[VIDEO] WHEN AMERICA WAS AN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRY: Historian David McCullough has a new book’ “The Greater Journey”, which is about American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects who travelled to Paris in the years between 1830-1900. At that time, Paris was the medical capital of the world and far advanced in the arts. These Americans were strongly patriotic and studied there to excel in their own fields before returning to America.
Amazon.com Blurb:
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked on a greater journey in the City of Light. Most had never left home, never experienced a different culture. None had any guarantee of success. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history. As David McCullough writes, “Not all pioneers went west.” Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America, was one of this intrepid band. Another was Charles Sumner, who enrolled at the Sorbonne because of a burning desire to know more about everything. There he saw black students with the same ambition he had, and when he returned home, he would become the most powerful, unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate, almost at the cost of his life.
Two staunch friends, James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F. B. Morse, worked unrelentingly every day in Paris, Cooper writing and Morse painting what would be his masterpiece. From something he saw in France, Morse would also bring home his momentous idea for the telegraph.
Pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk from New Orleans launched his spectacular career performing in Paris at age 15. George P. A. Healy, who had almost no money and little education, took the gamble of a lifetime and with no prospects whatsoever in Paris became one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the day. His subjects included Abraham Lincoln.
Medical student Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote home of his toil and the exhilaration in “being at the center of things” in what was then the medical capital of the world. From all they learned in Paris, Holmes and his fellow “medicals” were to exert lasting influence on the profession of medicine in the United States.
Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James were all “discovering” Paris, marveling at the treasures in the Louvre, or out with the Sunday throngs strolling the city’s boulevards and gardens. “At last I have come into a dreamland,” wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, seeking escape from the notoriety Uncle Tom’s Cabin had brought her. Almost forgotten today, the heroic American ambassador Elihu Washburne bravely remained at his post through the Franco-Prussian War, the long Siege of Paris and even more atrocious nightmare of the Commune. His vivid account in his diary of the starvation and suffering endured by the people of Paris (drawn on here for the first time) is one readers will never forget. The genius of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the son of an immigrant shoemaker, and of painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, three of the greatest American artists ever, would flourish in Paris, inspired by the examples of brilliant French masters, and by Paris itself.
Nearly all of these Americans, whatever their troubles learning French, their spells of homesickness, and their suffering in the raw cold winters by the Seine, spent many of the happiest days and nights of their lives in Paris. McCullough tells this sweeping, fascinating story with power and intimacy, bringing us into the lives of remarkable men and women who, in Saint-Gaudens’s phrase, longed “to soar into the blue.” The Greater Journey is itself a masterpiece.
-Amazon.com Blurb
- Hardcover: 576 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (May 24, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1416571760
- ISBN-13: 978-1416571766
[FILM] “”True sexuality demands the destruction of the ego,” she says, …a kind of self-annihilation…, which is “the opposite to what Freud proposes.”—’A DANGEROUS METHOD’ –brings to mind the novel “The Interpretation of Murder”
I really enjoyed this film. Having been recently ruminating once more on the sociological pathology of Honour Killings and the necessity to control the chastity of young females in most patriarchical societies, this film made me wonder whether it was indeed the birth of the Austrian-’Jewish’ school of psychoanalysis which led to the advent of the liberation of female sexuality in Western society. This may be obvious to some, but I find the potential of this quite intriguing. Especially in light of my introduction to Otto Gross from this movie. He actually deserves a separate post on his own (soon). I think psychoanalysis may be owed a great debt by the Western Society generally, a society which today is quite distinct from its Victorian Era incarnation, having had so many taboos and inter-related psychic truths brought out of closets into the public to be acknowledged and dealt with. The writing in this film is quite erudite, making one almost want to take notes at times. Such as the questioning of WHY humans, while such sexual animals, have this overwhelming need to repress this sexuality at the same time. This of course, is what the foundation of psychoanalysis was all about–the search for an understanding of this unfortunate duality…which inevitably leads to emotional baggage in a great number of humanoids. This film is recommended for neurotic uber-ruminators. Perhaps as a elementary introduction to the history of psychoanalysis. Also do read The Interpretation of Murder.
-rudhro
Keira Knightley in ‘A Dangerous Method’ — Oscar-Worthy or Laughable?
[VIDEO] Slavoj Zizek: The Monstrosity of Christ
The Monstrosity of Christ
Paradox or Dialectic?
Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank
Edited by Creston Davis
What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.
—John Milbank
To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.
—Slavoj Žižek
In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion’s illusions; in the other corner, “radical orthodox” theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries–and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.
Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century’s greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns nothing less than the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek’s turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.
Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with “paradox.” The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation.
Short Circuits series, edited by Slavoj Žižek
About the Authors
Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press).
John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books.
Creston Davis, who conceived of the encounter between Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank, studied under both men.
ENDORSEMENTS
“The contemporary return to the theological most dramatically occurs in this book, as Zizek fully realizes his earlier Hegelian and Lacanian theological work, a work that Milbank can essentially know as a uniquely modern expression of nihilism. Nonetheless Milbank enters into a genuine theological dialogue with this nihilism, and a truly new theological discourse occurs. This effects a paradoxical union between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and between radical orthodoxy and radical heterodoxy, which is perhaps the deepest motif of the contemporary return to the theological.”
—Thomas J. J. Altizer, author of Godhead and the Nothing
“In this dazzling dialogue, Zizek and Milbank change words and cross swords, until the point where both recognize that Christ and Hegel, in their monstrosity, look very much alike. A phenomenal achievement!”
—Catherine Malabou, Maître de Conferences, Philosophy Department, Université Paris-X Nanterre
[FILM] GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS. Gloria Steinhem’s life and the Women’s Movement.
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CLICK MOVIE POSTER TO WATCH FULL DOCUMENTARY
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Despite decades of opposition from the right, and recent personal setbacks, Gloria Steinem remains one of the most outspoken and visible symbols of the women’s movement today. Produced and directed by Emmy®-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt (HBO’s “JFK: In His Own Words” and “Teddy: In His Own Words”), GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS blends interviews of Steinem in her Manhattan apartment, archival footage, photographs from throughout her life and clips from press interviews over the years. Among those interviewing Steinem in the film are Barbara Walters, Helen Gurley Brown, Phil Donahue and Larry King. The documentary also features archival footage of such prominent women’s movement figures as National Organization for Women (NOW) co-founder Betty Friedan, congresswoman Bella Abzug and civil rights advocate Flo Kennedy.
GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS chronicles Steinem’s emergence as a driving force in the modern women’s liberation movement. She recalls beginning her career as a journalist in New York City in the early 1960s and making headlines with an expose on the working conditions of Playboy Bunnies, noting, “I learned what’s it’s like to be hung on a meat hook.”
Having had an abortion at age 22 (which she kept secret at the time), Steinem’s political awakening accelerated when she covered an abortion hearing for New York Magazine in 1969 and learned of the horrifying and humiliating experiences women endured attempting to exercise their right to reproductive freedom. 
She began to seek out everything she could find on the burgeoning women’s movement and helped lead the nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality march on Aug. 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the enactment of women’s suffrage. It was, Steinem notes, “the first time in my life, and I think for many other women too, that we marched for ourselves.”
Since then, Steinem has been ever-present on the front lines of social activism, co-founding Ms. Magazine, where she continues to serve as a consulting editor, in 1972, despite media speculation about the publication’s viability. She recalls that at the time “there was nothing for women to read that was controlled by women.” Steinem became the public face of the women’s rights movement, participating in marches, making media appearances and also weathering the inevitable backlash, feeling she had to work twice as hard to not be judged by her looks. Indeed, Steinem would become almost as well-known for her distinct style as for her political activism, remembering that her streaked blonde locks were inspired by the character Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Her signature aviator glasses were about concealment, she reveals, saying, “The bigger they were, the more I felt I could hide behind them.” 
GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS also explores Steinem’s early days. Born in 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, she studied tap dance as a child and watched her mother give up a career as a journalist to have children. Her parents had a rocky marriage and ultimately divorced. Steinem, who attended Smith College, wonders whether devoting so much of her time and energy to the women’s movement was a way to avoid the kind of suffering her mother experienced.
The film also looks at the challenges Steinem has faced in later years. Diagnosed with breast cancer soon after turning 50, she underwent surgery and radiation.
“The cancer served a real purpose, making me a little bit more conscious of time,” she observes. Taking a break from public life after decades of traveling nonstop, Steinem “hit bottom” and began to look internally, writing the self-esteem book “Revolution from Within” in the early ‘90s. Interviewed at the time, she noted, “Being a social activist can be a drug that keeps you from going back and looking at yourself.”
And after decades of remaining single, she married entrepreneur David Bale – father of actor Christian Bale – in 2000, but he died after they had been married just over three years. GLORIA: IN HER OWN WORDS is produced by Peter Kunhardt and Sheila Nevins; directed by Peter Kunhardt; editing and graphic design by Phillip Schopper; original music by Michael Bacon. For Kunhardt McGee Productions: executive producer, Dyllan McGee. For HBO: supervising producer, Jacqueline Glover.
CHINA 2011: 16 VERY INTERESTING FACTS
ONE:
By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.
“[By 2025,] 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built — in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers — the equivalent of ten New York Cities.”
Jane Jacobs and the Power of Women Planners
Roberta Brandes Gratz
November 16, 2011
Fifty years ago this month, Jane Jacobs published Death and Life of Great American Cities and changed the way the world understands cities. Yet even when she’s acknowledged as an important urban thinker, the ‘housewife’ qualifier is invariably included. When we talk about strategies for city growth and economic development, women aren’t often offered seats at the table. They hold jobs in the field but few posts as critics. Jane was the exception. But the rules didn’t change a great deal.
Jacobs broke into the national discussion about cities somewhat by accident. She was a reluctant stand-in for her Architectural Forum male editor at a cities conference in 1956. She had written some insightful articles about how cities work, particularly in Vogue, documenting how New York City’s fur and flower districts evolved organically.
Today, her early observations are considered pathbreaking. But happenstance thrust her into the public eye.
Jacobs’ early attention-getting articles in Architectural Forum and Fortune Magazine happened because she had as a champion a distinguished male editor William Holly Whyte. Whyte gained fame for writing The Organization Man and for espousing ideas similar to hers. But he had to overcome a sputtering, angry Fortune publisher who once asked, “Who is this crazy dame?”
A housewife without even a college degree was unacceptable. After all, Lewis Mumford’s scathing review of Death and Life was headlined “Mother Jacobs Home Remedies.” (more…)
Is Civilization A Universally Bad Idea?
Written by Adam Frank
November 15, 2011
The ice ages came and the ice ages went. For more than a half-million years Homo sapiens endured the changing climate by adapting. Then, deep in the frozen expanse of the last global big chill, something new happened. We woke up to ourselves in a new way.
We became self-conscious, creating art, culture and tools of far greater complexity than anything that had come before. When the ice pulled back yet again, we eventually took a step of even greater consequence. We domesticated ourselves and put the Earth to the plow.
With agriculture came surplus and with surplus came new social arrangements. Eventually, we built cities and far-ranging empires to support them. Human beings began buildingcivilization. In doing so we set ourselves and the entire planet onto a new trajectory.
But did anyone ever stop to ask if it was a good idea?
Now before you give in to the easy snort and chortle that accompanies a seemingly absurd question like this, I am going to ask you to take the long view. In this case long means billions of years, and billions of planets.
We don’t want to ask the question: Is civilization good for you (or me)? Instead we want to ask: Is civilization good — in the long term — for planets and their capacity to support life (or at least technologically adept civilizations)?
In other words, we want to frame the question of sustainability in an astrobiological setting. (more…)
““If you’re a typical North American, at the end of a long, stressful day at work, you’re not saying, ‘I can’t wait to get in my car. I would just love to go for a drive.’ It’s much more likely you’ll say, ‘I wish I could go for a walk,’ ” That’s the point at which people run up against what’s called the Marchetti Wall – the psychological barrier against spending more than about an hour getting to work or coming home. The concept is named for a Venetian physicist named Cesare Marchetti, who posited not only that human beings instinctively adjust their lives to avoid travelling more than that amount every day, but that we’ve been doing so since the Neolithic era…”
Cars have ruined our cities, our societies and are relationships–not to mention the more obvious environmental issues. I used to LOVE them…dream about them, yearn for them and have them define my concept of freedom, adulthood and status. I grew up in Edmonton though. Having since driven my last car from Vancouver to Toronto and sold it while it sat unused, cost me parking, insurance and other sundry charges–as I rode my bike or walked in the downtown splendour that is superurban downtown Toronto..I now just view them as moving chambers of internal combustion explosions–whether super new or an old beater: the technology is 150 years old. They are a hassle downtown, and I love that. ”Where do I park?” ”Where’s the gas station?” ”Shit! Another ticket??!!” ”My car’s broken down, I have to repair it for $2500…” “I still can’t find parking!?”
No more for me. And as an Urban Planning Grad Student in 2011, I relish the opportunities awakening in the cities of the world, to go back in time and redesign neighbourhoods and streets for human beings…
To rediscover what Jane Jacobs had referred to as the Ballet of the Streets of her beloved Manhattan. The death of the love affair with the car, is like how smoking is so frowned upon now…a paradigmatic shift is in the works, and as a soon to be professional Urban Planner, I can’t think of a better, practical, more necessary vocation.
Let the War on the Car begin. Let’s rediscover the joys of having Main Streets, not malls, and Eyes on the Street, not eyes in the rearview, and the strengthened Social Capital of familiar faces on the stroll home everyone.
-rudhro
Are we reaching ‘peak car’?
ANITA ELASH
Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011
Anyone who has been stuck in big-city gridlock lately may find this hard to believe, but millions of Westerners are giving up their cars.
Experts say our love affair with the automobile is ending, and that could change much more than how we get around – it presents both an opportunity and an imperative to rethink how we build cities, how governments budget and even the contours of the political landscape.
The most detailed picture of the trend comes from the United States, where the distance driven by Americans per capita each year flatlined at the turn of the century and has been dropping for six years. By last spring, Americans were driving the same distance as they had in 1998. (more…)
[VIDEO] THE FUTURE AGE OF PERSUASION – CHRIS ANDERSON EXPLAINS WHERE TED TALKS AND ONLINE MARKETING IS HEADED
TED’s mission is ideas worth spreading. The dream behind the Ads Worth Spreading initiative is to find companies that want to communicate ideas to their consumers in the same way that TED wants to communicate with its audience.
Revealing the way a company thinks tells consumers what that company is and what it stands for.
“In our brave new interconnected world, the rules of marketing are changing fast,” says Anderson. “Ambush advertising is broken. We think there’s a better way, based on sharing powerful ideas. Most companies are teeming with amazing ideas that the rest of the world never gets to see. By letting some of those ideas out into the world in an authentic way, companies have a shot at transforming the way they are perceived. We’re looking forward to another fantastic round of entries from forward-thinking companies and people.”
We’re combining curation and crowdsourcing to find the best ads from every corner of the globe.
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The Age of Persuasion explores the countless ways marketers permeate your life, from media, art, and language, to politics, religion, and fashion.
[VIDEO] BBC SERIES: How TV Ruined Your Life written and presented by Charlie Brooker
How TV Ruined Your Life is a six-episode BBC Two television series written and presented by Charlie Brooker.
Charlie Brooker, whose earlier TV-related programmes include How to Watch Television, Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe and You Have Been Watching, examines how the medium has bent reality to fit its own ends. Produced by Zeppotron, the series aired its first episode in January 2011.
The series was reviewed mildly positively, with some criticism of the series’ topic (criticism of television), some positive remarks about specific segments, and some abuse in jest from Brooker’s colleagues at The Guardian: “Ha! I mean, boo! I hate him.” In the Scotsman, it was noted that “though so far Brooker hasn’t been pulling any punches”, some of Brooker’s topics were deemed too broad, some of his targets were called “too familiar”, like his mockery of 1970s public service safety announcements, and Brooker himself “may be heading towards one of those programmes he has so savagely parodied.” The Metro enjoyed Brooker’s making “merrily sardonic hay“, and found his skewering of some TV fearmongering “spot on”, but found his targets pretty easy, “nicking TV news (‘like looking directly in the face of terror’) with flesh-wounds when once upon a time he would have gone for the heart”, and described the show as “cobbled together.” All six full episodes below: (more…)
“The Elusive Big Idea” – Neal Gabler says we are living in a “post-idea world”–I disagree
Bullshit. So he compares an annual list with a century of incredible ideas? That in itself is a straw man…Also, perhaps it’s just a phase we’re in–either societally as we have only just entered a new age of information, so we have to regroup, OR as individuals, including Gabler..perhaps at an older stage we can settle down, tune out and produce our own ‘ideas’ to add to the fishies above everyones heads.
And what about Chris Hedges? For just one example.
To me, Gabler reads like he had a thesis and wrote around it. Let’s all make a list on this wall of those we consider worthy contemporary thinkers, shall we? I continue with Alain de Botton, Slavoj Zizek…
–rudhro
WRIITEN BY: NEAL GABLER
August 13, 2011
THE July/August issue of The Atlantic trumpets the “14 Biggest Ideas of the Year.” Take a deep breath. The ideas include “The Players Own the Game” (No. 12), “Wall Street: Same as it Ever Was” (No. 6), “Nothing Stays Secret” (No. 2), and the very biggest idea of the year, “The Rise of the Middle Class — Just Not Ours,” which refers to growing economies in Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Now exhale. It may strike you that none of these ideas seem particularly breathtaking. In fact, none of them are ideas. They are more on the order of observations. But one can’t really fault The Atlantic for mistaking commonplaces for intellectual vision. Ideas just aren’t what they used to be. Once upon a time, they could ignite fires of debate, stimulate other thoughts, incite revolutions and fundamentally change the ways we look at and think about the world.
They could penetrate the general culture and make celebrities out of thinkers — notably Albert Einstein, but also Reinhold Niebuhr, Daniel Bell, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, to name a few. The ideas themselves could even be made famous: for instance, for “the end of ideology,” “the medium is the message,” “the feminine mystique,” “the Big Bang theory,” “the end of history.” A big idea could capture the cover of Time — “Is God Dead?” — and intellectuals like Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal would even occasionally be invited to the couches of late-night talk shows. How long ago that was.
If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé. (more…)
[VIDEO] RSA ANIMATE: Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,”
This lecture was given at the Royal Society of Arts in London (The RSA) and was commissioned by them as part of their “RSAnimation” series of videos.
Why don’t we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. It’s a message with deep resonance. Robinson’s TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? “Everyone should watch this.”
A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.
“Ken’s vision and expertise is sought by public and commercial organizations throughout the world.”
BBC Radio 4 (more…)
HIMANI BANNERJI: “On the Dark Side of the Nation: Politics of Multiculturalism and the State of “Canada”" AKA “RUDHRO, DON’T FORGET TO BRING SAMOSAS TO THE ‘WE LOVE MULTICULTURALISM’ PARTY!”
Copyright Trent University Fall 1996
On the Dark Side of the Nation: Politics of Multiculturalism and the State of “Canada”
HIMANI BANNERJI
This paper is primarily concerned with the construction of “Canada” as a social and cultural form of national identity, and various challenges and interruptions offered to this identity by literature produced by writers from non – white communities. The first part of the paper examines both literary and political – theoretical formulations of a “two – nation,” “two solitudes” thesis and their implications for various cultural accommodations offered to “others,” especially through the mechanism of “multiculturalism.” The second part concentrates on the experiences and standpoint of people of colour, or non – white people, especially since the 1960s, and the cultural and political formulating derivable from them.
I am from the country Columbus dreamt of. You, the country Columbus conquered. Now in your land My words are circling blue Oka sky they come back to us alight on tongue.
Protect me with your brazen passion for history is my truth, Earth, my witness my home, this native land.
OKA NADA”: A New Remembrance, Kaushalya Bannerji
The Personal and the Political: A Chorus and a Problematic
When the women’s movement came along and we were coming to our political consciousness, one of its slogans took us by surprise and thrilled and activated us: “the personal is political!” Since then years have gone by, and in the meanwhile I have found myself in Canada, swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen of England, giving up the passport of a long – fought – for independence, and being assigned into the category of “visible minority.” These years have produced their own consciousness in me, and I have learnt that also the reverse is true: the political is personal. (more…)
