Imagining literacy : rhizomes of knowledge in American culture and literature / Ramona Fernandez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fernandez, Ramona, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literacy--United States.

Literacy.

Educational anthropology--United States.

Educational anthropology.

Culture.

Multicultural education--United States.

Multicultural education.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (237 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Defining the "common knowledge" a "literate" person should possess has provoked intense debate ever since the publication of E. D. Hirsch's controversial book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Yet the basic concept of "common knowledge," Ramona Fernandez argues, is a Eurocentric model ill-suited to a society composed of many distinct cultures and many local knowledges. In this book, Fernandez decodes the ideological assumptions that underlie prevailing models of cultural literacy as she offers new ways of imagining and modeling mixed cultural and non-print literacies. In particular, she challenges the biases inherent in the "encyclopedias" of knowledge promulgated by E. D. Hirsch and others, by Disney World's EPCOT Center, and by the Smithsonian Institution. In contrast to these, she places the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Leslie Marmon Silko, whose works model a cultural literacy that weaves connections across many local knowledges and many ways of knowing.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction TO READ OR NOT

One THE SEMIOSIS OF LITERACY

Two WHOSE ENCYCLOPEDIA?

Three READING TRICKSTER WRITING

Four DISNEY’S LABYRINTH: EPCOT, CAPITAL OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Five THE SMITHSONIAN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA: MUSEUM AS CANON

Conclusion IMAGINING LITERACY IN A MIXED CULTURE

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-212) and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79825-3

OCLC:

191935103