TED Talks At TEDGlobal University, Shereen El Feki shows how some Arab cultures are borrowing trademarks of Western pop culture — music videos, comics, even Barbie — and adding a culturally appropriate twist.

Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:

This TED talk cleverly discusses the cultural processes of globalization by examining two examples from the Islamic world.  In the examples of the TV station 4Shbab and the comic book series The 99 show that all global cultural interactions don’t have to result in a homogenous “melting pot.”  Local cultural forces can tap into the powers of globalized culture that can create dynamic local cultures that are both intensely local and global. 

Questions to Ponder: What does the speaker mean when she by refers to cultural interactions as a mesh (as a opposed to a clash or mash) of civilizations?  What other examples of cultural meshes can you see that show these processes? 

Tags: religion, culture, Islam, globalization, popular culture, unit 3 culture.

See on www.ted.com

Barbie