Erika Balsom and Hila Peleg's edited volumeFeminist Worldmaking and the Moving Image(MIT Press, 2022) offers intersectional, intergenerational, and international perspectives on nonfiction film- and videomaking by and about women, examining practices that range from activist documentaries to avant-garde experiments. Concentrating primarily on the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the contributions revisit major figures, contexts, and debates across a polycentric, global geography. They explore how the moving image has been a crucial terrain of feminist struggle--a way of not only picturing the world but remaking it. The contributors consider key decolonial filmmakers, including Trinh T. Minh-ha and Sarah Maldoror; explore collectively produced films with ties to women's liberation movements in different countries; and investigate the cinematic expressions of tensions and alliances between feminism and anti-imperialist struggles. They grapple with the need for a broader more inclusive definition of the term "feminism"; meditate on the figure of the grandmother; reflect on realist aesthetics; and ask what a feminist film historiography might look like. The book, generously illustrated with film stills and other images, many in color, offers ten original texts, two conversations, and eight short essays composed in response to historical texts written by filmmakers. The historical texts, half of which are published in English for the first time, appear alongside the essays. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Darts and Letters is a show about the politics of ideas, and this week we’re searching for progressive politics in strange places… such as pro-wrestling. There have been 37 Wrestlemanias. That’s a lot of wrestling. And a lot of entertainment for the millions of people who enjoy watching wrestling, including our host, Gordon Katic. Maybe you’re a fan, maybe not. Fans and non-fans alike have often dismissed wrestling as frivolous. But there’s more to wrestling than meets the tombstone piledriver. Pro wrestling is like a Rosetta Stone for our politics; It brought usone President, and arecent pollsuggests it might give us another. On this episode, we jump from the top rope into the wild, layered, complex world of pro wrestling and the folks who love it. This is part of the week’s theme of “ideas in strange places”. Darts and Letters is doing a different theme each week until we launch the new season on September 18. First (@10:46),Steve and Larsonare the hosts ofGoing in Raw: A Pro Wrestling Podcast. They break down the history of Vince McMahon as a boss, character, and more — including what happens when the lines between the two become blurred inside and outside of the ring. PLUS: the full unedited interview isavailable on our Patreon. Subscribe today. Next (@37:15),Brian Jansenis a lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Maine who writes on professional wrestling and labour. Wrestlers are workers, and as workers, face challenges shared by other workers — and some unique to their profession. And their fans, it turns out, are more progressive than you might think. Then (@53:06),the Spider Baby, Terrance Griep, is the world’s first openly gay wrestler. He wrestles in the Midwest Independent Wrestling Scene. He takes us into the world of wrestling, the building and presentation of a character, the immersive theatricality that is part of the experience for both wrestlers and their fans, and the “civil war” between the profession’s old and new guard. Finally (@1:09:30),Heather Leviis an anthropologist at Temple University who wrote her dissertation on lucha libre in Mexico. She even trained in lucha libre. She explores the fascinating world of a sport that is closely bound up with the country in which it thrives and finds a way of making meaning that brings together writers, wrestlers, and the public. —————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————- You can support the show for free by following or subscribing onSpotify,Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button. If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us onpatreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too. —————————-CONTACT US————————- To stay up to date, follow us onTwitterandFacebook. If you’d like to write to us, emaildarts@citedmedia.caor tweetGordondirectly. —————————-CREDITS—————————- Darts and Letters is hosted and edited byGordon Katic. Our lead producer isJay Cockburn, This episode’s assistant producer isPolly Leger, and our managing producer isMarc Apollonio. The research coordinator wasDavid Moscrop. Our theme song was created byMike Barber. Our graphic design was created byDakota Koop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Hi! This is Darts and Letters. We’ve just become a part of New Books Network, so we want to introduce ourselves. Fundamentally, This is a show about the politics of ideas. Another way to say that would be “intellectuals”, but we don’t really gel with this classic idea of intellectuals being white guys at Harvard. We’re more populist than that, and we have a whole segment in this episode about what we really mean by populism. This is our first episode, and we made it in 2020 in the run up to Biden’s election. We’ve had 60 episodes since then and our production is tighter and we have a much clearer idea of who we are as a show, but we wanted to start by playing you this because I think we have stayed pretty true to our original goal of democratising ideas, and looking for them in unusual places. We’re taking a bit of a production break right now for summer, so until September we’re going to catch you up with our favourite episodes from the catalogue, then on September 18th we...
Daniel Wirls, Professor of Politics at the University of California-Santa Cruz, has a new book that continues his research stream on the United States’ Senate. Wirls’ previous book on the Senate,The Invention of the United States Senate(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), written with his brother, Stephen Wirls, explains the historical basis for the Senate, especially in context of the broader American constitutional system as established in 1787. This new book,The Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlock(U Virginia Press, 2021), interrogates the general understanding of the U.S. Senate within the constitutional system and the way that we have come to consider the role of the Senate. Wirls explains what he has dubbed “Senate exceptionalism” which is connected to the more expansive notion of American exceptionalism—this is the notion that the U.S. Senate was a unique and special creation within the constitutional system, and that it reflects the greatest ideals of democratic governance. Wirls’ analysis might suggest otherwise, since the book explores the structure of the Senate and how it actually undermines the democratic conception of “one person=one vote.” The idea of the Senate, and its role in preventing the tyranny of the majority—one of the goals ascribed to the new system established in 1787—is more problematic than the violation of democratic norms. One of the fascinating threads woven throughThe Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlockis theconceptof the Senate and how this concept has become embedded in our understanding of the role of this half of the U.S. Congress. Wirls’ argument with regard to Senate exceptionalism is connected to the narrative about the Senate itself, as the “world’s greatest deliberative body” when it sits in a murky position between the states and the people within the federal system. Senators understand, some of the time, that they represent the people of their respective states, but in so doing, they represent those voters in a dramatic violation of the notion of equal representation, since the states themselves have vastly different population totals and demographics, whereas each state has the same number of U.S. senators. Senators also see themselves, at times, as representing the states as distinct entities. Senators selectively determine if they want to represent the people or the state in different instances. The peculiarity of the filibuster only contributes to the heroic narrative about the Senate, since the filibuster was a creation of the Senate itself (it is not in theConstitution), and the changes in the filibuster and the evolution of those reforms have only made the inequality of representation in the Senate more acute. In a sense, the filibuster or the threat of a filibuster has essentially given a few members of the U.S. Senate a very powerful veto over legislation and reform. Lilly J. Gorenis a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book,Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics(University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor ofMad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America(Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to@gorenlj. Please use the code 10WIRLS if purchasing the book from the University of Virginia Press for 30% any format of the book until 30 September 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
As the US becomes a second-place nation, can it shed the superpower nostalgia that still haunts the UK? The debate over the US's fading hegemony has raged and sputtered for 50 years, glutting the market with prophecies about American decline. Media experts ask how fast we will fall and how much we will lose, but generally ignore the fundamental question: What does decline mean? What is the significance, in experiential and everyday terms, in feelings and fantasies, of living in a country past its prime? Drawing on the example of post-WWII Britain and looking ahead at 2020s America, Jed Esty suggests that becoming a second-place nation is neither disastrous, as alarmists claim, nor avoidable, as optimists insist. Contemporary declinism often masks white nostalgia and perpetuates a conservative longing for Cold War certainty. But the narcissistic lure of "lost greatness" appeals across the political spectrum. As Esty argues, it resonates so widely in mainstream media because Americans have lost access to a language of national purpose beyond global supremacy. It is time to shelve the shopworn fables of endless US dominance, to face the multipolar world of the future, and to tell new American stories.The Future of Decline: Anglo-American Culture at Its Limits(Stanford Briefs, 2022)is a guide to finding them. Brittney Edmondsis an Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies at UW-Madison. I specialize in 20th and 21st century African American Literature and Culture with a special interest in Black Humor Studies. Read more about my work at brittneymichelleedmonds.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Why does gender matter in our troubled global times? InGender in an Era of Post-truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies(Bloomsbury, 2022), the editorsPenny Jane Burke,Rosalind Gill,Akane Kanai,andJulia Coffeyhave assembled a collection of interventions that seek to think through the relationship between the populism that seems to dominate many nation’s contemporary politics and the continuing need for feminist perspectives. The chapters range from feminist philosophical and theoretical reflections on the meaning of truth, through empirical work on digital feminism, to considerations on the role and purpose of education and the university. Across 11 chapters, with an agenda setting introduction, the book is essential reading for all in the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone seeking to understand the current post-truth populist crisis and how to intervene for change. Dave O'Brienis Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
It is a scary and disorienting time for art, as it is a scary and disorienting time in general. Aesthetic experience is both overshadowed by the spectacle of current events and pressed into new connection with them. The self-image of art as a social good is collapsing under the weight of capitalism’s dysfunction. Art in theAfter-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy(Haymarket Books, 2022), art critic Ben Davis makes sense of our extreme present as an emerging "after-culture"—a culture whose forms and functions are being radically reshaped by cataclysmic events. In the face of catastrophe, he holds out hope that reckoning with the new realities of art, technology, activism, and the media, can help us weather the super-storms of the future. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
The idea of a Green New Deal was launched into popular consciousness by US Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. It has become a watchword in the current era of global climate crisis. But what – and for whom – is the Green New Deal? In this concise and urgent book, Max Ajl provides an overview of the various mainstream Green New Deals. Critically engaging with their proponents, ideological underpinnings and limitations, he goes on to sketch out a radical alternative: a 'People's Green New Deal' committed to decommodification, working-class power, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology. Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. As the climate crisis deepens and the literature on the s...
Philanthropists are praise for their generosity but does their desire to keep control of what happens to their donations mean they exercise power in ways that clash with democratic principles? Approval of philanthropists’ good intentions can mask some important moral considerations about what philanthropy means for the donor and the recipient. Generosity, influence, reputation and paternalism: democracy and philanthropy with Owen Bennett Jones and Emma Saunders Hastings. Hasting is author ofPrivate Virtues, Public Vices: Philanthropy and Democratic Equality(U Chicago Press, 2022). Owen Bennett-Jonesis a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Gathering together Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work from over three decades,Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation(Verso, 2022) presents her singular contribution to the politics of abolition as theorist, researcher, and organizer, offering scholars and activists ways of seeing and doing to help navigate our turbulent present. Edited and introduced byBrenna BhandarandAlberto Toscano,Abolition Geographymoves us away from explanations of mass incarceration and racist violence focused on uninterrupted histories of prejudice or the dull compulsion of neoliberal economics. Instead, Gilmore offers a geographical grasp of how contemporary racial capitalism operates through an “anti-state state” that answers crises with the organized abandonment of people and environments deemed surplus to requirement. Gilmore escapes one-dimensional conceptions of what liberation demands, who demands liberation, or what indeed is to be abolished. Drawing on the lessons of grassroots organizing and inte...