Bringing culture alive in the marketing classroom: using the novel Speaker for the Dead to teach global marketing.

Wright, Newell D. ; Larsen, Val

INTRODUCTION

One challenge in teaching international or global marketing courses is to vividly illustrate the importance of cultural differences and, thus, sensitize students who have never been abroad to the important role of culture in global marketing. Cultural misunderstandings can have serious and important consequences in international politics, business, and social encounters.

It can be very hard for Americans students (and professors, for that matter) to think outside of the North American box (Gorn 1997). This is especially true because much marketing research ethnocentrically reflects a U.S. reality (van Raaij 1978). Indeed, Usunier (1993) proposes that the very idea of "marketing" is culture bound, that the concept was "initially and for the most part developed in the United States" (p. 12), as evidenced by reference sources, study subjects, and the origin of the literature which defines it as an area of knowledge. Since much of one's own culture is invisible (Lee 1966), students often have difficulty internalizing cultural concepts when they are taught in the ordinary way in an international marketing course. This is especially true for students who have not ventured very far beyond the confines of their own cultures.

Culture is an integral part of most texts on global or international marketing. Cateora and Graham (2005) devote an entire section of their text, consisting of five chapters, to the cultural environment of global markets. Johansson (2006) includes a chapter on cultural foundations and Czinkota and Ronkainen (2007) devote a chapter to the cultural environment. Usunier and Lee (2005) go a step further and write an entire international marketing text from a cultural perspective. So clearly, teaching cultural concepts is an integral part of the international marketing course. The problem is to make culture come alive in a classroom setting when many students have never been deeply immersed in another culture.

A study abroad experience is a great way to learn about culture (Clarke et al. 2009; Wright and Clarke 2010), but the expense of these programs rules them out for many students (Henthorn, Miller, and Hudson 2001; Munoz, Wood, and Cherrier 2006). Thus, other less expensive techniques for developing a vivid and deep understanding of cultural differences and their importance should be explored.

Experiential learning is sometimes proposed as a way to give students a real life exposure to the importance of culture. Some have suggested that a computer simulation of one type or another be used to develop cultural awareness (e.g., Li, Greenberg, and Nicholls 2007), for example, an international business negotiation simulation (e.g., Culpan 1990). Others (e.g., Punnett 2005) propose experiencing the international business environment through a series of exercises, projects, and cases. Still others suggest that the real-life experiences of students who have been immersed in more than one culture--i.e., foreign students in the class or domestic students who have lived abroad--be used to highlight the importance and effects of culture (Curran-Kelly 2005). Munoz, Wood, and Cherrier (2006) suggest using the Internet to do a cross-cultural collaborative exercise in which classes in different parts of the world complete an exercise, then compare and contrast the results, teasing out cultural similarities and differences.

LITERATURE AND LEARNING

Literature is still another way to help students vividly and deeply experience and understand the importance of key business concepts. Recently, Kimball (2007) used assigned readings in contemporary American literature to teach ethical decision making. Kimball argued that this approach better prepared graduates for the "real world by creating a learning laboratory in which graduates can have the business world come alive as a vicarious experience" (p. 64). Since art often imitates all the variety and complexity of life (Auerbach 1953), works of art can serve as manageable and yet relatively verisimilar data sets to teach marketing concepts and to formulate and test marketing theories.

The use of literature to understand marketing is not new. A number of consumer researchers have developed and/or tested their theories by examining various cultural texts (Holbrook and O'Shaughnessy 1988), including novels, comic books, autobiographies, and religious books, among other texts (Belk 1987; Hirschman 1990; Wright and Larsen 1992). For

example, Wright, Larsen, and Higgs (1996) gave a detailed analysis of themes of consumption in Tom Wolfe's (1988) The Bonfire of the Vanities. In their analysis, they vividly illustrated the consumer decision-making process through a close reading of extended excerpts from the novel, and they developed new theory on consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction by closely analyzing the modes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction evident in the lives of Wolfe's characters.

Using literature as a teaching tool in marketing courses is also not new (see Table 1). In perhaps the earliest reference in the marketing education literature, Menon, Bush, and Gresham (1988) used passages from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to teach the six steps of the personal selling process. Echoing Holbrook and O'Shaughnessy's (1988) call to use more cultural texts in basic marketing research, Lynch and Shank (1991) called for the greater use of movies, television shows, plays, and novels in the marketing curriculum. Subsequent to this call, Usunier (1993) showed how extracts from Harlequin romance novels marketed around the world could be used to teach the concept of global market segmentation. Through close readings of two "marketing saturated bestsellers" (p. 315), Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, Patterson and Brown (2005) identified strategies marketing scholars can use to more effectively communicate with their targeted constituents.

Novelists are specialists in the creation of vicarious experience. Their commercial success depends, in substantial measure, on their ability to create vivid realities that capture the imagination of readers. Thus, as Kimball (2007) suggests, having students read novels can provide for a "vicarious experience" that is pedagogically fruitful.

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD

The purpose of this paper is to add to the repertoire of pedagogically useful fiction by explaining how Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, a science fiction novel, can be used to give undergraduate students in junior and senior level global marketing courses a deep and vivid appreciation of the importance of cultural differences. It may also be used in undergraduate, junior and senior level courses with substantial amounts of cultural content, including consumer behavior or international business courses.

Speaker for the Dead was published in 1986 as a sequel to Ender's Game, which was published in 1985. Both novels are science fiction classics. Each won the two top awards in science fiction, the Hugo Award (given by fans) and the Nebula Award (given by writers), thus making Card the first and, to date, only writer to win both awards in successive years (Wagner 2003). While Speaker for the Dead is the sequel to Ender's Game, it can be read and understood as a stand-alone work of fiction by students not familiar with its prequel. However, the sequel is more powerful if students have read the prequel and realize that Andrew Wiggin, the protagonist, is Ender Wiggin, the hero archetype (Collings 1990) from Ender's Game. While both books are so gripping that students often voluntarily read both, instructors who use Speaker for the Dead may want to offer extra credit for reading Ender's Game. See Table 2 for a plot summary of the novel Speaker for the Dead.

Of Speaker for the Dead, critics have said the following: "There aren't too many recent SF [science fiction] novels we can confidently call truly moral works, but Speaker for the Dead is one. Full of careful characterization, intriguing scientific, especially anthropological, speculation, and a fictional challenge to our capacity to define humanity inclusively rather than exclusively, it's a completely gripping story" (Barbour 1987). Cassada (1986), writing in Library Journal, said, "Ender Wiggin, hero and scapegoat in the last war, seeks a chance to redeem his own--and humanity's--greatest crime, the failure to understand. Told with compassion and keen insight, this powerful sequel to Ender's Game is highly recommended."

Mietkiewicz (1987), who described Speaker for the Dead as "the stunning sequel to Ender's Game," said that "with great sensitivity, Card raises the specter of another allegedly murderous alien society and poses haunting questions about xenophobia and the preservation of life at all cost." Wooster (1992) commented that "Card's work has proven popular because he has reached out in his fiction to other cultures and times" and that "particularly Speaker for the Dead was enriched by Card's deep knowledge of Brazilian culture."

Why use a science fiction novel to enrich the cultural experience of students in an international marketing class? Because at its heart, Speaker for the Dead is an anthropological novel about cross-cultural miscommunication. And unlike other novels that deal with cross cultural situations (e.g., Michael Crichton's Rising Sun), Speaker for the Dead has aged well. Since it is not embedded in a particular historical context, it can demonstrate cultural theories in 2012 or 2025 just as effectively as it did in 1986 when it was first published. The passage of time does not render its details quaint or out of date. With sales and popularity that continue to be high (e.g., continuing high rankings on Amazon.com), the novel has passed the test of time.

In the novel, human beings have been alone in the universe for three thousand years, since the destruction of the only other known species of sentient beings in Ender's Game. Then the tool-using but primitive porcine "pequeninos" (Portuguese for "little ones"), or "piggies," a fictional, sentient species that resemble pigs who walk on their hind legs, are discovered on the planet Lusitania. Once again, the alien and human cultures clash, and humans are killed. Andrew Wiggin, an itinerant "speaker for the dead" (a sort of secular priest) comes to Lusitania in order to understand what has happened between the humans and the piggies. The novel is a layered journey of discovery as humans and pequeninos realize they really do not know each other at all. Each culture makes several fundamental mistakes arising out of self referencing (Lee 1966) or cultural myopia (Sheth 2006), and as the author carefully explains each series of mistaken understandings, the reader is taken to a new level of cultural awareness.

Speaker for the Dead explores a variety of cultural issues including faith, kinship, communication, misunderstanding, community, family structure and formation, tribalism, cultural prejudice, life, death, and the many assumptions made in daily living. In this complex novel, humans speak two languages (English and Portuguese) and represent different cultures (e.g., Brazilian and American) since Lusitania is a planet colonized under a Catholic license by immigrants from Brazil and since the protagonist, Andrew Wiggin, is American. The Lusitanian aboriginals, known formally as pequeninos, or informally as piggies, speak six languages: English and Portuguese, that they have learned from the humans, plus four of their own languages, males language, wives' language, father tongue, and tree language. On multiple dimensions, they are an alien culture that misunderstands and is misunderstood by the human observers.

Table 3 gives an example of several cultural theories, with page references and sample selections that can be explored with Speaker for the Dead. It is by no means an exhaustive list. In this paper, we will focus on and illustrate two specific themes: culture and self referencing.

CULTURE AND SELF-REFERENCE CRITERION

"Culture" is a multifaceted construct and each of the major textbooks referenced above has its own peculiar definition of culture. In 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn reviewed 164 different definitions of culture (c.f., Usunier and Lee 2005, p. 4) and, needless to say, many definitions have been proposed since that time. For the purposes of this paper, Terpstra and David (1991, p. 6) provide a useful definition of culture:

   Culture is a learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of
   symbols whose meanings provide a set of orientations for members of
   a society. These orientations, taken together, provide solutions
   that all societies must solve if they are to remain viable.

Culture is learned, in that it must be passed from one generation to the next. People are not born with cultural knowledge. Culture is shared. To be meaningful, culture must be possessed and understood communally. Thus, when two people meet, if they do not share a common language and cultural assumptions, communication will be much more difficult. Culture is compelling in that it makes members of a society want to do what is culturally mandated. In the United States, people feel more or less compelled to stop at traffic lights when they are red, even if there is no police officer in sight and even if no one sees them stop. This is often not the case in Brazil (Usunier and Lee 2005, p. 74). Finally, culture is interrelated. Culture makes sense when various elements are combined together to produce a coherent whole. To truly understand what "hot" means, one must also understand "cold," and thus grasp the entire Gestalt.

Culture, that set of learned, shared, compelling, and interrelated symbols, is largely unconscious. We tend to refer to our cultural upbringing automatically and without thought when faced with problems to solve. We unconsciously assume that the knowledge, values, and experiences that help guide us in our own culture will also guide us in a new cultural context. In other words, we base our judgments on what Lee (1966) has called the self-reference criterion (SRC). This implicit assumption that others are like us is more often than not incorrect.

EXPLORING CULTURE WITH SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD

In Speaker for the Dead, the divergent meanings of life and death in human and pequenino culture are, perhaps, the best example of cultural difference, SRC, and cross-cultural misunderstanding. In the opening chapter, the piggy named Rooter and the human nicknamed Pipo, one of the anthropologists studying the piggies, are both killed in a particularly gruesome fashion. Rooter's death is described as follows (all passages from the novel are italicized):

   Rooter lay spread-eagled in the cleared dirt. He had been
   eviscerated, and not carelessly: Each organ had been cleanly
   separated, and the strands and filaments of his limbs had also been
   pulled out and spread in a symmetrical pattern on the drying soil.
   Everything still had some connection to the body--nothing had been
   completely severed ...

   "They didn't dishonor him," said Novinha. "If there's one thing
   that's certain, it's the love they have for trees. See?" Out of the
   center of his chest cavity, which was otherwise empty now, a very
   small seedling sprouted. "They planted a tree to mark his burial
   spot. (pp. 25-26.

Whenever this paper refers to page numbers, they are from Card 1994, the author's revised, definitive mass market paperback edition of Speaker for the Dead.)

As the humans try to interpret Rooter's death, they speculate that he must have been in some sort of power struggle that went against him and was, therefore, executed by his tribe of piggies. They realize that the vivisection was too deft to be done by chance, so they conclude this was a form of ritual murder.

In that same opening chapter, Pipo makes some discovery that might influence relations between the humans and the piggies. He rushes off to the forest to discuss it with the piggies. When he does not return, his son Libo, also a xenologer (Card's word for an interstellar anthropologist), goes out looking for him.

   They found him all too soon. His body was already cooling in the
   snow. The pigges hadn't even planted a tree in him. (p. 30)

Pipo has been executed in exactly the same manner as Rooter. Needless to say, the gruesome murder of a human by piggies causes ripples of concern throughout the community on Lusitania and (since this is a science fiction novel) on other planets as well. The Bishop on Lusitania suggests that "the piggies were actually animals, without souls, and so his [Libo's] father had been torn apart by wild beasts, not murdered." (p. 43). Libo himself gives another interpretation of this tragic event:

"We'll not harm the pigges," he said, "or even call it murder. We don't know what Father did to provoke them. I'll try to understand that later, what matters now is that whatever they did undoubtedly seemed right to them. We're the strangers here, we must have violated some--taboo, some law--but Father was always prepared for this, he always knew it was a possibility. Tell them that he died with the honor of a soldier in the field, a pilot in his ship, he died doing his job." (p. 45).

Ender Wiggin, the protagonist of the novel, views a simulation of Pipo's death and has this to say.

"Your simulation--that was not torture."

"Oh?" Jane again showed the simulation of Pipo's body just before the moment of his death. "Then I must not understand the word."

"Pipo might have felt it as torture, Jane, but if your simulation is accurate--and I know it is, Jane--then the piggies' object was not pain."

"I can only trust my intuition, Jane, the judgment that comes without analysis. I don't know what the pequeninos were doing, but it was purposeful, not malicious, not cruel. It was like doctors working to save a patient's life, not torturers trying to take it." (p. 63)

Despite Pipo's death, the human anthropologists, led by Libo, continue to study the piggies. Ironically, a few years later, Libo is also killed by the piggies, in the same manner as his father and Rooter. Throughout much of the novel, the language used to describe these gruesome deaths suggests, in Rooter's case, the execution of a criminal or, in Pipo and Libo's cases, torture and murder. For example,

   And Rooter, no less, the very one that got murdered. In other
   words, the male with the lowest prestige--an executed criminal,
   even--has been named a father! (p. 109)

   Both xenologers murdered by the piggies, a generation apart. (p.
   88)

"You're cultural supremacists to the core. You'll perform your Questionable Activities to help out the poor little piggies, but there isn't a chance in the world you'll notice when they have something to teach you."

"Like what!" demanded Ouanda. "Like how to murder their greatest benefactor, torture him to death after he saved the lives of dozens of their wives and children?" (p. 227)

"How can you say that after the way you murdered my father!" (p. 242).

The definition of culture cited above can help explain the language used to describe the deaths of Rooter, Pipo, and Libo. Humans have learned that killing another person without apparent justification is murder. They have a shared understanding that ripping a body apart in this manner constitutes torture, a reprehensible form of extreme violence. In an interrelated analysis of the nature and use of violence, humans regard more limited violence (e.g., restraining someone who is dangerous) as sometimes legitimate but see the vivisection of a living person as being beyond the pale. Most humans feel culturally compelled to avoid both murder and torture. When they see that a piggy or human being has been killed by cutting him apart while still living, they are culturally (and perhaps constitutionally) conditioned to condemn the practice as "torture" or "murder."

SRC is also an issue in the novel. As Pipo has stated, "Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant" (p. 32). This is an implicit recognition of the emic vs. etic perspectives in anthropological research. The emic perspective refers to the reality of the native informant, while the etic perspective is that of the observer of the culture, who is trying to interpret and analyze the behaviors of and information provided by native informants (Wallendorf and Brucks 1993). While it is generally accepted that the etic perspective of the stranger will never equal the emic perspective of the native, cultural understanding is assumed to occur when the stranger's understanding has become, though still imperfect, sufficiently "thick" (Geertz 1973).

SRC is what prevents the xenologers from achieving the emic perspective in this case. As SRC suggests, the previous values, beliefs, and experiences of the observers lead them to conclude that, when a person is flayed alive, it must be torture and murder. They have no frame of reference within which to draw any other conclusion.

Andrew Wiggin delivers a keen insight into the human susceptibility to SRC at one point in the novel:

"This is how human beings are: we question all of our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question." (p. 236)

But SRC afflicts the piggies as well. Neither the piggies nor the humans think to question their basic assumptions about life and death because each uses its own culture as a touchstone or index against which all alien behavior is measured.

It turns out, however, as the novel deftly unfolds its plot, that the piggies have a three-phase lifecycle. At the end of the second phase, if they are "killed" just so, with their organs carefully laid out in the proper pattern, they are transformed into a sentient tree. The piggy named Human describes the process as follows.

"The first life is within the mothertree, where we never see the light and where we eat blindly the meat of our mother's body and the sap of the mothertree. The second life is when we live in the shade of the forest, the half-light, running and walking and climbing, seeing and singing and talking, making with our hands. The third life is when we reach and drink from the sun, in the full light at last, never moving except in the wind; only to think, and on those certain days when the brothers drum on your trunk, to speak to them. Yes, that's the third life." (p. 340)

Piggies who have achieved great honor can win passage to this highest form of third life and live as sentient trees, also known as "Father" trees. Their greatest rival or truest friend will give this honor to them. All other pigges pass into the third life as "brothers," unthinking trees, when they die. So, at least from the piggy, or emic, perspective, Rooter, Pipo, and Libo were not tortured and murdered. They were honored by being granted passage to the highest form of "third life." Eventually, one of the piggies named, ironically, Human, realizes that the human perspective on death and dying is completely different from his own.

   Ender remembered the picture he had first seen only two weeks ago,
   of Pipo dismembered and disemboweled, his body parts stretched and
   spread. Planted. "Human," said Ender, "the worst crime that a human
   being can commit is murder. And one of the worst ways to do it is
   to take a living person and cut him and hurt him so badly that he
   dies."

   Again Human squatted for a while, trying to make sense of this.
   "Speaker," he said at last, "my mind keeps seeing this two ways. If
   humans don't have a third life, then planting is killing, forever.
   In our eyes, Libo and Pipo were keeping the honor to themselves,
   and leaving Mandachuva and Leaf-eater as you see them, to die
   without honor for their accomplishments. In our eyes, you humans
   came out of the fence to the hillside and tore them from the ground
   before their roots could grow. In our eyes, it was you who
   committed murder, when you carried Pipo and Libo away. But now I
   see it another way. Pipo and Libo wouldn't take

   Mandachuva and Leaf-eater into the third life, because to them it
   would be murder. So they willingly allowed their own death, just so
   they wouldn't have to kill any of us."

   "Yes," said Novinha. (p. 341)

Only when both piggies and humans come to see death from the perspective of the other party do they truly begin to understand each other. Neither Pipo nor Libo were prepared to properly honor their beloved piggy friends because, with their incomplete understanding of the piggy lifecycle, they viewed the honor ritual as "murder." Nor were they able to appreciate the "honor" of receiving the "greatest gift" (p. 240), according to piggy cultural norms, that was given to them. Through ill-advised interventions that flowed from cross-cultural misunderstanding, the piggies needlessly slaughtered their two most beloved human friends, Pipo and Libo. And through equally ill-advised actions, the human beings rob two piggies, Mandachuva and Leaf-eater, of their rightful transitions to sentient third life, again because of a cross-cultural misunderstanding. Each race of beings inadvertently murdered those they most wanted to honor or save and ignorantly regarded as murderers those who were acting in the best interest of the victims, Pipo and Libo, Mandachuva and Leaf-eater.

TEACHING LITERATURE IN A MARKETING COURSE

Having as it does the depth and complexity of well-written fiction, Speaker for the Dead can be used to explore many different dimensions of the effects of culture on human interactions (see Table 3 for a sample list of cultural topics to explore with the novel). Thus, this article focuses so far on culture and SRC as just two of the many global marketing issues that are illustrated by the novel. As mentioned previously, literature can be used as a "learning laboratory" (Kimball 2007, p. 64) that provides a vicarious experience for students in marketing courses. As a practical matter, teaching marketing with a novel such as Speaker for the Dead may require some adjustments in technique. The next section describes techniques that can facilitate teaching marketing courses with literature. And while all of the examples will focus on using Speaker for the Dead in an international/global marketing course, the same techniques could realistically apply to different works of literature used in other marketing courses. Indeed, the authors have successfully used these techniques to teach Michael Crichton's Rising Sun in an international marketing class and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities in consumer/buyer behavior courses. These tips are also summarized in Table 4.

Prior to the semester, the professor should read the novel closely, perhaps more than once, to become familiar with the cultural content of the novel. As a practical matter, the authors reread the novel prior to the start of each semester, though that may not be necessary. As mentioned previously, Table 3 contains a sampling of the many theories and examples of each theory contained in the novel.

Table 5 shows a proposed syllabus in a 15 week marketing course that meets twice a week detailing the chapters assigned. Students are offered extra credit if they read the prequel, Ender's Game, before beginning Speaker for the Dead, as it tends to increase the emotional impact of the novel. However, it is not necessary to read Ender's Game prior to reading Speaker for the Dead. Since Ender's Game is a popular novel, there are many plot summaries online. Table 6 contains several questions about Ender's Game that can gauge whether a student has read the novel. Answers are not contained in any of two dozen or so plot summaries the authors found online and in CliffsNotes.

Prior to reading Speaker for the Dead, the professor should cover the relevant cultural theories that will be used throughout the course and exemplified in the novel. For example, in the text Global Marketing by Gillespie, Jeannet, and Hennessey (2007), the authors discuss culture and various forces that influence culture, including religion, family, education, attitudes towards time, Hofstede's measures of culture, language and communication (including body language and non-verbal communication), and culture shock. These cultural constructs would be discussed in depth before introducing the novel to the students and may be supplemented by other cultural concepts, such as Lee's (1966) self-reference criterion, that the textbook authors do not mention. Each textbook varies in what it covers so adjustments may be necessary depending on the text.

After the cultural content has been introduced, the students begin reading the novel. Inclass discussions work better if the students have actually read the assigned chapters in the novel, so it may be wise to have a reading quiz or "quizlet" (Kimball 2007, p. 67) before each discussion session.

We normally devote 10 or 15 minutes to discussions about the novel, except for the first day. During that first class period, we begin by giving a brief overview of the anthropological method since the novel is suffused with anthropological thought. Specifically, we discuss the concepts of the emic versus the etic perspectives (Wallendorf and Brucks 1993; see Table 7). Usually, a substantial number of the students have taken an anthropology course as part of their general or liberal education requirements, and most are at least somewhat familiar with the anthropological method. Then we spend about 15 minutes discussing passages from the assigned chapters. See Table 8 for some examples of passages we read, questions we ask, and connections to cultural theories we make during a typical discussion period.

A benefit of using a novel to reinforce cultural theories is that students revisit the cultural constructs again and again as the semester progresses. Table 5 suggests completing the novel over six class periods, or roughly three weeks of the semester (this assumes the course meets two times per week). As the students read the novel and integrate these concepts with the passages studied, they have a heightened understanding of the uses and applications of the cultural theories. As these theories are brought up again and again in the context of reading the novels, they can also be freshly applied to the current textbook topics, since an understanding of culture undergirds much of what is taught in an international/global marketing course. And since they are brought up in the context of a very engaging and entertaining novel that is emotionally powerful (Rapaille 2006), student learning increases as a result of the technique.

STUDENT RESPONSE

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, vividly illustrating the importance of cultural differences in an international marketing course to students who have never been abroad is a difficult challenge. Culture is an integral part of most global/international marketing texts, and several strategies have been suggested to better help students understand key cultural issues (e.g., study abroad, experiential learning, using the Internet for cross cultural exercises, etc.; see Culpan 1990; Henthorne, Miler, and Hudson 2001; Li, Greenberg, and Nicholls 2007; Munoz, Wood, and Cherrier 2006; and Punnett 2005). This paper suggests another technique, using the novel Speaker for the Dead, so that important concepts "come alive as a vicarious experience" (Kimball 2007, p. 64).

Student response to using this novel in the classroom has been quite positive. As their commercial success clearly indicates, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are intrinsically enjoyable to read. Both books are emotionally powerful, and that attribute makes them pedagogically more effective since emotion is a key ingredient in the imprinting of learning (Rapaille 2006). Students have commented that they came to regard reading the novel more as a personal pleasure than as a homework assignment. Here is a typical unsolicited comment in the course evaluation: "The most important thing I learned was about cultural diversity and how we misinterpret different cultures. Excellent use of Ender's Game and Speaker!'" and "I thought the Card novels were great and appropriate."

For three semesters prior to using Speaker for the Dead , course evaluations in Global Marketing averaged 3.99 per semester (where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest score). After using Speaker for the Dead, average course evaluations in Global Marketing across two semesters rose to 4.52. Grading can sometimes be used to explain high course evaluations, where instructors effectively buy higher evaluation scores through lenient grading policies (Krautmann and Sander 1999). But in this case, grades were lower in the two semesters that used the novel than in the previous three that did not, due to a downward adjustment to departmental grading norms in an effort to combat grade inflation.

Informal conversations with and unsolicited e-mail messages from students reflected high student satisfaction with the novels in the course. One student confessed to skipping a class because he was 100-pages away from finishing Speaker for the Dead and could not put it down. Another recommended several of his friends take this specific section of Global Marketing since it was so different from the "usual" business course. Not all students liked reading the novel, of course. One student complained that she did not read science fiction and took a zero on all test questions relating to the novel rather than read the book. But for the majority of students, the novel enhanced the teaching of the cultural concepts in the course.

To more systematically assess the pedagogical effectiveness of using Speaker for the Dead, students taking Global Marketing in the last semester of this study were asked to respond anonymously to a survey designed to measure their experience with the novel. Of the 67 students surveyed in two sections of the course, 58 indicated that they had read the novel, nine that they had not. Male students (seven out of 24 did not read) were significantly less likely to read the novel than female students (two out of 43) ([chi square] = 7.96, p = .005). In addition to indicating their sex and major, students indicated whether the novel had enhanced their understanding of cultural concepts (culture, face, SRC, language, cross cultural communication, non-verbal communication, fast/slow messages, high/low context, and high/low power distance), whether it had enhanced their enjoyment of the class, and whether it was appropriate for and should be retained in the course. All items were five point Likert scales anchored by strongly agree/strongly disagree, with results subsequently recoded so that five is the most favorable response. Composite scales were formed by combining the three questions measuring cultural learning (Cronbach's Alpha = .86), the two questions measuring enhanced enjoyment (Alpha = .95), and the two questions measuring appropriateness for the course (Alpha = .88).

The mean rating for enhanced understanding of cultural concepts was 3.65 which, in a one-sample t - test, differed significantly from 3.00, the neutral response (neither agree nor disagree) (t = 6.18, p = .000). The mean rating for enhanced enjoyment was 3.29 which differed from a neutral response at a .1 but not at a .05 alpha level (t = 1.88, p = .065). The mean rating for retaining Speaker for the Dead in the course was 3.37 which differed significantly from the neutral response (t = 2.50, p = .015). The male students who read the novel were marginally more likely than female students to say that it enhanced their understanding (t = 1.69, p = .096) and to favor retaining the novel in the course (t = 1.84, p = .065). There were forty four marketing majors, thirteen international business majors, and one "other" business major in the two sections of the course that were surveyed. There were no significant differences in the responses of marketing and international business majors to the understanding, enjoyment, and retention measures. Thus, it appears that Speaker for the Dead is suitable for teaching cultural concepts in both Marketing and International Business courses.

LIMITATIONS

This article describes how the novel Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card enhanced the teaching of cultural concepts in a global marketing course. It offers another option for responding to Kimball's (2007) call to increase the use of literature in marketing courses.

Speaker for the Dead may be viewed as a complex and vivid case study of the ways in which culture frames perceptions and behaviors when different peoples meet. Compared with other case studies, this novel is far more detailed, specific, and susceptible to a thick understanding of how various factors interrelate and interact. It is less preprogrammed to point to a particular conclusion and, in that respect, more reflective of the unstructured problems marketers often face in real life. However, unlike most cases, it does not pose any specific marketing strategy or analysis problems. Particular marketing applications must be supplied in other readings, in lectures, or in other teaching techniques such as those mentioned at the beginning of this article.

REFERENCES

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Newell D. Wright, North Dakota State University

Val Larsen, James Madison University

Table 1: Literature Review

Menon, Bush, and        Advocates using works of literature as
Gresham (1988)          pedagogical tools in marketing.

                        Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare to
                        teach about the personal selling process.

Lynch and Shank         Shows how movies can be used to enhance a
(1991)                  consumer behavior course.

                        Makes an explicit call for using other works
                        of art, literature, and popular
                        entertainment in the marketing curriculum.

Usunier (1993);         An international marketing textbook with an
Usunier and Lee         exercise that uses extracts from Harlequin
2005)                   romance novels to effectively teach the
                        concept of global/international segmentation

Wright, Larsen, and     Uses Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities
Higgs (1996)            to illustrate the consumer decision-making
                        process and consumer satisfaction and
                        dissatisfaction.

Patterson and Brown     Advocates that marketing scholars read
(2005)                  novels to learn how to be better story
                        tellers and communicate more effectively
                        with targeted constituents.

                        Analyzes two novels, Briget Jones's Diary by
                        Helen Fielding and Fight Club by Chuck
                        Palahniuk, to demonstrate more effective
                        communication strategies.

Kimball (2007)          Uses contemporary literature to enhance
                        ethically focused decision making and
                        interpersonal communication skills.

                        Describes a course in professional selling
                        that uses On the Road by Jack Kerouac,
                        Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, and Atlas
                        Shurgged by Ayn Rand.

Table 2: Plot Summary for Speaker for the Dead

Approximately 3,000 years after Ender Wiggin destroyed the
sentient, insect-like beings known formally as "Formics" and
informally as "buggers," humanity has spread to over 100 worlds. In
the continuing exploration, a new planet is discovered that would
suit human life. By governmental decree, the planet is settled
under a Catholic license by humans who were culturally Brazilian,
who name the new planet Lusitania, the ancient name of Portugal.
Shortly after arriving, they discover that the little
forest-dwelling animals they had called pequeninos--piggies--were
not animals at all. Though technologically primitive, they used
tools, spoke languages, and built houses. The galactic government
decrees that they should be studied but left alone. Therefore, they
send a team of interstellar anthropologists, called "xenologers" in
the novel, to study and learn more about the Piggies.

After several years of study, the piggies brutally murder and
vivisect the lead xenologer sent to study their culture. Then a few
years later, they murder a second xenologer in the same manner.
Thanks to an instantaneous, faster than light communication device
called "the Ansible," everyone learns of the murders in real time.
The interstellar government sends a team to take care of the
problem, but due to the distance involved, it will be 33 years
before they arrive, as space travel is not instantaneous like the
Ansible.

Meanwhile, Ender Wiggin, the military genius who destroyed the
Formic home world in the novel Ender's Game, has been prolonging
his life by making many relativistic space flights at the speed of
light. Already near Lusitania when the first murder occurs, he
boards a ship and, flying near the speed of light, arrives 22 years
later, though only one week of his life has passed on board the
ship.

Wiggin, a sort of secular priest, a "Speaker for the Dead," arrives
on Lusitania to solve the mystery of why the piggies killed the
first xenologer. He also carries with him the last cocoon of the
formic species he supposedly wiped out and is hoping to hatch the
cocoon on Lusitania and expiate his xenocide of the formic beings.

He learns of the second murder upon arrival and, with the help of a
smart computer program, begins unraveling the mysterious deaths. In
the process, he gets to know both the human population of Lusitania
and the population of pequeninos. The humans have an electronic
fence erected around the community that, they believe, is
impenetrable. With the murders of the two xenologers, most humans
are fearful of the piggies but, surrounded by their fence, do not
interact with the piggies. By governmental decree, only xenologers
can interact with the piggies, but Wiggin violates this edict to
learn more about them.

It is soon apparent to Wiggin that the humans really do not
understand piggy culture and that the piggies really do not
understand human culture. Both are seeing the other through their
own lenses, and making assumptions about the others' ways of life,
and both are wrong more often than they are right. For example, the
piggies are able to get through the electronic fence and have been
observing the humans unawares for years.

Wiggin's computer program forces a confrontation between the
galactic government and the people of Lusitania by making the
government aware of illegal activities on the planet. The
government threatens to cut off the Ansible, which controls all of
their technology and computers. This forces the humans and the
pequeninos to truly learn about the other to see if they can live
together without killing each other. In the process, the two
populations discover just how different they are from each another.
The humans discover that the brutal "murders" are meant to take a
piggy to a different stage of existence, like a larval slug turning
into a beautiful butterfly. The piggies thought humans had similar
life stages and were honoring, rather than viciously killing the
humans they flayed alive. The novel ends with both populations
gaining a greater appreciation of the others' culture and learning
to accommodate these differences. And on the final page, we learn
that Wiggin is also planning to hatch the last generation of
formics and resurrect that race that had been destroyed through
cultural misunderstanding.

Table 3: Cultural Concepts that can be Illustrated with Speaker for
the Dead. Not an exhaustive list.

  Cultural Element                    Sample Selection

Language: Pp. 56-      Pp. 316-317
57; 106; 132-133;
146, 240, 244, 315.    Shouter went back into the large log house.
                       Ender turned around and again headed for the
                       forest. Almost immediately Shouter's voice
                       rang out again.

                       "She commands you to wait," said Human.

                       Ender did not break stride, and in a moment
                       he was on the other side of the piggy males.
                       "If she asks me to return, I may come back.
                       But you must tell her, Human, that I did not
                       come to command or to be commanded."

                       "I can't say that," said Human.

                       "Why not?" asked Ender.

                       "Let me," said Ouanda. "Human, do you mean
                       you can't say it because you're afraid, or
                       because there are no words for it?"

                       "No words. For a brother to speak to a wife
                       about him commanding her, and her petitioning
                       him, those words can't be said in that
                       direction."

                       Ouanda smiled at Ender. "Not mores, here,
                       Speaker. Language."

Cultural               P. 57
Institutions (e.g.,
kinship and family     They refer to each other as brothers. The
structures): Pp. 57;   females are always called wives, never
67-68; 108-109; 143-   sisters or mothers. They sometimes refer to
144; 199-200; 242-     fathers, but inevitably this term is
243; 245-246; 289-     used to refer to ancestral totem trees.
290; 308-309;
314-315; 320; 323;     P. 323
331-334; 350-351
                       "We carry them to the fathers, of course,"
                       said Human. "How do you think? The fathers
                       can't come here, can they?"

                       "The fathers," said Ouanda. That's what they
                       call the most revered trees."

                       "That's right," said Human. "The fathers are
                       ripe on the bark. They put their dust on the
                       bark, in the sap. We carry the little mother
                       to the father the wives have chosen. She
                       crawls on the bark, and the dust on the sap
                       gets into her belly and fills it up with
                       little ones."

                       Ouanda wordlessly pointed to the small
                       protuberances on Human's belly.

                       "Yes," Human said. "These are the carries.
                       The honored brother puts the little mother
                       on one of the carries, and she holds very
                       tight all the way to the father." He touched
                       his belly. "It is the greatest joy we have
                       in our second life. We would carry the
                       little mothers every night if we could."

Material Culture:      P. 350
Pp. 56, 235, 245,
290, 314, 335, 350.    Human held out the knives to Ender. They
                       were both made of thin wood. Ender could not
                       imagine a tool that could polish wood to be
                       at once so fine and sharp, and yet so
                       strong.

Self-Reference         Pp. 144-145
Criterion (SRC *):
Pp. 14, 32, 71-73,     Miro sighed silently. He liked dealing with
99-100, 141; 144-      piggy religion as little as he liked his own
145; 146-147, 169-     people's Catholicism. In both cases he had
170, 226-227;          to pretend to take the most outrageous
230-231; 238; 292-     beliefs seriously. Whenever anything daring
293; 300; 324-325      or importunate was said, the piggies always
(* Note: these are     ascribed it to one ancestor or another whose
additional examples    spirit dwelt in one of the ubiquitous trees.
of SRC)

Non-Verbal             P. 3
Communication: Pp.
3; 37-38; 106; 148;    Rooter held still in the expectant posture
200; 203; 220; 228;    that Pipo thought of as their way of showing
239; 240; 242-243;     mild anxiety, or perhaps a nonverbal warning
292; 306; 314; 316;    to other pequeninos to be cautious. It might
325.                   also have been a sign of extreme fear, but
                       as far as Pipo knew he had never seen a
                       pequenino show extreme fear.

                       P. 106

                       Suddenly Leaf-eater began to rock back and
                       forth on the ground, shifting his hips from
                       side to side as if he were trying to relieve
                       an itch in his anus. Libo had speculated
                       once that this was what performed the same
                       function that laughter did for humans.

Table 4: Tips for Using Novels in a Marketing Course:

The Example of Speaker for the Dead in a Global/International
Marketing Course

Prior to the Start of the Semester:

Read the novel thoroughly, perhaps more than once, noting important
and relevant topics.

Create reading quizzes or "quizlets" (Kimball 2007, p. 67) covering
the assigned readings. Kimball (2007) suggests a single question
quiz, scored as either a 10 or a 0, that asks questions that would
be difficult or impossible to answer if someone was relying on
online summaries or CliffsNotes.

During the Semester:

Give the option of earning extra credit for reading the prequel,
Ender's Game. Students must complete before starting Speaker for
the Dead. Give extra credit quiz for Ender's Game (see Table 6).

Cover the cultural content of the course early in the semester.

Assign readings from the novel Speaker for the Dead (see Table 5)

Give reading quizzes before discussing the text.

Provide overview of the anthropological method (see Table 7).

Discuss the novel over six class periods (in a course meeting twice
per week) or nine class periods (in a course meeting three times
per week). See Table 8 for some samples of passages from the novel
and corresponding questions.

Assess student learning from the experience (see Table 9).

Table 5: Suggested Reading Schedule for a 15-Week Semester
that Meets Twice per Week

Week            Speaker for the Dead Activity

Week 1
  Course 1      Give the option of reading Ender's Game for extra
  Course 2      credit

Week 3
  Session 5     Begin teaching the cultural content of the course
  Session 6     Finish teaching the cultural content of the course
                Give extra credit quiz for reading Ender's Game.
                  See Table 6.

Week 4
  Session 7     Go over anthropological method (Table 7).
                Speaker for the Dead prologue, chapters 1-3.
  Session 8     Speaker for the Dead chapters 4-6

Week 5
  Session 9     Speaker for the Dead chapters 7-10
  Session 10    First Mid-Term Exam (which does not cover Speaker for
                the Dead, since they have not yet finished reading it)

Week 6
  Session 11    Speaker for the Dead chapters 11-14
  Session 12    Speaker for the Dead chapters 15-16

Week 7
  Session 13    Speaker for the Dead chapters 17-18 (chapter 18 is
                  the last chapter)
  Session 14    Summarize the cultural content of Speaker for the Dead

Week 10
  Session 20    Second Mid-Term Exam, which will cover Speaker for
                  the Dead.

Table 6: Sample Extra Credit Questions for Reading Ender's Game
These questions are not found in online or CliffsNotes plot
summaries

Extra Credit, reading Ender's Game

To get extra credit for reading Ender's Game, you must answer the
following questions in such a way that you convince me that you
read the novel. (These details do not appear in online summaries we
reviewed.)

1. The phrase, "The enemy's gate is down," appears in several
places and is very important to the story. Tell me as much as you
know about this phrase. Where in the novel was that phrase used?
What does it mean? Who said it, when did they say it, and why?

2. Name or describe Ender's friends who were with him at the last
battle. How did he know them? Tell me as much as you can about
these people.

3. Who were the two people Ender killed? Describe the context for
each killing.

4. What was the giant's drink? What is the significance of this to
the book's plot?

5. The last chapter in the novel Ender's Game is titled "Speaker
for the Dead." What was this chapter about? Describe what happens,
who some of the important people are, and explain why it had the
same title as the next book in the series.

Table 7: Overview of the Anthropological Method

Anthropological Method

Participant Observation
Researchers immerse themselves into a culture and try to
"understand" what is going on
They try to see the cultural values shaping the experience under
study
They try to gain the perspective of those being observed,
describing culture using the words and phrases of the people they
are studying

Perspectives on Understanding

Emic: the perspective of those being observed

Etic: the perspective of the researcher

Goal of Research:

achieve the "emic" perspective
understand the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and culture of those
observed

Limitations:

It is impossible to experience culture as others experience it
We are only able to interpret...
... and there is always more than one interpretation

Table 8: Sample Passages, Sample Questions, and Related Theories other
than Culture and SRC

Passage from Speaker      Sample Questions         Sample Cultural
    for the Dead                                      Theories

"Lusitania's climate    What does this          Kluckhohn and
and soil cried out a    passage tell us         Strodtbeck (1961,
welcome to the          about the nature        pp. 11-12) value
oncoming plow, the      orientation of the      orientations. Nature
excavator's pick,       Lusitanians?            orientation:
the mason's trowel.                             subjugation to
Bring me to life, it                            nature, harmony with
said." (p. 367).                                nature, or mastery
                                                over nature?

"In truth she had no    How is language used    Slow vs. fast
answer to give him,     in this instance?       messages, high vs.
his words were so                               low context (Hall
outrageous. She had     How is language         and Hall 1989);
called him estrago,     usage in this
but he answered as      passage different       Forms of address
if she had called       from the English you    (Gillespie, Jeannet,
herself a               are familiar with?      and Hennessey 2007).
desolation. And she
had spoken to him       What type of message
derisively, using       was the Speaker for
the insultingly         the Dead sending to
familiar tu for         Novinha?
"you" instead of o
Senhor or even the
informal voce. It
was the way one
spoke to a child or
a dog. And yet when
he answered in the
same voice, with the
same familiarity, it
was entirely
different.

Thou art fertile
ground, and I will
plant a garden in
thee." It was the
sort of thing a
poet says to his
mistress, or even a
husband to his wife,
and the tu was
intimate, not
arrogant." (pp. 132-
133)

"But Miro and Ouanda    How does this           Face, high context
were disciplined.       passage demonstrate     communication, non-
They said nothing,      the concepts of face    verbal communication
did not even let        and high context        (Hall and Hall 1989)
their faces change      communication?
from the relaxed,
meaningless             How does the act of
expression they had     practicing
practiced for so        "noncommunication"
many years. The art     actually communicate
of noncommunication     information? Give an
was the first one       example
they had to learn
before Libo would
let either of them
come with him. Until
their faces showed
nothing, until they
did not even
perspire visibly
under emotional
stress, no piggy
would see them. As
if it did any
good--Human was too
adroit at turning
evasions into
answers, gleaning
facts from empty
statements. Even
their absolute
stillness no doubt
communicated their
fear, but out of
that circle there
could be no escape.
Everything
communicated
something (p. 200).

Table 9 lists some potential short answer and essay exam questions
that can be used to assess the reading of Speaker for the Dead.

Short Answers from Speaker for the Dead. Many can be answered with
fewer than five words. The answers to these questions cannot be
found in the various plot summaries.

What happened to the hive queen at the end of the novel?

Whose death was "spoken" by Ender? If you cannot remember this
person's name, describe who this person was.

Who is Valentine? When is Valentine's last appearance in the novel?

Who are the Children of the Mind of Christ?

Who is Jane? By the end of the novel, who is her companion? (Again,
if you cannot remember her companion's name, describe the
companion).

Who is the father of Novinha's children?

Who is Ela? What is her job?

Why can Ouanda no longer be Miro's girlfriend? What did Miro learn
about Ouanda?

What did Ender and Starlooker sign in the forest? Hint: Olhado with
his mechanical eyes recorded this event.

Which two people got married at the end of the novel?

Sample Essay Question:

Using at least TWO of the cultural theories we have examined in
this class (e.g., culture, SRC, emic vs. etic, high vs. low
context, fast vs. slow messages, value orientations, silent
language, etc.), analyze the major misunderstandings in Speaker for
the Dead. Use specific examples from the novel in your answer.