Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo
I'm a college professor in Washington teaching students about race relations and systems of inequality. I am also a scholar doing research in the following areas:
Puerto Rican and Latina/o Studies
Race and gender in popular culture
Latino/a literature and constructions of ethnicity and gender
Puerto Rico/US relations
Colonialism/imperialism and Empire
Post-9/11 cultural and rhetorical productions
Race Relations in the US
Department Bio Page: https://slcr.wsu.edu/faculty/carmen-r-lugo-lugo/
Puerto Rican and Latina/o Studies
Race and gender in popular culture
Latino/a literature and constructions of ethnicity and gender
Puerto Rico/US relations
Colonialism/imperialism and Empire
Post-9/11 cultural and rhetorical productions
Race Relations in the US
Department Bio Page: https://slcr.wsu.edu/faculty/carmen-r-lugo-lugo/
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The book analyzes the specific ways in which recent Hollywood films have become both powerful forces of significance and also forceful representations of reality about post-9/11 life. From films that explicitly treat subjects related to 9/11, such as United 93 and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, to films that show post-9/11 themes in less-expected ways, such as Eat, Pray, Love and World War Z, the authors explore tensions around race, gender, and sexuality. The book examines our perceptions of reality after the events of September 11, 2001, as shown by one of the more influential means of cultural representation—Hollywood films.
--Ronald R. Sundstrom, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, The University of San Francisco, United States
"If you want to understand how a new biopolitics of citizenship is containing bodies of the nation by re-inscribing sex and race into it and how this new biopolitics is being resisted you must read this book."
--Engin F. Isin, Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies, The Open University, United Kingdom
Reviews:
"Animated films have increasingly become not only a major source of entertainment in American society but also a vast and complex mode of education. Animating Difference is one of the best books we have to enlighten, critique, and engage animated films through the intricate interplay of politics, education and entertainment. This is beautifully written and an immensely important book and should be read by everyone concerned about how we learn, watch, engage, and invest in our understanding of ourselves and others." —Henry Giroux, Pennsylvania State University, author of The Mouse That Roared "
"
roots of this idea extend to an earlier point in US history). Trump continued to deploy the image of Mexican immigrants as diseased invaders after his election by talking and tweeting about how
these immigrants bring diseases to the United States, placing contagious threats squarely at the US-Mexico international border.
Regarding perceptions, while they are sustained by fear and lack of knowledge, perhaps more importantly, they are granted the power to replace reality or become alternative realities. As Michael Oldstone conveys, “woven into the fabric of the history of viral plagues are the fear, superstition, and ignorance of human kind.” Fear motivates our search for answers and ideas about how to handle (threatening) situations. We invoke Betsy Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam, and Charles Zerner’s statement that “we live in times of proliferating fears.” Referring to a specific kind of fear, namely, the fear of terrorism, they explain that we are experiencing a moment when the “political economy of terrorism and counter-terrorism” has created a need to “produce” fears. Relatedly, they maintain that “[a]ll fears and threats are, in some sense, ‘produced’” or fabricated in the vein of “theatrical productions: designed and executed spectacles, made for public consumption.” We would like to articulate the fear of pandemics as political productions (both as fabrications and theatrical spectacles) by connecting the political economy of disaster (i.e., disaster capitalism) to the militarization of disaster management, including militarized efforts to manage pandemics.
This focus relates to our second point above in that, since September 11, 2001, pandemics, like other natural disasters, as well as U.S. responses to terrorism, have evoked militarized operations. We agree with William Robinson, who states: [T]he structural changes that have led to the transnationalization of national capitals, finances, and markets, and the actual outcomes of recent U.S.-led political and military campaigns, suggest new forms of global capitalist domination, whereby intervention creates conditions favorable to the penetration of transnational capital and the renewed integration of the intervened region into the global system.
arrested, or detained to be asked for documentation of their “legality” based on “reasonable suspicion” by a law enforcement officer that the person in question might be in the country “illegally.” Highlighted in this essay is this concept of “reasonable suspicion,” since it requires a lesser burden of
proof and thus allows for a more arbitrary interpretation and enforcement than “probable cause.” Regardless
of its legal constrictions,within our post-9/11 society, the interpretive aspect of “reasonable suspicion” in SB 1070 is likely to unfold in predictableways—onein which non-white members of society, citizens, and non-citizens alike, bear the brunt of an effort to contain the border and those who presumably come
through it. That is to say, since no specified protocol has been devised on how to determine “reasonable suspicion,” what will the determination be based on?
direction in a post–September 11 world; rather, the framing served to interrogate the very categories of “American” and “un-American,” acting to construct them anew. In the new constitution of the American subject, a conflation between citizenship and nationality was invoked. We agree with Engin Isin and Bryan Turner who point out that a fundamental weakness of modern notions of citizenship is that citizenship is synonymous with
nationality. Within such a construction, a threat to one (citizenship) becomes a threat to the other (the nation), and vice versa."
The book analyzes the specific ways in which recent Hollywood films have become both powerful forces of significance and also forceful representations of reality about post-9/11 life. From films that explicitly treat subjects related to 9/11, such as United 93 and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, to films that show post-9/11 themes in less-expected ways, such as Eat, Pray, Love and World War Z, the authors explore tensions around race, gender, and sexuality. The book examines our perceptions of reality after the events of September 11, 2001, as shown by one of the more influential means of cultural representation—Hollywood films.
--Ronald R. Sundstrom, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, The University of San Francisco, United States
"If you want to understand how a new biopolitics of citizenship is containing bodies of the nation by re-inscribing sex and race into it and how this new biopolitics is being resisted you must read this book."
--Engin F. Isin, Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies, The Open University, United Kingdom
Reviews:
"Animated films have increasingly become not only a major source of entertainment in American society but also a vast and complex mode of education. Animating Difference is one of the best books we have to enlighten, critique, and engage animated films through the intricate interplay of politics, education and entertainment. This is beautifully written and an immensely important book and should be read by everyone concerned about how we learn, watch, engage, and invest in our understanding of ourselves and others." —Henry Giroux, Pennsylvania State University, author of The Mouse That Roared "
"
roots of this idea extend to an earlier point in US history). Trump continued to deploy the image of Mexican immigrants as diseased invaders after his election by talking and tweeting about how
these immigrants bring diseases to the United States, placing contagious threats squarely at the US-Mexico international border.
Regarding perceptions, while they are sustained by fear and lack of knowledge, perhaps more importantly, they are granted the power to replace reality or become alternative realities. As Michael Oldstone conveys, “woven into the fabric of the history of viral plagues are the fear, superstition, and ignorance of human kind.” Fear motivates our search for answers and ideas about how to handle (threatening) situations. We invoke Betsy Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam, and Charles Zerner’s statement that “we live in times of proliferating fears.” Referring to a specific kind of fear, namely, the fear of terrorism, they explain that we are experiencing a moment when the “political economy of terrorism and counter-terrorism” has created a need to “produce” fears. Relatedly, they maintain that “[a]ll fears and threats are, in some sense, ‘produced’” or fabricated in the vein of “theatrical productions: designed and executed spectacles, made for public consumption.” We would like to articulate the fear of pandemics as political productions (both as fabrications and theatrical spectacles) by connecting the political economy of disaster (i.e., disaster capitalism) to the militarization of disaster management, including militarized efforts to manage pandemics.
This focus relates to our second point above in that, since September 11, 2001, pandemics, like other natural disasters, as well as U.S. responses to terrorism, have evoked militarized operations. We agree with William Robinson, who states: [T]he structural changes that have led to the transnationalization of national capitals, finances, and markets, and the actual outcomes of recent U.S.-led political and military campaigns, suggest new forms of global capitalist domination, whereby intervention creates conditions favorable to the penetration of transnational capital and the renewed integration of the intervened region into the global system.
arrested, or detained to be asked for documentation of their “legality” based on “reasonable suspicion” by a law enforcement officer that the person in question might be in the country “illegally.” Highlighted in this essay is this concept of “reasonable suspicion,” since it requires a lesser burden of
proof and thus allows for a more arbitrary interpretation and enforcement than “probable cause.” Regardless
of its legal constrictions,within our post-9/11 society, the interpretive aspect of “reasonable suspicion” in SB 1070 is likely to unfold in predictableways—onein which non-white members of society, citizens, and non-citizens alike, bear the brunt of an effort to contain the border and those who presumably come
through it. That is to say, since no specified protocol has been devised on how to determine “reasonable suspicion,” what will the determination be based on?
direction in a post–September 11 world; rather, the framing served to interrogate the very categories of “American” and “un-American,” acting to construct them anew. In the new constitution of the American subject, a conflation between citizenship and nationality was invoked. We agree with Engin Isin and Bryan Turner who point out that a fundamental weakness of modern notions of citizenship is that citizenship is synonymous with
nationality. Within such a construction, a threat to one (citizenship) becomes a threat to the other (the nation), and vice versa."
small island-municipality in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and the biggest military power on the face of the Earth, in order to extrapolate the lessons offered by the massive transnational social movement that emerged in support of Vieques.
newly hired, tenure-track faculty member, I was about to begin class one day
when a white male student raised his hand. I acknowledged him, and the following exchange ensued:
Student: Can we cancel class today?
Me: Why should we cancel class?
Student: I don’t feel like being in the classroom today, and since my parents pay for your salary, I think it is only fair you do what I say.
Though I was momentarily taken aback, I also chuckled at his reasoning (and
audacity) a bit, after which I explained to him that by paying his tuition (which
is what I suspected he meant), his parents were actually paying for his SEAT in my classroom, not my salary, since that is actually paid by the Washington state legislature. Up to this point, the other students in the class were following this exchange very closely, like a tennis match. Perhaps interested in seeing how I handled their classmate’s request, and thus how seriously they should take me, the students were as attentive as I had ever seen them, some on the edge of their seats looking anxious, others wearing a horrified look on their faces. I finally concluded the exchange with the following statement: “and, regardless of who pays for my services, I am your professor, not your personal prostitute.” The class let out a collective,
sizable gasp, followed by uproarious laughter, which helped dissipate the
tension somewhat. My admittedly awkward final comment was an attempt at highlighting the fact that although I might have been there to provide a service for them (I was there to teach him and his classmates about race relations), I was not at their disposal, so they could not dismiss me whenever they weren’t in the mood for class. I then proceeded to preempt the material for that day to have a discussion about entitlement and white privilege, even though I am fairly certain we had covered those topics before (nothing like a real-life, just-happened example to provide insight and drive a point home)..."