Minnesota Books

It is not often that a book, especially a work of non-fiction, moves and excites me enough to make me want to send its author fan mail. While reading Jennifer Deger's Shimmering Screens, I had to resist the urge to do so at the conclusion of each chapter; only the rush to discover what insights and delights awaited me in the next installment kept my fingers from the keyboard. Deger, who is a research fellow in anthropology at Macquarie University in Sydney, has written a brilliant book that offers an analysis of the ways in which one man, Bangana Wunungmurra, took up the challenge of making video from the community of Gapuwiyak in Arnhem Land in order to reinvigorate Yolngu rom (Law) and to pursue a personal redemption. It is a study of the impact of Western technology in (and not necessarily on) a remote community, a memoir of how fieldwork changes the anthropologist, and a meditation on the ways in which Yolngu and whitefellas can interpenetrate each other's worlds. If anthropology in recent years has questioned the possibility of continuing to write conventional ethnography along the lines of Lloyd Warner's classic study of the Yolngu,A Black Civilization: A Study of an Australian Tribe, then Deger's Shimmering Screens achieves a new model for ethnography in the 21st century.

With the close of World War II, the paradigmatic masculine, myth-like image of the soldier could no longer be sustained. Returning to the domestic society with their memories of the realities of war, as well as knowledge of their own fears, conflicts, and roles in the carnage, the legions of men also returned to a society which had worked admirably without them in maintaining order, demonstrating patriotism, and producing prodigious amounts of war supplies and consumer goods. The patriarchal "fictions" about men were in shambles. This work "explores the way photography functioned within the postwar restructuring of the dominant fiction." Photography accomplished this by presenting images of men which reestablished them at the head of the social structure in roles that were desirable and beneficial. No longer seen by themselves or those who remained on the "home front," especially women, as saving the society, the men came to be seen by themselves and women in respectable and romantic ways reflecting American ideals of individual worth and ability, mastery of one's own situation and destiny, and autonomy. The five main types of images were "breadwinner, warrior, tough guy, playboy, and rebel." Vettel-Becker, professor of art history at Montana State U.-Billings, writes a cultural study of how each of these was created by media photography, and each image's part in making male ego whole and restoring male superiority in postwar American society. One chapter, "Female Body," showing a few photos of naked women, looks at how the eroticized image of women worked so men could regain the position they had lost due to the "historical trauma" they suffered from World War II.

Another terrific book by Nancy Baker Jacobs. THE SILVER SCALPEL has everything---an interesting plot, a likable, resourceful detective in Devon MacDonald, suspense, humor, and a dash of romance.

Be sure to read the two previous books in the series, THE TURQUOISE TATTOO and A SLASH OF SCARLET, as well as Ms. Jacobs' other suspense novels.

This is an historical book about Elizabeth Kenny who was the Australian Nurse who came up with a treatment for Polio that really seemed to work. Elizabeth, and her controversial treatment, was never fully accepted by the medical community. And, that was unfortunate. This book tells of her "radical" treatment for polio survivors. It includes many pictures of polio patients as well descriptions of physical therapy and the "hot pack" treatments. It helps one understand what all polio survivors had to endure during the epidemics. Another good book on Sr. Kenny is the story of her life, "And They Shall Walk" which is, unfortunately, also out of print. But, many still exist and they are well worth the effort of locating to read or collect.

Sarah Wakefield, being an educated doctor's wife in 1862, had a lot more than many of the people who lived through the 1862 Uprising/Conflict, she was able to relate in a logical way what happened to her, without anger. She tells of the way she and her children were taken care of by Chaska and his family. How their lives were spared because of the Dakota family. Her words show another side of the story, how whites were saved by the Dakota. When many were saying they had been abused, Sarah told of care. When Chaska was hanged on 26th December she was understandably distressed, here was her saviour, who she had promised would be spared as she was, dead, through a quirk of fate. In 1997, I and another woman working on a Native American Committee to honor the dead of the conflict in Minnesota wrote to President Clinton asking for a pardon for Chaska, on Sarah Wakefield's behalf. Chaska's name should be cleared. It has been 136 years and he is still known as a man who abused women and children during a six week war. Read this story and if you feel the same way, please write to the President as well. Chaska saved Sarah's life, his name should at least be cleared of wrongdoing.Thank you.

The Amazon entry for this killer collection of works from American weirdo playwrights ought to include THEIR NAMES, not just those of the editors. They are Patrick Brian Smith, Martha Boesing, William S. Yellow Robe, Jr., Judy Maguire, Chris Cinque and Terrance J. Lappin. Buy the darn book and put on a play, why don't you?

Perfect old timey story for the kids. Brought back wonderful memories for my husband. Illustrations are beautiful. Beats Disney's version my a long mile!!!!!!

How much did American Protestants know about the Nazi persecution of Jews during WWII? Up until this book was published in 1980, the usual answer was "very little." Then Dr. Robert Ross, Ph.D., asked his own Protestant denomination what they had done to help the Jews. He was told, "We didn't know about it." Ross wanted to find out if that was really true. From that personal question about the role of his own church, came this groundbreaking study that broke the silence about a moral failure of titanic proprotions. Yes, they certainly did know, but most did nothing about it.

To conduct his study, Dr. Ross chose 50 national Protestant publications, ranging from the "Christian Century" (mainstream) to the "Arkansas Baptist" (fundamentalist). [A complete list of the publications used, with their denominational affiliations, is included in the book.] Then he and his graduate assistants went page-by-page through all the issues from 1933-1945. When I heard Dr. Ross speak in 1982, he told how, in some cases, the pages in the bound volumes were still uncut and stuck together. In all those years, NOBODY had gone through those library copies even once. Talk about denial!

So, what did Ross's team find? Detailed articles, editorials, paid ads, missionary reports, appeals for money and help, letters to the editors -- all focused on the persecution of the Jews. Dr. Ross quotes extensively from all this material, making this work a valuable source book in Holocaust studies for both Jews and Christians.

In the fall of 1933, Frederick Lynch, of "The Reformed Church Messenger," reviewed Adolf Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf", and noted that he "gives vent to his hatred of the Jews in many vitriolic passages" and duly notes his intention to rid Germany of them. Unfortunately, Lynch dismissed Hitler's hatred of Jews as a political ploy against communism, and felt that his antisemitism was "simply a part of his scheme to make a nation of only one blood, one race, one religion." The genocidal implications of such a Jew-free state seems to have escaped Mr. Lynch completely. In Dr. Ross's opinion, "Lynch had quite clearly succumbed to the Nazi propaganda that Hitler had saved Germany from communism and to the antisemitic slur that 'communist' meant 'Jew.'" (Ross, p. 19) Unfortunately, Lynch's review set the pattern for how many American Christians would view Hitler's persecution of the Jews throughout the coming war: as politicially justified anti-communist tactics. (Even into the in the 1960's in the USA, "Commie-Jew" was regarded as one word.)

Others Protestant writers in the 1930s believed the stories of persecution, but saw in them a fulfillment of Bible prophecies and therefore concluded that it was "God's Will" for the Jews to suffer. Ross attributes much of the Christian complancency to a tendency to see Jews as pawns of prophecy instead of flesh-and-blood human beings. In the rural areas especially, many of the readers had never met a living Jew, and knew of them only through Bible references. "The Jews", to many American Christians of that era, were a mythological symbol and not real people. This, according to Ross, led to moral inaction and failure to try to rescue them from Hitler.

After The USA entered WWII in 1942, censorship on both sides made it more difficult to get info about what was happening to the Jews under Hitler. Nevertheless, reports about the deportations, slave labor camps, gas chambers and and death marches DID get through and was published in many of the Protestant publications. One group that consistently published paid ads about the atrocities was the International Hebrew Chrstian Alliance, which did missionary work to convert Jews to Christanity. Their U.S. fundraiser ads tried to appeal to universal Christian brotherhood by saying, in effect, that these converted Jews were now fellow Christians now and deserved to be helped the same as any other Christians. While these ads might strike some readers (including myself) as rather self-serving, nevertheless, they *did* include detailed descriptions and photos of the atrocities against Jews.

All in all, Dr. Ross's study proved beyond a doubt that plenty of information about the Holocaust was readily available to American Protestants throughout the entire Hitler era, provided they bothered to read the publications of their churches. In the final chapter, "Too long have we Christians been silent," Ross addresses the moral failure of his own religion to come to the aid of Jews under Hitler. He comes to the conclusion that, although the prtess reported far more about the Holocaust than was previously believed, the reality of it all had not sunk in. "In the end," writes Ross on the last page, " editors and writers seemed unable to cope with something as unreal, even unimaginable, as the mass slaughter of millions of people... They could report this madness, this unreality, but, beyond the reporting and even beyond the expressed shock and horror over the discvery of the death camps, there remains the waful pall that hangs over this entire episode in modern history."

This book had the shock effect that its author intended, and became a minor bestseller in Holocaust studies circles. It shattered forever the illusion that American Christians didn't know about the Holocaust, and laid bare the moral question, still debated to this day: If they did know so much, why did they do nothing?

This book starts with William Gibson's 1984 novel 'Neuromancer' as being the genesis of Cyberpunk. Mr. Gibson takes some offense at this as there were others before him. In fact you might consider Frankenstein as the start, although to be sure 'cyber' hadn't been invented then. Numerous other science fiction novels have something with computer enhancement to a human, even if it is only with 'smart' prostheses replacing a lost arm.

This book traces the transformation of cyberpunk from a literary movement into a multimedia cultural phenomenon. He traces the development of cyberpunk into comic books (Deathlok), film (Robocop - but how could he have missed Darth Vader?), and into other areas.

Highly recommended to those interested in social theory from an interdisciplinary approach. His topic is the improvisatory element that is present in all genres of music performed by humans. But he uses that model to help us consider human action, agency, and knowledge in a much wider arena.

There is much here; from an introduction to the physics and neurophysics of noise, sound, and music to an exploration of virtual reality and media theory, the questionable basis of audiophile absolutism, comments on the man/machine interface which explore the notion of the machine as mediating device versus instrument, and more.

This is a wide-ranging exploration of epistemology, Deleuze and his reading of Kant's faculties and how Kant's non-critical approach to the faculties binds them to common sense. (See Deleuze's monograph, Kant's Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties. Also Deleuze: A Critical Reader (Blackwell Critical Readers); especially the intro by Paul Patton and the chapter by Daniel W. Smith.)

I would have liked to have seen more from Evens on the nature of the musical score and its relationships to the modern or postmodern notion of the text, although he does a good job of clarifying the difference between the musical score and the performed sonic event as timbre. He cites the work by Jean-Charles Francois which is excellent in this regard.

He does speak to agency and the author/composer site, but I would be interested to hear more about how his ideas fit with the Foucault/Derrida/Searle notion of the concept of the author, the relationships between the roles of performer and audience in music, the role of the reader in text theory, reader response theory, Burke, etc.

His explication of Kant and Deleuze's reading of Kant is very good. (Deleuze said he liked to read earlier philosophers as though he came at them from behind and in this act created new monsters.) Good bibliography for further reading.

He cites Stockhausen: "the more we go into the microcosm, the more we have to describe what we are observing in terms of the tools we are using." On another axis, the more we go into the silos of knowledge, the more we have to rely on 'experts' and the more the philosophy of science replaces epistemology, or perhaps we should say that knowledge is now legitimated by scientists not philosophers.

Evens speaks to the notion of 'high' art and the role of elite criticism in this regard, echoing the power/knowledge lessons from Foucault.

Terrific book and very Deleuzian in that it creates new concepts. Given the nature of improvisation inherent in all human performance, how does this relate to other notions of improvisation as autonomous action governed by dispositions as Bourdieu's habitus or the other register of constitutive performativity of Austin, as it was expanded by Derrida and Butler into the constitution of identity?