Book review: Blue Collar Broadway: The Craft Industry of American Theater by Timothy R. White
In the introduction to Blue-Collar Broadway, urban historian Timothy R. White contends that his study ‘pushes against the design-oriented boundaries of theatre history’ (8) by focusing on the craftspeople, supply shops, and theatre-related businesses that helped to make Broadway shows during the twentieth century.
Continue ReadingJust one day to go: primaries are nearly over
California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota are still missing but today, 7 June, the Democratic and Republican primaries are finally going to be over (the former, in fact, will have to wait until 14 June for the result of the District of Columbia). Since the competition is almost over, the debate seems to be less focused on polling data and more concentrated on looking forward to the conventions, which await both parties in the next few weeks.
Continue ReadingBeyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’: A Complex and Intersectional Exploration of Racial and Gendered Identity
Much of Beyoncé’s career has been defined by an image that has spoken largely to notions of the form of ‘girl power’ and independence that we associate with the emergence of postfeminist popular culture in the 1990s. Largely conceptualised as a ‘non-political’ feminist discourse, manifestations of postfeminism in popular culture have been characterised by notions of choice, individualism and the re-commodification of femininity.
Continue ReadingMission (almost) accomplished: Trump, Hillary, and parties in transformation
The campaign for the November elections can officially begin, at least for the Republican Party. On 26 May, the Associated Press announced that Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination. Trump passed the threshold of 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination of the party with the support of delegates elected to the convention but not linked to a candidate, which would have decided to support the only candidate left in the running. Nevertheless, the establishment is still not confident with Trump, with prominent figures such as the Bush and the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan still not publicly endorsing the now certain nominee.
Continue ReadingStorify of our #BOOKHOUR on ZERO K by Don DeLillo
On Tuesday 31st May, Dr Kasia Boddy, Dr Catherine Gander, Dr Doug Haynes, Dr David Hering, and Professor Mark Osteen joined guest #bookhour organiser Rebecca Harding to discuss Don DeLillo’s Zero K. The discussion explored the way themes from DeLillo’s earlier fiction resurface in the novel, and the effect of this reusing of material. The conversation also focused on the presence of various art forms in the text and DeLillo’s continuing interest in visual art in his work. Questions were also raised about the success of the novel’s narrative techniques, and the role of humour, capital, and political elements in the text.
Continue ReadingBook Review: This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb
In an interview with Dr Kenneth Clark in 1963 Malcolm X said that Martin Luther King Jr was ‘subsidised by the white man’ into making the Afro-American population of the United States ‘defenceless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts in American history. That’s this American white man.’ Malcolm’s assessment of the weakness of the civil rights movement was shared by other critics including WEB DuBois, however Charles E Cobb Jr’s work attempts to illustrate that such accusations were without foundation and incorrect.
Continue ReadingBlack Films Matter: Reassessing Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ in Post-Ferguson America
Charged with social awareness and style, Spike Lee’s 1989 film, Do the Right Thing is nothing less than a street ballet. It fuses music with the body, giving characters idiosyncratic and physically charged expression to their narrative arcs. They shuffle, strut, stride, and twitch their way through the world, with changes in bodily (and musical) expression coming to signify much larger attitudinal shifts. These changes are important – they help the film to antagonise its audience, shining an uncompromising light upon the hidden subtexts of modernised racism, degradation, and white supremacy.
Continue ReadingBook Review: The Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace by Clare Hayes-Brady
It has become difficult to think about David Foster Wallace without thinking about the intense dedication he inspires among his readers. His writing’s knotty brilliance is responsible both for his fanbase and for the field of Wallace Studies. More than perhaps any other late-twentieth-century writer, his work invites an academic response, not least because Wallace himself was fluent in the language and methodologies of academia.
Continue ReadingKentucky: Between Populism and Creationism
On 17 May the state of Oregon voted for both parties and gave, on the Republican side, an expected victory to Donald Trump, and a less predictable Bernie Sanders victory on the Democratic side. Sanders beat Clinton by 12 points and won 34 delegates out of 73. On the same day the Democratic party also voted in Kentucky (Republicans had voted on 5 March), where Clinton gained 0.5% more votes than Sanders, but both received approximately the same number of delegates.
Continue Reading60 Seconds With Emma Long
Earlier this month we invited you to spend 60 seconds with the new members of the U.S. Studies Online editorial team. Now the new members of the BAAS Executive Committee have kindly let us learn more about their lives, their interests, desert island books, and memorable moments…
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