BAGnewsNotes is simply one of the most interesting communities in the online progressive landscape. Michael Shaw, a clinical psychologist by trade, not only provides daily, intelligent deconstructions of US political visual culture but has also built a dynamic community where citizens, activists, academics, political analysts and photographers all interact in creating compelling multivocal critiques of [...]
Also tagged Visual AnalysisYesterday John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama. I know, old news already. But if you haven’t seen the video it’s worth noting the overwhelming enthusiasm from the Michigan crowd when Obama introduced Edwards. Considering he received 7% of the vote in West Virginia and isn’t even running I’d say he’s still got some serious mojo with [...]
Also tagged 2008 Race, NarrativeMy paper for the EAAS conference in Oslo last week dealt with icons and icon work, continuing a line of research I began about 5 years ago when I participated in a conference in Austria with the theme of US Icons. The convener of both the AAAS event in 2003 and of the Oslo workshop [...]
Also tagged Journals and Publications, Popular Culture, Postmodern Culture, The 70sAs often happens here on this blog, because we don’t have a formal editorial process, different writers post articles related to the same or similar material, albeit from often different perspectives. See Bent’s article bellow, Barack Mean to Bubba, which also deals with the topic of this blogpost. Although we have approached the subject from [...]
Also tagged 2008 Race, Myth and Symbol, Politics, Visual SemioticsThis article is partially a response to Bent’s last post, Beauty and the Beast? I had originally intended on posting the Lebron Vouge Magazine photo which Bent analyzes below. I then thought I would post a reply in his thread but upon further reflection, I think an independent post is in order. I typically wouldn’t [...]
Also tagged Popular Culture, Race and EthnicityIt seems ethnicity and commercials is a hot topic these days. Waves are still high over LeBron James allegedly being cast as ‘King Kong’ in Annie Leibovitz’ April 2008 Vogue cover (see my recent post on this), and now the wires report that Woody Allen has decided to sue American Apparel over their allegedly unauthorized [...]
Also tagged Postmodern Culture, Race and Ethnicity, The 70sA strange and unexpected development means that an addendum to my recent post on Annie Leibovitz over at my personal blog seems due. It appears that Vogue (and therefore indirectly Leibovitz, who shot the offending image) is taking some flak over the cover image of the April 2008 issue which is themed to pitch superstars [...]
Also tagged Postmodern Culture, Race and EthnicityIn Jack Kerouac’s novel Dharma Bums the protagonist, alter-ego of Kerouac, named Ray Smith, encounters ‘the number one Dharma Bum of them all’, Japhy Ryder, who instantly decides that Ray is a great Buddhist sage, possibly a reincarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Great Compassion Bodhisattva (more likely, though, a reincarnation of Goat or Mudface, Ryder teases [...]
Also tagged Criticism, Literature, Poetry, The Arts and CultureRecently, no less than three glossy magazines published photo serials which reenact earlier high points of visual culture:
Vanity Fair published a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s films, recreating classic moments with new actors.
New York Magazine recreated Marilyn Monroe’s photo shoot with Douglas Kirkland for Look Magazine, often referred to as “The Last Sitting”, using Lindsay Lohan [...]
Last month I posted this piece exploring photojournalist representations of Hillary Clinton. Historiann recently commented;
“This is an interesting analysis of the photography of the campaign, and I agree that the photo at the top (Clinton apart from the 3 men) is highly revealing of the dynamics of the race a month ago, before Edwards and [...]