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US: Professor Clare Bratten echoes Iraqi
Kurdish Voices
13.11.2006
By Michelle Willard |
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November 13, 2006
Few people actively attempt to challenge their
biases, but that's exactly what led Clare Bratten to
Kurdish- controlled Kurdistan autonomous region
(Northern Iraq) in summer 2005.
Bratten, an associate professor in electronic media
communication (EMC) at MTSU, is turning her trip of
a lifetime into a documentary experience for the
rest of America.
" 'Kurdish Voices' is a documentary on the
adjustments and challenges for Kurdish immigrants in
the Nashville community," she said. "The documentary
is a way to feature the concerns of balancing
Kurdish identity with the promise or reality of
citizenship."
This small, unassuming woman with blond hair and
blue glasses journeyed into the Kurdish-held area of
Iraq at the request of Tennessee State University
Professor Karmanj Gundi.
An ethnic Kurd, Gundi moved to America at
16-years-old, Bratten explained. He told Bratten he
wanted to go back to his homeland to see the effects
of America's war firsthand.
Bratten met Gundi when she was studying the Kurdish
population of Nashville. She said she began her
research with the advent of the war with Iraq,
because she wanted their views and opinions on the
war. |
Electronic media communication professor Clare
Bratten displays an Iraqi Kurdistan wall decoration
in her office after returning from Iraq. Bratten has
produced a documentary about the Kurdish people
entitled "Kurdish Voices."
Photo:mtsusidelines |
She said she was very much against the use of force
in Iraq, but she wanted to challenge her own bias, a
skill she encourages in her students.
She also wanted to locate "a group that benefited
from the removal" of Hussein, she explained. When
she was offered the opportunity to go to Iraqi
Kurdistan, she said she jumped at the chance.
However, this trip and documentary weren't at all
what Bratten imagined when she graduated from
college with a degree in history and applied to
graduate school.
"I was accepted to graduate school in history, but
the acceptance letter said they didn't expect any
job openings until, like, 1995," she recalled,
laughing, "and this was the late '70s."
She smiles about it now, because it made her rethink
her plans for the future, she said, which led her
into writing.
She explained she stumbled into journalism when she
began writing for a woman's group in California and
got published in the Los Angeles Times.
"Some of my friends said, 'How did you get published
in there?'" she said, proudly. It was easy for her,
she added, which made her decide to go into
journalism.
Bratten spent the next few years working for a small
newspaper in Brentwood, Tenn. and doing film reviews
for National Public Radio. But it was her stint
doing public relations for Sinking Creek Film
Festival that inspired her love of film.
Her office displays this love on the walls and
shelves. She has framed stills from black-and-white
movies along the wall next to her computer.
Videocassettes crowd every inch of free shelf space,
in between academic books on media stereotyping and
the techniques of movie and television production.
"I use the David Lynch," she said, referring to a
copy of Blue Velvet, "to show students about the use
of color when I teach Sight, Sound and Motion."
Bratten recounted her decision to move back to
middle Tennessee after spending 11 years in Toronto
"living the corporate life" as a speechwriter and
working in public relations.
"I wanted to help people be more savvy media
consumers," she said. "My goal is to teach students
to follow the money or the power ¬- the political
power."
She said she had been working with and spinning the
media, and had grown tired of corporate politics,
which led her back to graduate school.
But she wasn't sure about coming back to Nashville.
"It was too white-bread," she said. But then she
found the Kurds.
"The Kurdish community of Nashville has grown … to
become the largest community of Kurdish immigrants
in North America," she has said in describing her
documentary.
In researching this community, Bratten found the
Kurds very warm people with a great sense of humor.
"They are the underdogs, good guerilla fighters.
They have a lot of charm. … I like them. I like the
Kurds," she said, smiling, remembering the people
she'd met through her research and travels.
"They [the Kurds] feel betrayed by the U.S.," she
explained, referencing U.S. policies after the Gulf
War that encouraged them to rebel against the Iraqi
government, yet left them with no support. She also
said she felt betrayed by the lead up to the current
Bush Administration's war in Iraq.
mtsusidelines com
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