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Film and media are notorious for constructing weak characters based on generalized notions of race, class, gender, nationality and other systems of control. Governments rely on these misrepresentations to justify their policy decisions.
Countless numbers of people have debated the definition of art. Still, I ponder the question. What is art?
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defining depths, scaling heights. to upgrade our world, to new version - with new vision. feeling this world thinking of that future join to begin. here & now.
The Stuff of Dreams
Photo Courtesy: mosaicmoods.wordpress.com
Often for the writer or artist, the brain uses art as a translator, or its sorting tool for explaining what it has seen. In his article, “Artistic Creativity and the Brain," professor of Neurobiology at University College in London, Semir Zeki said, “A major function of art can thus be regarded as an extension of the function of the brain, namely, to seek knowledge about the world.” The creative mind finds commonalities and parallels to what we have experienced. The resulting poem or work of art helps the reader or viewer make the mental leap of understanding.
Debbie Ouellet | 17.FEB.2012
It is that moment of recognition, that sudden ‘aha’ that pulls the audience in and a connection is made. Dreams, in their imagery and storytelling qualities often act as a creative bridge for these mental leaps.... Read More
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Rhetorical Dimensions of Native American Documentary
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The real question in indigenous film and video is not who is behind the camera but how that person visually structures his or her perception of the world. This perspective allows for the potential that some indigenous filmmakers have created and will continue to create ways of viewing and understanding the world that are different from non-Native views. As an expression of a culture as well as a record about a culture, the process of indigenous documentary springs from social relations and worldviews found in Native American communities, and, in many cases, these relations differ markedly from those of non-Native communities. When studying indigenous media, then, we should not primarily ask whether there is a style, outlook, or code that is characteristically Native in approach, but whether indigenous media emerge from social processes and worldviews that point to alternative possibilities for structuring and knowing our world. This ability of Native media to invite or urge viewers to empathize with alternative points of view demonstrates its rhetorical importance for Native and non-Native viewers alike.
Steve Leuthold | 12.JAN.2012
Video's decreasing cost, ease of use, and resulting accessibility make it a convenient medium for establishing an alternative ideological framework to that of the dominant culture. The increasing use of video technology by indigenous peoples points to alternative scenarios for media production and use. This scenario runs counter to dominant culture assumptions about the inevitable demise of Native cultures in the face of Euro-American progress, assumptions that have been ingrained by centuries of imagery portraying Indians as enemies, then vanquished foes, and currently relegating Indians in the popular imagination to movies, curio shops, and museum exhibits. In the United States, Native Americans have been actively making videos based on an initial focus of "helping to enhance the survival of their own communities," in their own production facilities and through coproduction arrangements with non-Native videographers and filmmakers...... Read More
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A peace and justice worker, teacher, workshop facilitator, and writer for two decades, Ken Butigan is currently serving as Pace e Bene’s director. Since the early 1980s, Ken has worked with numerous social movements, including movements for a nuclear-free future, an end to homelessness, and freedom for East Timor. From 1987 to 1990, he was the national coordinator of the Pledge of Resistance, a network of 100,000 people in 400 local groups that organized coordinated nonviolent action for peace in Central America.
In January 2006, he initiated the Declaration of Peace and has been one of its national organizers. The Declaration of Peace is a nationwide, grassroots nonviolent action campaign to support a comprehensive plan for peace in Iraq. Ken joined the Pace e Bene staff in 1990. He developed and for several years directed Pace e Bene’s 'From Violence To Wholeness' program, and was actively involved in creating Pace e Bene’s 'Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living' program.
Ken earned his Ph.D. in the Historical and Cultural Studies of Religions at the Graduate Theological Union in 2000. He is a lecturer in the spirituality and practice of nonviolence at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. He directed the Spiritual Life Institute at Saint Martin’s College for three years and has recently taught at DePaul University and Loyola University in Chicago. Ken has published five books, including 'Pilgrimage through a Burning World: Spiritual Practice and Nonviolent Protest at the Nevada Test Site' (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003).
Sarah Evershed began her career as a filmmaker while studying in India where she made a short documentary about globalization’s effects on sacred sites in Sikkim. After getting her degree in English and Anthropology from Pitzer College Sarah became a production coordinator for World of Wonder productions. She worked on shows for major networks including HBO, Bravo, Discovery, Oxygen and VH1. In her spare time she produced 6 short documentaries for Current TV. For two years she worked full time at Current TV in San Francisco in their Viewer Created Content and Collective Journalism departments. She has been published in Anthropology Today, The Royal Anthropology Institute and Tricycle Magazine. Sarah currently lives in Los Angeles where she is the Director of Distribution for a new media company and is working on her own feature length documentary. Her interests include new media, old films, global networks and local food.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sheikh of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. Born in London in 1953, he has followed the Naqshbandi Sufi path since he was 19. In 1991 he moved to Northern California and became the successor of Irina Tweedie, author of Chasm of Fire and Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master.
In recent years, he has focused his writing and teaching on spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition and the emerging global consciousness of oneness. He also specializes in dreamwork, integrating the ancient Sufi approach to dreams with the insights of modern psychology.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee lectures throughout the United States and Europe. He currently lives in northern California.
Jennifer Van Bergen was a legal/political commentator and reporter for TruthOut, Raw Story, Counterpunch, and others, and is the author of "Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious." She has a law degree and a Masters in International Education, and is working on her first screenplay.
Dr. Sophia A. McClennen is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women’s Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, where she teaches inter-American literature, women’s world literature, media studies, and comparative cultural studies. Her first book, The Dialectics of Exile: Nation, Time Language and Space in Hispanic Literature (Purdue 2004), is a comparative study of exile literature from Spain and Latin America. Her second book, Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope, is forthcoming from Duke University Press. She has also co-edited, with Earl E. Fitz, a volume on Comparative Cultural Studies and Latin America (Purdue 2004) and with Henry James Morello, a volume entitled Representing Humanity in an Age of Terror (available on-line and forthcoming in book format from Purdue 2009). She has published and presented widely on comparative cultural studies and Latin America in journals such as College Literature, CR: The New Centennial Review, Comparative American Studies, MELUS, World Literature Today, A contracorriente, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Revista de estudios hispánicos, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Cultural Logic, and the ADFL Bulletin.
A firm believer in the potential of free-access websites to promote critical dialogue and advance scholarly and political engagement, McClennen has long been committed to using the Internet to advance the study of cinema and she hosts a website, Cinergía, dedicated to the study of Spanish, Latin American, and Latino cinema. The website includes a number of “movie files” that are useful teaching guides for films. The resources on the site are used by students and scholars across the globe. Her website, which also includes a number of resources, can be accessed here:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/a/sam50/.
She welcomes comments on this essay, on her websites, or on any aspect of her work at: sam50@psu.edu.
Loran Marsan is a doctoral student in UCLA’s Women’s Studies Program where she is utilizing postcolonial and queer theories to interrogate embodiment in film as it is enacted through racial drag and passing. She received her Masters from the University of Arizona in 2002 and wrote her thesis on representations of difference in Jane Austen novels and their 1990s film counterparts. She is also currently making an educational video on Sandra Harding and standpoint theory. Loran can be contacted via email at LMarsan@UCLA.edu
Mukul Sharma has been a journalist, a writer, a trade unionist and a developmental professional. He writes in English and Hindi and has published extensively, including the book Landscapes and Lives: Environmental Dispatches on Rural India (OUP), Improving People’s Lives: Lessons in Empowerment from Asia (Sage), No Borders: Journeys of an Indian Journalist (Daanish Books). His recent book published in 2008 by Routledge is titled ‘Contested Coastlines: Fisherfolk, Nations and Borders in SouthAsia.' He has received twelve national/international awards for his writings, the most recent being the Award for Excellence in Asian Print Media Writing by Singapore Press Holdings and Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, Singapore. He is closely associated with the World Social Forum and the World Dignity Forum. Presently he is the Director of Amnesty International in India.
I was born in Italy, where I am currently living. I have always been fond of reading and writing and have chosen cultural studies in high school. Growing older, I have become passionate of traveling and discovering different countries and cultures. South Asia and India in particular are my greatest interests, and this is why I have chosen to study South Asian Languages and Anthropology at university, in Venice and Paris. While attending my B.A. and M.A. courses, I have traveled often to Nepal and India, spending several months in the Subcontinent and keeping falling in love with those places and their people. Combining my passion for writing with the one for India and her history, I've written two books about the life and teachings of Vivekananda and Sai Baba of Shirdi. I also write literary and film reviews about Gypsy culture on www.sucardrom.blogspot.com, the blog of Sucar Drom Association.
Romit Chowdhury received his B.A. in English literature from Presidency College Kolkata in 2004, after which he worked with Orientlongman publishers in New Delhi as assistant editor on their social science titles. He has written articles, short-stories, vignettes, and reviewed books and documentary films for publications such as The Statesman and India Together. He has also scripted graphic novels and retellings of popular children’s stories. Romit has recently completed graduate studies in Media and Cultural Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is interested to research and write on masculinity, documentary films, and city cultures.
Jeremy Sorgen grew up in Berkeley, California and has lived abroad in Colombia and France. He finished a B.A. in Metropolitan Studies and Philosophy in New York where he continues to live as a writer, researcher and advocate for human rights. His current interests are traveling, morality and power, salsa dancing, and pigeons. His writing combines ethics, cultural criticism and personal experience to expose the wrath and revelation of contemporary life.
