Carriers and Amphibs: Shibboleths of Sea Power

This article argues that American naval force packages built around aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships no longer serve maritime security interests as effectively as in the past. It further claims that the current commitment in the published maritime strategy of the United States to the twin shibboleths of “carriers and amphibs” comes from a variety of attitudes held by senior decision makers and military leaders. This commitment betrays both cultural misunderstanding or even ignorance of seapower—“sea blindness”—as well as less than rational attachments to two operational capabilities that served the United States well in the past, but in doing so engendered emotional commitments that are little grounded in the facts.

Pascal Quignard as Sinophile: Recreating Chinese Antiquity in Contemporary France

This article examines the question of reinventing Chinese antiquity in the works of the contemporary French writer Pascal Quignard. It focuses on three aspects of Quignard’s Chinese-inspired works: his rewriting of ancient Chinese texts, his views on the idea of language via classical Chinese language and thought, and his recreation of Chinese antiquity via a radical contemporization of the past. This examination demonstrates that Quignard poses important questions about cultural reception and appropriation, especially as regards the problematic relation between sinophilia, Orientalism, and the reception of antiquity. Finally, the article proposes a nuanced view of Quignard’s sinophilia that recognizes both its merits and drawbacks. It concludes by arguing that despite the pitfalls of cultural misunderstanding and misrepresentation, Quignard spells out the conceptual death of French Orientalism in his refusal to fetishize Chinese antiquity and attests to a tendency in contemporary French literature and thought to creatively recycle foreign cultures and revise one’s understanding through the other.

INTEGRATION OF CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING AS A MEANS OF ENHANCING NATIONAL INTEGRATION IN THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF INDONESIA

Disintegration is now internally threatening Indonesia. It is assumed that the problem is caused by cultural misunderstanding. The cultural misunderstanding has resulted in intolerance and radicalism of group ideology. For years Indonesia with its 250 million populations has been peacefully living together with Pancasila ideology in which unity in cultural diversities is highly appreciated and respected. The root of problem lies in the practice of education and obviously the best solution is through education. One of the solutions to the problem is by integrating critical literacy principles in the field of Englsih language learning. Principles of critical multicultural and global literacy can be integrated in English language learning. Theory of systemic functional linguistic (SFL) is in line with and contributes to the principles of critical literacy. This paper combines principles of critical literacy and those of SFL in developing language learning materials. It is expected that by integration of critical literacy principles and those of SFL in the practice of English language education, Indonesia can avoid disruptions of national disinttegration and regain national unity in harmony.

Intercultural Understanding of Music for Kyosei Living

Music has the power to connect people of distance and differences. Music education can facilitate this process. However, it can also develop cultural misunderstanding and prohibit the acceptance of others. This chapter introduces a negative case of multicultural music education in an American primary school to make sense of an intercultural misunderstanding in music that fails to achieve kyosei living in multicultural society. A detailed case study sheds light on the ways in which a music teacher facilitated students' cultural misunderstanding by teaching multicultural music from a European viewpoint, ignoring culture-specific contexts of practicing and appreciating music. Two examples of multicultural music taught in the class were Japanese and Native American music. Each will be examined from a culture-bearer's and ethnomusicologist's perspectives. Instead of criticizing the teacher's approach, the author analyzes why and how it happened within the context of the teacher.

Bridging Difference through Classroom Misunderstandings

Cultural misunderstandings often arise because of the unstated assumptions or “background books” that each of us has. In the classroom, such misunderstandings can make for uncomfortable moments, but they can also lead to fruitful teaching experiences for teacher and student alike. Using a variety of examples that arose while teaching a module called “Canadian Culture” at a Slovenian university, I argue that such moments – such as when students seem not to have heard what I think was a clear message or bit of information – the resulting cultural misunderstanding can be educationally rewarding. They force us to break out of the question-and-answer routine that is often a part of the teaching process.

Oriental Africa

Arab culture and the religion of Islam permeated the traditions and customs of the African sub-Sahara for centuries. When the early colonizers from Europe arrived in Africa they encountered these influences and spontaneously perceived the African cultures to be ideologically hybridized and more compatible with Islam than with the ideologies of the west. This difference progressively endorsed a perception of Africa and the east being “exotic” and was as such depicted in early paintings and writings. This depiction contributed to a cultural misunderstanding of Africa and facilitated colonialism. This article briefly explores some of the facets of these early texts and paintings. In the first place the scripts by early Muslim scholars, who critically analyzed early western perceptions, were discussed against the textual interpretation of east-west perceptions such as the construction of “the other”. Secondly, the travel writers and painters between 1860 and 1930, who created a visual embodiment of the exotic, were discussed against the politics behind the French Realist movement that developed in France during that same period. This included the construction of a perception of exoticness as represented by literature descriptions and visual art depictions of the women of the Orient. These perceptions rendered Africa as oriental with African subjects depicted as “exotic others”.