Excerpt: The Invention of Borders, by Fatimah Nguyen
"What today's nationalists and neosegregationists fail to understand," Kwame said, "is that the basis of every human culture is, and always has been, synthesis. No civilization is authentic, monolithic, pure; the exact opposite is true. Look at your average Western nation: its numbers Arabic, its alphabet Latin, its religion Levantine, its philosophy Greek… need I continue? And each of these examples can itself be broken down further: the Romans got their alphabet from the Greeks, who created theirs by stealing from the Phoenicians, and so on. Our myths and religions, too, are syncretic - sharing, repeating and adapting a large variety of elements to suit their needs. Even the language of our creation, the DNA itself, is impure, defined by a history of amalgamation: not only between nations, but even between different human species!"
Tasks:
1. Discuss this excerpt in the context of Wolfgang Welsch's theory of transculturality.
2. (4859425) the novel as/2494449 5459
Decoded[]
Excerpt: The Invention of Borders, by Fatimah Nguyen
"What today's nationalists and neosegregationists fail to understand," Kwame said, "is that the basis of every human culture is, and always has been, synthesis. No civilization is authentic, monolithic, pure; the exact opposite is true. Look at your average Western nation: its numbers Arabic, its alphabet Latin, its religion Levantine, its philosophy Greek… need I continue? And each of these examples can itself be broken down further: the Romans got their alphabet from the Greeks, who created theirs by stealing from the Phoenicians, and so on. Our myths and religions, too, are syncretic - sharing, repeating and adapting a large variety of elements to suit their needs. Even the language of our creation, the DNA itself, is impure, defined by a history of amalgamation: not only between nations, but even between different human species!"
Tasks:
1. Discuss this excerpt in the context of Wolfgang Welsch's theory of transculturality.
2. (HYBR) the novel as/IDITY