Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged politics

No One Killed Jessica

In 1999 model/waitress Jessica Lall refused to serve drinks to a rowdy man in a crowded bar, who then shot her point blank in a fit of rage. That man turned out to be the son of an influential politician, but with 300 witnesses it seemed like a straightforward case. However, in an unfortunate example of the rot in the judicial system and rampant corruption, all the witnesses were either threatened or paid off, and the evidence was tampered with, leading to the release of the killer. No One Killed Jessica by Rajkumar Gupta follows the initial courtroom campaign relentlessly pursued by Jessica’s sister, Sabrina (Vidya Balan), and then the news media battle for the reopening of the case led by fictionalized reporter Meera (Rani Mukherji).

Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895-1945

Mark Driscoll, an associate professor of Japanese and International Studies at the University of North Carolina, here presents a very thorough reassessment of Japanese imperialism of Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Driscoll focuses his attention on the fringes of the colonized Asian peoples, writing about the Chinese coolies, Korean farmers, Japanese pimps and trafficked women of various Asian nationalities that moved Japan's empire along and provided the behind-the-scenes energy that created such an empire.

Cho Dependent

To call comedienne Margaret Cho’s latest endeavor, Cho Dependent, a comedy album seems like a disservice. Though songs like “Calling in Stoned” (featuring the ever-stoned Tommy Chong), “Your Dick,” and “Eat Shit and Die” do little for my argument, Cho Dependent is completely unlike her six previous comedy albums. This, my friends, is Cho’s foray into the music world, and a damn fine one at that.

Women Count: A Guide to Changing the World

As a single mom with two jobs and an interest in finding space for volunteerism and activism, I immediately connected with Susan Bulkeley Butler’s interconnected main points—that the ways we “count” women don’t always count, and that women need to take control of the ways in which they “count” on personal and political levels.

Couture and Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina

While I was intrigued by Regina Root’s assertion that fashion played a large role in the development of national identity in postcolonial Argentina, I was more than intimidated to jump into a book with such an impressive thesis without much background knowledge of Argentinean history. Thankfully, Root packs an incredible amount of information into a slim volume.

Exposing One of the Greatest Intrusions of Religion into American Politics

Some interviews are more timely than others. In this one, producer and filmmaker Reed Cowan explained his underlying motivation for writing, directing, and producing the critically acclaimed documentary film 8: The Mormon Proposition.

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

I jumped at the chance to review Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, an unconventional graphic memoir from writer/artist Belle Yang. While I am no expert on graphic literature, I did devour Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series.

Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture and Social Crisis

Punk, hardcore, and alternative rock music scenes have been for years the almost exclusive realm of teenagers and youth in their twenties. Not only have they been areas of creative expression, but such subcultures have given young people a place to challenge beauty standards, political boundaries, and cultural norms. In Sells Like Teen Spirit, author Ryan Moore documents the music scenes of the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as their evolutions today.

Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know

As an ethically and environmentally aware feminist vegetarian, I view food and politics as ineluctably joined. Robert Paarlberg’s Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know challenged some of my basic ideas about hunger, famine, and the scope of issues contained by the term food politics, yet the book ignores some of the ways in which food is always simultaneously personal and political.

Fearless Female Journalists

Fearless Female Journalists is a set of ten short profiles of female reporters, photojournalists, and newscasters hailing from various times and places over the last two centuries. Among the women featured is one of the early pioneers of modern journalism: nineteenth-century American newspaperwoman Nellie Bly, a daredevil stunt reporter.

/\/\/\Y/\ (Maya)

A week prior to its July 13th release, M.I.A.’s new album, /\/\/\Y/_ (or _Maya), was made available streaming on the artist's MySpace page.

The Tyranny of Opinion: Honor in the Construction of the Mexican Public Sphere

A coworker who saw this book sitting on my desk commented, “The tyranny of opinion? Isn’t the whole point of an opinion that it’s free from tyranny?” Not quite. Even today, public opinion can make or break a celebrity’s or politician’s career.

Peepli Live

The women of Peepli… well, there are no women in Peepli. Yes, there are daughters and mothers and wives, and to them Natha is purportedly “son and brother.” Natha is in dire straits; he has taken a loan from the bank and now cannot repay it.

For My Father

Centering on the chaste love affair between a Palestinian and an Israeli, For My Father offers the viewer a Middle Eastern re-telling of Romeo and Juliet while trying to spell out the complexities of post-intifada Israel. The film opens up on Tarek (Shredi Jabarin), a Palestinian who has decided to act as suicide bomber.

Made in Pakistan

These days, political analysts on both sides of the aisle are calling Pakistan a failed state. While the “most dangerous place in the world” does face profound political and social turmoil, such sweeping commentary fails to capture the more personal intricacies of the lives of ordinary people living inside the country’s borders. Pakistan is more than the Taliban fighters implementing Sharia law in the Swat Valley, and it’s more than the frequent bombings of embassies and hotels from Islamabad to Karachi.

Robin Hood

Being the rabid Ridley Scott fan that I am, last week I went to go see his new movie, Robin Hood, at the theatre.

A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Arts, Politics, and Daily Life

A Decade of Negative Thinking is a collection of essays on feminism, paintings, and feminist art history. As a teacher of graduate students, Schor’s experience provides us with practical and theoretical background to an artist’s commitment to contemporary art. The main theme of the study encompasses the ideas and images from Schor’s earlier life that were significant in influencing her artistic direction.

Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India

Everyday Nationalism, a publication in "The Ethnography of Political Violence" series, offers readers a provocative and sometimes disturbing look at Hindu nationalist organizations and the role of Indian women in representing the nationalist movement.

Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith

In her new book, entitled Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, Emma Tarlo captures the diversity in the way that Islam is practiced against the backdrop of multicultural Britain.

Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction

When the term “anarchy” is heard, most people think of the “circle-A” graffiti on crumbling buildings and the T-shirts of punk rock kids, or else imagine a state of complete lawlessness and the breakdown of society. Popular culture does nothing to dispel these collective thoughts. In theory and philosophy, anarchy refers to the absence of a state or rulers and a society in which there is no vertical hierarchy of class, but instead a horizontal equality of societal participants.

What’s Your Point, Honey?

Initially you might believe that the lives of the women and girls introduced in What’s Your Point, Honey? will intersect in some intimate way. The opening scenes seem to insinuate a touching tale itching to unfold—and it does, but not in the way you might expect. A triad of 10-year-old girls who are brilliant beyond their years are shown asking pedestrians if they’d vote a woman into the oval office and why America hasn’t been able to already.

Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton

There has to be something said for being able to succeed in concisely communicating the issue of Black feminism and politics, but I think Duchess Harris has done just that.

Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women

If the front book cover of Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Nancy Reagan in silver one-pieces doing the cancan is the craziest thing you have ever seen, wait until you open the book. In Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women, Autumn Stephens reveals stories about the United States First Ladies that you never learned in history class.

Legacies of Race: Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil

Legacies of Race answers many of my personal questions about a strict notion of racial identification among the “black and white” in Brazil. When I visited Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 1993, I was intrigued by the notion of the “Afro-Brazilian” population who viewed themselves as “mixed race” rather than the distinctive “white” or “black” of the United States.

Football Under Cover

I encountered one major problem with Football Under Cover very early on: it wouldn’t play either on my U.S. regional DVD player or through a few of the many video players on my computer. Eventually, I managed to get it to run in Windows Media Center and sat down to watch. The earliest scenes were so well done, I started to doubt my own memory.

I'ma Be Me

In her first HBO comedy special since 2006's Sick & Tired, Wanda Sykes’ I'ma Be Me promises from the outset that she is "not holding anything back." This is a promise she works assiduously to keep throughout the show.

Kiss The Sky

_“I don’t believe in the devil anymore. But if I did, he would look a lot like Ari Malcolm Klein.” _ This is how Farai Chideya draws her readers into her mesmerizing, charismatic novel Kiss The Sky. Sophie Maria Clare Lee, a Black girl from blue collar Baltimore, remakes herself by applying and being accepted to attend Harvard.

The Old Garden

A garden is a metaphor for revolution. When painstakingly cared for, dry and barren ground can eventually yield the most beautiful of things. A garden can change an unruly landscape to an ordered plot, produce food and purpose, and forever capture the energy of a gardener with loyalty, conviction, and a love of what it could become.

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East

The brash leather-clad sex columnist who hosts her own television show, The Biography of Love, is: a) a Parisian whose show airs in France b) an American whose show airs in the U.S. c) a Kuwaiti whose show is broadcast throughout the Middle East The surprising answer is C.

Long-sleeved Black Red Star T-shirt

You can wear your heart on your sleeve, or your politics on your chest. Ban T-shirts—“redress your world”—provides political t-shirts on themes including the political, environmental, organic, anti-war, Native American, and anti-religious. They break it down from the EZLN to GMOs, and have the sense of humor to send up some traditional idols by combining Manson's face with the iconographic image of Che Guevara. A sign of fanaticism: no sense of humor.
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