Before Katrina – a personal memoir of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras festival – by Jeanne-Marie Kenny. Jeanne-Marie lived in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina struck, and these are her personal impressions of the Mardi Gras festivities.
America’s “Great Satan” Then And Now In Action and War Films: Subtle Shifts, changing Stereotypes – By Ralph Donald The image of the Great Satan, the archetypal monster who exemplifies the current enemy, has always been a powerful stereotype in Hollywood movies. In this fascinating article, Ralph Donald considers how the model for the beast constantly changes to reflect America’s changing foreign policy objectives over the years.
The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement – The coincidence of the Civil Rights movement with the Vietnamese war helped to radicalise African American servicemen both in Vietnam and on their return. In this article, Brendan Gallagher considers how the two events are inextricably bound up.
Relations between Hispanic and African Americans in the U.S. today seen through the prism of the “Memin Pinguin” Controversy – According to the 2000 Census, Hispanics have now exceeded African-Americans as the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. The recent Memin Pinguin controversy, in which the Mexican post office issued stamps featuring a racial caricature of an Afro-Mexican, highlighted the fact that the Hispanic community is itself racially diverse, and that Afro-Mexicans have been an invisible and underprivileged community. In this lecture, delivered at the Liverpool John Moores University in March this year, Dr. Ezekiel Mobley argues that African Americans should become aware of their Latin cousins, and that the controversy also has lessons which Britain could learn.
American Studies Resource Centre 