Feminine Purity and Masculine Revenge-Seeking In \u3ci\u3eTaken\u3c/i\u3e (2008)

The 2008 film Taken depicts the murderous rampage of an ex-CIA agent seeking to recover his teenage daughter from foreign sex traffickers. I argue that Taken articulates a demand for a white male protector to serve as both guardian and avenger of white women\u27s “purity” against the purportedly violent and sexual impulses of third world men. A neocolonial narrative retold through film, Taken infers that the protection of white feminine purity legitimates both male conquest abroad and overbearing protection of young women at home. I contend that popular films such as Taken are a part of the broader cultural system of representing social reality that elicit popular adherence to common-sense myths of white masculinity, feminine purity, and Orientalism

Neocolonialism and the Global Prison in National Geographic\u27s \u3ci\u3eLocked Up Abroad\u3c/i\u3e

This essay examines the reformulation of colonial ideologies in National Geographic Channel\u27s Locked Up Abroad, a documentary program that chronicles the narratives of Westerner travelers incarcerated in foreign nations. An analysis of Locked Up Abroad evinces neocolonialism in contemporary media culture, including: the historic association between dark-skin and savagery, the backwardness of the non-Western world, and the Western imperative to civilize it. The program\u27s documentary techniques and framing devises sustain an Otherizing gaze toward non-Western societies, and its portrayals elide a critical analysis of colonialism in its present forms. I advocate for neocolonial criticism to trace how NatGeo remains haunted by its own history in support of America\u27s civilizing mission

“I’m Here to Do Business. I’m Not Here to Play Games.” Work, Consumption, and Masculinity in \u3ci\u3eStorage Wars\u3c/i\u3e

This essay examines the first season of Storage Wars and suggests the program helps mediate the putative crisis in American masculinity by suggesting that traditional male skills are still essential where knowledge supplants manual labor. We read representations of “men at work” in traditionally “feminine” consumer markets, as a form of masculine recuperation situated within the culture of White male injury. Specifically, Storage Wars appropriates omnivorous consumption, thrift, and collaboration to fit within the masculine repertoire of self-reliance, individualism, and competition. Thus, the program adapts hegemonic masculinity by showcasing male auction bidders adeptly performing feminine consumer practices. Whether the feminine is assimilated into the male body or represented as its Other, we contend that the expressions of masculinity in Storage Wars render women obsolete and subjugated in the marketplaces of the 21st-century economy and contribute to the mediation of the contemporary crisis in masculinity

Faculty, Ph.D. student explore poverty, racial privilege and reform in rural schools

As Maine students return to the classroom from summer vacation, many will do so in communities facing a host of economic and social challenges. Rural parts of the state have been hit especially hard by declines in the state’s timber industry. When a mill closes in a small, Maine town, more often than not there’s no new business waiting in the wings to hire all of the suddenly out-of-work residents. The result is poverty and all of its attendant social problems, which affect schools in a variety of ways.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/racial_justice/1219/thumbnail.jp

New guide highlights behavioral support networks in Maine

A new publication aims to bridge school-based and community-based support systems that promote behavioral health and wellness for Maine students and families. The 15-page Resource Guide for Maine Families, Schools, and Communities: Integrated Multi-Tiered Systems of Support provides family-friendly descriptions of services, information on how to access them, and outlines how to navigate the various supports in Maine

Gillon explores issues of race in the history of fraternity, sorority life

Historically, fraternities and sororities on college campuses have mirrored broader social and cultural patterns when it comes to issues of race and racism. That includes patterns of oppression and exclusion, as well as racial uplift and cultural validation. University of Maine assistant professor of higher education Kathleen Gillon analyzes these themes in the latest issue of New Directions for Student Services, for which she also served as lead editor

Rhetorical Counterinsurgency: The FBI and the American Indian Movement

This essay unfolds in three sections. First, I develop a theory ofrhetorical counterinsurgency and explain its refinement within theFBI as a method of threat control and management. Second, I situate rhetorical counterinsurgency within a series of migrating culturalcontexts, including the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and culturalstereotypes of American Indians. These contexts constrained theavailable interpretations of Indian, as well as non-Indian radicalism andjustified the application of techniques of counterinsurgency. Finally,I offer a rhetorical analysis of both the FBI’s use of communicativetactics as a method of counterinsurgency as well as the content of theirrhetorical constructions of AIM. I investigate two disarming topoi ofsavagery: AIM as communist surrogate and American Viet Cong

Blood-Speak: Ward Churchill and the Racialization of American Indian Identity

After publishing a controversial essay on 9/11, Professor Ward Churchill\u27s scholarship and personal identity were subjected to a hostile public investigation. Evidence that Churchill had invented his American Indian identity created vehemence among many professors and tribal leaders who dismissed Churchill because he was not a “real Indian.” This essay examines the discourses of racial authenticity employed to distance Churchill from tribal communities and American Indian scholarship. Responses to Churchill\u27s academic and ethnic self-identification have retrenched a racialized definition of tribal identity defined by a narrow concept of blood. Employing what I term blood-speak, Churchill\u27s opponents harness a biological concept of race that functions as an instrument of exclusion and a barrier to coalitional politics

Sound Commodity: Contemporary Public Radio and Podcasting

Podcasting is both a disruption and an opportunity for public radio. It’s disruptive in that it marks a shift in how public radio organizations connect with listeners, who increasingly seek on-demand content. For traditional broadcast outlets like public radio this has raised a host of questions around how to allocate resources and deal with new workflow and labor demands in the digital age. It also has exacerbated ever-present commercial pressures in public media. As for opportunities, podcasting is a platform for public radio to reach new listeners, elevate underrepresented voices, and experiment with new sounds and storytelling techniques. It also offers the opportunity to attract new sources of revenue, though that also plays into the commercial tensions. This thesis explores these themes in an effort to shed light on how public radio is adapting to the growing audience for podcasts. It seeks to illuminate two interrelated questions prompted by the public discourse over podcasting in public radio: How did commercial imperatives get embedded into these conversations? And, in what ways are public radio organizations managing the disruptions and opportunities presented by podcasting? It is a descriptive, critical, and cultural analysis, grounded in political economy of communication theory. The findings suggest that the commercial pressures on public radio organizations as they integrate podcasting into the work they produce are the result of historical, political, economic, and social structures. Specifically, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created a regulatory system in the United States that privileges a highly commercialized and privatized media. That Act and similar policies are informed by neoliberalism—the belief that free markets and free trade are the most efficient systems for promoting individual and social welfare. This thesis shows how neoliberal ideology has become so prevalent in society that well-known public radio producers and podcasters like Ira Glass and Alex Blumberg regularly employ its rhetoric, heightening commercial tensions. Yet, through qualitative interviews with individuals working in public radio, this research also shows that many stations are still figuring out how to meet the growing demand for podcasts. As they do so, the new medium has become a place to experiment with different narrative styles, to foster collaboration between stations and outside of public radio, and to provide a public service to both local and national audiences