Belaboring the representation of history in Maine

Judy Taylor, History of Maine Labor, 2008, oil on canvas. (Photo: James Imbrogno, courtesy Imbrogno Photography and the artist.)

My dissertation advisor at the New School Jeff Goldfarb runs a current events blog called Deliberately Considered. A well-known and highly regarded political sociologist, Jeff's idea is to use the blog form to expand rational debate in what Yochai Benkler calls "the networked public sphere" rather than engage in simple punditry. (Click here to read my review of Jeff's last book The Politics of Small Things: The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times.)

Today's Deliberately Considered features my post on the recent controversy in Maine over a mural depicting episodes from that state's labor history. For those of you who don't know, the mural, which was completed in 2008 under the auspices of the Maine Arts Commission and installed in the lobby of the State of Maine Department of Labor building was removed and put into storage in an undisclosed location (perhaps for "extraordinary rendition"?) by newly elected governor Paul LePage, a Tea Party-backed Republican. One wonders whether Rick Snyder is now contemplating a nice beige wallpaper for the Rivera Court.