“Realism: Fidelity to natural appearances without slavish attention to minute details (see Naturalism). As a movement, it goes back to Courbet and Manet in the 1850s and culminates in Impressionism.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“diamond: [ME] The name of the gem derives from a medieval Latin alteration of Latin adamans ADAMANT. Adamant was a legendary rock or mineral of many supposed properties. One of these was hardness, which was a reason why people sometimes identified it with diamond. A diamond is forever was used as an advertising slogan for De Beers Consolidated Mines from the late 1940s onwards, and in 1956 Ian Fleming used Diamonds are Forever as the title of his latest James Bond thriller, but the idea was first expressed by the American writer Anita Loos, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925). ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend‘ was a song written by Leo Robin and Jule Styne for the 1949 stage musical of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
When I taught or co-taught global studies, it was a topic that the curricula, unlike the often superficial passes through other important historical processes, focused on at relatively inordinate length, so this Cultural Literacy on the concept of an indulgence, at three sentences and three questions on a half-page document, was insufficient.
Still, it opens the door to discuss this weird medieval financial instrument–swapping earthly gains (often obtained through exploitative and violent means) for heavenly salvation. As the reading observes, indulgences were one of the things that infuriated Martin Luther and therefore began The Reformation. They also demonstrate, should anyone care to take a discussion in this direction, the apparently bottomless human capacity for self-delusion, corruption, and folly.
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.
“Ready-mades: Associated with Dada, especially with Marcel Duchamp, these are randomly selected and mass-produced found objects, often nonsensically combined and presented as art. For Duchamp, found objects implied the exercise of aesthetic taste, whereas ready-mades did not.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Red Guards: Radical university and high-school students formed into paramilitary units of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. They responded in 1966 to Mao Zedong’s call to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese Communist Party and went so far as to attempt purging the country of its pre-Communist culture. With a membership in the millions, they attacked and persecuted local party leaders, schoolteachers, and other intellectuals. By early 1967 they had overthrown party authorities in many localities. Internal strife ensued as units argued over which best represented Maoist thought. Their disruptions of industrial production and urban life led the government to redirect them to the countryside in 1968, where the movement gradually subsided.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Tahiti. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences, the second of them a bit long, but not so long that students–even emerging and struggling readers–can’t make sense of it.
Even in two sentences, the reading mentions Tahiti’s allure to Paul Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson, summoning both of them to the Island to create art extolling the its beauty.
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.
“Tokyo Trials: The war crimes trials of Japanese leaders after World War II. Between May 1946 and November 1948, 27 Japanese leaders appeared before an international tribunal charged with crimes ranging from murder and atrocities to responsibility for causing the war. Seven, including the former Prime Minister, Tojo Hideki, were sentenced to death and 16 to life imprisonment (two others receiving shorter terms), but General MacArthur refused to allow the Emperor Hirohito to be tried for fear of undermining the postwar Japanese state.”
Excerpted from: Wright, Edmund, Ed. The Oxford Desk Encyclopedia of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
This week’s Text, for the final Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026, is this reading on Mao Zedong with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Mao was and is a world-historical figure, so I must assume he remains part of a Global Studies curriculum in some states.
If you find typos in these documents, 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.
“Sukarno: (1901-1970) First president of Indonesia (1949-66). Son of a Javanese schoolteacher, he excelled in languages, mastering Javanese, Sudanese, Balinese, and modern Indonesian, which he did much to create. He emerged as a charismatic leader in the country’s independence movement. When the Japanese invaded in 1942, he served them as a chief adviser, while pressuring them to grant Indonesia independence. Immediately following Japan’s defeat, he declared independence; the Dutch did not transfer sovereignty until 1949. Once he became president, Indonesia made gains in health, education, and cultural self-awareness, but democracy and the economy floundered. His government was corrupt, inflation soared, and the country experienced a continuous state of crisis. An attempted coup by communists in 1965 led to a military takeover by Suharto and a purge of alleged communists left some 300,000 dead.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Sumatra: Island, West Indonesia. It is one of the Sunda Islands and the second-largest island of Indonesia. It is 1,060 miles (1,706 kilometers) long and 250 miles (400 kilometers) wide; a chief city is Palembang. Located on the seaborne trade routes, it had early contact with Hindu civilization. The kingdom of Srivijaya arose in the 7th century and came to dominate much of the island. It fell under the Majapahit empire in the 14th-16th centuries. First the Portuguese, then the Dutch and English established forts there beginning in the 16th century. It was occupied by Japan in World War II; in 1950 became part of the Republic of Indonesia. Its exports include rubber, tobacco, coffee, pepper, and timber products; mineral reserves include petroleum and coal.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
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