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Image Credit: Jon Crispin

Beaten up, bulging, and with one latch ajar, this old suitcase beckons to be opened. It was closed for a long time, deposited with its owner in 1953 at the Willard Asylum for the Insane near Seneca Lake, NY. This and around 400 other suitcases that belonged to the asylum's patients sat for many years, forgotten in the attic of the defunct facility until discovered in the mid-1990s. After being exhibited publically for the first time in 2004, many of the suitcases are now temporarily in the care of Jon Crispin who has undertaken to photograph the collection. The images in this post are from Crispin's blog which chronicles his experience inspecting and documenting the personal effects of the Willard patients.

Right now in my class we’re preparing to turn in the first draft of the second paper assignment, which is a comparative rhetorical analysis between two productions of the same musical where I’d like my students to talk about the different rhetorical arguments made by each production using sets, costumes, and performance, as well as changed scripts.  In order to alleviate student concerns, I’ve set myself the task to write a sample paper for them.  It’s been an interesting experience for me, and a somewhat difficult one.  For my texts, I’ve chose to compare the original 1949 Broadway production of South Pacific with the 2008 revival.

Image Credit:  CastRecordings.com 

The progressive deconstruction of Orientalism is catching up with information technology. Since 1996, the Arab Image Foundation, based in Lebanon, has been amassing a digital collection of photographs from the Arab world.