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Xi Jinping Meets Che Meeting Mao

July 23, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

While the Chinese media featured a photo of Xi Jinping meeting a geriatric and ancient-looking Casto—the Chinese leader in a dark business suit clashing with the revolutionary’s casual retirement whites—Venezuela’s newspaper El Universal offered an entirely different image. It featured a photo of Xi face-to-face with an image of Mao meeting Che Guevara. One can only wonder what Xi thought.

Categories: China, Politics • Tags: Che Guevara, Cuba, Mao Zedong, Revolution, Xi Jinping

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Fashion is Most Glorious!

June 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Walking on Chunxi Lu in Chengdu I passed a full sized advertisement which draws upon the imagery and language of the Cultural Revolution. Featuring a worker, peasant, soldier trio the text plays on slogans common during the CR. The CR slogans I’m familiar with, but I’m a bit unsure about the exact translation of the edited ones in the advertisement, so hopefully someone can help me with this. Below I have given my best shot at these phrasings and then […]

Categories: Advertising, China, Nostalgia, Politics • Tags: Chunxi Lu, Cultural Revolution, 红色年代, 革命, fashion, marketing, nostalgia, Revolution, slogans, 口号

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Mystery Object #11: Lung Money

August 3, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

The other day, as I was paying for a cup of coffee in Greenville, Ohio, I looked down to see a most unbelievable thing—a massage raffle for a lung transplant. Let me write that again just in case you missed it the first time: A massage raffle for a lung transplant. Had I been in a bit more of a hurry to pay for my coffee I might not have looked down and read the details of the request: The photocopied […]

Categories: Bodies, Gambling, Healthcare, Mystery Objects, Politics • Tags: health, healthcare, lung transplant, raffle

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Mystery Object #7: Day Glo Watergate Poster

January 9, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

If he were still alive, today would have been Richard Nixon’s 100th birthday. No doubt because anniversaries make for easy news stories, I have already heard more than a few mentions in the media of Nixon’s legacy. The Vietnam War. The rapprochement with Mao’s China. Was he a war time president? What was his legacy? (Interestingly, I have heard no mention at all of one very influential event of his presidency—the decision to abandon the gold standard in August of […]

Categories: Mystery Objects, Politics • Tags: Post-Modern, Poster, Richard Nixon, Watergate

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Would the Authentic University Please Speak Up!

August 31, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

What does it mean when a university faculty takes a symbolic vote, but the administration “won’t take an official position?” What does it mean when so many universities’ advertising, their senior officials’ speeches, and their mission statements are filled with words like “community,” “responsibility,” “integrity,” “morality,” “truth” or “service”, but then their institutions appear to duck and cover when our public discussion most needs their participation? It is a display of caution over conviction. It marks the ascendancy of marketing […]

Categories: Higher Education, Liberal Arts, Politics • Tags: Augsburg, corporate culture, current-events, faculty, leadership, marketing, Marriage Amendment, St. Olaf

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How the Auggies Schooled Minnesota Higher Education on the Marriage Amendment

August 29, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

Higher education in Minnesota has been schooled by the Auggies. Last Wednesday, Augsburg College publicly took a stand stating its opposition to the amendment to the Minnesota constitution that would only recognize marriage as “between one man and one woman.” Their university president, Paul Pribbenow, took the book on “best practices of ‘playing it safe’ in university management” and boldly threw it out the window. In one statement the school publicly asserted its values. It engaged the world. It refuted the homogenous […]

Categories: Higher Education, Liberal Arts, Politics, Random Reflections • Tags: Augsburg, community, current-events, leadership, marketing, Marriage Amendment, Minnesota, politics

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“Take Up Arms and Get Rid of the Guy”: Tom Head and the Conspiracy of Opinions

August 23, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

I’m not even sure what to do with this video clip. The first time I watched it I was just stunned. When it ended, I promptly watched it again three or four times. There was no Onion watermark in the corner. It didn’t appear to be a hoax. It appears to be real and valuable ethnographic material—documenting a folk mythology that I find academically fascinating, albeit if also a touch terrifying. In the clip from a Fox television newscast, Texas […]

Categories: Mythologies, Politics, Random Reflections • Tags: conspiracy theories, government, politics, Tom Head

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Occupy Student Debt

October 10, 2011 by Museum Fatigue

**This is a repost of the original Facebook image and accompanying text. I have been meaning to archive a copy here. A sociology student at Hamline interviewed me about this image for her blog shorty after I posted it. It offers some useful context and explanation. Occupy Wall Street sure seems like a long time ago. Sadly, student debt is as big a problem as ever. I am a college professor increasingly frustrated by the incredible debt I see college students taking […]

Categories: Debt, Education, Photo Essays, Politics • Tags: 99%, Occupy Wall Street, public education, student debt

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Performing Cultural Revolution Nostalgia

June 7, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

I have been mulling over and trying to make sense of what exactly took place at the Cultural Revolution theme restaurant that I visited last week. I have photos, video, and some notes I wrote after returning to my hotel room that night, but none of them help very much. I thought maybe some time to reflect would make a difference, but the past seven days have just made things seem even more unreal. It all comes back to one […]

Categories: China, Food, Play, Politics • Tags: Beijing, China, Cultural Revolution, memory, nostalgia

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