We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

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Hearts and Mines: The U.S. Empire’s Culture Industry

Author: Tanner Mirrlees, PhD

From Katy Perry training alongside U.S. Marines in a music video, to the global box-office mastery of the U.S. military-supported Transformers franchise, to the explosion of war games like Call of Duty, it’s clear that the U.S. security state is a dominant force in media culture these days. But is the ubiquity of cultural products that glorify the security state a new phenomenon? Or have Uncle Sam and the nation’s top media and entertainment companies been friends for a long time? Hearts and Mines examines the U.S. Empire’s culture industry, a nexus between the U.S. security state and U.S. media firms, and the source of entertainment that promotes American strategic interests around the world. Although the U.S. government and media corporations pursue different interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the latter, profit), this book documents how structural alliances and the synergistic relationships between them support the production and flow of Empire-extolling cultural goods. Building on Herbert I. Schiller's classic study of U.S. Empire and communications, the book explores how symbiotic geopolitical and economic relationships between the U.S. government and media corporations drive U.S. imperial culture.