University of Maryland School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Home

Arsenjuk and Resmini’s contribution examines Trumpian imagery as the visual form of a politically disarticulated reactionary coalition. It argues that Trumpism achieves unity through spectacle: a proliferating and serial image regime that compensates for the loss of political articulation. Drawing on Benjamin, Jesi, Jameson, and Wajcman, the essay shows how contemporary Trumpian visual culture, especially in its AI-generated forms, is structured by seriality, discontinuity, and hypercrisis rather than by the dialectical temporality of historical fascism. Trumpian imagery thus appears as an unstable attempt to produce myth under conditions that render myth impossible. The article proposes seriality as a key category for understanding the historical specificity of Trumpist spectacle.

In Spolsky [(2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press] tripartite framework of language ideology, management, and practice, the relationship between ideology and language is typically assumed to be one-to-one. Interpreting the tripartite relationship differently, this study challenges that assumption by examining Arabic learning and use in Ningxia, China, within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We identify two coexisting ideologies – the Hui community’s heritage language ideology and the BRI-driven foreign language ideology – both privileging Arabic, and analyse their materialization in explicit and implicit language policies. Through case studies of three institutions – a public university, a community-based vocational school, and a private business – we demonstrate how these ideologies initially fostered Arabic learning and use but later generated negative impacts as their scopes and objectives diverged. This analysis reveals a two-to-one relationship between ideologies and language, highlighting the intricate interplay of multilingualism, ethnicity, and policy in the intersection of domestic and global affairs. Our findings underscore that the politics of multilingualism in language policy is shaped not only by language choice but also by ideological, ethnic, and geopolitical dynamics, reflecting tensions between Sinicization and internationalization in China’s Hui community. These insights contribute to nuanced understandings of language policy dynamics and the sociolinguistics of Islam.

A milestone in the cinematic representation of neoliberalism, Maren Ade’s 2016 breakout hit Toni Erdmann offers a wide-ranging depiction of the contemporary global economy and its reshaping of our psychic and social lives. Emerging from the German art cinema movement known as the Berlin School, Toni Erdmann achieved unexpected success with audiences worldwide, attaining theatrical release in at least 37 countries and winning more than 50 international awards. Yet the film’s viral popularity and critical acclaim proved perplexing to some commentators, especially given its oxymoronic status as a German comedy; its sprawling, nearly three-hour duration; and its formally unremarkable, even nondescript style.