Dialogic Cinephilia - March 5, 2019

Biagetti, Samuel. "Making the Modern State: Spain, Portugal, and the Inquisition." Historiansplaining (February 5, 2018) ["European monarchs’ early quest to consolidate royal power and establish their subjects’ direct loyalty to the crown. In particular, we trace the early triumphs and slow declines of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, driven by the pioneering ambitions of Isabella of Castile, Philip II of Spain, John II of Portugal, and the formidable Marques de Pombal. We also examine the workings of the Spanish Inquisition, which served as a crucial cornerstone of the modern bureaucratic state, with its systems of mass surveillance, ideological propaganda, and obsession with extracting confessions from the accused. Suggested further reading: Henry Kamen, "Golden Age Spain" and "The Spanish Inquisition.""]

---. "Myth of the Month 1: The Enlightenment." Historiansplaining (April 2018) ["There was no Enlightenment. Steven Pinker’s new book, “Enlightenment Now,” is a classic re-statement of the myth of the Enlightenment which holds that in the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans threw off the tired dogmas of the Middle Ages and embraced a new philosophy of Reason, Progress, Science, and Humanism. In fact, the 1700s were a period of confusion, with no clear unifying ideas or trends: occultism, mysticism, and absolute monarchy flourished alongside experiments in democracy and chemistry. “The Enlightenment” forms one of the central pillars of Whig history, serving to re-affirm the notion that our present-day beliefs and values are rational and coherent."]

---. "Spanish and Portuguese Expansion and the Conquest of the Americas." Historiansplaining (2018) ["We trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and saw their foreign conquests as steps towards retaking Jerusalem; the benefited not only from superior weaponry and navigation, but from cataclysmic disease epidemics that brought the Pre-Columbian empires to their knees."]

Bius, Joel R. "What Cigarettes Tell Us About the Military-Industrial Complex." War College (February 2, 2019) ["Drugs and the battlefield go together like peanut butter and jelly. The Third Reich’s soldier ran on methamphetamine and American soldiers smoked like chimneys. The picture of the US GI with a burning cigarette pressed between their lips is so iconic that few people question it...or realize how young the image really is. Joel R. Bius, assistant professor of national security studies at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College, is here to help us dispel the myth of the great American military cigarette and walk us through the fascinating history of how cigarettes ended up in the US military kit, and how they left. It’s the subject of his new book, Smoke Em If You Got Em: The Rise and Fall of the Military Cigarette Ration."]

López, Cristina Álvarez and Adrian Martin. "Emergency: Donald Trump's Touch of Evil." The Notebook (February 21, 2019)

Pieklo, Jessica Mason. "The Supreme Court Considers a Case That Could Gut the Equal Pay Act (Updated)." Rewire (January 18, 2019) ["The Roberts Court could bless employers' use of past salary histories in setting wages, even though the practice perpetuates the gendered wage gap."]




Nellis, Steff. "Collusion, Not Collision » ? – Proximity and Distance in Olivier Assayas’ ‘Doubles vies’ (‘Non-Fiction’)." Photogenie (March 1, 2019)

Scheindlin, Dahlia. "A Solution for Israelis & Palestinians." How Do We Fix It? #153 (2018) ["President Trump's rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement and Israeli military attacks on Iranian sites in Syria are among the latest signs of rising tensions in the Middle East. The threat of war is ever-present.
Twenty five years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, relations between the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority are at a low point. There has been no significant peace process in many years. We speak with Israeli public opinion analyst, strategic consultant and peace researcher, Dahlia Scheindlin, who is hopeful that a new peace agreement will emerge. In addition to her work with Israelis and Palestinian, she has expertise in conflict resolution in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Dahlia is co-host of the podcast, The Tel Aviv Review.
In this episode, we discuss the proposal for a confederation between Israel and Palestine. Unlike the hard borders in a traditional two-state solution, a two-state confederation would allow for greater movement of both peoples.  While the idea has received little coverage in the international media, the confederation debate is gathering strength in Israel. The concept calls for a softer separation with more Palestinians living as non-citizens in Israel, while Jewish settlements with Israeli citizens may remain in Palestine. "]