cultural studies

Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire

andrea — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Bruce Erickson, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands

Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire explores the intersections of queer studies and environmental studies and aims to trouble dominant discourses of nature and sexuality. The authors in this collection argue that we should adopt a queer ecological perspective, a “transgressive and historically relevant critique of dominant pairings of nature and environment with heteronormativity and homophobia.” Drawing on science studies, environmental history, queer geography, ecocriticism, critical race theory, cultural studies, landscape ecology, and LGBTQ theory, this interdisciplinary anthology presents the various possibilities for “queering ecology and greening queer politics.”

What do queer ecologies and greener queer politics look like? To answer this question, the essays use various theoretical and methodological strategies to explore how understandings of nature shape discourses of sexuality and how understandings of sex and reproduction shape perceptions and uses of the environment.

The chapters delve into topics as diverse as animal sexuality, hermaphrodite frogs, eco-porn, biophilia, lesbian rural communities, pollution and overpopulation, and penguins as environmental icons. Several themes weave throughout the entire collection, including critical analyses of homophobic and racist evolutionary narratives and the ways that particular spaces become imbued with sexual meanings. Overall, Queer Ecologies critiques the heteronormative, racist, nationalist, and colonialist narratives that structure popular environmentalist discourses.

The volume approaches these issues through three sections. In the first part, "Against Nature? Queer Sex, Queer Animality," the authors examine how sexual natures are produced through dichotomies such as animal/human and nature/culture. These essays argue that the question is not whether queer acts are “unnatural,” but rather how definitions of nature and culture (and the boundaries between them) are produced and mobilized.

The second section of the book, "Green, Pink, and Public: Queering Environmental Politics," explores the intersections of sexuality and nature as sites of engaged political action. These contributions critique the heteronormativity and whiteness of environmental politics and offer possibilities for radical ecologies and sexual environmental justice.

The final part of the book, "Desiring Nature: Queer Attachments," speaks to the pleasures and losses of engaging with the “more than human” world. The authors in this section explore the links between the regulation of sexuality and the destruction of non-human life. One of the most profound essays in the collection is by editor Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands, who writes on the subject of mourning in queer writing about nature. Drawing on a politicized melancholic sensibility from lesbian and gay experiences of AIDS, she attempts a queer re-thinking of environmental destruction, arguing that few, if any public rituals exist to express mourning over the loss of the environment.

Overall, this collection moves forward conversations in queer and environmental literatures, and makes important connections between discourses of sexuality and nature that offer promising possibilities for productive political coalitions and more critical theories. While the authors are careful to note the materiality of bodies and spaces, the volume relies predominantly on textual analysis. The authors examine familiar cultural texts such as mainstream movies like Brokeback Mountain and Happy Feet, popular documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, and the poetry of Adrienne Rich and Minnie Bruce Pratt.

Readers will come away from Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire with a complex understanding of the dangerous assumptions that shape environmental discourses, as well as the importance of environmental considerations to queer theorizing and movement building. The queer ecological framework offered in this collection has valuable insights for readers across a broad spectrum of interests.

Written by: Traci Yoder, January 5th 2011

The Cinematic Life of the Gene

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Jackie Stacey

Duke University Press

The Cinematic Life of the Gene is a challenging and complex collection of essays that uses cinematic representations of genetics and cloning to consider the cultural impact of genetic breakthroughs. Jackie Stacey draws on some of the most well known theoretical works regarding cinema, art, and the body to consider the fascinating link between cinema and genomics. Her essays cite everything from feminist and psychoanalytic theory to theories of passing and reassemblage. It is the text's interdisciplinary nature that makes it both challenging and significant; cinema scholars, scientists, and feminists alike will find this work compelling. Still, The Cinematic Life of the Gene roots its examinations in the moving image, and serious scholars of the cinema (and particularly of science fiction cinema) will benefit from this “cultural study of film.”

Stacey’s work centers on an interesting premise: that cinema is uniquely tied to the science of cloning, since both are “technologies of imitation” which illustrate “a fascination with the boundary between life and death, and with the technical possibilities of animating the human body.” More than their fascinations with life and death, however, Stacey is interested in how scientific conceptions of cloning and genomics work concurrently with cinematic representations in creating “aestheticized forms of envisioning the human body.” In other words, scientists and filmmakers alike have visually codified genetic manipulation as a means of understanding and coping with its cultural and social ramifications. Stacey examines these attendant fears and desires surrounding genetic manipulation, referring to them as “the genetic imaginary,” a theoretical and cultural space in which “the fears and desires” around cloning and genomics are expressed and explored. She utilizes analyses of films from multiple genres (science fiction, the art-house thriller, feminist independent film, and body horror) to examine how fears surrounding genomics are expressed through both narrative and visual structure.

Stacey's explorations of the cultural impact of genomics on the psyche are fascinating but rather overwhelming, particularly because of her heavy dependence on prior theoretical works by the likes of Jean Baudrillard and Walter Benjamin. Unfortunately, Stacey focuses so heavily on explicating her predecessors’ works that she tends to obscure her own thoughts; her contributions to these theories get lost amongst the jargon of her theoretical ancestors. Stacey serves her reader well by anchoring her arguments in popular works like Gattaca and Alien: Resurrection, making her work more approachable and comprehensible. She succeeds when she pares down her writing and engages with fewer theoretical texts in an essay; for example, she provides an inspired and fascinating examination of feminine masquerade in the science fiction film, applying the theories of well-known feminists Luce Irigaray and Mary Ann Doane to constructions of men in narratives of cloning.

The Cinematic Life of the Gene is not for the novice cinema or science fiction scholar, but those seriously engaged in a cultural study of the moving image or genetics would serve themselves well to tackle it. Scholars aligned with feminist and queer theories will also find rich fodder for thought in Stacey’s attentions to feminism, gender, and sexuality on screen.

Written by: Joanna Chlebus, August 12th 2010

Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Aífe Murray

University of New Hampshire Press

The popular image of Emily Dickinson is that of an almost ghostly woman in white, secluding herself in an upstairs bedroom alone, but Maid as Muse's innovative approach shows her frequently in the kitchen. There, she is found stirring puddings, baking her famous gingerbread, and living on familiar terms with the household help. She shared her dreams and gossiped with her favorite maid, the Irish-born Margaret Maher, who Dickinson referred to as her dear Maggie.

Murray uses a wide range of documents, including maps, advertisements, letters, photographs, and oral history interviews with descendants of the Dickinson's domestic staff to recreate the material and intellectual milieu in which the poet wrote her celebrated works. Murray demonstrates that the quantity and quality of Emily's writing output—in letters and poems—varies with the presence and absence of reliable servants in the household. Only when there are competent people to help with the heavy load of housework that a nineteenth-century homestead requires is Emily able to find the time, the energy, and, most significant, the concentration to write at her best.

Furthermore, Murray shows that the servants' vernacular speech—often quite different from the staid Yankee rhythms of the poet's family and neighbors—influenced Emily's compositions. The poet herself quotes sayings in her letters by the Irish immigrant Mrs. Mack, for example, and notes how differently her maids pronounce certain English words. Emily's famous slant rhymes and staccato lines of poetry also have startling parallels to the reported conversations and personal letters of her staff.

Murray traces the contributions of Black, American Indian, and British-born servants to the life and work of Emily Dickinson. She points out the places where Emily revealed the prejudices of her times, the classism and racism, yet she also acknowledges how Emily managed to rise above those prejudices and see poor people and other outcasts as sympathetic human beings. This is an enormously rich book, impossible to summarize briefly, well worth exploring, not only by the many fans of Emily Dickinson's poetry, but anyone interested in cultural history and the development of American society.

Written by: Kittye Delle Robbins-Herring, June 21st 2010

Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by David A. B. Murray

Duke University Press

Homosexuality seems to always be a topic of interest for researchers, at least in this day and age. Perhaps it is most interesting because sexuality is one of the most private aspects of a person’s life, and nothing seems to generate interest in quite the way that something so mysterious and private can. Homophobia, like homosexuality, varies in degrees of presence, and is often intertwined with the complexities of the cultural, economic, and political workings of the environment it finds itself situated. In Homophobias, edited by David A. B. Murray, the topic of homophobia and its prevalence is examined across cultures and time.

Of particular interest to me has always been the weaving together of racism and homophobia, which is discussed in the article by Brian Riedel titled, “Stolen Kisses: Homophobias as ‘Racism’ in Contemporary Urban Greece.” Ratsismós, which is the Greek word for racism, encompasses much more than the North American conceptualization of “race,” as stated in this article, in that racism is not restricted to a form of discrimination based on phenotype. In the context of the North American concept of racism and its history, relating racism to homophobia would be and is often vehemently protested by people of color. The argument lies in the views of many who are victims of racism that a person can more or less hide sexuality, while one cannot hide his or her skin color. However, with the linguistic structure of the aforementioned word and its encompassing of not only a race but also a nation or tribe—as opposed to a specific group of people based on phenotype—one would be forced to contemplate how one relates to the other.

In the essay, “The Emergence of Political Homophobia in Indonesia” by Tom Boellstorff, an examination of masculinity and national belonging takes place. Boellstorff defines political homophobia as a “cultural logic that links emotion, sexuality, and political violence,” and states that homophobia is often specific to geography and history. He writes that this definition was exemplified in an anti-American newspaper in Indonesia that gave former President Bush a makeover in the form of lipstick, earrings, and a leather jacket, equating him to an emotional transvestite. This was to signify the failed masculinity Bush displayed in seeking allies to attack Afghanistan, as opposed to a one-on-one duel with Osama Bin Laden; thus, by those standards, Bush was operating as a non-normative male.

Suzanne LaFont’s “Not Quite Redemption Song: LGBT-Hate in Jamaica” captures how firmly heterosexism is institutionalized in Jamaica, in that prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people are tolerated and supported partly by police and politicians. She states that there is a moral superiority held by Jamaica over Western liberal sexual ideology. The institutionalized discrimination of gays also evidenced by the outspokenness of Jamaica’s music artists attests to this held superiority and is reinforced with the continued support of artists that speak out so strongly through their music, even promoting murder against gays.

Homophobias is a well-edited collection of how homophobia is captured across cultures, time, and space. It also questions how homophobia—an exclusive prejudice against homosexuals—can exist as a universal form of discrimination, and how that discrimination can exist in various forms from political emasculation to violent attacks. Homophobias serves as an important collection of works with which to move past preconceived ideas of what one thinks constitutes homophobia.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, March 24th 2010

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Leila J. Rupp

New York University Press

Sapphistries is an epic journey through real and fictional love between women. It is so epic that the author, Leila J. Rupp, had to coin a new term to describe this type of book. It is not just a history; it is an interweaving of prehistoric musings, fictional accounts that draw on suppositions of what it must have been like in times when no evidence was left of when and where these kinds of love was forbidden, right up to the modern day. I say these kinds of love because Rupp has effortfully but effectively convinced me that I need to know about the whole she-bang. It’s not easy to keep track of lesbians throughout history when people didn’t self-identify as such.

This book takes in the whole gamut of potential interpretations of women-loving-women: social males, women who live as men but retained their female identity, third and fourth gender identities, women passing as men, two spirits, secret weddings, school girls having accepted but secret relationships as a cultural yet unofficial rite of passage in various modern cultures... as a run-of-the-mill modern lesbian, I was a little overwhelmed. This varied interpretation of ‘Sapphistries’ is extremely broad, and definitely widened my perspective on what I think the author would like me to consider a part of my culture.

Primary and secondary source material across the span of human history is combined with fictional accounts throughout the book. I personally found the interweaving of fictional accounts and historical details a little too seamless at first. I had to flip back and forth a few times mid-tale to remind myself which was which, but I eventually got the hang of it and had a much better contextualized grasp of what I was reading. I thoroughly enjoyed the re-tellings and re-imaginings of ancient women-loving-women. With Rupp's first-person interjections and a storytelling tone, the book reads like a long and enjoyable university lecture delivered by a witty, warm, and knowledgeable teacher.

I would recommend this book for women’s studies, literature, queer theory, or history syllabuses. I even suspect it would make for an excellent module on its own, with some supplementary reading thrown in. It’s no coffee table book—this is some serious reading and I personally would want a sherpa to guide me through it the next time I read it.

Sapphistries is particularly invaluable for queer theory because of the vastly broad picture it presents of the grand scope of women who love women—regardless of whether they identify as queer or not. This book opened my eyes to the many positive and negative perceptions and lifestyle choices of those who were a part of ‘Sapphistry’ in the past, and I look forward to seeing how it informs future study and thought.

Written by: Chella Quint, March 21st 2010

Conversate Is Not A Word: Getting Away From Ghetto

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Jam Donaldson

Lawrence Hill Books

I admit it: I bristle when my students talk about conversating. At the same time, I try to catch myself, remembering that decades back no one spoke of googling or used the word text as a verb either. Language, like social mores, constantly changes.

African American author, provocateur, blogger, and lawyer Jam Donaldson understands this, and her message is simple: Everyone, but especially people of color, needs to know the difference between slang and proper grammar, and everyone needs to take responsibility for the things they can control. For her, this means dressing age-appropriately and not parading the family jewels—whether a belly button or a pair of Joe Boxer’s—in public. Indeed, Donaldson is so miffed by “ghetto chic” that she created a website to showcase violations she considers particularly egregious.

Called Hot Ghetto Mess, the site has, since 2004, urged readers to send in outrageous photos and commentary. Dozens have been compiled, exhibiting a wide-range of missteps, from a little boy in a faux pimp costume to a woman with a tattoo proclaiming her prowess as “cock sucka.” But Donaldson is about more than style and she uses her writing to push African Americans to own personal failures.

“Sure, there’s racism,” she writes, "but those things in our lives we can control we should control. Fighting injustice and racism is not incompatible with getting a job and acting like you got some damn sense. How about we do both?”

Men who walk away from the children they sire are particularly irksome, Donaldson writes. So, too are women who neglect to use contraceptives to protect against STDs and pregnancy. While her vision of optimal two-parent childrearing is absurdly narrow—and heterosexist—her point about family planning is on the mark: “Decide if you even want children. Having children should be a conscious choice, not a default.”

Like Bill Cosby, Eric Michael Dyson, and Oprah Winfrey, Donaldson values education and sees knowledge as power. She rails at those who spend money on jewelry and designer duds, but not books, and rants that not learning computer basics is essentially acquiescing to subordination. Furthermore, Donaldson believes that a standard work ethic is essential and is aghast at those who eschew the nine-to-five. “Many young people no longer equate hard work with money. Hard work is for suckas… But that’s like all those young white girls trying to look like the air brushed models in magazines. They are chasing a dream. Idolizing a fantasy.”

Her recommendation? Find work you can tolerate, do it, save some money, be realistic about purchases, avoid excessive debt, and remember to give back to those who are less fortunate. She zooms in on churches that continually beg for cash and lambastes them for preying on people’s generosity. “Churches should be about service, not self-serving,” she quips. “Give us something we really need, like food, clothing, shelter, or a mortgage payment. You have the opportunity to be a lifeline for so many. And really, isn’t that what Jesus would do?”

While Donaldson never discusses the N-word, an odd omission in a book about Black pride, Conversate Is Not a Word is engaging and frequently amusing. Few readers will agree with her on every point, but the debate generated will make it well worth the purchase price.

Nelson Mandela once said that “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” That statement is Donaldson’s starting point. How progressives, whether white or of color, interpret this injunction remains an open question.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 16th 2010

The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Paul Shankman

University of Wisconsin Press

What do Phil Donohue, a New Zealand ethnologist, three anthropologist husbands, and a small handful of Samoan girls all have in common? The answer is: Margaret Mead and their roles in a debate that has rocked cultural anthropology since 1983.

The Trashing of Margaret Mead is a fine, funny, discriminating, and at times quite disturbing book. At the heart of the so-called Mead-Freeman Debate was the veracity, meaning, and political uses of the data that Mead collected in 1925 during the ethnographic research that she conducted in Samoa. Her central finding was that Samoan adolescence did not require the storm-and-stress widely seen as part of adolescence, the volatility that characterizes “teenaged” behavior. Mead’s work framed the “nature/nurture” debate: is nature (e.,g. biology and hormones) ultimately responsible for sexual maturation and behavior, or is it nurture (e.g., gender relations and child-rearing)? Is male dominance hard-wired biologically, or can egalitarianism be taught? Freeman chose the former, Mead the latter.

The Trashing of Margaret Mead consists of fourteen chapters arranged into five parts. It is filled with salacious talk, iconic photos, back-channel communication, and an impressive attention to nuance and detail. The two chapters comprising “The Controversy and the Media” remind the reader of the huge splash made in 1983 in anthropology and wider circles by the publication of Derek Freeman’s book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Relatively few people actually read the book, but stories about Freeman and Mead, often wildly misunderstanding and misquoting the latter, circulated in the pages of Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and most memorably in the telling by the author, Paul Shankman, on The Phil Donohue Show. Shankman shows with great gusto and clarity that U.S. media and many academics were predisposed to accept Freeman’s claims, however fraudulent.

Part two exposes Derek Freeman the man, but more importantly, the mind. At least once in the early 1960s, while working in Sarawak, Indonesia, Freeman went quite off the rails. In a museum there he once hacked off the phalluses of wooden statues carved by fine Iban craftsmen. Freeman’s instability is near legendary, and Shankman shows this to us with grace and skill by revealing the manic tenor of his writings and the increasingly nasty tone of his correspondence until the very day he died.

The four chapters in part three, “Sex, Lies and Samoans,” cover the life of and influences upon the young Margaret Mead, the conditions of her first fieldwork in Samoa, and the publication in 1928 of Coming of Age in Samoa, which was an extremely popular (and popularizing) book. These chapters read like a scholarly detective story of what the Mead-Freeman debate meant (and continues to mean) to Samoans, and of what Samoan thought, belief, and behavior are like in terms of sexual matters. Special commentary is reserved for the place of the "taupou system" in Samoa by and through which female virginity is valorized and idealized. As in most cultures, Samoan brothers want to have virginal sisters, but Mead, Freeman, and Shankman show that they often want also to get into the pants (or back then, under the grass skirts) of other men’s sisters.

Shankman also revisits the effects of cross-cultural contact with the American military during World War II upon Samoan beliefs and behaviors. Whereas Mead said that Samoans were largely egalitarian, easy-going, and not hung-up about sex, Freeman argued that Mead had gotten it all wrong, that Samoan culture was riddled by status differentials, prone to violence, circumspect with regards to sex, and also “rape-prone.” Freeman contended that Mead was hoaxed during her fieldwork by two Samoan girls who jokingly indicated their usual hunts and haunts for boys. Shankman shows that Freeman was mistaken, concluding that “Freeman not only misrepresented the historical work of others but neglected his own personal experiences in the islands during World War II and his unpublished work on the taupou system.” Shankman shows that Mead got it largely right and that Freeman got it sloppily and willfully wrong on many, many counts.

The Trashing of Margaret Mead should be used in college courses ranging from media studies to cultural anthropology to women’s studies to Peoples and Cultures of the Pacific. Graduate-level seminars could be wrapped around the many significant issues raised here. Shankman’s bulldog-like dedication for many years is as laudable as his prose style is engaging.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., March 8th 2010

The Gospel of Hip Hop: The First Instrument

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By KRS-ONE

powerHouse Books

Just as jazz is a uniquely American phenomenon whose sentiment and message resonate with people the world round, so is hip-hop. Hip-hop began as a means by which to illustrate the experiences of people living their daily lives in the ‘hoods of New York. Although the originators of hip-hop, such as the Sugar Hill Gang were instrumental in shedding light on teen pregnancy, drug addiction, and violence it wasn’t until the era of KRS-One that hip-hop evolved to the status of Cultural Revolution. KRS-One, best known as Teacha, brought hip-hop to the mainstream. Although in his early days his work with Boogie Down Productions (BDP) was more violent in nature, after the tragic loss of his BDP partner, DJ Scott LaRock, his work evolved into a peaceable lyrical style that called the masses to confront social ills head on. With his politically savvy, multicultural take on what he was witnessing in his environs he touched upon that longing within us all to be free. Hip-hop is, at its core, about freedom.

Yet, freedom is not free and it is the struggle that is highlighted in The Gospel of Hip Hop. True to its name, the Gospel of hip-hop provides the reader with a good word about the value garnered only by overcoming obstacles. Hip-hop, although invented in America, has become an internationally appreciated musical form because it is more than just music. In this tome KRS-One provides the reader with plenty of teaching on peace and love which breaks down barriers, removes prejudice, and reconciles injustice.

For example, in the opening section, of this book the Teacha states: "But as for us, as for our group commonly known in the World as 'Hip Hop,' this gospel acknowledges and celebrates the Love that has saved OUR people from self destruction. It is time to repent and grow up! Rapping about crime and murder may sound good amongst those who have never committed such acts, but for those of us who are REAL IN THE FIELD, we send this message to our young people—YOU DON’T REALLY WANT IT!"

And on the following page: "For with this first instrument we remember GOD and how we were rescued by unseen forces more powerful than any government on Earth. For when all seemed hopeless and oppression seemed permanent; a caring, protective, nurturing creative force independent of all the World’s political, business, educational and religious institutions, swept through our hearts and homes and we were rescued from sickness, hatred, ignorance and poverty with a behavior that we eventually began to call 'Hip Hop.' And we must NEVER forget this.”

Hip-hop is life, hip-hop is freedom, hip-hop is revolution. KRS-One has brought to light the cure for what ails us all: heart sickness, the residual effect of the subjugation of one group of people by another group of people. Whether those groups are divided by gender, race, religion, socio-economic status, age, or educational attainment they are all expressions of hatred and ignorance. The only solution for which is love. As Al Green so eloquently stated “Love is the message and the message is love”.

Written by: Susan G. Reyes Vasquez, January 20th 2010

Sexualities Special issue: "Researching and Teaching the Sexually Explicit: Ethics, Methodology and Pedagogy"

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Edited by Feona Attwood, I.Q. Hunter

Sage Publications

I am just about to begin teaching a new course in Human Sexuality, so I was excited to review this special issue of Sexualities, the UK-published journal that features new and different voices from sexology, gender studies, and cultural studies. Each of the eight original essays provides teachers, activists and researchers with much-needed breathing space. As Attwood and Hunter point out, “The emergence of ‘porn studies’ in academic institutions has been met with widespread ethical and political opposition, even more so than the study of horror films. Sex media, rather like horror films in fact, are often seen as intrinsically obscene and harmful, effecting real changes in behaviour and attitude, and therefore potentially damaging to researchers and students.” Not so, say the contributors, at least not necessarily so. Porn appears now to be as central to our culture as its study has become prominent to academia.

The collection brings together theorists, educators, and activists from or working in the U.S. (Dennis Waskul), Finland (Susanna Paasonen), Hong Kong (Katrien Jacobs), Australia (Alan McKee, Kath Albury), and the U.K. (Brian McNair, Clarissa Smith, Steve Jones, Sharif Mowlabocus, Feona Attwood, and I.Q. Hunter).

The essays of Waskul, Smith, and McNair will embolden teachers to embrace new media technologies and push the envelope of eroticism in the classroom. Jones and Mowlabocus remind readers that punishing those who enjoy violent depictions of sexuality and/or who sexualize depictions of violence “does not eradicate or significantly hinder the production of such material” but does complicate things for scholars and teachers.

Katrien Jacobs examines the Hong Kong celebrity entertainer Edison Chen, whose DIY pornography made with other Chinese celebrities was inadvertently leaked to the press (darn those computer repairmen!) and led to mass hand-wringing. Paasonen details “something of a porn renaissance” that occurred in late 1990s Finland. Depictions of human sexuality had been regulated since the 1920s until this shift which enabled a wholesale mainstreaming of porn in Finland and other Nordic countries.

Kath Albury trades on her experiences from 2001 to 2003 as the Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council-funded project, “Understanding Pornography in Australia.” Albury’s first-rate critical reading of porn debates (in this case, in feminist circles) shows that few voices, however radical or conservative, manage to escape the restraints of moralism.

Alan McKee’s “Social Scientists Don’t Say ‘Titwank’” looks at how referees for journals in the humanities and social sciences have responded to his manuscripts about sex. He concludes that “in the humanities there is no longer a problem with the use of vulgar language.” Nevertheless, his essay reveals sharp differences in method, theory, and work-style between practitioners of cultural studies and anthropology. One statement really rankled me: “We surveyed over 1000 consumers of pornography as part of our research. In the correct social science manner, I will now claim this [sic] data as objective.” Other statements in this and other essays, such as “Older respondents had worse attitudes towards women . . . Christians had worse attitudes towards women . . . Those who lived in rural areas had worse attitudes . . .” made me long for the more fine-grained nuances of ethnographic writing about sex, sexuality, and sexual networking. Then again, few ethnographers are doing porn studies or pushing the erotic envelope in the classroom, so readers will find much else of great merit in McKee’s essay and the others.

Given the brevity and accessibility of these eight exciting contributions (not forgetting the six fine book reviews), this newest issue of Sexualities is an especially welcome resource for educators.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., January 18th 2010

Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African Middle Class

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Lisa B. Thompson

University of Illinois Press

In Beyond the Black Lady, Lisa B. Thompson analyzes representations of black middle class female sexuality in literature, theater, film, and popular culture. Her discussions highlight the need to go beyond the “overly determined racial and sexual script” to which middle class black women are expected to conform, which includes a sense of propriety and restraint as a counter to stereotypes of promiscuity that proliferate in the media. Thompson aims to move beyond valorizing black women, with an unattainable (and undesirable) idea of purity, and demonizing black women with assumptions of excessive and inappropriate sexual expression.

For African American women, there is a long history of misrepresentation and a limited menu of options. As Thompson writes, the “intersection of sexism and racism continually undermines black female representation.” In Thompson’s analysis, middle class black women might feel pressure to prove their morality to a critical white majority, while also feeling pressure to prove their legitimacy and belonging to the larger African American community.

Thompson’s scholarship seeks representational strategies that empower black women and subvert dominant stereotypes. She offers examples to illustrate that it is possible to move beyond stereotypes, to embrace a more holistic personhood complete with sexual agency. She offers a lively discussion of Judith Alexa Jackson’s performance piece “WOMBman Wars” as a site of freely expressed sexuality. Through her discussion of independent film, including Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust and Kasi Lemmon’s Eve’s Bayou, Thompson highlights alternatives to the stereotypes of options available to middle class black women in many films. She also includes helpful examples from the genre of autobiography.

Living in a racialized society, according to Thompson’s analysis, middle class African American women might feel a pressure to conform to conventions of propriety and respectability, as an act of responsibility to the African American community and a means to meet familial expectations. However, by leaving conventions behind, we can see more realistic portrayals of women, and women might have a less restricted experience.

This volume is solidly grounded in African American feminist theory, and Thompson deftly weaves in the work of her predecessors. She demonstrates that cultural criticism has a role to play in movements for social justice, because our representations are both fruits of and seeds for representations. With First Lady Michelle Obama in the White House, this book is a timely volume.

Written by: Lisa Rand, January 9th 2010

Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Richard T. Rodríguez

Duke University Press

Anyone can tell you that family is important to Mexican and Chicano culture, and we can all venture guesses as to why. However, where exactly this family unit seems to be headed and how it has evolved in U.S. popular culture over the past 25-30 years is what Richard Rodríguez chooses to scrutinize in his study—and he does so with unexpected wit.

Rodríguez's Next of Kin is structured into four chapters framed by an introduction and an afterword. His first chapter, "Reappraising the Family Archive," examines the predominance of the family in Chicano cultural production since the establishment of the explicitly Chicano movements in the early '70s. Here, Rodríguez displays evident skill in his pictorial analysis, a talent that is augmented by the inclusion of various reproductions of the materials that he is analyzing.

In the aptly named second chapter, "Shooting the Patriarch," Rodríguez's analysis traces the same phenomenon as it appears in the medium of film and television. Although he looks at many films and programs produced by Chicanos, he primarily focuses on the film Mi Familia. Remarkably, Rodríguez manages to avoid using the word "stereotype" in this chapter, at least for the first part of his breakdown of the film.

In the third chapter, "The Verse of the Godfather," Rodríguez very thoroughly traces the origins of Chicano rap music and hip-hop culture. However, we can only lament that he did not extend his discussion to specific lyrics, since he is especially skilled at textual analysis. We finally find this skill put to use in the too brief final chapter, entitled "Carnal Knowledge," where carnal refers to the Mexican Spanish "brotherly" aspect of kinship. Rodríguez investigates the construction of gay Chicano Culture, but once again, the chapter seems underdeveloped and this begs the question of insufficient material, since Rodríguez dates the outing of gay masculine Chicano culture as far back as 1981. Seeing as the book is otherwise well written and informative, we can but lament that almost one third of the book (some 80 pages out of 257) are devoted to notes and bibliography.

Much of Rodríguez's analysis in Next of Kin revolves around the construction of the Chicano identity as different from (and similar to) the construction of other gendered identities, such as African American identity. This comparative aspect is one of the conclusions that Rodríguez's book implies, but does not mention explicitly in its afterword. As American culture becomes more and more heterogeneous, it is undeniable that the (supposed) melting pot society will constantly construct new permutations of the Chicano identity and, as Rodríguez concludes in his afterword about the family, "community is made, and remade, ideally over and against normative familia romances whose hopeful passing will call forth its next of kin."

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, November 23rd 2009

Missing Bodies: The Politics of Visibility

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:59:00 +0000

By Monica J. Casper, Lisa Jean Moore

New York University Press

It is hard to deny the creeping, theatrical aspect that seems to permeate every mode of information and method of exposure we are subjected to daily. While once relegated to advertisements, television, and movies, the careful craft of showcasing and presenting certain bodies is now seen in governments, military, and the health industry. Why some bodies are overexposed while others are seemingly non-existent is useful in determining the underpinnings of American society and agenda. Monica Casper and Lisa Jena Moore explore these politics behind the visibility of certain bodies in Missing Bodies: The Politics of Visibility.

Upon first thought, this book might appear to be a critique of the media, a poignant peek into the ways in which the use of stereotype highlights certain bodies at the expense of others—but that topic is one that is otherwise understood, and largely written about. Casper and Moore delve deeper than that. They are concerned with the bodies that appear and disappear in much less talked about fields, such as female soldiers, people living and dying with HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality. With almost the same tools the media use to derive entertainment from everyday life, political institutions are doing the same to real lives and human suffering—and with graver consequences. The bodies of dead infants, those stricken with AIDS, and female soldiers are masked by numbers, lies, and underreporting. So how do real care, understanding, healing, and prevention begin when those bodies are erased in the first place?

At the root of the analysis is the preservation of Western ideals and agendas. By switching the concern of HIV/AIDS from a public health crisis to statistical, epidemiological data that helps manage government and secure the status of the state, there is a displacement of pain, suffering and death. The public has a harder time envisioning real people living with this disease amidst the quantitative numbers than they do erroneously understanding that HIV/AIDS is more of a disease that plagues other nations. Similarly, framing the release story of Jessica Lynch, a female prisoner of war in Iraq, as one of feminine passivity and rescue bolsters America’s dependency on gender dichotomies which fuels wars. While Lynch’s story is ultimately lost and retold as untrue, Lynch herself, and other female soldiers that suffer sexual discrimination are rendered invisible.

Lyrical, engaging, and encompassing, this book raises important and timely questions about the construction of identity and visibility in a post-9/11 landscape. In this fast-paced, technological world, others will readily construct our stories before us for benefits that are not our own. This book urges readers to question the sources, framing, methods, and presentation of information and tragedy so that we may recover the truth behind missing bodies.

Written by: Krista Ciminera, October 30th 2009

Side Dishes: Latina American Women, Sex, and Cultural Production

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

By Melissa A. Fitch

Rutgers University Press

Side Dishes, at times more tasty, original, and irresistible than “the main dishes,” is a delightful, playful, and innovative work about Latina, Brazilian, and Spanish American women writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, and science fiction producers. Invaluable works by women in Side Dishes are found outside the usual diet of canonical texts by Latin American women. They broaden our knowledge and understanding of different ways and approaches of looking at cultural narratives of women. Beside “the main dishes” regularly serving narratives of women as victims of male aggression, “the side dishes” write, talk, or make films about sexual lust by women and about the treatment of women’s sexuality.

In fact, the first chapter of the book “Lust” discusses sexuality often classified as Pornography, dealing with bisexuality, lesbianism, and masturbation. Chapter two, “Pop,” is about science fiction writers and cartoonists, namely Marta Gómez, the comedian from the United States; Cecilia Rosetto from Argentina; and her compatriot, the cartoonist Maitena Burundarena together with science fiction writer Daina Chaviano from Cuba. Chapter three, “Issues,” explores the academic studies dealing with feminism though journals such as_ Debate Feminista_ from Mexico, Feminaria from Argentina, and Cadernos Pagu from Brazil.

Chapter four, “Flicks,” discusses the representation of women’s sexuality in film. Argentinean Lucrecia Martel’s La niña santa (The Holy Girl) is about a devoutly religious girl Amalia (María Alché) who constantly talks and thinks about sex. Mexican María Novaro’s Sin dejar huella (Without a Trace) explores metaphorical and physical borders in a story about Ana (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), a Mexican born, but Spanish raised dealer of fake Mayan archaeological relics. In it we also meet Aurelia (Tiaré Scanda), a young Mexican mother who makes her way to Cancún after stealing cash from her boyfriend. Tata Amaral’s film Antonia, a hit in Brazil, is about four young black women living in favelas (slums) outside Sao Paulo who had each experienced a tragedy and want to improve their living conditions. This film is about feminine friendship.

In chapter five, the author examines the development of women’s studies in Latin America and hopes that students will be encouraged to evaluate cultural texts in debates in and out of academia. In Fitch’s own words her goal with Side Dishes is “to put an array of cultural artefacts related to women in Latin America on the table.” She has done it beautifully. Through the culinary metaphors she has expanded on a sometimes forgotten area in feminist studies. With this fascinating work she signposts new directions for areas of Latin American feminism, cultural studies, and film studies, and makes a significant contribution to the main canon of Latin American narratives. This work is most likely to satisfy not only the tastes of academics but also any open minded reader interested in “the side dishes” of the diet.

Written by: Anna Hamling, October 30th 2009

Talking with Television: Women, Talk Shows, and Modern Self-Reflexivity

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:21:00 +0000

By Helen Wood

University of Illinois Press

Some researchers, theorists, and laypeople deride women’s tendency to get together and talk. Whether you call it gossip, chatter, whine, confession, or conversation, among gendered stereotypes, it remains assumed that putting several women within close proximity will likely yield interpersonal communication. As much as this is ridiculed, I ask: would we have ever devised plans to actively resist patriarchy if women throughout history hadn’t congregated to compare notes?

More than just speaking among humans, Helen Wood’s Talking with Television deconstructs how people—particularly women—talk at the television. More than sports fans who scream at athletes, or the idea of responding to mediated talk as psychotic behavior, Wood argues that talking at and with the television is not only different from everyday talk; it enacts unique power relationships between the speakers. Considering women’s roles in everyday talk—what Wood refers to as a maintenance role, usually there to encourage and support male speakers—Wood uses social theory to reexamine the role of mediated talk in our lives.

Wood’s study focuses on British daytime TV, which largely mirrors morning and talk show formats of the U.S. Shows on the BBC and ITV stations like Vanessa, Kilroy, and The Time...The Place all appeal to the “ordinary” audience—and not the Jerry Springer “I had a foursome with my bisexual sister” sort of “ordinary” people. Instead, these shows focus on “women’s issues” like relationships, family, health, and to a lesser extent, money.

Thorough, dense, and academic in tone and content, Wood’s analysis is nevertheless engaging. Her ability to parse complicated relationships between mediated and everyday communication is fascinating, as is her gendered communication analysis. She also points out a lot of obvious but important components of talk-based television. Talk shows, for instance, have very specific organization and rhythms that enable a feeling of real-time participation. For this reason, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that women are drawn to maintain lasting relationships with hosts, guests, and show participants.

If you ever found yourself tearing up over Donahue or Oprah and wanted to have your own little solo chat about the show’s events, Wood’s academic theories might be for you. Your urges may even feel enlightened, if not simply less silly.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 20th 2009

Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:02:00 +0000

By Rochona Majumdar

Duke University Press

Rochona Majumdar's firmest statement in Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal is that the Western conception of arranged marriage is dated. The portrayal of arranged marriage as immoral suited the Western sense of superiority over the “Hindoos,” despite the fact that Western courtship was riddled with its own problems. Arranged marriage is obviously the creation of a certain cultural condition and sought to fulfill certain perceived needs. After cautioning her audience against a lens of liberal progressivism, Majumdar narrates the evolution of arranged marriage into modernity.

As culture changed and the expectations and ideals of family changed with it, urban society and the escalation of technology impacted arranged marriage in no small measure. Majumdar's discussion of the matrix of influences that impacted arranged marriage is a fascinating study in the modernization of customs.

Majumdar begins by describing how the ghaktas—traditional matchmakers—became seen as antiquated and irreputable and were replaced by early “personals” in print. She continues on to discuss how this format reflected other cultural trends, such as the increasing fluidity of the caste system. Of special importance is the impact of the dowry on the economy. A woman's appearance, accomplishments, and social standing all factored into the negotiation of price, which could be enormous. At the peak of cultural anxiety over this issue, a young girl, Snehalata Mukhopadhyay, committed suicide rather than see her family ruined. In her discussion of the dowry and the maelstrom of controversy over Mukhopadhyay 's death, Majumdar proves especially interesting; the suicide became a symbol for the direness of a woman's circumstances, and was used as a rhetorical device for feminists and other reformists generally.

The marriage flux became a matter of crucial moral and legislative importance. As arranged marriage was modernized, certain segments of the population began to rebuke marriage as “degraded” from its original, “pure” incarnation. The ideals of marriage, it was claimed, were lost amidst all the economic concerns. As dowries and wedding costs became extravagant, the rituals performed in the ceremony itself became a matter of critique. Rituals were a forum to discuss the proper role of women within marriage and society and to discuss matters such as women's modesty, dress, and duties to her husband.

Throughout this period, too, was the influence of the English conception of individuality and love. Many tried to find means to incorporate this into a traditional picture of married life—literally so in the form of the portrait, an invention which, Majumbar claims, shows the couple's new centrality to family life.

Ritual has its legislative consequences as well, and Majumbar also discusses two crucial moments in the history of Bengali marriage: the first civil marriage act in India, which ignited a debate on wedding ritual and recognition by law, and the Hindu Code Bill, which addressed issues of property and who set the tone for India's cultural development into postmodernity.

Moral commentary is beyond Majumdar's scope, as is a consideration of the role of ethics in anthropology in general—though she touches on it briefly in the conclusion. However, good anthropology tends to invite reflection on one's own cultural moment, and—if we believe the hype—we are in a similar moment as that of colonial Bengal; we are also concerned with the “purity” of marriage, its impact upon the economy, its uses of technology like the Internet, and traditional ritual's relationship with legal recognition. The debates on marriage in colonial Bengal are, in many ways, our own.

Written by: Eirene Faust, August 9th 2009