The costs of multiculturalism

Elektronische Version der gedr. Ausg. 199

‘It's all the way you look at it, you know’: reading Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson's film career

This paper engages with a major paradox in African American tap dancer Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson's film image – namely, its concurrent adherences to and contestations of dehumanising racial iconography – to reveal the complex and often ambivalent ways in which identity is staged and enacted. Although Robinson is often understood as an embodiment of popular cultural imagery historically designed to dehumanise African Americans, this paper shows that Robinson's artistry displaces these readings by providing viewing pleasure for black, as much as white, audiences. Robinson's racially segregated scenes in Dixiana (1930) and Hooray for Love (1935) illuminate classical Hollywood's racial codes, whilst also showing how his inclusion within these otherwise all-white films provides grounding for creative and self-reflexive artistry. The films' references to Robinson's stage image and artistry overlap with minstrelsy-derived constructions of ‘blackness’, with the effect that they heighten possible interpretations of his cinematic persona by evading representational conclusion. Ultimately, Robinson's films should be read as sites of representational struggle that help to uncover the slipperiness of performances of African American identities in 1930s Hollywood

Syn-orogenic high-temperature crustal melting: Geochronological and Nd-Sr-Pb isotope constraints from basement-derived granites (Central Damara Orogen, Namibia)

Major and trace element and Nd, Sr and Pb isotope data from c. 550 Ma-old gray granites and c. 510 Ma-old red leucogranites of the high-grade central part of the Damara orogen (Namibia) indicate a dominantly deep crustal origin. Moderately peraluminous gray granites are isotopically evolved (initial epsilon(Nd): C. - 17) and were likely derived from meta-igneous sources with late Archean to Paleoproterozoic crustal residence ages. Based on a comparison with experimental results, the granites were derived by partial melting of a granodioritic biotite gneiss at c. 900-950 degrees C and less than 10 kbar. Slightly peraluminous red leucogranites are also isotopically evolved (initial epsilon(Nd): - 15 to - 18) but have undergone extensive crystal fractionation coupled with minor contamination of mid crustal meta-pelitic material. Major and trace element data do not support closed-system fractional crystallization processes for all samples, however, some chemical features underline the importance of crystal fractionation processes especially for the leucogranites. Isotope data do not support mixing of different crust-derived melts or assimilation of crustal rocks by a mafic magma on a large scale. For the gray granites, unradiogenic Pb isotope compositions with substantial variation in Pb-207/Pb-204 at almost constant (206)pb/(204)pb, strongly negative epsilon(Nd) values and moderately radiogenic Sr isotope compositions argue for an undepleted nature of the source. High Rb/Sr ratios of the red leucogranites permit a comparison with the gray granites but similar initial ENd values indicate that the source of these granites is not fundamentally different to the source of the gray granites. The most acceptable model for both granite types involves partial melting of meta-igneous basement rocks of Archean to Proterozoic age. The consistency of the chemical data with a crustal anatectic origin and the observation that the gray granites intruded before the first peak of high-grade regional metamorphism suggests that they intruded simultaneously with crustal thickening. The red leucogranites are interpreted to be a result of crustal melting during the main peak of regional metamorphism. The heating events that promoted melting of fertile deep-crustal rocks might have been caused by the inferred high heat productivity of heat-producing radioactive elements (Th, U, K) together with crustal thickening during the main periods of orogen

Right-wing Anti-Americanism: Cultural Variations of Anxiety About Globalization

The end of the Cold War and the rise of the internet have made it harder to define and combat „right wing anti-Americanism.” Four political contexts that gave these terms their firm meaning have shifted: 1) Since the artificial order of the Cold War imploded, the United States, now the only global hegemonic power, has tended to act unilaterally in international crises (Somalia, Kosovo) and to yield to the temptation of ignoring international conventions. Criticism of the unilateralism of the „global bully” has increased worldwide. 2) When socialism collapsed as a viable alternative to the capitalist order, a crucial ideological marker disappeared with it. America became the only model—or scapegoat. 3) Southeast-Asian and Japanese critics began citing the social problems of American society as proof of the contradictions of Western liberal democracy. In Europe a psychologically deep and historically old cultural nationalism resurfaced. A common anti-American denominator with antiliberal roots has reemerged. 4) Since 1990, the liberal market economy—accelerated by a communications revolution—has developed a dynamism that has become threatening, particularly to those critics who consider globalization a function of Americanization. Older reservations toward the American experiment (of the kind that characterized European attitudes from 1789 to 1933) have returned at this dramatic moment and have revitalized global historical doubts, feeding into a new cultural anti-Americanism with a neoconservative spin. This ambivalent anti-Americanism calls for American economic and technical know-how to be adopted while avoiding the excesses and mistakes of the American social and cultural order: „laptop and lederhosen.” The radical right is more outspoken in its antiliberalism. It tries to instrumentalize and bundle all criticism of America into a neofascist rejection of the „American-led” liberal global world order

A Nation with the Soul of a Church? The Strange Career of Religion in America: A View from Europe

American religiosity is a mystery to most Europeans. The difference derives from several historical contradictions: The founding myths of America were pre- and post-millenarian, based on predestination and on progress. Whereas the European revolutions stood opposed to religion, the American did not. While the First Amendment forbad the establishment of religion, it guaranteed each citizen the free exercise thereof. Though America became the spearhead of modernization (and hence, Max Weber would argue, of secularization) the lure of religious freedom made it the home to all "dissenting faiths of Europe" and to an indigenous religious revivalism. In short, the very separation of church and state caused the enormous flowering of religion in the free market of popular opinion

Field Trip into the Twilight: a German Africanist at Howard University (1937-1939)

Anyone who is familiar with the economic and social structure of the U. S. must recognize that, particularly in times of crisis, the Negro problem is and will remain America’s most pressing problem. In my view a solution within a capitalist system with its typical social and economic setup is impossible, and patchwork improvements which have been tried will be of small help. Only the removal of the racial and class divide, in other word the removal of capitalism itself would be the necessary ..

Thomas König. Die Frühgeschichte des Fulbright Program in Österreich: Transatlantische "Fühlungnahme auf dem Gebiet der Erziehung" (Transatlantica 6)

The book under review chronicles the early history of the Fulbright program in Austria, with a special focus on the formation of a transatlantic educational network and its impact on the Austrian system of higher education. A young Viennese political scientist, Thomas König, tells the story of the battle for the hearts and minds of the Austrian post-war academic elite. His inquiry has a dual thrust: It provides an important chapter on American cultural diplomacy in the early Cold War, and sec..

Thomas König. Die Frühgeschichte des Fulbright Program in Österreich: Transatlantische "Fühlungnahme auf dem Gebiet der Erziehung" (Transatlantica 6)

The book under review chronicles the early history of the Fulbright program in Austria, with a special focus on the formation of a transatlantic educational network and its impact on the Austrian system of higher education. A young Viennese political scientist, Thomas König, tells the story of the battle for the hearts and minds of the Austrian post-war academic elite. His inquiry has a dual thrust: It provides an important chapter on American cultural diplomacy in the early Cold War, and sec..