Back to all topics Michael Butterworth
7 Posts
Notes Photo September 26, 2017

Stirring NFL Protest Optics: Unity to What End?

As encouraging as the explosion of protest in the NFL may be, let us not lose focus on the purpose of such protest in the first place.

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Notes Photo October 6, 2014

Abdullah's 100 Yard Prayer Rug: The Visual Landscape of Faith and Violence in Sports and the NFL

The NFL's missteps must become opportunities to address the symbols of violence that the league promotes. Can Abdullah help us do that?

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Notes Photo November 21, 2013

We Are All Bystanders: 18 Visual Scholars Reflect on Previously Unseen JFK Assassination Photographs – #3

We at BagNews were interested in bringing a deeper visual analysis to the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Accordingly, we invited a broad group of distinguished visual scholars to provide us with brief responses to unknown photographs from November 1963. This is the last of a three post...

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Notes Photo February 4, 2013

Super Bawl

Too often, however, American culture upholds this kind of hypermasculine intensity as a virtue.

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Notes Photo December 18, 2012

The NFL and Newtown: Reflections on a Violent World

The nationalistic imagery stands out for me in the photo because I know how seamlessly it is woven into the fabric of the sport itself, especially in its most muscular, militaristic forms.

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Notes Photo September 26, 2012

Football’s End of Days?

Going with replacement refs, what has been happened in the NFL is nothing short of apocalyptic, at least according American sports media.

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Notes Photo May 2, 2011

"Take 'Em Out" at the Ball Game (Or: "The Jersey Pop")

In this image we see the almost perfect conflation of sport and nationalism. Here, the citizen as “fan” celebrates his “team,” the United States. The death of an American enemy, then, is roughly the equivalent of a walk-off home run.

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