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Making Sense of Modern Pornography

Katrina Forrester The New Yorker
Disagreement on the left reigns over pornography. Is it in essence the objectification of capitalist commodity relations applied to "the other" with possibly disastrous social consequences, or is its celebration of eroticism potentially subversive of an entire repressive culture? The book under review examines the modern porn industry where the Internet has made it ubiquitous, and access on many sites even free. So if this isn't our fathers' old titillations, what is it?

Berry Pickers' Win Could Result in Better Conditions for Many Farmworkers

Elizabeth Grossman Civil Eats
Farmworkers at Washington's Sakuma Brothers farms have voted to join what could be the first union for Driscoll's berry pickers in the nation. In September, they voted to be represented by Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ), the first farmworker union led by workers who are indigenous to Central America.

Not in My Locker Room

Dave Zirin The Nation
People like Donald Trump are the reason locker rooms can become an incubator of rape culture-and a fortress against anyone who would challenge it from the outside.

How 'The Birth of a Nation' Silences Women

Salamisha Tillet The New York Times
The most celebrated representations of the rebellion leader, including a white abolitionist’s 19th-century essay and Mr. Parker’s film today, have all reimagined Turner’s story as one that hinges on interracial rape. And though the race of both the villain and the victim of the rape have changed over time and have been dependent on the politics and era of the author, there has also been a strange uniformity.

After Irony

Maggie Doherty Dissent Magazine
One of the newer fields of academic study is called "Affect Studies," described by Maggie Doherty as the "humanistic and social-scientific investigations of the ways that feelings are generated, experienced, and interpreted" In this review, she explores how two authors use ideas generated by this field to explore the political life of feelings.

Daughters and Trumps

Frank Bruni The New York Times
Republicans seem unable to censure Trump without invoking female spouses and especially offspring. In this version of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the work is displaying concern for women, and the daughters are less protégées than props.

Beyond October 2: Possible Futures in Post-Referendum Colombia

Robert A. Karl NACLA
October 2, when the peace accords were defeated in a referendum, should not be remembered solely as the day in which dreams of a peaceful Colombia were deferred. Although absent the implementation of the peace accord, participatory action will remain largely confined to the local and regional level, the resiliency of Colombian social life in the face of violence will still help to define a new Colombian democracy.