Oracle Online

The presentations are open to the public as always, with one exception--once the presentation and discussion are complete, all attendees are encouraged to complete a questionnaire evaluating the candidate on their performance and ranking how beneficial they would be to the CLA’s environment. After each of the presentations are complete, one of the candidates will be offered a three-year contract with Hamline.

The first presentation, held Feb. 9, was a dissertation by Kimberly Williams, a Ph.D. candidate in women's studies at the University of Maryland with an M.A. in both women’s studies and history.

Williams began by displaying an advertisement for Diesel Jeans. In it, a shirtless cowboy, belt buckle undone, lounges on a couch with a satisfied and fatigued look on his face while behind him stand plastic blow-up dolls of women, mouths open, fashioned to look like matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls). It was one example of what she said was the tendency of Russian-American relations since 1991 to be “gendered.”

Entitled “After the Cold War? Gendered Nationalism and Imperialistic Rhetoric in U.S.-Russian Relations,” her presentation discussed the frequency in which Russia is represented in the media by a white, heterosexual female. These women are often seen as dangerous, “sexually voracious” (or otherwise subservient) and untrusting, Williams said. At other times, they are portrayed in a helpless position, in which they need to find someone stronger to aid them.

Williams said that these media representations serve to associate Russia with traits often considered stereotypically femalečweak, irrational and deviantčwhile representations of America in the media are often of white, heterosexual males that highlight stereotypically masculine traits such as decisiveness, heroism and power.

Representations like these are what Williams said give off an impression that Russians are, “not just inferior, but also subservient to Americans.”

One example cited was the Disney film Anastasia, which Williams said was a model of political imperialism. She added that it justified the use of Russian women in the international sex industry, with an estimated half-million women and children having been trafficked out of Russia since 1991.

Williams proposed that greater attention be paid to representations of countries in the media, not only to strengthen relations but also to help prevent trafficking and other concerns. It was one method that she said could help put an end to the “exploitation of marginalized populations” she finds prevalent in media today.

The next candidate in the interdisciplinary search will be profiled in the Feb. 27 edition of the Oracle.