Category United States
Review: Us
**Republished with permission from Tossed Observations Inc.** by Jonathan Craig Suspenseful, cinematically impressive, and majestically scored, Jordan Peele’s latest feature-length effort is, on balance, a triumph. Following 2017’s critically acclaimed Get Out, Us (2019) uses the template of a classic horror-thriller to spotlight the social ills of the modern day United States. Macabre humour and […]
Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Today, the 25th of March, marks the anniversary of New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in which 146 garment workers lost their lives. The fire occurred in 1911, only one year after New York’s streets saw the Uprising of the 20,000—a successful strike of the primarily Jewish immigrant women who worked in the garment sector. That strike […]
Interrogating Queer Identity: The Use of Art as Resistance and Stories from the Margins
by Colin Gill In this moment in history we are witnessing several ultra-right movements across the globe. The most recent example of this is the election of president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Bolsonaro has been speaking out and actively working against indigenous land sovereignty, making racist claims against Afro-Brazilians, hindering LGBTQ+ rights, and is willing […]
From The Field: Superbowl Sunday, The Dude Abides?
by Jonny Craig Last week the New England Patriots faced off against the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53. At this, the culmination of the NFL season, five-time winners, the Patriots, carried the tag of overwhelming favourites, having reached the final in nine of the last twenty seasons. Having paid no attention to the […]
Freedom, Probation, and The American Dream: Some Thoughts from a New Mexican Factory Floor
by Jonny Craig In his 2016 release, Interstate: Hitchhiking through the State of a Nation, travel-writer Julian Sarayer chronicles his unorthodox and remarkable journey from New York to San Francisco. As with many — perhaps all — great travel books, Sarayer’s account is as much about those he encounters along the way as it is […]
Is the United Nations Broken?
By Ronald Niezen When the United Nations General Assembly convened its annual meeting this September, amid growing nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the U.N. for being overly bureaucratic. “Too often the focus of this organization has not been on results,” he said, “but on bureaucracy and process.” […]
Agency, Upkeep, and Neglect in North Carolina Farm Labor Camps
by Bennett Heine In a recent article in Human Organization, co-authors Thomas Arcury, Sarah Quandt, and I draw from interviews with migrant farmworkers to conclude that agency matters. It matters for the day-to-day material well-being and dignity of farmworkers and their families; for researchers looking to situate the lives and struggles of migrant farmworkers within […]
From the Field: American Textile Mill
by Caitrin Lynch **Originally published on The Standard-Times and on SouthCoastToday.com.** In response to calls for increased empathy after the divisive national election, many Americans will be making New Year’s resolutions in 2017 to experience life from the ‘other’ side. For all of 2016, I shelved my college professor routine and went to work in a textile mill. […]
Donald Trump Elected President – Is it the 1970s?
by Dinah Rajak The more I think about, the more I think we might need a cultural revolution… Donald Trump is an anachronism – a pastiche of some kind of 1970’s suburban used car dealer with terrible hair and orange face and cheesy mannerisms. You could imagine his adverts on local TV for ‘Trump Cars’ […]
