Director’s Note: Newsletter editor Nikki Senecal was preparing to send this present issue to the printers in late March, just as the war in Iraq got earnestly underway. The two of us agreed at that point – as many of our colleagues had earlier in the semester, in their decision to call moratoria, circulate petitions, and hold teach-ins – that business as usual would be inappropriate under such circumstances. We chose to postpone completion of this issue, until we could register some of the immediate responses of faculty, students, and staff to the events that were unfolding around us. For more information on the Progressive Faculty Coalition, contact David James at djames@cinema.usc.edu.

Over the last decade, USC has received widespread praise for the role it has played in its own community, and the University has been credited again and again with forging links among a geographically-dispersed series of neighborhoods in Downtown and South Central Los Angeles. Once distinct from each other, these neighborhoods and business districts now comprise the vibrant, culturally diverse “Downtown Corridor.” Over the weekend of March 29 and 30, traditional boundaries distinguishing “Downtown” from “South Central” L.A. were blurred further by a shared spirit of antiwar and other forms of social-justice protest. A rally was held in Leimert Park on Saturday the 29th, in which speakers and residents brought to the fore both the domestic and the international ramifications of the war. The following day, a second rally and a march took place between Pershing Square and the Federal Building downtown. Thanks to the organizing efforts of USC’s Progressive Faculty Coalition—in particular, Claudio Fogu, David James, Tania Modleski, and Tara McPherson—a group of USC faculty, staff, and students (numbering around 50) joined together to participate in the Sunday march.

The Sunday demonstration yielded many powerful images, from the eerie choreography of a group of slow-motion, costumed dancers to the up-tempo routines of the Radical Teen Cheerleading squad. But for many of us, one of the most memorable images of the afternoon was of the USC group marching together under Fogu’s banners, which read “Smart Bombs Don’t Graduate” and “Teach Peace.” Daniel Tiffany (English/COLT) appreciated the fact that “we all walked together to show some solidarity and to let the public know—with our homemade banners—that USC faculty cares about the war. In some sense, it's part of a bigger effort to let the city know that USC is involved in the cultural and political affairs of LA.” And his English Department colleague Viet Nguyen noted how these moments of public, coalitional activity might help to counter popular perceptions of USC as a “hotbed of passivity.”

Especially gratifying was the undergraduate presence at the event, which encompassed a number of student organizations that had come together for the occasion. I remarked in the previous newsletter upon the notable skill exhibited by USC undergraduate activists as they have built coalitions among a range of progressive groups on campus. Student participants included Human Rights Watch University, USC Greens, MEChA (the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), Peace and Conflicts Scholars, the Muslim Student Assembly, SCALE (Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation), USC Amnesty International, the Student Coalition for Peace, and LACE (Liberation Arts and Community Engagement). Although student-activist accomplishments at USC remain enviable, there was heartening evidence on the 30th that the Progressive Faculty Coalition is gaining comparable steam.

--Alice Gambrell

 

Katerli Bounds, junior, double major in Philosophy and International Relations:
During the last two weeks many of us have had a chance to reflect upon the points of connection between our day-to-day work on campus (in the classroom and elsewhere) and our commitments to anti-war and related social justice efforts. In my own current course, for example, we have been discussing throughout the semester the manner in which outbreaks of political violence are often accompanied by expansion and/or dissemination of new communicative technologies—from the telegraph to the weblog; as such, the newly-minted strategy of journalistic “embedding” has provided us with substantial material for cultural analysis and critique. I solicited reflections from faculty and students about the relationship between their own activist commitments—which, among the group represented here, are many and varied—and their academic practice. Some of the respondents participated in the demonstration on March 30; some have spoken eloquently to their opposition to the war in other venues on-campus. Given only a day to respond, they nonetheless generated thoughtful, searching observations which I include below, along with a small group of photographs from the demonstration. I hope these commentaries can continue in future issues of the newsletter.USC is known for its business school and its film school and its athletes, not for its activism. Nonetheless, there is a growing tide on SC’s campus that would like to see that change. As not only students and faculty and staff, but as citizens of this country, we have a duty to be aware of what happens in the world around us. We have an obligation as participants in the democratic process to inform ourselves, not just at a surface level with information that’s easy, but to critically evaluate the information around us and the opinions and beliefs we hold. From that evaluation comes action. As a country we have seen the result of not acting, and we need to be not only defending but also using our rights as citizens to speak and assemble freely. As someone who cares deeply about the world we live in and the people in it, watching SC’s response to this war has been at times both infuriating (like when Program board postponed its decision on the antiwar resolution twice because “universities are not the place for political statements”) and gratifying (like the moratorium against the war put on simultaneously by the student body and a coalition of concerned faculty). I welcome both of those emotions, because they are the result of seeing people act on their beliefs. What saddens me is that such a large percentage of both the population of this campus and the population of this country are still not acting. Demonstrations help, but no real change will occur until people bring the issues at stake home with them. People need to talk to each other, and take action in their daily lives. back to top

 

Fadwa El Guindi, Anthropology/Gender Studies:
There are human moments when the line between scholarship/classroom and advocacy for social justice is rightly blurred. I have been responding to every call from universities and student groups around the country to talk about issues relating to 9/11, Islam, Arab and Muslim Americans and War at the rate of once or twice a month. It is very taxing on the body and nerves to make these short coast to coast trips. But there is thirst for knowledge. The war on Baghdad is immoral in every way. It is unjust for our US men and women in the military to be subjected to such inhumanity. I contribute what I can in terms of knowledge about the Middle East and Islam that might shed light on root causes and factors underlying these conflicts. Iraq is the root of Western Civilization. The whole world shares the knowledge and must share in protecting it. back to top

Jane Iwamura, Religion/PAS&E:

In the classes I teach on Cultural Studies and on the relationship between religion and popular culture, we often speak of the ways that the war has been media-ted. As Michiko Kakutani recently wrote in The New York Times: “With the new engagement in Iraq, the Pentagon and television news coverage are blurring the lines between movies and real life as never before, turning viewers into 24-hour couch voyeurs” (3/25/03). For us as individuals, it becomes imperative that we get up off our couches and express our dissent: not only as a visual register for those still viewing, but also as a way to make the war “real” for us as it is undoubtedly for millions of Iraqi Muslims, Middle Eastern and Pakistani detainees, military combat soldiers and others who live under constant threat. back to top

Tania Modleski, English:

For some years I've been teaching a section of my ARLT 100, “Women in Film and Literature,” on war. We do American films, plays, and literature by both men and women, including the films Top Gun and Dogfight and the novel In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason. One of my main points is that traditionally in male war films and war stories both women and the enemy become metaphors for war and for the condition of men in war and in war’s aftermath. But by treating them solely as “metaphors” for the soldier’s plight (showing how dehumanizing war is to soldiers because they are reduced to raping women, for example, or killing babies, or collecting trophies like ears or teeth from the bodies of dead enemies) even anti-war films symbolically degrade women and the enemy because it is always the American male soldier’s point of view that remains the focus. How can mere metaphors be granted the authority of thinking, speaking subjects?

In the past men have always negated female views of war by telling women (as the Tom Cruise character Maverick in Top Gun tells his female flight instructor) that they can’t pronounce any judgments on war because they haven’t been on the front lines, or dropping bombs from planes, or whatever. In fact, the more gung-ho stories and films suggest, thinking itself can be dangerous. “When you’re up there, you don’t have time to think,” Maverick says smugly, twirling his pencil as he refutes his teacher on one of the finer points of flight strategy. Being left behind by men who go to fight wars, women in fact traditionally have had the time to think, and they have had reason to think. Implicitly the women authors and directors whose works we consider in the class indicate that there must be time for somebody to do some thinking and to consider war’s effects on the human community. Who better to undertake these tasks than the people in whose names wars have traditionally been fought? back to top

Viet Nguyen, English/PAS&E*:

I truly believe that we, as Americans, are heading towards an event that will be judged very harshly by history. It is easy for us to look at other societies and other times (Communist Viet Nam, martial law Philippines, Nazi Germany) and wonder why everyday citizens of these places were not more aware of what was happening, and were not more resistant and vocal in the face of what we would consider to be obvious injustice and evil.

The challenge that I’ve posed to you is to return that critical gaze upon ourselves, our time, and our place, and to wonder whether or not we may be complicit with practices that people of other places, and later times, may consider to be unjust and evil. These other societies had their own kinds of ideologies and keywords that allowed everyday citizens to believe in their own good intentions and the good intentions of their leaders. What I want to suggest is that we have these ideologies and keywords too, and that for us, they are specifically “freedom,” “democracy,” and “choice.” In the name of all these things, we wage war and take away or prevent other people’s freedom, democracy, and choice. These particular keywords blind us to the way the rest of the world, or history, may see us, as we are utterly convinced of our own uniqueness and goodness. What I am saying, of course, is that we as Americans are actually not unique (except to the extent that we have more power and wealth than any other society in history). We as Americans are just as capable of the naked exercise of power as any other society; and, we are just as capable of disavowing that power.

You may disagree with me, and that is both desirable and understandable. I write this letter to you not to tell you what to think. I write this letter to you because I feel that it is wrong not to speak out at this moment. One must speak out whether one is in support of this war or against it. One must take responsibility for one’s beliefs and its consequences. Perhaps history will prove me wrong; I accept the possibility of that judgment. What I do not accept is the gray zone of silence and complicity. . . .
I do not introduce a visible politics into the classroom for the sheer sake of my own beliefs. Rather, I feel that the literature we are discussing does not take place in isolation, in some aesthetic universe of pleasure and contemplation that is separate from our everyday lives. The reason why I teach literature is that I believe it is a part of our lives, that it is both a reflection of our society and a mirror to our society. The same moral and political questions and rhetoric taking place around the war are, as a matter of fact, being dealt with in the literature as well, and to turn a blind eye to that is, in my opinion, a grossly political act that says literature is not important, that literature is not public, and that there is no connection between the “world” and the “text.” In other words, I feel that by introducing a visible politics into our classroom, I can show that this literature does not speak only of the past, or of some other people or some other place. This literature matters: it has something to say on these questions of good and evil, power and its disavowal, and silence and complicity that is directly relevant to us in our everyday lives.

What I want to reaffirm is that I want our classroom to be a space of conversation and intellectual exchange, a place where agreement is wonderful but where disagreement is welcome. I do not expect you to believe in what I believe, but I feel that it is important you know what I believe in. I believe we are in a time of moral and political crisis, and I believe each of us must make a choice. I will respect your choice even if I disagree with it, and hopefully you will grant me the same. back to top

*Professor Nguyen’s comments are excerpted from a longer statement addressed to his students on the occasion of the March 5 teach-ins at USC.

 

 

Krista Walton, sophomore, major in English:

Although there aren't masses of people at anti-war events held at USC, there are people who go consistently and who are persistent. It’s great to see students and faculty working together in this effort. People always talk about the “Trojan Family,” and with both faculty and students involved there is a real sense of unity. I think a reason there may not be huge numbers of people participating in the anti-war movement at USC is because students may feel like they lack enough information about the war to take a strong position, either for or against. That’s why the Teach-Ins and out-of-class lectures about the war that have been held have been really cool: students can’t say they didn’t have an opportunity to learn more about the war or make their voices heard. back to top