Category: Seminar Weekly

Sean Dwyer

3/6/17

Week 9

1 “Such logic… she argues finds expression in the post cards whose images shift when tilted in different directions, sometimes switching between white and black figures, “is a monocular logic, a schema by which histories or images that are actually copresent get presented (structurally, ideologically) so that only one of the images can be seen at a time. Such a logic represses connection, allowing whiteness to float free from blackness.” (Tompkins 2012: 176)

2 “Some observers speculated that “within ten years the soybean industry will rival in size and importance the cotton industry in the south” – a bold statement for the time” (Newman 2013: 144)

3 “Ironically, Japan and Germany were two of the earliest international markets for U.S. soybeans and continue to be very important customers.” (Newman 2013: 144)

4 “We have demonstrated to you how many hundreds of years we have survived. We wish to continue to exist.” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014: 204)

5 “The creation of nation-states and the redrawing of national boundaries that this often entailed inevitably raised the questions of which national, ethnic, religious, and linguistic communities were included and whether their consent or participation would be required. There are peoples and nations without their own states, locked under a state authority that may or may not be willing to respond to their demands for autonomy within the existing state. If the state is not willing, the peoples or nations may choose to insist on independence. That is the work of self-determination.” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014: 202)

6 “The nations seek control of their social and political institutions without compromising what they consider unique and essential cultural values.” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014: 202)

7 “The Sioux never wanted the money because the land was never for sale.” Dunbar-Ortiz 2014: 208)

8 “While the codfish card does not precisely draw an analogy between commodity consumption and political enfranchisement, aligning itself instead with recolonization schemes, it nonetheless indicates the ways that commodity capitalism is attached to forms of political power in the period…” (Tompkins 2012: 177)

9 “I think that pleasure is a very difficult behavior. It’s not as simple as that to enjoy one’s self. And I must say that’s my dream. I would like and I hope I die of an overdose of pleasure of any kind. Because I think it’s really difficult and I always have the feeling that I do not feel the pleasure, the complete total pleasure and, for me, it’s related to death. Because I think that the kind of pleasure I would consider as the real pleasure, would be so deep, so intense, so overwhelming that I couldn’t survive it. I would die.” (Hooks 1992: 370)

News: Trump Proposal: Slash Puget Sound cleanup money by 93 percent

A bottle of wine can represent the consuming relationship between two individuals. The quality of wine should improve over time, but if the quantity is slowly consumed then only the date on the bottle is left to reflect the quality that once was. Tara McPherson’s “lenticular logic” of race as described in the first quote explains the representation of two ideas as one in the context of pushing an agenda through the subconscious. The second quote shows the shocking contrast of the unknown duality being realized because it reveals the inherent exploitation behind a one-dimensional presentation of an idea as revealed in the third quote. A theme that has become present in the program is that a person’s overwhelming desire to be happy can be the reason they are so miserable, unless they are able to seek control of their social and political institutions without compromising what they consider unique and essential cultural values as described in the sixth quote and supported in the seventh quote. The fourth quote encapsulates this idea and is elaborated on in the fifth quote. This concept reminds me of C.S. Holling’s The Adaptive Cycle that describes cultural change over time. If an individual fails to recognize how we are released from the late K stage will affect how we reorganize, then the conservation stage will stitch itself to the reorganization stage, preserving the exploitation stage, until the individual becomes defeated by the system and will have no choice (while still operating within the logic of the system) to release their sense of self and be reborn as the force that supports the system, continuing to uphold and invest in the new powerful emotions that are gained from the new coping methods that have kept the broken fragments of an individual’s sense of self together. The perception of Michel Foucault’s concept of the ultimate desire will change based on how you have managed to (feel okay about life) stay within the conservation stage because of every individual approach to satisfying immediate personal need (indirectly maintaining the late k stage) is unique.The true ultimate desire is to find release and reorganize. If we appeal to our personal behavior to support our habits, that supports an increasing emotional need that we propagate through our Lustprinzip (the pleasure principle guiding our id). By appealing to our coping mechanism (behavior over a long period of time) we begin to invest in the release of emotional change itself, removing the capability for honest reflection over an extended period of time. The eighth quote describes the indirect alignment of recolonization themes through the presence of more than one idea being presented as one. An emotionally deprived country seeks release and reorganization, but lacks the knowledge to know there are two principles getting presented as one. This week’s article is an example of Trump provoking an emotional response from a gentrified, wealthy, and politically active area of the country, ultimately encouraging the reorganization and release.

Works Cited

 

Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States(ReVisioning American history; Revisioning American history). Boston: Beacoess.

 

Gunderson, L. H., & Holling, C. S. (2002). Panarchy : Understanding transformations in human and natural systems.Washington, DC: Island Press. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=972659

 

Newman, K. (2013). The secret financial life of food: From commodities markets to supermarkets. New York: Columbia University Press.

STAFF, J. C. (2017, March 4). Trump proposal: Slash Puget Sound cleanup money by 93 percent. Retrieved March 06, 2017, from http://komonews.com/news/local/trump-proposal-slash-puget-sound-cleanup-money-by-93-percent

The article shows that President Trump plans to cut annual EPA funding from 8.24 billion to 6.16 billion in the next fiscal year. One of Trump’s intended changes is the reduction of the Puget Sound’s EPA budget for monitoring and restoration in the wake of a large sewage crisis. The article shows a tactful poke at a privileged area of the United States that has defied his presidency.

Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion : Eating bodies in the nineteenth century(America and the long 19th century; America and the long 19th century). New York: New York University Press.

Week 8

2/27/17

WC: 371

1) [in regard to acquiring complete total pleasure] “Though Foucault is speaking as an individual, his words resonate in a culture affected by anhedonia – the inability to feel pleasure. In the United States, where our senses are daily assaulted and bombarded to such an extent that an emotional numbness sets in, it may take being “on the edge” for individuals to feel intensely.” (Hooks 1992: 377)

2) “I think that pleasure is a very difficult behavior. It’s not as simple as that to enjoy one’s self. And I must say that’s my dream. I would like and I hope I die of an overdose of pleasure of any kind. Because I think it’s really difficult and I always have the feeling that I do not feel the pleasure, the complete total pleasure and, for me, it’s related to death. Because I think that the kind of pleasure I would consider as the real pleasure, would be so deep, so intense, so overwhelming that I couldn’t survive it. I would die.” (Hooks 1992: 370)

3) “Commodity culture in the United States exploits conventional thinking about race, gender, and sexual desire by “working” both the idea that racial difference marks one as Other and the assumption that sexual agency expressed within the context of racialized sexual encounter is a conversion experience that alters one’s place and participation in contemporary cultural politics.” (Hooks 1992: 367 )

4) “The seductive promise of this encounter is that it will counter the terrorizing force of the status quo that makes identity fixed, static, a condition of containment and death.” (Hooks 1992: 367)

5) “The three girls hold the corsets in various states of tightening, as though they were proffered to the customer who wants to try them on. Thus, the visual code of the image is “incomplete,” waiting for the consumer’s own body to fill it out.” (Tompkins 2012: 154)

6) “Bernhard leaves her encounters with the Other richer than she was at the onset. We have no idea how the Other leaves her.” (Hooks 1992: 380)

News Article:

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/321495-george-w-bush-i-dont-like-the-racism

How someone perceives success can make them fail when they have already succeeded. The assigned texts discuss a theme of the assimilation of race, ethnicity, and skin-color with sexuality in the context of Roland Marchand’s theory of the social tableaux. The first quote regarding American anhedonia in the context of acquiring total pleasure reminds me of the raw, unsatisfied settler-colonist hunger for the Other. As white people seek to be changed by the Other, their perception of their desire to feel intensely is not consciously recognized as undergoing a process of personal change. As the consumer adapts their identity to the change they undergo (by habituating the behavior), a new feeling of hunger takes place as described in the second quote. Foucault describes his perception of the ultimate pleasure as something that would be so deep, so intense, and so overwhelming that he could not survive it and would die. The attention to the sense of self in Foucault’s rhetoric implies that it is so good, if you try and extract more pleasure from it by looking at it through the lense of you, it would be too much and you couldn’t survive it or you would undergo so much change the old perception of you would die.

The third quote articulates a theme of emotional shortcuts that seem to resist the problem but end up supporting it. The assumption of sexuality being an effective means to alters one’s place and participation in contemporary cultural politics reinforces racialized sexual encounters and is a fallacy of thought similarly described by Roland Marchand’s theory of social tableaux. The final quote captures the uncertainty in the consequence of this one-sided initiative. The quote by Tompkins provides an example of Marchand’s theory. As the user engages with the interface (if the interface is not an ad, it sadly is their perceived “reality”) and metaphorically tries on the skin of the Other as clothing, the return to whiteness becomes increasingly more rewarding. This, in combination with sexualizing the Other, helps maintain a dissatisfied status quo as described in the fourth quote listed. The news article I chose this week, “George W. Bush: I Don’t Like the Racism”, shows a political figure of the Republican party trying to capture the unawareness of the white male by expressing his disgust for the stickiness he is inhabiting.

Works Cited

Hooks, B. (1992). Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.

Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: Eating bodies in the nineteenth century. New York: New York University Press.

Sean Dwyer

2/12/17

WC: 407

“[tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar] were the first objects within capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently” (Newman 2013: 83)

Newman quoted H.S. Irwin, “The original purpose in building the coffee house was to provide appropriate facilities for the “genial institution of Change”.” (Newman 2013: 79

“We would say that the strongest have survived, that is these salmon,” says Dirk of the Fisheries. “You guys here get excited about a run of 100,000 fish, we talking about 2.5 million.” (LaDuke 2016: 60)

News Article: New Storms Could Imperil Oroville Where 200,000 Were Evacuated

Newman has been discussing occupations filling the middle-man role between certain products and consumer. indirectly showing how to directly manage the impacts of economy on the individual. Modern farmers adapt to a market of the consumer and their newly monetized services begins to shape the mind of the farmer. At what step in the production of heavily commodified crops does the misdirected intention of farmers of varying degrees of moral centrality affect the food? Do the methods used to grow the food reflect the moral centrality of the farmer?

Newman quote of Sidney Mintz identifies the ingredients used to appeal to individual identity through food. This observation is supported by the quote from H.S. Irwin because all ingredients were present in early coffee houses. Coffee houses also became trading centers for coffee beans. Irwin’s stated purpose for the coffee house was outcompeted by an outside interest that altered the intended collective agenda to benefit from sharing the interest of commodifying the shared interest of others. The commodification of the space affects the culture that grows from using the ingredients Mintz mentioned and the coffee consumers entering the incipient space. The effectiveness of a group appealing to individual identity can be shown in Conroy and Allen’s study from 2010.

The presence of one value system imposing their “superior” beliefs over the other also came up in The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. The stories of Indigenous leaders siding with oil corporations and assimilating the origin myth and identity of the people with the outside interest remind me of the political hijacking of the coffee house. In the communities the perception of the shared interest, land, must change when the concept of promoting the land (and other values central to the group) now includes extracting oil in the context of personal identity, potentially altering moral centrality.

The last quote about Maori and Wintu observation implies complete unawareness of long term consideration, and specifically disrespects millennia of Indigenous observation by assuming the other methods of observation are inferior to their own biological DNA testing methods. The necessity to validate other methods within your own value system suggests a potential unalignment will be found, and in this case, because of inferior methods by the other.

I chose this week’s news article because dams are a symptom of overmanagement, incentified regulation, and unsustainable planning that symbolically conflict the key principles of Indigenous culture that promote the sacred fish that no longer swims freely.

Citations

Conroy, D. M., & Allen, W. (2010). Who do you think you are? An examination of how systems thinking can help social marketing support new identities and more sustainable living patterns. Australasian Marketing Journal, 18(3), august, 195-197. Retrieved February 5, 2017, from www.sciencedirect.com.

Appealing to an individual’s self-interested materialistic values is less effective than appealing to an individual’s self-image when promoting individual growth and change. Analysis of the stages of change continuum as adapted from DiClemente and Prochaska suggests appealing to intrinsic benefits supports the growth transition model better than appealing to materialistic benefit, limiting iatrogenic effects and reducing potential anxiety. This study shows the effectiveness of appealing to a moral framework and supporting the change of an individual’s identity.

LaDuke, W., & Cruz, S. A. (2016). The Winona LaDuke chronicles: stories from the front lines in the battle for environmental justice. Ponsford, M.N.: Spotted Horse Press.

Newman, K. (2013). The secret financial life of food: From commodities markets to supermarkets. New York: Columbia University Press.

(2017, February 13). New storms could imperil Oroville where 200,000 were evacuated. Retrieved February 13, 2017, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/13/oroville-california-endangered-dam-spillway/97841076/

Over 200,000 have been evacuated from Oroville, California because the dam is not safe. State water experts do not know why the emergency spillway has eroded and there are two large storms coming this weekend. This helps my project because the article demonstrates the unsustainable nature of dams and the potential for destruction.

 

WC: 327

“Cakes of maple sugar, dried peas and beans, barley and hominy, meal of all sorts, potatoes and dried fruit. No milk, butter, cheese, tea, or meat appeared. Even salt was considered a uselesss luxury and spice entirely forbidden by these lovers of Spartan simplicity…” (Tompkins 2012: 134)

“The sacrificed object is the female herself- her “taste, time, and temper” are juxtaposed to the negation of the “gory steak” – but clearly that negation establishes a brutal correlation between the mother’s work and a helpless piece of meat.” (Tompkins 2012: 135)

Herman, S., & Seldin, J. (2017, February 18). Trump’s Attack on Media as ‘Enemy of the People’ Has Historic Echoes. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-attack-on-media-enemy-of-people-historic-echoes/3729946.html

This article describes the history of individuals running a country that say that the media is the number one enemy of the people. The author cited Stalin and Mao Zedong’s oppressive rule in Soviet Russia and China. This article shows gaslighting done by a white male on the largest stage in the United States.

In Chapter 4 of Racial Indigestion, Tompkins discusses two Rose Campbell novels Eight Cousins and Rose In Bloom. In the first text her uncle, Dr. Alec, misdirected his unresolved emotion from being in love with his brother’s wife to the perverted caretaking of her daughter. The irresponsible decision to mix medicinal practice and personal life responsibilities contributed to …”Rose accepting her uncle’s pot of view and models her choice of husband on her Uncle’s example” (Tompkins 2012: 126). Tompkins addresses that Dr. Alec views the parenting of Rose as an “experiment” or “treatment” as Tompkins outlines the overlap of the libidinal with the edifying, and the moral with the medical. Those themes are very present in Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In Gilman’s tale, the narrator is a newly married, young upper-middle class woman who is being treated by her doctor husband for depression. As previously mentioned, Rose accepted the uncle’s perspectives as her own and the story ironically ends up, according to Tompkins, as a love story of sorts between one of Rose’s Aunt’s maids, Phebe, and Rose. In Gilman’s story, the newly married woman has already been suffering from isolationism, unintentional gaslighting from her husband, and depression. This woman completely relies on her husband’s word as a medical practitioner, and while he honestly reflects on the practices taught to him, he ends up gaslighting his wife’s valid emotions because he prescribes sleep, isolation, and bedrest which lead to her mental unhinging. A similar deprivation of emotional expression can be seen in Louisa May Alcott’s Transcendental Wild Oats. Alcott addresses the utopian diet designed by her father as being particularly difficult for the mother who prepares these meals. The changes restrict all artistic input from the chef and the change of diet to unleavened bread, porridge, and water for breakfast; bread, vegetables, and water for dinner; bread, fruit, and water for supper put a woman’s taste, time, and temper on the menu to be consumed.

Works Cited

Alcott, L. M. (1927). Eight cousins. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.

The text describes the story of an orphaned girl who is taken care of by her Grahamite-practicing doctor of an uncle that loved her mother in one of her rich Aunt’s large house. The orphaned girl adopts Dr. Alec’s ideologies and her ideal man takes similar form as he switches out her tonics and pills with milk and bread. This text shows the cross between the libidinal with the edifying and the moral with the medical as seen in Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.

Clive, J., Curtis, S., Wadey, M., Gilman, C. P., & British Broadcasting Corporation. (1989). The yellow wallpaper. Great Britain: BBC.

The text describes the story of a newlywed, young woman who is being mistreated for depression by her doctor who is also her husband. The cultural beliefs of that time did not acknowledge the emotional deprivation of women whose function was to supplement the man when he is at work as seen in his prescription of isolation, bed rest, and sleep. This text shows the consequences when the edifying and libidinal are crossed with the moral and the medical.

Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ history of the United States. Beacon Press: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: Eating bodies in the nineteenth century. New York: New York University Press.

 

“[tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar] were the first objects within capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently” (Newman 2013: 83)

Newman quoted H.S. Irwin, “The original purpose in building the coffee house was to provide appropriate facilities for the “genial institution of Change”.” (Newman 2013: 79

“We would say that the strongest have survived, that is these salmon,” says Dirk of the Fisheries. “You guys here get excited about a run of 100,000 fish, we talking about 2.5 million.” (LaDuke 2016: 60)

News Article: New Storms Could Imperil Oroville Where 200,000 Were Evacuated

Newman has been discussing occupations filling the middle-man role between certain products and consumer. Modern farmers adapt to a market of the consumer and their newly monetized services begins to shape the mind of the farmer. At what step in the production of heavily commodified crops does the misdirected intention of farmers of varying degrees of moral centrality affect the food? Do the methods used to grow the food reflect the moral centrality of the farmer?

Newman’s first quote from Sidney Mintz identifies the ingredients used to appeal to individual identity through food. This observation is supported by the quote from H.S. Irwin because all ingredients were present in early coffee houses. Coffee houses also became trading centers for coffee beans. Irwin’s stated purpose for the coffee house was outcompeted by an outside interest that altered the intended collective agenda to benefit from sharing the interest of commodifying the shared interest of others. The commodification of the space affects the culture that grows from using the ingredients Mintz mentioned and the coffee consumers entering the incipient space. The effectiveness of a group appealing to individual identity can be shown in Conroy and Allen’s study from 2010.

The presence of one value system imposing their “superior” beliefs over the other also came up in The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. The stories of Indigenous leaders siding with oil corporations and assimilating the origin myth and identity of the people with the outside interest remind me of the political hijacking of the coffee house. In the communities the perception of the shared interest, land, must change when the concept of promoting the land (and other values central to the group) now includes extracting oil in the context of personal identity, potentially altering moral centrality.

The last quote about Maori and Wintu observation implies complete unawareness of long term consideration, and specifically disrespects millennia of Indigenous observation by assuming the other methods of observation are inferior to their own biological DNA testing methods. The necessity to validate other methods within your own value system suggests a potential unalignment will be found, and in this case, because of inferior methods by the other.

I chose this week’s news article because dams are a symptom of overmanagement, incentified regulation, and unsustainable planning that symbolically conflict the key principles of Indigenous culture that promote the salmon that no longer swims freely.

 

Citations

 

Conroy, D. M., & Allen, W. (2010). Who do you think you are? An examination of how systems thinking can help social marketing support new identities and more sustainable living patterns. Australasian Marketing Journal, 18(3), August, 195-197. Retrieved February 5, 2017, from www.sciencedirect.com.

Appealing to an individual’s self-interested materialistic values is less effective than appealing to an individual’s self-image when promoting individual growth and change. Analysis of the stages of change continuum as adapted from DiClemente and Prochaska suggests appealing to intrinsic benefits supports the growth transition model better than appealing to materialistic benefit, limiting iatrogenic effects and reducing potential anxiety. This study shows the effectiveness of appealing to a moral framework and supporting the change of an individual’s identity.

 

LaDuke, W., & Cruz, S. A. (2016). The Winona LaDuke chronicles: stories from the front lines in the battle for environmental justice. Ponsford, M.N.: Spotted Horse Press.

Newman, K. (2013). The secret financial life of food: From commodities markets to supermarkets. New York: Columbia University Press.

1. Espino, J. (2017, February 13). New storms could imperil Oroville where 200,000 were evacuated. Retrieved February 13, 2017, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/13/oroville-california-endangered-dam-spillway/97841076/

Over 200,000 have been evacuated from Oroville, California because the dam is not safe. State water experts do not know why the emergency spillway has eroded and there are two large storms coming this weekend. This helps my project because the article demonstrates the unsustainable nature of dams and the potential for destruction.

WC: 250

“The butter merchants tried to use the exchange to influence state legislators to limit the sale of margarine in Illinois.” Page 66 – The Financial Life of Food

“Bummer to be the team with no name.” Page 103 – The Winona LaDuke Chronicles

“[the numerous images linking black subjects to food are] Products of the dialect between commodity capitalism and popular culture.” Page 90 – Tompkins quoting Doris Witt in Racial Indigestion

(2017, February 6). Amnesty: At least 13,000 Hanged in Syrian Prison Since 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/07/world/middleeast/ap-ml-syria-mass-hangings.html

This article reports the murders of at least 13,000 people that were hanged in Syrian prison since 2011. The article shows inhumane comparisons of the death totals from hanging nonviolent prisoners to the war casualties in Aleppo since 2011. This information helps support the vernacular shift of dehumanizing people in order to treat them inhumanely as seen in the term to describe the place where hangings took place: the slaughterhouse.

The quote from The Financial Life of Food symbolizes the attitude of the butter-and-egg men. Not only have these men commodified a shared interest, but they attempted to share the interest of an already commodified shared interest. Different levels of the development of commodification reminds me of the quote from The Winona LaDuke Chronicles. This quote speaks to me as a young adult who was apart of changing a racist high school mascot name because it acknowledges the newly experienced loss of identity of the members of the racist athletic program while non empathetically relating it to loss of identity that stems from a lack of representation for Indigenous people. Tompkins quote of Doris Witt reminds me of this concept because the evolutionary nature of a social mechanism this complex will show up in seemingly abstract places. In An Indigenous People’s History, the author states that according to John Grenier’s work The First Way of War, violence was already present before the war and racism did not incite it, but was used to mask the unnatural violence as a tool to release the desire to kill. The masking of this desire evolved into an emotional and spiritual feeding upon all non-white bodies. In Racial Indigestion, Tompkins writes there is a limit to how much the white body can ingest the black subject, when the black body inhabits its own stickiness, the white consumer is upset by the black subject trying to leave the stickiness, upsetting the okayness of their treat.

Bibliography

Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.

Grenier, J. (2005). The first way of war: American war making on the frontier, 1607-1814. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

 LaDuke, W., & Cruz, S. A. (2016). The Winona LaDuke chronicles: stories from the front       lines in the battle for environmental justice. Ponsford, M.N.: Spotted Horse Press.

Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: Eating bodies in the nineteenth century. New York: New York University Press.

 

WC: 244

“Corn was probably the only crop cultivated in every state of the Union” pg 34 Kara Newman quoting Arturo Warman from around 1890-1900

“According to Foucault, biopower is constituted by “numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations,” including the disciplining and regulating of bodies, or “anatomo-politics,” and “biopolitics,” or the regulating of the species body, “imbued with the mechanics of life serving as the basis of the biological processes”.” Page 69 Kyla Tompkins

“…the dance takes various forms among different communities, the core of it is the same, a commemoration of the gift of corn by an ancestral corn woman.” Pg. 31 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous People’s History of the United States)

Gamboa, S. (2017, January 27). Mexico Senator: Stop Collaborating With The U.S., Buying Its Corn. Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-senator-stop-collaborating-u-s-buying-its-corn-n713056

Texts from the program relate to the first chapter of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. Corn is discussed as a spiritual symbol of value and tradition amongst several indigenous groups that migrated from Mexico into the southeastern United States around 1850. The quote describing the Green Corn Dance shows cultural growth from the shared interest of corn. Corn production spiked when its use extended to animal feed after 1890. The first hybrid corn seed emerged in commercial use in 1933 and as this temporary boost in results occurred, government subsidies for the crop emerged to gain more land for production throughout the 30’s and 40’s until World War 2 which was followed by chemical fertilizers. The subsidization of corn after the first few waves of hybridized seeds plus the developed relationship between the meat industry and using corn feed represents an unhealthy transition of commodifying animal life. By the 1970’s the process of refining corn into fructose had been perfected and the futures market of corn syrup banned it by 1988 because it had become so heavily relied upon as an economic shortcut in food. Humans were subjected to an experiment of an economic shortcut just like the cows we eat, and legislation helped solidify it. The news article discusses current Mexico-U.S. relations as headlined, “Mexico Senator: Stop Collaborating with U.S., Buying Its Corn”. The socio-political identity of corn has transformed into an identifiable biopolitical tool with tremendous economic value.

Annotated Bibliography

• Newman, K. (2013). The secret financial life of food: From commodities markets to supermarkets. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: Eating bodies in the nineteenth century. New York: New York University Press.

Gamboa, S. (2017, January 27). Mexico Senator: Stop Collaborating With The U.S., Buying Its Corn. Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-senator-stop-collaborating-u-s-buying-its-corn-n713056

 

A Mexican Senator said to stop collaborating with the U.S. and to stop buying their corn because the people of Mexico are threatened by President Trump’s offensive stance on building a wall and want action. Mexican President Pena Nieto was scheduled to meet with Trump on Tuesday, but the meeting was canceled as Trump continued to insist that Mexico pay for a border wall, along with suggestions of a 20% border tax. The resistance of the history behind American corn comes to light by defying a key commodity and potentially could appeal to Mexican culture for a corn roots movement by resisting American corn growing it at home supports my observation between texts of how corn can be used as a tool to bring together communities in relation to the commodified alternative to show it is a biopolitlcal tool.

Intro to The Secret Financial Life of Food and Chapter One – WC: 235

“…others buy futures contracts as part of an investment strategy…because food prices may move in a different direction than stock prices, some investors see the purchase of futures contracts as a way to diversify their portfolios.” pg 10

“It only took a decade but it’s officially OK to fall for U.S. banks again. Consumers feel good. Business leaders feel good. And interest rates are finally not zero — in fact, they may get an extra lift from President-elect Donald Trump, should his policies boost economic growth as everyone seems to be expecting.”

Lachapelle, T. (2017, January 13). It’s OK to Love Banks Again. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-13/banks-deliver-goods-to-justify-trump-bump

The quote from page 10 directly addresses the reality of the commodification of food. The similarities between the classification of motive in trading food commodities “hedging and passive investment” and “speculation” brought the 2007-2008 financial crisis to mind. During this banking debacle, banks that were “too large to fail” decided to advantageously grant loans to individuals who, on paper, had no chance of repaying them because they could shift the responsibility to an individual investor willing to take the risk. Newman wrote on page 10, “just as many owners of mutual funds don’t know which companies they hold in their stock portfolios, many investors don’t know which commodities contracts are included in their index funds.” The “speculation” entrepreneur wants to fix a favorable price for himself to either profit from, or trade to an entrepreneur looking to diversify his portfolio for his own guaranteed profit, or even to try and dump a riskier contract on an investor that is even more removed from the product than the writer of the futures contract. On page 11 Newman quoted Michael Pollan, [commodities are] “without qualities; quantity is the only thing that matters”.  In the digitized trading grounds of the futures market, movers and shakers are only seeing digital numbers to represent an idea with so much more meaning. The uncertain vernacular of the writer accurately conveys the hopelessness of restoring hope in the U.S. bank system.

Intro to The Secret Financial Life of Food and Chapter One – WC: 235

“…others buy futures contracts as part of an investment strategy…because food prices may move in a different direction than stock prices, some investors see the purchase of futures contracts as a way to diversify their portfolios.” pg 10

“It only took a decade but it’s officially OK to fall for U.S. banks again. Consumers feel good. Business leaders feel good. And interest rates are finally not zero — in fact, they may get an extra lift from President-elect Donald Trump, should his policies boost economic growth as everyone seems to be expecting.”

Lachapelle, T. (2017, January 13). It’s OK to Love Banks Again. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-13/banks-deliver-goods-to-justify-trump-bump

The quote from page 10 directly addresses the reality of the commodification of food. The similarities between the classification of motive in trading food commodities “hedging and passive investment” and “speculation” brought the 2007-2008 financial crisis to mind. During this banking debacle, banks that were “too large to fail” decided to advantageously grant loans to individuals who, on paper, had no chance of repaying them because they could shift the responsibility to an individual investor willing to take the risk. Newman wrote on page 10, “just as many owners of mutual funds don’t know which companies they hold in their stock portfolios, many investors don’t know which commodities contracts are included in their index funds.” The “speculation” entrepreneur wants to fix a favorable price for himself to either profit from, or trade to an entrepreneur looking to diversify his portfolio for his own guaranteed profit, or even to try and dump a riskier contract on an investor that is even more removed from the product than the writer of the futures contract. On page 11 Newman quoted Michael Pollan, [commodities are] “without qualities; quantity is the only thing that matters”.  In the digitized trading grounds of the futures market, movers and shakers are only seeing digital numbers to represent an idea with so much more meaning. The uncertain vernacular of the writer accurately conveys the hopelessness of restoring hope in the U.S. bank system.