Expanded Annotations
The following below are my expanded annotations, which are organized by semester and give a summary of different works we looked at throughout the year.
Fall Semester
Article/Chapter Presenting a Scholarly Argument
In Silencing the Past, Michel-Rolph Trouillot focuses on the making of history and the narratives that surround it. He first focuses on language and how colonizers could not find any grammar books in the places they colonized. As a result, they thought of the indigenous peoples as nonhistorical, ignoring and silencing historical narratives in the process. The piece then shifts to the creation of historical narrative In order to track power, one cannot exclude any potential actor or site in a particular event. One must expand the view of who is part of the narrative, which includes other professions such as artisans and filmmakers. Historians should not be the sole producers of history. Rather, it should include more professions in order to give a more holistic narrative.
Article/Chapter Presenting a Philosophical Premise
In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke makes the philosophical case for a limited, civil government. He starts off with how human beings are in a state of nature, or before society and government. The number one goal of individuals is self-preservation, with reason serving as a guide on how humans act. Because of this desire, human beings have three natural rights: life, liberty, and property. Liberty acts as a “fence” for protecting life while property enables survival. While in a state of nature, an individual can do what they want but they are in a constant state of war as they have to protect themselves and therefore cannot enjoy their rights. Human beings join society and consent to civil society so that they can enjoy their natural rights, with the government being tasked with protecting those rights and ensuring public safety. If the government violates individual rights, the people then have the right to overthrow the government.
Poetic Response
In his Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Cesaire offers a scathing criticism of Western society and civilization after World War II. He specifically focuses on France and the atrocities they commit against colonized peoples. Cesaire argues that Hiltler was not an aberration but a culmination of Western imperialism and capitalism. The atrocities Hitler committed against Europeans had been committed against colonized peoples for decades before. Cesaire says that Europe is decadent, stricken, and dying. European civilization has become animalized in the way they see Africans and Asians, leading to a figure like Hitler to come into power. They have laid a path of ruin wherever they have gone, destroying civilizations, cultures, and economies. Cesaire also talks about a boomerang effect that has transformed the European into the animal they see Africans and Asians as. His criticisms are eloquently written, detailing the issues with Europe and providing a response to popular European beliefs that they are spreading civilization and modernity to their colonies.
Article/Chapter Presenting an Historical Analysis/Documentation
In Neither Settler nor Native, Mahmood Mamdani focuses on the hypocrisy of the Allied powers and its consequences at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) which took place after World War II. Mamdani argues that the Allies were complicit in the rise of Hitler, arguing he was a culmination of decades, if not centuries of Western imperialism. Hitler was inspired by the United States’ extermination of Native Americans, and looked to the American South for a model to treat Jews like how black Americans were treated. US industrialists consistently backed Hitler with investments. Germans committed the same crimes that the Allies did in their colonies and against Germany during and after the war. The Allies indiscriminately bombed German and colonial civilians, something they charged the Germans with doing. While the Germans conducted mass expulsion, the Allies did the same as they redrew European borders after the war. The IMT violated legal practices by retroactively punishing German defendants. The decision to focus on German crimes without looking at the historical context had lasting ramifications on international law, as the losers were the only ones who were held to account.
Non-Textual Reflection
The 1961 black and white film Judgement at Nuremberg explores the trial of four prominent Nazi officials in a military tribunal by the United States. This court drama grappled with the question of who was responsible for Nazi atrocities and Hitler’s rise to power. If everyone, including the Allies and the common people were responsible, who and how do you hold people accountable? Ultimately, the four defendants were found guilty despite pressure on the judge, Dan Haywood, to let them off the hook. It explores the tension between securing justice and broader geopolitical concerns, especially as the Cold War was taking root and the United States needed Western Germany in the fight against communism. It also explores the issue of how to hold people accountable, and if there is something as being too harsh when doing so.
Spring Semester
Article/Chapter Presenting a Scholarly Argument
In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason Moore argue that capitalism depends on “cheapening” nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives in order to sustain economic growth. It rejects the idea that capitalism and nature are separate entities. Rather, capitalism requires transforming the environment into a resource for exploitation. Women, people of color, and indigenous people were seen as part of nature. The book starts with a history of medieval, feudal Europe and the environmental crises that ended the system. In its place, a new system of exploiting nature and constant conquest emerged, ultimately culminating in the rise of capitalism and the modern-world. Through colonialism, slavery, and imperial expansion, European powers created systems that extracted natural resources and certain peoples, connecting environmental destruction, racial hierarchy, and economic inequality into one historical process. Capitalism is presented as a structure built on the continuous devaluation of human life and nature.
Article/Chapter Presenting or Discussing a Legal Argument
US v. Jones is a 2012 United States Supreme Court case which dealt with the 4th Amendment, search warrants, and surveillance. Antoine Jones, a Washington DC nightclub owner, was suspected of drug trafficking. Investigators received a warrant to attach a GPS monitor to Jones’ car without his knowledge, with time and geographical limits. However, they tracked the monitor for a longer period of time and geographic range, in violation of the warrant. Jones was charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics based on the monitor, ultimately being found guilty. Jones appealed, arguing that the GPS tracker violated his 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and expectation of privacy. It went to the Supreme Court, who unanimously ruled that the police actions in this case were unconstitutional and constituted a search under the 4th amendment. The case raised questions about the 4th amendment’s scope with the advent of modern surveillance technology and the expectation of privacy.
Article/Chapter Presenting an Historical Analysis/Documentation
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that the United States had entered a third period of racial social control against African-Americans. Through the War on Drugs and colorblind language such as “tough on crime” and “law and order”, politicians used the prison system to police and incarcerate African-Americans and create a permanent racial caste. Alexander argues that this system of mass incarceration emerged with the end of Jim Crow segregation, accelerating under Ronald Reagan with the expansion of the War on Drugs. Since the start, the rise of crack cocaine has devastated black communities and bipartisan “tough on crime” policies have increased incarceration rates and restricted opportunities for those convicted of crimes. As a result, many former prisoners face barriers to voting, employment, housing, and social mobility, reinforcing a lasting system of racial inequality.
Non-Textual Visual Artifact (Visual Artwork)
March: Book 2 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, is a graphic novel which shows John Lewis’s journey in the civil rights movement. The novel begins with John Lewis getting ready to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009, showing America’s significant racial progress. It then proceeds to show John Lewis in 1960 Memphis, Tennessee fighting for the integration of movie theaters. It continues with Lewis’s rise in the civil rights movement and especially the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where he participated in freedom rides, met President John F. Kennedy, and ends with a speech he made at the March on Washington in 1963. The book uses visuals to show the journey, playing with light versus darkness, use of cameras and media, and onomatopoeia with loud noises. With minimal words, the reader is forced to see the graphic and detailed scenes, evoking plenty of emotion in the process.
Response to a Performance/Performance-Based Practice
Dancing to the Promised Land is a one hour documentary that took a deep dive into choreographer Bill T. Jones’s 1990 to 1992 dance piece, Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. The film offers behind the scenes footage of the dance rehearsals and interviews with Bill T. Jones about the elements of the dance and what the dance is supposed to symbolize. The dance was split into the following sections: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Eliza on Ice, and Last Supper/The Promised Land. The interviews with Jones give insight into his journey and goals for the dance. He talks about the grief he experienced with the loss of his partner Arnie Zane to AIDS and how it is reflected in the dance. He also discusses how he wants the dance to explore differences in race, class, and gender, and how he wants to give a possible resolution instead of cynicism along with bringing down stigmas.
