‘Malign Living Structures’: Functions of the Survey Image in “Soil Erosion – A National Menace” (1934)
This article is part of the USSO special series Resilience/Renewal: Shifting Landscapes in American Studies The land survey photograph, as represented by the first two pictures here, is a category of image that circulated widely in scientific journals and official publications during the 1930s. Severe droughts and dust storms between 1934 and 1936 culminated in what has been described as the worst drought in American history and the designation of 1,194 counties as emergency drought areas by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. [i] Pictures were included, for example, in the article, ‘Soil Erosion – A National Menace’ (1934), prepared by Hugh Hammond Bennett as chief of the Soil Erosion Service in the United States Department of the Interior and published in The Scientific Monthly. [ii] These were campaigning photographs, included for their ability to function as warnings—to shock audiences into recognising the scale of land degradation in a rural […]
Continue ReadingThe Afghanistan Effect: Isolationism in US Foreign Policy
On September 28th 2021, General Mark Milley, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the end of US military involvement in Afghanistan. The general responded to Senator Hawley’s question on the evacuation of US citizens: “Strategically, the war is lost. The enemy is in Kabul so you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously have an operational and tactical success by the soldiers on the ground.”[i] Admitting defeat for the US military, Milley nevertheless recognized the successful evacuation of over 100,000 people from Afghanistan on US aircraft. The conflicting notions of defeat and success evident in Milley’s testimony speak to a broader uncertainty about the developing shape of US foreign policy. Biden’s advisors at the White House, along with the top brass, knew that the Afghan armed forces would likely collapse without US support, however the speed with which the […]
Continue ReadingMeditations on Critical Race Theory and 21st Century Anti-Communism
In recent months, there have been ongoing public discussions about Critical Race Theory (CRT).[i] With Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts backing a resolution to combat the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the state’s universities, and other states responding to crowds of parents and protestors calling for the ‘removal of CRT from schools’, it may be difficult for the layman to understand where the explosive protests surrounding CRT have come from. This article will explain some of the history regarding the modern application of CRT, arguing that the contemporary discourse surrounding CRT invokes right-wing propaganda and political messaging, whose roots lie in the anti-communist ‘red-baiting’ techniques of the twentieth century. It will also explore how anti-CRT discourse is currently used to argue against any measures to further ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’ in academic spaces which, by in what spacesteaching an alternative to mainstream right-wing discourses, directly threaten the status quo. Put simply, […]
Continue ReadingU.S. Television, Nostalgia and Identity – Editorial
The ubiquity of television has been written about extensively in both scholarship and popular writing; ever since the first commercial sets began replacing the hearth as the centrepiece of any American living area, television has dominated how we write and think about the United States. In 2020, a time unlike any other in recent memory, more people than ever stayed indoors with the television on, streaming platforms open, and consumed entertainment insatiably. Was it comfort and nostalgia for a pre-pandemic time that saw record viewing figures? A distraction from the uncertainty of the present? Or, simply, that more entertainment is being produced than ever and to stay afloat and abreast of popular culture one has to consume quicker than ever before? This USSO Special Series brings together 10 scholars and their respective research into the televisual landscape of America both past and present, examining how nostalgia, revisionism, and other ideological […]
Continue Reading‘Heart’, ‘Hope’, and ‘Tombstones’: Donald Trump and Populist discourse
Like other actors in the public sphere, politicians manipulate our emotions to achieve an “emotional re-framing of reality”[i]. Either in their spontaneous or prepared addresses, those in public office usually trigger a myriad of emotions ranging from fear, anger, frustration, resentment, happiness, grief to nostalgia. This chameleonic communication is often vital to any successful politician’s career, and its legacy is vast. The use of conceptual metaphors that invoke emotions in political discourse has been the subject in many classical fields of study. It lies in Ancient tradition when emotions, or Pathos in Aristotelian terms, were one of the three persuasive appeals. Emotions have always been central to political communication. “Few would deny that political rhetoric often has an explicitly emotional purpose”, wrote James Martin[ii]. President Lincoln, President D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr are examples of politicians who were invested in cultivating positive emotions. Martha Nussbaum[iii] calls these figures […]
Continue ReadingEssentialism and the Revival of Black Power: Re-inventing American Integrationist Discourse
On July 24 2015, around 500 advocacy groups representing African American communities from all over the country met in a three-day conference at Cleveland State University to deliberate on the creation of a unified political front. Outside the conference facilities, demonstrators shouted slogans decrying what they perceived as deliberate institutional indifference to the plight of their communities in face of the dramatic upsurge of anti-Black racism, police brutality and violence committed by white supremacist groups. The slogans echoed in essence those raised the year before in what historians now call the “Ferguson unrest” in reference to the riots which broke out in two waves over the next four months following the death of 18-year old Michael Brown. The effervescent crowd fuelled further enthusiasm for the participants at the CSU conference who were by now intent on launching a political resistance platform to translate the slogans that had for long remained […]
Continue Reading“The Greatest Infomercial in Political History”: A Presidency in the Age of Entertainment
‘Do me a favor. Do you paint houses too? What is this?’ asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her final speech at the 2020 impeachment of Donald Trump.[i] By thus referencing Martin Scorsese’s 2019 film The Irishman, Pelosi likened the president’s language in his notorious phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to that of a mafia goon. This incident is symptomatic of a remarkable symbiosis: while Hollywood has consistently reflected on U.S. politics, American political discourses have habitually drawn on tropes made in Hollywood. Hence, Trump’s reputation as a ‘reality TV president’ distracts from the fact that framing politics as just another form of entertainment is far from being exclusive to his governing style. To cite recent examples from the opposite political camp, 2021 impeachment managers announced ‘a fast-paced, cinematic case aimed at rekindling the outrage lawmakers experienced on Jan. 6’[ii]. And when asked to compare both Trump […]
Continue ReadingCulture Shock: Representing border discourses and practices in the Trump era
On July 4, 2019, Hulu launched the tenth installment of its ‘Into the Dark’ horror anthology, titled Culture Shock and directed by Mexican Canadian Gigi Saul Guerrero. Culture Shock’s narrative development focuses on the crossing of the US–Mexico border by a group of migrants who are imprisoned in a border facility, where they are used as test subjects in an experimental program for brainwashing and assimilating Latinx migrants. Guerrero’s production was filmed in Santa Clarita, CA, and its script was partially rewritten by the director to make a statement against extrajudicial enforcement practices and the violent conundrum they represent. The US–Mexico border has been object of a progressive militarization through the years, in particular since the mid-80s when restrictive immigration measures began to be implemented; a further escalation was represented by the apparatus created as a consequence of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and by the Trump administration. For three decades, […]
Continue ReadingAn Epidemic of Presidential Ignorance: The AIDS Crisis and the US Presidency
‘Epidemic’ is a powerful word. For something to be deemed an ‘epidemic’, it suggests something has gone terribly wrong. The ongoing response to COVID-19 has attracted a wide array of criticism from medical professionals, politicians and the American public. From downplaying the severity of COVID-19 to neglecting testing protocols and relief packages, it might appear that Donald Trump’s indifferent approach to COVID-19 broke new ground in overlooking a rapid response to a national health emergency. Perhaps most troubling of all, however, is that such a precedent was not new. The problematic response to the COVID-19 pandemic draws on an established tradition of poor health crisis policymaking, reinforcing the reality that the teachings of the 1980s AIDS epidemic remain unheeded today. Ronald Reagan’s response – or lack thereof – to the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s is a compelling example of presidential ignorance. Undoubtably problematic, the Reagan administration was slow to […]
Continue ReadingAsian American Solidarities in the Age of COVID-19
‘The majority of Americans [regard] us with ambivalence… We [threaten] the sanctity and symmetry of a white and black America whose yin and yang racial politics [leaves] no room for any other color, particularly that of a pathetic little yellow-skinned people…’ -Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer “We don’t have coronavirus. We are coronavirus.” – Cathy Park Hong Since news of a novel coronavirus began to spread across the U.S., an incrementally high number of hate crime incidents directed against Asian Americans has continued to rise in unprecedented ways and at an accelerating pace with 60% of Asian Americans and one-third of all Americans personally witnessing an episode of anti-Asian harassment in 2020. Reports of verbal harassment, refusal of service, vandalism, physical assault and even murder has persistently plagued Asian communities nationwide over the last twelve months. Notably, there has been no concerted effort from federal agencies to […]
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