Feelings and reactions on week 2

I realized my reactions will be different for week 2 because sitting in on class and discussing the readings definitely has an influence on your thought process and eventually on your response, anyway, here we go...

On performances…I believe as much as every person has their preferred channel of expressing themselves to the outside world (e.g. acting, painting, singing, writing, or through communication), we also have our preferred way/channel of receiving the expressions from others. An example of this might be that an individual loves to read plays by Shakespeare, yet, going to see a play acted on stage is just not their cup of tea. In the context of health and illness and with an individual expressing their true feelings, I think it is crucial, that more than one way of expressing/ receiving exists. Like that, more people have the chance to comprehend the content of one's inner feelings and this opens another "door" to engage in dialogue.

On politics...when I was younger I hated politics. Even today I am not too fond of it but I realized that politics run this world and there is no way to get around them. Political systems need to be challenged constantly in order to provoke changes in the system. With that in mind, it becomes even more scary to see that marginalized groups whose voices are constantly silenced don't even stand the slightest chance to provoke this change. And the ones who have the power to provoke changes don't see an interest in doing so, because for them to be happy no change is needed. They are also the ones who have the ruling over everything else because their power can channel anything the way they want it to be - even I feel powerless looking at it from that perspective and as German native I am not even considered to be part of a marginalized group. I can only imagine how these individuals must feel.

The whiteness of binaries that erase the Global South: On Communicative Inversions and the invitation to Vijay Prashad in Aotearoa

When I learned through my activist networks that the public intellectual Vijay Prashad was coming to Aotearoa, I was filled with joy. In my early years in the U.S., when learning the basics of the struggle against the fascist forces of Hindutva, I came in conversation with Vijay's work. Two of his critical interventions, the book, The Karma of Brown Folk , and the journal article " The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva " co-authored with Biju Matthew and published in Ethnic and Racial Studies shaped my early activism. These pieces of work are core readings in understanding the workings of Hindutva fascism and how it mobilizes cultural tropes to serve fascist agendas. Much later, I felt overjoyed learning about his West Bengal roots and his actual commitment to the politics of the Left, reflected in the organising of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political register that shaped much of my earliest lessons around Global South resistance, collectivization, and orga...

Zionist hate mongering, the race/terror trope, and the Free Speech Union: Part 1

March 15, 2019. It was a day of terror. Unleashed by a white supremacist far-right terrorist. Driven by hate for brown people. Driven by Islamophobic hate. Earlier in the day, I had come across a hate-based hit piece targeting me, alongside other academics, the University of Auckland academic Professor Nicholas Rowe , Professor Richard Jackson at Otago University, Professor Kevin P Clements at Otago University, Dr. Rose Martin from University of Auckland and Dr. Nigel Parsons at Massey University. Titled, "More extremists in New Zealand Universities," the article threw in the labels "terror sympathisers" and "extremist views." Written by one David Cumin and hosted on the website of the Israel Institute of New Zealand, the article sought to create outrage that academics critical of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid are actually employed by universities in New Zealand. Figure 1: The web post written by David Cumin on the site of Israel Institute ...

Whiteness, NCA, and Distinguished Scholars

In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit...

Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Search This Blog