Money Talks: Politics and the Wealth Gap is a short film that delves into the inner workings of Citizens United and campaign finance regulation as it relates to the growing wealth gap in the United States. It seeks to show that, in comparison to the average American, wealthy campaign donors can disproportionately influence political elections and…
Category: Archives of student work
Silences in the Census
Silences in the Census was inspired the curiosity we all had about the way that local contexts change as a result of the global processes that we have learned about over the course of the semester. We wanted to understand how our own local context – Providence – changed; indeed, these changes manifest themselves in the demographics of the…
Banned Histories
Banned Histories offers a brief, targeted look at what revisionist history is and does. Although not it does not explicitly explore the role that access to money and financial capital plays in access to speech, the imbalance of power given to those with an inordinate amount of resources–whether political, financial, academic, or otherwise–is a theme present…
Marx on Mars
MarxOnMars is an anti-capitalist, socialist, extraterrestrial, idealist and non-hierarchical organization. We are committed to dedicating the MarsOne mission to throwing off the yoke of capitalism once and for all, and to creating a Marxist society for the people, by the people, on Mars. We view capitalism as a profound moral failing and the root of all…
America the Empire
In their blog, Modern America: Power and Politics of an Empire, spring 2014 students Sujaya Desai ’14, Maansi Vohra ’15, Najma Yakob ’14, and Bartosz Zerebecki ’15 set out to find the colonial in our supposedly post-colonial world. Through discussion, their tumblr and its followers interrogate the concept of imperialism and track its persistence in today’s world. Their project is…
A Herstory of Activism
Itching to learn more about the activism of womyn of color at Brown University since the 1960s? Look no further than A People’s Herstory of Womyn of Color at Brown, an archive created by spring 2014 students Sarah Day Dayon ’15, Kendra Cornejo ’15, Hector Peralta ’16, and Julmar Carcedo ’16. This rich archive includes eight interviews with…
“Studying History Is Kind of Important”
For their final project, spring 2014 students Lily Novak ’14, Kirah Nelson ’14, Will Fesperman ’15, Sara Winnick ’15, and Yi-Hung Liu (graduate student) created a zine and teaching resource entitled “‘Studying History is Kind of Important’: An Analysis of US History Classes in Providence, RI.” Their project brings together critical readings of theories in education…
Get Gentrified
Breaking with the generally sobering tone of the course, spring 2014 students Brienne Ellis and Eddie Grystar created a promotional website for a fake app to promote the gentrification of Oakland, gentri.fy. From the proclamation on the front page of the site–”A brighter tomorrow starts with you”–to the list of partners (Lean In of course wants in…
From the Archives: Displacement, Genocide, Resistance
Produced by fall 2012 students Eduarda Araujo, Jonathon Tollefson, and Mika Zacks, this zine, “Struggles of Our Time: Memories from Palestine and Guatemala,” is filled at once with exquisite multimedia pieces, a collection of poetry, photography, and other artwork from survivors of displacement, and prose elegant enough to be art itself. In its 44 pages, the zine tells a story…
From the Archives: Nuclear Narratives
Barry Elkington’s website* for Professor Shibusawa’s Stories to Live By course presents the history of nuclear weapons production in the American Southwest. Pairing insightful prose with thought-provoking videos, Elkington draws out subtle–and some unsubtle–themes in the public discourse around nuclear weapons testing and production. The essays on each page shed light on these themes, which range from the American…