Caroline Kelly Professor Ober First Year Writing 29 September 2014 The Contact Zone The Holocaust happened because two groups of people were grappling with each and one was stronger than the other. Wars typically occur because two cultures disagree and choose to settle it, and the strong culture prevails. African American and Caucasian people used to be exiled for getting married, because they were different. There are millions of different cultures in the world today and every…

The “Arts of the Contact Zone”, an article written by Stanford professor Mary Louise Pratt, discusses many different ideas about culture and communication by utilizing what she calls the literate arts. Pratt explains many terms that she believes are beneficial in gaining a further understanding of a literary piece. Key terms such as, contact zone, autoethnography and transculturation are introduced in her essay. She describes contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple…

Mary Louise Pratt wrote the essay “Arts of the Contact Zone” with the purpose of explaining that society would benefit if people were exposed to and understood the concept of “contact zones”. She refers to contact zones as social spaces where cultures meet and clash with each other, usually with one culture being dominant over the other. A person living in a contact zone is exposed to two different cultures, two different languages, and as a result is presented with a struggle in each culture to…

“The Contact Zone”, is defined by Mary Louis Pratt as “the space in which transculturation takes place – where two different cultures meet and inform each other, often in highly asymmetrical ways.” Pratt describes what she calls ‘contact zones’ and elaborates on the pros and cons of these cultural interactions. She sees the contact zone as a place that allows people to exchange cultural ideas and break down the dividing cultural borders. When a contact zone is started, people are able to interact…

Mary Louise Pratt defined contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.” A contact zone is a place where two cultures can mesh together. People from different cultures are able to interact with each other through these contact zones. A contact zone allows people to look into cultures other…

ordinary thing. Therefore, writing a response to Pratt’s essay in a language that is comprehendible by regular people can be very helpful to those struggling students. In "Arts of the Contact Zone" Pratt discusses the mix of two different cultures in one area. Where one person is born and lives in a "contact zone" he/she is surrounded by two different conflicting cultures, and there are two different languages. She also introduces us with a new word "autoethnography", which means the way in which…

Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt In the Arts of the Contact Zone, Mary Louise Pratt has tried to explain the concepts of the “contact zone”, which she referred to as “the space of colonial encounters”. This social space that she speaks about is a stage where “disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination”. Pratt aims to highlight these relations between the colonizer and the colonized “in terms of…

The reader is introduced to a term coined and repeated by Pratt throughout the piece, "contact zones." She uses this term "to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today" (Pratt 584). Contact zones were not necessarily a positive interaction because these social interactions usually came out of ignorance…

delivered a keynote/lecture that revolutionized how people think about their social spaces. She introduced a revolutionary way to think about these social spaces, instead of calling them communities she started calling it the “contact zone”. According to Pratt a “contact zone is a place where cultures meet, clash, and grapple” (Pratt 487). While lecturing her fellow colleagues Pratt argues that our idea of community is strongly utopian. She continues to plead her case by saying that societies often…

Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt The Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt opened up a whole new concept for our class. The new term “contact zone” appeared and Pratt defined it as "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today." The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to…