zenko.5 | COMPSTD 1100 AU20 Class Blog

Text Review Assignment – Addy Zenko

December 1, 2020 at 11:40pmDecember 8, 2020 by zenko.5

The text I have chosen to review is the personal narrative Educated by Tara Westover, which tells the story of her upbringing in the mountains of the American West, raised into the Mormon faith in a setting so rural and belonging to a socioeconomic class so impoverished that she did not initially have access to basic amenities or an education. The book follows her through her adolescence and explains how an anomaly granted her the privilege to attend Brigham Young University, going on to later study at Harvard and Cambridge.

The most prominent theme within this text that pertains to the work from Comparative Studies 1100 is the power that is granted to one who seeks an education, and how knowledge truly is power. There are a litany of conditions which prevents people from obtaining a quality education, most commonly race, gender, socioeconomic status, or a combination of the three. When we learn, we are able to begin to break free from the societal barriers which confine us and tap into the most empowering tool to which we have access.

Further, Westover’s narrative reminded me of Adiche’s TED talk about the danger of a single story. Westover had been fed this singular narrative of the way the world works her entire life: her mother was the family doctor, as her father did not want them to attend “socialist” hospitals, they did not have birth certificates as they wanted to obtain the utmost level of preparation for the “End Days,” and they were not allowed to have friends outside of their faith because they did not align with Westover’s parents’ views. Once she attended college, she was able to see how dangerous it had become for her to be exposed to this singular narrative, and how limiting that had been.

Westover is not alone in being unable to access a quality education; millions worldwide, particularly women and girls, are either forbade from attending school or not granted the tools they need to succeed in that setting, leaving them at a significant disadvantage. When we can begin to level the playing field for all, and create a medium for meaningful cultural exchange, we will be able to empower the global society at last.

The following photos depict author Tara Westover alongside Bill Gates, and one of the only known photographs of Westover and her family during their upbringing in the mountains of the American West.

Addy Zenko – Context Research Presentation Week 12

November 9, 2020 at 7:18am by zenko.5

This week, we will be reading Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others. This book was Sontag’s final publication before her death in 2004 and explores the visual representations of violence through war photography. For my Context Research Presentation, I have chosen to focus on the first major conflict to be extensively photographed: the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

Capturing such gruesome conflict and sharing the images on a national scale led civilians to, for the first time, have a fairly accurate understanding of the horrors of war. Photographers were employed by the Union and Confederate governments as well as independently to, for the first time, document these horrific events. War photography in the nineteenth century was quite the noble pursuit, seeing as it required them to haul their massive amount of gear into the battlefield; according to the American Battlefield Trust, they utilized wet-plate photography, “a process in which an image is captured on chemically coated pieces of plate glass. This was a complicated process done exclusively by photographic professionals…All of the chemicals used in the process had to be mixed by hand, including a mixture called collodion. Collodion is made up of several types of dangerous chemicals including ethyl ether and acetic or sulfuric acid. The photographer began the process of taking a photograph by positioning and focusing the camera. Then, he mixed the collodion in preparation for the wet-plate process” (n.d).

Given the extensive process required to capture an image during the Civil War, it was impossible for photographers to snap action shots, and instead were left to photograph “camp scenes, strategic sites, preparations for or retreat from action, and, on rare occasions, the grisly aftermath of battle” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004). Despite this, though, the War still gave way to a crucial influx of a new generation of photographers and photography alike. Names like Matthew B. Brady, Alexander Gardner, and James F. Gibson gained widespread popularity as their groundbreaking work shattered the known limits of photography (National Archives, n.d).

The Civil War exposed the horrific injustices that plague our country and those working to maintain the status quo. Through the work of Matthew B. Brady whose “name is synonymous with Civil War photography” alongside many others, we are able to understand the magnitude of this conflict two centuries later. I am looking forward to finishing this week’s reading in order to grow in my understanding of the terrors of war and the importance of photojournalism and honest storytelling.

Above is a photo of a Civil War camp captured by the iconic Matthew B. Brady, the father of photojournalism.

Shown above is a photo of a camera from the Civil War using wet-plate technology. These cameras are obviously very sizable, making it a huge ordeal to lug them onto the battlefield.

Works Cited

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/photography-and-civil-war#:~:text=While%20photographs%20of%20earlier%20conflicts,in%20ever%20larger%20quantities%20nationwide.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phcw/hd_phcw.htm

https://www.archives.gov/research/still-pictures/civil-war

Diary of Systemic Injustice — Addy Zenko

October 21, 2020 at 10:33pmOctober 25, 2020 by zenko.5

An example of systemic injustice I have witnessed recently is hearing of the forced hysterectomies of people in ICE detention facilities at the border of the United States and Mexico. These inhumane accounts of forced ethnic cleansing evokes memories of eugenics in American history (and world history, for that matter), and proves that systemic racism against people of color is still at work.

According to Karen Pallarito of Microsoft News, these are largely involuntary; a woman who experienced one at the Irwin County Detention Center stated: “when I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies” (2020). These People of Color, attempting to seek refuge in the United States and build a better life for themselves, are met with race-based hostility; systemic racism prevents them from leading healthy lives within these detention facilities. These people were immediately Othered upon their entrance into the United States, and they were immediately deemed inferior (so much so that an act of eugenics was committed against them en masse) to maintain the status quo of white superiority in America. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is quoted in NPR, these hysterectomies are a “staggering abuse of human rights”; she continues: “this profoundly disturbing situation recalls some of the darkest moments of our nation’s history, from the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks, to the horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, to the forced sterilizations of Black women that Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others underwent and fought” (2020).

This instance reminded me of Spivak’s analysis of the subaltern; I feel as if the immigrants that are trapped in these ICE detention facilities at the border are not only Othered into being “second-class citizens,” but they have been subjugated into the subaltern role, given that their identity has become their difference—a difference is so great that the US government determined they must prevent their bloodline from procreating further. This is what is done with dogs in a kennel, not with human beings; this abhorrent resurgence of eugenics practices leaves me fearful for what is to come down the line if the current Administration remains in power come November.

To me, this incident mirrored some of the rhetoric that I read while learning about human experimentation in Nazi Germany. To say it is unjust is an understatement; it is indicative of white supremacy to a dangerous degree. I am hopeful that upon the House of Representatives investigation, all of these people are given the resources to seek justice and citizenship if they so choose, though no amount of legal justice acquired can make up for the tragic and inexcusable acts of racism committed within that detention center. I wish those individuals a peaceful recovery.

These images, one of a protest outside the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia and one of a politicized uterus, convey the magnitude of the inhumanity of these forced sterilizations and are indicative of the systemic injustices that have been committed.