International Studies: Culture and the Arts from an International Perspective
Spring 2009 Final Notes
Erin Petree
January 14
The World Fairs: The beginnings of Ethnography and Exhibitionism
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Late 1870s to 19402
Europeans coming into contact with indigenous people
Anthropology= study of Human/Humankind
Rise of Anthropology (pros and cons)
Moment of grand tour= cultural tourism= colonial/universal exposition
o Duckeye express
 Understanding how cultures came to be 1870s onward
 French colonial forces… arrived in Indochina, they were fascinated with people they met
o Angkor Wat: 12th century Cambodia
 Declared world heritage site
 Was recreated in Paris (1931)
 Temples, sites were called Pavilions
o Pavilions were sites, architectural stand ins that represented foreign countries (Europeans…)
represented buildings in their colonies
o Displays inside temples to show what indigenous people were like in their colonies
o Would put on human displays “human zoo”
 People, crafts, objects were displays
 Strategic process of selection… exposition committees
 Never indigenous people on committees but field anthropologists, missionaries, merchants,
ambassadors and gov't officials
o All military personnel were on committees
o Militaries were major segways for the colonies
o Massive projections of power within domain of cultural tourism
 World Fair- Paris, 1878
o Field Mars: still in hands of the French military… dotted with Pavilions (came up went down) but
1 would remain (Eiffel Tower)
o Palace of Trocodero
 Had “arms” that represented all empowering France
 Architecture… subconscious
 Building is personified
 World Fair layout was well though out
 Feminization of the Orient
o Diminishes the power of the colonies in comparison
 Cairo Street: 1889 World Far, Paris
o Populated street with Arabs and had them ride on donkeys, “lazy Arab”, women weaving
baskets
o Enterprises Section (crafts and jobs)
o Weaving, lone stray dogs etc.
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Dance du Ventre
o Semi-pornographic… red light district
o Hyper sexualized
o As a cultural practice it went through phases (because culture goes through moments)
Beautiful Fatima
o From Cairo, famous for belly dancing routine
Fold dance, reserved for private events, not public
Sexuality was about male conquering the female body
o Applying it to colonial ventures because colonies were feminized… consequently conquerable
The Ouled Nail Woman
o An Algerian belly dancer… Algeria was taken by the French… independence after 1957. It was
the last colony
o She was covered head to toe in pounds of fabric and clothing
 Perform at marriages for female section of wedding parties
o Ghawazi (Egypt)- for entertainment, not strippers
o Cengi (Turkey)- ballet was imported to Istanbul… but belly dancing out
Human Zoo
o 180s to 1949s
o Highly problematic kind of exposition
o People were put on display according to their social norms
o “Ethnological Expositions” or “Spectacles” or “Negro Villages”
 E. Expositions: veil of scientific terminology
 Spec: form of entertainment… something rare
 Villages: meant non-white… low class
o Hunchbacks, dwarfs… not norms
Social Darwinism… European White Male
o They were offered a free trip to France… were paid
Cabarets: (Women, bell dancing and cabarets)
o Pub/ concert hall
Fairy Land- Pays des Fees Amusement Park 1889
Café Le Tambourin
o Owned by Madame Agostana Segaroti
 Painting by Vincent Van Gogh 1889
Les Bals Publics and Café Concert
o Open air dance balls, central to amusement park
o Nearby, café, pub (Café Concerts)
o Gigantic Blue Elephant that you can crawl in and out of
o The Moulin Rouge, Montmartre Paris 1889
 Pub… café concert settings
 Opened after 1889 exposition
 Famous advertising poster (Henri Toulouse-Lautrec… posters
 Acrobatic… chaotic
“La Goulue”… chugger (Louise Webber.) liked to drink. Fat little lady
o 1866-1929
o She was part of a family of launderers… and she broke out and become a dancer… the can can
dance
George Seurat
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o Pointillist painter… Le Chahut (1889)
Toulouse-Lautrec… dwarf inbred… awkward in society
How do ethnolography and entertainment industry complement and sustain each other?
How does theatricality function in preserving culture?
How do we domesticate or naturalize foreign traditions?
January 21, 2009
Globalization and Culture
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Identity? What is it and how do we construct it?
o Internal and external (individual and collective thing)
o It is a process and it is also evolutionary
 Croucher: identity is a process of self-definition and extra definition and belonging to a certain cultural
group
 Collective
o Transgressing national boundaries, getting broader
o EU (transnational collective identity)
 Individualistic (Regionalization)
o Increasing Balkanization
o Sponsorship of Vernacular language (Provencal)
o Romanche
o Kurdish in Turkey
o Emergence of minority rights, not pressure, you sponsor them
o Revival of indigenousness… we have roots
o EU= Europe = Collectivity
o Fear of inflation and devaluation so small countries reinstitute currencies
o Increased nativization and ghettoization
 Two Views on the construction of Identity
 Primordialist (Essentialist)
o DNA… in your essence
o Natural, innate, planted in our souls, organic, in opposition to the other colors ???
o Tells us that it’s static, immobile, pregiven can’t avoid it and it’s predetermined
 Ex: German men are… these are primordial constructs
o Culture can’t hybridize
o Samuel Huntington
 Promoted right wing neo-conservatist
 That cultures are essentially different and will clash
 West vs. West: west=Islamic cultures
 Islam= violent
 Flaws? Says there will never be a common ground or mediating time
 Western world= Christian nations (Euro and American)
 1993- Clash of Civilization
 Not economic… major struggles will be cultural
 Balkan Wars, 9-11
 Liberals vs. Conservatives in this academic thought battle
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Arguments
 Identity conflict tends to happen within cultures instead of externally
 Completely ignores masses of people within border- there is not static,
construct is always changing
Constructivist
o Benedict Anderson (1991) “Imagined Communities”, “in formation”, malleable and multiplicity
o Process of construction, through motion, time, factors, ongoing
o Can have many definitions of self
o Also not from within but imposed externally (Hutu and Tutsi)
o Can be politically motivated and exploited/destructive/communities are not static, always
becoming
o Building- processual thing so identity is in fact a building. Malleable and multiple (brother, friend
father) within the gender construct
Constructed Primordialism
o Happy middle ground? Hybridized paradigm, ethnicity and race (social constructs) but we
identify with them
o Deep roots, but they go beyond those categories
o Nature vs. Nurture
 Social Darwinism makes room for dynamic processes
 Exercises in multiculturalism
Instrumentalism
o Race and ethnicity (ethnicity) internal dynamic of self construction
 RACE Biological history
 Race is a construct, frequently linked to politics
o Goal for identity, economics, and at the core of identity, we want to control resources
 Hutu: cultivators Tutsi: cow herders
Nederveen Pieterse’s 3 Paradigms of Globalization
Globalization is synonymous, somehow the world is becoming smaller, steamroller effect
o NEG part of Glob. expense of cultural diversity
o POS part of Glob: increasing state of interconnectedness, more and more standardized…
becoming part of our identity
o Consumerism… push for uniformity
o HUNTINGTON CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, MCDONALDIZATION, HYBRIDIZATION
Huntington: Clash of Civilizations
o Civilizational differences, images of ourselves and image of other
o Cultural relativism= female mutilation… they see it differently than we do
McDonaldization
o Westernization and consumerization
o Streamline, fast efficient, standardized, predictable
o Mass production. We want is fast, affordable, etc. Capitalism taking over
Hybridization (Croucher)
o Happy medium, theory of mixing
o Culture is not static but traveling
o Nationalism and borders, secretism, creolization, crossovers
o Glocalized forms being localized
January 26, 2009
Globalization and Culture
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Globalization is a debilitating factor when trying to understand… something
Definitions of Culture
o Tomlinson… likes to think of culture in social sciences
o Order of life
o Existentialism/existentialist significance
o “Ordinary”
o The “reflexivity” of culture and complex connectivity
o Is culture instrumental symbolization or existentially significant?
 What is culture? The way in which people individually and collectively communicate to make their lives
meaningful
o Communication- seeking meaning
o Social calling, construction of one's self image (internal formation)
 Culture: an order of things in life that gives us meaning through symbolic representation
o Symbolic representation
 About positioning yourself in life through acts that are symbolically charged, through
contentious acts (laptop… sym rep that you are smart)
o SO, life is existentialist significance and about the meanings and values in world
 Culture=Ordinary (Tomlinson)
 What we consider to be mundane, day to day aspects of your life
 It’s not just an elite practice or phenomenon
 Everyone has it, holistic and completely available
 Ordinary: not an exclusive property (college is problem)
o The reflexivity of culture
 Has to do with complex connectivity
o Reflexivity: that various ways in which social entities may be said to “act back upon” themselves
to adjust to incoming information (action is internalizing)
o We are LEARNING entities and we self monitor ourselves… constructivism
o Complex connectivity
 Connected: we are seeing more people being integrated into a system
 Complex: economic and political spheres of connectivity
o Tomlinson Says: culture is instrumental symbolization/essentially significant
 Using instruments to represent culture and identity
 We are not totally aware we are doing this
 Maxwell on the Political Economy of Culture (WHY CULTURE WORKS)
o Culture is a phenomenon, act, occurrence, set of principles
o A scientific field that wants to know how people engage, interpret and adopt phenomena
o Why Culture Works: he’s trying to push his agenda
 Main argument: culture cannot exist without interacting with economy and politics
 “Sum of stories”: a medley of voices, what we tell us and other of what we are
 “Staging ground”: about narratives to ID ourselves and set our daily routines
 “Culture works” cultural product = labor which is internationalized
 Labor division
 Political/economy (he thinks they are fused together)
 Culture is something you produce, it happens through work
o What is “culture industry”?
 Coca cola: synthetic, artificial drink that symbolizes American culture
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 So culture industry takes culture and challenges it
o How do culture and globalization intersect? (Maxwell’s opinion)
 Alters the construction of meaning
 Not true, it’s international
 Undoes paradigms of “out there-nests” and “in here-nests”
 Not just international ?
 Then we’re back to the hybridity theory… cultural imperialism on indigenous cultures,
globalization is very aggressive
 (Malcolm Walter: 1) material exchanges localize, 2) political exchanges internationalize,
3) symbolic exchanges globalize)
Why does globalization matter for culture?
o Because it undoes pre-concepts (of boundedness and fixity)
o James Clifford- “traveling cultures”, because culture isn’t bounded by place, it’s always en route
and navigating through the world
o Deteriorialization: the idea the culture is bound to a place but it can still exist outside that
territory
o “Global Consciousness”: delocalizes: roots and routes to lead us
February 2, 2009
Art, Culture, and Culture Collecting
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How art has attributed to culture
What is ethnography? It is the study of races
o It is heavily linked to colonialism and fieldwork by the active observer (“othering”)
o A form of culture collecting (othering process of selection)
o Implications of collecting?
 Decontextualization of objects (religious artifacts lose significance our of context)
 Collecting something that is “lost”
o Idea that time goes forward, western idea
o Trying to salvage items from the past
o When we go into collecting, we assume what we are collecting would otherwise be lost
Anthropology? Study of mankind and everything that goes with mankind… social structures, dynamics
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 Time of Modernity/historical continuum- we’re always at the forefront
 Art can be easily collected… easier than stones etc.
o Material culture artifacts
 Why do we collect art? International perspectives
o Culture and Collecting Art
 Implies a rescue from decay or loss, implies that a culture is unable to care for their own
history
 Necessitates a differentiation between tradition and modernity
 Division between “high” and “low” art
 High: Sistine chapel… individual artistic genius
 Low: “kitch” commercialized, mass produced etc.
 Street art can be more of an indicator of culture
 We have to be able to determine what is high and what is low
 Forces a theorization of aesthetic principles
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 How do you judge what is good?
 Levi Strauss… more money, more time… primitive arts (Africa)
 Surrealists, cubists (Picasso)
o Primitive and Naïve Art
 Primitive Art: cave at Lascaux, France 15,000-10,000 BC
 High Art: need to give it cultural significance… selective interpretation
 MET: from museum of Primitive Art
 Nelson Rockerfeller collected Agiba’s
 Agiba: restoration of social order… head hunting
 Bis poles: devices at funerals
o Constantin Brancusi: abstraction of narrative
o Picasso (1907) Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
 Mask like faces from African Masks which is a break from western traditions
 This upset the aesthetic discourse
Collecting and Primitive Art
o When you collect art, you judge primitive to modern
o Art collector connoisseurs 9critics) Rockefeller and Picasso
o Exotic, primitive, archaic, other
 We create structures in anthropology. They are dichotomous (high low etc) for
understanding what something is and isn’t
o Salvage Mode… reminders of authenticity… anxiety with human loss with natural world
o Signs of vanishing worlds
o Modernist aesthetics (surreals and cubists)
Linking art to culture
Confronting world art
o Copyright issues, art history and/or anthropology, The Thad (commodity-artifact art), concepts
of authenticity and indigenousness, sustainability of “collective identity”
February 4, 2009
The UN, UNESCO, and World Heritage
 UN (allied forces)
 Immediate outgrowth of WWII to fight for certain principles
 Under Roosevelt it became the League of Nations
 By 1945, it became an encompassing structure that preserves peace, Protects rights (minority, women
and children) and sanctions (financial embargo) used as weaponry
 No global police force overseeing UN
 Security Council: Peace, arms control, sanctions
 General Assembly: secretary general
 INTL court of Justice
 Membership dues- based on GDPs- they are obligatory but there is no way to ensure they are paid (US)
 HQ in NYC… Geneva, Vienna… etc
 WHO- World Health Organization….Aids pandemic, malaria etc.
 UNICEF: Children related to UNESCO
 World Bank: financial system
 UHCK: High Commission (uprooted peoples from conflicted zones)
 UNDP: world development program (AID etc)
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UN Conferences
o Female genitalia mutilation… cultural relativity?
 Member states… have borders and governments PALESTINE
o Taiwan, Tibet, Vatican… non reproducing population
o 190 Nation-State members
 UNESCO (United nations Educational scientific and Cultural organization)
o Founded in 1945 with UN based in Paris
o Committees: Education that ensures schools are open and kids are there, Science: changing
weather patterns and it’s effect on people, Culture: identity and feelings of belonging, World
Heritage Site
 WHS: birth right notion of site or monument that belongs to ALL humanity (not just ethnicity, it
transcends borders)
o What kind of sites have been selected? Sites that are either natural or architectural
o Selection criteria?
 Nomination file: file that contains cultural and natural sites listed by a nation state in
order of precedence
 Tentative List: list of sites that they’d like to see become WHS.
 Ecotourism… stuff
o Cultural heritage sites: man made sites… statue of liberty
o Natural Heritage site (grand canyon)
 Cultural Criteria
o Universal human value in recognition of the nation state
o Masterpiece of creative human genius
o Shows development of architecture/technology
 Town planning, landscaping
o Bygone era, otherwise it will disappear
o Outstanding example of type of building
o Example of traditional human settlement
 Natural Criteria
o Certain species that only live there Grand Canyon
o Indigenous peoples
o Incredible time capsule (tells us history of earth)
o Geological history
o Superlative natural phenomenon
o Exceptional natural beauty
o Has to show stage in earths history/features geomorphic
o Be a testament to ecological and biological processes
o Have to be indigenous habitat for one site biological STUFF
 Vegetation or animal endangered species
 UNESCO Convention of 1972: language of resolution
o Language and structure read like a contract… parties already agreed to sign it
o Structure is in bullet points
o Implementation… hard but if you have money, you’re holding strings
o Role of state… state is still in charge
o Why ratify? Odwan dam direct response. ?
o How do we prioritize world sites?
o UNESCO Money!
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Institutionalizing UNESCO
o Structures of UNESCO
o Transnational organ but nationalistic interests
o UNESCO and Tourism… went up because of UNESCO
o Administration mechanism
February 16, 2009
The Museum World
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Curator is someone who works in a museum and is in charge of collections
Conservator: scientific
Museums are products of European enlightenment
o They are modern temples or churches of secularism
o They are products of civic structures (universal knowledge)
 A cabinet of Curiosities (17th Centuries)
o 15-17th centuries… vision of nation-states
 Wealthy Class of citizens (wunderkammer collection)
o Wonder Closet
 Early modern wooden display cases… you’re see flora and fauna in these collections natural world
museums
 Kunst Kammer
o Prototype of art museum… paintings owned by wealthy families
 Louvre and I.M. Pei Pyramid.
o Repatriation+ things in the Louvre needed to go back to their original countries
o 1796 picture… paintings everywhere
 Aesthetic Dimensions
o Aesthetics: doing away with the grit of everyday life
o Minimalism: no clutter and the art is emphasized with ritualistic and religious overtones
 Mutter Museum (1783)
o Stays in closet format, shows range of materials in a museum
o The new Veneration (Science vs. religion) The Religion of Science… The scientific church
o Science’s new relics
o New relic chambers… cabinets and wunderkammers
o The performance of ritual- circuits and trajectories
o Emotions: awe
 National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
o Color: stones quarried from Native American reservation
o 4 different tribes
o Wanted architecture to look like canyons and like Native American ancestry
o Water… spirit of the dead… around the building
o Boulders= elders 40 of them… like pillars
o Umbilical cord/naval, center of the universe in the middle of the museum
o The yup’ik section (Alaska)
o National Museum of the American Indian… Social, civil or sacred site?
 It’s becoming a liminal space- marginal space
 “Contact zone” viewer with other civ. Or deceased spirits
 As cultural property
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The new omphalos (lobby)
Geopiety (metaphors of stone)
As indigeneity and repatriation
Effigies and mementoes of the lost past
February 23, 2009
Tourism, Art, Artists and “Going Native”
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Colonialism, international tourism, art/writings
Colonialism
o Britain in India 1757-1858: British E. India Company
o France in Africa (1798-1962)
o Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt (1798-1802)
o French Rule in Morocco and Algeria (19th Century)
o French West Africa (20th Century)
o Closely linked to military endeavors (B.E.I.C)
o France: it all started with Napoleon
o Universal Expositions are outgrowth of military missions and tourism
o Napoleon- maniac tendencies from Cyprus took French cause to extreme (Book was description
of Egypt…first encyclopedia of world cultures. Synthesis of Knowledge from 2-3,000 BC-1800 AD
 They went from Alexandria to Rosetta (Rosetta Stone)
 Hieroglyphs deciphered because of French military campaign
 Giza, sphinx that people could enter
 Entomologists and anthropologists… recorded customs and manners… this is trying to
create categories/types/models of people (farmer and Common woman picture)
Eugene Delacroix, The Women of Algiers -
o Fascinated by what he saw in North Africa. Military and Scientists as well as artists they would
travel from France to capture the aura… Noble kind of savage state of being. Not Industrialized
o Images of women in a private setting
o Women have dominant role in Orientalist
o -- Odalisque 1845
 Means a reclining female
 Word from Turkish world… of the room
The Orient Express (1882-1962)
o The major way of traveling to the Middle east for more than 50 years
o People would board in Paris Switzerland Istanbul
o 2-3 months in luxurious cabins
o It’s about Public Transportation
Artists… “Going Native” Paul Gaugin and Henri Rousseau
o Marries a Tahitian woman of 15 years old
o But ate canned beef and had clothes from France
o Converted to Christianity… Question the purity of Tahitian Culture
o He wanted a cheaper way of life… first traveled to Brittany and records primitive life of French
folk who have avoided urbanization. He sees Brittany as wild and primitive
o His paintings are tonal
o Fauvism: coined for artists who painted using bright colors… savagism became an artistic
movement
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Jacobs wrestling the angel… Women in the field
The Yellow Christ
Gaugin’s Cloissonisme vs. Signac”s impressionisme
 Enamel work-putting down of colors without mixing it
Tahiti- re. Of his wide of the women in 1892
o Spirit of the Dead Watching
o Before sex encounters, women on a beach, Tehamana- 1893… his wife
o Primitive prejudicial concepts. His paintings tell of his personality… not really Tahitian culture
o Travel Diary… Noa Noa: series of texts with images… all woodcut images that make you think
he’s primitive
Sexualized representation-rape=unity
What is Gauginism?
o He’s interested in dissolving civilized behavior and doesn’t acknowledge legalities
o Degeneration- decultivate to go back to nature
o Jean-Jacques Rousseau- wrote book of going back to primitive self
o You have to disassociate yourself from time and place which is usually a province/island
o Infantilism: shedding adult behavior to engage in behavior that’s bad and not responsible
o Exoticism: having colors that aren’t primaries
o Chinoiserie and Japanisme: coopting motifs from exotic the other
o Malaise (illness of being part of industrial society)
o Modernist Primitivism: notion of returning to origins (no real ways)
o Egomania and gender discourse… primitivism is about another gender
o Related to orientalist practices
March 2, 2009
Memorials and Memorialization
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Trauma/War
o Commemoration and public memory (verbal and visual memorial)… official memory, personal et
o Individualized event
Urge to remember (old as mankind) of endless time
o Ancient Mesopotamia, Pyramids of Giza
The Normandy Cemetery… Colleville-Sur-Mer 1945
o Glorifies American effort of World War II from Nazis
o This land legally belongs to America as well as other cemeteries
o Fully funded and up kept by American money
o Open air church… cross… chapel and reflection poop, spirit of American youth opposite of
unnamed soldier walls
 Written world, seeing, sacred language (religion) Christianity
International Relations? It ties 2 countries and creates a bond
Leaving things behind… events, marches, vigils
Holocaust Memorial, Miami Beach 1985
o Minimalism/abstract or figural/literal?
 They project or you project your view/purpose
 8 million dollars, very figural
 42 feet with 130 figures
 Visual impact, in your face, declarative
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 Hand=Jews
o Figural vs. Abstract: which serves its functions better?
Saddam Hussein’s “Victory” Monument 1990
o Trench warfare, chemical weapons used, UN ceasefire. 1,000,000 died/double arcades,
Triumphal arches (Rome)
o Parade-like ceremonies take place there, forearm is of Hussein
 Made of “metal remains” of Iranians- thousands of Iranian soldiers
The Literal and Public Memory
The Vietnam Memorial Wall, Washington, D.C. 1982
o Most contested war memorial in the USA
o 7 year gap from initiation to its opening
o “Scar in the earth”, commemorate non-victory?
o Criticized design on racial grounds… granite from India and it’s so abstract
o Religion, nation-state, flags, American inserted after the fact… 2 sculptures, the female soldiers
and the 3 males of different origin
o Vietnam memorial… Aesthetics vs. Politics of Memory
The 9/11 Memorial
o Tribute in Light: March-April 2002, The two Towers of light
o It runs on anniversaries now, metaphorical potential… indestructible, vehicle, vessel between
the earth and the heavens, concrete yet ungraspable like memory
o Lower Manhattan Development Company competition “Reflection absence” 2004
o North tower will have a tomb where the remains of unidentified people will be held
o “Freedom tower” 1776 ft (not a coincidence)
Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA
o Paul and Melina Murdoch “Crescent of Embrace” 2005
o Red trees and wind chimes… like a hug
o Now it is the “circle of embrace”… tie to Islam etc.
March 4, 2009
Memorials of Indianapolis
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After Washington, D.C., Indianapolis has the most memorials in the United States
The Americanization Parade/Ceremony
Single man on a pedestal=most common memorial of the civil war
o More than 2 dozen in Indiana (1880s-1890s)
o Elevate foot soldier to honor or herald them
o Base looks like abstracted Greek Temple
o They get stretched out: Monumental
 Cass County in 1887 (Soldiers and Sailors Memorial)
 4 Life size figures representing the 4 areas of combat
Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the center of Indy
o German architect in Berlin
o Gigantic shaft out of ground ~1901/1902
o Most imposing in Indiana
o Largest of its type in US
o Lady Victory and war are on opposite sides of each other
 Angel of victory above her
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 Above her is Arm astragal (mess post war)
 Represented in Roman war memorials
 To Indiana’s silent victors
Plan of the D.C. Mall by L’Enfant… 1902
o Wealthy escape cities, poor flooded in so there were plans made to revive America
 “City Beautiful” Movement: plant to organize and revive landscape
 The Mall in D.C. with classical buildings, a cue into Greece, Athens (Capital of modern
democracy)
D.C. and Indy similar to Indy because of compass shape
Height of power of freemasons
o Philanthropic, secret society... most of signers on the Declaration of Independence
The American Legion HW- 1919 (why so many memorials are in Indiana)
o Heart of America, neoclassical
o The Sunken Garden: (First casualty of WWI)
March 9, 2009
The Eurovision Song Contest
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Musicology, the arts, poli sci = ethnomusicology
European Song Contest (ESC) is the single largest song competition on an International Level
o Each year since 1956 representatives of all European Broadcasting Union + Israel
 Treaty of Rome (EU) 1956
o Features singers who represent a participating nation with a new original pop song
o Stage for young and no so famous artists and it is usually held on a Saturday evening in May
o The winner is chosen by televoting
o The host country is determined by whoever wins that year, they host next year
o ~500 million viewers each year
o Each nation has a national vote, each nation calls in their vote
o 24 nations compete in the final (1-12 points)
o No nation is allowed to vote for its own nations representative
o Eng and Francophone songs have won 30/45 last 45 times
o Ireland has one 7 times
A Trend Towards the Periphery?
o First 2 or 3 places are periphery countries… not big big ones
o “Buddy voting”- especially among Eastern European counties voting for their own cultural zones
o There remains a strong tension between the highly political nature of the event and the goals of
unity, cooperation and shared musical culture
The Politics of Representation
o Can a song represent a nation? Yes
o Certain styles that periphery/marginal countries adopt?
o Notion of camp: intentionally making fun of your nation’s stereotype (style) because it’s
memorable… France etc.
o Going against the grain by over emphasizing it
 Rationale: Camp is to present oneself as being committed to the marginal with a
commitment greater than the marginal merits
Notes on Camp
o Se camper: to pose in exaggerated fashion
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Susan Sontag (1964): artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class
Key quotations: love for unnatural/exaggeration
It is artificial
Finland… Lordi Hard Rock Hallelujah
March 11, 2009
Culture, Ethnicity, and Music
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The Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in 1866
o First African American singing group to publically perform
o Fisk: for AA’s who were educatable
o PR program took form in a musical group: nostalgic, heart breaking ballads, beautiful
o Those who listened were white audiences, with messages of liberation and resistance in songs
Contextualizing the efflorescence of Rap and Rap culture
o 1980s-1990s: historical context? Violent confrontation
o Race riots (LA 1982) the streets… urban revolution
o There was discontent in: Asian Americans immigrated to Urban areas, Rodney King incident (the
police beating… dismissed)
Institutional discrimination: minority group that doesn’t have same/equal rights
o Inner city schools… no money gay rights, the untouchables, class, Jewish community during the
holocaust, woman’s salaries, women’s suffrage, Jim Crowe Laws, Japanese concentration camp,
airport security, Patriot act etc.
Rap as Resistance and Oppositional culture
What is Oppositional Culture?
o Is it the resistance to dominating power, grassroots, struggle between the high and low, antiestablishment movement with institutionalized discrimination
o Rap: verbal art form… repeated systematically/artfully
 Movement… cohesion, kinship
 Originally a black phenomenon
o What does it oppose?
 Driving force of rap has changed
The Triad of Opposition: Institutionalized discrimination, Racial formation
o Racial Formation: idea that everyone belongs to a racial group: undoes black and white
o Urban Decay: ignored in 80s… in 90s: suburbization! All wealth in suburbs. Elite left the cities
and the ghettos were left there
Seeking Solutions and Antidotes in Opposition:
o Kinship ties: they bind communities, and it becomes a civil rights movement
o Artistic expression of protest
Relationship of Rap to:
o Paternalism and Patriarchal structures
o A history of slavery in America
o Consumption and market forces (becomes a product)
o Gender, Minority, race, center and periphery
Martinez: concluding remarks:
o How is rap to be viewed?
o How complex of a phenomenon is it? Positive/Negative forces? Proactive and effective? Is it
historically contingent?
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The Eminem Machine
o Prototypical archetype of white rapper, question of authenticity… street credibility. Violent
misogyny, severe homophobia
o Viloporn: lashing out against women (gay = feminine)
o “nigga” MM never uses it, ever
 It has become something of a different definition; it is not a skin color but a cultural
group, a condition of suffering in the inner city.
March 30, 2009
The Murals of Contemporary Iran
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Ideological tool… antigovernment (not all the time)
How they can emerge out of art or warfare
Tehran, Iran 9capital) Megalopolis, 18 million people
o No longer a city, but a number of cities in the city
 Steel and glass is not readily available, so concrete is used. You’re allowed to look out windows but not
in (privacy issues/laws)
 Buildings are therefore, blank canvases. You give it any meaning you want
 Revolutionary Graffiti: Slogans
o Back to Iranian revolution (Islamic Revolution)
o 2500 years, the country was ruled by a monarch, longest standing monarch
o Reza Shah Pahlavi 1978-79 last shah before revolution… torturing squads
o All groups demonstrating against monarchy
o Religious right won… Ayatollah Khomeini (vocal critic of the king… exile in Iraq)
o ’79: street demonstrations and graffiti starts
 “Death to America”… etc. signs
 Graffiti are pictorial records of chants
o To define the revolution, it pitted itself against the “enemies”
o Mega-Mural “Down with the USA”- reinterpretation of the American flag- “America brings
death” written in English…
 Symbols of American flag (freedom to death and destruction) since it’s rotated, that’s
virtual destruction of the flag. Bilingualism: not for one second will we side with
America”
 “what mural?” aversion… generational turnover
o Storming of the American embassy, grabbed shredded documents and held hostages for over a
year
o It is now the HW for the Iranian police… Lady Liberty has a skull for a face
 Vanak Square (Hub between N and S Tehran)
o Mural of Ayatollah Khomeini: he is represented as a God-like, benevolent figure because midlate 90s the times were good/better
 President Khatami- dialogue between civilizations against Huntington
 10 floor mural across from Tehran University main entrance
o story of Iran-Iraq war… 12 year olds called to battle… plastic keys for paradise
 12 year old: Husayn Fahmideh Mural… Organization of Martyrs of the Revolution
o Shahid (religious martyr)
o Martyrdom is about your willingness to struggle against evil inclinations… salvations
 Dome of the Rock (east Jerusalem)
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Palestine Square: in center, map of Israel, terrorist and mother holding dead son.
Holy Shi Islamic sites in grip of eagle (America)
April 1, 2009
Drawing Support: The Murals of Northern Ireland
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1921: Creation of Northern Ireland
-1960s: “Troubles”
1972: Direct British Rule
-1998: Good Friday Agreement
2005: End of Armed Campaign
- Creation of IRA, Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday (1972): British soldiers shot activists… they were under direct British rule
IRA: Irish Republic Army vs. British Soldiers (heavily armed)
Sectarian violence in the Western world
o Northern Ireland cities of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry … contentious!
 Mural in Derry: 1981- “Get the Brits out!”
o Forceful statement of action, call to action
 Good Friday Agreement (Belfast): the right for Northern Ireland to govern itself
 Bogside, Derry and Londonderry have murals… especially Belfast
 Battle of the Boyne (1690) King William III beats King James III
o Proclaimed victory over the English, Catholicism over Protestantism… strive to beat UK again
 80s drama: “New Boyne”- religious divide
 Bloody Sunday: Bogside, Derry- very violent
o Jan 30, 1972, shootings, death etc.
 Large March in Derry, demonstrations wanted Rights for Irish
 Bloody something to carry Jack Duddy’s body
 Brits say kids were throwing rocks at them and that’s why they shot
 The police suffered no consequences
 Bloody Sunday Mural: Father Daly and Jackie Duddy lead civil rights demonstrations/ one of them
murdered and wrapped in banner
 Bogside artists didn’t want people to forget… Murals are a visual warning
 Free Derry Corner: where the demonstration took place
o Irish-Palestinians= Free territory, self declared, not part of England
o Kind of their own little Palestine square
o Bernadette Devlin, Derry 1996
 Battle of the Bogside
 British raid vs. Catholics
o The use of children in major murals… powerful… innocence is lost
 Bogside Artists… 4 artists that have other jobs. They do the work for free and raise money to buys.
 Red Hand of Ulster
o Symbol of Irish independence… Irish vs. British guy for the land of Ireland.. Brit was winning so
Irish guy cut off his hand and threw it there first
 Funny Murals.. Tom from Tom and Jerry
 Celtics: alternative to British culture, indigenous
o I am Ireland poem in Celtic
 Book of Kells and Celtic Knot (ca. 800)
 Celtic Cross- 800
 Why are murals important?
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o Cultural artifacts with life spans and biographies
o They have a beginning, middle and end but live in memory also
o Stuff happens to them while they’re up
o Enabled memory and continuity
o Barometers of political ideology
Retirement: slow decline
Redundancy: turnover
Recycling: redeployment
Redevelopment: salvaging of murals onto other buildings
Reclamation: covering up/alterations
Remonstration: destruction
Restoration: continuity, historical recordings
April 6, 2009
Identity Formation in Traumatic Events
The Graphic Novel: History of a Genre 1920-Today
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Genre of Story telling, post WWI: communicating knowledge in book form and visual stimuation
Visual culture: 20th Century = visual turn: suddenly we communicate with visual things
Graphic Novel vs. Comic Book
Graphic Novel
o Serious subject matter
o Older, more adult audience
o Artistic thing
o More complex, lengthy, complex with an independent story
o Single narrative, not published serially and uses literary tools
o Comments on social ills and political agendas
“Contained work of sequential Art”
o tales with pictures: innovations of 20th century???
o Graphic prose: category that explains the leg. And a way to understand how graphic novels
function
o Prose: language, how you tell a story. There are rules and regulations to graphic novels
o 20th century product? NO! Cave art, hieroglyphs
o you process pictures much quicker than text
o Stained glass in Bloomington Church 2001
o Tin Tin: first graphic novel (France) 1930
 50 diff languages, worldly detective and is in ligne Claire: clear line form… backgrounds
and characters are enclosed in crisp beautiful lines (watercolor)
Persepolis
o coming of age story
o political commentary
o black and white tradition
Graphic novel
o It is a creative expansion of literature
o Interesting intersection of image and text
o An as interim between literature and cinema
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As a commentary on political/social mores
“literacy” layers