Duke University Press Log

Chuck Brown, "Godfather of Go-Go," Dies

Washington, D.C. is mourning the death of Chuck Brown. The legendary guitarist and singer has come to stand for the city's homegrown musical genre go-go, a funky, percussive music characterized by call-and-response and known for its exciting live shows. In her new book Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City (out next month), Natalie Hopkinson uses the story of go-go music to tell the story of black D.C. from the charred ruins of the 1968 race riots to the gentrification of the 1990s and 2000s. Hopkinson shared an appreciation of Brown's legacy on The Root, writing, "Together with his D.C. fans, Chuck Brown lit the creative spark for the go-go industry -- what remains to this day a multimillion-dollar, almost entirely black-owned business, filled with musicians, promoters, graphic designers, security, bands, managers, recording studios, bootleggers, Web developers, fashion designers and radio personalities." She's also featured in this NPR remembrance. "He was royalty in this city," she says. "It's kind of inconceivable that he's gone because he was such an embodiment of the music that just went and went and went."

Academics and the Occupy Movement

It's May Day, also known as International Workers Day. May Day is a holiday in more than 80 countries and the occasion for marches and protests in many others. This year, May Day celebrations in the U.S. are also linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A large rally is planned in New York City's Union Square that hopes to harness some of the energy of that movement and link it to unions and immigrant solidarity groups. As Jennifer Scheussler of the New York Times reports, another group that will be out in force on May Day are academics, "notebook-wielding social scientists hoping to get a more precise understanding of the nebulously organized individuals marching under the banner 'We are the 99 percent.'" Scheussler interviews Jeffrey Juris, author of Networking Futures: The Movement against Corporate Globalization. Juris helped set up Occupy Reserach, an online clearinghouse for academics to share data and tools. Juris tells the Times that he worries that the Occupy movement is too focused on gathering large numbers of people in prominent locales. "It’s critical to broaden tactics,” he says. "But how do you do that when the movement is called Occupy?" Juris and other scholars will examine how academics can use ethnography to study movements like Occupy in a new book coming out in 2013: Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political. 

Another Duke Press author active in the Occupy movement is Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Mirzoeff writes daily in a blog called Occupy 2012, musing on history, aesthetics, and the movement's future, among many other topics. His Twitter feed (@nickmirzoeff) is also a lively place to follow the movement. Mirzoeff will be at the Union Square rally today. Happy May Day to workers and scholars around the world!

Guest Post by SAQ contributor, Priyamvada Gopal, on the British University System Crisis

A symptomatic trial is underway in London this month. Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student who had to have brain surgery to save his life after he received severe head injuries, most likely from a police baton, during 2010’s massive student protests in the capital, is the one facing charges of “violent disorder.” The investigation of the role of the police in the incident that led to Alfie’s head injury has yet to be completed. It is, however, widely known that the use of disproportionate force as well as legally questionable tactics such as “kettling” (cordoning off protesters for hours without access to food, water, or toilets) has become widespread in the British state’s response to perfectly legal protests and democratic assertions of collective displeasure. Police were also filmed pulling activist Jody McIntyre out of his wheelchair after he was “inadvertently” hit with a baton, an action later ruled “lawful,” given the “volatile and dangerous” situation. Some of Britain’s judiciary have also played a zealous role in what appears to be a concerted establishment attempt to discipline and punish young people: a Cambridge student, Charlie Gilmour, received a sixteen-month jail term for the crime of hanging off London’s war memorial, the Cenotaph, during the same demonstrations.

Meanwhile, even as they are experiencing a historic assault on their funding structures and raison d’être, universities—or, rather, university administrations, increasingly bastions of managerialist and corporatized bureaucracies disconnected from the majority academics and students—have cooperated in what can only be described as a crackdown on student protest and campus dissent more generally. Singling out individuals for punishment, handing out large fines, and even expelling students have become disturbingly routine. A few weeks ago, a PhD student from my own department at Cambridge was “rusticated,” or suspended from his studies, for a staggering two and a half years (effectively aimed at bringing an end to his career). His crime? Participating in a “people’s mic” in which more than fifty students and faculty chanted a denunciation of government higher education policy in the presence of the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, which effectively led to Willetts canceling his planned set-piece speech.

A key figure in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that now runs Britain without a clear mandate, Willetts, of course, has presided over a singularly effective demolition of the renowned British public university. As Howard Hotson pointed out some months ago in the London Review of Books, Britain had managed to develop a world-class system of publicly funded universities with a relatively small portion of its GDP, maintaining “top-ranked universities for only about a fifth of the US price.” Not only have tuition fees been tripled, ensuring the further exclusion of most working-class youth and adult learners (or mature students, as they are known here), but arts and humanities teaching budgets have been almost entirely demolished, with more cuts promised in the near future. As other commentators have observed, the near-overnight demolition is as much ideological as financial, devastating though the consequences of the latter have been in practical terms. What universities should teach and to what end was explicitly and instrumentally linked, in the now-notorious Browne report (2010) on higher education funding, to the needs of “business and industry,” with special protection accorded to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (although here, too, presumably, the emphasis would be less on pure research than industrial applications).

Although unhappiness has been voiced widely in the secure confines of common rooms, seminar halls, and journals, and despite the brave attempts of several small groups, academics have not, on the whole, mounted strong collective resistance to these profound transformations in how higher education is envisioned and delivered. The University and College Union (UCU) has attempted symbolic strike action and working to contract, but its leadership remains largely quiescent and ineffective, hampered in part by its links to the Labour Party, which, sitting in opposition, has yet to spearhead effective resistance to wide-ranging “austerity” measures and an openly pro-corporate agenda that has simultaneously decimated public services and reduced the tax burden on the wealthiest.

In the Against the Day section of the current issue of SAQ, five academics from a range of British universities—Nina Power from Roehampton University, a “post-1992” university now in the front line of decimation; Gurminder Bhambra and John Holmwood from Warwick and Nottingham Universities, respectively; and Simon Jarvis and myself from Cambridge—reflect on the origins and implications of the present crisis, one for which neither academic essays nor conference presentations will in themselves suffice as a response. The questions posed by the essays are urgent; the answers must be found collectively and imminently.

 

Read Gopal's article, "How Universities Die," for free here.

Veiled Constellations

Almost exactly a year after France’s controversial ban of the niquab, and weeks after the attacks committed by French-born Muslim, Mohammed Merah, Muslim women who wear veils in France are in the news again for the public scorn they are receiving, and are afraid they will continue to receive, as a backlash to the attacks. 

 A special section in the most recent issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, called “Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics and Contemporary Society,” dedicates attention to the complex and very public politics of the veil.  Contributors look at veiling and feminism in both Europe and the Middle East, through lenses of politics, art, literature, and philosophy.  Read the introduction to the section for free, here. 

Artist Thomas Kinkade Dies

Popular artist Thomas Kinkade, known as "the Painter of Light," died over the weekend. While many critics and curators have dismissed Kinkade as mere marketing kitsch, some art historians have argued that we need to take him seriously and consider his work as part of the broader history of American visual culture. In 2011, Alexis Boylan gathered a number of scholars together to explore Thomas Kinkade’s career, his artistic production, and its impact on contemporary art in the book Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall. Boylan told the Associated Press that Kinkade presented his art as value-driven and contrasted it with rap music and other forms of art that he was less fond of. "He saw his art as antagonistic towards other forms of artistic expression," she said. "He was very antagonistic towards modern and contemporary art." Boylan defended Kinkade's work to Pacific Standard magazine, arguing that he fits into an artistic tradition: "historically, a lot of art has been produced with the sole purpose of being beautiful and comforting, and giving people pleasure.” 

Eben Kirksey Calls on Obama to Do the Right Thing in West Papua

Guest post by Eben Kirksey, author of Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power.

Barack Obama meeting with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.

Today five indigenous leaders in West Papua, the half of New Guinea under Indonesian rule, were charged with “treason.”  Hours ago they were each sentenced to three years in prison for peacefully protesting the government.  Barack Obama raised the issue of human rights in West Papua last November when he met with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.  It is time for the President to once again raise his voice to support human rights in this seemingly remote territory.    

    

Obama’s interest West Papua stems, in part, from personal experiences growing up in Indonesia with his mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, a cultural anthropologist.  In his autobiography,Dreams from My Father, he recalls a conversation with his step-father, Lolo Soetoro, who had just returned home after a tour of duty with the Indonesian military in West Papua.  Obama asked his step-father: “Have you ever seen a man killed?” Lolo responded affirmatively, recounting the bloody death of “weak” men.  West Papuan intellectuals and political activists, kin of the “weak” men killed by Lolo Soetoro, have read Obama’s autobiography with keen interest.  Even as many Americans have lost hope in their President, many West Papuans still embrace the message from the 2008 campaign, “Yes We Can.”  

Taking inspiration from the people of Tunisia who rose up to depose President Ben Ali last year, and the populist spirit that spread out from Tunisia with the Arab Spring, West Papuans are harboring seemingly impossible dreams.  After 50 years of living under a brutal Indonesian military occupation, West Papuans are hoping to reach a peaceful political solution to this conflict.  

 

 

    Forkorus  Yaboisembut moments before he was arrested.

One West Papuan leader, Forkorus Yaboisembut, remains hopeful against all odds.  He was detained last October, moments after being elected President during the Papuan People’s Congress, and is among the men who were convicted today for “treason.” Thousands rallied behind him, demanding independence from Indonesia, at this event that was peaceful by all accounts. As the Congress was concluding, the delegates were surrounded by some 500 Indonesian police and military personnel with a cordon of armored cars.  Scores of my friends, people who I know from working as a cultural anthropologist in West Papua, were in the crowd.  I had a sleepless night as I monitored Facebook and text messages from the other side of the world, following the developments in real time.  Markus Haluk, the leader of a Papuan youth group, sent a text message saying “in these next few moments we might see a massacre and a bloodbath.”

Videos circulating on YouTube show Indonesian troops firing assault rifles into a crowd from armored personnel carriers, while others pistol whip and kick delegates.  Unarmed civilians desperately tried to clamber into their cars while uniformed police officers and plain clothes thugs beat them.   In 1998 I witnessed a massacre in West Papua that killed upwards of 150 civilians, so I feared the worst. 

When the dead were counted from the violent crackdown at the Papuan People’s Congress, I was relieved to learn that the carnage was minor by local standards.  Human Rights Watch concluded that three civilians were shot dead by Indonesian police on October 19th, 2011. Over 300 delegates to the Papuan People’s Congress were initially detained by Indonesian security forces.  On the heels of these arbitrary detentions, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced alarm. She said that the United States has “very directly raised our concerns about the violence and the abuse of human rights” in West Papua. 

Most of the delegates to the Papuan People’s Congress were quickly released, except for five leaders who were charged with inciting rebellion.  Forkorus Yaboisembut is among these five, along with Edison Waromi, the newly elected Prime Minister.  Today they joined upwards of 90 West Papuans in Indonesian jails who have been identified by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience. Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world.  The United States regards Indonesia as a “Strategic Partner” and has considerable influence in the country’s political, economic, and strategic affairs.

Clearly tales of Indonesia’s ongoing war in West Papua troubled Barack Obama as a young man.  Now, as an adult, he is in a position to support the “weak” power of non-violent resistance with a few carefully chosen words.  President Obama should join Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in calling for the unconditional release of West Papuan political prisoners.

This is cross-posted on Eben Kirksey's blog, where you can read more about his work and experiences in West Papua.

 

"A Separation" Wins First Ever Oscar for an Iranian Film

Last night's Academy Award ceremonies brought great news to Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose film A Separation won the award for best foreign film. It is the first time that honor has gone to an Iranian film.

Movie watchers wanting to know more about Iranian cinema and the Iranian cinema industry can look to books by Negar Mottahedeh and Hamid Naficy for context. Mottahedeh's 2008 book Displaced Allegories looks at the role of women and gender in Iranian film. On the news of Farhadi's Oscar, she says, " I think it's a marvelous win and well deserved. A Separation's brilliant engagement with domesticity and the unliveability of life for women under the Islamic Republic aside, the film is a rare rendition of contemporary class conflict in Iran."

Hamid Naficy is the author of the four-volume definitive history of Iranian film and the filmmaking industy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema. Volume 4, The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010, covers recent Iranian film, and will be out this fall.  Naficy places the Farhadi's win in context: "Sixteen years after the nomination of Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon, Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, was nominated for the best foreign language Oscar.  Unlike Panahi’s film, this film is not part of the neorealist inflected, child-centered art-house "festival films," that became a veritable genre, even a cliché. A Separation is an adult film about adult issues, a powerful, provocative, and emotionally wrenching work that explores in an unflinching way divorce, child custody, care of Alzheimer parents, class division, and deceit and lying in Iran's postrevolutionary society. It is an example of the new social issues movies that critically dig below the surfaces, below "the skin of the city" to quote the title of a Banietemad film, to uncover a social cauldron.  The film’s closed mise-en-scène and tight shot composition enhance the feeling of seething tensions."

Hopefully this well-deserved Oscar will bring Iranian film to even more cinema fans.

 

Reflections on the Madison Uprising

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the 2011 Wisconsin protests, which made national news when as many as 100,000 protestors (many of whom were public servants) rallied to oppose the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill. These protests are being hailed a year later as a predecessor to the Occupy movement, as well as being considered the future of the labor movement.

The Winter 2012 issue of SAQ’s “Against the Day” section reflects on these protests and asks questions about their implications for the future.  Read Stanley Aronowitz’s “Reflections on the Madison Uprising,” for free here. 

Resources on Pearl Harbor from DUP

Today is the 70^th Anniversary of the attacks on the US at Pearl Harbor.  While flags are being flown at half-mast and various commemorations are going on around the country, here are some resources about the event from our books and journals:

A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory by Emily S. Rosenberg

 “Cracks in the Consensus: Defending the Rights of Japanese Americans During World War II,” by Robert Shaffer.  From RHR 72 (1998).

 “Moving History: The Pearl Harbor Film(s),” by Geoffrey M. White, From positions 5:3 (1997).

“Remembering Pearl Harbor, Forgetting Charlie Chaplin, and the Case of the Disappearing Western Woman: A Picture Story,” by Miriam Sliverberg. From positions 1:1 (1993).

 Click on the article titles to read them for free. 

Ousted Prime Minister on Greek economy

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou resigns today as the economic crisis in Greece continues to agitate European and global markets. Last year in the Mediterranean Quarterly, Papandreou assessed strategies for recovery in the eurozone, including government bailouts like the assistance that his successor is now tasked with securing from the European Union:
“It is essential to remember that it was not the public sector but the private financial sector — enabled by neoliberal governments —that caused the subprime bubble and speculative boom. And it was the bailouts and stimulus packages provided by governments that prevented the financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression. So it is only fair that the financial sector should bear some of the costs of the crisis, which was largely of its own making.” 
¾ George Papandreou in “A New Global Financial Architecture: Lessons from the Greek Crisis”

 Read the article for free here.