The discursive representation of Iran’s supreme leader in online media

پژوهش حاضر با هدف بررسی روایت‌های زنان از تجربة شخصیِ خود نسبت به خشونت‌های خانگیِ اعمال‌شده بر آن‌ها و آشکار ساختن ایدئولوژی تولیدکنندگان روایت‌ها نسبت به خود و افراد خشونت‌گر انجام شده‌است. به این منظور، پنجاه روایتی که مستقیماً به وسیلة زنان خشونت‌دیده نقل شده بود، به صورت تصادفی انتخاب شده و با استفاده از مدل کنشگران اجتماعی ون لیُوِن (Van Leeuwen, T. (2008) بررسی شده‌اند. یافته‌ها نشان می‌دهد که در روایت‌های مورد بررسی، کنشگران به صورت برجسته نشان داده شده‌اند و برای بازنمایی افراد خشونت‌گر، در مقایسه با افراد خشونت‌دیده، به میزان بیشتری از مؤلّفه‌های گفتمان‌مدار جامعه‌شناختی- معنایی استفاده شده‌است. تفاوت کاربرد برخی از مؤلّفه‌ها برای بازنمایی افراد خشونت‌گر و افراد خشونت‌دیده چشمگیر است. این تفاوت می‌تواند نشان‌دهنده آن باشد که زنان خشونت‌دیده جایگاه مناسبی برای خود در نظر نمی‌گیرند؛ در متحمّل‌ شدنِ خشونت، افزون بر اینکه افراد خشونت‌گر را عامل اصلی می‌دانند، احتمالاً خود را هم تا اندازه‌ای گناه‌کار می‌دانند؛ اعضای خانوادة خود را، حتی در مواردی که بی‌گمان خشونت‌گر هستند، به طور منفی ارزش‌گذاری نمی‌کنند؛ و نگاه بالا به پایینی که جامعه نسبت به زنان دارد، در گفتار و در نتیجه در ایدئولوژی خود زنان هم نمایان است.

Organizational scholars have devoted substantial attention to the challenges and weaknesses of diversity initiatives. However, we still lack a clear understanding of how to design effective diversity policies, especially initiatives that will engage those in power or who otherwise may not see a benefit for themselves. How can organizations design more effective policies that successfully engage people in powerful and privileged positions? This symposium presents work that suggests avenues for positive change in diversity and inclusion policy. Together, these presentations show how different approaches to diversity affect the way people in dominant societal positions (e.g., men, Whites, the wealthy) receive and engage with diversity issues in organizations. Further, this symposium identifies how organizations can engage those in power not only to increase diversity and inclusion, but also to inspire meaningful participation from groups otherwise often excluded or even threatened by diversity conversations. This symposium also provides practical solutions and interventions to help make diversity efforts more effective - thereby making organizations truly meaningful. Talks integrate research from psychological, sociological, and organizational sciences to move beyond the challenges identified by previous researchers and suggest new ways of improving diversity and inclusion in organizations. Overall, such work can deepen our understanding of organizational approaches to diversity, while helping researchers and practitioners create better policies that successfully engage people in powerful positions. First, L.T. Phillips develops a theoretical approach to understanding how those in power react to diversity initiatives and inclusion efforts; dual concerns of maintaining power and resources and achieving a sense of personal merit drive the responses of the powerful and privileged to diversity policies. Using this lens, she provides empirical evidence that addressing maintenance and security concerns can encourage the powerful to engage positively in diversity efforts within their organizations. Second, Martin, K.W. Phillips, and Sasaki use experimental methods to test how different ideologies about gender can influence inequality outcomes. They find that gender-blind approaches (downplaying differences and focusing on similarities between men and women) cause men to stereotype women colleagues less and treat women more respectfully compared to gender-aware approaches, which contrasts with recommended approaches for reducing racial bias in organizations. Third, Wynn uses a one-year ethnographic case study to analyze high-level organizational leaders’ engagement with gender equality initiatives; she finds that leaders combine the rhetoric of the initiative with their preexisting views about gender to conceptualize diversity and its importance to the organization. Finally, Romero, Emerson, Johnson, and Malahy draw from their practitioner experience at Paradigm, a strategy firm that partners with companies to build more diverse and inclusive organizations. They outline three strategies from the field for engaging organizational leaders in diversity initiatives and discuss how these leadership engagement strategies contribute to sustainable positive change in organizations. By exploring ways of successfully diversifying organizations, this symposium suggests how organizations can increase their social value and contribute positively to the inclusiveness of marginalized groups. Strategies for Engaging Leaders: Implementing Gender Equality in a Silicon Valley Tech Company Presenter: Alison Tracy Wynn; Stanford U. The Benefits of Gender-Blindness for Men's Bias Towards and Inclusion of Women Presenter: Ashley E. Martin; Columbia Business School Presenter: Katherine W. Phillips; Columbia U. Presenter: Stacey Sasaki; Columbia Business School Using Research to Inform D&I Strategies: Lessons from Engaging with Tech Companies and Leaders Presenter: Carissa Romero; Paradigm Presenter: Joelle Emerson; Paradigm Presenter: Natalie Johnson; Paradigm Presenter: Sean Malahy; Paradigm Merit vs. Maintenance: Using Safety Nets to Promote Merit Motives Among the Powerful Presenter: L Taylor Phillips; NYU Stern

In this paper, we take a critical discourse analytic approach to short notes written at the end of exam papers by Iranian students asking for a higher score. Such notes are sometimes written when the student has a feeling that they might fail the exam as a result of not providing satisfactory answers to questions. We consider this to be a manipulative strategy employed by these students to control their professors. Manipulation, however, is often considered an illegitimate source of power abuse by people having the higher hand in unequal power relations [Van Dijk, T.A. (2006). Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17(3), 359–383]. The present paper argues for a new understanding of this important concept in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) tradition by highlighting manipulative strategies used by less powerful people. The analysis of 71 such notes written by students in two Iranian universities suggests that the students, as people in a lower position of power, resorted to certain manipulative strategies to exert influence on professors, people in a higher position of power. Four of the most frequent strategies identified in the data will be discussed: (1) tapping into religious beliefs; (2) highlighting personal and social problems as causes for inability to prepare for the exam; (3) referring to negative consequences for failing the exam, and therefore tapping into the examiner's conscience; and (4) resorting to honorific terms to address the examiner. This study would have implications for application of CDA in Higher Education.

This book is divided into two parts, "Argumentation in Critical Discourse Analysis" and "Questions and Doubts about Visual Argumantation", each part containing two chapters. In the first chapter, "Topoi in Critical Discourse Analysis", I am concerned with how topoi are used (and misused) in the Discourse-Historical Approach. The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), pioneered by Ruth Wodak (see Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, Liebhart 1999; Wodak, van Dijk 2000; Wodak, Chilton 2005; Wodak, Meyer 2006; Wodak 2009), is one of the major branches of critical discourse analysis (CDA). In its own (programmatic) view, it embraces at least three interconnected aspects (Wodak 2006: 65): 1. 'Text or discourse immanent critique' aims at discovering internal or discourse-internal structures. 2. The 'socio-diagnostic critique' is concerned with the demystifying exposure of the possibly persuasive or 'manipulative' character of discursive practices. 3. Prognostic critique contributes to the transformation and improvement of communication. CDA, in Wodak's view, is not concerned with evaluating what is 'right' or 'wrong'. CDA ... should try to make choices at each point in the research itself, and should make these choices transparent.1 It should also justify theoretically why certain interpretations of discursive events seem more valid than others. One of the methodical ways for critical discourse analysts to minimize the risk of being biased is to follow the principle of triangulation. Thus, one of the most salient distinguishing features of the DHA is its endeavour to work with different approaches, multi-methodically and on the basis of a variety of empirical data as well as background information. (Wodak ibid.) One of the approaches DHA is using in its principle of triangulation is argumentation theory, more specifically the theory of topoi. In the first chapter, I am concerned with the following questions: how and in what way are topoi and, consequentially, argumentation theory, used in DHA as one of the most influential schools of CDA? Other approaches (e.g., Fairclough (1995, 2000, 2003) or van Leeuwen (2004, 2008; van Leeuwen, Kress 2006)) do not use topoi at all. Does such a use actually minimize the risk of being biased, and, consequentially, does such a use of topoi in fact implement the principle of triangulation? Judging from the works we analysed in the first chapter, there are no rules or criteria how to use topoi or how to detect topoi in the discourse/text; the only methodological precept seems to be, »anything goes«! If so, why does CDA need triangulation? And what happened to the principle stipulating that CDA »should try to make choices at each point in the research itself, and should make these choices transparent? « We have seen identical and similar bundles of topoi for different purposes or occasions; we have seen different bundles of topoi for identical and similar purposes or occasions; we have seen different bundles of topoi for different occasion; and we have seen pretty exotic bundles of topoi for pretty particular and singular purposes. Which leads us to a key question: can anything be or become a topos within DHA? And, consequentially, what actually, i.e., historically, is a topos? If a topos is supposed to connect an argument with a conclusion, as all the relevant DHA publications claim, one would expect that at least a minimal reconstruction would follow, namely, what is the argument in the quoted fragment? What is the conclusion in the quoted fragment? How is the detected topos connecting the two, and what is the argumentative analysis of the quoted fragment? Unfortunately, all these elements are missing; the definition and the quoted fragment are all that there is of the supposed argumentative analysis. And this is the basic pattern of functioning for most of the DHA works. At the beginning, there would be a list of topoi and a short description foreach of them: first, a conditional paraphrase of a particular topos would be given, followed by a short discourse fragment (usually from the media) illustrating this conditional paraphrase (in Discourse and Discrimination, pp. 75-80), but without any explicit reconstruction of possible arguments, conclusions, or topoi connecting the two in the chosen fragment. After this short "theoretical" introduction, different topoi would just be referred to by names throughout the book, as if everything has already been explained in these few introductory pages. It is quite surprising that none of the quoted DHA works even mention the origins of topoi, their extensive treatment in many works and the main authors of these works, namely Aristotle and Cicero. Even the definition, borrowed from Kienpointner (mostly on a copy-paste basis), does not stem from their work either: it is a hybrid product, with strong input from Stephen Toulmin's work The Uses of Argument, published in 1958. All this is even more surprising because today it is almost a commonplace that for Aristotle a topos is a place to look for arguments (which is true), a heading or department where a number of rhetoric arguments can be easily found (which is true as well), and that those arguments are ready for use – which is a rather big misunderstanding. According to Aristotle, topoi are supposed to be of two kinds: general or common topoi, appropriate for use everywhere and anywhere, regardless of situation, and specific topoi, in their applicability limited mostly to the three genres of oratory (judicial, deliberative, and epideictic). With the Romans, topoi became loci, and Cicero literally defines them as “the home of all proofs” (De or. 2.166.2), “pigeonholes in which arguments are stored” (Part. Or. 5.7-10), or simply “storehouses of arguments” (Part. Or. 109.5-6). Also, their number was reduced from 300 in Topics or 29 in Rhetoric to up to 19 (depending on how we count them). Although Cicero's list correlates pretty much, though not completely, with Aristotle's list from the Rhetoric B 23, there is a difference in use: Cicero's list is considered to be a list of concepts that may trigger an associative process rather than a collection of implicit rules and precepts reducible to rules, as the topoi in Aristotle's Topics are. In other words, Cicero's loci mostly function as subject matter indicators and loci communes. Which brings us a bit closer to how topoi might be used in DHA. In the works analysed in the first chapter, the authors never construct or reconstruct arguments from the discourse fragments they analyse – despite the fact that they are repeatedly defining topoi as warrants connecting arguments with conclusions; they just hint at them with short glosses. And since there is no reconstruction of arguments from concrete discourse fragments under analysis, hinting at certain topoi, referring to them or simply just mentioning them, can only serve the purpose of »putting the audience in a favourable frame of mind. « »Favourable frame of mind« in our case – the use of topoi in DHA – would mean directing a reader's attention to a »commonly known or discussed« topic, without explicitly phrasing or reconstructing possible arguments and conclusions. Thus, the reader can never really know what exactly the author had in mind and what exactly he/she wanted to say (in terms of (possible) arguments and (possible) conclusions). In Traité de l'argumentation – La nouvelle rhétorique, published in 1958 by Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, topoi are characterised by their extreme generality, which makes them usable in every situation. It is the degeneration of rhetoric and the lack of interest for the study of places that has led to these unexpected consequences where »oratory developments«, as Perelman ironically calls them, against fortune, sensuality, laziness, etc., which school exercises were repeating ad nauseam, became qualified as commonplaces (loci, topoi), despite their extremely particular character. By commonplace- es, Perelman claims, we more and more understand what Giambattista Vico called »oratory places«, in order to distinguish them from the places treated in Aristotle's Topics. Nowadays, commonplaces are characterised by banality which does not exclude extreme specificity and particularity. These places are nothing more than Aristotelian commonplaces applied to particular subjects, concludes Perelman. And this is exactly what seems to be happening to the DHA approach to topoi as well. Even more, the works quoted in the first part of the articlegive the impression that DHA is not using the Aristotelian or Ciceronian topoi, but the so-called »literary topoi«, conceptualized by Ernst Robert Curtius in his Europaeische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter (1990: 62- 105, English translation). What is a literary topos? In a nutshell, oral histories passed down from pre-historic societies contain literary aspects, characters, or settings which appear again and again in stories from ancient civilisations, religious texts, art, and even more modern stories. These recurrent and repetitive motifs or leitmotifs would be then labelled literary topoi. The same year that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca published their New Rhetoric, Stephen Toulmin published his Uses of Argument, probably the most detailed study of how topoi work. Actually, he does not use the terms topos or topoi, but the somewhat judicial term “warrant”. The reason for that seems obvious: he is trying to cover different “fields of argument”, and not all fields of argument, according to him, use topoi as their argumentative principles or bases of their argumentation. According to Toulmin (1958/1995: 94-107), if we have an utterance of the form, “If D then C” – where D stands for data or evidence, and C for claim or conclusion – such a warrant would act as a bridge and authorize the step from D to C. But warrant may have a limited applicability, so Toulmin introduces qualifiers Q, indicating the strength conferr

The growth of online communities and social media has led to a growing need for methods, concepts, and tools for researching online cultures. Particular attention should be paid to polarizing online discussion cultures and dynamics that increase inequality in online environments. Social media has enormous potential to create good, but in order to unlock its full potential, we also need to examine the mechanisms keeping these spaces monotonous, homogenous, and even hostile toward some groups. With this need in mind, I have developed the concept and theory of othering online discourse (OOD). This chapter introduces and defines the concept of OOD and explains the key characteristics and different attributes of OOD in relation to other concepts that deal with disruptive and discriminatory behavior in online spaces. The attributes of OOD are demonstrated drawing on examples gathered from the Finnish Suomi24 (Finland24) forum.

Congolesecommerçantes, or transnational women traders, travel abroad to cities such as Guangzhou in search of affordable products to import to Kinshasa. Without any support from local banks, women must search for the means to finance their trips and navigate a complex bureaucracy governed by unpredictable customs tariffs. Just as men rely on their social networks to ensure the success of their business activities, women traders must also forge relationships with people in positions of power. However, a woman's social network, linked to her business activities, invites assumptions about her sexual morality. Men working within the country's unstable economic landscape are celebrated for their ingenuity and ability to ‘work the system’, while a woman's sexual morality is perceived as being affected by, and bound up in, Kinshasa's corrupt business matrices. Transnationalcommerçantesare thus not only an important part of the economic milieu, largely governed by patron–client relationships; but are also representative of changing gender dynamics in Kinshasa. Based on multi-site fieldwork in Kinshasa and Guangzhou, this article explores the moral anxieties associated with women's transnational trade, anxieties that relate to broader issues about the politics of social networks within local bureaucratic infrastructures.

There is no doubt that English language textbooks are not just pedagogical tools but powerful ideological artifacts that shape learners’ perceptions and identities through carefully designed multimodal semiotics. In Morocco’s multilingual educational landscape, the Spotlight textbook series (Volumes 1 and 2) occupies a critical space, negotiating local cultural values with global linguistic demands. This study employs Critical Visual Discourse Analysis (CVDA, henceforth), integrating Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar with Fairclough’s (1992) three-dimensional CDA model, to investigate three core dimensions: (1) the representation of cultural identities, (2) the construction of gender roles, and (3) the framing of learner autonomy. Findings reveal systematic patterns of Western-centric cultural framing, where Moroccan elements are often exoticized, alongside gendered activity distribution that reinforces traditional roles. Additionally, autonomy is predominantly constructed through neoliberal self-governance paradigms, positioning learner agency as compliance rather than critical engagement. The study ultimately argues that these elements converge into a hidden curriculum that privileges certain worldviews while marginalizing local knowledge systems. By bridging visual semiotics and critical discourse analysis, this research contributes to critical applied linguistics and textbook studies, offering insights for culturally responsive and equitable material design in Moroccan EFL education and broader contexts

After 75 years of rapid and continuous improvement, in the early 2010s life expectancy improvements slowed, stopped or reversed across the UK, and in many other rich countries. In the UK, the trends for poorer areas and populations were even worse, with life expectancy actually going into reverse: people dying younger and earlier. Life expectancy is a good marker of broad societal progress, and declines had only previously been seen in times of profound crisis: wars and pandemics. These changes therefore represent an almost unprecedented disaster, with extraordinary numbers of people in the UK dying well before their time. Yet these trends are largely unknown among the general public and many of those in positions of power. A considerable evidence base has been established, demonstrating beyond doubt that the principal cause of these changes has been government ‘austerity’ policies which have had a calamitous impact on the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. This book shines a light on this catastrophic issue, but also goes further by: explaining why this matters; setting out the precise details of the causes of the changes; showing how and why people in positions of power have failed to respond adequately; explaining what has to be done to reverse these trends; and relating what has happened to the experiences of real people.

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male and female social actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran.

Despite various attempts at achieving gender equality in sport, the media is still dominated by stereotypical representations of sportswomen. The purpose of the present research was to describe gender subjectivity and gender stereotyping in the visual portrayal of sportswomen in one of the largest South African sports magazines, and to determine the value of vector analysis as a visual-grammatical analysis instrument in identifying and opposing dominant ideologies. A literature review of published research on under-representation and stereotyping of sportswomen in the media was undertaken. The theoretical and methodological framework was Critical Discourse Analysis and Kress and Van Leeuwen's (1996; 2006) 'visual grammar', with specific emphasis on vector analysis. The types of vectors operating in visual representations and their relationship to the stereotypical constructions of sportswomen in the media were determined. Five photographs were critically analysed, one example from each stereotypical construct: ‘Athletic’ (the positive stereotype) as opposed to ‘homosexual’, ‘loser’, ‘model’ and ‘sex object’ (negative stereotypes) were identified. The most important conclusions are that sportswomen were predominantly stereotyped negatively in the sports magazine under scrutiny, and that vector analysis is a useful heuristic tool in identifying and confirming visual subjectivity.Keywords: Women in sport; Critical discourse analysis; Gender stereotyping in sport; Gender inequality; Gender ideology; Vector analysis; Visual grammarArticle text in Afrikaans

This chapter has examined the meaning-making potentials of selected online weekend comedy skits using the tools of Critical Multimodal Discourse Analysis, drawing on the theoretical frameworks by Fairclough (1989/1995) and Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). Critical discourse analysis (CDA) examines the nexus or relationship between language, power and social inequality. The data is by Busymouth titled ‘Mr. President facing flood challenges' and ‘Busymouth as Akpan shamed his ex.' In the short pieces, the hopeless social, economic and political situation of an African country are presented. The findings reveal that the socio-economic and political situation that have become life threatening for the poor masses have no end in sight, yet trivialized by the President who represents the government at all levels. The bad economic situation has also led to character failure and break in mutual relationships which are some of the indices of a corrupt society.

ABSTRACTIn Canada’s first-ever strategy, international education (IE) is linked to immigration policy with international students (IS) recruited as ‘ideal’ immigrants. This paper engages in policy sociology and Ball's concepts of 'policy as text' and 'policy as discourse' (10). It follows three stages of critical policy discourse analysis. The first a simple tally of the most commonly used words/phrases in the Strategy; the second analyses it using Van Leeuwen’s framework and the third presents results from a study on the perception and experiences of IS, exposing the gap between policy rhetoric and practice. The paper concludes that critical discourse analysis is a powerful tool to uncover policy values/ideologies, identify legitimation strategies and reveal perpetuation of power relations/status quo within Canadian society.

This article investigates electoral reforms in Indonesia and Thailand in the 21st century, highlighting important dimensions of the electoral changes and their consequences in disproportionality and the effective number of parties. In the first stage, we identify electoral changes and the ideal goals of electoral reform. Second, we compare each election's results by calculating disproportional results and the effective number of parties, followed by in-depth interviews with key stakeholders (N = 8) to uncover the evaluation and recommendation for a better future of the electoral system in both countries. The analysis reveals the government's motivation behind the electoral system chosen. In Indonesia, the reforms addressed realising the limited pluralism party system raised a thorny debate among small to medium parties about rescuing their seats in parliament. Otherwise, the Thai government accommodates small parties by waiving the electoral threshold. We identify that different people in positions of power in each country cause different ideal goals. This research contributes to developing an understanding that elite motivation outweighs the public good in designing electoral reform. While in Thailand the control to determine which electoral system is chosen seems more centralised by the junta military, the shift of the electoral system in Indonesia is strongly motivated by political actors in order to gain their pragmatic interests.

The editors of several major journals have recently asserted the importance of combating racism and sexism in science. This is especially relevant now, as the COVID-19 pandemic may have led to a widening of the gender and racial/ethnicity gaps. Implicit bias is a crucial component in this fight. Negative stereotypes that are socially constructed in a given culture are frequently associated with implicit bias (which is unconscious or not perceived). In the present article, we point to scientific evidence that shows the presence of implicit bias in the academic community, contributing to strongly damaging unconscious evaluations and judgments of individuals or groups. Additionally, we suggest several actions aimed at (1) editors and reviewers of scientific journals (2) people in positions of power within funding agencies and research institutions, and (3) members of selection committees to mitigate this effect. These recommendations are based on the experience of a group of Latinx American scientists comprising Black and Latina women, teachers, and undergraduate students who participate in women in science working group at universities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With this article, we hope to contribute to reflections, actions, and the development of institutional policies that enable and consolidate diversity in science and reduce disparities based on gender and race/ethnicity.

“A Collective Force of Burning Ink”: Will Alexander’s Asia & Haiti Harryette Mullen* (bio) Will Alexander, Poet and Essayist: A Special Section A homegrown if not “organic” intellectual, Will Alexander is an African-American writer from South Central Los Angeles, whose surrealist poetry is global, even cosmic, in scope, encyclopedic in its display of esoteric knowledge and arcane vocabularies, visionary in its apocalyptic intensity. The author of numerous works of poetry, fiction, drama, and essays, of which a fraction has been published, Alexander has been largely ignored by black as well as mainstream readers, scholars, and critics, despite regular appearances of his poetry and prose in Sulfur and Hambone, literary journals friendly to avant-garde poetics, edited respectively by Clayton Eshleman and Nathaniel Mackey. Beyond convenient labels such as “African-American surrealist” or “North America’s Aimé Césaire,” Alexander is difficult to categorize aesthetically as well as ideologically. However, the political landscapes of Asia & Haiti, published by Douglas Messerli’s Sun & Moon Press, could bring Alexander to the attention of a wider audience, including more black readers. Born into the early cohort of the post-war “baby boom” generation, Alexander is a child of the Cold War era, which in part defined the aspiring revolutions and liberation struggles of so-called Third World nations, that in turn inspired the Civil Rights movement and black nationalist struggles in the United States. Alexander’s father, a World War II veteran who was born in New Orleans, married a Texan and left the South for California following a military tour that took him, among other places, on a brief visit to the Caribbean. There, the elder Alexander was impressed to see black people in positions of power, and his story of that experience left a distinct impression on his son, who counts among his culture heroes Césaire of Martinique and Wifredo Lam of Cuba. Asia & Haiti deals with relatively recent historical events—shifts in power that began during the poet’s childhood—which also represent the changing role of the Third World in the latter half of the 20th century. Not only do Cold War ideologies provide subjects for Alexander’s poetry in Asia & Haiti, the era also supplies metaphors for his poetics, as seen in his essay, “Poetry: Alchemical Anguish and Fire”: “Poetics which reduce, which didactically inform, take on the infected measures of the gulag. During the earlier part of the 1950’s we see the poet Césaire in sustained resistance against this gulag. He takes on the ‘Communist’ party boss Aragon and the latter’s demand for plain spoken diacritics, for abject poverty of description” (16). [End Page 417] Published together as a book titled Asia & Haiti, the two poems “Asia” and “Haiti” exist in a kind of dialogic or interactive relationship to each other, so that together they imply a more comprehensive statement about Third World politics, and the current situation of oppressed peoples globally in the post-Cold War climate of a world no longer divided into Soviet versus United States allies sustaining a balance or stalemate between two super powers. Pairing these poems together allows the poet to explore correspondences between the political weakness and spiritual strength of the inhabitants of two countries, Tibet and Haiti, the one overwhelmed by communists and the other by capitalists. Crucial to the perspective of this work (and perhaps to Alexander’s marginalization as a black writer) is the absence of any “white oppressor” in “Asia” or “Haiti.” Alexander is careful to point out, in response to this observation, that the majority of the world’s population is not white, and that this global majority is governed by people who are not white. The power of so-called Third World people, and not only their oppression, should be a topic for serious discussion and analysis by black intellectuals. Asia & Haiti brings to mind some of the difficulties of writing and evaluating poetry within a framework of politics. The political messages of poetry written about recent or ongoing events are interpreted differently than those concerning events that for the reader have receded into distant history. In the former case, the political message tends to be foregrounded; in the latter...