Another Texan could be headed to Washington. Why it looks like the next Secretary of Agriculture could be from the Lone Star State. Plus there may be more locally-acquired Zika cases in Texas than have been reported so far. What we’re learning about the spread of the virus. And tis the season for returning gifts. Why taking items back is more common than ever. And it used to take a quarter to call someone who cares… but do you even know what it costs to use a payphone anymore? A look at one place in Texas where their use is as strong as ever. Plus the long and forgotten history of the Texas Mutualista… and why West Texas is getting kind of a bad wrap from Hollywood… that and more on today’s Texas Standard:
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Texas Standard: November 18, 2016
According to some in Sacramento, the election outcome is an existential threat. Has California become the new Texas? Plus Texas has legalized the medical use of cannabis oil, but the fees for doing business may make it impossible. A co author of the bill wonders if that wasn’t part of the plan, we’ll hear from her. Also, a prominent public figure delivers a concession speech: only this one’s not politics, it’s football. We’ll hear what the fuss is about, and why it matters in a larger sense. Plus a Texas history textbook from the 1950’s rediscovered, and reviewed. And the week in politics and much more coming up today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: November 11, 2016
The supreme court’s docket could get much lighter with a few strokes of the pen, and the impact for Texas could be profound. Plus the President elect promised to drain the swamp. But a Texas republican with first hand experience staffing the white house says that’s gonna be messier than Mr.Trump might imagine. We’ll hear why. And in the wake of Tuesday, how are conversations going around your dinner table? We’ll have some words of wisdom on how to keep the heat in the kitchen when relatives want to talk politics. Plus the week that was according to the Texas Tribune and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: September 21, 2016
in Houston, 65 percent of the city is within a mile of a toxic emitter. The impact’s not just environmental, but economic, we’ll explore. Also something has to change long term after the Sandra Bland case, at least that’s what some Texas lawmakers are talking about this week…but how, and how much? Plus there are shelters across the state for survivors of domestic violence—now comes an expansion to fill what may not be an obvious gap…a gender gap. And a claim made right on this broadcast: that Texas has lost more law enforcement officers in the line of duty than any other state in the nation. Is that true? We’ll do the numbers. All that and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Gone With The Wind
Gone With The Wind is one of the most iconic American historical fiction movies ever made. Even today, this Civil War epic still has cultural relevance. However, due to the variety of themes, the political significance of the content, and the expectations set by the novel, the pressure to execute the production perfectly was immense. In this episode, Rebecca McInroy is joined by Dr. Coleman Hutchinson, Dr. Dina Berry, and Steve Wilson to discuss the some of the creative decisions in the making of the film and the prevailing messages and impact of this classic.
War Memorials, Trauma and Identity
This month on In Perspective, our roundtable participants discuss public memory in relation to grief, war, and memorials such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Two of our guests represent that museum, which commemorates the September 11 attacks of 2001 and the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Also joining us are two distinguished faculty from The University of Texas at Austin and by a call-in guest who is an assistant professor and filmmaker from Northwestern University.
The Discussion
Kyle Henry, MFA, is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. He is the editor of Heather Courtney’s 2012 film, Where Soldiers Come From, among many others. His latest documentary project, Half-Life of War (2014), explores war memorials and asks the question: Do we memorialize wars to remember, or do we construct monuments and memorials so that we can forget? In this discussion, Henry describes how he works to distill emotional realities through filmmaking in order to get at larger truths.
Clifford Chanin, director of education at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, discusses the significance of technology to how September 11th was experienced and how it is remembered in the museum. He addresses the question of whether or not memorials have particular life spans, and explains the dramatic change in the nature of memorials over the past several decades.
Jenny Pachucki, oral historian and assistant curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, shares what it means to speak about tragic events and the value of listening to each other’s recollections of where they were during historical moments. She explains that the exhibits bring together a vast array of remembrances and celebrate the victims’ lives, rather than attend only to their tragic passing.
Richard Flores, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology and Mexican American studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He has written extensively on the topic of public memory, particularly in relation to Texas history and the Alamo. He helps frame the discussion of public memory and history with reference to the particular purposes served by myth-making and memorials. He explains how the distillation of events and lives toward the symbolic might also silence the voices of veterans and gloss over ongoing conflicts.
Tom Palaima, Ph.D., joins us from the department of classics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a MacArthur fellow who focuses on Aegean prehistory and early Greek language and culture. He offers examples from Greek antiquity to give context to the discussion of early war memorials in the form of songs and epics. Palaima categorizes memorials as one of two varieties: those created to benefit those affected by the war, such as veterans and their families; and those created to benefit the state and national identity.
What’s your perspective?
These In Perspective participants together question how we deal with the trauma of terrorism and war, how we might mourn collectively, and why we build public memorials. They seek to understand and to teach an understanding of public memory and the human costs of war. At the Texas Humanities Project, we hope that this engagement with war and public memory from a variety of points of view in the humanities will spark thoughtful discussion among listeners about the impacts of memory and memorials in your lives.
Check back this time next month for our third In Perspective roundtable.
In This Life Together, with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (Ep. 1, 2014)
A 1998 interview with the stage and film actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as they remember their distinguished careers as artists and civil rights activists in their dual autobiography.