Women & Gender Studies Assignment Paper Help-WST 378: Short Paper #2

WST 378: Short Paper #2

In one way or another, most of the texts we’ve discussed this semester have involved a critical discussion of what Maylei Blackwell calls “the politics of telling” (281). For Blackwell, “the politics of telling”—that is to say, who or what has had/taken the power to tell the story— has historically “erased” “US third world women” and their “multiple insurgencies” (281). I think of Mohanty’s notion of “cartographies of struggle” as not only physical geographies (or physical “topographies” as Katz would say) but as “conceptual maps” (or as conceptual topographies). When Mohanty speaks of the “composite image” and the “spectacle” of “the” Third World Woman “carry[ing] with it the authorizing signature of Western…discourse” (Under Western Eyes, 19) she is specifically concerned with who has authority over the creation and circulation of the image/story. Adichie argues the reduction of the many stories of any people or place into “the” singular and definitive story of any people or place is a “dangerous” practice of “power”—Mohanty calls this “the colonialist move” (UWE, 39). Arvin, Tuck, and Morrill are grappling with the politics of telling when they argue settler/White/western/hegemonic feminisms must “refuse erasure but do more than include” indigenous peoples and frameworks (17). And obviously and most recently, Hesford’s analysis of “visual economy[ies]” (8) in human rights discourse (in visual texts as well reference to sight, seeing and the visual in narrative texts]—and what she refers to as the “distribution of visual capital” (8)—through a method she calls intercontextuality takes seriously “the representational politics of truth telling as it intersects with the imperatives of contemporary globalization and human rights” (20).

Your second paper for this class will be a transnational feminist analysis of the “politics of telling” in the film(s) you chose to see during the Human Rights Film Festival. You will draw on course concepts and the specific arguments based in the readings we’ve done since SP1 (from March 14-April 28) and details from the film(s) to examine the stories you hear and see and the politics (which is to say, power relations) depicted in the films as well as the politics of the film(s) itself as a “truth telling genre,” including its relationship to the audience. Course concepts can include key ideas from the readings prior to March 14 (such as Adichie’s discussion of how “the” single story is produced and perpetuated), but you must also use 1-2 specific concepts/arguments from our more recent readings as well. It makes sense to re-read Blackwell and think about what she means by the “politics of telling” in the context of her arguments before you try to leverage the concept for your own arguments. You may not do outside research on the film itself (e.g. analyses of the film by others) but you may do some limited outside research on the topic and/or context of the film. If you do this and use some of this in your paper, it must be properly cited.

Note: Unlike “Girl Rising” you mostly likely will not have access to the film on your own time and in your own space to watch it more than once, so plan on taking notes as you can during the film and also make some quick notes after the film before it gets too far away in your memory. One of your classmates (Shealyn! J) is in the class that is organizing the event and noted that you can find many of the films online if you want to try to find them and watch again. I happen to have Apple TV and have already rented “Human Flow,” so you might have other ways to see the films again after the festival. Depending on which theme/time block you chose you will also have the panel discussion to help you think about the film. You can use information/ideas from the discussion as necessary, just make sure you properly give attribution to any statements or ideas even if you can’t reproduce the direct quotation. [i.e. “Ciara Lacy, director of “Out of State,” said during the discussion that…” or “Someone in the audience asked X”].

Your paper will be 5-6 DS pages (5 full pages and over to 6). Like SP1, this is thesis driven analysis. You may use first person (“I”) if you need to and you can also talk about how the film(s) made you feel if a discussion of how it made you feel is relevant to your analysis. I don’t expect direct quotations from the films but you do need to directly engage and cite course texts. You must have a title that reflects your thesis. Your paper should be printed front side only, page numbers inserted, and stapled. No works cited page unless you use outside sources—they should be cited in the text as well as in a works cited page.

I’ve listed here some questions to consider and prompt your thinking, including Dempsey’s framing questions from her facilitation. Read over these before the film and again after. Make notes during the film as possible and just after while the film is fresh in your mind.

Hesford uses a quotation from LaCapra (1983, 95-96) to help her explain her concept of intercontextuality: “Context itself is a text of sorts” (20)—that is to say, context is something to be analyzed along with and related to the film itself as a text. From what you can tell, what is the context for the film? Who is behind the camera? When and where was the film filmed? How is the visual technology part of the context? [e.g. drone technology makes the cinematography in “Human Flow” extraordinary, but there is also hand-held iphone video footage in the documentary too]. How do cinematic devices (cinematography, color, music, dialogue, etc) matter to the “politics of telling” the story the film tells but also within the film.
What is the larger social and historical context for the human rights issues in the film? We are frustrated with “Girl Rising” because all of that context is missing. What about the film you watched?
How do European imperialism, settler colonialism, postcolonialism, neoliberalism, capitalism, globalization, and the state matter to the film? Are these processes part of the context? Are they visible or invisible in the film itself?
What story is being told? Who is telling it? Does the subject of the film tell its own story or is someone else telling the story for the subject? Does the subject speak for itself/herself/himself/themselves? If yes, how and why does this matter? If no, why not? How and why does this matter?
“Who [or what] has the power to represent whom?” in the film (Hesford 22)?
What is being made visible? What is being made “(in)visible” (Switzer, Bent and Endsley)? What or who is missing—invisible or overshadowed, erased, ghosted?
Are any “human rights spectacles” being made in the film? If so, how? Why? So what? If not, how not? Why not? Make sure you can explain this.
How is gender intersected with other axes of social location (re)presented in the film? What about race, ethnicity, sexuality, dis/ability or other forms of social difference? Are these forms of social difference presented as institutions of ‘just’ elements of individual identity? Are these political elements of human experience and therefore human rights a point of analysis in the film? Is one aspect of social location (such as race) presented as more salient to the human rights issues at stake than gender? Think intersectionally about the “politics of telling” in play.
Is sentimentality, ‘empowerment’, or ‘virtue’ present in the film itself? How so? So what?
In the “visual economy of human rights,” social recognition and legal recognition have a complex relationship depending on the subjects/spectacles. How does the politics of visibility and/or recognition play out in the film?
Hesford argues “the [human rights] spectacle is intercontextual” just as “spectators are intercorporeal”—spectators “cannot be conceived outside of a web of interrelations and discourses in which they are a living part” (11). What is the role or place of the spectator in the film? In relationship to the film? Who or what is the imagined audience? How do you know this from watching the film?
Does the story telling rely on binary oppositions? What are the binaries you see? For example, who are the victims in the film? Who are the victimizers? Who are the saviors? Who needs saving? Who or what has power? Who or what is disempowered? And so on.
Adichie argues that stories can “rob” people of dignity but they can also “restore” dignity. Hesford argues the human rights spectacle is contradictory and paradoxical—it justifies “the exercise of disciplinary power” and be easily co-opted and it also “holds the potential for social intervention and contestation” (7) subversion, and empowerment. What paradoxes and/or contradictions regarding the ”politics of telling” are in play?
Herr argues 2 key characteristics of Third World feminism are that it “generate[s] more reliable analyses of and recommendations for addressing Third World women’s multidimensional and complex oppression through careful examinations of their local conditions in their historical specificity” and it “respect[s] the agency and voices of Third World women engaged in diverse forms of local activism” (7). Women per se may not be the subjects of the films you watch, but the idea that attention to the “politics of telling” is a way to respect (re)assert “agency” and “voice” is important to your thinking as you watch the films you’ve chosen. Do agency and voice in the film(s) work to “rob” dignity or “restore” it, or maybe some complex combination?

Keep in mind, you are not trying to decide of the film is “good” or “bad” but rather you are trying to analyze what the film does (not how well it does it).

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