Last post...

So this is my last blog entry and the last week of class, which consisted mostly of presentations. I really liked Stuti’s presentation on catfish, beforehand I never knew what a huge industry it was. It seems kind of strange that so many people like eating catfish because I have definitely never heard of them being served in the north or even of anyone saying they ate catfish. I also liked Joe’s presentation on sports—high school football in the south has always somewhat intrigued me because the idea of sports being so intense is just not how it was in my high school. His presentation made me think of the show Friday Night Lights, which is about a Texas football team that basically the whole town revolves around. I wonder if it’s portrayed accurately or merely an exaggeration. Joe’s presentation also made me wonder how other countries view our culture. Do they see it mainly as represented by the sports enthusiastic culture of the south or by the European copy cat culture in the north that Joe was talking about? Eric’s presentation was really interesting. Slavery and the country’s treatment of blacks is considered a blemish in our history but it’s interesting to realize that we’re still treating people in a racist, exploitative manner today and we don’t seem to even notice it. I wonder if other countries have this same issue of always needing to have an “other” that can be isolated from mainstream society and treated very differently from everyone else.

Anyway, it has been a great semester. Theo, thank you for choosing a wide variety of interesting texts that brought to light issues I might not otherwise ever been aware of. I really enjoyed class discussion—it was nice that we had a class where everyone listened to everyone else and brought up really interesting issues.