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Papers by Ashley Dawson

Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2021

MFS Modern Fiction Studies

Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom’s African, Asian, and Caribbean populati... more Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom’s African, Asian, and Caribbean populations from 1948 to the present, working at the juncture of cultural studies, literary criticism, and postcolonial theory. Ashley Dawson argues that during the past fifty years Asian and black intellectuals from Sam Selvon to Zadie Smith have continually challenged the United Kingdom’s exclusionary definitions of citizenship, using innovative forms of cultural expression to reconfigure definitions of belonging in the postcolonial age. By examining popular culture and exploring topics such as the nexus of race and gender, the growth of transnational politics, and the clash between first- and second-generation immigrants, Dawson broadens and enlivens the field of postcolonial studies. Mongrel Nation gives readers a broad landscape from which to view the shifting currents of politics, literature, and culture in postcolonial Britain. At a time when the contradictions of expansionist braggadocio...

American Book Review, 2013

We now inhabit the ruins of a public university system laid waste by neoliberal dogma over the la... more We now inhabit the ruins of a public university system laid waste by neoliberal dogma over the last three decades. Despite the intellectual bankruptcy of doctrines of privatization in academia and other public sectors, elites' response to the current crisis inevitably takes the form of a fresh round of enclosures of the academic commons. New York State Governor Paterson's recent Deficit Reduction Plan, for example, proposes 500millioninstateagencycuts,mostofwhichheimposedadministrativelywithoutseekinglegislativeapproval.Morethan1/3rdofthosecutsfallonCUNY,SUNY,andstudentfinancialaid.CUNYseniorcollegeshavealreadysufferedreductionsof500 million in state agency cuts, most of which he imposed administratively without seeking legislative approval. More than 1/3 rd of those cuts fall on CUNY, SUNY, and student financial aid. CUNY senior colleges have already suffered reductions of 500millioninstateagencycuts,mostofwhichheimposedadministrativelywithoutseekinglegislativeapproval.Morethan1/3rdofthosecutsfallonCUNY,SUNY,andstudentfinancialaid.CUNYseniorcollegeshavealreadysufferedreductionsof68.3 million in State aid in the 2008-2009 budget. At the same time, full-time equivalent student enrollment

During the 50th anniversary of Indian independence two summers ago, British newspapers ran freque... more During the 50th anniversary of Indian independence two summers ago, British newspapers ran frequent features on the growing profile of Asian culture in Britain.

During the mid-to late-1970s, Britain endured an upsurge of neo-fascist organizing and racial att... more During the mid-to late-1970s, Britain endured an upsurge of neo-fascist organizing and racial attacks. In response, a strong anti-racist movement grew up among Britain's ethnic minority communities, leading to radical new forms of organizing. Nascent British youth subcultures of the period such as punk were also sucked into the vortex of racism. The organization Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed to combat this trend. In its fiveyear history, RAR drew on the forms of mongrel culture developing among certain sectors of urban British youth to stage groundbreaking performances in which reggae and punk subcultures cross-pollinated. Despite its links to established organizations of the far Left, RAR succeeded in uniting aesthetics and politics in a radical new way by drawing on rather than preaching to youth subcultures of the day. As a result, it offers an important model of autonomous organizing that continues to resonate today. 'Love Music, Hate Racism': The Cultural Politics of the Rock Against Racism Campaigns, 1976-1981 In his classic study of post-1945 youth subcultures, Dick Hebdige suggests that Black British popular culture served as a template for defiant white working class subcultural practices and styles (29). The kind of affiliatory cultural politics that Hebdige's study describes was best exemplified in the little-studied Rock Against Racism (RAR) campaign of the late 1970s. As Paul Gilroy stresses in There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, his seminal analysis of British culture and nationalism, unlike much of the Left at the time, RAR took the politics of youth cultural style and identity seriously. 1

This article argues that Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down (2001 ) may be seen with the benefit... more This article argues that Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down (2001 ) may be seen with the benefit of historical hindsight as a portrait of the fear of imperial overreach and failure as written through the psyche of elite U.S. soldiers. In Black Hawk Down, Mogadishu and its denizens are made to stand in for the worst fears of the American military and the civilian policymaking establishment: the city, and, by extension, urban Africa, is represented as a feral zone in which the U.S. military's unmatched firepower and technology are overwhelmed in densely populated slums. The Mog, as the film's Special Forces troops call the city, is a ramshackle megacity whose residents are armed to the teeth with the military detritus of the Gold War. Mogadishu thus embodies the new Heart of Darkness, a stateless urban world of vicious Hobbesian war of all against all. This view of Africa as the vanguard of anarchy is shared by a significant segment of the elite in the global North, who see the criminalization of the state in Africa as a direct threat to U.S. interests. If, as these analysts hold, it is from such feral zones that future threats to American society are likely to originate, then potent new weapons systems must be developed to deal with this racialized new world disorder. This article unpacks the ahistorical character of such selfserving representadons of urban Africa, underlining the extent to which pohcies pursued during the Gold War and neoliberal era by powers such as the U.S. have helped to create the conditions that Black Hawk Down represents in such spectacular excess.

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

The songs that punctuate Hindi films and give them much of their remarkable international appeal ... more The songs that punctuate Hindi films and give them much of their remarkable international appeal are particularly significant sites in the cinema's attempt to deal with challenges to traditional structures of authority. Focusing on spectacular moments of non-narrative -and often explicitly erotic -pleasure, such songs proffer utopian scenarios within which the tensions raised by the narratives of kinship in crisis that dominate Hindi film are emolliated. It is the moments of melodic fantasy embedded in Hindi film, the song and dance routines which offer these condensed images of reconciliation, that predominantly working class youths in Britain appropriate in order to express the conflicting hopes and fears that characterize their own cosmopolitan identities. In this article, I discuss two of the most important instances of remix culture in Britain over the last decade in order to offer a retrospective take on the uses of Hindilanguage film by second-generation Asian youths.

This past July, the Tampa Police Department introduced a computerized surveillance system to augm... more This past July, the Tampa Police Department introduced a computerized surveillance system to augment its efforts to monitor the streets of a downtown business and entertainment district for potential miscreants. 1 The system, built by Visionics Corporation of New Jersey and offered free to local municipalities for a year, consists of a network of security cameras placed in prominent public areas and equipped with a face-recognition software package known as FaceIT.

Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2021

MFS Modern Fiction Studies

Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom’s African, Asian, and Caribbean populati... more Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom’s African, Asian, and Caribbean populations from 1948 to the present, working at the juncture of cultural studies, literary criticism, and postcolonial theory. Ashley Dawson argues that during the past fifty years Asian and black intellectuals from Sam Selvon to Zadie Smith have continually challenged the United Kingdom’s exclusionary definitions of citizenship, using innovative forms of cultural expression to reconfigure definitions of belonging in the postcolonial age. By examining popular culture and exploring topics such as the nexus of race and gender, the growth of transnational politics, and the clash between first- and second-generation immigrants, Dawson broadens and enlivens the field of postcolonial studies. Mongrel Nation gives readers a broad landscape from which to view the shifting currents of politics, literature, and culture in postcolonial Britain. At a time when the contradictions of expansionist braggadocio...

American Book Review, 2013

We now inhabit the ruins of a public university system laid waste by neoliberal dogma over the la... more We now inhabit the ruins of a public university system laid waste by neoliberal dogma over the last three decades. Despite the intellectual bankruptcy of doctrines of privatization in academia and other public sectors, elites' response to the current crisis inevitably takes the form of a fresh round of enclosures of the academic commons. New York State Governor Paterson's recent Deficit Reduction Plan, for example, proposes 500millioninstateagencycuts,mostofwhichheimposedadministrativelywithoutseekinglegislativeapproval.Morethan1/3rdofthosecutsfallonCUNY,SUNY,andstudentfinancialaid.CUNYseniorcollegeshavealreadysufferedreductionsof500 million in state agency cuts, most of which he imposed administratively without seeking legislative approval. More than 1/3 rd of those cuts fall on CUNY, SUNY, and student financial aid. CUNY senior colleges have already suffered reductions of 500millioninstateagencycuts,mostofwhichheimposedadministrativelywithoutseekinglegislativeapproval.Morethan1/3rdofthosecutsfallonCUNY,SUNY,andstudentfinancialaid.CUNYseniorcollegeshavealreadysufferedreductionsof68.3 million in State aid in the 2008-2009 budget. At the same time, full-time equivalent student enrollment

During the 50th anniversary of Indian independence two summers ago, British newspapers ran freque... more During the 50th anniversary of Indian independence two summers ago, British newspapers ran frequent features on the growing profile of Asian culture in Britain.

During the mid-to late-1970s, Britain endured an upsurge of neo-fascist organizing and racial att... more During the mid-to late-1970s, Britain endured an upsurge of neo-fascist organizing and racial attacks. In response, a strong anti-racist movement grew up among Britain's ethnic minority communities, leading to radical new forms of organizing. Nascent British youth subcultures of the period such as punk were also sucked into the vortex of racism. The organization Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed to combat this trend. In its fiveyear history, RAR drew on the forms of mongrel culture developing among certain sectors of urban British youth to stage groundbreaking performances in which reggae and punk subcultures cross-pollinated. Despite its links to established organizations of the far Left, RAR succeeded in uniting aesthetics and politics in a radical new way by drawing on rather than preaching to youth subcultures of the day. As a result, it offers an important model of autonomous organizing that continues to resonate today. 'Love Music, Hate Racism': The Cultural Politics of the Rock Against Racism Campaigns, 1976-1981 In his classic study of post-1945 youth subcultures, Dick Hebdige suggests that Black British popular culture served as a template for defiant white working class subcultural practices and styles (29). The kind of affiliatory cultural politics that Hebdige's study describes was best exemplified in the little-studied Rock Against Racism (RAR) campaign of the late 1970s. As Paul Gilroy stresses in There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, his seminal analysis of British culture and nationalism, unlike much of the Left at the time, RAR took the politics of youth cultural style and identity seriously. 1

This article argues that Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down (2001 ) may be seen with the benefit... more This article argues that Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down (2001 ) may be seen with the benefit of historical hindsight as a portrait of the fear of imperial overreach and failure as written through the psyche of elite U.S. soldiers. In Black Hawk Down, Mogadishu and its denizens are made to stand in for the worst fears of the American military and the civilian policymaking establishment: the city, and, by extension, urban Africa, is represented as a feral zone in which the U.S. military's unmatched firepower and technology are overwhelmed in densely populated slums. The Mog, as the film's Special Forces troops call the city, is a ramshackle megacity whose residents are armed to the teeth with the military detritus of the Gold War. Mogadishu thus embodies the new Heart of Darkness, a stateless urban world of vicious Hobbesian war of all against all. This view of Africa as the vanguard of anarchy is shared by a significant segment of the elite in the global North, who see the criminalization of the state in Africa as a direct threat to U.S. interests. If, as these analysts hold, it is from such feral zones that future threats to American society are likely to originate, then potent new weapons systems must be developed to deal with this racialized new world disorder. This article unpacks the ahistorical character of such selfserving representadons of urban Africa, underlining the extent to which pohcies pursued during the Gold War and neoliberal era by powers such as the U.S. have helped to create the conditions that Black Hawk Down represents in such spectacular excess.

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

The songs that punctuate Hindi films and give them much of their remarkable international appeal ... more The songs that punctuate Hindi films and give them much of their remarkable international appeal are particularly significant sites in the cinema's attempt to deal with challenges to traditional structures of authority. Focusing on spectacular moments of non-narrative -and often explicitly erotic -pleasure, such songs proffer utopian scenarios within which the tensions raised by the narratives of kinship in crisis that dominate Hindi film are emolliated. It is the moments of melodic fantasy embedded in Hindi film, the song and dance routines which offer these condensed images of reconciliation, that predominantly working class youths in Britain appropriate in order to express the conflicting hopes and fears that characterize their own cosmopolitan identities. In this article, I discuss two of the most important instances of remix culture in Britain over the last decade in order to offer a retrospective take on the uses of Hindilanguage film by second-generation Asian youths.

This past July, the Tampa Police Department introduced a computerized surveillance system to augm... more This past July, the Tampa Police Department introduced a computerized surveillance system to augment its efforts to monitor the streets of a downtown business and entertainment district for potential miscreants. 1 The system, built by Visionics Corporation of New Jersey and offered free to local municipalities for a year, consists of a network of security cameras placed in prominent public areas and equipped with a face-recognition software package known as FaceIT.

In The Routledge Companion to Twentieth-Century British Literature Ashley Dawson identifies t... more In The Routledge Companion to Twentieth-Century British Literature Ashley Dawson identifies the key British writers and texts, shaped by era-defining cultural and historical events and movements from the period. He provides:

Analysis of works by a diverse range of influential authors
Examination of the cultural and literary impact of crucial historical, social, political and cultural events
Discussion of Britain’s imperial status in the century and the diversification of the nation through Black and Asian British Literature

Readers are also provided with a comprehensive timeline, a glossary of terms, further reading and explanatory text boxes featuring further information on key figures and events.

Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom's African, Asian, and Caribbean populati... more Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom's African, Asian, and Caribbean populations from 1948 to the present, working at the juncture of cultural studies, literary criticism, and postcolonial theory. Ashley Dawson argues that during the past fifty years Asian and black intellectuals from Sam Selvon to Zadie Smith have continually challenged the United Kingdom's exclusionary definitions of citizenship, using innovative forms of cultural expression to reconfigure definitions of belonging in the postcolonial age. By examining popular culture and exploring topics such as the nexus of race and gender, the growth of transnational politics, and the clash between first- and second-generation immigrants, Dawson broadens and enlivens the field of postcolonial studies.

Mongrel Nation gives readers a broad landscape from which to view the shifting currents of politics, literature, and culture in postcolonial Britain. At a time when the contradictions of expansionist braggadocio again dominate the world stage, Mongrel Nation usefully illuminates the legacy of imperialism and suggests that creative voices of resistance can never be silenced.

"Elegant, eloquent, and full of imaginative insight, Mongrel Nation is a refreshing, engaged, and informative addition to post-colonial and diasporic literary scholarship."
---Hazel V. Carby, Yale University

"Eloquent and strong, insightful and historically precise, lively and engaging, Mongrel Nation is an expansive history of twentieth-century internationalist encounters that provides a broader landscape from which to understand currents, shifts, and historical junctures that shaped the international postcolonial imagination."
---May Joseph, Pratt Institute

Exceptional State analyzes the nexus of culture and contemporary manifestations of U.S. imperiali... more Exceptional State analyzes the nexus of culture and contemporary manifestations of U.S. imperialism. The contributors, established and emerging cultural studies scholars, define culture broadly to include a range of media, literature, and political discourse. They do not posit September 11, 2001 as the beginning of U.S. belligerence and authoritarianism at home and abroad, but they do provide context for understanding U.S. responses to and uses of that event. Taken together, the essays stress both the continuities and discontinuities embodied in a present-day U.S. imperialism constituted through expressions of millennialism, exceptionalism, technological might, and visions of world dominance.

The contributors address a range of topics, paying particular attention to the dynamics of gender and race. Their essays include a surprising reading of the ostensibly liberal movies Wag the Dog and Three Kings, an exploration of the rhetoric surrounding the plan to remake the military into a high-tech force less dependent on human bodies, a look at the significance of the popular Left Behind series of novels, and an interpretation of the Abu Ghraib prison photos. They scrutinize the national narrative created to justify the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the ways that women in those countries have responded to the invasions, the contradictions underlying calls for U.S. humanitarian interventions, and the role of Africa in the U.S. imperial imagination. The volume concludes on a hopeful note, with a look at an emerging anti-imperialist public sphere.

Contributors. Omar Dahbour, Ashley Dawson, Cynthia Enloe, Melani McAlister, Christian Parenti, Donald E. Pease, John Carlos Rowe, Malini Johar Schueller, Harilaos Stecopoulo

Through various examinations of past and current threats to academic freedom, Dangerous Professor... more Through various examinations of past and current threats to academic freedom, Dangerous Professors investigates the status of such freedom in the aftermath of 9/11. Bringing together scholars in literature, law, and American Studies, the collection of essays seeks to understand academic freedom in historical perspective by focusing on the key documents that have defined its current meaning, and then to analyze the ways in which this concept protects but also limits critical voices on campus. Including essays from academics (Ward Churchill and Robert Jensen) who have been directly involved in recent controversies about academic freedom, Dangerous Professors provides a timely and critical look at the battle over educational curricula and institutions today.

"Dangerous Professors is pertinent, well-executed, and apt to introduce new and helpful perspectives regarding the present meaning and value of academic freedom in the U.S. university system and, by extension, U.S. public and civil society generally."
---Adam Green, University of Chicago

Democracy, States, and the Struggle for Social Justice draws on the fields of geography, poli... more Democracy, States, and the Struggle for Social Justice draws on the fields of geography, political theory, and cultural studies to analyze experiments with novel forms of democracy, highlighting the critical issue of the changing nature of the state and citizenship in the contemporary political landscape as they are buffeted by countervailing forces of corporate globalization and participatory politics.

Using interesting case studies, the book explores these 3 main themes:

the meaning of radical democracy in light of recent developments in democratic theory

new spatial arrangements or scales of democracy – from local to global, from streets protests to the development of transnational networks

the character and role of states in the development of new forms of democracy

The book asks and answers: are participatory models of democracy viable alternatives in their own right or are they best understood as supplemental to traditional representative democracy? What are the conditions that give rise to the development of such models and are they equally effective at every scale; i.e., do they only realize their radical potential in particular, local places?

A useful text in a broad range of advanced undergraduate courses including social movements, political sociology or geography, political philosophy.