NEW WORLDS/ NEW IDENTITIES

NEW WORLDS/NEW IDENTITIES

RYAN Bingham

My case study was the 1997 Steven Spielberg movie: Amistad. A period drama centered on the true story of a mutiny aboard a slave ship and the trial that followed. This film touches on the power of cultural interaction through globalization and its indelible effect on humanity. It demonstrates the negative aspects of globalization: empiricism and prejudice—bred by fear of difference, as well as the positive aspects: individual growth created by open-minded exposure to external ideas, beliefs, and culture. At the heart of this film is cultural hybridity, the slaves and the lawyers defending them each grow and learn from each other.

JON Philips

" 'In the Loop', by Scottish director Armando Iannucci, demonstrates the fluidity of cultural identity, and the inherent absurdity involved while the roles and identities are being defined by others with their own, distinct cultural identities. "

ADAM Wynne

We can grasp this theory of globalization through many contexts: multimedia, multicontextuality, communications being just a few examples in which we can find it. In the film,The New World, (Terrence Malick, 20 January 2006, United States of America/United Kingdom) the main character, Pocahontas, goes through a dramatic life-changing experience as an aftermath of her father extraditing her from her tribe. From the beginnning to the end, we see Pocahontas go from a Native American women who only knew her tribe all her life, to an almost full-on english women who speaks perfect english and dresses and acts as if she has lived and known the life of the english her whole life; she gains a new identity, and she then lives in a brand-new world. Her experience is a flawless example of our world starting to globalize, and specifically practicing cultural hybridity.

Jessica Knap

My Case study focused on the African American modern installation artist Fred Wilson. Wilson creates and explores with humorous and ironic metaphors of excavation of forgotten ideas in museum archives. Taking artifacts, archeological findings, and other items given to him he uses the history behind these items to create a new form of special art. A common theme consists of his expressing feelings of being left out due to his skin color and his acknowledgement of black artists exhibitions not being prevalent in galleries and museums. Wilson describes his inspiration and art, “I get everything that satisfies my soul from bringing objects that are in the world and manipulating them, working with special arrangements, and then having things produced the way I want to see them.”