Author: Russell McCutcheon

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Baby I Was Born this Way

Lady-Gaga-Born-This-Way-Video-17-1024x570The other day a friend on Facebook posted a fun cover version of Lady Gaga’s 2011 song “Born this Way” — a song celebrated (or, all depending on your politics, condemned) as an anthem for the tolerant left. For example, a verse reads as follows:

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made,
I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to be brave. Continue reading “Baby I Was Born this Way”

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That’s Not How I Imagined It

newyorkercartoonMy recent post, on an old Canadian beer commercial called “The Rant,” along with a query a while back from someone on Facebook, got me to thinking about why scholars these days are so excited about studying so-called virtual communities (from Second Life, which used to be cool, to a host of other online identities and platforms which, for the time being at least, are thought to be cool). Thinking about the audience pictured in that commercial from my earlier post — seated in what looks like an old movie theater and all listening to a disgruntled Canadian on stage go on about how he is wrongly stereotyped by Americans — we all know (right?) that it is populated by stand-ins who are quite literally standing in for the people to whom the commercial was directed: those in the TV audience who used the occasion to further identify themselves as misunderstood beer-drinking Canadians. Continue reading “That’s Not How I Imagined It”

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“Now I’m an Accountant…”

Picture 2Have you heard about factories in various parts of the world that have gone bankrupt but been taken over by the workers? Consider the case of the Vio.Me. factory in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, which used to make ceramic tiles but now, after the workers took control of the bankrupt facility, it produces fabric softener. Learn more here. Continue reading ““Now I’m an Accountant…””

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We Can’t All Be Exceptional

Picture 12National Public Radio — yes, I’ve been listening to it while driving to work in the morning and yes, I do contribute — has started a year long series on what they’re simply calling sacred music — listen to the first installment here. It’s on an actor in Hollywood — Ben Youcef (pictured in the middle, above) — originally from Algeria, who is also a muezzin (one who calls other Muslims to prayer). Continue reading “We Can’t All Be Exceptional”

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Isn’t it Ironic, Don’t You Think?

kumareThis morning on the radio I heard a story, rebroadcast from September 2012, on the recent film “Kumare,” described on its website as “a feature documentary film about the time filmmaker Vikram Gandhi impersonated a fake guru and built a following of real people.” The interviewer on the radio program — Maureen Fiedler, host of “Interfaith Voices,” a program predictably about inter-religious dialogue and mutual understanding — asked the director/star a final question: Continue reading “Isn’t it Ironic, Don’t You Think?”

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A Stark Image/A Stark Truth

Here in the U.S. there’s a new controversy over identity and representation. It involves the picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone cover of The BomberIn case you don’t recognize him, that’s Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a “selfie,” one of the two accused Boston Marathon bombers (the only one who remains alive). In response to the cover, which has been described as glamorizing a terrorist (and which some stores have refused to sell), Sgt. Sean Murphy, who is a photographer working with the Massachusetts State Police, has now released photos that he took when Tsarnaev was apprehended, while hiding in a covered boat in a driveway. Continue reading “A Stark Image/A Stark Truth”

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How Devoted Are You?

As soon as the topic of religion enters our understanding of current affairs it allows one to begin to judge the degree to which a person is or is not supposedly involved in politics and history, and thereby judge whether they are safe (i.e., like me) or not (i.e., not like me). While it may be obvious on the political right, those on the left employ much the same vocabulary and judgments, but we often don’t seem to see it. Continue reading “How Devoted Are You?”

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Defying the Edge

Just as for every center there is a corresponding periphery — i.e., they are co-constitutive — so too for every boundary there is a transgression under control and a workaround that was not anticipated by the rule. For example, consider these adjoining Dutch graves from the late 19th century.

The-Graves-of-a-Catholic-woman-and-her-Protestant-husbandThe caption reads:

The graves of Colonel J.C.P.H and Catholic noblewoman J.W.C Van Gorkum.  They were married in 1842.  In 1888, Van Gorkum died, she wanted to be buried next to her husband. Pillarisation (a form of religious and political segregation in Holland [verzuiling in Dutch]) was still in effect at the time, and according to the law, this was impossible.  His wife was buried on the other side of the wall, which was the closest she could get to her husband.

Photo/caption source: Retronaut; for more information, see “Dutch ‘Multiculturalism’: Beyond the Pillarisation Myth” (2007; PDF).