose the question: from what did this border arise? 

Does it matter that (according to Zillow) the average price of a home on the western side of this border is ~$140,000 whereas on the eastern side it is ~$80,000? Or does it matter more that the friend had a single bad experience over “there”? 

Further, this conversation got me thinking: what other borders are there? How else do it’s inhabitants divide up Oberlin? There is the ever-present talk of the “bubble,” of course, but where does the bubble end? Is this an on-campus off-campus border? Or is it the town itself? Whichever it is, and whether we like it or not, our bubble is permeable. See below:

[swolf360-blog]

I would certainly agree that there does exist a bubble not only around Oberlin as a whole, but one that divides Oberlin College from the town of Oberlin. Part of this come from the culture of Oberlin itself, which is one of assimilation, despite Oberlin’s reputation for radicalism and uniqueness. The town of Oberlin has a far different culture, which is not as transient as the student body of Oberlin College. Because of the temporality of the students here, students can bring their customs and cultures in to spaces, and can leave with them just as quickly; it is so much more difficult for students to leave a more permanent mark on the community. Therefore, while the bubble is indeed permeable and is complicated by students living off-campus, it persists.

[milosussman2020-blog]

What does globalization in Oberlin look like? There are many ways in which Oberlin rejects a kind of globalization, especially in its landscape. Unlike places like Los Angeles, the landscape is terribly consistent in its flatness and seemingly only evocative of itself; it looks like Ohio here, and that to me is a rejection of aesthetic globalization. An easy establishment to attack would be the new Oberlin hotel and its restaurant as they bring in a homogenized idea of a fancy small town hotel for people passing through to receive a contained experience of Oberlin. Walking further south down Main St., I’m reminded of my friends father asking me about Oberlin. This is only relevant to someone who’s familiar with Los Angeles. I remember him asking me, “Isn’t it just Larchmont?” Larchmont being a quaint shopping street is central LA with no literal similarities to downtown Oberlin besides the pattern in which cars park on the street. However, this idea of Oberlin implanted in my friend’s father’s mind is reflective of how outsiders may have a globalized understanding of Oberlin. It is thought of as a space totally dominated by and catered to the needs of the student body. Making my way further south I continue to see this less and less. The Floral Shoppe, Mickey Mart, MLK Park, our town loses my friend’s father’s understanding and takes on a whole new version of the global. The sights and sounds begin to become more and more reminiscent of Northeast Ohio. Thirsty, I walk into CVS for a water. Here, I begin to see a dominant regulating force that is the overhead light that functions as a teleportation device. I rely on this place as much as anyone else who needs their prescription meds; the money goes to the same place as it would if I were picking up these meds back home. The charm of generalized downtown Oberlin has a consistent individuality, it is not Larchmont. Yet the establishments here have the ability to suspend my space-time awareness.

[swolf360-blog]

Globalization at Oberlin is not apparent at first glance. The student body is not hugely diverse, and the town of Oberlin itself is small and isolated. Despite this, there are instances of globalization.

When my mother lived in Iceland, the major food staples were fish, potatoes, and carrots. In her time in Reykjavik, the capital, there was one Italian restaurant; this was considered exotic. However, in the town of Oberlin, with a population far smaller than that of Reykjavik, there is, in the very least, diversity in food (if not in anything else). Additionally, the economy of Oberlin has been globalized, as you point out; the town of Oberlin is certainly not self-sustaining, and has ties to the outside. While the town of Oberlin on its own is, in a small way, globalized, I would say that the main globalizing force of the town of Oberlin is its students; while the CVS and the Floral Shoppe may cater primarily to people of the town of Oberlin, it is the students who, at least in part, are bolstering and diversifying the economy by spending non-local money.

Outside of the economy, students remain a globalizing force in the same way that you described; students bring different histories and expectations that have been ingrained since childhood into new spaces. The similarities between one town and the next are evidence that globalization has become pervasive enough to produce sameness. The image that I attached to this is the second image that showed up when I searched “small town”; it is similar enough to Oberlin that I felt connected to it, which speaks volumes to globalization here.

[neoliberal-dog-blog]

The most interesting parts of a college town are the borderlands—the sites of contestation, the liminal spaces that harbor no clear distinction between town or college, public or private, local or global. They are the spaces that seem to exist in two separate spheres at once, somehow carving out a spatial imaginary all their own. It was a natural inclination to devote my walk to uncovering these spaces in Oberlin, for I am a lifelong resident of the borderlands. Spending twenty-one years three blocks from the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois has given me unique perspective on the ways in which academia can act as a vector for ever-expanding flows of global capital, as well as how I confront my own positionality as an object of relative permanence in an otherwise transitional collection of life-worlds.

My exploration of the Oberlin borderlands quickly became an exercise of self-reflection. I immediately began evaluating the borderland landscape in front of me in terms of the borderland landscape I left behind. Walking down the 100 blocks of Elm St., Forest St., College Ave., and even Morgan St. further south, I couldn’t help but question whether this was Oberlin, or Carbondale, or Bloomington, Indiana, or Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Champaign, Illinois. The bucolic tree-lined streets of stately older homes divvied up into rental properties have cars parked beside them with license plates that run the gamut from Massachusetts to South Carolina to Iowa to Washington, DC (as pictured in the second picture above). These license plates act as visible signs of liminality and infiltration of global capital. In both Oberlin and Carbondale, one can walk two or three blocks beyond a borderland and see nothing but “local” license plates and no evidence of student life-worlds (as apparent in the first photo above). The physical landscape can stay looking relatively constant, yet the ideological landscape may more closely resemble social spaces located outside of the bubble of cosmopolitanism conjured by academic institutions.

Throughout my walk, I couldn’t help also thinking about how globalization can become embodied in personhood. A person walking down the street visibly construed as a student is immediately assigned a set of loaded assumptions and social characteristics. Students operate in college towns as signs of temporality, signifiers for active flows of cultural, social, and financial capital. It is for this reason that I have always felt between worlds. In Carbondale, I am as much a townie as twenty-one years in one place can make me, yet am assumed to be a liminal instance of cosmopolitanism. In Oberlin, I am assumed to be one in a sea of wealthy coastal urbanites, yet come from a background that far more closely mirrors the experience of growing up low-income in rural Ohio. The borderlands are but another manifestation of the infinite messiness of globalization, always in the process of being disentangled.

[swolf360-blog]

I would certainly agree with you on the ubiquitous presence and prevalence of borderlands. I, too, come from a college-campus city, where the campus is integrated into the surrounding neighbourhoods. It brings with it an interesting clash of cultures, as was brought up in your last paragraph. I feel that with the temporality of student life, there comes with it a certain lack of respect on either side. In Oberlin, this is very clearly manifested; the wealth divide between the town and the college, regardless of its accuracy with respect to the student body, engenders mistrust, which is only deepened by the lack of communication between residents and students. This is reflected in the broader sense of globalization as well; in general, individuals are afraid of what they do not understand, and are frustrated by that which they do not have.

As long as globalization exists, borderlands will also exist, since with the rise of globalization has come the creation of communities and regions.

[swolf360-blog]

Reflection

The vast majority of the English courses I have taken at Oberlin have been related to Medieval Studies, and I was therefore rather wary about taking a class focused on more modern literature. However, from simply looking at the title of the course, this class appears to cover a wide span of topics; globalization and diaspora are very broad terms, especially when looking not only at social identity, but also at economic and political disparity, all of which I am very much interested in learning more about. As an immigrant myself, with much of my family still living outside of the United States, I find exploring the development of identities to be fascinating; in particular, I find it interesting to see how identities intersect and create new narratives and new global norms. The book that we have begun, “The New World Border”, looks at the intersection of identity and diaspora in a different way than I have seen before, and I hope that it and other texts that we will read will build on the cross-cultural narrative that Gómez-Peña’s book has set up.

In addition to what is presented in the syllabus, I think that it may be important to discuss the current state of multiculturalism and globalization while keeping in mind the idea of a homeland, as many countries around the globe are becoming more and more xenophobic. I also would like to potentially delve into what determines regional culture, and how regional cultures fall along racial, ethnic, and class lines.

Overall, I hope to be able to develop a vocabulary to discuss and analyse globalization and diaspora in both an academic and social justice sense.