My memory of my grandma Doll and her house has changed a little since doing this drawing but not in a huge way. What was more interesting to me were the changes I made compositionally throughout making the piece, and why what I chose in the end worked better than what I started with. By narrowing down the items to six, It changed a little in that it made me realize some of the things that remind me most of her, and exclude the things that didn't standout as much. Throughout the planning of my drawing, the composition has changed a lot. Originally my drawing included lot more items but under time constraints I realized this would be unrealistic and also it might look cluttered and confusing to viewers.  Even after narrowing down my choices to the curling iron, (Doll always used to do my hair when I was little and I used to cry and scream) the music 'box' bear, (A gift from Doll when I was a baby that I'll probably keep for my kids) the fish figurine, (Doll has a collection of glass animals in her kitchen I used to be amazed at growing up) the nail polish, (Doll would never be caught dead without pink nail polish on) the cocktail glass, (Doll's favorite drink is a Vodka Diet Pepsi) and a high heal shoe, I noticed with the way I originally has sketched it, the shoe would be better left out to make a more balanced place for myself in the drawing. Plus, the shoe really wasn't a strong object for this memory. I also decided to add the curling iron's cord, which originally I had not included to balance out the left side. Then came the toughest part! Deciding on an interesting way to put myself into the drawing, so I wouldn't look like I just threw myself in the composition as an after-thought, or because I had to. I decide to depict myself waitressing and carrying these items on  tray. This was a connection to my memory of Doll in two ways. First, I am a waitress now, and she was a waitress in college too, and we often trade waitressing stories back and forth. The other is that the tray symbolizes how she always seems to be serving others no matter what it is she does in life. The look on my face is one of concern, wondering wether or not I too can someday live up to her beautiful life of love and service. 

In the painting by the American modernist painter, Robert Henri, "The Art Student (Miss Josephine Nivison)" in the year 1906, we see for the first time, American artwork turning towards the avant garde. While European artists such as Monet, and other expressionist painters had been moving in the direction already, the works of Robert Henri and others from his 'Ashcan School' were the arguably the first American works to really push the boundaries of painting and stray from the norm of acute realism that was in place at the time. Henri, who's lifetime from 1865 to 1929, served as a completely new door for American art, was also viewed as one of the greatest art teachers in history, and used to tell his students to not only paint the material in front of them, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to strive to paint the spirit of the subject as well.

Henri himself also used to say that color is only beautiful when it means something. The color scheme in This piece is triadic and realistic; the most dominant colors in the piece are the dark blue of the smock and the red of the girls dress. He also uses analogous colors and colors of similar shades in the background, keeping it shadowed and dull on purpose, not letting anything distract from the main purpose of the peice, which is to fully realize the subject, to depict no only the image but the spirit of his subject, one of his art students, pictured as if caught off guard or maybe resting for a moment during her work, eager to get back to her painting. Her hair is disheveled, her stance slouched.

The shapes and forms in this painting are naturalistic , curvilinear, and soft edged. His brush strokes are intense and fast, similar to the impressionist style. The use of the forms and colors are balanced and centered. There's nothing too obviously abstract, other than his use of brush stroke, and the subject is in the middle of the composition not penetrating any of the boarders or edges of the canvas.

The line work in the piece give you a strong vertical sense that is completely necessary for the feeling he was trying to achieve. Had he used a more horizontal canvas the feeling would be completely changed. The canvas size as it is, and the vertical line work throughout the piece make it seem as though Josephine is standing right before you. For the most part the lines are accurately descriptive of the shape of the young woman's form and figure. Again, the most daring and new innovation in the piece is the use of brush stroke and paint that is similar to impressionism. The texture of the piece is mostly visual, but the paint and the way the brush was handled sporadically give it a little tactile texture as well. It's shiny and not too over the top. Experiments in thick texture would come some years later, for his time, Henri was already taking baby steps towards making much larger breakthroughs in abstraction and the avant garde in American art.

The light value is mostly dark and shadowed except for the strong directional light on the subjects face and upper body, the most expressive and important areas of the work. This use of light puts our focus on the face and posture of the young woman immediately, then the next thing our eyes fall to are the brushes in her hand at her side. In this piece the use of light value is a guide for your eyes through the artwork, illuminating what mattered most to the artist and casting the rest in shadow.

Spatially the artwork is organized very clearly. The artist definitely has a traditional but immaculate sense of composition and symmetrical balance. There is unity in the use of blues and browns that surround the subject and in the collar and the bottom hem of the girls clothing which is white and stands out to us. The red serves as variety. The only place we see any sort of color that stands out or grabs our attention more than the white collar and the hem. The proportions are realistic and life-like. There really isn't much repetition, his rhythm lies in the way he handles his brush strokes, sporadically moving back and forth and intensely working to capture not only the likeness of the figure but the aura of the person before him.

Robert Henri is remembered as a great artist because of his ability to capture the spirit of his subjects in a way that was completely new and unique in his time. He felt strongly about life and about people, their spirit and translating that to paint on canvas, and helping his students to achieve this too, was what brought him the most joy in life. His life and his work serve as an excellent model for artists of any age, place, race, or time period. His goal was to go beyond mere representation in art, and to reach down a little deeper. In Robert Henri's own words,"Because we are saturated with life, because we are human, our strongest motive is life, humanity; and the stronger the motive backing of the line, the stronger, and therefore more beautiful, the line will be."

Jamie Spatt
English 102: College Writing and Research
Section 056
Erik Chandler
Assignment #14

1. Sparks, Colin. Globalization, Development and the Mass Media. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE
Publications Inc., 2007.
This source seems to be a critical account of theoretical changes in communication studies from theories of development communication early on, to contemporary critiques of globalization and how that’s related. Also Sparks argues that it is important to be concerned with large scale questions of global power, as well as small scale questions of attempts to ‘win local victories.’
“The problem with globalization is not that it is simply bad social science. Like all theories, it directs attention to certain phenomena and neglects others. In the case of globalization, the theory directs attention towards international displacement and transnational exchange. These are real phenomena, and to the extent that it has sensitized us to these issues, particularly in the realm of economics, it has played a valuable role. But this focus has been at the expense of considerations of power and of inequality, which are traditional themes of social sciences…Neglect of these factors leads to a very distorted picture of the contemporary world.” (Sparks p. 185-186.)
“Anti-globalization became a major public force with ‘the Battle of Seattle’ in 2000. The protest against the straight forward globalizing agenda of the World Trade Organization brought together a wide range of social forces that have, over the following years, continued to mount protests against the gatherings of those it sees as the agents of destruction for jobs and ways of life ranging from the industrial heartlands of the USA, to the indigenous communities of the tropical rainforests…The challenge to the rosy assumptions of globalization theory has called forth a sharp reaction from repressive policing of subsequent protests to firm theoretical restatements of the benefits of global capitalism and free trade in terms of jobs and living standards.” (Sparks p. 191-192.)
This source relates to Feldman, Sekula, and other of my sources in assignment #11 because it deals with society and power and how the media has made us numb to much of what is going on elsewhere in the world. It cautions us, and asks us to question everything, and see the angles of every issue, globalization in this source, being the main focus.
I plan to use this source to reinforce my discussion of the more anti-globalization side of my research, which is what I am most curious about, and what my research will mainly deal with. It challenges readers to think things through and see that while globalization can be and is very good for the world economy, it can also be rough on issues of jobs, and living standards of certain countries.
Colin Sparks is director of Communication and Media Research Institute, at the University of Westminster. This source is a full-length book, scholarly, with many other sources mentioned that he used in writing his piece, it’s not just his opinion with no facts, he has the necessary professional references to back his opinions up.
This source is related to others on my annotated bibliography because it talks about the world’s move towards globalization, what’s good and what should be embraced and what’s not and should be examined. It discusses the media and it’s role in security and the globalizing world, and so does Feldman, Sekula, and others on my list.


2. Mackay, Hugh. “The Globalizing of Culture?” McGrew, Anthony. “Power Shift: From National Government to Global Governance?” Thompson, Grahame. “Economic Globalization?”
A Globalizing World? Culture, Economics, Politics. Ed. Held, David. New York: Routledge, 2000. 47-169.
This source’s main points are centered around trying to help people grapple with the term ‘globalization,’ what exactly that means, and what are the driving forces and changes is has and could cause. It looks at the changing forms of modern communication and culture industries, trade patterns, and financial flows of the world economy, in the context of and expanding and globalizing world.
“MTV Europe and Star television in India provide examples of the limits of globalization.” (Mackay p. 67.)
“If globalization is upon us in the way the globalists (whether the enthusiasts or those who oppose it) suggest, then it is at best a very uneven process. In as much as globalization has now become the new grand theory of the social sciences the concept probably offers much more than it can deliver.” (Thompson p. 123.)
“As globalization has intensified, the power of the national governments to tackle it appears to have declined and international bodies lack the authority to enforce agreed policies. In effect, globalization invites the real possibility of a more unruly world, as transnational forces, like the illegal drug trade, escape the control of nation states.” (McGrew p. 129.)
While this source doesn’t build 100% off Feldman, Sekula, or my other sources, it does mention media related issues in dealing with explaining globalization throughout the book. It also deals with societal and cultural issues that in their own way are tied in with governments, power, and the structure of communities they create, and how that changes with globalization.
I plan to use this source to give some specific examples of what we need to be wary of when it comes to handling our societies as globalization spreads. This source helps the audience see there is a need to recognize and question the changes that come along with a quickly globalizing world.
David Held is a professor of politics and sociology at The Open University. This is a book length source with many skilled professional references and collaborators. Hugh Mackay is a staff tutor in sociology at The Open University, where also Thompson is a Professor of Political economy and McGrew is a Professor of International Relations, at the University of South Hampton.
This source connects to other sources on my annotated bibliography because it’s focus is globalization, but it may differ in that it’s sub headings deal with culture economy and politics specifically. The book looks at many of the same factors my other sources consider, like mass media and its role in the globalizing society, the changes in governments and social structures that are happening and will happen more, and it helps us to ask questions of how, why and what can be done about it if anything can be done at all.

3. Bigman, David. Globalization and the Least Developed Countries: Potentials and Pitfalls.
Cambridge, MA: CABI North American Office, 2007.
This author provides a careful examination of poorly developed countries and their struggle to pull out of poverty via the global economy, which doesn’t guarantee a level playing field, but is dominated by trans-national corporations and regional trade agreements that aren’t necessarily fair. He also makes a point that the fact that the least developed countries benefited so little from major developments in the global economy, requires very special attention since it could have a very profound impact on our civilization.
“Prices are manipulated by monopolies, markets are not competitive and many countries still do not open their economies but impose high tariffs or various administrative restrictions, including food or safety standards. The trans-national corporations and the rich countries are the ‘imperialistic’ or ‘capitalistic’ powers in disguise that take control over their economies under the pretest of free trade, exploit their natural resources and their workers and pay their farmers a pittance for their agricultural products, on which these corporations make millions.” (Bigman p. xiii.)
“For many countries and people, globalization offers dream opportunities for success and prosperity…On the other hand, however, globalization has also widened the gap between countries and between people, and it has been particularly damaging for the people in the least developed countries, for whom it has exacerbated poverty, misery, and hopeless stagnation.” (Bigman p. 5.)
“Today for millions of people, globalization is like manna from heaven. After going through very difficult and trying times during the 1950’s and 1960’s, and wandering in the wilderness of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ with no hope of ever having a better life, the opportunities brought by the growth process, made possible by globalization gave them a new horizon to look forward to and march towards…For many other millions of people in developing countries, this cannot be the manna from heaven. At best this is a genetically modified manna produced by the transnational corporations to exploit their work. Many of them manage to nourish their family, but have great worries regarding what their future holds, and they are angry about the lack of social and economic justice that deprives them of their well-deserved share in the global affluence. Many others, mostly the people in the least developed countries, are left malnourished and are barely surviving amidst the global affluence.” (Bigman p. 303.)
This source although not exactly closely tied to Feldman, Sekula, and my other sources in assignment #11, does deal with globalization and its effects on governments, societies and the power balance within these communities. Both Feldman and Sekula, deal with governments and their control and power of the people. My other sources including Feldman and Sekula deal more with a media aspect and this source deals more with a global economy and trade aspect of government, society and power.
This source informs questions I have about what countries are suffering, how and why, under the affluence of globalization. It builds on my negative aspects of globalization part of my research and reinforces it for my audience.
David Bigman is a professor of development economics and hold the Chair for Food Security and International Trade. He has publishes nine books, 75 articles in refereed journals and books, and has written over 80 papers presented in professional meetings. He has been head of research programs and projects at several organizations including the World Bank, Isnar, IMF, and UNDP. He has been department chairman at the Hebrew University.
This source is connected to my other sources in that it deals with globalization. It’s benefits and it’s flaws, and it’s need for careful examination and critique. This source deals less with a media aspect and more with an economic outlook. The various qualities of globalization are discussed in particular, with special concern for less developed countries and their struggles with the global economy as it brings success to many countries and yet still leaves the less developed struggling.

4. McGrew, Anthony, and Nana K. Poku. Globalization, Development and Human Security.
Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007.
This source deals with world poverty, development, campaigns of the global justice movement, the growing securitization of development in the aftermath of 9/11, the intensification of global inequality, and the perceived threats of global pandemics, migrations, and failed states, and how this contributes to a renewed sense of urgency. Debating whether or not globalization and human security are trapped in a vicious cycle or virtuous circle seems to be the chief concern of this source.
“Manifestly, the benefits are enormous, as a result of the increased sharing of ideas, cultures, life-saving technologies, and efficient production processes. Yet, the euphoria these developments generate can often serve to disguise the very real social and economic inequalities that are not merely leftovers from the past, but are results of the globalizing process. Most obviously, global welfare inequalities have mushroomed alongside the noted advancements in technological developments and the rapid expansion of trade and investment. Take, for example, the gap in income and investment patterns over the past decade. According to the United Nations Development Program, (UNDP) the gap between the richest and poorest 20% of the world has increased to 86:1 and widens every day. (UNDP 2004).” (Poku p.156.)
“The facts of global inequalities are truly staggering: The richest 25 million Americans have an income equal to that of almost 2 billion people, while the assets of the world’s three richest men, even after the recent fall of value of the stock market, is greater than the combined income of the world’s least developed countries wit ha population of 600 million (UNDP 1999; UNDP 2001). The living standards of Sierra Leone – ranked bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index – are roughly equivalent to those in the West 600 years ago. The average income per head stands at $150 a year, less than $1-a-day level that the World Bank regards as subsistence level (UNDP 2004). Not surprisingly, the resulting inequalities in the outcomes are stark. The average Sierra Leonean can expect to live until the age of forty, a life expectancy level not witnessed in Western Europe since the Industrial Revolution (Un / DESA 2005). Indeed, across the developing world, those living in absolute poverty are five times more likely to die before reaching five years of age than those in higher income groups (Whitehead et al. 2001). Moreover, poverty has a woman’s face. Of the 1.3 billion people defined by the World Health Organization as the poorest… only 30% are male. Poor women are often caught in a damaging cycle of cultural bias and gender discrimination that further exposes them to exploitation and disease (Baylies and Bujra 2000).” (Poku p.157.)
This source probably has the least to do with Feldman and Sekula of all of my sources. Still, connections, however loosely, can be made. Feldman for instance talks about ethnic violence, something plausible in the least developed countries of the world Poku speaks of, as a result, perhaps, of the widening gap between the world’s rich and the world’ poor and other global economic issues. Also it deals with societal issues in themselves, and cultural ones as well, which are also some general topics within Feldman’s essay.
I plan to use this source as a presentation of some of the shocking facts of the effects of the widening gap between impoverished peoples and the wealthy in the world, and how that might be resulting from certain globalizing developments in their current state. The quotes I chose from Poku, I think, really give good insight as to how globalization can appear a unquestionably positive thing and yet it contains under currents of poverty, violence, hunger, disease, and other awful things, that may be caused by it.
Nana K. Poku holds the John Ferguson Chair in the Development of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, and is Director of Research of the United Nations Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa. His research interests include HIV/AIDS in Africa, critical security issues, migration, and human security. Among his recent publications are Aids in Africa: How the Poor are Dying (2005), and the co-edited The Political Economy of AIDS in Africa (2004) and Global Health and Governance (2003), both with A. Whiteside.
This source relates to others on my annotated bibliography because it deals with globalization, it’s causes and effects on society and culture and what is happening in the least developed countries of the world because of it. It deals with human security, which relates to my article by Agamben and globalization is mentioned briefly in Feldman’s essay if not Sekula’s as well as mentioned with much concern in most if not all of my external resource choices.

5. Kellner, Douglas. “Globalization, Terrorism, and Democracy: 9/11 and its Aftermath.” Contesting Empire, Globalizing Dissent: Cultural Studies after 9/11. Ed. Norman K. Denzen and Michael D. Giardina. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Pub., 2007. 53-72.
This source deals with the need for adequate conceptualizations and responses to globalization in light of the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bush Administrations response to it in Afghanistan and Iraq. It speaks of how the disclosure of powerful anti-western terrorist networks show globalization dividing while it unifies, and drawing enemies while it gathers participants.
“September 11 was obviously a global event that dramatized and interconnected and conflicted networked society where there is a constant worldwide flow of people, products, technologies, ideas, and the like. September 11 could only be a mega-event in a global media world, a society of the spectacle (Debord 1970), where the whole world is watching and participates in what Marshall McLuhan (1964) called a global village. The 9/11 terror spectacle was obviously constructed as a media event to circulate terror and to demonstrate to the world the vulnerability of the epicenter of global capitalism and American power.” (Kellner p.63.)
“Worldwide terrorism is threatening in part because globalization relentlessly divides the world into haves and have-nots, promotes conflicts and competitions, and fuels long-simmering hatreds and grievances – as well as bringing people together, creating new relations and interactions, and new hybridities. This is the objective ambiguity of globalization that both brings people together and brings them into conflict, that creates social interaction as and inclusion as well as hostilities and exclusions, and that potentially tears regions and the world apart while attempting to pull things together. Moreover, as different groups gain access to technologies, like the airplane, instruments of destruction, then dangers of unexpected terror events, any place and any time proliferate and become part of the frightening mediascape of the contemporary moment.” (Kellner p.63-64.)
This source builds on Feldman’s and Sekula’s essays in that it deals with issues of terrorism, 9/11, and the media, and their relationship to globalization. Feldman too sees the media as a major contributor to the terrorism we saw happen with 9/11. The idea of media’s ‘watchful eye’ is also characteristic of the panopticon and much of what Sekula discusses in his essay as well.
I plan to use this source as an example of Globalization’s negative effect on society. As a potential encourager of terrorism it may be more feared than accepted. As an agent of spreading positive technologies, it may be accepted more than feared. This source coincides with my controlling purpose, revealing the various paradoxical elements of globalization.
Douglas Kellner currently is the George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education and Information Studies at the University of California. Los Angeles. He has published many professional books, papers, articles, and essays, and holds a Ph. D. in Philosophy from Columbia University.
This source builds on other sources on my annotated bibliography because it deals with questions of globalization, human security, and the mass media and how they are intertwined. It adds the element of how it relates to terrorism and 9/11 specifically, which also makes it different from some of my other sources.

6. Laidi, Zaki. The Great Disruption Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. 1-7. 173-205.
In this source particularly in the chapter entitled “Why does Globalization Generate Anxiety?” the focus is to explain why globalization can cause anxiousness in some people and get a little bit of a bad wrap. It states that simply put, it is because globalization refers to a considerable number of parameters which can’t really constitute any one system. It is precisely because it does not constitute a system, that it is able to cause anxiety.
“…the American Pew Research Center carried out and opinion survey on 38,000 people in forty-four different countries…62% of Americans assess the impact of globalization on their country positively, but 64% of them fear, at the same time, that their country has to protect itself and it’s way of life against foreign influence. Moreover, we find a very marked discrepancy between the evaluation that those polled make of globalization in general and the way they assess it when it is contextualized – in other words, when they view it in relation to particular social experiences, such as employment, working conditions, the spread of epidemics, inequalities, healthcare etc. For instance, 60% of French people questioned as part of this global study find the effects of globalization on their own country beneficial, but 77% of them take the view that it has a negative effect on employment and 82% that it produces greater inequality.” (Laidi p.174.)
“Surveys carried out in France confirm the radical ambivalence towards globalization within public opinion. A high proportion say they are worried about it (64%), but a similarly large group (63%) do not hesitate to name France among the winners in the globalization process. And globalization is regarded as a source of increased social inequality, yet at the same time it is also seen as a source of economic growth. Only a – significant – minority (22%) expressed a negative judgment on the three dimensions of globalization (inequalities, growth, and identity).” (Laidi p.174.)
This source relates to Feldman and Sekula because it shows how misinformed and confused citizens are about certain global issues. In Feldman it was confusion over acts of terrorism caused by the media, here it is a confusion still most likely media based, but based on globalization itself instead of terrorism or global issues stemming from globalization.
I plan to use this source as a statistical reference to show what people know about globalization, and how they feel about it. It gives some hard facts that say people are confused about whether or not globalization is helpful or harmful. It also then shows how globalization became to be the highly debated topic it is.
Zaki Laidi is a senior research fellow and Professor of International Relations at Sciences Po (Paris) and at the College of Europe in Burges (Belgium). He has extensively published on International Relation, globalization and Europe. He recently published The Great Disruption, Polity, 2007. He edited EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World, Routledge, 2008.
This source relates to my other sources because it talks about globalization and how it can cause anxiety to some and it can appear to be such an undoubtedly positive force to others. It differs because it gives statistics of how average citizens feel about globalization, making it more relatable to an audience of a more average everyday type of people like myself and classmates.

7. Chanda, Nayan. “Runaway Globalization Without Governance.” Global Insights. 14 (2008):
119-125.
This source discusses what is to be done about trying to govern the vast interconnectedness of societies and communities after globalization takes place. It discusses problems that stem from the fact that governance often lags far behind trade, travel, and interactions caused by globalization. Also it discusses the history of governance in the wake of globalization.
“The accelerated activities of all these actors have expanded trade and travel to an unprecedented level, creating environmental and health problems. They have encouraged migration, empowered terrorists, incentivized criminals, and increased the risks of nuclear proliferation. All these global problems require the attention of a global community.” (Chanda p.120.)
“The issues of sovereignty and national security have emerged as the biggest challenges to a globalized world badly in need of global rules. The fact that the world has been increasingly connected without much governance until very recently did not seem to matter much when the world was smaller and transactions were slow and limited. Not anymore. With the world rendered virtually borderless because of high-speed transfers of goods, capital, and pathogens, and environmental consequences enveloping us all, the lack of global governance has emerged as the single most daunting challenge to globalization.” (Chanda p.123.)
This source builds on Feldman and Sekula’s essays in that it deals with the media and how it effects and changes society. This source looks at how its role in globalization is becoming hard to manage and needs careful governance. This also leads to power and the government’s role in society, especially in a globalizing world, which is also an underlying topic of Feldman and Sekula’s essays.
I plan to use this source to show that professional people like Nayan Chanda, like myself, see a need to look at globalization wit ha critical eye, seeking a more defined governance of the rapid expansions of globalization. I could also use this source to engage a historical view of globalization, as Chanda talks about the history of globalization in much of this article, and use that to more adequately set up the context of globalization in the world today for my audience.
Nayan Chanda is director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and the director of Yaleglobal Online. His most recent book is Bound Together: How traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization (2007).
This source is different from other sources on my list because it takes the most in depth look at globalization’s history. It is similar just because it looks at globalization, and also because it addresses concerns surrounding it, specifically a need for a stronger and more certain governance on the global scale, not merely state to state or nation to nation as has been the primary concern prior to modern times.

















Works Cited

Bigman, David. Globalization and the Least Developed Countries: Potentials and Pitfalls.
Cambridge, MA: CABI North American Office, 2007.
Chanda, Nayan. “Runaway Globalization Without Governance.” Global Insights. 14 (2008):
119-125.
Goh, Gillian H. L., David A. Kelly, and Ramkishen S. Rajan. Managing Globalization: Lessons
from China and India. New Jersey: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2006.
Kellner, Douglas. “Globalization, Terrorism, and Democracy: 9/11 and its Aftermath.”
Contesting Empire, Globalizing Dissent: Cultural Studies after 9/11. Ed. Norman K.
Denzen and Michael D. Giardina. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Pub., 2007. 53-72.
Laidi, Zaki. The Great Disruption Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. 1-7. 173-205.
Mackay, Hugh. “The Globalizing of Culture?” McGrew, Anthony. “Power Shift: From National
Government to Global Governance?” Thompson, Grahame. “Economic Globalization?”
A Globalizing World? Culture, Economics, Politics. Ed. Held, David. New York:
Routledge, 2000. 47-169.
McGrew, Anthony, and Nana K. Poku. Globalization, Development and Human Security.
Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007.
Palma, Jose Gabriel. “Globalizing Inequality: ‘Centrifugal’ and ‘Centripetal’ Forces at Work.”
Flat World, Big Gaps. Ed. Jomo K. S. and Jacques Baudot. New York: Third World
Network, 2007. 99-136.
Sparks, Colin. Globalization, Development and the Mass Media. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE
Publications Inc., 2007.
Thomson, James W. “Consequences of Globalization.” USA Today. Sept. 2008. 137.

Jamie Spatt
Drawing 1
Exhibition Paper
10/21/08

Between Flatscapes and Realism: Today Blue Smiles
Harold Gregor, a Midwest landscape artist from Illinois, when challenged by critics over his bold uses of color theory to describe the arguably plain Illinois landscape, he once said of his work, "A flatscape is not meant to be primarily a picture of a farm nor is it solely a color-formed space. Instead, it is meant to be both, and thus a new, more complex and dense kind of presentation. If I succeed, viewers should be able to enjoy the descriptive aspects of the work and the ordered color array simultaneously." For Gregor, It seems as though moving west from his previous home in Detroit Michigan, was a modern manifest destiny, true to the core of the classic American spirit and dream. Upon arriving amongst the sprawling Midwest farmlands, after just recently living immersed in the industrialist environment of the Automobile capitol of the nation, Gregor must have felt something very new and very strong take hold of his artistic vision. Just as Claude Monet felt deeply moved by his surroundings in nature so many years before, Gregor paints as though nature herself divinely inspired each brush stroke.
In Today Blue smiles, a watercolor by Harold Gregor, currently displayed at the Tory Folliard Gallery in downtown Milwaukee, a person can get lost in a world where realism and abstraction collide with a vibrant color scheme, leaving you thoroughly enchanted in it's aura. The scene, painted from a photograph took from a plane, is itself, in composition, a very orderly and realistic grid like pattern. There also are aspects of realistic subjects and features included in this work and other of his works that keep you grounded, not allowing you to become too disorientated as you wander through his decorative landscapes. The uses of color and the not necessarily 'exact' lines that you see in the field and sky provide just the right amount of freedom through abstraction that you need to be drawn in and emotionally and personally involved in the piece. Had he just painted another landscape completely realistically, it would be more difficult to grab your attention, and to play off your emotions as his experiments in color theory are able to do so well. Another fascinating aspect of this piece, and his other pieces, is that it doesn't seem to be saying anything about farms, farmers, farmland, or anything in the agricultural sphere, despite that being the 'subject' of his paintings. Instead it seems as if the forms themselves like a still life he chose himself, are the vehicles by which he carries out his artistic intent. So moved by the perfect forms and colors he sees in nature, and then altered on canvas for the audiences viewing pleasure, Gregor describes himself to us, and ourselves to us, in a way that's close to the heart and close to our relationship with the natural world we all are a part of.

Jamie Spatt
English 102: College Writing and Research
Section 056
Erik Chandler
Assignment #11

Globalization is similar in its nature to fire. Fire is not in itself a good or bad thing; it can be used for many good things like cooking food, heating our homes, and sterilizing equipment as well as for many destructive and harmful things like burning down towns, homes, forests, or even destroying lives. As our society moves forward into a more and more globalized structure, we have to be careful how we are using globalization and what we are doing to control it and make sure it doesn't cross over from something helpful and beneficial to something dangerous and catastrophic. It is easy to see why globalization would be beneficial to society. Globalization has the potential to spread innovations in healthcare, education, government, technology, or potentially anything you can even think of, to the furthest corners of the globe. In the past 20 years, 200 million people have left absolute poverty behind. Advances in medicine, improved public health policies, and greater food supplies have lowered infant mortality and lengthened life expectancy. Countries who use child labor forces tend to move away from child labor practices with growing incomes that can stem from a globalized economy.
So how could globalization be considered dangerous and feared by many people despite the fact that many also accept and even strive for it’s advancement? Some of the major issues surrounding this aspect of globalization involve the fact that with the spread of globalized economies, many of the more urbanized countries begin to lose job markets to overseas workers instead of keeping the jobs close to home. This could be a detriment because for example in America there are many people who need jobs and we see more and more of our manufacturing and development jobs going overseas. Also a concern is that globalization is moving too fast and the only countries ideas to get spread are the ideas of the countries with the biggest numbers in population and in revenue. While it can be argued that that may not be the worst of problems, picture what it is like to be a citizen of a small country losing your heritage and culture to a few countries that seem to have all the power and don’t really care to preserve your culture in their race to globalize the world. Also if you’re looking at the ‘shark’ vs. the ‘minnows’ aspect you have to wonder how fair it is to have those few top countries have the majority of the decision making power when it comes to major issues in things like government, education, healthcare and technology. In some ways it seems like with globalization the middle class gets bigger and evens out which is not necessarily bad, but the rich and powerful get even more rich and powerful and so the world runs the risk of being run behind the scenes by a select few, who are most likely corrupt and saturated with greed and an unfair balance of power.
Furthermore, there are other possibilities tied in with globalization that have the potential to lead us into dark waters if we don’t be careful how we act on them. One of them is security. "In a word, discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." (Agamben p.1 paragraph 3.) As the world moves towards globalization the issue of security vs. discipline gets harder to control and understand. Security in itself doesn’t sound like an all-bad thing, and it doesn’t need to be, but it can be if the leaders of a nation decide they want to use it to their advantage. For example, when 9/11 happened, some believe Bush used that state of emergency, uncertainty, and chaos for the American people to get us into another war on purpose, and some even think he and others in the government planned 9/11 itself. Not saying that that’s necessarily true, but it is a strong possibility, and if it didn’t happen with 9/11 it could easily happen anytime a major catastrophe occurs. This is why we need to be extremely careful about how we deal with these issues, and who gets to make these decisions, especially if the world is going to become more and more globalized and those in power become fewer and fewer in numbers and those under them become more and more in numbers. "Maybe the time has come to work towards the prevention of disorder and catastrophe and not merely towards their control...On the contrary, we can say that politics secretly works towards the production of emergencies." (Agamben p.2 paragraph 5.)
Another possibly dangerous aspect to consider when discussing globalization is the spread of technology and the influence of media on society. "Already today there is hardly and event of human significance towards which the artificial eye, the camera lens, is not directed." (Junger p.31) Globalization has also sparked a new way in which citizens see the world as they are able to see more and more of what goes on in other countries like the Abu Grhaib prison photos Allen Feldman refers to in his essay, "On the Acturarial Gaze." The context in which we are shown these types of imagery can easily be altered and changed by governments through the media so that people get a certain message from them and perhaps not the message they would get on their own if they were showed the complete truth of them instead. In a global sense, this can be very dangerous for some cultures because the ones with the most power, America being the strongest, are the ones with the greatest access and foothold on the global media. Also American citizens, if this isn’t reading too much into things, are probably the people who’s influence matters most in a global sense, and our media, being arguably the most advanced in recent times, is the one most being sought after to manipulate. "Since the gulf war. We have witnessed a global repositioning of the visual communication practices, utilities and technologies of the state and media as regards political mobilization, identity formation, geographic perception, political violence, urban planning, public safety, and human rights. The circulation, of anthropologically threatening images of violence, terror, covert infection and social suffering has intensified in our public culture." (Feldman p.1, paragraph 1) And certainly the changing of technology and communication has greatly changed or modern society and culture. And with those changes will come responsibilities in making sure these changes are for our benefit and not our destruction. The surfacing of images like the Abu Ghraib prison photos and others into our daily news is for us, as Feldman states, both an 'enchainment' and an 'enchantment'. This enchants us in a morbid sort of fascinated way, and it captures us and moves us to support whatever it is our government wants to do to handle it unquestioningly, and this part of it, the blindly following, is our enchainment. We lose our own sovereign rights to our right not to be subconsciously influenced by the media who intern are influenced by ill intentioned governments to get us to think a certain way in order to support their own twisted agenda's.
One of Feldman's sources, Junger, is quoted on page 204 of the essay saying, "As during the inflation, we continue for a time to spend the usual coins without sensing that the rate of exchange has changed." This quote is incredibly fitting. We continue today going about our business as usual without even realizing things are rapidly changing as far as or visual influences and where they are coming from and who's ideas and desires are behind them. Whether used by terrorists or non-terrorists methods of image making and imposition don't simply record an event but become the event by forcing onto our consciousnesses the political 'code' of people above us in the hierarchy of government officials. One might even say we are in evolving into people of double-consciousnesses, the newer harsher conscious having the possibility to see oneself as merely an object, and above and beyond the realm of mental or bodily pain. In this day and age we are more succumbed than ever to things that can harm us, even irreversibly, that we aren't even aware of. We continue to remain blissfully unaware of our greatest dangers as a society as they continue to elude us. And if America is greatly being effected in this way, and America is at the forefront of globalization, we have to be careful what we are leading people of other countries into in our work towards a single global community. We have to be careful what sort of plans and values we are carrying over into this type of worldly and united society.
Yet another area that needs concern when dealing with the globalizing world is ethnicity and ethnic violence. "There are surely other ethnocidal imaginaries in which forces of global capital, the relative power of the states, varying histories of race and class and differences in the states of mass mediation, produce different kinds of uncertainty and different scenarios for ethnocide." (Appadurai p.243) In relation to globalization the mixing of ethnic cultures becomes so huge and confusing, acts of violence are conducted partially out of fear and partially out of a personal anger because of the lack of an ability to understand and comprehend who’s who and who’s on who’s side because it can no longer necessarily be determined just by looking at someone and their skin color of other cultural features, whereas not too long ago that was possible. Violence because of ethnicity sometimes is also a way for certain violent cultures to see a person inside of something described as merely a 'body' that fits in with the ethnic whole. "The problem of fake identities seems to demand the brutal creation of real persons through violence." (Appadurai p.242) However sick and twisted these acts of violence are, they are a way in which some of these people try to discover real persons within bodies. Globalization can lead up to these acts of violence because it creates that confusion in some foreign societies, perhaps the less educated and less wealthy. So in a way globalization can be accredited to both the cause and the cure, as education with a stronger globalized force could bring these people to resort to less violent means in dealing with cultural and historical issues between peoples. One of the dangers we face as a society post 9/11 and the War on Terror is our growing unreasonable judgment of people of peculiar races, especially that of Middle Eastern decent. In this way the media and thorough press coverage of the war, of 9/11, of Abu Ghraib, have changed us for the worse. How many times since 9/11 have we seen people judge the person wearing the turban the second they see them walking through the airport or getting on the bus. On page 206 Feldman states, "We cannot ignore the violence generated by interventions to reduce harm." And this is a perfect example of this. It is because of this that the motives and reasons behind what is flushed into our media, however true must be analyzed for the greater good. While ideologies and agendas can be resisted, the power of the publics 'actuarial gaze' onto the intense, obscene, and threatening images in the media today cannot be denied. And this in it’s own way is a form of the new and globalizing ‘world’ society.
Globalization is in my own and many others’ opinion, inevitable. Whether globalization will as expected by the majority, turn out for our good and our benefit as a societal whole, or turn against us and cause us more difficulty and social struggles, is impossible to tell for certain. It is our job as a globally expanding community to be careful what the consequences are of our actions and do the best we can to ‘kindle’ globalization gently. If we cannot take control and make the right choices concerning globalization, we may live to see ourselves consumed by relentless fires of our own poor decisions and carelessness.





Works Cited
Agamben, Giorgio. "Security and Terror." Theory and Event 5 (2002) [online] available
at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v005/5.4agamben.html
Appadurai, Arjun. "Dead Certainty: Ethnic violence in the Era of Globalization." Public
Culture 10 (1998): 225-247
Feldman, Allen. "On the Actuarial Gaze: From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." Cultural Studies 19 (2005):
203-226
Junger, E. "On Danger." New German Critique 59 (1993): 27-32

The quote Feldman uses from Agamben comes right at the start of his essay, as a tool to get people thinking. Thinking about things they probably never second guessed, as something maybe, they should take a closer look at. The quote he uses is this one, "While disciplinary power isolates and closes off territories, measures of security lead to an opening and globalization; while the law wants to prevent and prescribe. In a word, discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." This quote gets you thinking about security and the law perhaps in a scrutinous way you never have before, or at least it did for me. I never really gave a second thought to security and law and their major differences as Agamben discusses in his essay, "Security and Terror," and as Feldman thought was important enough to stick at the very start of his essay, "The Actuarial Gaze."

The difference between security and discipline and law, is slight but extremely significant. And it is because of the slightness of their differences that so many people today go on unquestioningly accepting the governments focus on security not realizing they are enabling the governing bodies to manipulate situations of emergency or chaos, such as happened on September 11th 2001. Not saying this is what happened for certain, but the government easily could have used the event of September 11h and the people fear and grief over it to get them to rally together and go to war, which later after gaining the peoples support to enter the war, the government completely changed and prolonged the purposes of the war and and who knows what other reasons they had for pushing us into the war all along. This is, I think, a good example of what Agamben talks about in relation to security in his essay. He talks about how security is used as a means to guide the situations of emergency and chaos that happen and attempt to 'control' them after they have already begun to happen. Taking stronger disciplinary actions and preventative measures would be Agamben's preferred approach to these situations. Why deal with trying to guide situations after they happened when you can take the upmost care to prevent them instead. As he says, "discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." 

On the other hand, how would it even be possible to prevent an emergency like September 11th in the first place. In some situations preventative measures and stronger disciplinary actions could be very possible, and beneficial to us, but how to prevent something other countries do to your country seems almost impossible to do. The preventative measures it would have took to stop these events would have had to occur many many years ago because these actions of terrorists and other people are results of years and years of histories and struggles between religions and races. So security seems to be the only option in cases like this September 11th and acts of terrorism. However I don't think it's impossible to be more careful about the ways in which the governing bodies are going about dealing with security. It is up to the people to be more active and more aware of the truth about what our government is really trying to do, and we have to stop believing everything we are told be the people over us without questioning it first. We should always be checking and double checking everything we are told for the truth. As Agamben states, "Nothing is therefore more important than a revision of the concept of security as the basic principle of state politics." In the future we will need to be increasingly careful of the differences between things like security and discipline, and how they are being used either to help us or to control us.

 

1. Lelyveld, Jospeh. "One of the Least Known Countries in the World" in House of Bondage. p.7-19. Ernest Cole. Ridge Press Book, Random House Inc. 1967. New York. 

One of the main points I think Lelyveld was trying to address was the absurdity of the white vs. black power struggle of South Africa in the 1960's, particularily that of the whites in charge treating the blacks in a ridiculously unfair manner. Trying to inhibit the spread of families and the growth of their populations to try and get the black communities to eventually and very intentionally die out. He also deals with how black stereotypes today are unfair seeing as how they stem from this type of environment where blacks get punished for crimes that aren't really crimes at all, and then placed in jail, or worse, for it. Also he talks about how the minorities in power sometimes are very good at having all kinds of reasons and laws and explanations for their various forms of oppression that can make it very hard to stop or prevent them from carrying out their power on the people in unfair ways for often trivial reasons.

"In actual practice the whole system is outraged by any evidence of talent or ambition or sensitivity beneath black skin. There is no black writer in South Africa today who has won any kind of public recognition. Invariably, recognition leads to exile, and just as invariably, the government places a ban on publication of anything that has ever been written by exiled writers." (p. 13)

"Officially the government considers Soweto a temporarily unavoidable social aberration in what has now been declared a 'white area'. Eventually - or so the theory of apertheid at it's most preposterous, holds - the entire black urban population will melt back into tribal reserves, thus when community leaders in Soweto meekly requested the right to own their own homes, a cabinet minister replied, : "If we allow freehold rights in Soweto that would be the anchor for Africans to settle permanently in our midst. That is against government policy." (p. 8) 

This source builds on Sekula's essay because it's an example of how governments, even if what they are doing is completely wrong and unfair, are able to carry out the terrible things they're doing because they can and they are in power. It is also an example of how the government uses forms of media to change people. They use very at times subtle techniques to manipulate the media so they can remain in power over us. Like how the white South African government banned certain books from their people because they didn't want them getting certain ideas in their heads, and they didn't want to have the people be allowed to read anything that made them look bad because they are afraid of losing their position of power. We still today ban books in many of our schools and libraries in America as well.

I plan to use this source to further my investigations on societies, communities, and their systems of power and governance and how that relates to globalization and our expanding communities. I could tie this in as a way to relate modern practices and advances in the media's stereotyping and manipulating, to where they came from and to help further predict where this might lead us in the future as far as our communities go. 

This source seems to be related to my other sources in that it deals with various societies and their struggle in dealing with a minority in power and their unfairness in governing them, and the shaping of their media to try and trick them into naivety about it all. This source also deals with these minorities in power unfairly stereotyping certain groups of people and using certain groups of people to their advantage whether the groups want to be used in this way or not, which is a theme I've loosely been able to connect within these sources. 

2. Giorgio Agamben "Security and Terror" Theory and Event Vol. 5, no. 3, [online] available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v005/5.4agamben.html

The first main point I think Agamben makes is that governing bodies should be more concerned with installing preventative measures when it comes to national and major emergencies rather than 'security plans' which merely guide and control them after they have already occurred. By doing this we could prevent governments from using these catastrophes to achieve their own secret agendas we. the public, are left out of the loop on. 

"In a word, discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." (p.1 paragraph 3.) 

"Maybe the time has come to work towards the prevention of disorder and catastrophe and not merely towards their control...On the contrary, we can say that politics secretly works towards the production of emergencies."

This source build on Feldman's essay in that it looks at ways in which the government uses subtly different policies to their advantage in controlling the masses. By focusing on security, which in itself doesn't sound like a bad thing, and not on enforcing stronger preventative measures in society, they can use huge emergencies like war to try and get people to do what they want them to do to try and achieve their own purposes and goals that may not be the same as that of the masses they are attempting to rally together in the face of these emergencies. The state of human fear that is associated with these emergencies makes people pliable and moldable and very very vulnerable to any strong leadership shown at the time of crisis. This is source is something I'll be able to use in discussing globalization, as the measures of security cause a more globalized view. And this could be a dangerous thing if governments are going to use these plans of security to manipulate us in times of crisis, rather than work to prevent them altogether. A globalized world also places power more and more in the hands of a select minority of people, politicians, and the use of security in conjunction with terrorism seems to be a growing threat with these new advancements in more globalized communities. 

This source is connected to my other sources in that it deals, again, with community issues and societal issues and their exposure to manipulative government actions in the media and other forms, and how as we move forward it becomes harder to recognize these manipulations for what they are, but still they are perhaps more than ever a colossal issue to be dealt with in modern society. It also discusses terrorism, Michal Foucalt who was a source in other places in Feldman's and Sekula's essays and his theories on society and government, and also he uses of danger and the states of catastrophe in the world that changes the state of mind of the people to that of fear and helplessness and how that helps governing bodies achieve a stronger hold on their rule of the masses.

3. E. Junger "On Danger" New German Critique, 59 p.27-32

The first main point I think Junger tries to make is that comprehensively within ourselves and throughout the world there is an increased intrusion of danger on our daily lives. This is nothing new as in the past the bourgeois valued security greatly. Also those who didn't were scarce or criminal. And around danger, artists, writers warriors, criminals and more, though they are few, thrive. People want everything to be safe and secure because they are afraid of the unknown. But if things are always secure and if there is no uncertainties in our lives we would become bored and may even "depart for the distances symbolized by strange lands, intoxication, or death." (Junger p.29) However Junger seems to associate the love of danger to the stronger people in society. He also discusses how besides nature and certain catastrophic events outside of our control, our own inventions are what can be most dangerous to us. And that humanity itself is arguably the most dangerous of all. Finally Junger talks about how we are not always conscious of the fact that things are rapidly changing in our opinion and experience of media, danger, security, and modern technological tools.

"In this sense it may be said that we have already plunged deeply into new more dangerous realms without our being conscious of them." (Junger p.32)

"Already today there is hardly and event of human significance towards which the artificial eye, the camera lens, is not directed." (Junger p.31)

"The history of inventions also raises ever more clearly the question of whether a space of absolute comfort or a space of absolute danger is the final aim concealed in technology. Completely apart from the circumstance that scarcely a machine . scarcely a science has ever existed which did not fulfill directly or indirectly dangerous functions in the war, inventions like the automobile engine have already resulted in greater losses than any war be it ever so bloody. " (Junger p.30) 

"From this moment on, the words peace and order become a slogan to which the weaker morale resorted." (Junger p.30)

Feldman uses this source in his essay, especially the end section about the camera and the artificial eye seeing everything to show how and elaborate on the ways society is changing and in lots of ways becoming more and more dangerous as people themselves and the things they create become more dangerous. Also he talks about, as Feldman does, the fact that we go on doing what we always do and don't stop to think or ask why and we are unaware then of the vast changes occurring in society and the way people are running it.

I can use this source help me show how easy it will be for governments as the world becomes more and more globalized, to manipulate the people through media. As he says in his quote, Junger explains how people go on spending the 'usual coins' without realizing the rate of exchange has changed. 

Again this source relates to my other sources in that it deals with societies and people and their behaviors in relation to issues of security and the government. It differs in that it's more about humanity's struggles with danger and conflict in general and less with that of specifically governmental or ruling bodies but I definitely think it ties in.  

4. Arjun Appadurai "Dead Certainty: Ethnic violence in the Era of Globalization" Public Culture (1998) Vol. 10, pp.225-247

One of the main points I think Appadurai makes in his essay is first to reveal to what extent ethnic violence really goes to and why. In relation to globalization he seems to be saying that these mixing ethnic cultures become so huge and confusing, acts of violence are conducted partially out of fear and partially out of a personal anger because of the lack of this ability to understand. Then also the violence is able to help them see a person inside of something described as merely a 'body' that fits in with the ethnic whole. However sick and twisted these acts of violence are, they are a way in which some of these people try to discover real persons within bodies. Appadurai also discusses how globalization can lead up to these acts of violence.

"These horrible counter performances retain one deep element in common with their life enhancing counterparts: They are instruments in making persons out of bodies." (Appadurai p.241)

"But it is precisely in situations where endemic doubts and pressure become intolerable that ordinary people begin to see masks instead of faces." (Appadurai p.241)

"The problem of fake identities seems to demand the brutal creation of real persons through violence." (Appadurai p.242)

"Yet globalization does not produce just one road to uncertainty, terror or violence." (Appadurai p.243)

"There are surely other ethnocidal imaginaries in which forces of global capital, the relative power of the states, varying histories of race and class and differences in the states of mass mediation, produce different kinds of uncertainty and different scenarios for ethnocide." (Appadurai p.243)

This build on Feldman's essay because it deals with similar occurrances to that of the Abu Ghraib prison stories. It backs it up with how and why those events might have transpired based on the confusion certain ethnic peoples feel in the globalizing world.

I can use this essay to further my research on globalization and the effects new technologies in this global setting have on us and the media. This is a good example of some of the negative aspects of globalization and how it could be used against people. The loss of certain histories of races and their identities may cause further uncertainties and confusion, which can then produce ethnic violence in various forms.

This source ties into my other sources because it deals with globalization and some aspects of people and their social behaviors, in this case specifically in relation to ethnic violence caused by the changing identities of groups of people which is stemming at least partially if not solely from globalization. It differs in that it deals with more exact examples of ethnic violence in several countries and the reasons why this happens and could begin to happen more in the era of globalization.

 

In his essay, "Security and Terror", Giorgio Agamben discusses the problems associated with focus too much on security. Throughout this essay he talks about how security though seemingly it's a beneficial focus for governments can in some ways lead to forms of terrorism and even opposes discipline and law as instruments of governance. At one point he describes the difference between security and strong preventative measures and discipline, by saying "In a word, discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." And in my opinion, though I never even gave it a second thought until reading this essay, is that he's exactly right., mostly.

In his opening paragraph, Agamben eludes to the idea that fear may not be an all bad thing, as it can unite societies together. As far as discipline and law making bodies go, I'm sure he would not be opposed to striking a little fear into the hearts of citizens in order to prevent disorder or chaos that could widely expand with an attitude that is lax and ready to use security after the problems have already started. As I said earlier, I am in agreement except for something he briefly mentions about freedom. He says security can only function within a context of freedom of traffic, trade, and individual initiative, which too me seem like good things, and this is the only aspect of his piece that I feel strongly in opposition with. Because to me, and I don't think I'm alone here, freedom in any form it comes, is the herald of human experience, and what I desire most out of my own personal experience in life. But for the most part, I would have to say I can see where he's going with this and I understand and concur with it very much so.

Another issue Agamben addresses that places security in an awkward moral space is the fact that while perhaps negatively, the law closes off territories and isolates, whereas security perhaps positively can lead to more a more open approach and globalization even though discipline and law produce order where security only seeks to guide the disorder.

The dangerousness with security takes shape more and more as security comes to the forefront of traditional political state tasks by way of importance. Agamben states that "A state which has security as it's only task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism; it can always be provoked by terrorism to turn itself terroristic." Which makes us question how strongly we want to focus on security vs. prevention all together through stricter disciplinary measures and laws. It could even cause security and terrorism to become one system in societies that mutually justify and balance each other. The ever growing 'hunt' for security causes people in a way to turn on themselves causing civil wars and destroying the hope of civil coexistence. It also in the end causes a depoliticization and a permanent detachment from democracy, one of the very cherished aspects of our governmental system. To fix this impending disaster Agamben suggests we redefine our policies on security and become more critical in our law making and disciplinary measures with the focus on prevention of disasters be they medical, military, ecological or otherwise, and not merely having the focus be on security of these disasters and controlling them after the fact.

The ways in which I see this essay connecting with and elaborating on my understanding of Feldman's and Sekula's essays I have yet to mention. Though I don't know who Turgot and Quesnay are, Agamben says of them at the beginning of his essay, "Neither Turgot and Quesnay nor the Physiocratic officials were primarily concerned with the prevention of famine or the regulation of production, but rather wanted to allow for the development in order to 'secure' their consequences." Then at the end he further states, "On the contrary, we can say that politics works towards the production of emergencies." In these two quotes Agamben, though I could be completely wrong, sounds like he is saying that governments are so for security because they like to use them to control certain public situations and emergencies or even cause them for their own needs agenda's kept secret from the public. Not saying that this is fact but in my opinion I could see the attacks on 9/11 being exploited by the bush administration to get us into a war to raise funds for the government that supposedly would go solely for military purposes. Again I'm not saying this is fact or even that I necessarily think that that's what happened but I could see it as being an example of what Agamben describes here in politics secretly working toward the production of these emergencies to guide and secure the consequences in their own favor. All in all I was fascinated by the new viewpoints I was able to engage after further researching this essay by Giorgio Agamben, I will most likely refer back to this source in later assignments and perhaps for my final paper.

1. Should we sacrifice a complete freedom in favor of stronger laws and disciplinary measures? Why or why not? How might Globalization be bad or good for societies?

2. What are the current security policies of America and other modern nations, and how might this be seen as good or bad for societies long term? And how might a more free policy on traffic, trade, and individual initiative play into security and he negative light Agamben shows it in?

Although I'm still uncertain what exactly it is I'm going to write about, and what my thesis is going to be like, and the exact direction I'd like to go in, there was one topic I think I overheard in class that really caught my attention. The topic was that of 'Identity Politics.' And along with that, stereotypes in the media and maybe more about just stereotypes in general. Also perhaps how stereotypes in the media directly effect people in schools, in the work place, in religious institutions, and other places as well.  

Before I over heard this term in class, I was already exploring ideas I had about flaws in the way the media works today, and these opinions got stronger after reading and studying closely Feldman's and Sekula's essays. I think if I could tie together those opinions of the media and such I've so far gathered from these two essays, and use them as sources, and then further my exploration and focus on 'Identity Politics' and Stereotypes in depth, I would have maybe a good start on a topic I could research and research well, with a genuine interest in the research as well. I could explore reasons why, the history of, how I feel on the matter, good or bad, give reasons for both, what could be done to change it, should it be changed, etc. 

Another topic I was interested in was Globalization. I'm not sure if there is a good way or even a way at all to tie in Identity Politics and Stereotypes in the media with globalization but if there is I think that would be another unique and interesting direction for me. Also if Genocide could be a result somehow or a topic that would fit that would include all the topics I kind of was thinking about. But if they all can't tie in I for sure would like to look at Identity Politics and Stereotypes in the media closer, and if those don't work I think I would pick either globalization or genocide on their own.

For stereotyping and media I could include examples like that of Ernest Cole who I read about in Sekula's essay, and even examples of myself because often times I get stereotyped in my work place because of my gauges and tattoos even though gauges and tattoos and other things of that nature don't have anything to do with how smart or how competent you are. Also in the work place, if the issue is that you can't have gauges and tattoos because you choose them verses something like your race which you can't choose, why is it that we don't discriminate based on religion which is also something we choose. It is my belief that we hold in our hands the only power that can stop this intense stereotyping that stems from the media, should we choose to do so, if it is right to do so, which I think it is and I hope we are strong enough to do. Some of the things I'll have to think about are am I going to be able to find plenty of good sources, am I going to be able to make a research paper out to be ten pages on this topic, and do it without rambling, and am I going to be able to draw pertinent examples and concrete evidence and details for this topic. 

1. Adorno " Negative Dialects" (p. 216 middle bottom)

By using this source, Feldman shows an example of what kinds of terrible things can be achieved through the shaping and specific planned usage of media and media techniques. He explains that the nazis in Germany were socially changed by the propaganda in the media into believing and doing certain things that were part of Hitler's political agenda. The source is important to Feldman I think because it's a good illustration of his overall point in his essay. An illustration that is hard to argue with. This source drew me in because I have tried reading Adorno before and was very interested in his work, for one, but also because of how it's used here as a tool to help prove Feldman's point, and it works quite well. 

Adorno was a German-born international philosopher, sociologist, musicologist, and composer. He attended the Frankfurt school where he studied musicology, philosophy, psychology,  and sociology. Adorno says his publication, "Negative Dialects" is intended to "use the strength of the [epistemic] subject to break through the description [Trug] of constitutive subjectivity." The first publication date of this work was 1973. The translation is sometimes tricky to understand because the german idiom. This information doesn't really change much how I see Feldman using this source. I still think he used Adorno's comments about the holocaust as a way to show how propaganda in the media can spread ideas that grab hold of society very quickly and efficiently. 

2. Junger "Photography and the Second Consciousness" (p. 222 middle bottom)

Junger I believe is used in Feldman's essay to also contribute to the idea that media can vastly change the way societies and even individual people within those societies think and if you can effect how someone thinks you can effect how they act as well. So he uses Junger to show the way that our consciousness, or way of thinking about ourself and our morals is being changed. He explains that we are moving from people of one consciousness to people of a double consciousness. The second of the two allowing us to stand kind of outside of ourselves and see ourselves more as 'things' and also to exist outside the 'sphere of pain' allowing us to be less afraid and maybe in some ways less human. This draws my interest because it is something I definitely see happening everyday and it worries me about where we are going in our society and what things are going to change for the worse in the future because of it. 

Ernst Junger was a German writer who went to school in Germany between the years of 1901 and 1903. He then joined the military and began also writing articles and beginning his writing career in the 1920's. Much of his life was dedicated to the military and also much to his writing. He makes strong connections between the two in some of his works."Photography and the second consciousness" and excerpt from 'On Pain', was first published in 1934 a year after Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany. This book deals with a new metaphysics of the experience of pain in a totalitarian age. This information about Junger and his book 'On Pain' from which the source in Feldman's essay was taken, just enhances what I felt the importance of the quote was all the more. Knowing now that it was published a year after Hitler's rise to power and knowing his military background helps to see even clearer where he would get the idea of the new and changing consciousness of society was coming about. 

3. Gertrude Himmelfarb "The Haunted House of Jeremy Bentham" (p. 9 footnotes)

Sekula uses Himmelfarb as a source and more importantly the idea of the 'Panopticon' created by Jeremy Bentham to highlight and help achieve his goal of showing how photography and media play a role in policing and the lives of criminals but not only them but also us today as well. The Panopticon being at first a structure for a prison where the inmates would be under the assumption they are always being watched so better to not do anything you wouldn't want to get in trouble for. We do the same thing today with video cameras and surveillancing  public areas. I was interested in this source because it seemed like a unique source, perhaps showing a different view of the panopticon that what was already explained in the footnotes of Sekula's essay.

Gertrude Himmelfarb was an American Historian known for her studies of the victorian era particularly of social darwinism. She studied at Brooklyn College as well as the university of chicago. She is now a professor at the graduate school at the university of New York. Her work "The Haunted house of Jeremy Bentham" was part of a larger work 'Victorian Minds' and was published in 1968. The full title of the larger work is 'Victorian Minds: A Study of Intellectuals in Crisis and Ideologies in Transition' This fuller title from which the section sourced by Sekula is taken shows us that she was probably looking at Bentham's idea of the 'Panopticon' as an ideology in transition as well as Bentham himself as an 'intellectual in crisis'. She also states in this excerpt that the panopticon was "nothing less than the existential realization of Philosophical Radicalism." In addition she noted the concentration camp-like aspects of Bentham's 'panopticon' plan. I still think this source was a good choice and a useful one after reading the background information because it explains Bentham's panopticon for what it is not just what it was intended to be by Bentham, and reveals some of the major negative aspects of it and this relates to Sekula's essay because it shows a history of where some of these ideas that are still around today came from. Like that of surveillancing and certain media techniques to instill fear and promote stereotypes to achieve their own goals and agendas.

4. Alphonse Bertillon "The Bertillon System of Identification" (p. 26 footnotes)

Sekula makes use of this source because together Bertillon and Galton shaped our policing archival systems today. Both systems were monumental to the creation of that policing system we now use however both had there serious flaws. Bertillon's for example was huge, and there was so much information it could take weeks to make any sort of connections between identifying criminals even when they were fairly easy to identify. also the measurements made could be different depending on who did the measurements and how accurately they measured. He definitely uses this source because it is one of the two major people his essay is centered on. I felt that This was an interesting source because I don't know much about Bertillon and wanted to know more. 

Alphonse Bertillon was a French law enforcement officer and biometrics researcher who created anthropometry, a system of identification based on physical measurements. Hid works were largely published in the 1880's. The usefulness of the source I thought did not change for me after readin the background information. It did make me respect Bertillon a little more, understanding his work as more of a masterpiece from the angle of the time period he lived and worked in. 

5. Francis Galton "Analytical Photography" (p. 48 footnotes)

Similarily to Bertillon, I felt that this source was important to Sekula's essay because it is one of the two major parts of his writings. Like I said earlier both systems were monumental but both were also flawed. Galton's ideas dealt with the belief that regions of the person's face and skull could tell you certain things about a person, and through this he tried to achieve a certain 'criminal type' that would aid in police work. This was an interesting source for me because I'm considering doing my research paper on identity politics and stereotypes achieved through the mass media.

Sir Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin and was an English Victorian polymath, anthropologist, eugenist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, pyschometrician, and statistician. He was called a child prodigy because he was reading by two, by five he knew some greek, latin, and long division, and by six he was reading adult level books like Shakespeare. After first attempting medical school at the urging of his parents, he went to Cambridge where he studied mathematics. This again doesn't change my idea of the usefulness of the source in Sekula's essay, I still feel it was an equally important source for him. But after reading the background information I can see and respect his ideas a lot more like when I read more about Bertillon. Instead of his ideas sounding merely silly and backwards, I think about all that he had accomplished and how intelligent he was and I am able to see hwere he got his ideas and see them as advanced for his time period. Especially being a cousin of Charles Darwin it's easier to see why  he believed as he did about the areas of the skull, the criminal type, and natural selection and so on. 

After completing assignment number six I see how Feldman and Sekula have formed their essays around pertinent and extremely useful and successful sources. As the reader after delving into the backgrounds and histories of these sources, I feel like I can grasp better the whole idea behind Feldman and Sekula's essays. It gives me a more well rounded view and in all cases the sources only added to my understanding and my appreciation of what Feldman and Sekula were trying to say. I now think it is much more important and necessary to investigate the sources of books, essays, articles and the like whereas before I may have skimmed over those sources and not really noticed them. 

For a research direction I'm still not positive on what I'm going to do, but I think the concept of stereotypes in the media really intrigues me. I heard someone say or maybe read the term 'Identity Politics' and that mabe a possible direction I'd like to research further. Also, after reading more about Galton, Bertillon and the 'panopticon' I got inspired and felt myself thinking of a few directions to go in. Overall I think the scholarly conversation both Sekula and Feldman make between themselves and their sources was very effective and their essays altogether were more interesting after reading about the sources as well. I would like to achieve in my researching a similar kind of scholarly conversation, that makes good use of sources and choosing sources that round out my ideas for my readers.

 

In Allan Sekula's essay, "The Body and the Archive" he tries to show the connections between the archival paradigm and the operations of power that control and regulate the people, or 'the body'. To do this he places the emergence of photography in the context of the development of police acts and technologies of surveillance. He goes back to the 19th century to show the earliest stages of photography and show how tat the time photography was a paradox between an honorable usage: portraiture made available to lower classes, but also: a tool capable of identifying them to the police.

Also at this time in history there were two major sciences taking form. Physiognomy, studying someone's facial features to give insight into their personality, and phrenology, the study of different regions of the head (brain) to reveal things about their criminality. These sciences were to help police identify criminals. Towards the end of the essay Sekula puts modern photographers within this context to distinguish between those who accept the archival paradigm and those who oppose it.

At the very end of Sekula's essay he presents us with a modern example, that of Black South African photographer Ernest Cole, who's controversial images landed him on rough waters with the police. he was going to get into trouble with the law but he posed with a proposition instead. When the police offered him a position among their ranks he refused and fled his country, and published his book of images anyway in America. Sekula says, "Our problem, as artists and intellectuals living near but not at the center of a global system of power, will be to help prevent the cancellation of that testimony by more authoritative and official texts." Meaning, it will be our position to try our best to not let the police shape our own reality through the media. And this is where I think Sekula's essay compliments Feldman's. We see another angle of the way our media is managed for us and used to shape us how they want us to be. Placing photography in the context of when it first was getting established helps us see it in a different way, that helps us see why and how the government began tailoring visual images to change our perceptions of reality. It will be our responsibility in the future to actively seek out truth and not just go on believing so easily everything that is 'spoon fed' to us by the government and the media.

The paradigm comes about through the work of Bertillon and Galton who were early pioneers of scientific policing, who began practices that shaped the bureaucratic handling and 'archiving' of visual documents. They represent two attempts to regulate social deviance by means of photography. Bertillon through an immense cataloguing of a person photographic profile, certain measurements, and other information placed on index cards, tried to make a system of identification of criminals, to keep records, look for repeat offenders, etc. Galton's approach in my opinion was a little more strange. He tried through limited exposure and photographic negatives to achieve the definition of a 'criminal type' by placing images that were similar of different people next to each other and looking for common features. Artistically I think this technique was much more beneficial to him. It helped advance the more symbolic approach to photography, capturing more of an essence of a person, what connects and separates us as people, and showing that through a photograph.

Sovereignty:

"Here we can appreciate to what degree the actuarial gaze replicates the chasm between transcendental sovereignty  and the instability of everyday life structures. The actuarial gaze promotes a political technology that unifies culturally dispersed bodies under the symbolic order of a vulnerable yet sovereign national body. In this process habeas corpus and the body as a private property are subjected to an over determined fusion: the right to claim bodily integrity, to present before the state and citizenry, a body that is safe, that abjures risk, and is thus combinable with the sovereign body of mass political subjects. To be risk-free or risk-insulated becomes a claim on sovereignty and the elevation or reduction of risk exposure defines citizenship and it's alters." (p. 207, bottom) 

This quote helps me see that sovereignty is some kind of either unification or the opposite for a mass of people, relating to how they are ruled or governed. Also I think he uses two different meanings for the word, one relating to what I just described, and the other relating to royalness or people held in high regard, holy, something like that. And I believe he uses that definition more so in the second sentence. I'm Still a little unsure of what he's trying to say about it, I have some loose ideas but I feel as though I can't be sure about them, that in saying what I think I'm probably completely missing his point.

"However in late-modernity, panoramic visualization of disaster is no longer simply an after effect and a recollection or violence, but rather the vehicle for the delivery and legitimation of a violence that now advances geo-political visual sovereignty." (p. 212, top)

In this quote I think he's saying the widespread visual representations of violence throughout the world are a way of making light of a violence and using that to unify people globally, in some way, whether seen as helpful or harmful. It seems to me to be saying that across the world we are becoming more and more connected under an assumption we may not even be aware we're making that violence in the media is okay and not going to effect us negatively in anyway, wrong as that may be.

Sovereignty is the right of people to have control over an area to be governed, another people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme governing person or persons above all others. I also could me excellence or a supreme example of excellence, or a controlling influence. Jean Jacques Rousseau helped developed the idea, "there is no law without a sovereign." Some related words to look up might include: colonization, self determination, self ownership, Suzerainty, divine right of kings, or dictatorship. I think for the most part yes, Feldman uses this term consistently. 

Forensic Violence:

"Appadurai proposes the concept of forensic violence as that which took place in Rwanda and the Balkans, which he associates with the 'vivisectionist' tendencies of ethnocidal atrocity and mutilation." (p. 208, top)

From this quote after reading and looking up 'vivisectionist' I gather that Feldman is relating forensic violence, which took place in Rwanda and the Balkans as similar to vivisection, or the mutilation or injuring of living animals for scientific research, except done on people.  And from my opinion, and I hope I'm not the only one who sees it this way, I think it can't really be considered 'scientific research' or any sort at least that should be allowed or legal, if it is done to human beings especially. It's pretty morbid and cruel.

"Forensic violence disfigures and opens the victim's body to a screening gaze, and symbolically affixes and repairs biopolitical identity." (p. 208, top)

In this selection he describes what it is forensic violence does to people, or is supposed to do to people. It's suppose to fix your political identity. I looked up biopolitical and I was given several different definitions and I'm not sure which he means here, but I know either way he speaks of forensic violence as supposedly, to those applying it, it is to be a way to fix someone's political identity symbolically. 

To find the definition for forensic violence I first had to look up forensic on it's own. It means relating to, used in, or appropriate for courts of law and public discussion or argumentation. So forensic violence is kind of an appropriated violence. Maybe a violence thats okay under some governments but under ours is not, but still used or talked about in a court of law. Perhaps a violence used as a law giving technique. Violence in relation to law is a good simple definition. Other terms, places, or events to look up relating to this might be Rwanda, the Balkans, or genocide. Again I think Feldman uses a pretty direct and clear definition of forensic violence. 

Globalization:

"Appadurai sees such forensic mutilation as an iconic and stabilizing operation reacting to the transitive structure of social identity and the post-colonial nation-state under globalization." (p. 208, top middle)

Here it seems to be saying that globalization is relatively something new thats coming about. He calls our social identity under this new globalization transitive meaning it is in transition, it's changing. We are also under globalization coming into a post-colonialism. Colonialism, or the grouping and separation of people into colonies is fading out. He explains that Appadurai sees forensic violence or mutilation as an iconic or standing out and important factor in the stabilizing of this newly coming about society.

"With globalization, and the constant destabilization of the cartographic nation-state, the medicalized-forensic nation-state reconstructs hegemony through foundational spatial metaphors of 'homeland security' , and total information awareness systems." (p. 211, top middle)

Again, I'm not sure if I'm interpreting this completely backwards, but I believe he says here that under this new globalization and the fading out of of our map and colony like societies and states and cities today, hegemony or the ruling or governing power or one state or region over others is being changed as well, into something much harder to see happening, through things like homeland security and 'total information awareness systems'. Through these in a much more subtle way hegemony still will exist, but will it become something very dangerous because of it's new hidden and secretive nature? I think so. 

Globalization is a word used to describe how more and more countries are becoming more interconnected both economically and culturally. Charles russell was the earliest to begin exploring globalization when he coined the term 'corporate giants' in 1897. Other terms to explore might include: multiculturalism, immigration, sweatshops, Noam Chomsky, consumerism, free trade, capitalism, democracy, overpopulation, and the global economy. I think Feldman uses this term clearly and directly, but I think he focuses on the negatives mostly, but n his case it pertains well to his topic so it works.

After completing these research steps I find myself perhaps not hugely understanding Feldman's essay better, but at least understanding a part of it a lot more than when I started. I can see that with time research can be broken down and understood even when the source seems ridiculously intense and mind boggling. At least for the section my terms mostly focus on, and the part of the article they are all kind of located in, I definitely agree with Feldman on where he stands as far as sovereignty and forensic violence. I think as far s globalization goes I'm not quite as negative as Feldman seems to be about it. I think there are good and bad things about globalization but either way I think globalization and its growing rate are inevitably going to change things and keep changing things, drastically. But in all fairness Feldman was only focusing on a small part of globalization and I think as a scholar he probably has some good things to say about it as well, it was just not the focus of this particular essay, where he uses that term to further explain what is happening negatively in the media and our social structure. 

These terms are all related to each other in some ways pretty closely. Forensic violence through genocide and other means is part of globalization in other countries and perhaps, though no examples come to mind, even our own. Our sovereignty, or ruling bodies and structures or government groups and states is being threatened by globalization and being changed into something much more sinister and secretive, something that might end up hurting us more than the sovereignty and government systems we have now do. 

Inspiration is now beginning to take shape for me as I delve into our subject matter more closely. I'm not certain yet what I want to research but I think I would be interested in researching globalization itself in some way, or perhaps globalization with a fair trade focus or a genocide and or forensic violence focus. Im not sure yet which direction I'm going to go in for my research paper but these topics intrigue me more and more as I research them. I look forward to doing more research in these areas, and honing down on one topic.