Thursday, January 27, 2011

Cultural Literacies

"Knowing a lot of words means knowing a lot of things."
- E.D. Hirsch

The problem with this statement is knowing something and understanding something are vastly different ideas. I know about a lot of things, but this doesn't mean I understand them. So if you want to talk to a person that is outside of your culture, to be able to carry on a conversation you need to understand there culture not only know it. Knowing a culture in my mind just lets you have a friendly chat, but a in depth conversation where you learn about the person you really need to understand where they are coming from, or you need to really try to understand. I want to learn this semester a lot about the Gullah culture along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. This is a very closed off culture to the rest compared to most of the other African American cultures. Looking at common Gullah names are typically of African decent, and are most similar to Sierra Leon area, these examples are Tamba, Vandi, and Fatimata.

2 comments:

  1. You've identified what seems to be a rich cultural focus group - no doubt some real work will be required, but the results should be something all of us will want to see!

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  2. Where are you studying ?
    Are you in Charleston for Architecture?

    ReplyDelete