Blog #6

In "Identities as Multimedia Spectacle," Nestor Garcia Canclini considers how globalized media, information technologies, and the global circulation of cultural commodities challenges traditional models of national identity formation. Canclini writes:

"One of the greatest challenges for rethinking identity and citizenship today is finding a way to study how relations of continuity, discontinuity, and hybridization are produced among local and global, traditional and ultramodern systems of cultural development." (Canclini, 96).

Review Multiplicity's Solid Sea 04: (m)re-tourism on Moroccan residents abroad (http://www.multiplicity.it/index2.htm). Using one of the eight testimonies on page 3 (select an image to read text) and the Canclini article, explain how the selected testimony is an example of how the MRE's sense of national identity is transformed through their movement between Morocco and Europe (as temporary residents, tourists, or permanent residents), the development of space, and use of commodities (for instance, homes and tourist resorts).

Blog #5

Next week we begin our last module, "New Worlds/New Identities". Along with presentations, we will look at the work of Yinka Shonibare. From your readings this week by Guldemond and Mackert, Robert Hobbs and Manthia Diawara, answer the following:

• For Manthia Diawara, what is the significance of Shonibare’s work Cha Cha Cha (1997)?
• What does it suggest about the African independence and nationalist movements?
• From this week's reading and referring to our reading and discussion of Stuart Hall ("What is this 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?"), describe one way Shonibare challenges essentialist notions of "African" identity.

Extra Credit (2 points towards final take-home assignment)
Finally, in your own opinion, how does Shonibare's work help us think about and understand cultural hybridity in our current era of globalization? (minimum 150 words)

Blog #4

Still, Western Union: Small Boats (Isaac Julien, 2006/7)

Our readings for Week 10 take us to the Mediterranean border between Europe (the European Union) and north Africa, a border zone explored in Isaac Julien's Western Union: small boats (2006/7).

From your reading of F. La Cecla's "A border made of mirrors: Mazara del Vallo/Tunis: Osmosis," answer the following:

Discuss two ways in which the relation between the towns of Marzara del Vallo (Sicily) and La Goulette (Tunisia) undermines the traditional definition of the border as a "line that officially separates two countries or regions, or the land on either side of it."

How does the experience of Mohammed Beshir (fisherman) illustrate the permeability of the border and the transformations in our understanding of fixed, national identities that are brought about by border crossings?