Culture and Communication Essay

“Culture and Communication” – FINAL ESSAYS
DUE DATE: August 16th, 2021
Please note that no extensions are possible without a documented medical or similarly serious reason.
You must write the answer for PART A and choose one (1) essay for PART B. Each section-essay is worth 20% of your course grade, for a total of 40% of the course grade.
Each essay should be 500-750 words.
Page references (or section references, or whatever form of reference suits the medium) must be included, in the documentation style of your choice. Failure to include citation information will be penalized.
Each essay should refer to the specified course readings, and there should be at least two ot three direct quotations in your essay (and possibly more).
Please DO NOT refer to online ‘help’ or ‘cheat’ materials such as CourseHero or Sparknotes. Of course, we cannot prevent you from accessing them for your own background purposes (I would actually recommend the peer-edited Wikipedia) but they should not be used for either essay. In general we would advise against including material from external sources: the assignment is intended as a close reading-interpretation of the sources already at hand.
Please be aware that plagiarism is a serious offense and that you could receive a 0 in the course, or worse, if you plagiarize.
Feel free to review the Structure and Citation Methods for Essays downloaddocument for advice on structuring essays.
PART A – 20 marks
TOPIC
In the chapter from Freedom and Culture on the Trobrianders and Malinowski, Dorothy Lee describes a culture that works with an epistemology very much alien to the occidental tradition (at least, it is neither ‘red pill’ nor ‘blue pill’). She sums this epistemology up as a ‘nonlineal codification of reality.’ Malinowski himself describes the institution of the Kula as one enshrining non-lineal values.
QUESTION: Compare and contrast the values that Odysseus represents, or that he seems to want to represent, with those of the Trobrianders as represented by Dorothy Lee and Bronislaw Malinowski.
You should have a minimum of two direct quotations, at least one from each of the three required sources, integrated into your essay. It is also acceptable to use additional sources to further enrich the essay. We would recommend the following:
a) for Dorothy Lee, we have posted additional readings from her book Freedom and Culture download
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, one discussing differences between mainstream North American understandings of ‘freedom’, and the other looking at Dakota people’s understanding of freedom and responsibility. While the focus is not explicitly on ‘nonlinearity vs. linearity’ in this chapter, it’s easy to see the ideas at work in each case.
b) for Homer, you might want to examine further/other books (i.e., chapters) of the Odyssey. We are reading Book 9, which largely concerns Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus. But other parts of the epic provide lots of other details and information. There are many editions of the Odyssey available free online, including audio-book versions (which you can cite by transcribing the relevant part(s) and giving the time-code from the recording). Please feel free to check the version you have found with me – adaptations of the Odyssey and other versions of the tale not by Homer will generally not be acceptable.
-Books 10-12 consist of the rest of Odysseus’ story as told to the Phaiacians – including his visit to the house of the alluring witch, Circe, his encounter with the Sirens, and his visit to the land of the Dead.
-Books 5-8 depict Odysseus’s escape from the island of Calypso and his difficult voyage to Phaiacia – the sense of his desire for a LINEAR journey towards home is very strong in these books
-Books 15 and following detail Odysseus’ arrival home, his cunning disguise, and his plan to brutally exterminate the suitors and those serving maids who slept with them – the scene of the massacre, in book 22, could be interpreted as a prime depiction of the systematic-linear mentality at work, just as Penelope’s test of the bow, which immediately precedes it in book 21.
PART B – 20 marks
This Place (available as a free e-book through the Public Library, or for purchase through online booksellers)
Choose two of the short graphic stories from the collection This Place. For each story: a) Summarize clearly, coherently and accurately the narrative, key characters and the general ‘idea’ of the story. b) Analyze the details of the colour-palette, text and graphic choices the author(s)/illustrators have made. How precisely do the images and the style of the graphic presentation interact creatively with the ‘idea’ of the story?

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