art/literature

Larry of The Daily Mirror sent in an article that ran in the Los Angeles Times on January 26, 1920. Here are some screencaps of the most interesting sections:

Not surprisingly, civilization means only one thing: assimilation into Anglo culture. The other option? Extinction. How do we know a tribe isn’t civilized? They still live like their “forefathers” did. It’s a theme we see a lot in terms of Native Americans: in order to be authentic (which in this case means “uncivilized”), they must not change any cultural practices. There is an expectation that “real” Indians are culturally frozen in time, as though their cultural practices and lifestyles had not changed throughout history just like every other group’s has.

And also, I’m pretty sure lots of groups have combined elements of two or more religions “without any difficulty or embarrassment,” but whatever. I’m sure they were, indeed, of immense interest to artists, scientists, and writers (also, physiognomists). And since they are of interest to them, that should definitely be taken into account when we decide what to do with them. Taos still loves Indian art.

Still, Native American cultural customs are acceptable only to the degree they are compatible with assimilation. And learning to read and write, use a stove or a sewing machine, mean giving up “the Indian life.” Again, modernity cannot be combined with existing cultural practices.

It’s a great example of how Whites felt entirely comfortable discussing what the future of American Indians should be, either romanticizing them as noble savages or insisting on their cultural backwardness, without any sense that Indians themselves might have any ideas on the issue worth paying attention to.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

If you’re designing a cover for a book by a Chinese or Japanese writer, or with a Chinese or Japanese setting, it seems that there are some compulsory elements which must be included. For variety’s sake, there are four elements, but you MUST use at least one of them. Advanced designers, of course, may use two or more.

Element 1: Blossoms (preferably cherry, but anything red or pink will do)

Element 2: Fans (preferably held so as to partly obscure a woman’s face (or genitals), and if you can get blossoms on the fan, you get bonus points)

Element 3: Dragons (for use only on crime novels, or other exciting tales)

Element 4: Female Necks (preferably that of a geisha, but any female neck will do in a pinch)

For more on this trend, see this article from Hyphen Magazine, which features a brief interview with ace designer Henry Sene Yee. It was that article which also drew my attention to two covers featured above, those for On a Bed of Rice and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms.

(To be fair, I ought to note that several of these covers are actually very nice–it’s just that they lose rather a lot of their impact because of the familiarity of the elements used.)

James Morrison (jrsmorrison@yahoo.com.au) is a writer, editor and graphic designer who lives in Adelaide, Australia. He writes about book covers and book design at causticcovercritic.blogspot.com, and used to write about novellas at Book Slut.  He blogs at Caustic Cover Critic. Thanks to Lisabee for the hat tip.

I’ve got a special treat for you today: an interview with artist Nathan Meltz about his pieces on industrial food production. Nathan has shown his art in group shows around the country.  He received a Master’s degree in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently a graduate student at SUNY-Albany, where he will be graduating this spring with his MFA.  He lives in upstate New York with his wife, Abby Kinchy, and their infant son Aldo. His artistic and musical exploits can be followed at The House of Tomorrow.

I went to grad school with Abby, so that’s how I knew about Nathan’s work. As a sociologist who specialized in food issues and rural communities, I immediately loved these pieces and thought many of our readers would too, so I convinced Nathan to let me post an interview and some of my favorites. (And be forgiving of my amateurish interview questions. I am not a Creative Type, and my general reaction to art I like is “You made a pretty!”)

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Animal Farm

What drew you to the issue of food?

I have to give a lot of credit to Abby, who is a sociologist at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has done a lot of research on controversies surrounding genetically-modified corn and canola. [She’s currently working on a book about conflicts over genetically modified crops in Canada and Mexico.–Gwen].  A lot of the themes in my art developed from kitchen-table discussions we had while in grad school in Madison.  What was technology doing to agriculture? And then, from my end, what would it look like?

How did you come up with the idea of representing food products as machines?

I wanted a visual metaphor that would reveal tech taking over plants and animals.  Unfortunately, our most current tech can be hard to visualize.  A series of ones and zeros?  Some sort of digital technology?  I decided to combine elements of Dada collage with early modernist German machine aesthetic [Oh, yes, the early modernist German machine aesthetic! Of course!–Gwen]  to create my own visual vocabulary. One that, while not exactly 21^st century, would act as a symbol of science and technology for the viewer/audience.

What does your Animal Farm series convey about our modern food system?

Waiting for My Mechanical Bull

Enviropig

In my machine world, animals are put on assembly lines, cramped together in feed lots, and, in the case of the chickens in The Chicken Coup animation, reside in an agricultural system designed by sadists.  They all look the same because there is no diversity on the factory farm.

The Chicken Coup, pt. 1

The Chicken Coup, pt. 2

Many people have at least some knowledge of slaughterhouses and the treatment of animals, so the Animal Farm series is probably fairly accessible. But O Canola! is, I think, more complex and harder to understand if you’ve never thought much about bioengineering before, or why the song “O Canada” would be particularly meaningful in the context of discussing canola and bioengineering.

O Canola!

O Canola! was a project long in the making, very much piggybacking on the research Abby was doing at the time. I try to tell the story of Canada’s GMO [genetically modified organism] canola contamination* in a visual form. The clever riffing on the Canadian National Anthem (which Abby thought of) is meant to reflect the nationalist tensions inherent in the controversy, where a hybrid plant created by the Canadian government during WWII to produce a mechanical lubricant at the local level would years later be threatened by GMOs produced by agribusiness.

What about Food for Fuel?

Food for Fuel

Food for Fuel came after news reports kept coming in about food shortages around the world, particularly in Mexico, because so much edible food was being turned into fuel for vehicles.  The message on this one is pretty straightforward.

Food for Fuel, along with Animal Farm, definitely reflects my interest in Agitprop.  At the time I made these, I was sharing a studio with printmaker/activist Josh MacPhee, a member of the Just Seeds print collective, which promotes socially activist printmaking.  A lot of the work he was doing really influenced me, and I think these two prints reflect my desire to have a clear social message.

How have people reacted to the series? Do you get a sense that people react more forcefully, or emotionally, to the ones about animals than the ones about crops?

Reaction has been positive, or at least the reaction I hear about.  A lot of the prints have traveled around in various shows.  I think the animation The Chicken Coup has maybe received a little more attention than the prints among the art audience.  Static prints on paper have a hard time competing with moving images with sound, music, etc.  And I don’t think people care any less about the crop-based works than the animal ones.  I find people who are really into food/agriculture issues care just as forcefully about what is happening to corn as they do cows.

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* GMO contamination occurs when genetically modified seeds migrate to fields that were not intentionally planted with them, an increasingly common occurrence. Aside from the problems this can cause farmers who want to sell their products as specifically not GMO, and concerns about the ecological effects that could occur if modified genes spread into other varieties (or even related wild species), it also puts farmers at legal risk. GMO crops such as marketed under the Roundup Ready label and engineered to be immune to the effects of Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup, are patented. Farmers are not allowed to plant them without buying a license (including saving seeds from their own crop to plant the following year, a traditional practice of many farmers to eliminate the cost of buying seeds each year; so-called “terminator” varieties are even engineered to produce only sterile seeds, thus ensuring farmers must buy fertile seeds from the manufacturer annually). Monsanto has sued farmers for patent infringement in cases where a field was contaminated with Monsanto’s GMO seeds when they blew in from a neighboring field. Conversely, a group of Canadian organic farmers sued Monsanto on the grounds that genetic contamination had made it impossible for them to sell their products as organic.

If you’re interested in the topic, you might try to get a copy of Abby’s new article, “Anti-Genetic Engineering Activism and Scientized Politics in the Case of ‘Contaminated’ Mexican Maize,” Agriculture and Human Values.

Binyavanga Wainaina does an excellent job, in this 3-minute video, describing ways that “Africa” tends to be written about in the West. See how many of the tropes you recognize:

To paraphrase Jose, at Thick Culture, it’s important to be engaged with the world, but our engagement shouldn’t be entirely on our terms. And, especially, not terms in which the Western world gets to construct itself as the savior of the less fortunate (e.g., Avatar).

Such ideas make it seem as if underdeveloped parts of the world are somehow inherently deficient (culturally or otherwise). When, in fact, insofar as underdeveloped parts of Africa or other continents need saving, it is partly (largely?) because of (1) a history of colonialism that stole their resources and disrupted their societies and (2) the current global economic system that continues to put them at a devastating disadvantage.

See also: The Single Story of “Africa”

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Hermes sent in a link to a feature in The Morning News titled “Men at Their Most Masculine,” in which men were asked about what made them feel masculine and photographed in situations that reflect their masculine identities. Some quotes from men included in the project:

“I feel masculine when I am home, I can take care of myself. I often feel emasculated when I leave my apartment though, with everyone asking me if I need help. I don’t need any help.”

“To be masculine is to dominate in one’s field of study.”

“I want to show that, despite stereotypes, gay men can be masculine too.”

“I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

“I am strong emotionally, have always stood up for myself, and fear nothing. I happen to be physically strong but that isn’t where I derive my masculinity.”

“I am masculine because I abandon women after taking their love. Because when you study Freud, you don’t let him study you. Because I study philosophy, not literature.”

Visit at photographer Chad States’s website. He apparently found all of the featured men via craigslist.

The photos and quotes illustrate some interesting contradictions in definitions of masculinity. Several of the men define masculinity in fairly traditional terms, using words like “dominate” or expressing masculinity as the ability to use women and then leave them. There is also an emphasis on being independent and not needing help from anyone else.

In other cases, the men redefine masculinity to at least some extent, such as the gay man who reclaims masculinity for gays, the guy who focuses on being emotionally strong, and the man shown posed in a way we’re more used to seeing with women.

It’s an interesting look at some of the ways men define masculinity at a time when we expect men to be more emotionally available and involved in family life (as opposed to the 1950s emotionally closed-off model) but provide mixed signals by also still judging men harshly if they seem too emotional or don’t meet ideals of what “real” men should be like.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Adeste S. sent in this performance by two women about the difficulties and frustrations of being transgendered:

Performed at Brave New Voices.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): Ryan sent in this video of Sass Rogando Sasot speaking to the United Nations about transgender rights. From an article at Coilhouse:

Her speech, titled “Reclaiming the Lucidity of Our Hearts”, addresses the need for vastly improved acceptance, support and protection of transgender citizens worldwide.

Her entire presentation is very moving, but about 8 minutes into this clip, something shifts in Sasot’s voice and delivery. What began as an engaging speech swiftly transforms into something far more urgent, immediate, and beautiful.

Elizabeth U. sent in a link to an interactive database that shows requests to have books removed from public and school libraries between 2007 and 2009. Here’s a screenshot showing all requests; at the website you can hover over each point and see what the book was, the basis of the challenge, and in many cases the result:

I looked through quite a few of them. The most common reasons for challenges that I noticed are language and claims that the books are “pornographic.” Several cases seem to target books about sexual health. And Rudolfo Anaya’s book Bless Me, Ultima was challenged in at least two places for being “anti-Catholic.” I remember reading it as a teen and don’t remember that at all, but then, I had only the vaguest notion of Catholicism at the time, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

The most disturbing account I found:

 Tuscola, Texas (2007) Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God was removed from the Jim Ned High School’s library’s order list after complaints from the parents of a student who also filed complaints against a teacher with the local sheriff, claiming that the book’s content was ‘harmful to minors’ under state law. The parents objected to violence, sexual themes and profanity in the book. After meeting with the teacher, the parents were unsatisfied and registered an official complaint with the sheriff’s office, leading to the teacher being placed on paid, administrative leave. NCAC, ABFFE and the NCTE sent a letter to the superintendent and school board opposing the ban and the community’s actions.

Filing a formal criminal complaint with the sheriff, leading to a teacher being put on administrative leave? I find that terrifying.

And sorry for my absence the last few days! I’m moving and the internet got cut off at my old place earlier than I asked, so I had no internet all weekend. Also, I leased a horse! My life is now complete, but it is interfering with all other activities since I spend every possible moment exploring the nearby desert on him.

I am in Munich for the month and last week I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. I was struck by the difference between the tour I took here and the tour I took of the Lara Plantation just outside of New Orleans in May. Visiting Dachau put the two modes of remembrance into stark contrast. Without trying to argue that the holocaust and U.S. slavery are the same in every way, I would like to suggest that both are tragic histories that included unimaginable human suffering. Yet, the tours were very different.

I’ll start with Dachau.

The first thing that our tour guide did was impress upon us, in no uncertain terms, that Hitler was a terrible man, that the things that happened under his rule were indescribably inhumane, and that the concentration camps were death camps, pure and simple, with or without a gas chamber. In case his words were not clear enough, we took in a 22-minute video featuring photographs and narratives, all camp specific. No details, no horror, no gore was spared.

The entry gates lead to the main square in the camp where prisoners were required to congregate each morning and evening. What dominates the square today isn’t the guard towers, though they are present and meticulously reconstructed, it is the memorial by Yugoslav sculptor Glid Nandor. I had seen this sculpture in pictures before and have always found it to be one of the most impactful pieces of art I have ever seen.

The artist, who had been a prisoner in one of Hitler’s concentration camps himself, meant for the sculpture to commemorate the prisoners who had committed suicide by throwing themselves against the electrified gates of the camp. I appreciate that the sculptor makes no attempt to ease our acknowledgment of the horror and hopelessness of life in the camps.

This main memorial sculpture was one of many. There were four memorial buildings, about six monuments, the museum, and a convent that had been located on the site. And memorials are still being added. The gift shop sold books and documentaries.

My impression was that the Germans took this deadly seriously and I was impressed by the way that the Germans are handling their national tragedy. They seem fully committed to owning this tragedy so as to never ever allow anything like it to happen anywhere again. Never did the guide try to sugarcoat the holocaust, minimize the tragedy, or put anything into a measured perspective.

All of this may seem unremarkable. We’ve all heard that Hitler and his concentration camps were bad before. Hitler is, no less, synonymous with evil. Accordingly, it may seem to you that it could not be otherwise; it may seem that this tour of the Dachau concentration camp was the only possible tour that could exist.

Let’s turn to the Lara Plantation tour. The main story in this tour was about the glamorous lives of Lara (the strong-willed female head of the plantation) and her family members. Plantation life was romanticized: strong women, dueling men, wine collections, expensive furniture, distinguished visitors, breeze basking and mint julep drinking, and an ever-expanding fortune.

The plantation was done up to look gorgeous:

I would guess that about 15-20 percent of the tour was spent on slave life. They showed us some documents listing the slave “inventory” at its peak, they talked about laws regarding slaves and how they differed from laws elsewhere in the U.S., they revealed that the Br’er Rabbit stories were originally collected from slaves there, they discussed the extent of the sugarcane fields, and they allowed us to walk through this reconstructed two-family cabin (mentioning that slaves were allowed to have gardens):

In contrast to the almost obscene documentation of the abuse and murder of concentration camp prisoners, this was the only image of a slave that I saw during the entire tour:

The image shows one slave and the two rows of slave cabins reaching back into the sugar cane from the year behind the main house. You can compare the reconstructed cabin with those in the image. It’s hard to say, but I’m not sure I see cute picket fences and gardens.

Here are some things that were not included in the tour: extended discussions of the health of slaves, their physical and emotional abuse, the breeding programs, rape, their punishing labor, the destruction of their families, the age at which slaves began to work, and all of the other indescribably inhumane things about human slavery.

The gift shop sold jam and honey, CDs, yummy smelling candles, candy bars, New Orleans hot sauces, dried alligator heads, little angels made out of picked cotton… and Lara’s memoirs.

The contrast with the Dachau tour was nothing short of stunning.

Could the Lara Plantation do a tour that mirrored that of Dachau? Absolutely.
Should they do that tour? Absolutely.

Plantations were many other things, but they were also the engine of slavery.  It is this that should stand out as the most important thing about them. Concentration camps were many other things as well (e.g., a military training site, a daily job site for German soldiers, a factory producing goods, and a strategic part of the war effort), but we have absorbed the important lessons from them so thoroughly that it is difficult to even imagine what an alternative tour might look like. In contrast, one can visit the Lara Plantation and come away not really thinking about slavery at all, in favor of how pretty the china was and oooh did you smell that candle as we walked by? Delicious. I need a coke, you?

A lot of Americans, when Germany is mentioned, express disbelief that a people could live with a history like the holocaust. But Americans do live with a history like the holocaust, we just like to pretend it never happened. While Germany is processing its participation in a human rights tragedy, the U.S. is denying its own; while Germany is confronting its own ugly history for the betterment of the world, we are busy preserving the myth of U.S. moral superiority.

The plantation pictures are mine and the Dachau pictures are borrowed from here and here.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.