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arkus-rhapsode · 11 months ago

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Are We Returning To 2000s Era Shonen Anime/Manga (A Discussion)

So this is going to be way more of a thinkpiece than I usually do for this blog, but recent trends in the space and niche that I devote a lot of time to, Anime/Manga, have been showing themselves that got me thinking. This is not meant to be a serious sociology case study taken as fact, it's going to be more a theory based on observations of the community that I, like many others, devote a lot of time into than a full on claim, but I do want to ask, is the anime and manga community is experiencing a resurgence in 2000s era shonen manga?

Background

Now let me get this out of the way, there is bias in these observations as I am a western anime fan, but also a North American anime fan. Meaning my gateway and gauges of pop culture are mostly determined by the history of my area of the world’s relationship with anime. From the OVAs of 80s hyper violent and hyper sexual sci fi that you had to purchase from the backs of video rental stores, to the Toonami era of 90s and early 00s programming block the centred around action anime and cartoons, the 4kids era of mass market japanese animated kids shows that were really just giant commercials with some of the earliest memetics in western sphere, and the explosion of shonen battle series in the western sphere in the mid to late 2000s marked by the rise of the colloquially named “Big 3” of shonen jump. I understand that continents like South America or Europe may have undergone a different exposure to the Japanese medium, but as I am going in with some bias in this observation, I would like to make it clear on where the formula is coming from. I also would like to lay down a certain clarification before making this, when discussing the topic of nostalgia I think a lot of people have forgotten what it actually means. If we go by the Cambridge dictionary definition, Nostalgia is “a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.” This is often invoked when talking about pop culture because people from say 20 years ago don’t seem to enjoy or relate to the interests of today. The belief is that nostalgia is generational ergo if you grew up in the 80s you’re likely wishing to recapture the feelings of childhood that you associate with those trends from 20 years ago. In fact, most revaluation in media has often been catalyzed by a difference of those who grew up in an era rebuffing the opinions of those who didn’t.

There is the well known “20 Year Rule” regarding pop culture nostalgia. That every decade it longs for what was popular 20 years ago. Probably no better example than “That 70s show” being popular in the late 90s, the return of many beloved 80s-90s franchises like “Ghostbusters” returning in the 2010s as well as series like “Stranger Things” that wrapped itself up in 80s aesthetics. DC's New 52 relaunch that seemed to bring back trends from 90s era comics.

Now it goes without saying that the 20 year rule isn’t a “real” rule, rather an observation that certain trends make a return to popularity because the ones who grew up with a certain media will be the ones who add to the discourse when they come of age and will be the ones having a chance to create consumable art for the masses and that may just be revivals of once popular IP. This isn’t necessarily wrong in regards to nostalgia, but I do believe that one doesn’t need to have been born in a certain era to be nostalgic for something when we discuss pop culture. Pop culture is really just trends and preferences that become en vogue and people can acquire a taste at any given time. Sometimes it can be due to those who grew up with something now having the chance to create and drawing upon their own childhoods, sometimes it's just due to not being exposed, other times it can be a certain feeling of disillusionment of the now, and seeking something that peaks your interest, and even sometimes it can be major corporations or networks looking for things with existing audiences to draw upon that actually expand the audience. In fact one of the most prominent Netflix adaptations of the 2020s has been live Action Avatar the Last Airbender and One Piece, both shows that got their start on American televisions in 2004 and 2005. One of the biggest animated shows right now is Invincible, based on a comic book from 2003

So I want to stress this is not necessarily about how if you grew up with the original Mobile Suit Gundam show you are being replaced by the kids who were watching GetBackers. And or if you are a fan of shows that came out in the 2000s you yourself were born in the 2000s.

But what was the landscape of the English speaking anime community like back in the 2000s? Well let me paint a portrait for you.

What was the 2000s like for anime fans?

The term I used, “shonen boom period”, is somewhat mythologized in the western anime sphere. There was a glut of high profile shonen anime running around the same time that most people identified with this time period and was arguably when we saw the most influx of people getting into the hobby. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach served as big series known for their massively large casts, MCs with a level of attitude, some of the most hype centric power supernatural/extraordinary power systems, and certain brand of “Japanese-y” humor. We can’t deny that it wasn’t just these series however, as series like Fullmetal Alchemist became many people’s introduction to more narratively intricate series interspersed with a somewhat gothic action style. The gothic and somewhat edgy Death Note became many fans' first ever “battle series that’s not a battle series” that also incorporated many biblical and gothic horror elements into its presentation. And things like Code Geass also incorporated this combination of hyper stylized cat and mouse with ornate and gothic aesthetics and fighting robots.

Series like Ouran Highschool Host Club and and Haruhi Suzumiya were basically gateways to the more hyper extraordinary slice of life series that didn’t shy away from fanservice and loud comedy. With ecchi like Rosario + Vampire taking it to an even greater extreme. For people willing to go even deeper, series like Fairy Tail began to pop up and share a distinct similar flavor to series like One Piece and Naruto which arguably started the popular conception of it coming from the same magazine as the latter. That’s not also discounting the amount of holdovers from the 90s like Dragon Ball z, Trigun, and Yu Yu Hakusho, which also had an edge towards fantastical combat and comedic oriented series.

All of this is to generally illustrate the media diet of what an average anime fan was expected to have some level of access to. As this was far before the eras of Funimation or Hulu having online services. Not a homogenized spread by any means, and im certain plenty of readers could name more underground or smaller series like Mushishi or Elphen Lied, but generally the popular mainstream you could tell that there was a consistent theme of long form media with a very loud, very flashy, and very action oriented type of series. Which I think is fair to say had skewed some people’s perception. And while I cannot claim with utter certainty that Japan was the same in this regard, you can look at magazines like Shonen Jump and notice a somewhat synchronistic trend. With series like Hitman Reborn, Gintama, D. Gray Man, Eyeshield 21, Bobobobo, etc.making a clear marcation of what was commercially successful at the time. Even series not inside the magazine but had smaller nicher, Tokyo-pop-esque series like Rave Master, Flame of Recca, Air Gear, History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Soul Eater, etc all had a similarity to the shonen jump magazine. To the point it was not uncommon to see so many jump characters in a collage and one from shonen sunday or shonen magazine in there as if this was all coming from the same place.

Changing Landscape

Now with the advantages of the modern internet, we have the ability to actually keep up with the jump magazine in real time as opposed to the common practice of relying on scanlation site and fansubs that were often devoted to the most popular works. But with simultaneous publication and services like Crunchyroll, being able to access a wider variety of shows and series that we may or may not have access to. I believe that the 2010s in the english speaking fanbase was the decade we saw a somewhat expansionism of what people perceived as anime. Anime could be One Piece and Naruto, but it could also be Erased, it could be the Promised Neverland, Attack on Titan, K-On, Haikuu, and Durarara. With the representatives of the 90s no longer being holdovers in syndication like dragon ball but rather full on revivals of the likes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter.

All of these could be "shonen" but also other genres like Seinin, Josei, and Shojo all had their own varying layers of what they could be in their demographic

The mood of what was popular was also changing, not just in the fact that more flavors of anime and manga were becoming mainstream, but new works from shonen jump showed a rise in almost subversive series like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer that seemed to consciously deviate or place new spins from traditional tropes of the 2000s characters, and we saw works that were derivative of previous serious like Black Clover drawing upon Naruto the same way it was known that Naruto had drawn upon Dragon Ball before them. Series like The Promised Neverland and Doctor Stone offered up more dramatic series that still infused a certain energy of the shonen genre.

And of course the series like Attack Titan whose much more darker and gorey storytelling seemed to have become one of if not the biggest hit of the generation with a well regarded adaptation, but something that had felt so removed from what were once contemporaries like the then ending Bleach or Naruto. We can also note that the late 2010s saw the rise of series like Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen that began a trend of popular urban fantasy stories. Where fantastical concepts were now in contemporary Japan and the stories that focused on concepts like self identity and the harshness of maturing were juxtaposed to the real world inhabited by monsters.

It seemed many tropes of the previous decade were still alive in the rise of Isekai anime. Which was particularly the only popular outlet for fantasy stories with an action orientation. But these almost felt disconnected from the wider world of manga as things like heavy harem action series had actually decreased in mags like shonen jump. There was also new tropes being established in this subgenre that became unique popularizations of tropes all on their own, such as the overpowered protagonist whose power everyone believes is weak. But many of these were based on light novels, a form of media that only in the last few years western readers are having official access to and not simply scans found on the internet.

We in North America truly have gone from anime being a niche that was primarily accessible through dedicated TV blocks like Toonami, to a full blown cultural relevance shift.

We also need to talk about this era in its perception of the past also shifted. The 90s and the early 00s often blend together as classics of the anime community. Somewhat encased in amber. However, there is no denying that “feels like a 2000s series” had become a bit of a shorthand for very goofy, Very horny, very action heavy series. Series like Fire Force and and Undead Unluck had their show what more problematic elements be equated to the problematic trends of the past that people just accepted as “a part of the medium.” But lets keep in mind, this is not really describing a time, more a trend. Superficial elements that invoke similar feelings of the past.

Speaking of anime fans…

Fan Culture

So while I wanted to paint a picture of creatively the landscape has changed, there’s no denying that in the age of internet accessibility, the anime fan community has also changed. It is much much easier now to get in contact with people who are anime fans now than it was to rely on word of mouth like it was back in the day. I can still distinctly remember my anime club which wasn’t even really a club devoted to anime but rather other geek stuff like D&D and TCGs. Our hobbies just happened to have similar overlap.

Now though, anime fan culture is much more relevant and thriving. Going from just posting weekly reviews, to long retrospectives, comedy videos, abridged series, clickbait articles, fan theories, and podcasts. However, I think a defining feature of fans of the 2000s era of anime that were at their most prominent was hype culture.

Due to many of the biggest anime series at the time being released weekly and focusing on action, many many many discussion boards and videos were often about staying in this cycle of wanting to see what happens next and the action made people very excited to see just how characters were going to win fights or even if they’d have fights at all.

I want to make it clear that this type of activity doesn’t belong to a certain era, but you can see it shaped by the 2000s era. Especially when discussing “what is the next big 3.” As if it were a true position and title, rather than a moment in time where there were just three very distinct shonen series in the fanbase.This doesn’t necessarily have a “negative” effect on the discussion of anime/manga but you can see that certain genres lend themselves to hyping fans up more and more.

Someone isn’t reading the most recent chapter of a romance like Blue Box with the same level of anticipation of who will face who like it was One Piece. But there have certainly been series that try.

The Present

Now we reach the 2020s and this decade is still young, so it is hard to say what the future will hold for certainty, but we can look at the last four years and notice some significant waves being made recently in Shonen Jump alone. I already spoke of Undead Unluck, a series that almost wears it would now be considered retro inspirations on its sleeve. With an opening chapter that establishes an MC that seems motivated by a sexual joke, A power system follows a verbal naming gimmick, and a loose enough world that allows for characters of varying aesthetics and to be incorporated into groups. With groups of these powerful characters splitting up to face each other and use their ridiculous power to the extreme. Even in the series' own meta arc about creating manga, the in-universe analogy for Undead Unluck’s manga is commented on as feeling retro. There is no doubt the biggest viral hit of the decade so far has gone to Kagurabachi, a manga about sword fighting and magical crime lords that seems almost indulgent in its stylistic slicing and or dicing of baddies. Its memetic success was primarily due to a somewhat sincere and somewhat ironic belief that it would be the “next big thing” as it promised to be a stylized action series. Another surprise viral success has been the manga Nue’s Exorcist which sees another supernatural swordfighter boy harness the powers of his sexy spirit lady while getting into harem shenanigans that echo a particular form of ecchi of anime’s past that had actually been somewhat absent in the past decade in jump. Both of these series have a somewhat noticeable similarities to Bleach, a long running shonen action series that has seen its own revival in the last few years of writing this with the long awaited adaptation of the final arc of the bleach anime.

While the other members of the “big 3” never truly went away and became almost inter-generational, Bleach truly did feel like a “come back” as it was absent for so long. And unlike Hunter x Hunter and Jojo which were never really popular in the west and even their older anime are more regarded as anime deep lore. Bleach was one of the most popular series in the west at the time to never receive a conclusion animated.

Speaking of anime of the 2000s Trigun Stampede was a reimagining of the original late 90s show. This errs a bit similar to Hunter x Hunter’s style of revival, but also seems uniquely its own in actually trying to find a balance between the original series but adding in things cut from its original late 90s early 2000s counterpart.

And now we must examine other shonen magazines. Series like Gachiakuta created by a former assistant of Okubo, the creator of Soul Eater, carries with it much of the similar energies of that series. Its also noticeable as being a truly dark fantasy series. Not an urban fantasy, but rather a completely new world that had a very grunge and dirty world building. And then there is Daemons of the Shadow Realm, a series by Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa. This series is also set in modern day japan with supernatural elements, however Arakawa’s style of writing is practically unchanged from her time on FMA. With an emphasis on action, intricate mysteries, and character building comedy with her trademark over exaggerated blocky style. There is of course Hiro Mashima who has started another new series, Dead Rock, and his style has also not changed that much. Then there is just flat out sequels to 2000s series like Gamaran Shura.

This to me shows that we are seeing a bit of a combination of people who are now entering the workforce inspired by creators of the past, but also that creators of the past still exist 20 years later and are still making content that hasn’t really undergone significant change.

Of course, we can’t also forget the implementation of the Manga Plus/J plus service which has opened up a very interesting ground for creators to have some of the most creatively out there series than what you may have expected from the shonen jump brand. I genuinely don’t think series like Make the Exorcist Fall in Love or Fire Punch would’ve ever been acceptable in the pages of a weekly shonen series. However one series in particular does feel like it could've and boy its been quite the success. Kaiju no 8.

Kaiju no 8 almost feels as though it is the AoT of a new generation with the amount of anticipation this one series has as well as the similarities between the series superficial elements. However, I'd say the key distinction between the two has been the tone. AoT took a dark and practically dour tone on its titan infested world. With an MC declaring war on all of his enemies. The pain was realistic, with human bodies being brittle and vulnerable. And the belief that just because you were a good person you weren't going to make it out alive. Kaiju no 8 instead opts for a more action oriented tone. Down playing the bleak realism for more "Hell yeah!" moments. With super science weapons that feel more akin to a tokusatsu show and fights and battles between humans an kanji the feel like the Dragon Ball style wrestling matches of old.

And of course, that’s not to say Jump hasn’t continued with series that feel more modern like the realistic and mellow romance of Blue Box or the dramatic coming of age story of Akane-Banashi.

But the presence of these series has caused somewhat of a friction with the popular conception of the magazine. Its safe to say that while “shonen” tends to think of action male oriented series, it can really just mean works aimed more at adolescents. But I think many tend to associate this familiar feeling of “what is shonen” with their popular introduction of the magazine. With a saturation of action and brash comedy series. This is further complicated by the fact many action series in jump are actually ending over the last decade. With new ones not popping up to replace them as frequently and series like One Piece and MHA and Black Clover basically stretching out across an entire decade or longer. In fact, I don’t think it's unreasonable to believe that the hype for something like Kagurabachi was in part a belief that it signaled a return of a type of familiar series and genre that had been missing. Or at the very least, looked to fill an inevitable gap the magazine was obviously going to be facing. Followed by the other commercial success of Nue’s Exorcist, we are likely to see these series last for a long time. At the time of this writing, Tokyo Revenger’s author Ken Wakui has released Astro Royale, a series that feels very similar to his previous work yet infused with this almost GetBackers flavor.

So that leaves us with the question at the start, are we seeing a rise in 2000s nostalgia in anime and manga?

Conclusion

So I'm sorry if I disappoint, but the best I can say is, I’m not certain. I do believe that from my observation I think it is reasonable to say that we are seeing a rise in creators in the shonen space being ones inspired by series from 20 years ago. However, I think we are also seeing creators who are from that time period also returning to write how they have always written.

On the consumer side, I think we can see that fans of anime and manga have changed in the sense their tastes can now be shaped by a much larger catalog of series at their disposal. But in the case of shonen, I think we are simply seeing those who likely got their start in anime at around the 2000s resonating with newer series drawing upon those series, but also with younger fans now likely to grow up with the tail end of what was popular in the 2010s now being influenced by the 2020s. I also believe that one of the defining features of the anime community in the last decade is hype culture. And currently we are seeing a rise in series that actually feel more catered to hype, be it a revival of a series they liked or predicting what will be the next success.

All and all, this piece was trying to tunnel on the shonen demographic in general, which is more likely than not going to have similar traits relative to itself. I do see us as a community endorsing trends of the past and there’s an excitement for these things to “come back” even if they may or may not have left. If you liked this please drop a like or reblog because I may do more of these think pieces in the future.

#anime #manga #think piece #discussion #shonen #shonen jump #kagurabachi #gachiakuta #nue's exorcist #undead unluck #kaiju no. 8 #bleach #one piece #naruto #yomi no tsugai #attack on titan

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frantzfanonarchives · 6 years ago

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What we learn from the film “Concerning Violence,” about Franz Fanon’s writings and ideas.

Africa is a Country

Michael Watts: Franz Fanon is a towering figure in the modern history of thinking about race, human emancipation and democracy in post-colonial states, and radical psychiatric practice. Born in 1925 in Martinique, he died in 1961 in the United States, and was buried in Algeria, a country in which he had lived and worked during the anti-colonial war of liberation. Frantz Fanon’s short rich life weaved together two preoccupations: professional psychiatry and revolutionary praxis. Working in unison, each was put to the service of fighting human suffering and racism and to the goal of post-colonial liberation. Fanon’s contempt for the post-colonial national bourgeoisie across much of Africa was withering and unreconstructed. His writing on the violence of colonial racism and on the productive role of violence in human emancipation was as controversial when The Wretched of the Earth first appeared in 1961 as it is today. Daring to produce a documentary – Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense – basedloosely on this book and Fanon’s ideas, and to take the topic of violence head on is either brave or foolish. Or both. Using archival footage from the wars of liberation in Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia, Swedish director Göran Olsson has his hands full. To what effect?

Erin Torkelson: Göran Olsson’s 2014 film Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense is a sensitively rendered and deeply disturbing look at Swedish archival footage of anti-colonial warfare, relying on rock-star academics (Gayatri Spivak) and academic rock-stars (Lauryn Hill) to blend image and text, in a postmodern bricolage structured around Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. While I generally enjoyed the film, I am troubled by the premise — laid out clearly in the press packet (and on the IMDB site, box cover, movie poster, etc.) — that the value of this movie is in its archive: alternatively called a ‘new archive of unseen footage’ and an archive of ‘the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation.’

I am left wondering what, exactly, is “new” about this archive? There is plenty of footage of “anti-imperialist self-defense” floating around late night South African TV (with doccies poking fun at “Rhodesians” at country clubs or stories of victims and perpetrators brought together to “reconcile”); there is a horrific corner of the internet where colonial soldiers post films of their murderous devastation throughout Africa (lest we forget mercenaries filmed “kills” in order to be paid); and there have been several archive-based documentaries about African anti-colonial wars in recent years (Cuba: An African Odyssey, a 2007 French documentary film immediately comes to mind). Suggesting that the archive itself is the most important contribution elides the fact that African anti-colonial wars were very recent history and footage of them actually exists. Stressing the value (the never-before-seen-ness) of the archive seems to (once again) place Africa in an awkward pre-history, outside of time, and certainly outside of film. Likewise, why are these scenes the most ‘daring moments in the struggle for liberation’? Surely, that occludes so much bravery and sacrifice across the continent? Considering these questions, it seems to me that what is ‘new’ is that it’s a Swedish archive, and what is ‘daring’ is that is Swedishjournalists filming (it says as much in the press packet: “radical Swedish filmmakers” capturing anti-imperialist liberation “firsthand”). In this sense, the movie is self-reflexively Swedish, (re)centering the European subject in anti-colonial struggles in Africa.

Indeed, you can see this Euro-centric perspective throughout the film. It is extremely difficult to watch the (re)enactment of the white, male gaze overlaid with Frantz Fanon’s words — a gaze that is most transparent, most visible and most deeply problematic in a pornographic scene of a beautiful, though mutilated, topless woman, feeding her infant. And while the press packet fesses up to some European ‘paternalism’ and ‘bias,’ it also continually appeals to Sweden’s history of anti-apartheid activism, “material contributions” to the ANC, and “official neutrality.” Olsson’s invocations of the ‘paternalistic’ Sweden and the ‘activist’ Sweden are separated by several paragraphs in the press packet, but I think, our challenge is to see how these statements work together in a discursive formation: how does the second statement (about Sweden’s liberal activism) work to justify, excuse or erase the first (about Sweden’s paternalism and “bias,” often a euphemism for racism)?

This is why having Gayatri Spivak introduce the film is such an interesting choice. In her classic, “Can the Subaltern Speak” she takes Foucault and Deleuze to task for making the Western, European, male intellectual visible and transparent, and thereby occluding the subaltern subject. In many places, the same could be said of this film. Is Göran Olsson asking Gayatri Spivak to absolve him of these very same sins?

Camilla Hawthorne: What I appreciated most about Concerning Violence was that it was not framed as an apologia for The Wretched of the Earth’s infamous first chapter, which is effectively how Homi Bhabha (in his preface to the 2004 Philcox translation) framed his psychoanalytic rejoinder to the narrow readings by Arendt and Sartre that painted Fanon as a “prophet of violence.” Indeed, the documentary goes to great lengths to visually center the originary violence of colonialism, a racialized, everyday violence that is etched into material landscapes and carved into human flesh. I also appreciated Spivak’s thoughtful introduction, which concluded with a frank caveat about the limitations of Fanon for explicitly feministreadings of colonial and anti-colonial violence. Just as Fanon famously “stretched” Marx, she suggests, it is now our task to stretch Fanon.

But upon discussing the doc with Erin, I am also left wondering: what can we make of the documentary’s geographical provenance in a Swedish archive? And why was the footage reassembled and released now? Can this documentary be read against the backdrop of Europe’s complicated and contradictory relationship with postcoloniality as a condition, a relation, and a field of academic inquiry? While it has undoubtedly generated important and reflexive scholarship that challenges the racist myth of European boundedness and homogeneity, the postcolonial turn in Europe has also morphed into either a romanticized, colonial nostalgia (in which colonialism is glossed as cosmopolitanism and multiracial conviviality) or a redirection of scholarly and popular attention to white Europeans in the context of anti-colonial struggles.

We must not lose sight of the fact that this is all happening at a conjuncture when European states are navigating the tensions of inclusion and exclusion and the boundaries of European citizenship as the empire “strikes back” in the form of immigration; in the Nordic countries such as Sweden, known for their bountiful social welfare systems, those on the left have struggled to incorporate a national self-image of progressiveness and openness toward refugees and asylum-seekers with the stark and too-close-to-home realities of virulent racism and xenophobia. A generous take on the documentary can read it as an attempt to situate current struggles over the construction of Europeanness within the context of a broader (and spatially extended) historical, colonial trajectory—as opposed to a “crisis” catalyzed by the arrival of large numbers of postcolonial migrants during the latter half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, however, one could also view Concerning Violenceas a sort of attempt at absolution—an effort to displace contemporary reckonings with racism (see: the Swedish racist cake controversy or the work of geographer Allan Pred) as merely aberrational while simultaneously incorporating African anti-colonial struggles into a romantic national Swedish narrative of inclusion and antiracism.

Brittany Meche: I will begin by saying I found something temporally jarring about Göran Olsson’s 2014 film Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense. Above and beyond the tinge of Third Worldist nostalgia, something about the timing and the narrative rhythm felt out of step. I locate my unease in the treatment of the title concept, violence. Famed postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak opens the movie arguing against a reading of Fanon that presents violence as salvational. Instead, Spivak insists that The Wretched of the Earth is Fanon’s meditation on what happens when people are “reduced to violence.” However, Spivak’s presumed lessening gives me pause, and it seems at odds with the steely narration of songstress Ms. Lauryn Hill. Ms. Hill’s rendering of Fanon’s words as they punctuate these moments of “self-defense” do not bely descent into a hellish resignation. Though, lest I be accused, as Fanon is and was, of heralding violence as divine ascent, I contend that these images of jungle patrols, feckless missionaries, mangled mothers and persistent fighters, are undoubtedly terrestrial—the provenance of neither angel nor demon.

Consequently, where in an analysis of violence as reductive descent is there room for Malcolm X’s defiant political prescription: “By any means necessary”? It is this issue of means and ends that is at the heart of my unease about the temporal rhythm of the film. Sitting in the 21st century and gazing back at the 20th, what are we as viewers to make of this representation of decidedly political violence? Particularly in a moment when violence as a means of resistance has been discredited, not necessarily for its ineffectualness, but because it has become the prized possession of powerful states. The term self-defense in the subtitle of the film recalls Olsson’s critically-acclaimed 2011 project The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 about the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Still, I am left pondering: to what extent, in the present moment, can oppositional politics be situated within a framework of self-defense? What does self-defense look like amid late-stage racial capitalism and unending wars on terror? When one can be shot in a position of surrender or when “no-fly zones” are used to justify the bombardment of cities and countless civilian deaths, what articulations of defense remain? Ultimately, I am agitated, exasperated and, yet, profoundly humbled by these images of armed black and brown radicals, poised to make history.

Participants:

Dr. Michael Watts is the Class of 1963 Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous articles and books. His research interests include: political economy, political ecology, West Africa, South Asia, development, Islam and social movements, resource conflicts, and the oil industry.

Brittany Meché is a doctoral student in Geography at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on U.S. military policy in West Africa, risk and preparedness infrastructures, postcolonial theory, race, diaspora, and empire. You can follow her on Twitter @BrittanyMeche.

Erin Torkelson is a doctoral student in Geography at UC Berkeley. Before attending grad school, she worked in South Africa for seven years with land and housing NGOs and social movements. Her current research interests include Southern Africa, youth politics, generation, memory and migration.

Camilla Hawthorne is a doctoral student in Geography at UC Berkeley. Her research addresses the politics of Blackness in Italy, diaspora theory, and postcolonial science and technology studies. She tweets at @camillahawth.

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pope-francis-quotes · 6 years ago

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5th May >> (@ZenitEnglish) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis Meets with Bulgarian Orthodox Church Leaders: ‘The witnesses of Easter…The ecumenism of blood!’

Pope Francis met with Patriarch Neophyte, Head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, along with Metropolitans and Bishops of the Holy Synod, 5th May 2019, in the Palace of the Holy Synod in Sofia. The Holy Father cited the great sacrifices for the faith made by Christians in Bulgaria.

“On this journey, we are sustained by great numbers of our brothers and sisters, to whom I would especially like to render homage: the witnesses of Easter. How many Christians in this country endured suffering for the name of Jesus, particularly during the persecution of the last century!” Pope Francis said. ”

“The ecumenism of blood! They spread a pleasing perfume over this ‘Land of Roses’. They passed through the thicket of trials in order to spread the fragrance of the Gospel. They blossomed in fertile and well-cultivated ground, as part of a people rich in faith and genuine humanity that gave them strong, deep roots. I think in particular of the monastic tradition that from generation to generation has nurtured the faith of the people. I believe that these witnesses of Easter, brothers, and sisters of different confessions united in heaven by divine charity, now look to us as seeds planted in the earth and meant to bear fruit. While so many other brothers and sisters of ours throughout the world continue to suffer for their faith, they ask us not to remain closed, but to open ourselves, for only in this way can those seeds bear fruit.”

Following is the Holy Father’s full text, provided by the Vatican

Your Holiness,

Venerable Metropolitans and Bishops,

Dear Brothers,

Christos vozkrese!

In the joy of the Risen Saviour, I offer you Easter greetings on this Sunday known in the Christian East as “Saint Thomas Sunday”. Let us consider the Apostle, who puts his hand in the Lord’s side, touches his wounds and proclaims, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). The wounds opened in the course of history between us Christians remain painful bruises on the Body of Christ which is the Church. Even today, their effects are tangible; we can touch them with our hands. Yet, perhaps together we can touch those wounds, confess that Jesus is risen, and proclaim him our Lord and our God. Perhaps together we can recognize our failings and immerse ourselves in his wounds of love. And in this way, we can discover the joy of forgiveness and enjoy a foretaste of the day when, with God’s help, we can celebrate the Paschal mystery at one altar.

On this journey, we are sustained by great numbers of our brothers and sisters, to whom I would especially like to render homage: the witnesses of Easter. How many Christians in this country endured suffering for the name of Jesus, particularly during the persecution of the last century! The ecumenism of blood! They spread a pleasing perfume over this “Land of Roses”. They passed through the thicket of trials in order to spread the fragrance of the Gospel. They blossomed in fertile and well-cultivated ground, as part of a people rich in faith and genuine humanity that gave them strong, deep roots. I think in particular of the monastic tradition that from generation to generation has nurtured the faith of the people. I believe that these witnesses of Easter, brothers, and sisters of different confessions united in heaven by divine charity, now look to us as seeds planted in the earth and meant to bear fruit. While so many other brothers and sisters of ours throughout the world continue to suffer for their faith, they ask us not to remain closed, but to open ourselves, for only in this way can those seeds bear fruit.

Your Holiness, this meeting, which I have greatly desired, follows that of Saint John Paul II with Patriarch Maxim during the first visit of the Bishop of Rome to Bulgaria. It also follows in the footsteps of Saint John XXIII, who, in the years he lived here, became greatly attached to this people, “so simple and good” (Giornale dell’anima, Bologna, 1987, 325), valuing their honesty, their hard work, and their dignity amid trials. Here, as a guest welcomed with affection, I experience a deep fraternal nostalgia, that healthy longing for unity among children of the same Father that was felt with growing intensity by Pope John during his time in this city. During the Second Vatican Council, which he convened, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church sent observers, and from that time on, our contacts have multiplied. I think of the visits that, for fifty years now, Bulgarian delegations have made to the Vatican and which I annually have the joy of receiving; so too, the presence in Rome of an Orthodox Bulgarian community that prays in one of the churches of my Diocese. I appreciate the gracious welcome given to my envoys, whose presence has increased in recent years, and the cooperation shown with the local Catholic community, especially in the area of culture. I am confident that, with the help of God, and in his good time, these contacts will have a positive effect on many other dimensions of our dialogue. In the meantime, we are called to journey and act together in order to bear witness to the Lord, particularly by serving the poorest and most neglected of our brothers and sisters, in whom he is present. The ecumenism of the poor.

Our guides on this journey are, above all, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who have linked us since the first millennium and whose living memory in our Churches continues to be a source of inspiration, for despite adversities they made their highest priority the proclamation of the Lord, the call to mission. As Saint Cyril put it: “With joy, I set out for the Christian faith; however weary and physically weak, I will go with joy” (Vita Constantini, VI, 7; XIV, 9). And despite premonitions of the painful divisions which would take place in centuries to come, they chose the prospect of communion. Mission and communion: two words that distinguished the life of these two saints and that can illumine our own journey towards growth in fraternity. The ecumenism of mission.

Cyril and Methodius, Byzantines by culture, were daring enough to translate the Bible into a language accessible to the Slavic peoples so that the divine Word could precede human words. Their courageous apostolate remains today a model of evangelization and a challenge to proclaim the Gospel to the next generation. How important it is, while respecting our own traditions and distinctive identities, to help one another to find ways of passing on the faith in language and forms that allow young people to experience the joy of a God who loves them and calls them! Otherwise, they will be tempted to put their trust in the deceitful siren songs of a consumerist society.

Communion and mission, closeness and proclamation. Saints Cyril and Methodius also have much to say to us about the future of European society. Indeed, “they were in a certain sense the promoters of a united Europe and of a profound peace among all the continent’s inhabitants, showing the basis for a new art of living together, with respect for differences, which in no way are an obstacle to unity” (SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Greeting to the Official Bulgarian Delegation, 24 May 1999: Insegnamenti XXII, 1 [1999], 1080). We too, as heirs of the faith of the saints, are called to be builders of communion and peacemakers in the name of Jesus. Bulgaria is a “spiritual crossroads, a land of contacts and mutual understanding” (ID., Address at the Arrival Ceremony, Sofia, 23 May 2002: Insegnamenti, XXV, 1 [2002], 864). Here various confessions, from the Armenian to the Evangelical, and different religious traditions, from the Jewish to the Muslim, have found a welcome. The Catholic Church has met with acceptance and respect both in her Latin tradition and in her Byzantine-Slavic tradition. I am grateful to Your Holiness and the Holy Synod for this benevolent reception. In our relationships, too, Saints Cyril and Methodius remind us that, “far from being an obstacle to the Church’s unity, the diversity of customs and observances only adds to her beauty” and that between East and West “various theological formulations are often to be considered complementary rather than conflicting” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 16-17). “We can learn so much from one another (Evangelii Gaudium, 246)!

Your Holiness, shortly I will be able to visit the Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint Aleksander Nevskij and to pray there in memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Saint Aleksander Nevskij, from the Russian tradition, and the Holy Brothers, from the Greek tradition and apostles of the Slavic peoples, show us the extent to which Bulgaria is a bridge-country. Your Holiness, dear Brothers, I assure you of my prayers for you, for the faithful of this beloved people, for the lofty location of this nation, and for our journey in an ecumenism of blood, of the poor and of mission. In turn, I ask a place in your prayers, in the certainty that prayer is the door that opens to every path of goodness. I thank you once again for the welcome I have received and I assure you that I will cherish the memory of this fraternal encounter. Christos vozkrese!

5th MAY 2019 13:50PAPAL TRIPS

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nofomoartworld · 7 years ago

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Hyperallergic: Remagining Monuments to Make Them Resonate Locally and Personally

Krzysztof Wodiczko. “Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection” (2012) a project in Union Square, New York, NY sponsored by More Art (image courtesy of the artist)

This is not an act of vandalism. It is a work of public art and an act of applied art criticism. We have no intent to damage a mere statue. The true damage lies with patriarchy, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism embodied by the statue.

— October 2017 manifesto issued by the Monument Removal Brigade

Robert E. Lee never asked for them. Harvard-based public artist Krzysztof Wodiczko slyly proposes sending all of them to re-education camps. MRB imagines a day when they are “moldering away as a ruin in the trash-heap of history.” But the current and increasingly heated debate over how to represent our troubled, violently charged past (though hardly actually past) is merely the latest wave of an ongoing confrontation about whose history matters. The question that is still in need of an answer regarding the debate over public memorials that celebrate patriarchy, white supremacy, and settler-colonialism is not about what part of the nation’s past should be eliminated from view, but how we acknowledge the complex and often conflicted histories — good, bad, and ugly — that actually make up our collective experience. In truth, the current face-off is the culmination of several centuries in which the way history has been memorialized consistently reflected the interests of business leaders, municipal power brokers, wealthy arts patrons and to even main-stream academics. Significantly however, it also bears the marks of another, decades-old set of forces that includes socially engaged artists and community activists who have confronted, reinvented, and in some instances put into practice temporary interventions and performance works that challenge dominant forms of historical representation.

REPOhistory street sign by Susan Schuppli commemorating Brenda Berkman, New York’s first female firefighter, (1998) (image courtesy the author)

Opinions vary about what to do with these objects. They range from a desire to wipe the slate clean by removing all public memories of the Confederacy and white supremacy, to cloaking such monumental works beneath black tarp, much as the group Decolonize This Place — a coalition that includes Native American and Palestinian-rights activists — did last fall (October 14, 2016) with the Theodore Roosevelt monument outside the American Museum of Natural History. No, Roosevelt was not a Southern rebel; nevertheless, his equestrian statue is no less offensive. The 26th US President and former NYC Police Superintendent is depicted by artist James Earle Fraser with masculine vitality astride a horse. Head tilted back and eyes fixed on a distant horizon he wears his signature Rough Rider uniform from the Spanish American War. Flanking Roosevelt’s right side is an American Native chief, while on his left strides an African man in sandals and what appears to be a Maasai warrior’s Shuka robe. According to former Executive Director for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, A. L. Freundlich, these accompanying figures are guides symbolizing Roosevelt’s “interest in the natural world.” According to Decolonize This Place, “New York’s premier scientific museum continues to honor the bogus racial classification that assigned colonized peoples to the domain of Nature, and Europeans to the realm of Culture,” adding that “a monument that appears to glorify racial hierarchies should be retired from public view.”

Still, there are other, equally engaging methods for confronting offensive historical monuments, such as marking the absence of public memorials to the 99% of us who have been forgotten or even erased from most urban spaces. These people include the laborers who built the city, the street urchins whose tears have soaked its pavements, and all generations of common people lacking the political or economic advantages of those who typically lay claim to management of our public memories.

Todd Ayoung, “Spirits of America” (1992) a REPOhistory temporary street sign from the counter-Columbus public installation that used a slot machine to “reinterpret the “sale” of Manhattan to the Dutch in 1626, contrasting European and Native American notions of land ownership, and linking this and other colonial “exchanges” to the ongoing controversy over gambling on the upstate Mohawk reservation (image courtesy of the author)

In 1992, five hundred years after Christopher Columbus came to the so-called new world and twenty five years before the current crisis of historical representation, a group of over thirty metal street signs with images and texts appeared in downtown Manhattan marking the forgotten, or often altogether unknown histories of working women, African Americans, Native peoples, Latinos and Asian Americans among other marginalized groups. The project was created by REPOhistory, a multi-ethnic group of artists, educators and activists whose mission was to “retrieve and relocate absent historical narratives at specific locations in the New York City.” With one-year permits from the Department of Transportation and support from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Municipal Art Society and the administration of Mayor David Dinkins, REPOhistory installed, and later de-installed, a suite of what we might call today “alt-historical” public markers attached to lampposts and traffic signs roughly between Chambers and Wall Streets.

REPOhistory street sign by Jenny Polak and David Thorne alerting New Yorkers to police violence against people of color from 1998.

One plaque marked the site of the first meal and slave market at the corner of Wall and Water Streets, another described what was then the very recent discovery of a “Negro Burial Ground” at the construction site for a new federal office building. Still others detailed the first all-women’s strike in the United States by the United Tailoresses Society near Church Street, the first Chinese American community in the city once located at the South Street Seaport, John Jacob Astor’s “problematic exchanges —commercial, ecological and spiritual” with Native Americans at his former headquarters on the north side of Pine between William and Pearl Streets, and still another temporary marker recalled the melting down of a gilded equestrian statue depicting King George III whose metal was molded into bullets later used during the War of Independence. Not all of the signs dwelt exclusively on the past. Outside the NY Stock Exchange REPOhistory installed a plaque that ironically cautioned passersby about the “advantages of an unregulated free-market economy.” It was illustrated with an image of a businessman in free-fall that recalled the Great Crash of 1929.

REPOhistory initially set its sights on creating a public intervention at “The Four Continents” by Daniel Chester French, a quartet of marble statues portraying allegories of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas situated outside the former Alexander Hamilton US Custom House at One Bowling

Daniel Chester French “The Four Continents, Asia” dedicated 1907, marble (ranging from 9.5 to 11 feet), each pedestal about 9 feet; located in front of the United States Customs House, (photo by Eden, Janine and Jim via Flickr)

Green. Asia is presented as a bejeweled woman stoically siting atop a throne supported by human skulls and surrounded by near-naked, emaciated serfs. A glowing cross appears behind her back as if to indicate Christian values will soon replace Asia’s despotic past. Far to the left sits Africa. Though fabric drapes her waist she is characterized as a slumbering nude figure propped-up by an eroded Egyptian sphinx and a male lion. By contrast, Europe is illustrated as a stately, fully clothed woman next to a section of the Parthenon frieze, while America sits holding a torch and an ear of corn with her foot pressing down upon the head of Quetzalcoatl, the flying serpent god of the conquered Aztecs.

Despite being erected in 1907, “The Four Continents” reflects the derogatory racist outlook of 19th Century Manifest Destiny, just as the Roosevelt statue, dedicated in 1940, made its appearance while lynchings were being carried out across the Jim Crow South, and while Northern whites rioted to maintain racially segregated jobs and neighborhoods in Chicago, Detroit, and Los

Angeles. Less known is the fact that African-American arctic explorer Matthew A. Henson, who is today recognized as having first reached the actual North Pole ahead of Admiral Robert Peary in 1909, later returned to the United States and worked the next thirty years as a customs house clerk. Whereas Peary was credited with the accomplishment, receiving international honors, an official Congressional thank you, and promoted to the rank of rear admiral, no marker or sign indicates Henson’s presence at Bowling Greene, though a modest plaque does mark his gravesite in Arlington Virginia.

In 1989, REPOhistory drew up plans to create inflatable “counter-monuments” that they would install illegally, in guerrilla art fashion, to confront this monument. Ultimately however, REPOhistory abandoned this interventionist historical adjustment to focus on their Lower Manhattan Sign Project scheduled for 1992. So what was the outcome of the counter-Columbus experiment in “people’s history”? It was mixed, unexpected, convoluted — just like the city that produced the project. Still, the point of REPOhistory was not nostalgia for a lost past, but rather an attempt to recognize that some histories disturb the present.

Several years later the group received Department of Transportation (DOT) permission to temporarily memorialize gay, lesbian, and trans-gendered people’s histories, this time in Greenwhich Village, with assistance from the Storefront for Art and Architecture. However, the project entitled “Queer Spaces” would be the last time that obtaining permission from the city would come easily for them. A third street sign project in 1998 was initially blocked by the Giuliani administration. “Civil Disturbances: Battles For Justice in New York City” was produced in partnership with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. Its objective was to mark sites where significant legal confrontations led to the extension of civil rights for the politically and economically disfranchised. REPOhistory marked the firehouse at 250 Livingston Street in Brooklyn where Brenda Berkman worked after winning a lawsuit to become the city’s first female fire fighter, and one African-American group member who had been part of a de-segregation court case in New York posted her sign about the case outside the offices of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund on West 40th Street. Meanwhile, several other signs directly decried the NYPD’s history of misconduct and violence towards people of color. Carrying ladders and installation tools the DOT faxed a note informing REPOhistory it was not to carry out the project only moments before its commencement. “Now the signs may end up in the very courthouses that inspired them,” wrote David Gonzalez in the New York Times the next morning.

REPOhistory had its day in court and eventually prevailed, thanks to pro bono assistance from Debevoise & Plimpton. A few months delayed, the group’s “Civil Disturbances” sign project went up for one year, though not without further battles. All of this history may offer one answer to the question of what should replace monuments to racism and Confederate defection. Meanwhile, REPOhistory is not the only example of artists confronting the way the past is depicted.

Alan Michelson. “Earth’s Eye,” (1990) (courtesy of the artist)

In 1990, Mohawk artist Alan Michelson placed forty cast concrete markers near City Hall in Manhattan to indicate the location of Collect Pond, a large source of freshwater for the island’s indigenous population that is now completely paved over. In 2009 African American artist Dread Scott donned a sign with the phrase “I AM NOT A MAN” printed on it, replicating the iconic message placards carried by striking, black Memphis sanitation workers in 1968, except for the addition of the word not. Walking through the streets of Harlem, Scott’s social performance art provoked the largely African American passersby to consider all that has still to be accomplished since the Civil Rights Movement. Most recently an 1870 statue of Abraham Lincoln at the northern end of Union Square Park came to life, though not with the voice of the Republican emancipator, but through the faces and voices of fourteen recent war veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 2012 reanimated monument was the work of artist Krzysztof Wodiczko.

Krzysztof Wodiczko. “Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection” (2012) a project in Union Square, New York, NY sponsored by More Art (image courtesy of the artist)

Seeking to defend artworks that buttress racial, sexual, or class domination using the 19th century concept of “art for art’s sake” is not only distasteful, it is also without either historical or aesthetic merit. As Walter Benjamin once powerfully observed, “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another.” In this instance, memorials and statues reflecting undemocratic and biased points of view are these tainted historical documents. Instead of returning to a model of permanently memorializing an illusory and grandiloquent past, why not consider commissioning temporary commemorative works rooted in local community histories and struggles that would reflect the multifaceted history of the United States from the bottom up, rather than from the top down? In any case, the task of representing our nation’s complicated past at this, our (latest) moment of representational crisis, must not fall only to the inventiveness of artists, but needs to be seen as belonging to all engaged citizens, as well as residents, documented or not, who have a stake in reimagining the way history will be represented to future generations.

The post Remagining Monuments to Make Them Resonate Locally and Personally appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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kristarangel-blog1 · 8 years ago

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HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

http://finalexamsolutions.com/downloads/hist410n-entire-course-latest-all-weeks-discussions-all-case-study-midterm/

HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

HIST410N Week 1 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1 1900: The Age of Hope and the Age of ‘Isms’ (graded) Here’s a statement to consider: “Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations.” Defend or condemn the argument by giving examples of the interaction between Western industrial powers and traditional, non Western societies. Were these contacts essentially positive or negative? ” DQ 2 The First Total War (graded) World War 1 is said to have been the first ‘total’ war. What does that mean? And what does it mean for people and nations trying to pick up the pieces and resume normal life?

HIST410N Week 2 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1 The Rise of Totalitarianism (graded) Compare and contrast the two types of totalitarian governments that arose after 1917, that is, communism and fascism. What were the origins of these governments, their accomplishments, and their failures? What accounts for the fact that the masses mobilized to support these movements? Elaborate. DQ 2 Nationalism and the Treaty of Versailles (graded) What were reasons that led to the ultimate failure of the Treaty of Versailles? What were the challenges facing the newly-formed League of Nations, and why was it so difficult to form a lasting agreement that would prevent another war? Elaborate.

Devry HIST410N Week 3 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Dictatorship and Democracy (graded) Analyze Adolph Hitler’s rise to power and the policies he used to rule Germany. Textbook tyrant? Overheated Nationalist? Or the right man for at the right time for the right job? DQ 2

World War II and the Holocaust (graded) The following statement was taken from a contemporary account of Germany in 1939: “Though the Fuhrer’s anti-Semitic program furnished the National Socialist party in the first instances with a nucleus and a rallying-cry, it was swept into office by two things with which the “Jewish Problem” did not have the slightest connection. On the one side was economic distress and the revulsion against Versailles: on the other, chicanery and intrigue…Hitler and his party promised the unhappy Germans a new heaven and a new earth, coupled with the persecution of the Jews. Unfortunately a new heaven and earth cannot be manufactured to order. But a persecution of the Jews can…”How do you interpret this contemporary account of the persecution of people who are Jewish? Elaborate.

Devry HIST410N Week 4 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

The Cold War: Who Shot First? (graded) The United States accused the Soviet Union of breaking all its wartime pledges and holding Eastern Europe hostage while trying to subvert governments in the west. The Soviet Union accused the US and its allies of trying surround and ultimately destroy it. War of words? Or was somebody telling the truth? And where do our ‘Isms’ fit in? In particular nationalism? DQ 2

Cold War Buzz Words (graded) The Cold War its very own verbiage. The West had more than its share: Cold War, Iron Curtain, Containment, Domino Theory were just a few. What did they mean in this strange new post-war environment?

Devry HIST410N Week 5 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Africa and the West (graded) What accounts for the rather late emergence of African countries as independent nation-states? Is there something peculiar about Africa that delayed its drive for independence? (Begin with a specific African country, and argue your case.) DQ 2

Israel and the Middle East (graded) Why has the Arab-Israeli conflict been so persistent? What religious and cultural factors have contributed to the persistent state of unrest in the Middle East and, in particular, in what some people refer to as the Holy Land?

Devry HIST410N Week 6Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

The End of the Cold War (graded) What impact did Mikhail Gorbachev’s ideas of glasnost (openness), perestroika (restructuring) and demokratizatsiia (democratization) have on Communist society? Were these principles compatible with collectivization and a command economy? Did Communist leaders favor these principles or did they feel that their hand were tied once they were introduced into Communist society? DQ 2

The not so Cold War (graded) It would be easy to dismiss the Cold War simply as proof that Capitalism was a better theory than Communism. Easy, but not the whole story. In order for Communism to be relegated to the dustbin of history, it first had to be proven that its struggle against Capitalism unecessary and thus irrelevant. How do the US and the USSR close the gap in the last quarter of the 20th Century to allow Communism to go out with a whimper and not a bang?

Devry HIST410N Week 7 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Cold War Nostalgia (graded) In the years after the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar order, the world has undergone significant changes. Chief among those changes has been a perceived deterioration of world stability, not only in terms of economics but also in terms of security. What indicators could lead one to conclude that in the years following the collapse of the Communist world, things have gotten more dangerous? DQ 2 Brave New World (graded) So…the Cold War is over. Time to do a victory lap and celebrate the primacy of American power. But the celebration seemed short-lived, as there were plenty of other concerns. Nothing is as it should be. Our adversaries are now our allies, and our allies are now competitors. The end of the Cold War knocked down the Iron Curtain, but it also destroyed conventional economic patterns. Is the end of the Cold War proving to be good for world peace, but not so good for world business?

Devry HIST410N Week 1 Case Study Latest 2016 Case Study # 1: Jules Ferry Jules Ferry was Prime Minister of France as that nation launched its imperial expansion. In a debate with member of the French Parliament, Ferry Defends the decision to expand. Read his remarks and respond to the following questions: 1. According to Ferry, what recent developments in world trade have made it urgent for France to have colonies? 2. What arguments against imperialism have been raised by Ferry’s critics? How does he counter them? 3. What non-economic arguments does Ferry offer in favor of imperialism? This 2-3 page assignment is to be submitted to the Week 1 Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these Devry HIST410N Week 2 Case Study Latest 2016 Case Study #2: Versailles: The Allies’ “Last Horrible Triumph” This week, you will read the comments of the German Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference on the conditions of the peace which ended World War 1. You will find that document in the webliography. Many have argued that it was the way World War 1 ended which made World War 2 inevitable. Read the document and answer the following questions: 1. According to the authors of Germany’s complaint, how will various provisions of the treaty hurt Germany’s economy? 2. In Germany’s view, how would the country have been treated differently if the principles they attribute to President Wilson had been applied? 3. To what higher “fundamental laws” does the document appeal to in order to strengthen German assertions? 4. Do you agree with the authors of the document that Germany was being poorly treated? What response to their complaints might defenders of the treaty have made? http://college.cengage.com/history/primary_sources/world/conditions_of_peace.htm Submit your assignment to the Week 2 Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these Case Study: The Democrat and The Dictator Franklin Roosevelt and Adolph Hitler both came to power in 1933. They found themselves in charge of nations still suffering from the consequences of World War 1 and the Great Depression. Unemployment in the US was nearly 25%, while nearly one-third of Germany’s workforce had been idled. Americans and Germans had opted for new leadership in 1933 and were now looking to their new leaders for solutions, and perhaps a new vision of the future. Both FDR’s Inaugural address and Hitler’s first address as Chancellor of Germany have been analyzed for their similarities and differences. Now it’s our turn! In 2-3 pages, do the following: 1. Read both speeches and give an assessment of what these two leaders thought was the cause of the problems their countries faced. Provide quotes to support your view. 2. Using quotes from both speeches, tell how each leader intended to deal with: 1. Unemployment 2. Banking, finance and in general, the economy 3. Agriculture 4. Foreign Policy 3. Finally, in a concluding statement, tell where think these leaders find common ground in terms of their proposed solutions, and what you think their vision is with regard to the power of their position. Complete your Case Study in a Word document, approximately 300–400 words in length. Submit your assignment to the Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these See the Syllabus section “Due Dates for Assignments & Exams” for due date information. Devry HIST410N Week 5 Case Study Latest 2016 Case Study: Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech There are many ways to get a feel for the events of the 20th Century. One way is through the analysis of primary source documents. Few documents set the stage for the second half than Winston Churchill’s 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri. Officially entitled “The Sinews of Peace”, it came to be known as “The Iron Curtain Speech”, in which Churchill laid out the challenges for the West in general, and the US and Britain in particular, regarding what would soon be known as the Cold War. Your assignment this week is to not just read Churchill’s speech, but read between the lines to answer the following questions in a well written 2-3 page document: 1. Churchill believes the Soviet Union “desires the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.” How might those expansionist desires challenge the Western principle of national political self determination, a cause it championed during World War 2? 2. Churchill’s speech acknowledges “Russia’s need to be secure on her western borders,” but at the same time it raises concerns about Soviet actions in Eastern Europe. Is Churchill being inconsistent? Or does he provide concrete justifications for those concerns? 3. In his speech, Churchill asserts “There is nothing they (the Russians) admire so much as strength, and nothing for which they have less respect for than military weakness.” If he isn’t advocating a direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union, then what is he saying? 4. Churchill delivered this speech to an American audience, but after reading it one might conclude it could have been given in any western country. Why did he pick the US? Devry HIST410N Week 6 Case Study Latest 2016 Case Study: Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese Independence Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist? To many Americans he was. But to many Vietnamese he was a nationalist hero, and to even a few Americans he was that as well, plus a friend, and ally and a comrade in arms during World War 2. It may be hard to paint Ho with any color other than gray, and now, nearly 50 years after his death and 40 years after the end of the American war in Vietnam, even that color has faded with time. What we do have are his words. The link below will take you the speech Ho Chi Minh gave on September 2, 1945, in which he proclaimed Vietnam’s independence, and its arrival on the world stage. Your assignment will be to read the speech and provide answers to the following questions: Complete your Case Study in a Word document, approximately 300-400 words in length. Questions for exploration: 1. Ho’s speech proclaiming Vietnam’s independence contains a demand that the free world support that independence in part as payment for services rendered during World War 2. What ‘service’ did Vietnam render during that conflict? 2. Ho claims that Vietnam’s independence is consistent with the philosophical principles which the Allies claimed were paramount during World War 2. What principles was Ho referring to, and does he make references to occasions where those principles were reasserted? 3. In the speech, Ho mentions crimes committed by the French during their occupation of Vietnam. Which crimes, as you read them, were in your opinion most severe and justified Vietnamese independence? Devry HIST410N Week 7 Case Study Latest 2016 Case Study: Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1988 UN Speech If the pace of improving US-Soviet relations seemed rapid, Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly would shift the process into overdrive. In this remarkable oration, which you can find by clicking on the link below,Gorbachev emphatically declared that all nations must have the freedom to choose their own destiny, that ideology had no place in foreign affairs, and that great powers should renounce the use of force in international relations. Review his speech and answer in essay form the following questions: 1. Why did Gorbachev choose the United Nations as his forum for this speech? 2. What did Gorbachev mean by “de-ideologizing relations among states? What implications did this have for superpower relations? 3. Why did he say that “force no longer can…be an instrument of foreign policy”? What implications did this have for the Soviet bloc? 4. What did he foresee as the future role of the superpowers in the world and the future relationship between them?

HIST410N Week 4 Midterm Examination

1. Question : (TCO 1, 2) Analyze how World War 1 changed the economic, social, and political landscapes in the affected nations. Use examples to explain how the war affected men and women, government power, and the economy. Question 2. Question : (TCO 5, 6) Identify and describe the major cultural changes in the Soviet Union from 1917–1932. Give special attention to the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921–1928 and the first Five-Year Plan of 1928–1932. Use historical examples to support your answer. How successful were Stalin’s collectivization policies and the first Five-Year Plan by 1932–1933? Question 3. Question : (TCO 5, 11) Describe the rise of fascism in Germany. Indicate the conditions present in Germany that made it possible for Hitler to come to power. Then describe the Nazi persecution of German Jews leading up to WW2. Analyze how the Nazi government translated its hatred of the Jews into policies and practicies that in 1938 had forced over 100,000 Jews to flee. Question 4. Question : (TCO 5, 11) Compare and contrast the empires of Germany and Japan before the outbreak of World War II. Identify and describe the leadership qualities of their respective leaders. Make sure you use enough historical details to support your answer.

#HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

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homeworklanceblr-blog · 8 years ago

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HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

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HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

Devry HIST410N Week 3 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Devry HIST410N Week 4 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Devry HIST410N Week 5 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Devry HIST410N Week 6Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

Devry HIST410N Week 7 Discussion DQ 1 & DQ 2 Latest 2016 DQ 1

HIST410N Week 4 Midterm Examination

#HIST410N Entire course latest all weeks discussions all case study Midterm

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peggydecker-blog · 8 years ago