Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent decades have witnessed the growth of a masculinity-in-decline narrative which posits a world in which (white) masculinity is increasingly under siege by a variety of cultural forces. This narrative has been particularly prominent in depictions of the contemporary work world, once an overwhelmingly masculine province, where both the increasing presence of the female bodies of women workers and the increasing “feminization” of work practices (such as preferred approaches to managing employees) have been perceived in some quarters as posing a distinct threat to masculinity’s centrality. Against this backdrop, in 1997 the Miller Brewing Company began to air a series of advertisements designed to resuscitate its High Life brand of beer – a brand that pioneered the overuse of masculinity as beer advertising tactic, but which had experienced a very real decline in sales since the late 1970s. The campaign, which lasted until 2005, invoked, in ironic fashion, the narrative of masculinity-in-decline through the mythical character of the “High Life Man.” This essay offers a critical examination of the manner in which these ads offered a “solution” to the crisis of masculinity by reasserting an excessive “manliness” in leisure to compensate for the threats to masculinity at work. In doing so, the ads both conformed and transformed the generic conventions of beer advertising that the brand helped establish in the first place, simultaneously reinscribing and critically satirizing hegemonic masculinity in the process.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: David Miller's recent work contains several criticisms of cosmopolitanism. This paper responds to Miller's criticisms and show that some of Miller's theories about obligation and duty actually support a cosmopolitan position.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: During the Winter 2006 Olympic Games, the athletic apparel manufacturer Nike introduced a marketing campaign featuring the noncomformist skier Bode Miller. The campaign utilizes techniques of documentary filmmaking and news, including a hand-held camera and a confessional script, portraying Miller as a rebellious iconoclast with little or no interest in conventional success. The ads then invite fellow rebellious souls to become “bodeists” and join Miller at a Nike-sponsored website. Miller’s success on the slopes was irrelevant to the advertising campaign; the message that winning isn’t everything works regardless if Miller medaled or not. In this paper, I will use semiotic analysis to demonstrate how the eight advertisements employ counterhegemonic language and imagery to seemingly encourage rebellion and individuality. In actuality, the ads serve to further enhance corporate profits and image. Nike, by nature of being a multibillion dollar, multinational enterprise, holds a distinct attribute: that of an insider. Miller, despite his subcultural posturing, also maintains insider status as a world-class ski champion. But in this self-aware campaign, the corporation and the skier are engaged in a creative bit of “rebellion.” Nike and Miller work together to cultivate the notion of an outsider subculture designed to support the corporation’s hegemony while at the same time appearing counterhegemonic.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines three recent themes in the work of the political philosopher David Miller: his general conception of global justice, his efforts to construct a theory of responsibility to cope with the challenges of global justice, and his national-identity centered critique of cosmopolitan theory. The first part of this paper responds to several of Miller's critical arguments regarding cosmopolitanism, arguing that at important junctures in his critical assessment, he relies on a unnecessarily stunted version of cosmopolitanism, which is directly connected to a misreading of the specific nature of the nation-state. The second section discusses some of the difficulties and shortcomings in Miller's (otherwise highly appealing) "connection theory" of responsibility, and makes the case that Miller's thinking about responsibility and would be well-informed by entertaining some cosmopolitan possibilities foreclosed by his unnecessarily broad dismissal of cosmopolitan positions. A more moderate form of institutional cosmopolitanism (one that doesn't figure prominently in Miller's critiques) can go a long way toward making Miller's connection theory of responsibility more appealing and plausible.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Miller and Stokes' landmark study of representation in Congress is revisited using the techniques of the twenty-first century: ideal point estimates based upon a large Internet panel. Voters, representatives, Senators, and the President are scaled in