I received a note recently from the ASUSU (or USUSA?) VP for Organizations and Diversity asking advisors to remind students that (in my own words) some costume choices unwittingly betray cultural insularity. In other words, many of us tend to think of other cultures as so profoundly Other that we think of dressing up as Them in the same way we think of dressing up as vampires or zombies. Indeed, Hollywood, that great engine of American cultural production, encourages us to think that really silly cartoon characters should have foreign accents. Believe me, I’m the last person to be a spoilsport for Halloween, but there are times when one should think about the philosophical implications of selecting a costume. The posters below express this point more directly than the words I’m spilling now.
USUPhilosophy 