Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Imaginative Geographies: Visualising The Poetics Of History And Space, Clive Barstow

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This essay presents a visual dialogue about our relationship to place. I adopt Henri Lefebvre’s model of cumulative trialectics (1991) as a new thirdspace that more accurately represents the complexities of modern day geographies and hybrid communities by extending the binary analysis of the past and present and beyond the real and the imagined. Trialectics expand our understanding beyond physical geographies by suggesting a cerebral space that searches for new meaning and is therefore more radically open to additional otherness and toward a continuing expansion of [human] spatial knowledge and imagination.

Julia Lossau describes thirdspace as a space that ‘…tends …

Lazercism, Rubina Ramji

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of LaZercism (2018), dir. Shaka King.

Monsters And Men, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Monsters and Men (2018), directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.

Man On Fire, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Man on Fire (2018) directed by Joel Fendelman.

Long Vacation In Bk, Doll Chao

Theses and Dissertations

The diary of a transcontinental search for self and place, a journey through obtuse politics, cultural oppression, and loneliness - this film is the document of a lost generation of Taiwanese youth and its conflict with China, swirling in a transpacific gyre of sound, image, and text.

Better Than Before, Makia Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Better than Before is an experiential art installation that profiles the life of James Isreal, a Vietnam vet who shares a spiritual journey that is filled with self-discovery, introspection, and hope in the midst of war and abhorrent racism. His poignant retrospective follows his struggle to find peace in the midst of trauma and disease, providing life lessons that transcend the pangs of adversity and the unknown.

Yurumein - Homeland Study Guide, Andrea E. Leland, Lauren Poluha

Documentary Study Guides

The Garifuna and Carib communities of St Vincent in the Caribbean collaborated with the documentary filmmaker Andrea E. Leland to produce Yurumein – Homeland: The Caribs of St Vincent, an exploration of the historical and spiritual significance of St Vincent and Baliceaux to Garifuna and Carib communities.

This film guide speaks about the history, culture, music, and food of the peoples that were displaced from their home and, through activities addressing the film's content, informs readers about the movement to bring Garifuna/Kalinago culture back to St Vincent and reconnect Garinagu to their homeland.

Human Rights, Sharon Sliwinski

Data and Test Instruments

It is one of the most recognizable passages in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – that slightly oblique, and yet grave reference to the Nazi death camps: ‘Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind…’ These barbarous acts were front-page news in most of the Allied countries in the spring of 1945, at the very moment when the United Nations was founded at a conference in San Francisco. The newsstands were filled with photographs from the newly liberated Dachau and Buchenwald camps. Illustrated magazines such …

In-Terracial Conversation, Cheryl Dunye, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

“‘The Most Fabricated Exception’: Islam, Immigration And The White-Saviour Narrative In Laurent Cantet’S The Class.”, Elizabeth Toohey

Publications and Research

This article suggests that the acclaim director Laurent Cantet received for his 2008 award winning film “The Class” obscures the way this film reinforces the very undercurrents in French culture he sets out to critique. Rather than unearthing or mirroring the racial dynamics of twenty-first-century Paris, Cantet brings to the film a set of fascinations and anxieties latent in the French imagination about blackness, Islam and Arab culture. His preoccupations and preconceptions with race, religion and nationality appear first in the portrayal of Muslim immigrants as threatening; next, in his image of a ‘white saviour’ bent on rescuing racial minorities; …

Who Are The Stewards Of The Aids Archive?, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr

Publications and Research

How are returns to AIDS cultural production whitewashed, and how can we return, attending with care to the earlier video work of women and people of color. How can we practice decent stewardship of this vulerbale archive?

Breaking Chains Of Oppression: Popular Culture And The Plundering Of Blackness, Corina Sacajawea Ambrose

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis focuses on the ways in which white supremacy created mass incarceration, specifically mass incarceration of black individuals, and how this continues to perpetuate a racial caste system in the United States. First, I examine contemporary novelist Colson Whitehead‘s The Underground Railroad to provide a historical background of white supremacy and slavery. Then, I argue that pop culture is one area in which artists are focused on the abolition of the prison-industrial complex and ending mass incarceration. Finally, I focus on JAY-Z‘s music video “The Story of O.J.“ and Beyoncé‘s visual album Lemonade and her 2018 Coachella performance to …

The Dmz Responds, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Seo-Young Chu’s “The DMZ Responds” appeared in Telos 184 (Fall 2018), a special issue on Korea edited by Haerin Shin.

Stay Woke, Langston A. Williams

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the pages of my thesis, I comprehensively analyze the processes, intentions, and production of my thesis film Stay Woke. My examination will exhaustively probe every stage of the film from development to preproduction to production to postproduction and beyond. Individual aspects of this process including writing, casting, locations, production design, cinematography, directing, budgeting, scheduling, and postproduction workflows will be detailed. As I make elaborations in each section, I will explain my learning experiences from each day’s new tasks, challenges, and lessons. All of these things will be framed with regards to the overall goal and themes of the …

“It Is Non-Summit” And “It Is Abnormal” Unpacking Whiteness: Critiquing Racialized And Gendered Representations In Non-Summit (Bijeongsanghoedam)., Seonah Kim

Communication ETDs

In this thesis, I focus on a Korean entertainment show Non-Summit as a media text through which to investigate racialized and gendered representations of transnational identities in Korean media. Specifically, I examine discursive strategies through which foreign male characters are racialized and gendered in order to interrogate the hegemonic masculinity of White, Western, and heterosexual identities. On the basis of a critical textual analysis of Non-Summit, I discuss Non-Summit reproduces and distributes representations of White, Western, and heterosexual masculinity as dominant foreign identities. Furthermore, I examine the ideological implications of such discourse on the hegemonic foreign identities given the …

Mask On: How Fashion Erased The Politics Of Streetwear In 2017, Frances Sola-Santiago

Capstones

This year, fashion embraced streetwear in the highest echelons of luxury. From a Louis Vuitton and Supreme collaboration to Gucci’s support of Harlem designer Dapper Dan’s store reopening, streetwear was catapulted into the fashion zeitgeist— hoodies, do-rags, sneakers, and chains included. But fashion’s history of temporary blackness questions the industry’s ability to deal with the politics of criminalization, discrimination, appropriation, and inequality that come with this trend.

In an era when white supremacy lives within the mainstream conversation and African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately targeted by police and criminal justice, it’s clear that what we wear and the culture …

Transnational Uses Of Mafia Imagery In Zadie Smith’S White Teeth, Andrea Ciribuco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Transnational Uses of Mafia Imagery in Zadie Smith's White Teeth" Andrea Ciribuco discusses the literary representation of multiculturalism in Zadie Smith's first novel, White Teeth (2000). The novel focuses on multicultural encounters in Great Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. This article focuses on one site for these encounters: the character of Millat Iqbal, who joins a gang of teenagers and subsequently a radical Islamic group in his problematic search for identity and belonging. This search is characterized by Millat's tendency to define himself by reference to well-known pop-cultural Mafia figures, whom he …

Pink Is The New Bull: The Feminization Of Pit Bulls In Visual And Literary Discourses As A Rescue Tactic, Stephanie Hogue

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Since the 1980s, pit bulls have been portrayed in a raced, classed, and gendered national discourse that has associated them with minority males of color in low-income urban areas. This discourse has led to a villianization of the breed that has resulted in restrictions on pit bulls and their owners. This project seeks to explore the raced, classed, and gendered representations of pit bulls in cultural productions and the nuanced ways in which the intersectional identities ascribed to pit bulls have impacted their status as acceptable pets in the United States.

I aim to demonstrate that through visual and literary …

Tragic Mulatta 2.0: A Postcolonial Approximation And Critique Of The Representations Of Bi-Ethnic Women In U.S. Film And Tv, Hadia Nouria Bendelhoum

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study analyzes the representations of five bi-ethnic women characters in U.S. mass media both before and after U.S. “post-racial” era, to find and expose evidence of the continuity and perpetuation of racist stereotypes against biracial/bi-ethnic women. I utilize a thematic textual analysis, supported by the theories, ideas, and critical views of postcolonial theorists Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said, and composed of three prominent themes which expose the nature of the representations of lead bi-ethnic characters in current mass media entertainment (TV programs and films). The themes further explored through this project are: bi-ethnicity (one Black parent and …

An Unfinished Conversation: An Interview With Yiyun Li, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

An interview of fiction writer and memoirist Yiyun LI.

Waru, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Waru (2017), directed by Briar Grace-Smith, Ainsley Gardiner, Renae Maihi, Casey Kaa, Awanui Simich-Pene, Chelsea Cohen, Katie Wolfe, and Paula Jones.

Through The Eyes Of A Child: The Portrayal Of South Africa’S Apartheid In Children’S Cinema, Keira B. Koch

Student Publications

August 1977: a thirteen-year-old African American girl stands at the gate of an airport holding a bouquet of flowers. Standing with her mother, she is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mahree, a South African school girl her family has offered to host for the upcoming academic school year. The young African American girl, Piper, is excited to meet this South African girl, hoping their African heritage will bond them together. The passengers all exit the plane, and Piper starts to worry that they are at the wrong gate because neither Piper nor her mom spotted a fourteen-year-old South African girl …

L.A. Rebellion: Creating A New Black Cinema, Book Review, Peter Catapano

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Butch Between The Wars: A Pre-History Of Butch Style In Twentieth-Century Literature, Music, And Film, Karen Allison Hammer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Butch Between the Wars is a pre-history of “butch,” a twentieth-century masculine style that became an identity category for lesbians in the 1940s and ’50s. Between the two world wars and in the early postwar period, women used the energy of butch to create literature, music, and character on film. Butch-styled artists expressed a muscular orientation to the world, one with close associations to lower and working class black and white masculinities. Those who were recognizably lesbian and those with less clearly defined sexualities challenged the idea that strength, authority, and independence are qualities “naturally” bound to the male body. …

Communicating The Justice And Peace Of God In Africa Today, Walter Ihejirika

Journal of Global Catholicism

Engaging with the work and theories of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, the article charts out a spirituality of communication within Nigerian Catholicism. Discussing the intersection between various forms of media and community, the article argues for the utilization of media in the pursuit of social justice and the dismantling of inequalities.

Editor's Introduction, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

Introduction to African Catholicism: Contemporary Issues: Volume: 1, Issue 2 of the Journal of Global Catholicism

Course Syllabus (Su17) Coli 331: “‘World-Traveling’: Alterity And Liminality In Spike Lee’S Do The Right Thing And Amiri Baraka’S Dutchman”, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

This semester, we’ll view Spike Lee’s 1989 Do the Right Thing and Shirley Knight’s 1966 cinematic production of Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman through the critical lenses of Maria Lugones’ notions of ‘worlds’ and ‘world-traveling,’[1] which she develops in Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions. Our task is to analyze a number of the problematics addressed in these visual works as discernible ‘world(s)’ of meaning and experience constituted by the libidinous investments, concrete practices, and ideological convictions of the human subjects who bear and circulate them.

[1] Maria Lugones, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, …

Spectral Bodies: Women's Resistance Across Time In North America, Whitney C. Evanson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project contrasts the lived experiences of feminists within the EZLN in Mexico with the historical persecution of community outsiders during the Salem witch trials. I want to explore the differences between a radical political and social movement (the EZLN), and the radical shift in history in which women were accused of witchcraft based on hysteria and rumors. There are parallels between the witch trials and the causes of the Zapatista movement in the ways that women's bodies were treated--their political usefulness to create fear and obedience from citizens by murdering them for their defiance, burying them in shallow graves. …

The Willfulness Of A Missing Frame: Ahmed Zaki And The Politics Of Visual Resistance, Miriam M. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) is one of Egyptian cinema’s most prominent leading actors, with work spanning three decades of critical films that informed a generation’s visual register of masculinity. However, the beginnings of his career were marked by public skepticism around his place as a leading actor due to him being “too dark” and “too poor”; as his career continued to flourish, those very markings of racing and classing Zaki because a foundation for increasingly stamping his public image with the “authenticity” of an Egyptian citizen. At a particularly neoliberal moment in the Egyptian economy, that of the early 80s, new …

A Recipe For Black Girl Magic: A Critical Study Of The Mise-En-Scene In Beyoncé’S Visual Album Lemonade As A Radical Representation Of Black Women, Tatiyana Jenkins

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Lemonade, a visual album released by pop icon Beyoncé Knowles Carter in 2016, crafts a mise-en-scene that redefines the way that black women are allowed to feel and exist in media culture. Contrary to the negative stereotypes and misrepresentations perpetuated in media, Lemonade is a radical attempt to provide audiences with an alternative representation of the experiences of black women. For this honors project, I address the controversy surrounding the visual album’s radical representations of black womanhood. To inform my understanding of the visual album I examine the various creative contributions such as the film Daughters of the Dust directed …