Digital Commons Network^™

Peace Has No Borders, Denis H. Mueller Ph.D., Deb Ellis

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Film Screening and Q/A with co-directors:

During the Iraq War, veterans from the United States crossed the border to Canada seeking refuge from serving in what they viewed as an unjust and immoral war. Peace Has No Borders follows three resisters and their supporters through a ten-year effort to remain in Canada.

Peace Has No Borders takes place within the backdrop of a previous migration to Canada. Between 1965-1973, over 50,000 Americans crossed the border seeking refuge from what is now widely recognized as a misguided war. Forty years later, Canada faces the same political dilemma – whether to give …

The Reflection Of Sub Continental Primitive Archetype Mother In The Films Of Ritwik Ghatak, Zuairijah Mou

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Ritwik Ghatak is one of the significant Indian filmmakers in the Indian subcontinent. The touch of the culture of Bengal is clearly evident in the films of Ritwik Ghatak. Before analyzing the role of the primitive mother archetype in the scenes or in the development of the characters in his films, it is necessary to understand the origin of the primitive mother archetype.

The primitive mother archetype or maternal form is the statements, figure, myth, pattern, form, use etc. which has been existing in any culture for a long time. For example, the form of 'Mother' in Bengal is worshiped …

Realness Over Reality: Analyzing Gender Binary Deconstruction In Rupaul’S Drag Race, Jonah Wilson

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

From its conception in 2009, RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) has grown incredibly in popularity, quality, and potential to serve as a mainstream way of change and acceptance for varying gender performances and identities. Particularly working within frames of commercialism, homonormativity, and queer commodification, RPDR loses a lot of its potential to serve as a radical, decentering challenge to the rest of mainstream television. In regards to rigid western ‘borders’ of gender and the gender binary, RPDR has done a considerable amount to deconstruct sociocultural boundaries that restrict individuals from presenting their gender identities and allowed a stage for transgender and …

A Magnificent Plot, Ryan Monk

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Ever since Akira Kurosawa directed Shinchinin No Samurai in 1954, American filmmakers have repeatedly reused its plot, most recently in Antoine Fuqua's Magnificent Seven (2016). This paper uses Karl Marx and bell hooks to analyze the original film, John Sturges' Magnificent Seven (1960), and the remake to see how each filmmaker used the same structure to discuss class, race, and nationality in their respective locations and times. This paper also discusses the cinematography used to support those themes. Kurosawa made his epic in postwar Japan when the nation became pacifist, and the film examines the death of a warrior class …

Emerging Feminist Voices On Media And Representation, Diana Depasquale, Cassie Tenorio, Alyssa Wells, Savannah Fulmer

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

The work featured in this panel is from students in WS2000, Introduction to Women's Studies. I created an assignment called "Choose Your Own Adventure." These projects include: an examination gender in film, and a revised version of the Bechdel Test, sexism and misogyny in gaming culture expressed through a series of comics, a painting on canvas using a variety of materials and techniques representing the control of women's reproductive rights and the damage done to female bodies by patriarchal language and rhetoric, and an analysis of womanism, scripture and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Each student engaged with issues related …

Postcolonial Disability In Mohesen Makhmalbaf’S Kandahar, Sukshma Vedere

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Kandahar (2001), an Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, details the journey of the protagonist, Nafas, to Kandahar to save her sister from committing suicide on the day of the solar eclipse. The film has gained recent attention by disability studies scholars for the representation of disability in Afghanistan; scholars have discussed the significance of prosthetics and international aid for the disabled in post-war zones of the Third World, but little has been said about disability as a postcolonial embodiment. I argue that Kandahar represents the postcolonial state as a disabled space both literally and metaphorically. It projects the veil …

The Perpetual Other: Native American Representation In Documentaries, Julia E. Largent

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

When an individual uses an Internet search engine to find images of Native Americans, the person will most likely find that most of the images are paintings of the Native American warrior or are older black and white portraits. After searching for other races, such as Asian American or African American, the search is more likely to come up with contemporary images of people playing sports, in school, or with their families. Why is there such a stark difference? Why are Native Americans so often thought about as only in the past? From the early days of books and portraits …