Paul A. Cantor (1945–2022)
Autor von Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization
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Paul A. Cantor has authored dozens of articles in various publications and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard and The American Enterprise, Cantor lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is professor of English at the University of Virginia. (Bowker Author Biography)
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Die Simpsons und die Philosophie: Schlauer werden mit der berühmtesten Fernsehfamilie der Welt (2001) — Mitwirkender — 1,375 Exemplare
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Ten Years of the Claremont Review of Books (2012) — Mitwirkender — 11 Exemplare
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Fast forward to the 1990s. Professor Cantor analyzes two television series approximately as iconic to that decade as "Gilligan" and "Star Trek" were to the 1960s. But "The Simpsons" and "The X-Files" give us a far different picture of globalization than the earlier shows did. Aside from the fact that globalization came to be a term widely used in the 1990s whereas it was not during the 1960s, it is less apt to mean Americanization in the context of these later television series. For example, Apu, the proprietor of Quicky-Mart in the Simpson's "All-American" city of Springfield, USA, is a practicing Hindu, not entirely keen about assimilating to American culture. He has a shrine to his gods in his store. Every contact between the Simpsons and the world beyond American shores suggests that Americans are as likely to be compelled to assimilate to foreign cultures as foreign cultures are to assimilate to the American. (Indeed, Quicky-Mart's world headquarters are in India! If this seems far fetched, it is a fact that many Americans think that Sony is an American company when in fact it is Japanese.)
"The X-Files" gives a darker picture of globalization but it is in surprizing agreement with "The Simpsons" about the fact that cultures are apt to live side by side without assimilation and that accomodation is as often as not required of the dominant culture and not the minority. Cantor looks at several episodes that suggest that alien cultures in the United States maintain their identities and refuse to assimilate. ("The X-Files" concern with aliens from outer space demanding assimilation from earthlings is an even more stark instance of the message that America may be required to submit rather than dominate.) Meanwhile, foreign cultures elsewhere in the world influence the United States as much as or more than they are influenced by America. The optimism of Americanism triumphant that was characteristic of the shows of the 1960s is absent from those of the 1990s.
Cantor's thesis runs counter to the usual cant one hears about globalization being equivalent to the dominance of the third world by the first. Instead, he sees globalization as a two-way street where the foreign culture, as often as not, requires the accomodation of the American, and even the minority has its own power that demands respect from the majority. In our contemporary world, where we find the United States in danger of losing its status in the world, Cantor's book seems prescient.… (mehr)