Nicole Kidman, as Lady Ashley in Australia
Arriving in Darwin
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I have been cited in three books:
1. Little Mosque on the Prairie and the Paradoxes of Cultural Translation
By: Kyle Conway
University of Toronto Press, Feb 10, 2017
(From my article in American Thinker: How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is Aiming for our Souls)
In Chapter 1 : Sitcoms, Cultural Translation and the Paradox of Saleable Diversity
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2. Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice
Ed. Peter Dickinson et al.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Mar 27, 2014
I am referenced in Chapter 16 in an essay by Regina Barreca: Layla Siddiqui as Holy Fool in Little Mosque on the Prairie:
Baber and his continual critique of Canadian morality no doubt inspired the claim of columnist Kidist Paulos Asrat that the show's intention is to convert North Americans to Islam.This is once again based on my article How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is Aiming for our Souls, but it is an incorrect interpretation of what I wrote. This is the usual hyperbole of multiculturalists who wish to find a demon in any critic of multiculturalism.
What I wished to communicate was that the show's intent was to make North Americans sympathetic towards Islam, and not to convert them. Little Mosque on the Prairie was still an exotic sitcom then. The show came out in January 2007 as Canadians were learning about it, and was cancelled in April 2012 as the novelty wore off, and not because of "Islamophobia."
Barreca is a feminist academician (no oxymoron there) who also wants to be funny. She quips:
“I used to assume my students were feminists,” she says. “It seemed like everyone got my jokes and laughed. Now I have to explain myself.”For more on Baber (and his daughter Layla) see their character descriptions on Wikipedia
Layla Siddiqui (Aliza Vellani) is... a portrait of an average teenage Muslim girl struggling to find the right balance between her desire to be a good Muslim and her desire for the lifestyle of a regular Canadian teenager who's into music, clothes and boys. She can be rebellious and sarcastic, especially at her father's foibles (she refers to their home as "Baberistan"), but is also very perceptive and insightful. [The book is a compilation of lectures at symposium at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia in 2011. The essays collected in Women and Comedy: History, Theory, and Practice, originally presented and discussed at a 2011 symposium held at Simon Fraser University.
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3. Baz Luhrmann
By: Pam Cook
British Film Institute; 2010 edition (July 6 2010)
I am cited in the end notes (104) of Baz Luhrmann, which I presume is in reference to my article: Australia: Whose Land is it Anyway, by Austral filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, in American Thinker. I write about the difficult integration of aboriginal mysticism with British pragmatic colonialism. I come in favor of Nicole Kidman's austere but brave femininity, and her kindly adoption of an aboriginal orphan, rescuing him from being interned in a mission school.
Pam Cook tells us in her "welcome page":
I have been thinking, writing and teaching about moving image culture since the 1970s, and these pages are a record of my work up to the present. Since 2006 I’ve been Professor Emerita in Film at the University of Southampton [UK].