Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Works in Fiber, Paper, and Proust,” 2005. Photo by Kevin Ryan. From The Weather in Proust (Duke University Press, 2012) by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and edited by Jonathan Goldberg.
David Palumbo-Liu (The Deliverance of Others) with Junot Diaz and José David Saldívar (Trans-Americanity) at Junot’s Kieve Lecture at Stanford.
“Unlike previous muralists who legally painted the Sunset walls, Cache and Eye One are able to actively call the laws regarding wall aesthetics into question with the support of a paradoxical alliance of local interest groups. This is an alliance of strange bedfellows—including existing residents, hipster gentrifiers, law enforcement, business owners, local governmental agencies, and graffiti writers—each member seeing in the murals something different, even disparate, to accept. As Pat Gomez’s statement suggests, the laws regarding “vandalism” have not changed, but the neighborhood has, along with what type of murals its residents and stakeholders see as suitable.” —from “The Illegal Face of Wall Space: Graffiti-Murals on the Sunset Boulevard Retaining Walls” by Stefano Bloch. Radical History Review (issue 113) Spring 2012
“[R]edefining the power relations implicit in engaged forms of anthropological practice is not an uncomplicated task. The balance of power in fieldwork practice can only be negotiated at the level of individual and interpersonal relationships. Such relationships are rewarding yet rarely straightforward encounters between individuals who may or may not share common ideals and interests. The individual dimension of this experience should not create an illusion of equality in anthropological practice; it does not erase the inequalities that characterize relationships between the societies anthropologists represent and those they work in.”
From: Emma Cervone, Long Live Atahualpa: Indigenous Politics, Justice, and Democracy in the Northern Andes (Duke University Press, 2012)
Damaged poster for Kamran Qadakchian’s movie Bandari (1973), showing a skirt painted, with magic marker or black ink, on the image of the female star to extend the miniskirt originally depicted. From A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978-1984 (Duke University Press, 2012).
Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia
Read the foreword by Mara Soetoro-Ng. President Barack Obama’s mother, S. Ann Dunham, was an economic anthropologist and rural development consultant who worked in several countries including Indonesia. Dunham received her doctorate in…
One wonders whether Othello ever looked at his penis.
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| — | Daniel Boyarin, “Othello’s Penis: Or, Islam in the Closet” from Shakesqueer, ed. Madhavi Menon (via thedandybutch) |
Tacit Subjects, Carlos Ulises Decena (M, 20s, blond hair, brown duck boots, white knit hat, leaned against pole, B train) http://bit.ly/ykxhAd
Brazilian Art under Dictatorship
“Fearful of authoritarianism and persecution by the military regime yet disillusioned with the dogmatic tone of the orthodox left, visual artists living and working in Brazil under the military dictatorship during the late 1960s and early 1970s forged new ways of producing and displaying their work. At the time, the country’s intellectual milieu was itself at a crossroads, entangled in debate over the role art should play in a society marked by social and political divisions. Prior to the military coup d’état, in 1964, the decade had started with artists favoring programs oriented toward national-popular themes—such as, the Centros Populares de Cultura, a project focused on fostering culture in slums, factories, and universities—and promoting a populist revolutionary art.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s a shift had taken place, with many artists and intellectuals now seeking a means of cultural production that was somehow ethically and politically significant but not necessarily nationalistic or ideologically oriented. They were criticized from all sides: the left accused them of being elitists lacking a social commitment to grass-roots cultural production, while the right labeled them rebels sowing the seeds of communism throughout the country. Suspicious of the predominant discourse on both the left and the right, this new group of young, rebellious artists turned to their bodies, their land, and their thoughts, both literally and metaphorically, to produce an innovative art that solidified and advanced Brazil’s position in the international artistic arena.
Moreover, as incidents of the censorship of visual art accumulated, innovation became a necessity, with artists developing more indirect modes of expression to circumvent censorship, often appropriating the strategies of urban guerrilla groups (which were being crushed by the military regime at the time) and performing quick actions or momentary interventions outside museums and art institutions. Far from paralyzing the creative production of the country, as many believed would happen, a period rife with suspicion and censorship stimulated newly anarchic practices, at times aggressive and at other times disguised in subtler modes of artistic intervention.”
From: Claudia Calirman, Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Culdo Meireles (Duke University Press, 2012)
