Category: Leslie Dorrough Smith

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YOUR TURN: Another Sports Metaphor? Ann Coulter and Soccer

Ann Coulter hitting a soccer ball with her headPhoto credit: africasacountry.com

“Your Turn” is a new, ongoing feature at Culture on the Edge,in which we just plant the seed by picking a ripe e.g. and then soliciting and responding to your analysis.

Many of you are likely aware of the brouhaha surrounding American conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, who in the past few days has claimed not only that soccer isn’t a serious sport, but that the World Cup craze is an inherently un-American activity. You can see Coulter’s specific discussion on her website here and here.

Knowing Coulter’s penchant for highly inflammatory comments, it’s tempting to dismiss her statements as nothing but an attention-seeking gimmick. But for those of us interested in the dynamics of identity formation, we can find some very interesting data embedded in Coulter’s statements.

What do you see there?  How does Coulter’s argument operate?

It’s your turn.

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Out of the Mouths of Sailors: Cussing and the Power of the Selective Double Standard

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Photo credit: Joshua Eirton

I distinctly remember the day in fifth grade when I was chastised by my peers for not knowing the proper litany of cuss words that, apparently, all fifth graders know. I was the teacher’s pet type who wouldn’t have used those words had I even known them (oh, how things have changed!), but I distinctly remember that my ignorance made me feel babyish and unsophisticated. Of course, I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to recognize that fifth graders are not usually the standard bearers of maturity and style, but the fact that I could not engage in a secret barter of offensive terms made it clear that my chance at becoming one of the cool kids was being jeopardized by the minute. Another particularly ominous sign came by the sixth grade, the year that I proved that I was inadequately equipped to flip someone off. When I tried, my middle finger simply didn’t look as offensive and foreboding (or, strangely, straight) as the fingers of my peers. In retrospect, only my Reebok high tops saved me. Continue reading “Out of the Mouths of Sailors: Cussing and the Power of the Selective Double Standard”

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Border Wars: The Fight for Nothing at All

Border War Kansas vs. Missouri

I often muse about what it would be like to have relocated to a city without a strong and divisive college rivalry. Don’t get me wrong – I like living in Kansas City (quite a lot, actually). But when I moved here, I was unaware of how significantly one’s alma mater could be translated into a marker of one’s social worth. For those unaware, Kansas City is an urban hub in the Midwest that, despite the name, straddles two states: Kansas and Missouri. While there are a number of colleges and universities within the city itself, Kansas City is populated by very large numbers of people who been schooled at either the University of Missouri, Columbia (“Mizzou” or “MU”), or the University of Kansas (better known as “KU”) in the nearby town of Lawrence. Continue reading “Border Wars: The Fight for Nothing at All”

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Who Are You? I’m a Feminist

a pin that says Photo credit: stoptalk.wordpress.com

  “Who Are You?” is an ongoing series that asks members of Culture on the Edge to reflect on one of their own many identities (whether national, gendered, racial, familial, etc.), theorizing at the same time the self-identification that they each chose to discuss.

I received a touching note from one of my graduating seniors this past week, who said, among other things, that I taught her that she didn’t have to fear calling herself a feminist.   Every time I have a student tell me this, I consider the irony of my own response when, as an undergraduate, one of my Religious Studies professors handed me a photocopied article entitled something like “Jesus Was a Feminist.” I don’t really remember the details of what the author said, except for the basic thesis (now considered quite tame) that the Bible depicts Jesus as a person who cared about gender equity in a society that didn’t. I freely admit that, at the time, I had no academic exposure to gender theory, and even though I was acutely aware of sexism, I had never heard the term “feminist” used in a positive light. In short, I remember being appalled at the article. Continue reading “Who Are You? I’m a Feminist”

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Korean on the Outside Only

Korean Flag

Photo Credit: flags.net

I was at a dinner party the other night with a longtime friend. Although his parents are first generation immigrants from South Korea, he and his siblings were never taught to speak Korean, as their parents thought it important that they assimilate to American culture as much as possible. As our conversation evolved to talk about the stereotypical markers of Korean culture with which he has little personal affiliation, his wife laughingly remarked that he’s “Korean on the outside only.” His cunning retort was quick: “So couldn’t I say the same thing about you – that you’re German on the outside only, too?” Continue reading “Korean on the Outside Only”

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The Normalcy of “Emotional Pornography”

imagesMore than two decades after its release, I doubt that there are few in the movie-watching public who haven’t heard of Schindler’s List (1993), that now-famous film directed by Steven Spielberg that confronted audiences with what was marketed as the Holocaust in cinematic form. In the film, Oskar Schindler is a Nazi businessman whose already tenuous allegiance to the Third Reich weakens as his compassion and humanization of the Jews around him grows. The plot line revolves around the story of Schindler’s efforts to save as many Jews from death as possible, a feat accomplished when Schindler compiles a list of Jews whose survival (as his employees) he links to the health of his business. Continue reading “The Normalcy of “Emotional Pornography””

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The Coffee Buzz (Or, Yet Another Example on the Powers of Suspending Reality)

starbucks

My husband and I walked into a Starbucks on one recent morning, where I ordered my usual (a quad decaf espresso – ‘cause I like to chew my coffee but don’t want to have a heart attack while doing it), and he ordered a decaf pour-over. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s the name for a coffee-making technique that – as the name implies – involves pouring hot water over individual portions of coffee grounds. The rationale behind it is that it provides a very fresh tasting cup of coffee, something particularly important when you’re ordering decaf (which grows bitter and acidic quickly while it ages in those commercial carafes). Continue reading “The Coffee Buzz (Or, Yet Another Example on the Powers of Suspending Reality)”

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Edge Collaboration at Avila

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On Tuesday, 4 March 2014, Leslie Dorrough Smith (Avila University) hosted Monica Miller (Lehigh University) for a class discussion entitled “Why Be An Earth When You Can Be a God: Hip Hop, Religion, and Gender”, with an upper level gender course at Avila University (Kansas City, MO), and a public lecture entitled “Why Be An Earth When You Can Be a God: Hip Hop, Religion, and Gender” later that evening. The public lecture was on the lyrical imagination of emcees and Hip Hop artists alike has long focused on what some have called a “God Complex,” where such artists often refer to themselves as deities. This talk explores the changing dimensions and historical roots of Hip Hop’s “God Complex,” analyzes the rhetoric that positions “gods” as men (leaving women as representatives of “earth”), and considers what role gender and identity politics play in such an evolution.

(Click here to learn more.)