Saturday, October 27, 2012

For Tuesday: Media Activism

We're very lucky to have a special guest this Tuesday: Shiela Schroeder, co-director of SoleJourney, a documentary film about a group of protesters who journey from all over the state to confront James Dobson and the Focus on the Family organization for their anti-LGBT stance. For Tuesday, please watch SoleJourney (it's on our CourseMedia folder), and come to class having completed ONE of the following options for homework:
  1. After you've watched SoleJourney, write a page or so in which you discuss how activist media has affected you personally. Have your actions or opinions ever been changed because of an encounter with an activist film, song, poem, or other piece of activist art? How? And why?
  2. After you've watched SoleJourney, look at the materials below and write a page or so in which you analyze the differences between these very different forms of media activism. What strikes you as especially interesting or unique about the relationship between art and activism as its practiced in SoleJourney, by the Yes Men, and by Pussy Riot?
Here's a video about the Yes Men's prank on the New York Post. You can read more about it here.

"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men on Vimeo.


Here's a video that Russian Punk band Pussy Riot made from their guerrilla performance/protest in a Russian church. You can read more about it (and the aftermath) here.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Which Way Home homework

The last several decades have witnessed the emergence of a new kind of imperialism. In addition to "hard imperialism," whereby one country dominates another through direct military and political control (as the British did in India), we now see "soft imperialism," whereby one country dominates another in subtler, less overt ways. Social justice activists have argued that the U.S. exercises this "soft imperialist" power in, for example, Latin America. Here we find several nations that, while politically independent, are nevertheless dominated economically by the United States.

Rebecca Cammisa's Which Way Home explores the human costs of soft imperialism, following several boys on their journey ascross Mexico to cross the U.S. border. For Tuesday, please watch Cammisa's film (it's on DU CourseMedia), and come to class having selected a single scene from the film that you believe encapsulates the injustice of "soft imperialism." We're going to look at several of the scenes you select, so please be sure to note the time at which your scene begins and ends.
  • To access CourseMedia, go here
  • Log in using you student ID and passcode (i.e., the same ID and passcode you use for webCentral and MyWeb).
  • Click on the image beside “SJUS videos.”
  • Click on the image beside “Which Way home.”

Thursday, October 11, 2012

For Tuesday: Dark Days

For our class-on-the-road this week, please watch the documentary Dark Days, by Marc Singer, and come to our class-on-the-train prepared to discuss the following in small groups:
  1. The residents of Freedom Tunnel created an alternative community to the one above ground. How would you compare and contrast the social values, relationships, and forms of organization that define the community underground with those that define the community above ground?
  2. What role does art play in binding the Freedom Tunnel community together as a community, in preserving its history, and as a means of exercising agency?
You'll discuss these questions in small groups on RTD on our way to Urban Peak, then the groups will share with the whole group later on, probably as we eat dinner at the Merc.

Here's the movie. (If for some reason YouTube is giving you a hard time, you can also view it by logging on to DU CourseMedia, clicking on the image beside "SJUS videos," and then on the one labeled Dark Days.)

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Imperialism Part 2


From Rudyard Kipling’s "The White Man's Burden" (1899)


Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.






Monday, October 1, 2012

New Era Colorado

Here are some videos by and about New Era Colorado, who'll be visiting us in class on October 23rd to ask your help with their "trick or vote" campaign. The group's goal is to make politics inviting and exciting to folks in their late teens and twenties, and the "trick or vote" campaign looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

Here's an overview of the group's work:



Here are some videos about the "trick or vote" campaign:



And here's a spoof of MTV Cribs that they did during the mayoral race: