“Mt. Aconagua: Mountain, western Argentina, on the Chilean border. At 22,834 feet (6,690 meters) high, it is the highest peak of the Andes and of the Western Hemisphere. It is of volcanic origin, but is not itself a volcano. The summit was first reached in 1897.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Usumacinta River: River, southeastern Mexico and northwestern Guatemala. Rising in western Guatemala, it flows northwest, forming a section of the Guatemala-Mexico boundary, before emptying into the Grijalva River in Mexico. Its upper course is known as the Chixoy or Salinas River; with the Chixoy, it is approximately 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) long.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Portugal. As presently formatted–in Microsoft Word, which means, like almost everything you’ll find on Mark’s Text Terminal, you can revise and edit this document to suit the needs of your students–this is a two-page document with a reading of six sentences and nine comprehension questions. For its size (relatively large for this series of documents as I have prepared them), it is a remarkably thorough introduction to this nation-state.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the tango, the dance that originated on the Rio de la Plata, which forms the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. I learned, while conducting the modest research this post required, that the tango in 2009 joined the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List at the proposal of the Argentinian and Uruguayan governments.
In any case, this is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and one comprehension question; it is the sparest of introductions to a fascinating cultural phenomenon.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
David Alfaro Sigueiros: (1896-1975) Mexican painter. A Marxist active in his youth, he fought in the Mexican Revolution alongside Venustiano Carranza, who rewarded him by sponsoring his studies in Europe. Back in Mexico (1922), he began his lifework of decorating public buildings with murals and organizing unions of artists and workers. With Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, he cofounded the renowned school of Mexican mural painting. His activism interrupted his career several times when he was imprisoned, chose self-imposed exile, or fought in the Spanish Civil War. His murals are marked by great dynamism, monumental size and vigor, and a limited color range subordinated to dramatic effects of light and shadow. His easel paintings (e.g. Echo of a Scream, 1937) helped establish his international reputation. In 1968 he became the first president of the Mexican Academy of Arts.
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Guillermo O’Donnell: (1936-2011) Argentine political scientist. He earned a law degree in Argentina and a PhD from Yale University. He taught at universities in South America, Europe, and the United States (principally Notre Dame), and has written many books on Latin American authoritarianism and democracy and the transition from one to the other. His pathbreaking analysis of ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’ as a specific type of military rule found especially in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1980s contributed greatly to the understanding of comparative politics.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Juan Peron. And yes, it does mention Eva (“Evita”) Peron, the Argentine dictator’s wife, subject of the West End musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim RIce. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Magic Realism: (Sp, lo real maravilloso) A term introduced by Alejo Carpentier, in his prologue to El reino do este mundo (1949; tr The Kingdom of This World, 1957). The Cuban novelist was searching for a concept broad enough to accommodate both the events of everyday life and the fabulous nature of Latin American geography and history. Carpentier, who was greatly influenced by French surrealism, saw in magic realism the capacity to enrich our idea of what is ‘real” by incorporating all dimensions of the imagination, particularly as expressed in magic, myth, and religion.
In the hands of [Gabriel] Garcia Marquez and other writers of the Boom period, magic realism became a distinctly Latin American mode, an indigenous style for their explorations of history, culture, and politics. This narrative technique has influenced writers around the world.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“United Fruit Co.: U.S.-based fruit company. It was founded in 1899 in the merger of the Boston Fruit Company and other companies that sold bananas grown in Central America, Colombia, and the Caribbean. Minor C. Keith, its principal founder, gained extensive land rights in Costa Rica in return for constructing railroads. United Fruit became the largest employer in Central America, developing vast tracts of jungle lands and building one of the largest private merchant navies in the world. Attacked in the Latin American press as el pulpo (‘the octopus’), the company was widely accused of exploiting workers and influencing governments during the era of ‘dollar diplomacy’ in the early to mid-20th century. It later policies were more enlightened, and it transferred portions of its landholdings to individual growers. In 1970 United Fruit merged with AMK Corporation to form United Brands Co., which changed its name in 1990 to Chiquita Brands International, Inc.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
I am not entirely at ease publishing this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the “Third World” because it is a term that I have always found patronizing at best. Nonetheless, as long as we humans consider “development” the ultimate achievement, then I suppose we will consider “underdeveloped” nations subordinate in rank to the “developed” world–you know, those countries that have allowed their heavy industries to create toxic waste dumps and foul the air with relative impunity.
Happily, this half-page document, which includes a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions, focuses on the non-aligned (with neither the United States nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which isn’t entirely accurate in any case) character of African, Asian, and Latin American nations.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
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