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The Two Fasces of the NAEA: A presentation by Xalli Zuniga, Doctoral Candidate in Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, AED 597: Including Difference, Adviser: Dr. Karen Keifer-Boyd The Pennsylvania State University

• Goal of the NAEA Taskforce: • The intent of the Histories Taskforce is to establish and execute a plan to dismantle structural and institutional inequities within NAEA and begin a cultural shift that centers “equity diversity and inclusion” through the Organizational Vibrancy priority objective. • Focus: Learning how to “decode” and “encode” the symbols that dominate societies. National Art Education Association records, 1893-2007 1067 BOX 5 1995-1997 FASCES FASCES 1) Signified of Fasces in Denotation Ancient : -Nationalism and Power - (bodyguards) -Power and unity -Political Hierarchy (FATHER) -Used for Discipline and Ceremony -Military Success -Enforcing the Law -Blade = capital punishment (removable)

Fasces (English: /ˈfæsiːz/, : [ˈfa.skeːs] from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle“ [1] Italian: 2) Signifier: littorio) is a bound bundle of Punitive wooden rods, sometimes including an with its blade emerging. The fasces had its origin in the Power + Political Representation and was passed on to , where it symbolized a 's power and jurisdiction. Semiotics = SIGN: SIGNIFIER (FORM) + SIGNIFIED (CONCEPT) Mussolini’s Fascist Aesthetic

• In 1919 he adopted the Fasces as his symbol • In 1921, he called his political movement Fasci di combattimento, fascio being the Italian word for peasant organizations and labor unions. • "a revolutionary militia placed at the service of the nation. It follows a policy based on three principles: order, discipline, hierarchy“ (2002) • " was born... out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race“ (2002) • The Fascist party looked to generate collaboration of all the Italian population under a single, unified government (and between upper and lower classes), establishing unity for the “greater good” of the country. • Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascism

• Militarism: Promotes political violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality. Violence is seen necessary for progress. • Nationalism: Nation as a single organic entity which binds people together by their ancestry and is a natural unifying force of people. Strives to purify the nation of foreign influences that ‘degenerate’ the national culture (xenophobia or racism as in Nazi Germany). • Unity/Social Solidarity: Supports a socially united, collective national society and opposes socially divided class-based societies and socially-divided individualist-based society. • (Totalitarianism) and Personality Cultism: “The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people”. Authoritarianism means submission to authority. A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media propaganda to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often associated with dictatorships. • Fascism peaked in popularity in Europe around 1920-1930. Three of the most significant examples are (Mussolini), German Nazism (Hitler), and Spanish Falangism (Franco). • Extensive use of visual propaganda to raise the ideology to promote public cohesion. In the wake of Trump and White nationalism

Symbols matter: Roman Legion Flag = Flag depicting an eagle holding a fasces standing inside of a laurel wreath. Each of these symbols have been adopted by various elements of the far right. (Southern Poverty Law Center: Hate Watch) HOWEVER: Feminism challenges us to DIFFRACT There are more examples of the use of fasces internationally. Examples: -The Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford University -The Swedish Police flag -French Passports -The Coat of Arms of -The Coat of Arms of -LABOR UNIONS Fable 58. Father and Sons By Aesop

• A certain man had several sons who were always quarreling with one another, and, try as he might, he could not get them to live together in harmony. So he determined to convince them of their folly by the following means. Bidding them fetch a bundle of sticks, he invited each in turn to break it across his knee. All tried and failed. And then he undid the bundle and handed them the sticks one by one, when they had no difficulty at all in breaking them. “There, my boys”, said he, “united you will be more than a match for your enemies. But if you quarrel and separate, your weakness will put you at the mercy of those who attack you.”

• UNION IS STRENGTH “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”

House of Representatives The of the Senate Mercury dime U.S. Capitol Rotunda 1916-1945 CAPITALISM = BROTHERHOOD AROUND MONEY AND POWER

Knights of Columbus insignia (Catholic ) 1992!!

Questions raised about the perceived normative?

Inclusive frames of address?

Revealing (e)race(d)? Ford Foundation Controversial Philantropists: Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon.

“My old friend, Charlton Heston-artist himself, tireless worker on behalf of the arts, and one-time member of the National Council on the Arts […]” (1992, p.9)

PRESENT + FUTURE

PAST He notes that, in “Mein Kampf,” Hitler praises America as the one state that has made progress toward a primarily racial conception of citizenship, by “excluding certain races from naturalization.” “the single most important figure in the Nazi assimilation of American race law,” • FEMINIST THEORY ON THE CULTURAL PARADIGM OF THE USA • Junn, J. & Brown (2008): “[…] discriminatory practices not only emanate from biased structural frameworks and political institutions but also have important origins in the categorical imperative of defining difference” (p. 65) • “The U.S. political system not only has developed by practices deeply rooted in an ideology of gender inequality […] but also is fundamentally grounded in beliefs of white racial superiority” (2008, p. 66) • Mink (1990): “Race and gender interests in industrial America commonly clothed their claims in republican principles of manhood, motherhood and citizenship […] They tied the future of American democracy to the demographic and political hegemony of the people who founded it […] Old-stock, “Teutonic” Americans pursued their race interests in articulating a social geology of citizenship based on race … and explicitly gendered” (p. 92) • Roberts (2009): “Eugenics did not function only “in the service of a biological struggle between nation-states” […] it functions to maintain the racial, gender, and class order within the nation. (Moreover, alliances between American and Nazi eugenicists in the 1930s show a willingness to cross national boundaries in the interest of white supremacy” (p. 796) https://www.arteducators.org/community/articles/151-national- NAHS: Confronting art-honor-society-chapter-benefits the foundational myths of the U.S.A: “Manifest Destiny” and “The American Dream” NAEA’s financial stability relies greatly on private as well as public donations and is thus influenced by the values and principles of the people and corporations that fund thIS institution. These are based in the myth the safeguarding of a homogeneous population (fasces) in terms of political and cultural control and against the “threat of difference”. Here lies an inherent contradiction, if the purpose is to be open to diversity, the challenge is to develop frameworks to dismantle the underlying systems of oppression, but it is also about abandoning discriminatory symbolisms of power and elitism. The cultural tension of this nation lies between 1) The moral historic republican notion of unity/homogeneity and 2) The market industry profit-based capitalist individualism. References

• Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; , USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 11. • Berman, E. H. (1983). The ideology of philanthropy: The influence of the carnegie, ford, and rockefeller foundations on american foreign policy. Albany: State University of New York Press. • Junn, J., & Brown, N. (2008). What Revolution? Incorporating Intersectionality in Women and Politics. In C. Wolbrecht, K. Beckwith, & L. Baldez (Authors), Political Women and American Democracy (pp. 64-78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511790621.007 • MacMaster, N. (2002). Racial Theories in Fascist Italy (Book). American Historical Review, 107(4), 1320–1321. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&A N=7711962&site=ehost-live&scope=site • Roberts, D. (2009). Race, Gender, and Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia? Signs, 34(4), 783-804. doi:10.1086/597132 • Saunders, F. S. (2013). The cultural cold war: The CIA and the world of arts and letters. New York: New Press. • Rosen, M., Aesop, & Hacikyan, T. (2013). Aesop's fables. Vancouver: Tradewind Books.