Jean Elisabeth Pedersen
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195165272
- eISBN:
- 9780199784554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165276.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter recounts this book's author's own experiences of teaching Durkheim and introducing feminist theory, which have always occurred in settings where the dominant approach is reading and ...
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This chapter recounts this book's author's own experiences of teaching Durkheim and introducing feminist theory, which have always occurred in settings where the dominant approach is reading and discussion. Each section takes a similar approach, beginning with an overview of the existing work on Durkheim in a particular area, continuing with an analysis of its relevance to the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, and including a series of possible discussion questions for classroom use. Topics covered include women, sex, and gender in Durkheim's works; Durkheim on divorce and sex education; and feminist theory and Durkheimian social realism.Less
This chapter recounts this book's author's own experiences of teaching Durkheim and introducing feminist theory, which have always occurred in settings where the dominant approach is reading and discussion. Each section takes a similar approach, beginning with an overview of the existing work on Durkheim in a particular area, continuing with an analysis of its relevance to the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, and including a series of possible discussion questions for classroom use. Topics covered include women, sex, and gender in Durkheim's works; Durkheim on divorce and sex education; and feminist theory and Durkheimian social realism.
David Martin-Jones
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633913
- eISBN:
- 9780748651207
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633913.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter focuses on two films that draw upon the social realist tradition, Ae Fond Kiss (2004) and On a Clear Day (2005). First, it outlines the way social realism is defined in studies of ...
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This chapter focuses on two films that draw upon the social realist tradition, Ae Fond Kiss (2004) and On a Clear Day (2005). First, it outlines the way social realism is defined in studies of cinema, and then sketches in something of its history in relation to British cinema and previous cinematic representations of Scotland. It then demonstrates the two films' different cominglings of social realism with melodrama. Whilst Ae Fond Kiss draws a subtle distinction between global and local identities, in On a Clear Day the question of a specific identity that can be described as global, local or even national recedes into the background as the film focuses on gendered identity in a post-industrial milieu. In Ae Fond Kiss, Scotland plays an integral role as a location in which the action is set. In On a Clear Day, Scotland becomes a film set, a backdrop with resonances of industrial masculinity — long-established in previous cinematic representations of working-class life in Scotland's shipyards — against which to explore the future of post-industrial masculinity in the United Kingdom more generally.Less
This chapter focuses on two films that draw upon the social realist tradition, Ae Fond Kiss (2004) and On a Clear Day (2005). First, it outlines the way social realism is defined in studies of cinema, and then sketches in something of its history in relation to British cinema and previous cinematic representations of Scotland. It then demonstrates the two films' different cominglings of social realism with melodrama. Whilst Ae Fond Kiss draws a subtle distinction between global and local identities, in On a Clear Day the question of a specific identity that can be described as global, local or even national recedes into the background as the film focuses on gendered identity in a post-industrial milieu. In Ae Fond Kiss, Scotland plays an integral role as a location in which the action is set. In On a Clear Day, Scotland becomes a film set, a backdrop with resonances of industrial masculinity — long-established in previous cinematic representations of working-class life in Scotland's shipyards — against which to explore the future of post-industrial masculinity in the United Kingdom more generally.
Sally Haslanger
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199892631
- eISBN:
- 9780199980055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
In his book The Social Construction of What?, Ian Hacking offers a schema for understanding different social constructionist claims along with a framework for distinguishing kinds or degrees of ...
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In his book The Social Construction of What?, Ian Hacking offers a schema for understanding different social constructionist claims along with a framework for distinguishing kinds or degrees of constructionist projects. Hacking's efforts are useful, but his account leaves many of the philosophical aspects of social construction projects obscure, as are the connections, if any, with more mainstream analytic philosophy projects. This chapter aims to argue that although Hacking's approach to social construction is apt for some of those working on such projects, it does not adequately capture what's at issue for an important range of social constructionists, particularly many of us working on gender and race. Moreover, a different way of understanding social construction reveals interesting connections and conflicts with mainstream analytic projects.Less
In his book The Social Construction of What?, Ian Hacking offers a schema for understanding different social constructionist claims along with a framework for distinguishing kinds or degrees of constructionist projects. Hacking's efforts are useful, but his account leaves many of the philosophical aspects of social construction projects obscure, as are the connections, if any, with more mainstream analytic philosophy projects. This chapter aims to argue that although Hacking's approach to social construction is apt for some of those working on such projects, it does not adequately capture what's at issue for an important range of social constructionists, particularly many of us working on gender and race. Moreover, a different way of understanding social construction reveals interesting connections and conflicts with mainstream analytic projects.
Esther M. K. Cheung
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099777
- eISBN:
- 9789882206953
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099777.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores Chan's realist mode in the traditions of Chinese-language cinemas. There are many modes of realism and Chan's case illustrates this concept clearly. His concern for ...
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This chapter explores Chan's realist mode in the traditions of Chinese-language cinemas. There are many modes of realism and Chan's case illustrates this concept clearly. His concern for underprivileged people and social injustice brings him close to this realist tradition. His so-called “Handover Trilogy” and his later films such as Durian Durian and Hollywood Hong Kong embody certain basic traits: the story of ordinary people, the theme of marginality, on-location shooting, jerky hand-held camerawork, frequent use of objective point of view camera, and the casting of non-professional actors. All these characteristics have led critics to conclude that he belongs safely to the tradition of social realism and that the Hong Kong through his lens is a “real” one.Less
This chapter explores Chan's realist mode in the traditions of Chinese-language cinemas. There are many modes of realism and Chan's case illustrates this concept clearly. His concern for underprivileged people and social injustice brings him close to this realist tradition. His so-called “Handover Trilogy” and his later films such as Durian Durian and Hollywood Hong Kong embody certain basic traits: the story of ordinary people, the theme of marginality, on-location shooting, jerky hand-held camerawork, frequent use of objective point of view camera, and the casting of non-professional actors. All these characteristics have led critics to conclude that he belongs safely to the tradition of social realism and that the Hong Kong through his lens is a “real” one.
Lara Feigel
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748639502
- eISBN:
- 9780748652938
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748639502.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This book tells the story of a generation of writers who were passionately engaged with politics and with cinema, exploring the rise and fall of a distinct tradition of cinematic literature. Dismayed ...
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This book tells the story of a generation of writers who were passionately engaged with politics and with cinema, exploring the rise and fall of a distinct tradition of cinematic literature. Dismayed by the rise of fascism in Europe and by the widening gulf separating the classes at home, these writers turned to cinema as a popular and hard-hitting art form. The book crosses boundaries between high modernism and social realism and between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, bringing together Virginia Woolf with W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bowen with John Sommerfield, Sergei Eisenstein with Gracie Fields, and offering new interpretations of their texts. The book ends in the Second World War, an era when the bombs and searchlights rendered everyday life cinematic. The book interrogates the genres she maps, drawing on cultural theories from the 1920s onwards to investigate the nature of the cinematic and the literary. While it was not possible directly to transfer the techniques of the screen to the page any more than it was possible to ‘go over’ to the working classes, the attempts nonetheless reveal a fascinating intersection of the visual and the verbal, the political and the aesthetic. In reading between the frames of an unexplored literary tradition, this book redefines the 1930s and wartime literature and politics, offering a new perspective on Spanish Civil War as well as Second World War writing.Less
This book tells the story of a generation of writers who were passionately engaged with politics and with cinema, exploring the rise and fall of a distinct tradition of cinematic literature. Dismayed by the rise of fascism in Europe and by the widening gulf separating the classes at home, these writers turned to cinema as a popular and hard-hitting art form. The book crosses boundaries between high modernism and social realism and between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, bringing together Virginia Woolf with W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bowen with John Sommerfield, Sergei Eisenstein with Gracie Fields, and offering new interpretations of their texts. The book ends in the Second World War, an era when the bombs and searchlights rendered everyday life cinematic. The book interrogates the genres she maps, drawing on cultural theories from the 1920s onwards to investigate the nature of the cinematic and the literary. While it was not possible directly to transfer the techniques of the screen to the page any more than it was possible to ‘go over’ to the working classes, the attempts nonetheless reveal a fascinating intersection of the visual and the verbal, the political and the aesthetic. In reading between the frames of an unexplored literary tradition, this book redefines the 1930s and wartime literature and politics, offering a new perspective on Spanish Civil War as well as Second World War writing.
Tony Garnett
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719066283
- eISBN:
- 9781781702529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066283.003.0015
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter shares some excerpts of Garnett's acting and production career. After revolutionary forces, left-wing teachers, union activists and television producers all found themselves branded, in ...
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This chapter shares some excerpts of Garnett's acting and production career. After revolutionary forces, left-wing teachers, union activists and television producers all found themselves branded, in a much-quoted phrase, as the ‘enemy within’. In this climate, conspiracy theories abounded; indeed, conspiracy, and its twin, betrayal, run through much discourse off both right and left in the decade. It is not surprising that they also surface in television drama, both on and off the screen. Kestrel Productions was the first independent drama production company in British television, and had its origins in the shake-up that followed the re-franchising of commercial television in 1967. The chapter also briefly discusses Kes—the development of a political aesthetic. However, radical television drama did not go uncontested, and there were high-profile cases of dramas being challenged across the media and other public discourses, and in some cases, withdrawn from the schedules before screening.Less
This chapter shares some excerpts of Garnett's acting and production career. After revolutionary forces, left-wing teachers, union activists and television producers all found themselves branded, in a much-quoted phrase, as the ‘enemy within’. In this climate, conspiracy theories abounded; indeed, conspiracy, and its twin, betrayal, run through much discourse off both right and left in the decade. It is not surprising that they also surface in television drama, both on and off the screen. Kestrel Productions was the first independent drama production company in British television, and had its origins in the shake-up that followed the re-franchising of commercial television in 1967. The chapter also briefly discusses Kes—the development of a political aesthetic. However, radical television drama did not go uncontested, and there were high-profile cases of dramas being challenged across the media and other public discourses, and in some cases, withdrawn from the schedules before screening.
Tony Garnett
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719066283
- eISBN:
- 9781781702529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066283.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter revolves around the two Wednesday Plays, Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home. The Wednesday Play anthology series has acquired a pivotal role in the history of television drama, ...
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This chapter revolves around the two Wednesday Plays, Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home. The Wednesday Play anthology series has acquired a pivotal role in the history of television drama, providing a showcase for drama that was formally experimental, distinctive to the medium of television, socially and culturally provocative. It was designed as a replacement for two existing play strands, Festival and First Night, as a response to a series of pressures that were being applied to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the mid-1960s. The best known and most widely debated of The Wednesday Plays in the 1965 season was Up the Junction. Up the Junction is set in and around the eponymous Clapham Junction, and concerns the lives of its inhabitants, notably three young women, Sylvie (Carol White), Rube (Geraldine Sherman) and Eileen. It connects immediately to a contemporary sense of a hitherto unrepresented and socially extended reality—and thus to social realism. One of the main differences between Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home is that the latter has a single protagonist, around whom the narrative is organised (something which gave the film a more accessible narrative shape, from an audience viewpoint).Less
This chapter revolves around the two Wednesday Plays, Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home. The Wednesday Play anthology series has acquired a pivotal role in the history of television drama, providing a showcase for drama that was formally experimental, distinctive to the medium of television, socially and culturally provocative. It was designed as a replacement for two existing play strands, Festival and First Night, as a response to a series of pressures that were being applied to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the mid-1960s. The best known and most widely debated of The Wednesday Plays in the 1965 season was Up the Junction. Up the Junction is set in and around the eponymous Clapham Junction, and concerns the lives of its inhabitants, notably three young women, Sylvie (Carol White), Rube (Geraldine Sherman) and Eileen. It connects immediately to a contemporary sense of a hitherto unrepresented and socially extended reality—and thus to social realism. One of the main differences between Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home is that the latter has a single protagonist, around whom the narrative is organised (something which gave the film a more accessible narrative shape, from an audience viewpoint).
Howard Felperin
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122654
- eISBN:
- 9780191671517
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122654.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Fourteen years ago, Bruce Erlich offered a Marxist interpretation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. He argued that there are times when we have a ...
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Fourteen years ago, Bruce Erlich offered a Marxist interpretation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. He argued that there are times when we have a duty to look beyond the ‘purely aesthetic or ‘beautiful’ dimensions’ of the play in order to recognize ‘how a work of profound social realism can be written in the mode of romance and sacramental allegory’. It was only a matter of time before a social-realist Tempest of some sort would displace the allegorical romance from the strategic position within Shakespeare studies that it, along with the other late romances, had only just regained. Since the ‘death of the author’ and the ‘end of man’, it is no longer Shakespeare's personal history, let alone his ‘spiritual autobiography’ that matters, but the larger history and discourse of colonial imperialism that are inscribed in The Tempest. This chapter deals with the recent politicization of The Tempest, its formation of the canon within the canon, and its interpretation through the new historicism.Less
Fourteen years ago, Bruce Erlich offered a Marxist interpretation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. He argued that there are times when we have a duty to look beyond the ‘purely aesthetic or ‘beautiful’ dimensions’ of the play in order to recognize ‘how a work of profound social realism can be written in the mode of romance and sacramental allegory’. It was only a matter of time before a social-realist Tempest of some sort would displace the allegorical romance from the strategic position within Shakespeare studies that it, along with the other late romances, had only just regained. Since the ‘death of the author’ and the ‘end of man’, it is no longer Shakespeare's personal history, let alone his ‘spiritual autobiography’ that matters, but the larger history and discourse of colonial imperialism that are inscribed in The Tempest. This chapter deals with the recent politicization of The Tempest, its formation of the canon within the canon, and its interpretation through the new historicism.
Malini Guha
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748656462
- eISBN:
- 9781474408585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748656462.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter situates the film Dirty Pretty Things (2002) within a wider historical continuum of “migrant London” cinema, while examining the longevity of social realist modes of storytelling and its ...
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This chapter situates the film Dirty Pretty Things (2002) within a wider historical continuum of “migrant London” cinema, while examining the longevity of social realist modes of storytelling and its “global turn.” It presents a departure from an interpretation of Dirty Pretty Things as a film that allegorizes the conditions of global London in order to chart a history of representation of post-imperial migration to the city. Furthermore, the chapter analyzes the concept of the “dirty/pretty” as a bifurcated understanding of city space, one that scholars argue has its origins in a Victorian imaginary of the city but is subsequently re-imagined in the telling of other urban stories.Less
This chapter situates the film Dirty Pretty Things (2002) within a wider historical continuum of “migrant London” cinema, while examining the longevity of social realist modes of storytelling and its “global turn.” It presents a departure from an interpretation of Dirty Pretty Things as a film that allegorizes the conditions of global London in order to chart a history of representation of post-imperial migration to the city. Furthermore, the chapter analyzes the concept of the “dirty/pretty” as a bifurcated understanding of city space, one that scholars argue has its origins in a Victorian imaginary of the city but is subsequently re-imagined in the telling of other urban stories.
Christopher Pullen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748694846
- eISBN:
- 9781474418485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694846.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the straight girl and queer guy relationship in relation to the transgressive potential of social realism, and the context of youth. Initially Beautiful Thing (Hettie MacDonald ...
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This chapter explores the straight girl and queer guy relationship in relation to the transgressive potential of social realism, and the context of youth. Initially Beautiful Thing (Hettie MacDonald 1996, UK) and The Way He Looks [Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho] (2014, Brazil) are examined as exemplars of social realism, framing the affective youthful queer body as a site of feeling and agency. Later the landmark television series Glee (Fox 2009-2015, US) explores the abject position of the queer guy and the straight girl, hypothesizing the significance of youth culture within TV form. After this the queer independent films Gayby (Jonathan Lisecki 2012, US) and G.B.F. (Darren Stein 2013, US) are examined considering diverse issues such as dating, child-raising, the commodity of identity and the significance of masquerade..Less
This chapter explores the straight girl and queer guy relationship in relation to the transgressive potential of social realism, and the context of youth. Initially Beautiful Thing (Hettie MacDonald 1996, UK) and The Way He Looks [Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho] (2014, Brazil) are examined as exemplars of social realism, framing the affective youthful queer body as a site of feeling and agency. Later the landmark television series Glee (Fox 2009-2015, US) explores the abject position of the queer guy and the straight girl, hypothesizing the significance of youth culture within TV form. After this the queer independent films Gayby (Jonathan Lisecki 2012, US) and G.B.F. (Darren Stein 2013, US) are examined considering diverse issues such as dating, child-raising, the commodity of identity and the significance of masquerade..
Richard Hewett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992989
- eISBN:
- 9781526128362
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992989.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
By the early 1960s television was more established and widespread, and its conventions were beginning to be tacitly understood by audiences and performers alike. While the introduction of videotape ...
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By the early 1960s television was more established and widespread, and its conventions were beginning to be tacitly understood by audiences and performers alike. While the introduction of videotape pre-recording, as employed on Doctor Who, did little to change the ‘outside’ rehearsal and multi-camera studio performance template of the live era, it also meant that actors were for the first time able to watch their own performances, and adapt them to the medium. While still arriving at television via a multiplicity of routes, actors now typically shared the same degree of screen experience, leading to a greater uniformity in studio realism. At the same time, the growth of social realism meant a subtle shift in the style of acting that would be acceptable to audiences of the time. Despite its perceived outlandishness in narrative terms, reports show that Doctor Who was more than acceptable to contemporary audiences in terms of performance style.Less
By the early 1960s television was more established and widespread, and its conventions were beginning to be tacitly understood by audiences and performers alike. While the introduction of videotape pre-recording, as employed on Doctor Who, did little to change the ‘outside’ rehearsal and multi-camera studio performance template of the live era, it also meant that actors were for the first time able to watch their own performances, and adapt them to the medium. While still arriving at television via a multiplicity of routes, actors now typically shared the same degree of screen experience, leading to a greater uniformity in studio realism. At the same time, the growth of social realism meant a subtle shift in the style of acting that would be acceptable to audiences of the time. Despite its perceived outlandishness in narrative terms, reports show that Doctor Who was more than acceptable to contemporary audiences in terms of performance style.
Alan Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719068300
- eISBN:
- 9781781702987
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719068300.003.0012
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter traces the development of Alan Clarke's dominant themes and aesthetic approaches. The banning of Scum (1977, 1979), was a turning point in his career; the chapter focuses on this and ...
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This chapter traces the development of Alan Clarke's dominant themes and aesthetic approaches. The banning of Scum (1977, 1979), was a turning point in his career; the chapter focuses on this and contextualises it within debates on drama-documentary and academic writing on ideologically progressive form. It discusses the issues raised by its banning, including the changing status of radical single drama, administrative intervention and censorship, and the concern of both practitioners and theorists with realism and ‘progressive’ form. A decade on from debates on the visual epistemology of realism, Clarke, in his juxtaposition of highly expressive effects, narrative experimentation and a problematising of documentary elements, evolved an ideological form that foregrounded ‘the camera's misleading faculty of being able to record the real’ and represented a ‘terminus for British social realism’.Less
This chapter traces the development of Alan Clarke's dominant themes and aesthetic approaches. The banning of Scum (1977, 1979), was a turning point in his career; the chapter focuses on this and contextualises it within debates on drama-documentary and academic writing on ideologically progressive form. It discusses the issues raised by its banning, including the changing status of radical single drama, administrative intervention and censorship, and the concern of both practitioners and theorists with realism and ‘progressive’ form. A decade on from debates on the visual epistemology of realism, Clarke, in his juxtaposition of highly expressive effects, narrative experimentation and a problematising of documentary elements, evolved an ideological form that foregrounded ‘the camera's misleading faculty of being able to record the real’ and represented a ‘terminus for British social realism’.
David Forrest
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748676392
- eISBN:
- 9780748693856
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676392.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter seeks to locate Shane Meadows work within broader traditions of British social realism. With references to the British documentary tradition of the 1920s and 1930s, the British New Wave ...
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This chapter seeks to locate Shane Meadows work within broader traditions of British social realism. With references to the British documentary tradition of the 1920s and 1930s, the British New Wave cycle of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the work of prominent realist directors such as Ken Loach, Meadows' films are explored in light of their similarities to and departures from established trends in British cinema. The chapter makes the case that Meadows and his contemporaries such as Andrea Arnold, Duane Hopkins, Pawel Pawlikowski, Samantha Morton and Joanna Hogg can be seen to move towards a more poetic form of realism that rejects didacticism and explicit explorations of social issues, in favour of a more ambiguous image-led narration. Contemporary British realism is characterised by a focus on young, marginalised protagonists searching for meaning in poetically charged urban and suburban environments. As such, the representation of landscape, space and place is a persistent source of interest within the films. Works from across Meadows' oeuvre are explored in relation to these areas, drawing parallels with the aesthetic and thematic emphases adopted by his contemporaries.Less
This chapter seeks to locate Shane Meadows work within broader traditions of British social realism. With references to the British documentary tradition of the 1920s and 1930s, the British New Wave cycle of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the work of prominent realist directors such as Ken Loach, Meadows' films are explored in light of their similarities to and departures from established trends in British cinema. The chapter makes the case that Meadows and his contemporaries such as Andrea Arnold, Duane Hopkins, Pawel Pawlikowski, Samantha Morton and Joanna Hogg can be seen to move towards a more poetic form of realism that rejects didacticism and explicit explorations of social issues, in favour of a more ambiguous image-led narration. Contemporary British realism is characterised by a focus on young, marginalised protagonists searching for meaning in poetically charged urban and suburban environments. As such, the representation of landscape, space and place is a persistent source of interest within the films. Works from across Meadows' oeuvre are explored in relation to these areas, drawing parallels with the aesthetic and thematic emphases adopted by his contemporaries.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804775892
- eISBN:
- 9780804778183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804775892.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the changes in literature and works of fiction in Iran after the revolution in the 1970s. It describes how the works of writers such as Shahrnush Parsipur and Moniru Ravanipur ...
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This chapter examines the changes in literature and works of fiction in Iran after the revolution in the 1970s. It describes how the works of writers such as Shahrnush Parsipur and Moniru Ravanipur utilized the sense of lawlessness to reexamine the conventions and ideals of the social realism that dominated prose fiction before the revolution. The chapter suggests that the works of these writers appropriated the figure of the (dismembered) beloved and the ideal of the companionate wife as a way to express their views on the impact of fiction and historiography in imagining the modern Iranian woman.Less
This chapter examines the changes in literature and works of fiction in Iran after the revolution in the 1970s. It describes how the works of writers such as Shahrnush Parsipur and Moniru Ravanipur utilized the sense of lawlessness to reexamine the conventions and ideals of the social realism that dominated prose fiction before the revolution. The chapter suggests that the works of these writers appropriated the figure of the (dismembered) beloved and the ideal of the companionate wife as a way to express their views on the impact of fiction and historiography in imagining the modern Iranian woman.
Robert W. Cherny
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040788
- eISBN:
- 9780252099243
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040788.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Victor Arnautoff, an artist, was born in 1896 in the Russian empire. After serving as a cavalry officer in WWI and then in the White Siberian army during the Russian Civil War, he became part of the ...
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Victor Arnautoff, an artist, was born in 1896 in the Russian empire. After serving as a cavalry officer in WWI and then in the White Siberian army during the Russian Civil War, he became part of the Russian diaspora, working for a Chinese warlord, studying art in San Francisco, and working with Diego Rivera in Mexico. Returning to San Francisco, his art was acclaimed during the 1930s, especially his public murals, most financed by New-Deal art programs. He joined Stanford University’s art faculty. He and his wife became citizens and secretly joined the Communist party (CP). They threw themselves into work for Russian war relief during WWII and became active in Communist front groups. After WWII, the rise of abstract expressionism marginalized Arnautoff’s social realism, and he found a new cultural home in the California Labor School. Arnautoff’s activities in Communist front groups brought FBI surveillance. He was called before a HUAC sub-committee, and the Stanford administration tried unsuccessfully to terminate him in a case involving standards of academic freedom. After retiring from Stanford and the death of his wife, Arnautoff emigrated to the Soviet Union. There he created several large public murals before his death in 1979.Less
Victor Arnautoff, an artist, was born in 1896 in the Russian empire. After serving as a cavalry officer in WWI and then in the White Siberian army during the Russian Civil War, he became part of the Russian diaspora, working for a Chinese warlord, studying art in San Francisco, and working with Diego Rivera in Mexico. Returning to San Francisco, his art was acclaimed during the 1930s, especially his public murals, most financed by New-Deal art programs. He joined Stanford University’s art faculty. He and his wife became citizens and secretly joined the Communist party (CP). They threw themselves into work for Russian war relief during WWII and became active in Communist front groups. After WWII, the rise of abstract expressionism marginalized Arnautoff’s social realism, and he found a new cultural home in the California Labor School. Arnautoff’s activities in Communist front groups brought FBI surveillance. He was called before a HUAC sub-committee, and the Stanford administration tried unsuccessfully to terminate him in a case involving standards of academic freedom. After retiring from Stanford and the death of his wife, Arnautoff emigrated to the Soviet Union. There he created several large public murals before his death in 1979.
Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835869
- eISBN:
- 9781469601502
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837344_wald
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This book, the final volume of a trilogy, brings the author's multigenerational history of Communist writers to a climax. Using new research to explore the intimate lives of novelists, poets, and ...
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This book, the final volume of a trilogy, brings the author's multigenerational history of Communist writers to a climax. Using new research to explore the intimate lives of novelists, poets, and critics during the Cold War, it reveals a radical community longing for the rebirth of the social vision of the 1930s and struggling with a loss of moral certainty as the Communist worldview was being called into question. The resulting literature, the author shows, is a haunting record of fracture and struggle linked by common structures of feeling, ones more suggestive of the “negative dialectics” of Theodor Adorno than the traditional social realism of the Left. Establishing new points of contact among Kenneth Fearing, Ann Petry, Alexander Saxton, Richard Wright, Jo Sinclair, Thomas McGrath, and Carlos Bulosan, the author argues that these writers were in dialogue with psychoanalysis, existentialism, and postwar modernism, often generating moods of piercing emotional acuity and cosmic dissent. He also recounts the contributions of lesser-known cultural workers, with a unique accent on gays and lesbians, secular Jews, and people of color. The vexing ambiguities of an era the author labels “late antifascism” serve to frame a collective biography.Less
This book, the final volume of a trilogy, brings the author's multigenerational history of Communist writers to a climax. Using new research to explore the intimate lives of novelists, poets, and critics during the Cold War, it reveals a radical community longing for the rebirth of the social vision of the 1930s and struggling with a loss of moral certainty as the Communist worldview was being called into question. The resulting literature, the author shows, is a haunting record of fracture and struggle linked by common structures of feeling, ones more suggestive of the “negative dialectics” of Theodor Adorno than the traditional social realism of the Left. Establishing new points of contact among Kenneth Fearing, Ann Petry, Alexander Saxton, Richard Wright, Jo Sinclair, Thomas McGrath, and Carlos Bulosan, the author argues that these writers were in dialogue with psychoanalysis, existentialism, and postwar modernism, often generating moods of piercing emotional acuity and cosmic dissent. He also recounts the contributions of lesser-known cultural workers, with a unique accent on gays and lesbians, secular Jews, and people of color. The vexing ambiguities of an era the author labels “late antifascism” serve to frame a collective biography.
Gray Cavender and Nancy C. Jurik
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037191
- eISBN:
- 9780252094316
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037191.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter discusses Prime Suspect's treatment of social problems and socially marginalized individuals. First, it briefly addresses the history of social problems and social realism film and ...
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This chapter discusses Prime Suspect's treatment of social problems and socially marginalized individuals. First, it briefly addresses the history of social problems and social realism film and television, and then notes the departure from such formats in British television of the 1970s onward as well as the general avoidance of social issue programming in US television throughout the years. It then analyzes Prime Suspect's treatment of social issues, in particular, how moments within episodes offer insights into the experiences of socially marginalized persons. Although the series often disrupts the binary between good and evil and destabilizes the white male dominance of the genre, it does not offer comprehensive, modernist policy solutions to social problems.Less
This chapter discusses Prime Suspect's treatment of social problems and socially marginalized individuals. First, it briefly addresses the history of social problems and social realism film and television, and then notes the departure from such formats in British television of the 1970s onward as well as the general avoidance of social issue programming in US television throughout the years. It then analyzes Prime Suspect's treatment of social issues, in particular, how moments within episodes offer insights into the experiences of socially marginalized persons. Although the series often disrupts the binary between good and evil and destabilizes the white male dominance of the genre, it does not offer comprehensive, modernist policy solutions to social problems.
Tanya Horeck
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641604
- eISBN:
- 9780748651221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641604.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores what the idea of a new European extremism might mean in the context of contemporary filmmaking in Britain by addressing the work of Andrea Arnold. While Arnold's work is seen to ...
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This chapter explores what the idea of a new European extremism might mean in the context of contemporary filmmaking in Britain by addressing the work of Andrea Arnold. While Arnold's work is seen to sit somewhere between British social realism and European art cinema, this chapter looks at how her emphasis on the sensory and the affective aligns her with the films of the new extremism. Focusing on the explicit sex scenes in her two feature films, Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009), it argues that affect makes the viewer engage in an intimate and ethical way, with the bodies on display. In looking at how Arnold's films invite spectators to watch the sexual encounters through an ethical optics, revising understandings about the relationship between viewer and viewed, the chapter observes that, despite the fact that the films of the new extremism are frequently viewed as amoral for their sensational content, there is more of an ethical dimension to many of these films than is generally credited.Less
This chapter explores what the idea of a new European extremism might mean in the context of contemporary filmmaking in Britain by addressing the work of Andrea Arnold. While Arnold's work is seen to sit somewhere between British social realism and European art cinema, this chapter looks at how her emphasis on the sensory and the affective aligns her with the films of the new extremism. Focusing on the explicit sex scenes in her two feature films, Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009), it argues that affect makes the viewer engage in an intimate and ethical way, with the bodies on display. In looking at how Arnold's films invite spectators to watch the sexual encounters through an ethical optics, revising understandings about the relationship between viewer and viewed, the chapter observes that, despite the fact that the films of the new extremism are frequently viewed as amoral for their sensational content, there is more of an ethical dimension to many of these films than is generally credited.
K. M. Newton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636730
- eISBN:
- 9780748652082
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636730.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Ibsen clearly has classical tragedy in mind in Ghosts, particularly Sophocles' Oedipus the King, which is held by Aristotle in his Poetics to be the exemplary tragedy. Ibsen, before he turned to ...
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Ibsen clearly has classical tragedy in mind in Ghosts, particularly Sophocles' Oedipus the King, which is held by Aristotle in his Poetics to be the exemplary tragedy. Ibsen, before he turned to social realism, had written plays in verse, and one of the best known of these plays is Brand. Ghosts suggests that Ibsen was well aware that a move to social realism had major implications for tragedy. Like Oedipus, it is very much about the relationship between past and present. Its ending is almost as catastrophic as any in classical tragedy, with Oswald's mind being destroyed by congenital syphilis, inherited from his father but transmitted to him through his mother, and Mrs Alving finally being faced with the dilemma of whether or not to agree to his demand to kill him and thus put him out of his misery when his mind gives way.Less
Ibsen clearly has classical tragedy in mind in Ghosts, particularly Sophocles' Oedipus the King, which is held by Aristotle in his Poetics to be the exemplary tragedy. Ibsen, before he turned to social realism, had written plays in verse, and one of the best known of these plays is Brand. Ghosts suggests that Ibsen was well aware that a move to social realism had major implications for tragedy. Like Oedipus, it is very much about the relationship between past and present. Its ending is almost as catastrophic as any in classical tragedy, with Oswald's mind being destroyed by congenital syphilis, inherited from his father but transmitted to him through his mother, and Mrs Alving finally being faced with the dilemma of whether or not to agree to his demand to kill him and thus put him out of his misery when his mind gives way.
Malini Guha
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748656462
- eISBN:
- 9781474408585
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748656462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Drawing upon examples from contemporary British and French cinema, this book explores the sights and sounds of “migrant” London and Paris, providing entirely new ways of visualizing and ...
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Drawing upon examples from contemporary British and French cinema, this book explores the sights and sounds of “migrant” London and Paris, providing entirely new ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the cities we think we already know. The study of globalization in cinema assumes many guises, from the exploration of global cinematic cities to the burgeoning “world cinema turn” within film studies, which addresses the global nature of film production, exhibition and distribution. This book draws together these two distinctly different ways of thinking about the cinema, interrogating representations of global London and Paris as migrant cinematic cities, featuring the arrival, settlement and departure of migrant figures from the decline of imperial rule to the global present. The book also considers their world cinema status in light of their reconfiguration of established forms of filmmaking, from modernism to social realism. An illuminating analysis of London and Paris in world cinema from the vantage point of migrant mobilities, the book explores the ramifications of this historical shift towards the global, one that pertains in equal measure to cityscapes, their representation as world cinema texts, and to the rise of world cinema discourse within film studies itself.Less
Drawing upon examples from contemporary British and French cinema, this book explores the sights and sounds of “migrant” London and Paris, providing entirely new ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the cities we think we already know. The study of globalization in cinema assumes many guises, from the exploration of global cinematic cities to the burgeoning “world cinema turn” within film studies, which addresses the global nature of film production, exhibition and distribution. This book draws together these two distinctly different ways of thinking about the cinema, interrogating representations of global London and Paris as migrant cinematic cities, featuring the arrival, settlement and departure of migrant figures from the decline of imperial rule to the global present. The book also considers their world cinema status in light of their reconfiguration of established forms of filmmaking, from modernism to social realism. An illuminating analysis of London and Paris in world cinema from the vantage point of migrant mobilities, the book explores the ramifications of this historical shift towards the global, one that pertains in equal measure to cityscapes, their representation as world cinema texts, and to the rise of world cinema discourse within film studies itself.
