Ethiopia v The History Channel Pt. 0/4
The Pretext
“It matters what you call a thing” — Solmaz Sharif
Recently, I felt like watching something on YouTube while I ate dinner. I just started my first learning sprint with Amharic (Ethiopia’s official language), and found an episode from the History Channel. I remember liking all the documentaries we watched in high school and figured this would be a cool little thing to check out.
It was an episode of their series, Cities of the Underworld. Sounded cool!
I am honest from the start here: I was not impressed and in fact disappointed in what I found. Maybe the title of this series gives that sentiment away.
In becoming who I am, I’ve found it important and interesting to notice how people talk about things as much as what they say about it. My master’s research was in this, actually, studying semiotics which is a philosophy of language concerning how meaning is made.
I have had the idea for this series since the very beginning of this 100 days project, but I just feel like I haven’t gotten to the heart of this thing because each time I come back to it (the writing and episode) I find more to open up.
That said, I’m simply moving forward with what I have. I still find it authentic and hilarious with intrigue.
In my series on this, I’m going to offer my posts as commentary as if we were watching it together or if I’m reporting back what I saw. See you tomorrow.
More soon,
Trevor