How Cultures Resist Modernity: Cultural Purity and Liminality in Bali and Haiti

In responding to James Clifford's "The Pure Products Go Crazy" from The Predicament of Culture Twentieth-Century: Ethnography, Literature, and Art, the student takes Clifford's use of a William Carlos Williams poem as a starting point to contest Clifford's claims about the end of "pure" or untouched cultures. The student uses two examples of temporary status advancement within liminal cultural sites: Balinese cockfights and Voodoo in Haiti.

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Bridget's feedback:

"You tackle this discussion with confidence and energy, engaging with your examples, the relevant texts, and the ideas. Signposting and transitions help the discussion check in with the reader via structure and organization, but diction and syntax choices often obscure immediate meaning, making your points rather difficult to parse out. In particular, the move from culture to single, specific practices still feels wobbly. The critical apparatus largely hinges, I think, on Williams' poem and the idea of "specks"; because you don't return to this point later, this key definition and relationship become lost, and the reader continues to wonder how and why these practices were chosen for each culture, and whether a single practice can indeed represent some untouched, essential (pure) core (does Clifford provide a definition?). Ultimately, the main task moving forward will be to focus on clarity and communication with your reader, at the level of the prose and, possibly, in the concepts and analytical apparatus itself."

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In-text citation:

(Kibin, 2024)

Reference list entry:

Kibin. (2024). How cultures resist modernity: cultural purity and liminality in bali and haiti. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/how-cultures-resist-modernity-cultural-purity-and-liminality-in-bali-and-haiti-S07hRUQX

Be sure to capitalize proper nouns (e.g. Egypt) and titles (e.g. Macbeth) in the essay title portion of your citation.

In-text citation:

("How Cultures Resist Modernity: Cultural Purity and Liminality in Bali and Haiti.")

Works Cited entry:

"How Cultures Resist Modernity: Cultural Purity and Liminality in Bali and Haiti." Kibin, 2024, www.kibin.com/essay-examples/how-cultures-resist-modernity-cultural-purity-and-liminality-in-bali-and-haiti-S07hRUQX

Footnote:

1. "How Cultures Resist Modernity: Cultural Purity and Liminality in Bali and Haiti." Kibin, 2024. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/how-cultures-resist-modernity-cultural-purity-and-liminality-in-bali-and-haiti-S07hRUQX.

Bibliography entry:

"How Cultures Resist Modernity: Cultural Purity and Liminality in Bali and Haiti." Kibin, 2024. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/how-cultures-resist-modernity-cultural-purity-and-liminality-in-bali-and-haiti-S07hRUQX.