following world war ii, german antifascists and nationalists in buenos aires believed theater was crucial to their highly politicized efforts at community-building, and each population devoted considerable resources to competing against its rival onstage. competing germanies tracks the paths of several stage actors from european theaters to buenos aires and explores how two of argentina's most influential immigrant groups, german nationalists and antifascists (jewish and non-jewish), clashed on the city's stages. covered widely in german- and spanish-language media, theatrical performances articulated strident nazi, antifascist, and zionist platforms. meanwhile, as their thespian representatives grappled onstage for political leverage among emigrants and argentines, behind the curtain, conflicts simmered within partisan institutions and among theatergoers. publicly they projected unity, but offstage nationalist, antifascist, and zionist populations were rife with infighting on issues of political allegiance, cultural identity and, especially, integration with their argentine hosts.

competing germanies reveals interchange and even mimicry between antifascist and nationalist german cultural institutions. furthermore, performances at both theaters also fit into contemporary invocations of diasporas, including taboos and postponements of return to the native country, connections among multiple communities, and forms of longing, memory, and (dis)identification. sharply divergent at first glance, their shared condition as cultural institutions of emigrant populations caused the antifascist free german stage and the nationalist german theater to adopt parallel tactics in community-building, intercultural relationships, and dramatic performance.

its cross-cultural, polyglot blend of german, jewish, and latin american studies gives competing germanies a wide, interdisciplinary academic appeal and offers a novel intervention in exile studies through the lens of theater, in which both victims of nazism and its adherents remain in focus.

in 2007, little mosque on the prairie premiered on the canadian broadcasting corporation network. it told the story of a mosque community that worshiped in the basement of an anglican church. it was a bona fide hit, running for six seasons and playing on networks all over the world.

kyle conway's textual analysis and in-depth research, including interviews from the show's creator, executive producers, writers, and cbc executives, reveals the many ways muslims have and have not been integrated into north american television. despite a desire to showcase the diversity of muslims in canada, the makers of little mosque had to erase visible signs of difference in order to reach a broad audience. this paradox of 'saleable diversity' challenges conventional ideas about the ways in which sitcoms integrate minorities into the mainstream.

a stunningly illustrated look at how blake's radical vision influenced artists of the beat generation and 1960s counterculture

in his own lifetime, william blake (1757-1827) was a relatively unknown nonconventional artist with a strong political bent. william blake and the age of aquarius is a beautifully illustrated look at how, some two hundred years after his birth, the antiestablishment values embodied in blake's art and poetry became a model for artists of the american counterculture.

this book provides new insights into the politics and protests of blake's own lifetime, and the generation of artists who revived and reimagined his work in the mid-1940s through 1970, or what might be called the "long sixties." contributors explore blake's outsider status in georgian england and how his individualistic vision spoke to members of the beat generation, hippies, radical poets and writers, and other voices of the counterculture. among the artists, musicians, and writers who looked to blake were such diverse figures as diane arbus, jay defeo, the doors, sam francis, allen ginsberg, jess, agnes martin, ad reinhardt, charles seliger, maurice sendak, robert smithson, clyfford still, and many others. this book also explores visual cultures around such galvanizing moments of the 1960s as woodstock and the summer of love.

william blake and the age of aquarius shows how blake's myths, visions, and radicalism found new life among american artists who valued individualism and creativity, explored expanded consciousness, and celebrated youth, peace, and the power of love in a turbulent age.

exhibition schedule:
mary and leigh block museum of art, northwestern university
september 23, 2017-march 11, 2018

el chavo del ocho is one of the most influential pieces of popular culture to have hit latin america in the last 50 years, having, at the peak of its popularity in the mid-1970s, reached an approximate audience of 350 million across the americas. it is also a rare example of a cultural product that has travelled through latin america, leaving a lasting impact for several decades.

resonances of el chavo del ocho in latin american childhood, schooling, and societies analyses the phenomenon of el chavo, and its images of schooling and childhood, latin american-ness, class and experience. with contributions from scholars emerging from or based in countries including brazil, mexico, chile, puerto rico, argentina, venezuela, colombia and the us, the book combines reflections from a variety of international perspectives without attempting to compare or reach consensus on any ultimate meaning(s) of the work. the book explores themes such as images of schooling and childhood, romantization of poverty, the prevalence of non-traditional families and the bordering cynicism towards the economic structures and inequalities which, some argue, make the show transgressive and quite uniquely latin american. investigating the connection between visual culture studies and transcultural curriculum studies, this innovative title provides scholars with original new insights into conceptualizing childhood, schooling and society in latin america.

for half a century, leo bersani's texts have inspired, resisted, guided, and challenged work in the fields of literary criticism, literary theory, queer theory, cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, and film and visual studies. concluding with an interview with bersani, this is the first book-length introduction to bersani's oeuvre.

leo bersani: living theory chronologically follows the development of bersani's thought from his engagement in the 1960s and 1970s with french and american modernist fiction and his early articulations of poststructuralist theory (derrida, deleuze, foucault, blanchot), before moving to his work on psychoanalysis and to his groundbreaking formulations of what would become queer theory in the 1990s. the final chapter proposes a dialogue between bersanian ethics/aesthetics and the recent emergence of disability theory.

the battle of leyte gulf was the greatest naval engagement in history. the battle was four separate actions, none of which were fought in the gulf itself, and the result was the destruction of japanese naval power in the pacific. this book is a detailed and comprehensive account of the fighting from both sides. it provides the context of the battle, most obviously in terms of japanese calculations and the search for "a fitting place to die" and "the chance to bloom as flowers of death." using japanese material never previously noted in western accounts, h. p. willmott provides new perspectives on the unfolding of the battle and very deliberately seeks to give readers a proper understanding of the importance of this battle for american naval operations in the following month. this careful interrogation of the accounts of "the last fleet action" is a significant contribution to military history.