Barack Obama’s Body: The Presidency, the Body Politic, and the Contest over American National Identity
Beyond the formal powers and duties laid down in the Constitution, the presidency is a cultural institution meant to represent—in a very literal sense—the American people. Presidents act as identificatory figures—symbolizing what their supporters hold sacred about the nation. Presidents’ own bodies come to matter particularly at political moments when a new or counter-interpretation of national identity challenges prevailing assumptions. Supporters often interpret their national identity in the figure of the president. As a black candidate in a historically white-ruled nation, Barack Obama’s narration of his background as representatively American has been a critical task both as candidate and as president. Both Obama’s biography and his visual presence have come to play a part in how political issues, from health care to foreign policy, get framed by both supporters and opponents. But does race stand alone in this dynamic of life story and looks? I analyze the challenges faced and opportunities afforded the Obama presidency by comparing him to earlier presidents who were politically associated with moments of broad change in American politics: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all of whom depended heavily on biography and physical embodiment to authorize their vision of national identity. Presidential embodiment ultimately diminishes democratic politics because of the strong fixation on a singular political institution it produces.
Hunger Power : The embodied protest of the political hunger strike 1
An enduring form of protest, the hunger strike features in numerous historical and contemporary political and social movements. Yet its simple denial of food is belied by its numerous contradictions. Undertaken by those denied voice it nevertheless can be extremely powerful. It deftly interiorises the violence of the opponent within the body of the protester, affirming and undermining the protest simultaneously. It can be undertaken for highly strategic and rational reasons and yet it is often affective because of the emotional response it provokes. This paper attends to the hunger strike, focusing upon the three historical examples of political activism provided by the Suffragette, Irish republican and anti-apartheid movements. In particular, it highlights three political aspects of the hunger strike: 1) the facilitation of non-verbal communication 2) the embodiment of collective identifications 3) the disruption of the dominant order. The paper considers how the hunger strike challenges the omission of the body from political theory, displaying the body to be both political instrument and political actor. It also challenges the prioritisation of deliberative discussion over embodied protest.
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio, and language learning in higher education
Abstract This article explains the relevance of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the European Language Portfolio (ELP) to language learning in higher education, especially as regards the definition of aims and learning outcomes and the promotion of students' capacity to manage their own learning. After providing some historical background, the article expounds the CEFR's action-oriented approach, explores it conceptualisation of progression in language learning and its implications for language teaching, and suggests how it can be applied to the design, implementation and assessment of language learning programmes in higher education. It then introduces the ELP, explains how it can be used in conjunction with the CEFR to support coherent programme delivery while promoting reflective learning and student autonomy, and concludes by considering the role of self-assessment in the university's assessment framework. The article ends with a cautionary tale.