art/literature

Trigger warning for those sensitive to war, suicide, domestic violence, or people suffering from war-related ptsd.

Generations of U.S. children have played with the iconic little green army men.  Along with other war toys, they contribute to the socialization of some young boys into the idea that war is an exciting and heroic adventure.

(source)

An artist at the Dorothy Collective decided to reconfigure the little green army men so that they would tell the less glamorous stories.  Inspired by an article about the suffering of a Colorado Springs-based battalion, she created these little green army men:

They’re a heart-wrenching commentary about the grown up realities of war and the socialization of children into the fantasy.  Thanks to Hope H. for the tip.

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.

History and women’s studies professor Keri Manning, along with Aydrea at The Oreo Experience, Sully R., and Dmitriy T.M., sent a link to a series of illustrations of pin-up girls (from the ’50s, I’m estimating) alongside the original photograph on which they were modeled (Buzzfeed).  Today we bemoan photoshopping, and here we have pre-photoshop examples of the kind of free-reign that artists had in idealizing their subject.  Dr. Manning notes, for example, that overall:

Bellies become flatter. Breasts become perkier.  Cleavage appears that wasn’t there before.  Waistlines shrink; the difference between the bustline and waistline gets more pronounced.  Hair gets longer.  Hair goes from brunette to blonde.  Inner thighs emerge from the shadows.  Cheeks become flushed, lips are quite red.

An interesting look at a photoshop forerunner. See the images at Buzzfeed and Pristina.

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.

Mark Twain, Plato, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Voltaire, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  For years, these names were thought necessary components of higher education.  Without understanding these authors and their “great books,” so the story went, our students would lack in critical thinking skills and intelligence.  Yet, in the wake of the 1960s and challenges to white male dominance, students and educators begin to demand a more well-rounded and inclusive canon.  University curriculums constituted almost entirely by dead, white, male, European writers, were slowly accompanied by a few token “others.”

In the 1980s and ‘90s, the debate over what constituted a proper and effective “canon” reached a fevered pitch.  The supposed decline of American knowledge and intelligence was blamed on the multiculturalism’s rise in the Ivory Tower.  For example, University of Chicago philosophy professor Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind (1987) vigorously argued for a return to the traditional canon.  In addressing this tension, sociologist Bethany Bryson wrote:

Two decades of heated battle would ensue between members of what would become known as the Cultural Left and the Cultural Right—academics and public intellectuals who engaged the debate in the national media.  Despite the appearance of an epic battle between opposing forces, however, the two “sides” shared an extraordinary premise: that every time an English teacher put together a reading list, the future of a nation hung in the balance.*

Years later, most agree that the “Cultural Left” won the canon wars.  It is generally assumed that today’s university curriculums and bookstores are repositories of diverse writers and viewpoints.

So, what does this cornucopia of diversity look like?   We don’t have to look far to answer the question.   A trip down the aisles of today’s college bookstores serve as off-hand metrics for what is “legitimate knowledge.”   Moreover, these bookstores decorate their store walls with uniform and corporate–approved book covers and authors’ likenesses.  By way of example, I headed over to the bookstore at Mississippi State University.

Throughout this bookstore, 3’ x 5’ posters of notable books are displayed above the shelves and sitting areas.  In total, thirty-three different book covers grace the walls, however, John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold is displayed twice to bring the total to thirty-four.  Nine of these thirty-four (26%) titles were produced by nonwhite, female, and/or gay/lesbian writers: Rosario Castellanos’ The Book of Lamentations, Pablo Neruda’s Fully Empowered, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain, Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

In addition to the posters, on a wrap-around,mural above the café, 23 authors sit in a restaurant, smoking, drinking, eating, and enjoying one another’s conversation and company.  As shown below, the authors displayed are: Shelley, Whitman, Melville, Trollope [spelled as “Troilope” here], Kipling, [George] Eliot, James, Wilde, Twain, Shaw, Hardy, Dickenson, Orwell, Nabakov, Joyce, Parker, Faulkner, Steinbeck, [T. S.] Eliot, Singer, Kafka, Neruda, and Hughes.

Out of the twenty-three authors displayed, four (17%) are women, two (9%) are people of color ( literally marginalized to the far right of the mural as it curls behind a support beam), and two (9%) are considered to have been gay.  Withstanding the overlap of Hughes in two categories (gay and nonwhite), we are left with only six out of twenty-three (26%) authors that do not conform to the white, male, straight demographic thought characteristic of traditional canon authors.

The twenty-six percent of book covers and paintings are the height of LGBT, female, and nonwhite author representation in this store.  While the shelves certainly carry more than nine books and six authors of this ilk, I’d wager that the total percentage does not come close to a quarter of their total inventory.  If these numbers and framing together epitomize the great victory of the Canon Wars by the Cultural Left, then it is certainly an unfinished battle.

* Bryson, Bethany. 2005.  Making Multiculturalism: Boundaries and Meaning in U.S. English Departments.  Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, p 2.

Matthew W. Hughey is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia (2009) and is currently an assistant professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University.  He is co-editor (with Dr. Gregory Parks) of The Obamas as a (Post) Racial America?, 12 Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today, and Black Greek-Letter Organizations, 2.0: New Directions in the Study of African American Fraternities and Sororities.  He is also author of the forthcoming White Bound: White Nationalists, White Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race.  Please feel free to visit his website or contact him at MHughey@soc.msstate.edu.

Cross-posted at Ms.

Growing up in America, we learn that sweets and junk food are “guilty pleasures.” Women, especially, are supposed to refrain from such indulgences.  And, if they cannot — if they, for example, desire more than that modest slice of cake served to each birthday guest — then they should feel not only guilt, but shame.  For overindulging is grotesque and it, accordingly, should be hidden and kept secret.

This is the cultural background to Lee Price‘s realist paintings of women (mostly her) eating sweets and junk food.  She draws two contrasts.  First, she makes very public something we are supposed to do only in private.  Not only do the paintings literally display the transgression, the birds eye view and frequent nudity exaggerates the sheer display of the indulgence.  And, second, she takes something that is supposedly disgusting and shameful and presents it in a medium associated with (high) art, challenging the association of indulgence with poor character and a lack of refinement.  Fascinating.

Visit Lee Price’s website.
Via BoingBoing.

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.

Cross-posted at Racialicious.

We owe many iconic images of American Indians to photographer Edward S. Curtis. Growing up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Curtis began photographing Indians in 1895 and, in 1906, was offered $75,000 by JP Morgan to continue documenting their lives (wikipedia).  The 1,500 resulting photographs inevitably impacted the image of Indians in the American imagination.

Later it came to light that Curtis’ photographs weren’t exactly pure representations.  In some photographs, for example, he erased signs of modernity.   The first photograph below, the un-edited version, includes a clock between the two men, whereas the edited version does not.

Curtis also sometimes staged scenes and dressed paid participants in costumes, as in this photograph:

According to Wikipedia contributors:

In Curtis’ picture, Oglala War-Party, the image shows 10 Oglala men wearing feather headdresses, on horseback riding down hill. The photo caption reads, “a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy’s camp.”  In truth headdresses would have only been worn during special occasions and, in some tribes, only by the chief of the tribe.  The photograph was taken in 1907 when natives had been relegated onto reservations and warring between tribes had ended. Curtis paid natives to pose as warriors at a time when they lived with little dignity, rights, and freedoms.

Curtis’ photographs, then, pushed his subjects back into a false past that non-Indian Americans would misrecognize as authentic for a hundred years.

The problem of misrepresentation of groups who have little power to control their own images is a widespread one.  Shelby Lee Adams’ work was mired in controversy, with critics suggesting that he contributed to the belief that Appalachians were backward, imbred, and unintelligent.   We might apply the same critical eye to representations of marginalized peoples today, like the representation of Arabs in video games and Italian-Americans on Jersey Shore and spin-offs.

Thanks to Dolores R. and Adrienne at Native Appropriations for the post idea.

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.

In this four-minute video, Dwayne McDuffie describes what it’s like being a Black comic book writer:

Related, see Hennessey Youngman on being a black artist.

Via Racialicious.

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.

The blog-o-sphere is abuzz with praise for Vivian Maier’s mid-century photographs of public New York and Chicago life.   The photos were taken by a live-in nanny working for wealthy families in Chicago’s north shore.  Her photos, over 100,000 of them, were discovered after her death two years ago.  To my untrained eye, they are gorgeous, interesting, and well-composed.  A fascinating look at another time.  More sociologically, they gracefully depict differences in socioeconomic class. I wonder if Maier, working-class herself, had a special sensitivity to these divides. In any case, I appreciate the texture that the photographs add to an understanding of how people of different classes lived.

Visit the website devoted to Maier here.  Photos borrowed from there and Chicago Magazine.  Via Crooked Timber.

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.

In an earlier post, I discussed growing trends of body modification as illustrative of the new cyborg body. Although it is debatable whether these trends are in fact “new,” (after all, various indigenous cultures have been practicing body modification long before European colonists began taking note of it in their travel diaries), I would like to continue this conversation by looking at one subculture of body modification: tattooing.

As an avid “tattoo collector” myself, I have spent the past few years attending tattoo conventions, hanging out with tattooers, and getting heavily tattooed, all while working on my research regarding the popularization of tattooing. What I notice are changing norms regarding appropriate use of the body as canvas. I would like to draw your attention to one particular trend that is growing in the tattoo subculture: facial tattoos.

What was once the purview only of convicted felons has become an increasingly normative way of expressing one’s commitment to the subculture. (For a case in point, simply Google “facial tattoos” and see what pops up.) What I notice from my interviews and discussions with tattooers and clients alike is a sharp disparity between those who see the face as a legitimate space for artistic display and those who see the face as “off limits.” Traditionally, tattooers were wary of getting tattooed on “public skin” (e.g., face, hands, and neck), as employment in the industry was unpredictable and one never knew if she would need to find another job amongst the masses. Having tattoos on public skin was almost certain to prevent employment. But things may be changing.

As the tattoo industry has become somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon, and many consumers have become visibly tattooed (full sleeves, bodysuits, and the like), tattooers have begun to see the face as a legitimate space for getting tattooed. Many of the artists I have spoken with now have prominent facial tattoos, and the ones that don’t often plan on getting them (usually something small beside one or both eyes). For many, it is now the only way to differentiate themselves from tattoo collectors or other body modification enthusiasts who now sport full body suits, stretched earlobes, and other prominent modifications. Where having full sleeves once denoted one’s status as a tattoo artist – a professional in a tightly-knit and guarded community of craftsmen – now facial tattoos serve to display one’s commitment to the profession, lifestyle, and artform.  As such, facial tattoos have become a new form of (sub-)cultural capital, where those who were on the “inside” of the subculture now find themselves defending their turf from a onslaught of newcomers wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

However, even among tattooers, there is a resistance to this growing trend. Many of the traditional tattooers (those who were trained long ago or received a formal apprenticeship) that I have spent time with spoke strongly against facial tattoos. In fact, most traditional tattooers refuse to tattoo clients on public skin entirely. It is simply not a part of their habitus (to borrow Bourdeiu’s terminology). This was certainly the case for the likes of Bert Grimm, Charlie Barrs, or Amund Dietzel, traditional tattooers from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, as well as many other artists who were trained prior to the Tattoo Renaissance of the 70s. For the young man who walks into the tattoo shop and asks for his lover’s name emblazoned across his neck, he now has to find a “friend” in the industry who is willing to do it. Either that or he must risk receiving a poorly-rendered tattoo from a “scratcher” (someone untrained and unaffiliated with a tattoo shop, who purchased their equipment online) who will agree to do the piece at a dramatically reduced rate at a tattoo party or out of somebody’s basement.

In conclusion, as tattooing has become more popular, tattooers and those whose lives revolve around the art of tattooing must create new forms of distinction to differentiate themselves from the masses. This goes back to Bourdieu’s notion of the social field, and how forms of distinction change after the entrance of new social actors with much different forms of capital and very different habituses. Although many a Nu-Skool tattooer (those who recently joined the tattooing profession, often with art school training) sees no problem tattooing their face, hands and neck, many traditional tattooers still see it as a questionable practice and refuse to do it themselves. However, with pressure resulting from the increasing popularity of tattooing and the increasing numbers of individuals with their faces prominently tattooed, we may see an increase in traditional tattooers who choose to tattoo their face.

David Paul Strohecker is getting his PhD in Sociology at the University of Maryland. He studies cultural sociology, theory, and intersectionality. He is currently working on a larger project about the cultural history of the zombie in film.  This post originally appeared at Cyberology.

For more on Bourdieu, see our posts on The Evangelical Habitus, Dumb vs. Smart Books, and The Hipster and the Authenticity of Taste.