Kids and Conferences Do Not Mix
As a follow-up to our post of reflections on the American Studies Association annual meeting, we'd like to feature AMS assistant professor Dr. Cary Cordova's reflection on attending conferences, including ASA, as a mother, and the professional challenges this creates. For more great words from Dr. Cordova, check out our interview with her a few weeks back right here on AMS::ATX.
Kids and Conferences Do Not MixStarting with the American Studies Association annual meeting in 2009, it got complicated. I organized two panels for that year, one for myself and one for the Minority Scholars Committee, but then learned I was pregnant and that my due date practically coincided with the conference. I hear the panels went well, but I was not in attendance. In fact, the meeting convened within a day or two of my leaving the hospital with my newborn son. I have no regrets about having a child, but I do admit the professional challenges have been profound. I knew life would change, but I did not foresee the specificity of these changes, including how difficult attending conferences would be.Most conferences do not offer childcare. The organizers anticipate that participants will be adept at setting up childcare in cities where they do not live. If one is lucky, the conference takes place in a city inhabited by a family member, or a friend, whom I can ask to take time off of work to help, or who knows someone that I can trust to babysit. On more than one occasion, I have helped friends in return who are coming into my city and who need help locating a babysitter they can trust. But if you do not have a contact in that city, exactly how do you vet care for your child? Perhaps you turn to the various childcare websites, though these sites and the subsequent virtual interviews of babysitters may not instill a parent with the greatest confidence.The predominant expectation is that you leave your kid at home, but with whom, and for how long? Thanks to my specialized training, I live far from my family and cannot call on just anyone to watch my son for days at a time. I have felt more than a twinge of jealously when I see colleagues who live near their families drop their kids with the grandparents for days at a time, free of charge. For one conference, I opted to fly in my mother to meet me and help me watch my son. For this, she had to take multiple days off work, and I had to buy three plane tickets to attend a single conference.Most obviously, the expectation is that I turn to my partner to watch my child. The presumption that I have a partner to turn to is enormous here, much less that my partner might be free from his own professional commitments. But yes, I do have a partner, and our relationship makes conferences both easier and more complex, since I am partnered with an academic who works in similar intellectual terrain. I appreciate that my partner and I like similar conferences and can trade-off childcare when we attend together, but this guarantees that at best, each of us will have a fifty percent chance of participating in the conference. In the last few years, I think my conference participation has been most visible via the frequent image of me chasing after my son through the halls of meeting rooms and around the lobby of the conference hotel. This, of course, is not the professional image that one strives for, but it is a reality of my life in academia.Since my partner and I like to attend the same conferences and engage together with our academic friends, we struggle over who gets to go to which conference, much less which panel. Often, we try to bring our son to something that is clearly not playing to his interest, which at the moment is everything that does not correspond to Superheroes and Legos. One year, my partner wanted to hear my talk, so he tried to come and sit in the back row with our son. The visit lasted all of five-minutes, as our son kept calling out for “mommy” to step away from the podium and come play with him.This year my son is older and a little more self-entertaining, which helps a lot. Nonetheless, I can’t tell you how distracting it is to try to have a conversation with a former colleague, and suddenly realize that my son has built himself a fort of furniture in the hotel coffee-shop and then stripped off all of his clothes. Or I can recall the rush of embarrassment I felt when a waiter at one of the receptions scolded my child for wriggling on the carpet, just as I was revisiting with a beloved mentor. But I also can laugh at my son’s decision to show-off his superhero underwear to a colleague and accidentally pull down all of his pants in the hotel bar. I think it is safe to say that my son was the first to get naked in the hotel bar and coffee-shop this past ASA. Of course, I’m not sure how things went the next few nights because I was not out hitting the town, but instead, calling it an early night with my son.One year, I thought I might take advantage of the American Studies Association’s “Childcare” provision in the program, which states that the meeting will reserve a room for participants to gather with their children. Participants are encouraged to bring their own toys to share. Nothing, other than physical space is provided, which is perhaps convenient for nursing mothers, but otherwise a laughable accommodation. When we attended, no one else was present, so my son and I sat in a meeting room with his toys for approximately twenty minutes before both of us went mad. As a general note to all conference goers, if you need some quiet space, this room might serve your purposes, since its usefulness to children is minimal at best.This year, I am lucky that my son is getting older and a little easier to manage, but it is worth pointing out that these are my pre-tenure experiences just relating to the art of attending conferences. Everything, including prepping my presentations and planning my participation is more complicated. This year, my university instituted a new travel program which requires that I buy my airline travel through a single website. However, I struggled with how to buy a ticket for my son (the site did not think to offer any such proviso). Fortunately, because my partner was also attending the conference, and because his university is more flexible in its travel reimbursement policy, I was able to ask him to buy the plane ticket for our son.Clearly, I am not the only one who struggles. I feel a small camaraderie with other conference participants with children. It is that small exchange of knowing, a few glances, or the look of understanding from people that I can see are familiar with the problem. Children navigate toward each other, and their guardians follow suit. For instance, my partner joined up with another colleague with child in tow, and the foursome took a trip to the zoo, while I had a little time to give my talk and attend a few panels. We have managed the problem as best we can, but this is an institutionalized problem that few conferences address with any seriousness. Moreover, the professional expectations that I face as a junior faculty member never take childcare and conference participation into account. Conferences are perhaps the least of it, but they are symbolic of a larger blindness to the ways that academia and caring for children do not mix.This past meeting, I treasured a few fleeting minutes with another female colleague, who was able to leave her four-month-old child with her partner, while she flew to the conference in D.C. for her presentation and then back to Seattle in a single day. We sat over a scarfed-down lunch in the hotel lobby, sharing as much information as people possibly can in forty minutes between bites. She then raced to her presentation, while we raced to catch our plane back home. So, “how was the conference?” people ask. And I say, “It was good.”
Faculty, Grad, and Alumni Research: Reflections on the American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Fall is conference time, and this year we asked our faculty, grad students, and alumni to share a few words on their experience at the annual meeting of the ASA. We asked folks to reflect on any portion of the event--their panel, other panels they found inspiring, the presidential address--and today we feature some of these reflections on the conference back in November in Washington, D.C. For those of you unable to attend and who didn't follow the chatter on Twitter, here's a taste of what ASA had to offer this year. Some of the reflections address the ASA National Council's endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel. The views expressed here are those of individuals; they do not reflect those of the department as a whole.
Ellen Cunningham-KruppaI confess to typically staying within a certain comfort zone at conferences, going to panels and talks on topics related to my work. This year’s ASA conference (a first for me) began in much the usual way, though once I got my feet wet I ended up attending three sessions on topics I knew absolutely nothing about! The first session I attended, “Photographing War, Picturing Dissent: Visualizing the Vietnam Conflict,” chaired by Robert Hariman, was sponsored by the Visual Culture Caucus. Andi Gustavson, Franny Nudelman, Sara Blair, and Liam Kennedy presented work that interrogated the aesthetics of dissent, describing some of the ways that photographers contributed to the critique of the Vietnam war and, in the process, further developed photography as a documentary and artistic medium. Andi Gustavon’s talk, the first of the morning’s panel, focused on snapshots soldiers took in Vietnam and circulated to family, friends, and each other. She suggested that soldiers used these snapshots of their every day lives in the war zone to mediate emotional responses to the war.These snapshots and the poignant images that punctuated the other presentations drew me back to my childhood. The images of young men going off to war, and of those returning aged and oftentimes physically and psychically wounded called me to reflect on what it must have meant to a child to see a war unfolding in black and white on a living room television every evening. I don’t think I registered any particular war. Nor would I have have understood the concept of war. The visual and aural nearness of guns and helicopters likely served as part of the visual and aural backdrop to every evening, arriving just before dinner and at the end of a day of playing and attending elementary school.While I did not know it at the time, my brother’s “number” was called in 1967. It was not long ago that I learned from my mom the details of his “call to report.” Not long before the war lottery drew his number, my brother had what was then major surgery for torn knee cartilage. Sustained playing college basketball on scholarship, the injuries prevented him from being enlisted. It’s strange—I recall vividly visiting my brother in the hospital, making a trip to a restaurant with him on crutches, and being repelled by the odor of the yellow substance the hospital used to clean his leg. But I can’t fully remember the war images and associated words and sounds emanating from the television. Little did I know that, while the images and sounds may have registered as the usual backdrop to my childhood evenings, families across the nation watched the news nervously, waiting the longest wait for a child to return home.Elizabeth EngelhardtMy ASA moment this year happened at a Saturday morning food studies session. Two of the presenters had workshopped their pieces at our Food Studies Writers Salon earlier in the fall, so it was fascinating to see how Lindsey Swindell of Sam Houston State and Jennifer Jensen Wallach of the University of North Texas had modified and deepened their thinking. It was also intellectually provocative to see their work in conversation with the other panelists. The conversation ranged from Mexico to Alabama to the Blackfoot Tribal Lands and from 1870s' progressivism to the past month's media coverage of the Obamas. More than that, though, I attended the session with my friend Psyche Williams-Forson, and we ended up passing notes, hatching an idea for an anthology project inspired by the moment.Caryl KocurekAmerican Studies is a sprawling discipline, and that is something that is often on display at the annual meeting of the ASA. What is, perhaps, less obvious from outside the field is how the same meeting that showcases the diversity of interests within the field shows how these diverse interests intersect in meaningful, productive ways. For me, the best part of ASA is not necessarily presenting my own work or even seeing others' work presented -- although both are valuable -- but instead the host of opportunities for meeting peers at caucus and committee meetings and events and less formal receptions and social gatherings. For the past two years, I've participated as a member of the Digital Humanities Caucus, and this year, I've also signed on as a member of the ASA Women's Committee. Conferences are vital as opportunities for connection, and in a large organization like the ASA, finding smaller groups within the whole can be an important means of forging meaningful ties. My work with the Digital Humanities caucus has yielded opportunities for collaboration that I would not have had otherwise. While I am sure working with the Women's Committee could yield the same, I am also excited to give back to the organization through service and facilitate opportunities for other women in the organization. I'm always excited to go to ASA, even at moments when I feel my research is straying afield from the discipline, because I can rely on the meeting as a kind of homecoming and an important reminder that I am, always, an American Studies scholar at heart.Julia MickenbergThe recent ASA meeting was stimulating but very emotional one for me, mainly because of the Israel boycott resolution being debated throughout much of the conference. I spent a great deal of the time discussing the pros and cons of an academic boycott with various colleagues who embraced a range of different positions, from strongly opposed, to strongly in favor. Many people were simply concerned that the American Studies Association was devoting its energies to this issue more than many other worthy issues (global warming, nuclear proliferation, etc.), or wondered if a scholarly organization should be in the business of making political statements. Many were concerned about the capacity of the boycott resolution to create enduring rifts in the organization.I had intended to attend a forum on the boycott Friday night but several social events---that is, the chance to see old friends, colleagues, and former students who I would not otherwise see—prevented me from going. However, at dinner that night I wound up hearing about that meeting from two professors at other institutions who strongly support the boycott but had concerns about the level of discourse at the meeting. At dinner the next night another friend expressed fear that the ASA was tending toward overemphasizing “social justice” oriented work to the point that there was no longer space for scholars who are more oriented toward academics than politics—“Isn’t there still room in our organization for the folks who just want to study Emerson and Hawthorne?” he asked, not because he’s a political reactionary, but because he would like our organization to welcome everyone interested in American culture. He said that for the majority of awards announced at the awards ceremony (which I did not attend), people were commended on how their work would further social justice (which we both agreed is important), but hardly anyone was commended simply for the outstanding quality of their scholarship.All of this was swirling in my head after the open forum on the boycott on Saturday night, and I wound up feeling compelled to write a statement to the ASA Council, especially given the fact that I had at the last minute added a slip of paper to the box containing names of people who wished to speak at the forum, and my name was not called. Below, verbatim, is the letter that I sent to the ASA Council; I like to think that maybe it had something to do with the statement in the final resolution condemning anti-Semitism.I went to tonight's meeting about the boycott resolution to listen, not to speak, but toward the end of the discussion, when I realized that not a single person had expressed what I was thinking, I felt compelled to put my name into the mix. My name was not called, so I would like to express views that I think are actually shared by a significant proportion of the membership.I have long been critical of Israeli state policies, but when I heard that a resolution was being put before the ASA to institute an academic boycott of Israel, it just felt wrong to me. Felt, as in a literal feeling that was emotional, and even physical. But it also felt wrong intellectually--why would you boycott universities in the name of academic freedom? The discussion tonight answered many, if not all, of my intellectual concerns. But my emotional concerns are just as real, and I think they are shared by many people. I had not gone to any of the discussions prior to tonight, and there are many people I know who also didn't go to the discussions, because of the emotional nature of the topic. That said, I think the resolution needs to contain language that addresses precisely why it is that this is an emotional issue for so many people. At a conversation over dinner last night, with people who were at last night's discussion, and who strongly support the boycott, I heard that at Friday night's discussion of these issues someone brought up the fact that many Jews have an affective relationship to Israel. Apparently the woman who brought this up, even as she criticized the occupation, was essentially shut down by someone in the audience.* This is wrong. I also saw a comment on the web version of the petition in favor of the boycott, which essentially said something like: "I support the boycott. The Holocaust was 65 years ago, and Jews need to stop getting special privileges." We need to recognize the significance of a comment like this being associated with the resolution.The resolution makes no mention of the fact that the state of Israel was founded because people have hated and oppressed Jews for thousands of years. This hatred culminated in an effort to destroy the Jewish race, and this was why an international coalition ultimately backed the formation of the state of Israel. As we all know, the Holocaust has since been used to rationalize the violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli state. While I don't think the Holocaust can justify Israeli human rights abuses, it is also wrong to fail to acknowledge the history of oppression, hatred, and violence against Jews that led to the state of Israel, especially in a resolution that aims to speak for human rights. I'm still fairly ambivalent about the resolution, though leaning toward being convinced of the moral rationale behind it. That said, I would urge the council to be very, very careful about how the resolution is worded if they do decide to vote on it tomorrow. I have spoken to many people who I respect who are opposed to the resolution; and I have spoken to others who are concerned about getting behind something that would appear to support anti-semitic sentiment. Yes, Israel is run by Jews, and it is perpetrating injustices. As most people know, there are many Jews, in and out of Israel, who are critical of that leadership. I have been critical of it. Many of those vocally opposing the boycott have been critical of Israel's leadership. But at the same time, many Jews hear Israel being criticized and feel hatred of Jews. Or they fear a renewal of the anti-semitism that has historically manifested in many parts of the world, including the United States. Indeed, it has had a long history in American universities, which for many years had official quotas against Jews. The reason this issue is so emotional is both because of the history that created Israel in the first place, and because it can be difficult to disentangle the criticism of Israel from plain old anti-semitism, which is alive and well.I appreciated the open forum tonight, and, honestly, I appreciated the chance to hear views that challenged me and brought me to recognize the value of this effort. But if you don't decide to ask for a vote on this issue from the entire membership (which would, indeed, be the most democratic process), I would at least urge you to include wording that acknowledges the history that created the state of Israel and explicitly condemns anti-semitism. There were people in the audience tonight who argued that this resolution represents an opportunity for the American Studies Association to do something of historic importance. That may be the case. But we need to think very, very carefully about exactly how we do that.Robert OxfordEntering the Washington Hilton through 'President's Walk,' just feet away where John Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan, it is a few winding turns to reach the International Ballroom (East) where past ASA president Matt Jacobson patiently and attentively listened to almost two hours of membership response as part of an Open Discussion: The Israeli Occupation of Palestine. More than seven hundred were packed into the standing-room only event. Literature on the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions resolution before the ASA National Council was piled on top of every seat in the house. Graduate students, tenured and adjunct faculty, and independent scholars were chosen at random from a collection of volunteered names to speak. The crowd's response was objectively overwhelming in favor of immediate endorsement of the proposal that has waited in committee limbo since 2006 when it was first presented in response to Israel's unilateral attack on Lebanon:"It is resolved that the American Studies Association (ASA) endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. It is also resolved that the ASA supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement."During the debate, to me, the only convincing orators were those who cited the anti-imperial, transnational scholarship of the Association as reason for a collective statement against occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. A few speakers were wary of the boycott: their major complaint was that the resolution was insubstantial and pure political posturing. Most speakers acknowledged the already-present academic restrictions and consequences of speaking against the state of Israel: the chilling effect against critical inquiry and activism within the academy hung over the open discussion. Others, however, were unafraid of the slander, threats and abuse that comes with such dissent. Yet there were insightful criticisms about the effect of such a resolution and the issue of enforcement. Overall, the discussion was lively but respectful, pensive but critical, and thoroughly reassuring that a broad constituency passionately spoke with both the future for Palestinians, and our profession, in mind.Elissa UnderwoodDuring the Annual Meeting of the ASA, several scholars, activists, and students participated in a Town Hall Meeting on Palestine and an Open Discussion on Palestine to discuss and debate a resolution proposed by the Academic and Community Activism Caucus recommending that the ASA boycott Israeli academic institutions. Several of us from the department -- both graduate students and faculty -- attended the town hall and other events as well. Rather than write my own reflection, I thought it would be more informative and productive to include the thoughtful and eloquent pieces that several ASA members have already written about the academic boycott resolution. Check out links here and here as well as responses from Ali Abunimah here and one by Steven Salaita here. These articles should give students and faculty who did not attend ASA a sense of the energy in the room those nights and the significance and relevance of the work that some of our own community members, like Jenny Kelly, are doing. A FAQ on the academic and cultural boycott of Israel can be accessed here. The ASA National Council has voted unanimously to endorse the academic boycott of Israel, and you can read more on the ASA resolution here and here. The resolution will now be put to a vote by ASA members, who have until 11:59 pm EST December 15 to cast their vote.
Departmental Theme: The Music of [In]security
As part of our department's 2013-2014 theme, we've compiled a collaborative Spotify playlist containing songs that relate to notions of security and insecurity. Today, we feature a few of those selections introduced by members of our departmental community, who opine on the relationships between sound and security. So kick your Wednesday off with some tunes and a little fancy scholarly footwork that sheds a little more light on some well-known (or not-so-well-known) favorites. The depth of some of these songs may surprise you. Enjoy.And, if you're a Spotify user, be sure to subscribe to the playlist at the link above.
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Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, "Nowhere To Run" (1965)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yfqxoSTFM]
Ostensibly about the difficulty of walking away from a bad relationship, the jarringly upbeat “Nowhere to Run” is more of a ghost story. The phantom lover haunts dreams, the bathroom mirror, and other people’s faces. Reeves knows its time to go, but she can’t find a way out. GIs took over the song as a metaphor for the quagmire of Vietnam. Today, considering the quagmire of bankrupt Detroit, the Vandellas’ joyous romp through an auto plant in their promotional video offers an almost spectral image of a distant, happier past. - Dr. Karl Hagstrom Miller
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Steve Earle, "Rich Man's War" (2004)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjT6B6IFUU8]Steve Earle makes an appearance on the list. His “Rich Man’s War” is part of the most recent incarnation of Earle—a songwriter with politics on the sleeve and class consciousness in the heart. But it makes me think of an earlier, Appalachian-inspired Steve Earle—that of the “Copperhead Road,” bootlegging, fast cars, and law-breaking days. That Steve Earle had it the other way around, class on the sleeve and politics in the noisy heartbeat underneath. To my ears, both bring more layers to the question of security/insecurity. To “Are we secure or are we insecure?” Earle adds, “Did we build this prison ourselves?” and “How do we get out of this cycle?” As his “Satellite Radio” puts it: “Is there anybody listening to earth tonight?” Because it might just be us who are here to figure it all out. - Dr. Elizabeth Engelhardt
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Bruce Cockburn, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" (1984)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7vCww3j2-w]
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Everything about Cockburn’s piece screams the eighties—from its cheesy keyboard patches to its scathing critique of the US pursuit of the strategy of supposedly “low intensity conflict” in Central America. The pacifist folkie’s mounting frustration leads to dreams of high-powered vigilantism two years after the first Rambo movie and two years before the Iran-Contra affair made Ollie North a household name. - Dr. Karl Hagstrom Miller
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Jeff Buckley, "Grace" (1994)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67K-8Y3SEQc]
Jeff Buckley's "Grace," the title track from the artist's only self-released album, embodies the emotional volatility of nineties alternative rock. At once a driving hard rock anthem and a surprisingly tender expression of a man's resignation to his own demise, "Grace" is a nexus among uncertainty, alienation, and shrill-but-powerful panic stoked when death knocks at the door. Such themes are well at home in the disaffected Gen-X musical world also inhabited by the pre-emo likes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But fear not. That messy snarl of ostensibly inevitable misery is ameliorated, at least in part, by the power of love (no Back to the Future allusion intended, although Marty McFly certainly had reason to feel insecure). Much as love provides some semblance of stability, the raw finality of death is, sez Buckley, perhaps the greatest source of security we can hope for. - Carrie Andersen
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Loretta Lynn, “Who Says God is Dead?” (1968)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4e7LKB0DCA]
The coal-miner’s daughter takes on Friedrich Nietzsche. “Who says God is dead? I’m talking with him now.” In 1966, Time magazine published an infamous “God is Dead” cover story that cited the 19th-century philosopher while reporting on the increasing secularism and atheism in the United States. Loretta Lynn wasn’t having it. Lynn reasserts her unwavering faith, her personal relationship with God, and her refusal to believe the mainstream media—complete with chicken picking guitar and a countripolitan Nashville choir. - Dr. Karl Hagstrom Miller
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Hayden, "Lonely Security Guard" (2002)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrwQv13WAGY]
I was a security guard for about a year (the art museum preferred to call us “gallery attendants”) and it was the easiest, most mind-numbing job I’ve ever had. There didn’t seem to be many requirements beyond passing a drug test and the ability to remain standing for hours at a time. I’d like to think that we were capable workers who stood guard over priceless Rembrandts and Van Goghs, but probably people thought of us as little more than the art museum equivalent of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.Hayden (Paul Desser) takes a jocular, almost sympathetic view of one security guard in particular. This lonely guard passes time by creating origami: “with his hands and an old receipt he makes a swan so real it breathes.” He fixates on his paper creations at the expense of actually performing his duties which the narrator sees as ineptness and an opportunity to attempt shoplifting. He is emboldened by the inattention of the security guard (“So I grabbed the first thing I saw and walked right out the front door”) but the would-be thief soon finds he has made a mistake: “But he had just made a paper sword and threw me right down on the floor / And everyone standing near that store witnessed a one-sided war.”The song is bookended by two very different observations about the security guard. Both agree that he “looks so mean from afar,” but the narrator’s original assertion of the security guard’s harmlessness (“he could not hurt a flea”) has turned into a genuine fear: “When you get up close you’ll see / that he’s no cup of tea.” The security guard, butt of jokes and unfavorable stereotypes, has won this round. - Brendan Gaughen
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The sounds of surveillance
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcTinqLiUU]
What does surveillance sound like? I wish it sounded like The Clash’s “London Calling”---a distortion-pedal retort to the dehumanization of the control society. Politically and musically, that would be lovely. But I fear the cryptic tonality of the surveillance assemblage is best captured by something less heroically hopeful, something that is not on our department's wonderful list of surveillance songs. What I'm imagining is the generically dulcet tones of Muzak. Consider the weird echoes between these seemingly distant forms. Like surveillance, Muzak is often present but unnoticed as we move through public space. Like surveillance, Muzak is an institutional presence at the edge of consciousness, a bit of electronic infrastructure designed to promote certain behaviors and affective states (for example, one encourages a pleasant orgy of consumption in a shopping center, while the other ramps up tension to flush out criminality). Both are aesthetically uninspired, whether it's the dulling pleasantness of “The Girl from Ipanema” lurking in the sonic underbrush of the mall or the gawking ugliness of plastic CCTV cameras (not to mention depressed security guards wobbling past the Orange Julius on their Segways). I'm starting to wonder: maybe surveillance is the Muzak of the 21st century---the banal, quietly soul-crushing soundtrack of our lives? If only Joe Strummer were here to sing about that. - Dr. Randy Lewis
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The Mountain Goats, "In the Craters on the Moon" (2008)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZZ_EAr7Ces]
Since their early days making low-fi home recordings on a boombox, The Mountain Goats have had a penchant for making music about regret, domestic unease (or outright distress), and places both glorious and inglorious. "In the Craters on the Moon," off their Heretic Pride album of 2008, features further forays into the geography of fear and resignation with the first verse and chorus intoning, "If the light hurts your eyes / Stay in your room all day / When the room fills with smoke / Lie down on the floor / In the declining years / Of the long war." As it turns out, Mountain Goats songwriter John Darnielle and comic book artist Jeffery Lewis made a comic explaining each song on Heretic Pride (check it out here). Darnielle had the following to say about In the Craters on the Moon: "It is the natural condition of my characters, when a few of them have gathered together, to find themselves secluded in a near-lightless room waiting for some unspecified disaster. Frankly I suspect that this is the natural condition of a pretty hefty percentage of the general populace. The people in this song have reached a point of comfort with their dread; ready for panic to set in, relishing the moment." I can't think of a better description of life in a surveillance state amidst the smoke of NSA mass data collection than living in a near-lightless room waiting for an unspecified disaster. - Emily RoehlThis is a song that raises more questions than it answers. It begins with a sparse guitar and drum, gradually accompanied by a haunting violin, before building to a crescendo around the two-minute mark and then quieting again. Each short four line stanza seems to be about giving up and being powerless against stronger forces, though it’s unclear from whose perspective the story is told.One can interpret the song as a commentary on America’s recent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing “blind desert rats in the moonlight / too far from shore.” This interpretation gives certain lines additional meaning. “When the room fills with smoke / lie down on the floor” reads like something out of a military manual and “Empty room with a light bulb where the phone starts to ring / everybody gets nervous, nobody says anything” may hint at torture. Regardless, the song remains pessimistic throughout, nearly closing with the line “Ugly things in the darkness, worse things in store.”These suggestions all come “in the declining years of the long war,” but whose war? Are these suggestions are directed at those who are in the midst of a political conflict or an internal emotional crisis? The rhetorical vagueness allows the listener to imagine a multitude of situations, each of them foreboding. Whether the song is about a dirty war or emotional paralysis, “In the Craters of the Moon” draws the listener into some dark and very insecure places. - Brendan Gaughen
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Laurie Anderson, “O Superman (For Massenet)” (1981)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2zQw]
A meditation on the threat, alienation, and warmth of technology, “O Superman” became a surprise charting single in 1981. The looped backing track can sound like an intimate whisper or anxious hyperventilation, depending on your mood. There are planes and answering machines, mistaken identities and the military industrial complex. But don’t worry. Even when love, justice, and force have been exhausted, there is still Mom. Hi, Mom! - Dr. Karl Hagstrom Miller
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MC5, "Let Me Try" (1970)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBYqdA6DIvs]
The voice of “Let Me Try” sees the other, the vulnerable subject, and wants to protect her. The slow, creepy crawl-along of the jangly rock rhythm guitar, the crooning of the Mc5’s Rob Tyner, and the frenetic begging chorus construct a lullaby whose music enacts the movement of a cradle to convince her that he can soothe her pain. But the care promised, which begins as a mutually beneficial symbiosis, gives way to a lurking appropriation in this pleading offer: transubstantiation. The protection he begs to provide comes at a steep price, and the leveling fire marks the subject’s loss of autonomy and agency. The song ends with an easy “la da da da," calming her as she disappears into him; the consequence of accepting his security. - Julie Kantor
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Deltron 3030, "Virus" (2000)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrEdbKwivCI]In high school, I knew I was a huge nerd who liked rap. I also knew there were concept albums that were largely reserved for rock-and-roll, 1970s baby-boomer types. Bumping Deltron 3030 in my first car was a kind of liberation. On 'Virus,' Deltron, AKA Del the Funky Homo Sapien, AKA Teren Delvon Jones, proposes a plot to do away with all manner of global capitalism. It was heaven sent, especially since there were lots of references to computer science concepts. He considers the consequences of his actions, but ultimately, he surmises it is much more reasonable to shut society down compared to our miserable (soon to be?) corporate existence."The last punks walk around like masked monksReady to manipulate the data base and break through emHuman rights come in a hundredth placeMass production has always been number oneNew Earth has become a repugnant placeSo its time to spread the fear and the thunder some"The Deltron 3030 hypermodern, space-rap form of dissent is much more optimistic: ex-mech operator takes matters into his own hands after space stations and trans-galactic corps. create global apartheid. It seemed pretty plausible to me. Plus this sort of dystopian future is a lot more slamming thanks to Dan the Automator's production:"I want to make a super virusStrong enough to cause blackouts in every single metropolisCuz they don't wanna unify usSo fuck it total anarchyCan't nobody stop us"Now that's autonomy! - Robert Oxford
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Sheena Easton, "Morning Train (9 to 5)" (1980)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AolugX-YuPc]
A breathless ode to the security of full-time employment in the age in deindustrialization. Her baby goes to work. Every day. This enables him to afford to take the singer to restaurants. They go to the movies. It is unclear if Easton’s character has a job of her own or if she waits at home each day, but is clear that it took the economic malaise of the era to make a steady commuter job sound as sexy as it does in this song. - Dr. Karl Hagstrom Miller
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Descendents, "Suburban Home" (1982)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfy9ZqKUJjU]
“I want to be stereotyped. I want to be classified.” Spoken in a deadpan voice, these are the first two lines to the Descendents’ “Suburban Home.” The song uses an ironic narrator who claims to want everything he actually detests – to be classified, to be a clone, to be masochistic, to be a statistic. Rejecting (or pretending to reject) the punk ethos of austerity, the narrator claims, “I don’t want no hippie pad, I want a house just like mom and dad!” Growing up in the suburban expanse of Los Angeles’ South Bay, Descendents’ bass player Tony Lombardo (who wrote the song) recognized the upward aspiration of his parents’ generation and a certain level of comfort and security attained through possessions – the job, the house, and the predictable lifestyle that goes along with it. Written and recorded while still in his teens, Suburban Home is partly a playful jab at what he saw as misguided ambition and partly an excuse to underachieve.The song starts side B of their first full-length album, whose title itself, Milo Goes to College, suggests the possibility of financial security in Reagan’s America achieved through higher education. The group went on hiatus from 1983-85 while lead singer Milo Aukerman left for college (he would later earn a doctorate in biology from UC San Diego), which seems to suggest they actually did believe in the importance of education. In barely a minute and a half, “Suburban Home” jokingly critiques the notion of security through consumption and conformity. Ironic though it may be, it ultimately fails to undermine what Lombardo saw as the self-absorbed ambitions of suburban homeowners. - Brendan Gaughen
Departmental Theme: Dr. Randy Lewis on Surveillance and Security
We're delighted to share with you this write-up from Dr. Randy Lewis about integrating the 2013-2014 departmental theme, SECURITY/INSECURITY, into his teaching this semester:
Because I'm writing a book about surveillance, I've had an easy time working the departmental theme of security and insecurity into my teaching. A few weeks ago at the AMS film series, I spoke about surveillance and cinema before a screening of David Fincher's The Game, which will figure in one chapter of my book. And throughout the fall semester, I've been teaching a new grad seminar on surveillance that I'm excited about. Working from an interdisciplinary perspective that brings the sociologically-based research of surveillance studies into conversation with humanities scholarship related to art, film, history, architecture, and affect, the course explores the psychology, poetics, and politics underlying the institutionalization of insecurity. With terrific students from AMS, journalism, and anthropology, we have been asking what is driving the vast market for surveillance on an affective and ideological level? What are the hidden costs of living in a “control society” in which surveillance is deemed essential to neoliberal governance? And what are the strategies for creative resistance that enable new forms of biopolitics in the age of surveillance?We've talked about everything from post office peep holes to Big Data, from border militias to Minority Report, not to mention "Every Breath You Take," Sting's creepy ode to stalkers (and to think he named his band "The Police"!). Even if I'm starting to feel a bit like Dale Gribble, it's been been a thought provoking semester of security and insecurity thus far (which is probably what Mack Brown would say as well!).