TED TALK

Culture is a topic that everyone is familiar with. We know as readers that the material presented to us whether it is a novel, essay or even movie- culture had an influence on it. The TED Talk focused on this aspect, as went into specific details of how culture has an effect on plot. During the course of this class we read folktales such as the "Witches Skin" in which specific details such as a guava tree, served as evidence that culture has an effect on plot. The speaker focused on this aspect a lot as he brought up live examples of culture-dependent aspects in his speech.

Although it was very difficult to understand him, the discussion that we had after class helped paint a clearer picture.

Sandman was much different than the other graphic novels that we read in class. It was very confusing and the graphic images were odd. Overall I understood that the story line is based on an overall plot as well as a dream. This graphic novel is not a light read, it is very deep and involves many different characters. Hopefully this clear up during tomorrows class discussion.

This text does a great job on giving a sneak-peak into the background of graphic novels. Since I am fairly new to reading this type of literature, it is interesting to learn about what is classified as a graphic novel and what should be classified as a "graphic memoir". I made the distinction that a graphic memoir is more appropriate for a work of non-fiction origin as opposed to fiction. William Bradley also goes into depth explaining different types of works such as "Fun Home". Since I am unfamiliar with them it is hard to understand the particular references he makes, but overall this work offers insight into the world of graphic novels.

I enjoyed reading this work a lot! This was my first time reading a graphic novel and I think that I have been missing out. The work comes to life with the help of the pictures and onimonopia! The fact that it was about a monkey pursuing the role of a leader made it that much more funnier! I am grateful that I had the opportunity to engage in this reading, and now I have a whole different interpretation of graphic novels & even comics.

Well this reading was definitely food for thought... Not only because I did not understand everything that was written, but also because some points mentioned in this reading were easy to relate to. Even though the purpose of this article was dissect "White Tigers", it went off to discuss feminism and gender roles. Since "White Tiger" is primarily focused on gender roles it is not a surprise that this reading does the same.  As mentioned by the author, an American reading this story has a different perspective as compared a person living in the part of the world where the narrator grew up. As Americans we are lucky to have the rights that we do. We are allowed to go to school, become independent and become successful-rather than being just a slave and servant.

Overall, this reading incorporated a lot of information from previous passages and this caused tremendous confusion. However, at the end of the day we have to make the best of what we got and extrapolate the concepts that are most familiar to us.

Response on Native Tales:

From the get go I understood that this piece was written awhile back, since he openly states " White people might consider them inanimate objects, but to the Indian, they are enmeshed in the web of the universe, pulsating with life and potent with medicine." ( Ortiz, pg.2)  I found that offensive since I can think of many cases where I witnessed "white people" practicing homeopathic medicine, and finding serenity within nature. This statement directly took me back to the image of Pocahontas, it might seem odd but this movie attempted to do the same thing. Make the white people look like they only cared about industry and materialism, while destroying nature. Personally, I love nature and find mystical things to be quite intriguing.

   I know that there is more to this article than that but I thought I would point out what bothered me. Other than that I am excited to go more in depth with these tales. It was interesting to note that Spiderman, Coyote, Veeho, Rabbit all share a common theme. They embodied a particular theme of a tribe.
To me that is very interesting.

Wow, I am happy that I had the chance to gain insight into Porto Rican culture! Information such as this is interesting and useful at the same time. Learning about Porto Rican traditions, childhood games, and especially what they consider to be bad omens is very important. I found it so interesting that there was a common ground between some Russian superstitions and Porto Rican superstitions, salt=bad luck came up a lot. As well as the idea behind not throwing away bread, and putting on your socks inside out causing sadness. I think such silly things have a reason for being around, and it has a great deal to do with culture. 

Other things that I found interesting from the first piece, were the differences in meanings behind flowers in the USA as opposed to Porto Rico, a rose is a rose everywhere however. 

   Dream interpretations were a unit on their own, I am also a strong believer in the reasoning that everything in a dream is the opposite of it's representation. Porto Rican's take it one step further though... reading about exorcisms gave me the chills. Every culture has their own interesting stories...

Regarding "The Three Wishes" off the bat a common theme is noted, they mostly all imply the power of God. "The Ant In Search of Her Leg" tries to persuade the idea that there is no stronger force on Earth than God. He is clearly the almighty, and is greater than the sun, the wind and a person put together. "The Witch's Skin" is another example, it serves to enforce the idea that worshiping the Devil is noticeable, and will get you killed. The high influence of God in these folktales serves to imply that Porto Ricans are traditional and are very strong believers. 

I enjoyed these works very much! And look forward to reading about other cultures!