Why has “water” evaporated? The controversy over Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta by Bridget Kulla Off Our Backs, Mar/Apr 2002 Deepa Mehta’s intended film trilogy is stalled. With production halted and only two of the three films completed, the future of Mehta’s project remains in question. As Mehta releases a new …
Masochism in Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste & Catherine Breillat’s Romance Jon Davies, 2003 “It is the common business of sacrifice to bring life and death into harmony, to give death the upsurge of life, life the momentousness and the vertigo of death opening on to the unknown. Here life …
Experimental Exilic Documentaries: Jonas Mekas’s Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania & Trinh T-Minh-ha’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam Jon Davies, 2003 Jonas Mekas’s Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania and Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam are experimental documentary films about exile and displacement. While Mekas …
Surfaces, History, & ‘Noise’ in Derek Jarman’s Jubilee Jon Davies, 2003 Jubilee is a 1977 “fantasy documentary” by the British director Derek Jarman (Quinn-Meyler 130). His second feature, it stands out for me as his richest articulation of a particular time and place. The film was heavily influenced in …
In this section, we take a look at how discourses of development and technological change participate in broader processes of social reproduction.
Britney and the back-lash by Rebecca Boone Off Our Backs, Jan/Feb 2002 My first feminist role model was Madonna. I was ten years old when Like a Prayer was released, an album that dealt with issues of female autonomy, domestic abuse, damaged parent-child relationships, and religious devotion. Madonna was smart, …
New Orleans and the Third World Mukoma Wa Ngugi ZNet, September 8th 2005 The devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina is being compared to disasters in the “Third World” but with no specific countries or disasters named. And if not compared to this black hole or repository of …
Hurricane Katrina: The Black Nation’s 9/11! Saladin Muhammad of Black Workers for Justice September 5th 2005 The magnitude of the destruction and human suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina to the people and communities of the Gulf Coast Region, while not the results of an act of “terror”, is directly …
“Katrina”: An Unnatural Disaster “I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, “They’re looting.” You see a white family, it says, “They’re looking for food.” And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people …
Chasing a Katrina Conspiracy Shields the Real Culprit Earl Ofari Hutchinson New America Media, September 27th 2005 LOS ANGELES–In the weeks since Katrina hit, the conspiracy theories behind it have multiplied. The Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and a slew of activists and bloggers have spun a huge tale …