The Sound of Protest: Bollywood’s Jimmy Jimmy and COVID unrest in China

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The Sound of Protest: Bollywood’s Jimmy Jimmy and COVID unrest in China

While factory workers in China voiced their protest of Covid 19 lockdowns on the street and online, another subtler wave of online protest emerged as humor through the sound of Bollywood. The Chinese Tik Tok Duoyin abounded with videos of Chinese netizens (Internet citizens)  singing Jimmy, Jimmy a popular Bollywood song from the 1980s. Jimmy Jimmy, however, is not just any Bollywood song; it was the youth anthem for many soviets and east Europeans in the eighties. This post focuses on three aspects of this event. First, what qualities make a song a protest song? Second, how do we account for the transcultural, trans-linguistic flow of the song, and what does this exchange reveal about the cultural dissemination and absorption of Bollywood in China?

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A Bowl of Cherries: Footage of a Forgotten Happening

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A Bowl of Cherries: Footage of a Forgotten Happening

The satirical featurette A Bowl of Cherries (1961, dir. William Kronick) tells the story of a starry-eyed cowboy, named Sherman Williams, who moves to Greenwich Village with hopes of becoming America’s next great painter. It features prominent cameos by Jim Dine, Robert Whitman, and Lucas Samaras  — three major pioneers of the downtown "Happening” scene. These artists introduce our protagonist to the prevailing style of “action painting,” made famous by Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, forever altering his worldview. By the time A Bowl of Cherries hit theaters, action painting was on the verge of decline — making it a suitable subject of parody for artworld insiders witnessing these changes in real time.

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We Witnessed One of the Best FIFA World Cups Ever Played on the Graves of Thousands of Migrant Workers… What Now?

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We Witnessed One of the Best FIFA World Cups Ever Played on the Graves of Thousands of Migrant Workers… What Now?

On December 18, 2022, approximately one out of every five human beings on Earth watched Lionel Messi lift the World Cup for Argentina in Qatar. What seemed like the pinnacle of everything sports, culture, politics, entertainment, and humanity was reached when Gonzalo Montiel neatly tucked in that 4th Argentina penalty to the right of French captain and goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris. What still replays in my mind, as well for millions of others, is iconic Argentinian American sports commentator, Andres Cantor, calling the game live in Spanish for Telemundo as that final penalty went in, “GOOOOOOLLLLLLLL! ARGENTINA CAMPEÓN DEL MUNDO! ARGENTINA CAMPEÓN DEL MUNDO!” as he smiled and cried on live air.

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How Omegaverse Came to Dominate Fanfiction, and Why That Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing

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How Omegaverse Came to Dominate Fanfiction, and Why That Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing

Omegaverse may not be hitting the mainstream any time soon, but awareness of the trope is no longer limited to the few—or not so few—actively engaging in fanfiction communities. To quote one of my students, “it just recreates heteronormativity and misogyny, but more and worse.” This just begs the question: what makes omegaverse so popular, and should we be worried about it? In omegaverse, writers take us right to the worst parts of cis-hetero-patriarchy; they reject the world we live in in order to explore the complications of sex, gender, and sexuality more deeply. Then, like many dystopian science fiction writers do, they ask what if?

Header image attribution https://foto.wuestenigel.com/women-writing-on-paper/

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Elder Orphans: A Hard Knock Life?

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Elder Orphans: A Hard Knock Life?

We can learn from Jay-Z's point of view about the resilience and strength of the underdog when it comes to growing old on one’s own and on what it means to be an “elder orphan” in America. Being a solo ager is not rare and is even becoming the norm, especially for women. It’s not a stretch to think that older adults are more freaked out than usual about the possibility of being placed in a nursing home, given what we’ve lived through over the last three years - over 200,000 staff and residents in nursing facilities in the U.S. died, more than 23 times the death rate for people over 65 not in a nursing home. What's an elder orphan to make of that?

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A Glimpse into the Brain-Bending Way We Appraise Health Information

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A Glimpse into the Brain-Bending Way We Appraise Health Information

While the problem of mis/disinformation is not new, the advent of social media has magnified the reach and impact of unverified and harmful health information. What underlying skills, competencies and biases allow some people to sail past junk science and others to capsize? There is a relationship between the intersection of media and health literacies – referred to here as Media Health Literacy – and health beliefs/outcomes. But an individual’s appraisal of health information appears to be more susceptible to confirmation bias - only trusting information that confirms pre-existing beliefs - than more disembodied behavioral decision-making processes.

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Current Discourses on Online Child Safety: Exacerbating Stranger Danger or Redefining Genuine Responsibility?

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Current Discourses on Online Child Safety: Exacerbating Stranger Danger or Redefining Genuine Responsibility?

With younger users becoming one of the fastest growing demographics in platforms that brand themselves “Metaverses,” such as Roblox or VRChat, many companies are asking themselves how to ensure a safe environment for minors. But are platforms positive that their definitions of safety and harm accurately represent what users think? Whom do these definitions really serve, especially when we take into consideration younger users’ rights to expression, play, or privacy? Can platforms instead place trust in minors to take charge in certain safety decisions that affect them?

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The Fight Between Liberal Arts and STEM Majors

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The Fight Between Liberal Arts and STEM Majors

The conflict between liberal arts and STEM majors has been debated in China for the past few decades. The debate reflects a STEM-first education culture in China, which developed because the contemporary education system was modeled after the Soviet Union and focused on the development of industrialization. This situation is quite different from the central role that liberal arts studies played in China’s historical development. The argument that this article is trying to state is not that the STEM major is not worthy of being valued but that both majors should be given similar weight.

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Extending the Body: Exploring Protest Posters as Feminist Media in South Africa’s Am I Next? Movement

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Extending the Body: Exploring Protest Posters as Feminist Media in South Africa’s Am I Next? Movement

When thinking about South Africa’s Am I Next? movement, I realized that the protest poster is a tool that feminists use to turn their own bodies into feminist media. Initially a hashtag, the Am I Next? movement began as a digital tool to raise awareness and an online space for feminist expression. With this in mind, I wonder: How do viral hashtags transform when attached to the human body? Does attaching text to the Black female body in protest make Black female pain easier to read? And if so, how does this complicate our understanding of what it means to write and read with the body?

(Content Warning: This article contains references to gender violence)

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Self-Dissection Through My Obsession with LEGO

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Self-Dissection Through My Obsession with LEGO

At first, my love for LEGO was an intuition. Later I started to think about it with rationality. I suspect one of the basic logics behind my love for LEGO is my obsession with miniature versions of common items. Lately, I’ve found that Johan Huizinga’s concept of “free play” could partially explain my obsession with LEGO and miniatures.

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Towards More Just Game Worlds: Conversations with Creative Game Designers

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Towards More Just Game Worlds: Conversations with Creative Game Designers

This project is a part of the NSF-funded National AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming (DRL-2019805) housed at University of Colorado Boulder. Indeed, people with the backgrounds of the six game designers we interviewed are underrepresented and systematically marginalized in the commercial game industry. The goal for interviewing the six game designers during our co-design process of curriculum was to introduce young learners to transformative ways for game design and develop their understanding of game ecology. 

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What Makes Chernobyl Beautiful from a Screenwriting Perspective?

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What Makes Chernobyl Beautiful from a Screenwriting Perspective?

Chernobyl achieved considerable critical and public acclaim. A result that couldn’t be taken for granted when the project started. The not so fashionable subject matter, its tragic nuances, the risk of addressing historical figures, events, and a society – the Soviet Union of the Eighties – that could appear unappealing, if not even too far from western contemporary culture and tastes. Greenlighting the production meant going against all odds. It ended up being a very good bet, though. What are the reasons for this surprising success?

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Chernobyl and the Anthropology of Sacrifice

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Chernobyl and the Anthropology of Sacrifice

From the very beginning, Chernobyl is packed with scenes of sacrifice. It is no coincidence that the narrative opens with Legasov’s immolation, underlining the centrality of sacrifice in the series. In this sense, the various sacrificial events presented in the story may be broadly grouped into three types: the one voluntarily assumed by multiple characters throughout the series (heroic); the animal sacrifice perpetrated by the authorities or forced by the toxic radioactive situation, where immolation adopts a literal as well as figurative value (symbolic); and finally, the offering of another innocent human being, releasing others from their hardships and adversities (redemptive).

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Chernobyl a Miniseries Between “Reality” and “Television”

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Chernobyl a Miniseries Between “Reality” and “Television”

Chernobyl (HBO – SKY, 2019) is a miniseries inspired by the real fact (or, rather to say, by the huge amount of historical, journalistic, administrative and scientific documents available on the subject) and also, in part, by the book Prayer for Chernoby by Svetlana Aleksievic. Miniseries are one of the most popular formats in current television production. They are characterised by a closure at the end of the planned episodes and are therefore also called limited series.

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Lessons from Chernobyl... the HBO Series...

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Lessons from Chernobyl... the HBO Series...

The above quotes of Greek audiences of the series Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) raise a crucial question regarding the cognitive effects of the interplay between audiovisual genres. One could ask: What if history was teached through watching movies inside classrooms? The question is partially rhetoric since - to various extents - this educational and pedagogical practice, e.g. the use of fiction and movies to support teaching history or other subjects is implemented in all educational levels. Thus, fiction is de facto crafting historical memories and knowledge…

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History, Power, and Narrative: Chernobyl is Still There

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History, Power, and Narrative: Chernobyl is Still There

The title of this contribution is alluding to the relationship between history and fiction, in Chernobyl tv series. On the one hand, the Chernobyl series challenges the so-called connection between fiction and nonfiction. It takes up the narration of the events in a rather precise way; but, at the same time, it works on memory and narrative, on the construction of personal experience and testimony, as well as on perception – and therefore on the plastic (that is, aesthetic-perceptual) and visual/figurative dimension. On the other hand, the question is: how the process of contextualization is staged?

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Chernobyl: From Nuclear Disaster to the TV Series, and Beyond – The Importance of Archives in Narrative Construction

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Chernobyl: From Nuclear Disaster to the TV Series, and Beyond – The Importance of Archives in Narrative Construction

The title of this contribution is alluding to the relationship between history and fiction, in Chernobyl tv series. On the one hand, the Chernobyl series challenges the so-called connection between fiction and nonfiction. It takes up the narration of the events in a rather precise way; but, at the same time, it works on memory and narrative, on the construction of personal experience and testimony, as well as on perception – and therefore on the plastic (that is, aesthetic-perceptual) and visual/figurative dimension. On the other hand, the question is: how the process of contextualization is staged?

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Chernobyl Miniseries Polarizations: Good/Bad, Rational/Emotional

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Chernobyl Miniseries Polarizations: Good/Bad, Rational/Emotional

Plots in Television series are often based on polarizations, in other words, on binary oppositions, which are extremely simple to follow. The miniseries Chernobyl brings into play a distinct clash between good and evil. The main opposition spectators are faced with is an ethical one, between the good guys, the scientists Valery Legasov and Ulana Khomyuk, who heroically try to limit the damage of the disaster, and the bad guys, the technicians of the nuclear plant Anatoly Dyatlov, Viktor Bryukhanov and Nicolai Fomian, who due to their incompetence and arrogance are the cause of the accident. Amongst the bad guys, various institutions can be placed like the government and the KGB, which have hidden and are still continuing to hide the deplorable mistakes made in the plant construction.

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Intermedial Realism in Chernobyl

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Intermedial Realism in Chernobyl

The persuasive effectiveness of the miniseries Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) comes from its documentary approach (Odin 2013). It is not just about historical accuracy in representing places and people, furnishings, clothing and technology in the fictional reconstruction of a narrative possible world (Eco 1979; Ryan 2014). The "figures" of death from invisible radiation are achieved through a sound design that remixes Geiger counters; the scenes of contaminated urban spaces and forests are based on iconographic sources from photo reports at the disaster site; characters and narrative situations (e.g., the death of the young firefighter) are created using investigative literature of interviews with survivors and their families as source texts. And after the fictional finale, Chernobyl goes on to feature a long documentary sequence, with photos and archive footage, that becomes an ethical and political commentary on the nuclear disaster and its management.

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