The Radio Free Dixie Playlists

Resonance ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-370
Author(s):  
Brian Kane

Broadcast from Havana, Cuba, but intended for audiences in the United States, Radio Free Dixie was the work of the civil rights leader Robert F. Williams. Airing from 1962 until 1966, the program carefully used music, news, and commentary to convey a militant message of armed self-defense and a critique of American imperialism and racism. While most scholars have focused on William’s spoken commentaries, this article aims to reconsider the role of music on Radio Free Dixie. By examining playlists transcribed and identified from archival broadcasts held at the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan, the article explores three themes. 1) The playlists draw attention to the care with which the music for Radio Free Dixie was selected and how phonograph records were acquired while in Cuba. 2) When viewed through the lens of parrēsia, or what Michel Foucault theorizes as the act of “truth-telling,” the playlists facilitate an argument about how music and speech co-constitute Radio Free Dixie’s parrēsiastic subject by isolating particular moments in the broadcasts where the truth-telling occurs at the intersection of music and speech. 3) Consideration of special episodes given wholly over to music allows for an examination of musical genres employed on Radio Free Dixie and their degrees of overt and coded utterance. Finally, the article considers what it might mean to make militancy audible.

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1594-1596

Kathryn M. E. Dominguez of the University of Michigan reviews “Currency Conflict and Trade Policy: A New Strategy for the United States,” by C. Fred Bergsten and Joseph E. Gagnon. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Analyzes the economics and politics of currency manipulation, globally and with respect to the key individual countries that engage in repeated intervention or feel its effects, and demonstrates empirically the strong connection between official foreign-exchange intervention and trade imbalances.”


2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1288-1289

Sandra K. Danziger of University of Michigan reviews “The Time Use of Mothers in the United States at the Beginning of the 21st Century” by Rachel Connelly and Jean Kimmel. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins, “Examines the time use of mothers of preteenaged children in the United States from 2003 to 2006. Discusses a descriptive look at mothers' time use; the nature of maternal caregiving--whether it is more like leisure or household production; husbands' influences on mothers' unpaid time choices; and the role of nonstandard work hours in maternal caregiving. Connelly is Bion R. Cram Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College. Kimmell is Professor of Economics at Western Michigan University and Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor. Index.”


Author(s):  
Sarita Echavez

Written in the wake of her tenure case at the University of Michigan, Sarita See's essay reflects the various subject positions she has held in the academy from untenured, and therefore vulnerable, assistant professor to a powerful advocate and organizer calling for institutions to closely interrogate what is at stake when faculty of color face tenure battles. Reflecting the challenges of writing about the unwritten record of racism and sexism in the United States academy, this essay documents and juxtaposes two radio segments with the radio collective "Asian Pacific American (APA): A Compass"—a rant and an interview—that See did as part of two national tenure justice campaigns on behalf of women of color academics that she helped organize.


Author(s):  
Larry Nackerud ◽  
John R. Barner

This chapter focuses on the interplay between the policy arenas of immigration and the death penalty in the United States. Central to this interplay is the recognition of foreign national rights on U.S. soil—even when individuals stand accused of committing a capital crime such as murder. The authors provide a sociohistorical background of U.S. immigration policy. Specifically, they address the United Nations, the role of the United States in its development, and its promulgated policies protecting human rights; the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, including Article 36; and Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes. The chapter focuses on Mexican nationals, who represent 13 of 34 foreign nationals executed in the United States since 1976, despite internationally recognized protections. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the failure of the United States to comply is a clear violation of international human and civil rights standards.


Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson

This chapter examines the origins of affirmative action in the University of Michigan (UM). The pressure that led to the university's first undergraduate affirmative action admissions program came from a federal bureaucrat and the president of the United States, who were both responding to black activism for workplace justice. Yet this pressure never threatened UM with the loss of lucrative federal contracts or potential court cases. UM adopted affirmative action in 1964 because people at the top of the institution wanted the university to change. This environment of weak federal coercion created a perfect recipe for co-optation. After the initial dose of federal pressure, UM officials took control of the purpose and character of affirmative action, creating a program that preserved the university's long-established priorities and values. It is no surprise, then, that between 1964 and 1967, black enrollment rose from only 0.5 to 1.65 percent of the student body. However, given that African Americans constituted more than 10 percent of the state population, affirmative action made a small dent in the racial disparities at UM.


2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK KUCZEWSKI ◽  
PATRICK J. McCRUDEN

Bioethicists have become very interested in the importance of social groups. This interest has spawned a growing literature on the role of the family and the place of culture in medical decisionmaking. These ethicists often argue that much of medical ethics suffers from the individualistic bias of the dominant culture and political tradition of the United States. As a result, the doctrine of informed consent has come under some scrutiny. It is believed that therein lies the source of the problem because the doctrine incorporates the assumptions of the larger society. Thus, informed consent has been reexamined, reinterpreted, and even abandoned as unworkable.


1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archibald A. Hill

Summary The author, Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America during the crucial phase of the post-World War II growth of linguistics as an autonomous academic speciality, 1950–1968, reports on the events that shaped the LSA and the discipline in North America in general. Whereas the Society counted only 829 members, individual and institutional, in 1950, the total number had risen to 4,375 by 1968. The author narrates, in a year-by-year manner, the acitivities that held the Society together during this period and furthered the exchange of ideas among the different generations of linguists, namely, (1) the annual meetings, traditionally held at the end of December, at which both established scholars and fledgling researchers presented papers and had them discussed; (2) the annual summer institutes, first held for a number of years in a row at the University of Michigan and subsequently at several other campuses in the United States, and (3) the publication of Language, the Society’s organ, ably edited by Bernard Bloch from 1941 until his death in 1965.


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