The Risky Journal

Taken from Cartoonstock.com In a very diverse and multicultural society, there exists what so called as majority and minority society. In one session of my short course in US (SUSI for Student Leaders on Religious Pluralism), I more profoundly studied this issue. ‘A miniature of the world’, in this way one of my friends called the United States of America. In this country, there are various people coming from different nations and cultures speaking different languages. Therefore, in US, as in many other plural places, the existence of majority group is observable. Nowadays, the majority of US citizen is indisputable White people. They make up larger amount of US citizen. Other groups of people make up minority group. They consist of African American, Latin American, Asian American and others. Each possesses and preserves each own distinct culture. Thus, the concept of salad bowl is now more preferable rather than melting pot. In salad bowl, each member of the society still p...

In response to my previous post about Movie Review: Precious which tells us about Black Feminism, hereby in this post I would like to share a power point presentation about Black Feminism. This is given at American Women class in November 24, 2010. Hopefully, it can be a clear introduction to Black Feminism. Black Feminism So, treat women of color with more respect !! For so long they are oppressed because of their race, social class and sex. Let us spread this awareness, starting from ourselves. No more women oppression. It is our chance as the next generation to better our future lives.

This second post about postmodernism will consist of two greatest postmodernist thinkers and their contribution to postmodernism. 1. Jean François Lyotard. Lyotard is a French philosopher. He opened the discussion for postmodernism in social theory with his groundbreaking publication ‘ La Condition Postmoderne’ (The Condition Postmodern). His works stress the decline of meta-narratives or grand-narratives, as some scholars refer it. Meta-Narratives as defined in the previous post are sets of ideas governing what is right and wrong. For example, religion defines how to live a good life. By doing so, people who do not appeal to the characteristics of good man as defined by religion will be considered unfaithful, as bad people. Lyotard argues that this way of legitimating declines in a postmodern society. What is considered good can no longer be clearly separated from what is considered bad. Lyotard The decline of meta-narratives was triggered by communication development. Traditio...

Postmodern Architecture? In finishing my thesis, I was actually forced to learn about a thing that I had no previous experience in it. This irritating subject –but finally, I love to study it– is called Postmodernism . What is this? It sounds so cool (yeah indeed). To define this term, I tried to read books, articles from academic journals as well as online articles. However, to my surprise, I really got no satisfying answer of what postmodernism is. It is not a simple matter to define this. It is not like defining two pluses two equals four. It is not like defining US’s current president is Barrack Obama. All literatures that I read, when it comes to definition, give ambivalent and unsatisfying definition as examples I gave to you. But at least, I want to share to you about this term with my own perspective, in a simple way. Postmodernism surely stems from the word ‘post’ and ‘modernism’. Thus it means, ‘after modernism’ or ‘after modern’. What is then modern? Modern is not old-f...