Horace Minor & Myself

    My name is Allie Adams and I am from Warminster,Pennsylvania. Warminster is a suburb of Philadelphia, slightly north of thecity. Thus far in my education, I have finished all of my primary schooling,graduating from William Tennent High School in June of 2012. I havesuccessfully completed my first semester at Temple University, and even managedto make Dean’s List. I am an architecture major, which is part of the TylerSchool of Art. My motivation to become an architect is deeply rooted in mystrength in mathematics as well as my love of HGTV. I came to Temple Universitynot only because of the outstanding architecture program, but also because ofits location. I have always been attracted to cities for their beauty anduniqueness which simply isn’t found anywhere else. In North Philadelphia, I wantto use my education as an Architect to bring the beauty back to as manyimpoverished areas as I can through design and reconstruction. To do this, Iwould like to work with the city of Philadelphia to make the improvementspossible even to those who cannot afford it. My hopes for this course is tobuild a strong foundation and well-rounded understanding of a vast range ofsubjects that will aid my success in college. I would like to go to graduateschool at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, or PrincetonUniversity. The material covered in this course will only propel me closer tomy goals by giving me an infrastructure to build and expand upon. I am alsoeager to improve my writing abilities.

    I very much enjoyed Horace Minor’s essay “Body Ritual amongthe Nacirema.” Admittedly, I did not initially recognize the satire and thoughtthat the Nacirema were some kind of foreign tribe. I believe that this actuallyworked to my advantage in the sense that I saw how barbaric the acts werebefore I really knew what they were symbolizing. I was frustrated at howbrainwashed this culture sounded for their allegiance to the medicine men, theholy-mouth-men, and the “listeners.” Reading this the first time throughallowed me to take in all of the information in an unbiased way, enabling me tobe a true critic. I believe that Horace Minor would have wanted his audience tobe as oblivious as I was, in order to see the flaws in the American Society.Minor uses strange and unrecognizable terms to explain simple activities in a way that baffles the reader. The hardest ones for me to decodewere what the shrine was representative of, as well as how a “small bundle ofhog hair” which was inserted into the mouth was part of American culture. Ilearned in our class discussion that the shrine ‘full of magical potions’ wasactually a bathroom, the focal point being the medicine cabinet; the bundle ofhog hairs acts as a toothbrush. I admire Horace Minor’s writing because it waswitty enough to understand without being blatantly obvious. I find it intriguingthat many of these issues are still alive and well today, maybe evenintensified due to the American obsession with body image and unobtainableperfection.