CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
Looking into Visual Culture: Issues of Women and
Gender
Organiser: Joanne Leonard
Washington, Stacy L. (University of
Michigan, USA) IMAGING AN AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY: THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF A
COMMUNITY IDENTITY THROUGH REPRESENTATIONAL STRUGGLE
This paper combines two of Stacy Washington's primary interests: cultural
articulations of identity and historiographical methodology. Her work draws
connections between contemporary critical theories of identity politics; agency
and resistance surrounding cultural production; and historical studies dealing
with the formation of an African American community ethos and identity. Engaging
the works of bell hooks, Hazel Carby, Cornel West, Robin Kelley, Lawrence
Levine, Sterling Stuckley, Elsa Barkley-Brown and John Vlach, she suggests that
early African American cultural production (here African American women's
quilting) served as an alternative form of historical record keeping. Along a
historical trajectory, 20th -century cultural production can be seen as a part
of a community ethos; a legacy of identity articulation within contexts of
resistance and agency. Ms. Washington believes that the challenge of academia,
in the 21st-century, is to move methodology and pedagogy forward without
ignoring current historical foundations. As scholars, we must begin to accept
new forms into the canon of historical record; to de-privilege current hegemony,
without invalidating or devaluing it, to develop new areas of academic
investigation by engaging established disciplines.
Karlsen, Carol (University of Michigan,
USA) AFTER SALEM: READING WITCH IMAGES IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES AFTER
1700
Representations of witches are as commonplace in early twenty-first-century
popular and political culture in the United States as they were in late
seventeenth-century religious culture. Most of the earlier images came from
England?s or New England?s written texts or were presented to audiences as
sermons. Today most are produced by Hollywood and the advertising industry as
visual texts presented to audiences as mass entertainment. While the gendered
meanings of witch production have clearly changed over time, some remain
remarkably consistent. Focusing on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
and looking at both British and American images, this panel presentation
assesses how the witch image was transformed through ongoing religious
preoccupation with unruly women and the emergence of fictional witches in fairy
tales and other children?s and adult literature. It explores how the
contemporary cultural narrative of the witch in the United States is rooted in
the visual and written language artists and writers created to simultaneously
deny and affirm witches? existence.
Pegler Gordon, Anna (University of
Michigan, USA) GENDERED VISIONS OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS IN THE EXCLUSION ERA
Starting in 1882, the Chinese exclusion laws were the first U.S. immigration
laws to discriminate against a group of immigrants solely on the basis of their
race and class. As recent feminist analyses have shown, gender also played a key
role in the administration of exclusion. This paper considers the gendered
perspective of Chinese exclusion through the previously unexplored archive of
photographic identity documents. Looking at these images and the accompanying
immigration investigations, we can see the intersection of race, class and
gender in the Immigration Bureau's construction of ideas about Chinese
immigrants. At the same time, these studio photographs taken under the direction
of the immigrants, illustrate immigrant resistance to both their representation
and regulation by the Immigration Bureau.
Jacobsen, Carol (University of Michigan,
USA) BARRED AND GAGGED
As Gayle Rubin warned feminists 20 years ago, the price we pay for shying away
from making and critiquing images that address difficult and marginalized sex
practices like prostitution, S/M, cross-generational sex, and children?s
sexuality is that we hand over definition of these subjects to right wing
conservatives and watch our hard won rights erode. Even worse is the price we
pay for allowing certain groups of women to be scapegoated and criminalized for
owning their personal, sexual or political autonomy: we place all of our freedom
in jeopardy. But feminist artists who attempt to make visible such sexual
marginalization or criminalization are too often brought into costly encounters
with the law themselves. This presentation will present several examples of
artists whose practices have confronted both censorship and criminalization, as
well as a short video of criminalized women whose experiences are censored.
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