Clipmarks | ruralart's 'culture' clips

Girl Power - at work too?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:24:12 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Good tips for today's grads.

Girl Power at School, but Not at the Office

I WAS born in 1982 — about 20 years after the women’s rights movement began. Growing up in what many have called a post-feminist culture, I did not really experience institutional gender bias. “Girl power” was celebrated, and I felt that all doors were open to me.

When I was in college, the female students excelled academically, sometimes running laps around their male counterparts.

Then I left the egalitarianism of the classroom for the cubicle, and everything changed.

Some workplaces are more sexist than others. A women should never accept a job offer without first finding out whether the odds are already stacked against her.

I have found that we need to build a new arsenal of skills to mitigate some of our more “feminine” tendencies. Having lived in a cocoon of equality in college, we may have neglected these vital, real-world skills.

Dynamic shift in ideology of professors nationally

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:14:12 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Interesting - wonder what this will do to they type of academic discussions held at college campuses?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

MADISON, Wis. — When Michael Olneck was standing, arms linked with other protesters, singing “We Shall Not Be Moved” in front of Columbia University’s library in 1968, Sara Goldrick-Rab had not yet been born.

Together, these Midwestern academics, one leaving the professoriate and another working her way up, are part of a vast generational change that is likely to profoundly alter the culture at American universities and colleges over the next decade.

Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.

At Amherst, where military recruiters were kicked out in 1987, students crammed into a lecture hall this year to listen as alumni who served in Iraq urged them to join the military.

Smithsonain Life List

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:43:14 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: The site list a wide range of places to put on your "life list" to see. Really impressive and interesting places.

Clip Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

The Smithsonian Life List

Keeping our readers' interests in mind, we've traveled the globe in search of destinations certain to inspire

Life list experts (yes, there are such beings) advise people not to set themselves up for disappointment by trying to accomplish too much. (When's the last time you completed your daily to-do list?) With the entire world to choose from, the maxim "so much to do, so little time" takes on added meaning.

To that end, the staff of Smithsonian—as diverse a group of travelers as you're likely to meet—put their heads together to come up with an exclusive list of 28 places the Smithsonian reader might wish to visit before ...it's too late.

Whether you visit only a couple of these destinations or all 28, your life will be enriched by the experience. And if along the way you want to gorge on caviar or get a tattoo, that's entirely up to you.

Tags: life list, travel, culture, history, architecture, nature, scenic

Loosing language - Native American languages dying out

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:19:40 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: This is really sad....variety is the spice of life, and with the loss of language will go a corresponding loss of culture. Tragic.

Clip Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

Tongue Tied

Some 200 Native American languages are dying out and with them valuable history

Like most people, Johnny Hill Jr. gets frustrated when he can't remember the correct word for something he sees or wants to express. But unlike most people, he can't get help. He is one of the last people on the planet who speak Chemehuevi, a Native American language that was once prevalent in the Southwest.

"Languages disappear when speakers abandon them," Anderson says.

"The idea was to get rid of the Indians and what made them Indian," Anderson says. "They were put into boarding schools right up until the 1960s. They'd beat up kids for speaking their languages, or wash their mouths out with soap.

Before Europeans settled in what is now the United States, Native Americans spoke as many as 500 different languages. Virtually none of them had a written component, which further imperiled their survival during colonization.

Hear a Chemehuevi speaker say, "He is running."

Tags: native americans, indians, language, culture

"new" culture from Peru on exhibit

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:02:17 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: The original has interesting listings of exhibits around the world on a range of topics.

Clip Source: www.ft.com

Quebec Ancient Peru Unearthed

Sicán objects – from what is now Peru – have been included in collections around the world for decades, but they were for a long time unidentified. It was only in 1978 that several monumental structures were found that testified to a previously unknown culture that pre-dated the better-known Inca by almost four centuries. Izumi Shimada, a professor of archaeology at Southern Illinois University, was responsible for the vast excavation project in the north of Peru where the crucial finds were made. This touring exhibition reveals a lost world and proves the sophistication of the Sicán people. Their ceremonial regalia and metalwork point to a level of skill unprecedented in Andean history. Ancient Peru Unearthed runs until April 27.

www.civilization.ca

Tribal music clips to listen to and buy

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:52:03 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Really neat tribal music with lots of drums. Photos of some of the musicians. You can listen to snips, and download songs or albums. Pretty cool.

Clip Source: www.smithsonianglobalsound.org

Country(s) - Malawi

Culture Group(s) - Manganja

Instrument(s) - Clapping, hand; Drum; Ensemble leader; Likhuba; Magogodo; Palabunibunyan ensemble; Vocals; Vocals, group; Xylophone

Language(s) - Nyanja

Year of Release - 1958

Record Label - ILAM

Source Archive - International Library of African Music (ILAM)

Credits - Compiled by Hugh Tracey ; Notes Edited by Hugh Tracey ; Liner Notes by Hugh Tracey ; Recorded by Hugh Tracey

Dzowa and three young Mang'anja boys

Group of Mang'anja men and women

Group of Mang'anja young men and women

Anthropology and Modern Warfare

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:20:28 GMT

clipped by: ruralart
clipper's remarks: Another in a series of articles and op ed pieces on the use of Anthropologists in modern warfare, both pro and con. Interesting possibilities. Understanding each other better is certainly a worthy goal; whether this is the best way to accomplish this I am still undecided on.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A True Culture War

IS the Pentagon truly going to deploy an army of cultural relativists to Muslim nations in an effort to make the world a safer place?

These anthropological “angels on the shoulder,” as Ms. McFate put it, offer global positioning advice as soldiers move through poorly understood human terrain — telling them when not to cross their legs at meetings, how to show respect to leaders, how to arrange a party.

I began to imagine an occupying army of moral relativists, enforcing the peace by drawing a lesson from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans lasted a much longer time than the British Empire in part because they had a brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. They did not try to impose their values on others. Instead, they made room — their famous “millet system” — for cultural pluralism, leaving each ethnic and religious group to control its own territory and at liberty to carry forward its distinctive way of life.

Tags: afghanistan, war, military, anthropology, culture, ottoman empire