The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 — 5
EVENT PREVIEW
Professor discusses
intersectionality
By COSMO PAPPAS
Daily Arts Writer
Intersectionality is ubiquitous
in
contemporary
women’s
studies. However, its entry into
discourse
has
a
complicated
history.
This
concept
has
roots in a rich
history
of
Black
feminist
thought
and
practice
that
was
formally
articulated, but
not
originally
developed,
by
legal scholar and critical race
theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in
her 1989 paper “Demarginalizing
the Intersection of Race and
Sex: A Black Feminist Critique
of Antidiscrimination Doctrine,
Feminist Theory and Antiracist
Politics.”
The idea that people inhabit
multiple
social
positions
and
identities
(race,
class,
gender,
nationality,
sexuality,
religion)
that
mutually
and
simultaneouslyaffect each other
is one in U.S. Black feminist
thought
that
long
predates
Crenshaw’s work in a specifically
legal context. A central category
for much of women’s studies
scholarship, it is an analytical tool
used now in many disciplines that
seeks to describe the interaction
of
multiple
oppression,
discrimination and exploitation
that affect people who occupy
multiple identities.
For Jennifer C. Nash, professor
of American Studies and Chair of
the Women’s Studies Department
at George Washington University,
intersectionality emerged as a
kind of “outsider knowledge.”
“By ‘outsider knowledge,’ I’m
trying to think about the ways that
intersectionality emerged from
women of color who were trying
to describe a particular set of
experiences, some of which were
being excluded from the legal
system or having experiences of
discrimination rendered invisible
by law, some of which were being
rendered invisible by feminist
theory,” Nash said in an interview
with The Michigan Daily.
However,
intersectionality
has begun to appear into the
language repertoire of university
administrations in the past 20
years in ways that largely conflate
it with diversity and minority
enrollment. Nash devotes a great
deal of energy in her career to
describing and intervening in
the place of Black feminism in
the corporate university system,
women’s
studies
departments
and other disciplines. Her talk on
Thursday, Sept. 24, will focus on
how intersectionality has become
institutionalized in the language
of women’s studies departments
and university administration
that largely conflate it with
inclusion,
diversity
and
difference.
“My own interest in how
intersectionality has been taken
up,
particularly
in
women’s
studies as a field and discipline,
is the way that intersectionality
gets collapsed into diversity,
particularly
at
universities,”
Nash said. “So I’m interested in
the way that, in women’s studies,
it becomes almost a requirement
that we describe our work and
our teaching as intersectional.”
Intersectionality
“gets
deployed by universities (and
women’s studies departments),”
Nash
wrote
in
the
event
description online, “to signal
commitments to inclusion and
difference.” She describes in
her forthcoming book “Black
Feminism Remixed” how Black
women, through the language of
intersectionality, are referenced
only as “metaphor” in many
academic settings.
“One of the things that is really
interesting to me is how Black
feminism, Black women and
intersectionality get collapsed
into each other,” Nash said.
“So what I’m doing in the long
article (“Practicing Love: Black
Feminism,
Love-Politics,
and
Post-Intersectionality”) is trying
to say, in part, Black feminists
have this very long intellectual
tradition
that’s
varied,
and
complex, and multiple, and in the
last five to 10 years we’ve come to
assume that what Black women
produce is intersectional work,
and that’s it.”
In her work, Nash opposes the
reductive, identitarian version
of intersectionality that you see
in universities with a “politics
of love” that she sees as critical
in the history of Black feminist
intellectual
history.
Nash’s
talk will work to reorient other
intellectual histories that now
celebrate certain political forms,
like a politics of love, that Black
feminism laid the basis for in the
1970s.
Nash’s
talk
will
be
very
important for many campus
political
and
academic
actors
because
it
seeks
to
critique
a
vocabulary
like
“intersectionality”
that
so
many take for granted. Such a
critique is significant because
it attempts to draw attention
to how universities continually
exclude certain Black women
in spite of celebrating diversity
and
inclusion
through
intersectionality.
“What I’ve tried to develop is
this idea that women’s studies
has been obsessed with the
figure or the metaphor of the
Black woman and making Black
women into metaphor or symbol,
that is, Black women as never
dealt with as a fleshy, material
body,”
Nash
said.
“When
intersectionality
moves
into
university discourses through
the language of diversity, Black
woman continues to operate
as a symbol, whether it’s Black
woman as the symbol of the most
marginalized subject, or Black
woman as the limits of agency.”
Jennifer
C. Nash
North Quad
2435
Sept. 24, 2015
4:10 p.m.
Free
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
Daily Arts Writer
Beyoncé is back. No she hasn’t
released any new music quite yet
(save one feature that dropped last
week), but she is back, and it’s clear
that this is a new era for Queen Bey.
I’m one of the few people who has
a Tidal subscription, so without hav-
ing to make the trip to Philly and miss
Welcome Week, I was lucky enough
to watch Bey’s Made In America fes-
tival set from the comfort of my own
bed. That’s when I realized it: This
isn’t the same Beyoncé I saw last
summer on the On The Run Tour.
This isn’t the same Beyoncé who
dropped a surprise album in Decem-
ber 2013. Yes, that Bey and this one
are eerily similar, but this one has a
few new tricks for her loyal fans.
For starters, anyone who has
seen all of Beyoncé’s tours/DVDs
knows that she keeps up fan favor-
ites throughout her shows. She’s
been daunting the same intro to “Get
Me Bodied” for years now and same
for her go-to finale “Halo.” But now,
her set has clearly been revamped,
so it begs the question: was MIA just
a singular b-day show, or was it the
mark of Beyoncé’s new realm of roy-
alty?
Even throughout the first minute
or two of her set, it’s clear that it is
the ladder. Beyond new choreogra-
phy, she chose to open with the sul-
try 2015 remix of “Crazy in Love”
topped off with lip-biting and kiss
blowing. She’s taken on the role of
seductress. As she has gotten older,
Bey has clearly become increasingly
open with her sexuality (just ask
Mike Huckabee). Beyoncé was the
first album in which she got down
and really dirty, and since then, she
hasn’t let up much. “7-11” can be
some filthy dance floor music in the
right setting, and her appearance on
“Feelin’ Myself” with Nicki Minaj
isn’t something she would’ve been
privy to long ago.
Nonetheless, her subtle transfor-
mations are more than her embrac-
ing of her sexuality. MIA is by far the
most feminist context in which she
has put herself. She boasts “FEMI-
NIST” as proudly as she did on the
VMAs in 2014, but now she goes even
further. The French section in “Par-
tition” is repeated in English during
an interlude. “Do you like sex? Sex.
I mean, the physical activity. Coitus.
Do you like it? You’re not interested
in sex? Men think that feminists hate
sex, but it’s a very stimulating and
natural activity that women love.”
She also embraces fellow badass
Ronda Rousey when she uses her
“Do Nothing Bitch” quote as an intro
to “Diva.” And even more intriguing
is the new intro to “Grown Woman:”
a reading of Maya Angelou’s “Phe-
nomenal Woman.” A single dancer
moves gracefully as the poem is read.
Not only has she embraced her
womanhood, it seems that she also
managed to pick up a few tricks of
the rap game while on tour with Jay.
Her covers are typically glossy and
high-class, like Whitney Houston or
Lauryn Hill, but this set was cover-
less. However, the guest spots dur-
ing dance numbers where a special
treat to the Philly crowd and will
certainly be appreciated in whatever
tour plans may arise. Not only did
she go for her guest spot in “Feeling
Myself,” but the unmistakable beat
of “Truffle Butter” as well as “Trap
Queen,” “Nasty Freestyle” and Lil
Ronny MothaF’s “Circle” made sick
cameos.
And finally, while the video of her
new Naughty Boy-produced collab
with Arrow Benjamin doesn’t quite
resonate with all of this, her mes-
sage is there. The power in her voice
equates with the badass-ness of her
new persona. The defiance of “If I
lose myself, I lose it all” speaks to her
commitment to herself and her com-
mitment to genuinity.
After an extensive career, Bey has
taken the best of the best, dropped
the old and thrown some spice over-
top to create the most captivating
Beyoncé show ever. It seems that, at
the ripe age of 34, Beyoncé Knowles
has reached the age where she is
going to do whatever she damn well
pleases … and that makes for the best
Beyoncé yet.
Beyoncé is Beyoncé, will continue to be so
FILM REVIEW
Beautifully shot, but
depressing ‘Everest’
By REBECCA LERNER
Daily Arts Writer
If you don’t feel like risking
your life to climb the most
infamous mountain in the
world,
the
view of Mount
Everest in the
all its IMAX
3D
glory
is
probably
as
good
as
you’ll
get.
The sweeping
vistas of the
mountain, captured in a depth
that
couldn’t
be
achieved
without that extra dimension,
make you feel like you’ve made
it to the Nepalese mountains.
But
without
that
nasty
frostbite that makes your toes
fall off.
Aside from the magnificent
views,
“Everest”
seeks
to
answer the looming question
of why. Why would people
risk
everything
they
have
for this? Director Baltasar
Kormakur’s portrayal of the
1996 expedition that claimed
eight lives answers it with a
display of the ferocity with
which these people attempt to
conquer the beast.
The
cast
does
its
best
through the heavy parkas and
facemasks to convey the tragic
story. Australian guide Rob
Hall (Jason Clarke, “Zero Dark
Thirty”) must lead his group
up the mountain alongside his
rival guide, American hippie
Scott Fisher (Jake Gyllenhaal,
“Nightcrawler”). Hall’s wife,
Jan, (Keira Knightley, “The
Imitation Game”), is a climber
as well but is pregnant, so she
cannot go on the trip. Also in
their crew is Jon Krakauer
(Michael
Kelly,
“House
of
Cards”), a reporter who later
captured the events in his
book, “Into Thin Air,” the
brash Texan Beck Weathers,
(Josh Brolin, “Inherent Vice”)
and the sole woman of the trip,
Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori,
“Humans”)
who
conquered
the world’s Seven Summits by
climbing Everest.
The
backstories
of
the
characters
become
less
of
a
concern
when
the
foreshadowing of the disaster
ahead becomes fully clear.
Aside from the literal corpses
of past hikers they trek past,
the communication via walkie-
talkie is lacking, there are
missing oxygen bottles and
there are far too many people
on the mountain for safety.
If people are willing to pay
$65,000 for this trip, from an
economic standpoint it would
make sense to take more
climbers. But from a safety
standpoint, it feels reckless.
Much of the film focuses
on
this
commodification
of Everest. It’s become less
of
an
conquest
solely
for
experienced
climbers
and
more of a fatal tourist trap.
Especially after glacial ice
crashed down Everest’s west
side and killed 16 sherpas last
year, it weighs heavy the risk
that this business creates for
everyone. The tour leaders,
like Hall and Fisher, have
an
inherent
contradiction
in their jobs – they must aid
these people in achieving their
dreams of summiting Everest
but they also have to get them
down the mountain alive. With
a terrible storm coming, these
goals prove to be mutually
exclusive.
The story is gut-wrenching.
To see people deliberately go
to their death with the film’s
foreshadowing playing as a
funeral march is emotional
and tense. But the movie’s
thick coats and voices muffled
through wind and snow leaves
too much unexplained. Its
beauty is absolute, so much so
that you think you can reach
out and touch the snow on the
peaks. But “Everest” makes
it hard to justify that beauty
with the cost of human lives.
B-
Everest
Rave Cinema
Universal Pictures
WIKIPEDIA
Won’t this look so much better in IMAX?