What I’ve Read This Year (2020)

This has been a difficult year, however, I have had the opportunity to read great texts thanks to my classes at school. This is the list of them:

Christenson, Allen. Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of The Maya. O Books, 2003

• If you are interested in Latin American culture, this is definitely a book you should read. It contains passages of the stories told through generations of the Mayas regarding the creation, in addition to other stories that were recorded on paper and pieces of art that support the texts. It has some funny sections, however, the main purpose is to learn about such a valuable and beautiful culture. Christenson does an exceptional job translating the text.

Holmes, Seth. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies. The Regents of the University of California, 2013.

• The dedication and effort to carry out his job as a medical anthropologist are reflected in the quality of information contained in this book. The details with which Holmes describes each of his experiences help to recreate it in your mind and empathize with what each of the people mentioned in the text feels. This literary work helps you to know the reality of immigrants and what it takes to bring the best quality products to your table at the lowest possible price. Everyone should read it to rethink their ideas, and do not judge anyone without knowing what they have experienced.

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press: Berkeley, 2006.

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  Fig.1. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, 
  Audre Lorde, 2006.

  
  This is what Audre Lorde defines as a biomythography, Lorde is a very intelligent woman who suffered a lot of abuse for being a black queer person. Her stories about how since childhood, along with her family suffered a lot of racism and rejection. Those are strong passages because they reveal a small part of racism. A very interesting book that leaves a lot of learning.

Mankiw, Gregory. Principles of Microeconomics. South-Western: Cengage Learning, 2008.

• It is a very complete book with a great variety of concepts, definitions, and very simple explanations regarding economics, from the simplest such as supply and demand, to monopolies and competition in the market. Mankiw manages to explain each concept thoroughly and is reflected in examples that facilitate their understanding.

Peoples, James and Garrick Bailey. Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2012.

• Anthropology is a discipline with many branches of possible study. In this book Peoples and Garrick explain in a good way very important concepts to understand the job of an anthropologist, which is often misinterpreted. You get a lot of information as it also contains examples and data regarding cultures that are not widely known.

Salgado, Yesika. Corazón. Not a Cult Press, 2017.

• It is a compilation of poems, some short, and others several pages long, however, all represent the experiences and experiences of Salgado as a Salvadoran woman who was often discriminated and rejected because of her skin color and body. If you are not a person who is very used to reading poetry, this book is a very good place to start, since it contains a relatively simple and digestible language for most of the public. An excellent text.

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History: Volume Two. Pearson Education, 2008.

• It is a very long book as it contains a lot of information regarding how art has changed over time. Sixteen chapters broadly reflect the most important characteristics of art from the fourteenth century to the present. After reading and viewing some pages of the book you learn a lot about how it has evolved.

Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Penguin Press: New York, 2019.

• The experiences lived during catastrophic events such as wars forever mark many families. Vuong writes a novel with some sections with a poetic structure that give it a unique style. Written as a letter with dedication, recounting the experiences and experiences of a young gay man. A beautiful book with many feelings that the author is capable of transmitting.

 

Fig. 2. Environment: Final Project, Daniel Ramos, Google
Drive, Dec. 2020

   The final project of the Humanities class was a very enriching activity, which I really enjoyed and from which I learned even more. This is because I practically had to review all the information seen in the semester to decide which was the most optimal to include in the project. I think it is a very good activity that has more value than the stress generated by the final exams since you have enough time to structure your ideas and, in my case, I keep it more time in my mind. I really enjoyed it because of the affection I have for the cultures of Latin America, and although I already had a little knowledge about them, it was not even close to what I learned in class and with the final project. Of course, since it is a final semester project it requires a large number of hours of work, and even more for me because I decided to do it alone. It took me 22 and a half hours, for 10 days, to work on the three drafts and finish the project. I think I'm slow, but I like to take enough time to decide what I want to include and what to leave out. Here you have the link to My Final Project in case you want to see it.

My expectations regarding this class were to learn about the cultures of my ancestors, I even saw it as a challenge to test myself on how much I knew about them. My goal was to learn as much as I could and enjoy a class that is categorized as general education. Today, at the end of the semester, I consider that I definitely fulfilled my goals, I learned a lot and enjoyed each video and each text from which I obtained information that I had never heard before. I believe that Humanities broadens your personal experiences so that education does not only focus on your career and you grow as a person.

What interested me the most in the class was the art created by ancient cultures and that despite the years has been preserved well. I learned about the ideas with which those cultures grew up and I admire their knowledge regarding timekeeping and the stars, it is incredible how since then they could calculate such precise situations. My strength was never the subject of history in school, I had a hard time remembering each date of historical events, however, in this class I was very interested in each of the topics because the focus was not so much the eras in which they occurred, but the events and ideas of populations. I knew general things, such as that the colossal heads belonged to the Olmecs, or that the Mayas are still present in areas of the Yucatan peninsula and Guatemala, but I did not know any other details. I loved this class. Highly recommended.