Informal Writing Assignment (Final Discussion)

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Informal Writing: Freely explore the issues; there is no need to propose, develop, or defend a thesis or point of view. Rather this is an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between mythologies and history.

Contemporary issues could evolve into the dystopia in Parable of the Sower or in this short film, Pumzi. Referring to concepts from the content guides, and calling on any readings or viewings from the course, analyze how power conflicts between story cycles appear in this film

I have attached 2 content guides to be used as references

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M2 Content Guide B: Story Cycles We've looked at Creation, a story pattern shared in some form by all cultures. We looked at the idea of archetypes, specifically the S/hero. We compared very divergent concepts of what makes a person worthy and questioned the dominance of the S/hero archetype. We saw that while the S/hero is an archetypal being, the S/hero 's Journey is an archetypal story pattern. Just as all cultures have myths about the making of a worthy individual, all cultures have myths about unworthy individuals. And no matter how good you are, it seems, you may still suffer at the hands of an unworthy individual, so we looked at the story pattern of Betrayal. Different archetypes are always in relationship to each other – no character stands alone. Thus, along with the S/hero archetype, there is a Mother, a Trickster, a Mentor, and so on. Each character interacts with other characters, his or her own inner challenges, and/or the environment. A character archetype can be a S/hero and/or a villain, depending on who’s telling the story. Therefore, they may be an Ally and/or an Enemy. The Trickster can be a very complicated mix of both/and, either/or, an Ally/Enemy. It all depends on the situation, who is talking, and the responses of the reader. Similarly different story patterns are always in relationship to each other. This suggests that these are not fixed categories – they're fluid, continually changing into each other (a S/hero can betray, a creation story can shift to a couple story, and so on). Let's begin to think of story patterns in relationship, then, as interwoven threads in a Story Cycle, or Story Basket as some call it. Every Story Cycle begins with a Creation Myth. Since we’re using the word Myth in a scholarly sense, it does not have the popular connotation of lie or superstition. Rather it is a particular kind of story that embodies and conveys, metaphorically or otherwise, a profound truth – as the myth itself will tell you, often a truth conveyed by Divinity. Within this definition every religious story is a myth, and the term is one of respect. Just as every Story Cycle begins with a Creation Myth, an emanation from Divinity, all Cycles contain story patterns of Community (a concept of “the people” or in the west, nationalism), Family (where personal betrayal is often located), Couples (Love Stories, another Betrayal site), and the Individual. Generally the Creator is in relationship with the Individual, Couple, Family, and Community. It is how each of these is defined and how they relate to each other that will differentiate a Story Cycles from one culture to another. While the S/hero is often oriented to individualistic experience (King Arthur is central to his own story), in Aiyaiyesh Girl the orientation is community. This tells us something about the dynamics of the Story Cycle in their respective cultures. If you map the Story Cycles as suggested by the distinction between King Arthur’s Quest and the Aiyaiyesh Girl’s Vision, you will find that the Indigenous and Western Story Cycles go in opposite directions. The Individual is emphasized in the Western cycle and thus, when the cycle turns to Community, s/he remains prominent (the leader). A S/hero or Leader contributes to Community via the exceptional or prominent – the heroic – nature of her/his accomplishments. In contrast, when the Aiyaiyesh Girl was not a contributor to community, she was the exceptional one. Aiyaiyesh transformed into the Cultural S/hero who contributes to the community and is no longer exceptional in the same way a typical Western hero would be. Contribution to Community, in fact leadership itself, is very different when the cycle goes the other way. Another difference is that in Indigenous Story Cycles the Family pattern is “All Our Relations” - therefore including animals and plants so that Cedar Tree became her Mentor. "All our Relations” also points to a lack of hierarchy or separation between human animals and other living things. A tree, serpent, or other feature of the landscape has the same respect as an aunt, sibling or other close relationship that is familial or otherwise. Understanding of Story Cycles as situated in culture – something you cannot take for granted, but which can be ordered in various ways – should help you read Linda Hogan’s Power. Please note that not all Western cultures tell exactly the same kind of story, and not all Indigenous cultures tell exactly the same kind of story. Also, all Western stories do not strictly follow the Western Story Cycle, and all Indigenous Stories do not completely follow the Indigenous Story Cycle since these groups have interacted and influenced each other. However, given that caveat, these paradigms are predominant indicators of what each group as a whole does believe and value. The West, underwritten by a philosophy that can be glossed as The Great Chain of Being, privileges the ascent of a heroic individual, while Indigenous cultures, underwritten by a philosophy that can be glossed as All My relations, privileges a balance in which individual accomplishments contribute to community, and this is indicated by the direction of each cycle. If a bit simplified, these cycle maps do serve to illuminate how the same material (in this case the archetypal pattern called the S/hero’s Journey) can be viewed in radically different ways depending on beliefs. M2 Content Guide C: Power Dynamics Power Dynamics refers to ways that material and cultural conditions affect who has what degree of power in any given situation. There are two arenas where we can observe power dynamics: we can trace personal power in lives and relationships, and we can trace systemic power in politics, economics, culture, and other collective aspects of societies. Systemic power is determined along the lines of cultural schemas. Theoretically individuals can leverage personal power, but the influence of that power is constrained by whether they act within or against those schemas and the norms they construct. To return to the example in Cultural Schemas: if gender and sex are conflated and character is supposed to follow anatomy, then a person who acts against gender norms may encounter social constraints. This can range from bullying in elementary school to a glass ceiling that prevents “othered” people from reaching the top rungs of a career ladder (to refresh: the words “other” and “othered” are also a cultural studies terms; essentially, they refer to those who are not members of the cultural group with whom we primarily identify, and in this context it means those who are not members of the dominant group). The kinds of struggles that occur as people test these constraints are registered in cultural productions such as the upcoming novels. While social, and economic, and cultural power dynamics do play out in personal relationships (which we will look at these carefully in the next two modules,) what we are concerned with in this content guide is: 1. delineating how collective power affects what beliefs are generally agreed to be "cultural truths" or norms, 2. how we treat difference 3. the ways different myths are perceived In M1 Content Guide B: Different Discourses we learned how beliefs structure collective worldviews. The agreed upon truths that dominate a given nation or group are known as hegemonic. Hegemony refers to dominance of one social group (and for our purposes, this includes their belief and value systems) over another. While the term originally referred to politics, Mythological Studies examines how cultural institutions (schools, media, religion, etc.) promulgate and or/enforce belief systems (Gramsci). From a material perspective, it is economics that allows such hegemony to flourish, and the dominant cultural belief in human superiority in turn elevates economics over ecology. Still, while belief in human superiority is hegemonic, not everyone holds it to be true. For example, many Indigenous cultures hold animals to be our elders. But Western cultures have attained a certain degree of global dominance. From the Indigenous perspective in the upcoming module, a system does not have to be inherently better, but only more violent in order to “[beat] out [the] others” (Alexander 327). Since Europe expanded into the Americas via conquest, Western beliefs and values drive many political, economic, and ecological decisions. Even within a hegemonic cultural system, at any one given time or in any one given place, there are multiple sets of beliefs and values. If this was true in Galileo’s seventeenth century Italy as discussed in Different Discourses, it is all the more true in the globalized twenty-first century, in which an enormous number of widely divergent cultures come into direct or indirect contact with one another. Cultures have a strong investment in their own belief and value systems. These are its lifeblood, the foundation of its identity, the creator of its shape as a distinct entity. These systems drive a culture’s sense of what is a justifiable action to insure survival. For example, the Great Chain of Being, in positing men as superior to women and whites as superior to other ethnicities, justified white men’s rule over the resources and labor of “others.” For example, belief in the superiority of whites led to belief in the right to ownership of Indigenous lands and African peoples; this belief, called Manifest Destiny and bolstered by the Doctrine of Discovery, is a building block of American nations. Today, belief in the superiority of a lifestyle based on lavish consumption of manufactured goods and the latest technological advancements justifies various actions. It is important to keep in mind that while others’ beliefs (separated by space, time, or identity) may seem strange or even wrong, members of that group held or hold them to be inalienable truths. It is also important to keep in mind that some of what we consider to be inalienable truths will inevitably be altered by history. Also, keep in mind that while we have looked at some extreme examples, within apparently homogenous groups there can be more subtle differences in beliefs, values, and power – for example, the sects of one religion. Recall that there are three types of overlapping mythologies you will encounter during the course that are directly related to power dynamics: • Cultural mythologies are widely accepted and largely unconscious, much like water to a fish. They are based on what is socially acceptable and understood, like the concept of race and its theorem of white supremacy, gender norms, rugged individualism, meritocracy, and so on. • Personal mythologies arise because cultural mythologies vary from person to person due to familial and sociological experiences; for example while a male and a female understand gender norms differently, rural and urban females may understand femininity differently. • Communal mythologies arise out of necessity from diverse cultural groups that share specific histories of marginalization. These mythologies convey shared meaning and goals that often counter dominant cultural mythologies. For example, a dominant cultural mythology of white supremacy was countered in the “Black is Beautiful” cultural movement that was part of the US Civil Rights Movement. Communal mythologies challenge the cultural mythologies of rugged individualism and meritocracy because they are consciously pursued for the good of the group. When reading, consider how and why people make and invest their beliefs in cultural mythologies. Consider how mythologies shape or challenges power. Consider the stakes of one mythology as compared to another. Keep the concept of power dynamics in mind while reading Power, and later Parable of the Sower. Think about the ways cultural, personal, and communal mythologies intersect, compete, and complement one another. You will be asked to apply present and articulate these considerations in several assignments.
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Running head: CONTENT CONFLICT AND POWER DYNAMICS

Pumzi and Power Dynamics
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Pumzi is considered the 1st science fiction film where images relayed a future water war
that had torn the world apart. The survivors in East Africa had remained in devastation while
being locked away in communities that were contained. However, the film depict...


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Really useful study material!

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