Time and Space
I think the use of language is a very important means by which this species, because of its biological nature, creates a kind of social space, to place itself in interactions with other people. Noam Chomsky
The Historical Past
The Literary Past
This area of exploration focuses on the idea that language is a social capacity and as such is intertwined with community, culture and history. It explores the variety of cultural contexts in which texts are produced and read across time and space as well as the ways texts themselves reflect or refract the world at large. Students will examine how cultural conditions can affect language and how these conditions are a product of language. Students will also consider the ways culture and identity influence reception.
You will investigate ways in which texts may represent, and be understood from, a variety of cultural and historical perspectives. Through this exploration students will recognize the role of relationships among text, self and other, and the ways in which the local and the global connect. These relationships are complex and dynamic. The background of an author and the make-up of an audience are not necessarily clear or easily described. Texts are situated in specific contexts and deal with or represent social, political and cultural concerns particular to a given time and place. For example, a text written to address the concerns of an author in contemporary society can be set in ancient or Renaissance times. (Like Shakespeare's "Othello" or Sophocles' "Antigone )
Cultures that are geographically separated can share mores or ideas, while people living in proximity can embrace disparate traditions. Students will consider the intricacies of communication within such a complex societal framework and the implications that language and text take on when produced and read in shifting contexts.
Study and work selection in this area should allow students to explore texts and issues from a variety of places, cultures and/or times. The culture, biography of an author, historical events or narratives of critical reception will be considered and may be researched, but the focus of study will be on the ideas and issues raised by the texts themselves and a consideration of whether these are best understood in relation to an informed consideration of context. In this area of exploration, students examine the ways in which a text may illuminate some aspect of the political or social environment, or the ways in which a more nuanced understanding of events may affect their understanding or interpretation of a text. The study of contexts does not imply a static, one-to-one relationship between a text and the world, but sees the former as a powerful “non-human actor” across time and space.
Interstellar is a movie about the human race being faced with a civilization ending blight. A small group of brave individuals explore possible new habitable worlds for humans.
The plot of the film deals with hard to imagine but real physics, such as the effect of gravity and speed on time, an effect known as time dilation. This has been demonstrated on Earth by noting that atomic clocks at different altitudes (and thus different gravities) will eventually show different times. Greater speed and lesser gravity actually slows the passing of time!
Wormholes are hypotheticals ‘tubes’ through three dimensional space. Researchers have no observational evidence for wormholes, but the equations of the theory of general relativity have valid solutions that contain wormholes. So while we’ve never actually seen one, the laws of physics allow that they can exist. The portrayal of what a wormhole would look like is considered scientifically correct. Rather than a two-dimensional hole in space, it is depicted as a sphere, because it’s a 3D hole, showing a distorted view of the target galaxy.
This movie packs a LOT of science in, but most of it hinges the fundamental relationship between what we call space and what we call time, and how the two concepts aren’t as different as they appear to us.
Time and space aims to broaden student understanding of the open, plural, or cosmopolitan nature of texts ranging from advertisements to poems by considering the following guiding conceptual questions:
How important is cultural or historical context to the production and reception of a text?
How do we approach texts from different times and cultures to our own?
To what extent do texts offer insight into another culture?
How does the meaning and impact of a text change over time?
How do texts reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?
How does language represent social distinctions and identities?