57) Apple, Fiona and Eryn Wise. "In Her Own Words: Fiona Apple on New Album Fetch the Bolt Cutters & Acknowledging Indigenous Lands." Democracy Now (April 28, 2020) ["In a broadcast exclusive, world-renowned singer-songwriter Fiona Apple joins Democracy Now! for the hour to discuss her critically acclaimed new album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” which was released early amid the pandemic. “I’ve heard that it’s actually making people feel free and happy,” Apple says, “and it might be helping people feel alive or feel their anger or feel creative. And that’s the best thing that I could hope for.” Her record includes an acknowledgment that the album was “Made on unceded Tongva, Mescalero Apache, and Suma territories.” We also speak with Native American activist Eryn Wise, an organizer with Seeding Sovereignty, an Indigenous-led collective that launched a rapid response initiative to help Indigenous communities affected by the outbreak."]
56)
Dakwar, Jamil, et al. "Advocate." Film at Lincoln Center Podcast (June 19, 2019) ["The Jewish Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel and her Palestinian colleagues have been working for decades representing their clients in an increasingly conservative Israel. We meet Tsemel and the team as they prepare for their youngest defendant yet – Ahmad, a 13-year-old boy implicated in a knife attack on the streets of Jerusalem. Together, they must counter legal and public opposition and prepare Ahmad who, like other Palestinians charged with serious crimes, will face a difficult trial in a country in which the government, court system and the media are stacked against him. To many, Tsemel is a traitor who defends the indefensible. For others, she’s more than an attorney – she’s a true ally."]
55) Biagetti, Samuel. "Myth of the Month 6: Political Left and Right." Historiansplaining (January 2020) ["As new political parties -- left-populists, neo-fascists, and secessionists -- rapidly rise and fall across Europe and other Western countries, and spontaneous protests blur partisan boundaries in the streets of Paris, the old left-to-right scale of political ideology is just not working. What value does this one-dimensional model of politics have, and where did it come from? In fact, it has to do with where you sit at a formal dinner party."]
54) O'Malley, Sheila. "Unbelievable: An exemplary depiction of how to investigate sexual assault." Sight and Sound (February 5, 2020)
52) Kurlansky, Mark. "On His Most Important Environmental Writing Yet." The Literary Life (April 10, 2020) ["On this episode, Mark Kurlansky talks with Mitchell about his latest book, Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate and the impact of climate change on food supplies and sea life. Kurlansky is currently social distancing with his family in New York City."]
51) "A Force Outside Myself: Citizens Over 60 Speak." McSweeney's (April 6, 2020) ["In the past few weeks, the voices and even the lives of older people have been marginalized, scapegoated, written off. Most recently, certain politicians have presented a false and horrifying choice — either we protect citizens over 60 or we save the economy. We thought it was time to hear their voices. They are living this anxious, troubled moment like no one else. Every day we will add more stories to this mosaic — some tragic, some wistful, some full of levity and hope. They will be at the top of this page every morning. Please add your voice. If you want to share your thoughts, or if you know a family member, neighbor, or friend who should be heard."]
50) A continuation of the discussion we had in regards to our earlier documentary The Animal People: Bedic, Tamara and Phillip Murray. "Basic Legal Rights for Animals: Activists and Advocates." Law and Disorder Radio (March 16, 2020)
49) Manokha, Ivan. "New Means of Workplace Surveillance: From the Gaze of the Supervisor to the Digitalization of Employees." Monthly Review (February 1, 2019)
48) Mallett, Kandist. "The Coronavirus Pandemic Demonstrates the Failures of Capitalism." Teen Vogue (March 24, 2020) ["This op-ed argues that the coronavirus outbreak has shown us how little capitalism has done for so many people in the U.S. — and that other ways of living and working are possible."]
47) Dowd, Sarah. "One Mask for Five 12-Hour Shifts: Harlem Hospital Nurses Demand Better Protection Amid Pandemic." Democracy Now (April 6, 2020) ["As New York state’s death toll from coronavirus passes 4,000, nurses and medical workers on the frontlines in New York City are protesting for better protections. We go to a demonstration outside Harlem Hospital to speak with Sarah Dowd, a registered nurse who works in its medical/surgical unit and has been treating COVID-19-positive patients. She is a member of the New York State Nurses Association union. “This is not a time for people to be sitting on the sidelines,” Dowd says. “We need to make big demands of the system.”"]
46) Sánchez, Andrea Nill. "Artificial Intelligence and Immigrant Communities." Latino Rebels (March 29, 2020) ["In this episode of Latino Rebels Radio, host Julio Ricardo Varela welcomes Andrea Nill Sánchez, Executive Director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, to talk about how artificial intelligence is being used (and misused) in immigration enforcement."]
45) I would accept a response for this new TV series: Tallerico, Brian. "The Plot Against America." Roger Ebert (March 13, 2020)
44) Wimbish, Whitney Curry. "Stepping Up." The Baffler (March 17, 2020) ["As government leaders bungle the coronavirus response, there’s hope in mutual aid."]
43) (write a response in this mode about someone who influenced you) This day, for me, has never been about St. Patrick's Day, instead it has always been a day of Grace for me. Today is the birthday of my beloved grandmother Grace - she would have been 103 years old today. I wish I could talk to her about all the things I have experienced and learned since she left this world. From the earliest age she treated me intellectually like an adult and she was a huge influence on my critical thinking (just not in the way she intended). She was very religious when I knew her (supposedly she was quite wild when she was younger), but in the process of getting me to read the bible (7 times, annually, front-to-back) she insisted that I write in the margins with different colors each read-through, commenting, reflecting and questioning on what was written. Each time we would read together she would ask me "what do you think about that" and she never avoided my pointed questions about the unethical aspects of the religion and/or the inconsistencies I noticed (I was particularly upset about the justification of murder, genocide, racism, misogyny, homophobia, elitism, etc... as well as, the problematic language across certain editions that I noticed because I was encouraged to use biblical dictionaries and concordances ). Unfortunately she was a Southern Baptist (a branch which didn't allow women to be religious leaders), because she was much more honest and impressive than the patriarchal preachers who evaded my questioning/critiques of biblical 'wisdom' (and eventually led to my disillusionment and departure). So on this day I will raise a toast to my Grandmother Grace who continues to live on inside my heart and mind. -- Michael Benton
42) Miller, Jonathan. "24 Lies Per Second: an Auteurist Analysis of the Documentary Films of Errol Morris." Digital Window @ Vasseur (2011) ["My aim in these pages is to examine the work of Errol Morris, a film, television, and commercial director best known for his feature-length documentaries. For this analysis, I will use the framework of auteur theory, which premises that a director has a personal, creative vision evident across his or her body of work. Though auteur theory often pervades popular film criticism, it has never been a unified doctrine, as it lacks a single progenitor or foundational text.1 Critics have interpreted (and misinterpreted) the theory in many distinct ways, and it has been irregularly, often only implicitly, extended to the producers and directors of documentary films. Thus, I will begin by laying out my specific approach to the auteur theory, my assumptions in applying this theory to documentary film, and the ways in which I hope this analysis can illuminate Morris’s work."]
41) Haider, Asad. "Way more is possible: On depoliticization, resurgent radicalism and seeing the revolutionary horizon." This is Hell! #1137 (March 2, 2020) ["Writer Asad Haider examines the problems of depoliticization in modern politics - as the dominant ideological frame blinds us to the limits of our present politics and the possibilities of future alignments, the left must confront the failures of past revolutions and realize that another world is not just possible, it's necessary."]
40) For a good, clear and critical look at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the US and abroad, attempts to contain it and what are the problems that are making it more difficult to contain it, you should check out Democracy Now's hour long coverage today: December 10th Episode of Democracy Now
39) Whitlock, Craig. "'Afghanistan Papers' Reveal How Presidents & Generals Misled the American Public on War’s Progress." Democracy Now (March 9, 2020) ["Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock has just won a George Polk Award for Military Reporting for his in-depth investigation called “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War.” He joins us to describe how, after getting a tip, he fought for three years to get the federal government to release a trove of confidential interviews it conducted with people directly involved in the nearly two-decade-long war. He ultimately obtained more than 2,000 documents that revealed how presidents, generals and diplomats across three administrations had intentionally misled the American public about the longest war in U.S. history."]
38) Ernsthausen, Jeff and A.C. Thompson. "The FBI Is Investigating Massive Embezzlement of Border Patrol Union Funds." Pro Publica (February 24, 2020) ["The head of the powerful union representing border patrol agents nationwide said the FBI is working to identify who stole some $500,000 out of the coffers of the El Paso local. The theft raises more questions about lawlessness in the union’s ranks."]
37) Presser, Lizzie. "When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested." Pro Publica (October 16, 2019) ["Welcome to Coffeyville, Kansas, where the judge has no law degree, debt collectors get a cut of the bail, and Americans are watching their lives — and liberty — disappear in the pursuit of medical debt collection."]
36) Mayer, Jane. "Dark Money and the Rise of Conservative Orthodoxy." On the Media (May 31, 2019) ["William Happer, the man tapped to head Trump’s new climate review panel, is not a climate scientist. And yet, in recent years, William Happer has made a mission of attacking climate science, including at events hosted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Heritage has long worked to redirect public sentiment and policy-making away from addressing climate change and towards deregulation — which is itself part of an even bigger decades-long goal: the propagation of a conservative ideology that preserves capital for rich people. Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, walks Bob through the history of the modern conservative intellectual framework."]
35) Arnoff, Kate. "Trump Curbs the Circulation of Science." On the Media (May 31, 2019) ["Last weekend, The New York Times reported on a host of aggressive new obstacles placed by Trump administration to stymie the dissemination of federal climate research. One new rule prevents certain agencies from publishing findings after 2040. A second will omit the National Climate Assessment's "worst case scenario" projection. And finally, a panel of climate deniers will oversee and regulate the release of all federally funded climate research. In this interview, Bob speaks with Kate Aronoff, who recently wrote about these regulations for The Guardian. She explains how these alarming new restrictions fit into the Trump administration's larger pattern of limiting public access to the truth about the climate."]
34) Scialabba, George. "Back to the Land: Wendell Berry in the Path of Modernity." The Baffler (January 2020) [Wendell Berry is one of Kentucky's greatest writers and a lifelong agrarian activist]
33) Appel, Hannah. "Debtors of the World Unite!" Boston Review (February 27, 2020) ["Debt’s ubiquity is a burden, but also an opportunity."]
32) Histories of Violence (MB - Great collection of resources that might be of use to peace studies, critical theory and social justice researchers & teachers. "The Histories of Violence project explores the theoretical, aesthetic and empirical dimensions to violence. Taking advantage of the latest developments in new media technologies and online broadcast capabilities, it provides open access resources to compliment existing teaching formats and further facilitate trans-disciplinary discussion and reflection. Committed to pedagogy in the public interest, its guiding ethos is to critically challenge violence in all its forms. Since its launch in September 2011, our videos have enjoyed over 500,000 hits from over 50,000 unique users spanning 152 different countries. Founded & Directed by the project benefits from an international advisory board which brings together renowned academics from the United Kingdom, Europe and North America, breaking down the intellectual boundaries between politics, culture and the Arts."]
31) Popova, Maria. "The Mushroom Hunters: Neil Gaiman’s Subversive Feminist Celebration of Science and the Human Hunger for Truth, in a Gorgeous Animated Short Film." Brain Pickings (November 25, 2019)
30) Hellstrom, Monica and Simon Lereng Wilmont. "The Distant Barking of Dogs." Film School Radio (January 11, 2019) ["THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS is set in Eastern Ukraine on the frontline of the war. The film follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of war. Oleg lives with his beloved grandmother, Alexandra, in the small village of Hnutove. Having no other place to go, Oleg and Alexandra stay and watch as others leave the village. Life becomes increasingly difficult with each passing day, and the war offers no end in sight. In this now half-deserted village where Oleg and Alexandra are the only true constants in each other’s lives, the film shows just how fragile, but crucial, close relationships are for survival. Through Oleg’s perspective, the film examines what it means to grow up in a warzone. It portrays how a child’s universal struggle to discover what the world is about grows interlaced with all the dangers and challenges the war presents. THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS unveils the consequences of war bearing down on the children in Eastern Ukraine, and by natural extension, the scars and self- taught life lessons this generation will carry with them into the future. Director Simon Lereng Wilmont and Producer Monica Hellström stop by to talk about this harrowing, intimate and loving look at Oleg and Alexandra’s claustrophobic life on the frontlines of an undeclared war."]
29) Curtis, Mary C. "'There Is Not Some Separation Between Jesus and Justice.' How Rev. William J. Barber II Uses His Faith to Fight for the Poor." Time (February 21, 2020)
28) A list of documentaries you can do extra credit responses
27) Harris, Shayla, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad and Ilyasah Shabazz. "Malcolm X’s Daughter Ilyasah Shabazz on Her Father’s Legacy & the New Series Who Killed Malcolm X?" Democracy Now (February 21, 2020) ["Fifty-five years ago today, Malcolm X was assassinated. The civil rights leader was shot to death on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. He was only 39 years old. Details of his assassination remain disputed to this day. Earlier this month, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said he was considering reopening the investigation, just days after a new documentary series about the assassination was released on Netflix called “Who Killed Malcolm X?” It makes the case that two of the three men who were convicted for Malcolm X’s murder are actually innocent and that his uncaught killers were four members of a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, New Jersey. We are joined by Ilyasah Shabazz, one of six daughters of Malcolm X, who was just 2 years old when her father was assassinated in front of her, her siblings and her mother. We also speak with award-winning author Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, independent scholar, historian, journalist, writer and activist, who is widely regarded as one of the most respected authorities on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and is featured in the new documentary series, and Shayla Harris, a producer for the series and an award-winning filmmaker and journalist."]
26) Stoller, Matt. "Monopoly vs. Democracy." Open Source (October 24, 2019) ["It’s new for most Americans that we’re embarrassed by our democracy. We don’t know where it went wrong, or whether it’ll survive. Matt Stoller explains it this way: we’ve come to do politics the way we do commerce, online and at the mall. Sellers are remote; critical choices are made for us. Our stuff comes from Walmart; our books, groceries, and now everything else from Amazon. Our lines on politics, news, opinion, and gossip come through Facebook. Our lives are designed and run to concentrate power and profit in the hands of a few faraway monopolists. No wonder we’re in a panic! Matt Stoller is here to tell you the fault, dear people, is not in our stars or even our selves but in these overnight monopolies that might just as well own us."]
25) McAlevey, Jane. "It's Time to Retire the Term 'Middle-Class.'" Citations Needed #91 (October 23, 2019) ["The term “middle class” is used so much by pundits and politicians, it could easily be the Free Space in any political rhetoric Bingo card. After all, who’s opposed to strengthening, widening, and protecting the “middle class”? Like “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights”, “middle class” is an unimpeachable, unassailable label that evokes warm feelings and a sense of collective morality.
But the term itself, always slippery and changing based on context, has evolved from a vague aspiration marked by safety, a nice home, and a white picket fence into something more sinister, racially-coded, and deliberately obscuring. The middle class isn’t about concrete, material positive rights of good housing and economic security––it’s a capitalist carrot hovering over our heads telling us such things are possible if we Only Work Harder. More than anything, it's a way for politicians to gesture towards populism without the messiness of mentioning––much less centering––the poor and poverty. This week we are joined by Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, scholar and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center."]
24) Galvani, Alison. "Yale Study Says Medicare for All Would Save U.S. $450 Billion, Prevent Nearly 70,000 Deaths a Year." Democracy Now (February 19, 2020) ["As the Democratic presidential hopefuls prepare to take to the debate stage tonight, we turn to a central issue of the campaign: Medicare for All. In a new study, Yale scholars have found that Medicare for All will save Americans more than $450 billion and prevent 68,000 deaths every year. The study in The Lancet — one of the oldest and most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals — found that Medicare for All, supported by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will save money and is more cost-effective than “Medicare for All Who Want It, “a model supported by Pete Buttigieg. Sanders referenced the study at a campaign rally in Carson City, Nevada. For more, we go to New Haven, Connecticut, where we’re joined by Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at Yale’s School of Public Health. She is the lead author of the new Lancet study, “Improving the prognosis of health care in the USA.”"]
23) Weinstein, Adam. "Who's Behind Trump's Push to Pardon War Criminals?" On the Media (May 24, 2019) ["The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had made expedited requests for paperwork needed to pardon troops “accused or convicted of war crimes, including high-profile cases of murder, attempted murder and desecration of a corpse." Another such case includes a Blackwater contractor twice convicted in the 2007 killings of dozens of unarmed Iraqi civilians. The White House's request for case histories from the Department of Justice follows Trump's pardon earlier this month of former Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, who had been convicted of killing an Iraqi prisoner. Adam Weinstein is an editor for The New Republic. He’s served in the Navy and worked as a contractor in Iraq in 2008. Weinstein writes there is no natural constituency — from the upper echelons of the Department of Defense to the leadership of major veteran's groups — that would support the decision. So where is the push for pardoning war criminals coming from? Bob talks to Weinstein about the influence of Fox News and the efforts of FOX and friends co-host Pete Hegseth."]
22) Goodale, James. "The Assange Indictment & The 50-Year War On Investigative Journalism." On the Media (May 24, 2019) ["... when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was indicted for conspiring to assist leaker Chelsea Manning in the theft of government secrets, some saw the charge as but the first shoe to drop. They were right. Thursday saw an 18-count indictment against Assange under the Espionage Act, effectively charging him, the leakee, as equally criminal in an effort to spread classified information. Whether or not you consider Assange to be a "journalist," the precedent of this indictment could have disastrous implications for investigative reporters who rely on such sources. According to James Goodale, who served as General Counsel for The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers trial, the Department of Justice has been looking to expand the Espionage Act in this way for nearly half a century. He and Bob discuss how Goodale saw the charges coming, and where the trial is headed next."]
21) Thompson, Heather Ann. "Blood in the Water." This is Not a Pipe (May 23, 2019) ["Heather Ann Thompson discusses her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy with Chris Richardson. Thompson is a historian at the University of Michigan. Blood in the Water has won the Bancroft Prize, Ridenhour Prize, the J. Willard Hurst Prize, the Public Information Award from the New York Bar Association, the Law and Literature Prize from the New York County Bar Association, the Media for a Just Society Award from the National Council for Crime and Delinquency, and more. It also received a rarely-given Honorable Mention for the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association and was long listed for the Cundill Prize in History, and was a finalist for the National Book Award as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Award. "]
20) Glenza, Jessica. "The One-Woman Lobby Machine Behind the 'Heartbeat' Bills." On the Media (May 17, 2019) ["For decades, the anti-abortion movement has tried to chip away at Roe v. Wade by putting up obstacles to abortion access through restrictions on clinics. Now the tactics seem to be shifting, as evidenced by this week's new abortion ban in Alabama and a series of so-called "heartbeat" bills passed in several states in recent months. For nearly a decade, Janet Porter has been a one-woman lobbying machine with her group Faith2Action. She's railed against gay marriage, advocated for "conversion therapy," and championed the racist birther conspiracy theory. She has also been pushing for a so-called "heartbeat" bill which would ban abortions after six weeks, a move that used to divide abortion groups. Jessica Glenza is a health reporter from The Guardian who recently profiled Porter. This week, she spoke to Bob about why the term "heartbeat" bill is misleading and what Porter's tactics and politics tell us about how anti-abortion groups are operating."]
19) Klein, Ezra. "Book excerpt: A better theory of identity politics." The Ezra Klein Show (January 23, 2020) ["A core argument of the book is that identity is the central driver of political polarization. But to see how it works, we need a better theory of how identities form, what happens when they activate, and where they fit into our conflicts. We’ve been taught to only see identity politics in others. We need to see it in ourselves."]
18) West, Stephen. "Antonio Gramsci on Cultural Hegemony." Philosophize This! #131 (May 23, 2019) ["Gramsci begins his explanation by evoking and repurposing a word that had been thrown around all throughout human history but it was a word that he thought in recent years was starting to take on an entirely new meaning. The thing that was responsible for allowing a particular social class to ascend to power and then maintain a privileged status…was what he called Cultural Hegemony. This concept of hegemony is going to become massively important to the political conversation of the 20th and 21st centuries and by the end of this arc of the show we’re going to have looked at it from a lot of different perspectives. Maybe we should start from the origins of the word…the word hegemony originates in ancient Greece…the root of the word comes from the greek word meaning “to lead”, some translators say it’s closer to “to rule over”…but either way during antiquity there were things called hegemons…now in the context of ancient Greece a hegemon was typically a state that had a significant military advantage over another state…the arrangement being that if the weaker state didn’t comply with certain demands from the hegemon they would be annexed or dominated militarily or burned to the ground, take your pick. The term hegemony implied the threat of physical dominance over a population of people…this was the case all throughout human history. But Gramsci is going to say that in our modern world the definition of the word hegemony needs to evolve with the political reality we are living in. We are no longer living in a world where most political control is exercised by military dominance over a population of people. Since the advent of mass media people in positions of power have realized that a much more effective way of controlling populations is by manipulating the cultural parameters that citizens have to navigate. The general idea is this: to be a human being living a life in our modern world…you always HAVE to be living that life immersed within a particular culture. But what IS a culture other than an elaborate collection of norms, rules, structures, mores, taboos, rituals, values, symbolic gestures…these things are not exactly abstract concepts…they are acute. They are visible. This is the cultural custom of a handshake to pay deference to someone else. This is not talking with your mouth full. This is the sum total of every ritual we engage in on a daily basis that all come together to create a cohesive society. But what Gramsci is going to ask is: who exactly created all of these norms and taboos that we abide by?"]
17) Building an archive of resources for American Dharma (USA/UK: Errol Morris, 2018)
https://internationalfilmstudies.blogspot.com/2020/02/american-dharma-usauk-errol-morris-2018.html
16) Documentary available for response Standard Operating Procedure (USA: Errol Morris, 2008) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
15) Britt, Lawrence. "Fascism Anyone?" Free Inquiry 23.2 (Spring 2003) [In which he outlines the 14 characteristics of fascism]
14) The Joe Rogan Experience #1419. Daryl Davis is an R&B and blues musician, activist, author, actor and bandleader. He also is the author of "Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan".
13)
12) Archive of resources for Hail Satan! (USA: Penny Lane, 2019)
11) Remember the documentary 13th on Netflix is available for a response - here is a good source on it Wallis, Victor. "13th and the Culture of Surplus Punishment." Jump Cut #58 (Spring 2018)
10) "White Nationalism." Throughline (May 9, 2019) ["The white nationalist ideas of Madison Grant influenced Congress in the 1920s, leaders in Nazi Germany, and members of the Trump administration. This week, we share an episode we loved from It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders that explores a throughline of white nationalism in American politics from the early 20th century to today."]
9) Rosenwald, Michael. "Top Secret." Columbia Review of Journalism (Fall 2019) [British and American origins of the contemporary information war "As the US press has covered Russia’s meddling in American politics, a counternarrative, about information warfare waged by our own government, has gone largely ignored. In fact, American reporters, if they wanted, could build a credible case that Putin’s disinformation efforts, which often use the media as an unknowing accomplice, simply carry on a tradition honed in this country, going back decades."]
8) Benton, Michael. "Marx's Theory of Exploitation." Dialogic Cinephilia (February 4, 2020)
7) Gurba, Myriam and Roberto Lovata. "Publisher Agrees to Boost Latinx Representation After Backlash to Whitewashed Novel American Dirt." Democracy Now (February 5, 2020) ["We look at the massive backlash and criticism against the novel “American Dirt” as a movement led by Latinx writers declares victory, demanding more representation in the publishing industry. Dignidad Literaria, or literary dignity, formed in response to the controversial immigration novel “American Dirt.” The author, Jeanine Cummins, who is not Mexican, received a seven-figure advance for the book, and it was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. But its critics say “American Dirt” exploits and misrepresents Mexico and the experience of Mexican migrants. Critics also say the novel completely erases the voices of Central Americans. On Monday, the leaders of the literary dignity movement celebrated a successful meeting in New York City with the book’s publisher, Macmillan, the owner of Flatiron Books. The publisher agreed to expand Latinx representation in its staff and its publications. The campaign is also calling for an investigation into discriminatory practices in the publishing industry at large. We speak with two co-founders of Dignidad Literaria: in Los Angeles, Myriam Gurba, Chicana writer, podcaster and artist, who wrote the first viral review of “American Dirt” that ignited criticism of the book, and in New York City, Roberto Lovato, award-winning journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Revolution and Redemption.”"]
6) Hemmer, Nicole. "The Summer of Hate." A12 (August 22, 2018) [“How the people of Charlottesville responded to months of white supremacist organizing and violence in the city."]
5) Moser, Bob. "Interference 2020: The Disinformation is Coming from Inside the Country." Columbia Review of Journalism (Fall 2019)
4) Williams, Margot. "At Guantanamo Bay, Torture Apologists Take Refuge in Empty Code Words and Euphemisms." The Intercept (January 29, 2020)
3) Response to any chapter (chapter 2 -5) from Jonas Staal's Propaganda Art in the 21st Century
2) Bluegrass Film Society films
1) 13th (USA: Ava DuVernay, 2016) ["The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary 13TH refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis."]
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