ROUND-UP June 26-30, 2018

I know it's been only a few days since the last post, but I wanted to share the last of my writing for June 2018: a movie review for BUST, a blog post for my job at the Delaware Art Museum to complement our summer shows, and a version of my most recent conference paper for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Enjoy!

• "'Hearts Beat Loud' Is Gentle, Heartfelt Fun." BUST Magazine, June 26, 2018.

"Hearts Beat Loud’s titular viral, life-changing song is a bit of a bop—the kind of thing you might hear on college radio before it crosses over to the mainstream charts, or a song that iTunes might have offered as its single of the week back in 2013. It conjures up a sense of sunlight streaming in through a loft window, soaking smooth wooden floorboards in morning light—warm, simple, catchy. In fact, I ran out and bought the Hearts Beat Loud soundtrack the second I left the theater, a giddy grin on my face."

• "American Jews in the Civil Rights Movement." Delaware Art Museum blog, June 26, 2018.

"Jewish involvement in the cause of civil rights has been attributed to both a Jewish sense of solidarity as victims of bigotry and oppression in the United States (and in the world) as well as fidelity to the principle of tzedakah, or “righteousness.” Illustrated by classic photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr. marching in lockstep with the rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, steadfast Jewish solidarity with the cause of equality and the civil rights movement has become the prevailing narrative. Still, the reality of the American Jewish relationship to the civil rights movement is more complicated."

• "Unpacking Murad Osmann’s #FollowMeTo Instagram Travel Series." Los Angeles Review of Books, June 30, 2018.

"No mere romantic world-traveling venture, #FollowMeTo visually embodies many characteristics of colonialist art-historical movements and styles, such as 19th-century Orientalist painting and contemporary fashion photography. Likewise, #FollowMeTo has developed from a simple travel diary into a morally complicated touristic enterprise. The project synthesizes both old-world and new-world models of visual and economic domination, ultimately transforming from personal diaristic expression to unwittingly politicized advertising."