Society For Cinema Studies Caucus On Class

The Caucus on Class focuses on the ways in which formulations of the concept of class supply analytic categories and methodologies for the study of moving-image culture. The Caucus engages issues of class in economic, political, and ideological terms, and in relation to problematics of gender, sexuality, race, nationality and ethnicity. In so doing, the Caucus works to provide a forum for sustained critique of those methodologies that continue to dominate within moving-image theory and criticism even when and where it concerns itself with the (re)production and (trans)formations of social subjectivities, ideologies, institutions, and systemic structures of relations and practices. The Caucus on Class inquires critically into connections between these general issues and the specific areas of film and media production, distribution, reception, scholarship, and pedagogy. The Caucus is particularly concerned to critique these areas of film and media work insofar as they contribute to the perpetuation rather than the eradication of oppressive, alienating, and exploitative divisions along class lines.

Caucus on Class Panels/Workshops -

SCMS Chicago - March 6-9, 2008

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Toward a “New” Third Cinema? Recent Agentine Film and the Re-emergence of Class (Part 1): Fiction Film from Neoliberatlism to Post-2001 Crisis

Sophia McClennen (Pennsylvania State University, University Park) - "Neoliberalism and the New Latin American Cinema: Adrian Caetano’s Pizza, birra, y faso and Bolivia"

Ana Ros (University of Michigan) - "Live-in Maid: Argentinean Crisis and ‘Class-transference’ Phenomenon"

Joanna Page (University of Cambridge) - "Martín Rejtman: Modes of Labour and Subjectivity in Argentine Capitalism"

Chair: Fernanda Zullo-Ruiz (Hanover College)

Poverty, Ideology, and the Media

Stephen Charbonneau (Florida Atlantic University) - "Branching Out: Young Appalachian Selves, Auto-ethnographic Aesthetics, and the Founding of Appalshop”

Devorah Heitner (Northwestern University) - "The Good Side of the Ghetto: Inside Bedford Stuyvesant 1968-1971"

Robert Koulish (Goucher College) - "The Baltimore Community Radio Coalition"

Shivaani Selvaraj (Media Mobilizing Project, Philadelphia) - "Media Making Movement in Philadelphia"

Chair: Steve Macek (North Central College)

Film and Public Debate

Shelley Stamp (University of California, Santa Cruz) - "The People vs. John Doe: Early Motion Pictures and the Crusade Against Capital Punishment"

Lynne Jackson (St. Francis College) - "Free and Open to All: Possibilities for Micromovies and the Public Debate"

Susan Ryan (College of New Jersey) - "Documentaries and Public Discourse: The Case for Michael Moore"

Scott Weiss (St. Francis College) - "A Case Against the Singular Perspective of the Documentary Film"

Chair: Bonnie Blake (Ramapo College of New Jersey)

Toward a “New” Third Cinema? Recent Agentine Film and the Re-emergence of Class (Part 2): The Post-2001 Resurgence of Non-fiction Film

Antonio Prado (Knox College) - "Towards a Gendered Perspective of the Third Cinema Premises: Working Class Women in the Recent Videoactivism in Argentina"

Patricia Keeton (Ramapo College of New Jersey) - "Third Cinema Principles and Contemporary Worker Struggles: Documentary Representations of Zanon - ‘Fasinpat’ in Argentina"

Fernanda Zullo-Ruiz (Hanover College) - "The New Argentine Cinema: What's Class Got To Do With It?"

Chair: Susan Ryan (College of New Jersey)

The Documentary Text and Social Change: An Investigation of Political Dissent

Deirdre Boyle (The New School) - "Social Documentaries: Subject to Change"

Angela Aguayo (Eastern Illinois University) - "The Camera as a Tool of Social Upheaval: A Critique of Contemporary Activist Documentary Film and Video"

Kristen Hoeri (Auburn University) - "Mourning Activism in Documentary Films about Radical Protest Movements"

Chair: Angela Aguayo (Eastern Illinois University)

Co-Chair: Carrie Wilson-Brown (University of Illinois)

Work Hard, Play Hard: Digital Games and Labor

Aubrey Anable (University of Rochester) - "Playing at Work: Casual Games and the Video Game Theory of Free Labor"

Casey O'Donnell (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) - "Coercive Play and Consenting Work: The Gamer/Game Developer Connection"

Alison Harvey (York University) - "Labor as Play: Value, Ownership, and Regulation in Massively Multiplayer Online Games"

Stephanie Rothenberg (Suny Buffalo) - "School of Perpetual Training"

Chair: Aubrey Anable (University of Rochester)

Workshop: Rethinking Marx in Film and Media Studies
Steve Macek (North Central College)

Benedict Stork (University of Minnesota)

Jason Rovito (Ryerson University)

Gerald Sim (Florida Atlantic University)

Claudia Pummer (University of Iowa)

Paul Smith (George Mason University)

Chair: Kevin McDonald (University of Iowa)

SCMS 2008 Caucus on Class-sponsored Sreenings

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All for the Taking: 21^st Century Urban Renewal, dir. George McCullough, USA, 2005, 58 mins.

** Filmmaker will be present.

Strange Culture, dir. Lynn Hershman-Leeson, USA, 2007, 75 mins. (co-sponsored with the Middle Eastern Caucus)

The Other Side, dir. Bill Brown + Floods, Ghosts, and Contamination, dirs. Jenny Stark & Mark Yzaguirre

*Jenny Stark is tentatively scheduled to be present.

The Bombing of Osage Avenue, dirs. Louis Massiah and Toni Cade Bambara, USA, 1986, 58 mins.

*** Louis Massiah will be present.

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad, dir. Jill Freidberg , USA/Argentina, 2006, 94 mins. (co-sponsored with the Latino/a Caucus)

Mumia: A Case for Reasonable Doubt, dir. John Edginton, USA, 1997, 74 mins.

SCMS INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL MEMORANDUM

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TO: SCMS Executive Council

FROM: SCMS Middle Eastern Caucus; SCMS Caucus on Class

DATE: October 11, 2007

RE: Emergency Resolution on “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”

(October 22-26, 2007)

We are writing to request that the SCMS Executive Council place the following proposed resolution to an emergency vote among the Membership:

Whereas recent attacks on academia by non-academic, neoconservative entities such as Campus Watch, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center and Terrorism Awareness Project (TAP) represent an ongoing trend towards increased policing and censorship of higher education;

Whereas these attempts to undermine professors’ abilities to teach and do research are increasingly directed at scholars who seek to provide a contextualized and critical view of recent international developments and their interaction with U.S. foreign policies and practices;

Whereas neoconservative interference in institutional decisions to deny university tenure and academic rights and provisions to qualified scholars and professors, especially to those engaged in scholarly critiques of historical and continuing conflicts in the Middle East, have become increasingly common in North American universities;

Whereas the current political context increasingly permits anti-Muslim discrimination with regard to dress codes, school prayer, security screenings and other racially and religiously overdetermined profiling;

Whereas post-911 Islam in North America is consistently maligned in neoconservative and mainstream media outlets as anti-democratic and fundamentalist;

Whereas the figure of the oppressed Muslim woman has been appropriated and is often cited by neoconservative groups as the supreme justification for waging war on sovereign nations;

Whereas scholarly methodologies and academic program curricula in the areas of Gender and Sexuality Studies have recently become the focus of debates, both public and academic, over these issues;

Whereas female and glbtq students and scholars across North America are especially likely to be targeted by this trend;

Whereas a preponderant means by which these recent attacks have been waged is the cinema (e.g., The David Project), while feminism and queer theory have been of marked significance in the growth and development of Cinema and Media Studies;

Be it resolved that SCMS opposes all privately and politically motivated, especially non- and extra-academic attempts that seek to influence the content and direction of academic programs, curricula, and methodologies by fostering a hostile, anti-intellectual campus and professional environment for teaching and learning.

Background and Justification for the Resolution:

This Emergency Resolution confronts an initiative spearheaded and sponsored recently by David Horowitz’s Freedom Center and TAP with support from his Students for Academic Freedom. The initiative, “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” is scheduled for October 22-26, 2007 and is advertised widely as “the biggest conservative campus protest ever…a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.”

The stated purpose of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is to expose the “Big Lies” perpetrated by the political left concerning the origins of the current “War on Terror” and the nature of scientific research concerning global climate change. Horowitz asserts that the Bush regime bears no responsibility for this “war,” and that global climate change is a hoax perpetrated by an unpatriotic “academic left” meant to distract public attention from the more urgent “terrorist threat” he claims the U.S. is facing. Despite longstanding critiques by Gender and Sexuality Studies scholars of patriarchal formations on an international scale, and notwithstanding historically documented, opportunistic support by the U.S. itself for militant Islamic leaders such as Osama bin Laden and military dictatorships including those of Saddam Hussein, Horowitz accuses Women’s Studies programs and departments of enabling these “lies” through purported ironic silence regarding the patriarchal character of Islamic fundamentalism, and of thereby exhibiting “sympathy for the enemy” of American freedom.

The Freedom Center and TAP are disseminating information and student guides for hosting Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (http://www.terrorismawareness.org) and claim to have already begun organizing events on more than 110 campuses nationwide. Many of these campuses house well-known programs and departments in Cinema and/or Media Studies as well as in Women’s Studies, including University of Iowa, UCLA, USC, UC-Berkeley, Emory University, Temple University (Philadelphia), Brooklyn College-CUNY, George Mason University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Brown University, University of Pittsburgh, Duke University, University of Colorado-Boulder, College of New Jersey, University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Delaware, Stanford University, Penn State, Tulane University, Georgia Tech, and NC State University. We believe that scholars, professors, and students belonging to these racially and religiously diverse urban and suburban campuses shall draw strength from this Emergency Resolution as it reaffirms their right to uphold for rigorous intellectual scrutiny Horowitz’s erroneous and prejudicial characterization of Islam in these guides as “the violent expansionist ideology of the so-called ‘religion of peace’ that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government.”

Among other things, the TAP guides promote campus teach-ins on “The Oppression of Women in Islam” as well as supply petitions denouncing “Islamo-Fascist violence against women, gays, Christians, Jews and non-religious people,” and promote sit-ins at Women’s Studies departments and Women’s Centers and campus screenings of films about “the Islamo-Fascist crusade against America, Israel and the West.” The stated goal of these events is to “refute the curriculum of the left, which teaches that America is the enemy in the war on terror and that terrorists are ‘freedom fighters’ whom progressives should support.” Insofar as the promotion of several anti-Muslim films, complete with canned post-screening discussion questions, is a key element in Horowitz’s campus initiative, we believe that SCMS members are uniquely qualified to expose and counter the superficial and literalist character of that initiative as it propagates theoretically uninformed, ideologically displaced understandings of the production, dissemination, and reception of moving images.

Though Horowitz is likely to declare success if his self-proclaimed “controversial” initiative diverts any amount of time and resources from more productive pursuits, we believe that it is worth taking a public position against the ostensibly planned events, which we re-understand as occasions for students and scholars, feminists and cineastes among them, to educate their peers and colleagues about the larger issues which conservative groups such as TAP and ACTA (the latter spearheaded by Lynne Cheney and Joseph Lieberman) claim to represent and for which they deem to hold the moral high ground. The planned series of students protests will likely be “astro-turf” affairs largely devoid of genuine student support—Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom chapters are little more than Potemkin villages funded by neoconservative foundations. However, like Horowitz’s prior, failed initiative, the Academic Bill of Rights, and echoing heightened public discourse around continuing neoconservative attacks on scholars of Middle Eastern history and culture (among them Nadia Abu El-Haj, Norman Finkelstein, Mehren Larudee, Wadi Said [son of the late Edward Said], Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad, and others), these “protests” will also likely attract significant attention in the media and among politically sensitive college and university officials and may result in deleterious actions against Women’s Studies programs and departments, many of which are already hard-hit by politically motivated budget cuts and impending closures since at least 9/11/01.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, “It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment, and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail ‘the four essential freedoms’ of a university—to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study” (stated by Justice Felix Frankfurter in Sweezy v. New Hampshire [354 U.S. 234 1957] and Justice Lewis Powell in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke [438 U.S. 265 1978]). According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), however, the political interference by conservatives demanding “political diversity” on so-called left-dominated campuses is a direct assault on the First Amendment. It marks “not an alignment of conservative versus liberal, but rather individuals for and against institutional autonomy” (http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/protectrights/legal/Updates-speeches/Baruchupdate.htm). Therefore, according to the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), “academic freedom is not a liberal, progressive, or leftist issue, but a matter of concern for all scholars, regardless of their political beliefs” (http://www.meanthro.org/Handbook-1.pdf).

As the above-referenced MESA handbook reminds, teachers and academic scholars have a professional obligation to fulfill our responsibilities in the classroom, in the wider university, and to the academy at large—responsibilities which demand imparting to students and colleagues our clearest understanding, based upon the best research available, of the events and ideas central to our courses and research, even and especially when this understanding is unpopular or runs counter to prevailing norms and preconceptions.

In view of these points, we urge the SCMS Executive Council to encourage an adoption of this proposed Emergency Resolution against “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” and in that way to take a leadership position amongst North American academic organizations by formally challenging the deleterious trend marked by TAP and ACTA toward increasing censorship and intimidation of U.S. students and scholars.