Ernest Hartmann
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199751778
- eISBN:
- 9780199863419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751778.003.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Clinical Psychology
This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to put together various studies on dreaming into one coherent theory. It then presents the study's main conclusions, which ...
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This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to put together various studies on dreaming into one coherent theory. It then presents the study's main conclusions, which give in outline form the Contemporary Theory of Dreaming. These are that dreaming is a form of mental functioning; dreaming is hyper-connective; the connections made are not random; the form or “language” of dreams is mainly picture-metaphor; the making of broad connections guided by emotion has an adaptive function conceptualized as “weaving in” new material—taking new experiences and gradually connecting them, integrating them, into existing memory systems; and that the entire focused waking-to-dreaming continuum has an adaptive function.Less
This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to put together various studies on dreaming into one coherent theory. It then presents the study's main conclusions, which give in outline form the Contemporary Theory of Dreaming. These are that dreaming is a form of mental functioning; dreaming is hyper-connective; the connections made are not random; the form or “language” of dreams is mainly picture-metaphor; the making of broad connections guided by emotion has an adaptive function conceptualized as “weaving in” new material—taking new experiences and gradually connecting them, integrating them, into existing memory systems; and that the entire focused waking-to-dreaming continuum has an adaptive function.
Stuart Murray
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621648
- eISBN:
- 9781800341159
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621648.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Disability and the Posthuman is the first study to analyse cultural representations and deployments of disability as they interact with posthumanist theories of technology and embodiment. Working ...
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Disability and the Posthuman is the first study to analyse cultural representations and deployments of disability as they interact with posthumanist theories of technology and embodiment. Working across a wide range of texts, many new to critical enquiry, in contemporary writing, film and cultural practice from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Japan, it covers a diverse range of topics, including: contemporary cultural theory and aesthetics; design, engineering and gender; the visualisation of prosthetic technologies in the representation of war and conflict; and depictions of work, time and sleep. While noting the potential limitations of posthumanist assessments of the technologized body, the study argues that there are exciting, productive possibilities and subversive potentials in the dialogue between disability and posthumanism as they generate dissident crossings of cultural spaces. Such intersections cover both fictional/imagined and material/grounded examples of disability and look to a future in which the development of technology and complex embodiment of disability presence align to produce sustainable yet radical creative and critical voices.Less
Disability and the Posthuman is the first study to analyse cultural representations and deployments of disability as they interact with posthumanist theories of technology and embodiment. Working across a wide range of texts, many new to critical enquiry, in contemporary writing, film and cultural practice from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Japan, it covers a diverse range of topics, including: contemporary cultural theory and aesthetics; design, engineering and gender; the visualisation of prosthetic technologies in the representation of war and conflict; and depictions of work, time and sleep. While noting the potential limitations of posthumanist assessments of the technologized body, the study argues that there are exciting, productive possibilities and subversive potentials in the dialogue between disability and posthumanism as they generate dissident crossings of cultural spaces. Such intersections cover both fictional/imagined and material/grounded examples of disability and look to a future in which the development of technology and complex embodiment of disability presence align to produce sustainable yet radical creative and critical voices.
Nuno Barradas Jorge
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474444538
- eISBN:
- 9781474481106
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444538.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This is the first English-language study of internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, examining the cultural, production and exhibition contexts of his feature films, shorts and ...
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This is the first English-language study of internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, examining the cultural, production and exhibition contexts of his feature films, shorts and video installations. It situates Costa’s filmmaking within the contexts of Portuguese, European and global art film, looking into his working practices alongside the impact of digital video, forms of collaborative authorship, and the intricate dialogue between modes of production and aesthetics.
Considering the exhibition, circulation and reception of Costa’s creative output in settings such as film festivals, the art gallery circuit and the home video market, ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa provides an essential critical analysis of this major filmmaker – as well as of the multifaceted production and consumption practices that surround contemporary art cinema.Less
This is the first English-language study of internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, examining the cultural, production and exhibition contexts of his feature films, shorts and video installations. It situates Costa’s filmmaking within the contexts of Portuguese, European and global art film, looking into his working practices alongside the impact of digital video, forms of collaborative authorship, and the intricate dialogue between modes of production and aesthetics.
Considering the exhibition, circulation and reception of Costa’s creative output in settings such as film festivals, the art gallery circuit and the home video market, ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa provides an essential critical analysis of this major filmmaker – as well as of the multifaceted production and consumption practices that surround contemporary art cinema.
Jonathan Ervine
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620511
- eISBN:
- 9781789629811
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620511.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This timely study sheds new light on debates about humour and multiculturalism in France, and is the first monograph about multiculturalism and humour in France to be published in either English or ...
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This timely study sheds new light on debates about humour and multiculturalism in France, and is the first monograph about multiculturalism and humour in France to be published in either English or French that analyses both debates about Charlie Hebdo and stand-up comedy. It will examine humour, freedom of expression and social cohesion in France at a crucial time in France’s recent history following the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015. It will evaluate the state of French society and attitudes to humour in France in the aftermath of the events of January 2015. This book will argue that debates surrounding Charlie Hebdo, although significant, only provide part of the picture when it comes to understanding humour and multiculturalism in France. This monograph will fill significant gaps in French and international media coverage and academic writing, which has generally failed to adequately examine the broader picture that emerges when one examines career trajectories of notable contemporary French comedians. By addressing this failing, this book provides a more complete picture of humour, multiculturalism and Republican values in France. By focusing primarily on contemporary comedians in France, this book will explore competing uses of French Republican discourse in debates about humour, offensiveness and freedom of expression. Ultimately, this work will argue that studying humour and multiculturalism in France in often reveals a sense of national unease within the Republic at a time of considerable turmoil.Less
This timely study sheds new light on debates about humour and multiculturalism in France, and is the first monograph about multiculturalism and humour in France to be published in either English or French that analyses both debates about Charlie Hebdo and stand-up comedy. It will examine humour, freedom of expression and social cohesion in France at a crucial time in France’s recent history following the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015. It will evaluate the state of French society and attitudes to humour in France in the aftermath of the events of January 2015. This book will argue that debates surrounding Charlie Hebdo, although significant, only provide part of the picture when it comes to understanding humour and multiculturalism in France. This monograph will fill significant gaps in French and international media coverage and academic writing, which has generally failed to adequately examine the broader picture that emerges when one examines career trajectories of notable contemporary French comedians. By addressing this failing, this book provides a more complete picture of humour, multiculturalism and Republican values in France. By focusing primarily on contemporary comedians in France, this book will explore competing uses of French Republican discourse in debates about humour, offensiveness and freedom of expression. Ultimately, this work will argue that studying humour and multiculturalism in France in often reveals a sense of national unease within the Republic at a time of considerable turmoil.
Jenny Lin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526132604
- eISBN:
- 9781526139047
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526132604.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Shanghai, long known as mainland China’s most cosmopolitan metropolis, has recently re-emerged as a global capital. Above sea: Contemporary art, urban culture, and the fashioning of global Shanghai ...
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Shanghai, long known as mainland China’s most cosmopolitan metropolis, has recently re-emerged as a global capital. Above sea: Contemporary art, urban culture, and the fashioning of global Shanghai offers the first in-depth examination of turn of the twenty-first century Shanghai-based art and design – from state-sponsored exhibitions to fashionable cultural complexes to cutting edge films and installations. This book offers a counter-touristic view of one of the world’s fastest developing megacities that penetrates the contradictions and buried layers of specific locales and artifacts of visual culture. Informed by years of in-situ research including interviews with artists and designers, the book looks beyond contemporary art’s global hype to reveal persistent socio-political tensions accompanying Shanghai’s explosive transitions from semi-colonial capitalism to Maoist socialism to Communist Party-sponsored capitalism. Analyses of exemplary design projects such as Xintiandi and Shanghai Tang, and artworks by Liu Jianhua, Yang Fudong, Gu Wenda and more reveal how Shanghai’s global aesthetics construct glamorizing artifices that mask historically-rooted cross-cultural conflicts between vying notions of foreign-influenced modernity versus anti-colonialist nationalism, and the city’s repressed socialist past versus consumerist present. The book focuses on Shanghai-based art and design from the 1990s-2000s, the decades of the city’s most rapid post-socialist development, while also attending to pivotal Republican and Mao Era examples. Challenging the “East-meets-West” clichés that characterize discussions of urban Shanghai and contemporary Chinese art, this book illuminates critical issues facing today’s artists, architects, and designers, and provides an essential field guide for students of art, design, art history, urban studies, and Chinese culture.Less
Shanghai, long known as mainland China’s most cosmopolitan metropolis, has recently re-emerged as a global capital. Above sea: Contemporary art, urban culture, and the fashioning of global Shanghai offers the first in-depth examination of turn of the twenty-first century Shanghai-based art and design – from state-sponsored exhibitions to fashionable cultural complexes to cutting edge films and installations. This book offers a counter-touristic view of one of the world’s fastest developing megacities that penetrates the contradictions and buried layers of specific locales and artifacts of visual culture. Informed by years of in-situ research including interviews with artists and designers, the book looks beyond contemporary art’s global hype to reveal persistent socio-political tensions accompanying Shanghai’s explosive transitions from semi-colonial capitalism to Maoist socialism to Communist Party-sponsored capitalism. Analyses of exemplary design projects such as Xintiandi and Shanghai Tang, and artworks by Liu Jianhua, Yang Fudong, Gu Wenda and more reveal how Shanghai’s global aesthetics construct glamorizing artifices that mask historically-rooted cross-cultural conflicts between vying notions of foreign-influenced modernity versus anti-colonialist nationalism, and the city’s repressed socialist past versus consumerist present. The book focuses on Shanghai-based art and design from the 1990s-2000s, the decades of the city’s most rapid post-socialist development, while also attending to pivotal Republican and Mao Era examples. Challenging the “East-meets-West” clichés that characterize discussions of urban Shanghai and contemporary Chinese art, this book illuminates critical issues facing today’s artists, architects, and designers, and provides an essential field guide for students of art, design, art history, urban studies, and Chinese culture.
Benjamin Noys
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638635
- eISBN:
- 9780748671915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638635.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ...
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This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ‘affirmationism’ in contemporary theory: the insistence on starting from the affirmation of metaphysical ontologies, the inventive potential of the subject, the necessity for the production of novelty, and a concomitant suspicion of the negative and negativity. Despite all the conflicts and ‘wars’ of contemporary theory, this tone remains an unstated point of unification. Although it was often developed to resist the corrosive effects of contemporary capitalism, this work argues that affirmationism remains bound to its ideological coordinates in its emphasis on production, creativity, and invention. Critically reconstructing this ‘affirmationism’ through the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Antonio Negri, and Alain Badiou, the book also recovers from their work a disavowed thinking of negativity. Dependent on negativity, despite their claims to affirmation, this dependence allows a critique of the reliance on affirmation. Also, this negativity is turned against this affirmative tone to develop a more sharply-focused political analysis of theory, and to suggest the possible politics emerging from a relational thinking of negativity.Less
This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ‘affirmationism’ in contemporary theory: the insistence on starting from the affirmation of metaphysical ontologies, the inventive potential of the subject, the necessity for the production of novelty, and a concomitant suspicion of the negative and negativity. Despite all the conflicts and ‘wars’ of contemporary theory, this tone remains an unstated point of unification. Although it was often developed to resist the corrosive effects of contemporary capitalism, this work argues that affirmationism remains bound to its ideological coordinates in its emphasis on production, creativity, and invention. Critically reconstructing this ‘affirmationism’ through the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Antonio Negri, and Alain Badiou, the book also recovers from their work a disavowed thinking of negativity. Dependent on negativity, despite their claims to affirmation, this dependence allows a critique of the reliance on affirmation. Also, this negativity is turned against this affirmative tone to develop a more sharply-focused political analysis of theory, and to suggest the possible politics emerging from a relational thinking of negativity.
Danielle Sands
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439039
- eISBN:
- 9781474476881
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439039.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical ...
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Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical distancing from the sometimes claustrophobic proximity of empathy – currently the prevailing mode in Animal Studies – this book interrogates the claims made of empathy without exchanging it for the kind of abstract, disembodied reason which has long disavowed the ethical status of nonhuman life. This book is particularly interested in the stories that we tell, and are told, by beings at the edges of animal life, insects, and the possibility that the indifference, even disgust, that these creatures evoke might form the basis for an ethics which is not bounded by empathy. Across five interdisciplinary chapters, it asks: is it possible to read, write and think non-anthropocentrically? How might we develop approaches to nonhuman life which are affectively and critically informed? It contends that reframing the human in relation to the elements of itself which it denounces as inhuman can inform a renewed attentiveness to nonhuman life.Less
Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical distancing from the sometimes claustrophobic proximity of empathy – currently the prevailing mode in Animal Studies – this book interrogates the claims made of empathy without exchanging it for the kind of abstract, disembodied reason which has long disavowed the ethical status of nonhuman life. This book is particularly interested in the stories that we tell, and are told, by beings at the edges of animal life, insects, and the possibility that the indifference, even disgust, that these creatures evoke might form the basis for an ethics which is not bounded by empathy. Across five interdisciplinary chapters, it asks: is it possible to read, write and think non-anthropocentrically? How might we develop approaches to nonhuman life which are affectively and critically informed? It contends that reframing the human in relation to the elements of itself which it denounces as inhuman can inform a renewed attentiveness to nonhuman life.
Mary Youssef
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474415415
- eISBN:
- 9781474449755
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415415.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This book examines questions of identity, nationalism, and marginalization in the contemporary Egyptian novel from a postcolonial lens. Under colonial rule, the Egyptian novel invoked a sovereign ...
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This book examines questions of identity, nationalism, and marginalization in the contemporary Egyptian novel from a postcolonial lens. Under colonial rule, the Egyptian novel invoked a sovereign nation-state by basking in its perceived unity. After independence, the novel professed disenchantment with state practices and unequal class and gender relations, without disrupting the nation’s imagined racial and ethno-religious homogeneity. This book identifies a trend in the twenty-first-century Egyptian novel that shatters this singular view, with the rise of a new consciousness that presents Egypt as fundamentally heterogeneous. Through a robust analysis of “new-consciousness” novels by authors like Idris ᶜAli, Bahaᵓ Tahir, Miral al-Tahawi, and Yusuf Zaydan, the author argues that this new consciousness does not only respond to predominant discourses of difference and practices of differentiation along the axes of race, ethno-religion, class, and gender by bringing the experiences of Nubian, Amazigh, Bedouin, Coptic, Jewish, and women minorities to the fore of Egypt’s literary imaginary, but also heralds the cacophony of voices that collectively cried for social justice from Tahrir Square in Egypt’s 2011-uprising.
This study responds to the changing iconographic, semiotic, and formal features of the Egyptian novel. It fulfills the critical task of identifying an emergent novelistic genre and develops historically reflexive methodologies that interpret new-consciousness novels and their mediatory role in formalizing and articulating their historical moment. By adopting this context-specific approach to studying novelistic evolution, this book locates some of the strands that have been missing from the complex whole of Egypt’s culture and literary history.Less
This book examines questions of identity, nationalism, and marginalization in the contemporary Egyptian novel from a postcolonial lens. Under colonial rule, the Egyptian novel invoked a sovereign nation-state by basking in its perceived unity. After independence, the novel professed disenchantment with state practices and unequal class and gender relations, without disrupting the nation’s imagined racial and ethno-religious homogeneity. This book identifies a trend in the twenty-first-century Egyptian novel that shatters this singular view, with the rise of a new consciousness that presents Egypt as fundamentally heterogeneous. Through a robust analysis of “new-consciousness” novels by authors like Idris ᶜAli, Bahaᵓ Tahir, Miral al-Tahawi, and Yusuf Zaydan, the author argues that this new consciousness does not only respond to predominant discourses of difference and practices of differentiation along the axes of race, ethno-religion, class, and gender by bringing the experiences of Nubian, Amazigh, Bedouin, Coptic, Jewish, and women minorities to the fore of Egypt’s literary imaginary, but also heralds the cacophony of voices that collectively cried for social justice from Tahrir Square in Egypt’s 2011-uprising.
This study responds to the changing iconographic, semiotic, and formal features of the Egyptian novel. It fulfills the critical task of identifying an emergent novelistic genre and develops historically reflexive methodologies that interpret new-consciousness novels and their mediatory role in formalizing and articulating their historical moment. By adopting this context-specific approach to studying novelistic evolution, this book locates some of the strands that have been missing from the complex whole of Egypt’s culture and literary history.
Jorge Duany (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781683400905
- eISBN:
- 9781683401193
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400905.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This book delves into several defining moments of Cuba’s artistic evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, including art history, architecture, photography, history, literary criticism, and ...
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This book delves into several defining moments of Cuba’s artistic evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, including art history, architecture, photography, history, literary criticism, and cultural studies. Situating Cuban art within a wider social and historical context, fifteen prominent scholars and collectors scrutinize the enduring links between Cuban art and cultural identity. Covering the main periods in Cuban art (the colonial, republican, and postrevolutionary phases, as well as the contemporary diaspora), the contributors identify both the constant and changing elements and symbols in the visual representation of Cuba’s national identity. The essays collected in this volume provide insightful information and interpretation on the historical trajectory of Cuban and Cuban-American art. From colonial engravers to contemporary photographers, several generations of Cuban artists have been fascinated—perhaps even obsessed—with picturing Cuba’s landscapes, architecture, people, and customs. Each generation of artists focused on various tropes of Cuban identity, whether it was the tropical environment, the lights and colors of the island, certain human types, the fusion of European and African traditions, or the uprootedness produced by exile and resettlement in another country. Even when artists shed the attempt to represent their subject matter realistically, they sought to contribute to a longstanding national tradition in dialogue with a broader international scenario. The cumulative result of more than three centuries of Cuban art is a kaleidoscopic view of the island’s nature, population, culture, and history.Less
This book delves into several defining moments of Cuba’s artistic evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, including art history, architecture, photography, history, literary criticism, and cultural studies. Situating Cuban art within a wider social and historical context, fifteen prominent scholars and collectors scrutinize the enduring links between Cuban art and cultural identity. Covering the main periods in Cuban art (the colonial, republican, and postrevolutionary phases, as well as the contemporary diaspora), the contributors identify both the constant and changing elements and symbols in the visual representation of Cuba’s national identity. The essays collected in this volume provide insightful information and interpretation on the historical trajectory of Cuban and Cuban-American art. From colonial engravers to contemporary photographers, several generations of Cuban artists have been fascinated—perhaps even obsessed—with picturing Cuba’s landscapes, architecture, people, and customs. Each generation of artists focused on various tropes of Cuban identity, whether it was the tropical environment, the lights and colors of the island, certain human types, the fusion of European and African traditions, or the uprootedness produced by exile and resettlement in another country. Even when artists shed the attempt to represent their subject matter realistically, they sought to contribute to a longstanding national tradition in dialogue with a broader international scenario. The cumulative result of more than three centuries of Cuban art is a kaleidoscopic view of the island’s nature, population, culture, and history.
Lucas Hollister
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786942180
- eISBN:
- 9781789623642
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786942180.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Beyond Return examines how popular literary forms have been politicized or could be productively repoliticized in the literary period that we have called the contemporary (roughly: since 1980). In ...
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Beyond Return examines how popular literary forms have been politicized or could be productively repoliticized in the literary period that we have called the contemporary (roughly: since 1980). In the aftermath of the efflorescence of experimental literature and theory that characterized the Trente Glorieuses (1945-75), ‘contemporary’ French literature is often said to embrace more traditional or readable novelistic forms. This rejection of the radical aesthetics of mid-century French literature, this rehabilitation of fictional forms that have been called sub-literary, regressive, or outdated, has been given a name: the ‘return to the story.’ Beyond Return proposes new perspectives on the cultural politics of such fictions. Examining adventure novels, radical noir, postmodernist mysteries, war novels, and dystopian fictions, this book shows how authors like Jean Echenoz, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Jean Rouaud, and Antoine Volodine develop radically dissimilar notions of the aesthetics of ‘return,’ and thus redraw in different manners the boundaries of the contemporary, the French, and the literary. In the process, Beyond Return argues for the need to move beyond the nostalgic, anti-modernist rhetoric of the ‘return to the story’ in order to appreciate the potentialities of innovative contemporary genre fictions.Less
Beyond Return examines how popular literary forms have been politicized or could be productively repoliticized in the literary period that we have called the contemporary (roughly: since 1980). In the aftermath of the efflorescence of experimental literature and theory that characterized the Trente Glorieuses (1945-75), ‘contemporary’ French literature is often said to embrace more traditional or readable novelistic forms. This rejection of the radical aesthetics of mid-century French literature, this rehabilitation of fictional forms that have been called sub-literary, regressive, or outdated, has been given a name: the ‘return to the story.’ Beyond Return proposes new perspectives on the cultural politics of such fictions. Examining adventure novels, radical noir, postmodernist mysteries, war novels, and dystopian fictions, this book shows how authors like Jean Echenoz, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Jean Rouaud, and Antoine Volodine develop radically dissimilar notions of the aesthetics of ‘return,’ and thus redraw in different manners the boundaries of the contemporary, the French, and the literary. In the process, Beyond Return argues for the need to move beyond the nostalgic, anti-modernist rhetoric of the ‘return to the story’ in order to appreciate the potentialities of innovative contemporary genre fictions.
Michael F. Leruth
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036498
- eISBN:
- 9780262339926
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036498.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the ...
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This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication International Group (1983), Forest is best known as an ironic media hijacker and tinkerer of unconventional interfaces and alternative platforms for interactive communication that are accessible to the general public outside the exclusive precincts of the art world. He has also made headlines as an outspoken critic of the French contemporary art establishment, most famously by suing the Centre Pompidou in 1994 over its opaque acquisitions practices. This book surveys Forest’s work from the late 1960s to the present with particular emphasis on his prankster modus operandi, his advocacy of an existentially relevant form of counter-contemporary art―or “invisible system-art”―based on the principle of metacommunication (i.e., tasked with exploring the “immanent realities” of the virtual territory in which modern electronic communication takes place), his innovative “social” and “relational” use of a wide range of media from newspapers to Second Life, his attention-grabbing public interventions, and the unusual utopian dimension of his work. Never a hot commodity in the art world, Forest’s work has nonetheless garnered the attention and appreciation of a wide range of prominent intellectuals, critics, curators, technology innovators, and fellow artists including Marshall McLuhan, Edgar Morin, Vilém Flusser, Abraham Moles, Jean Duvignaud, Paul Virilio, Pierre Lévy, Pierre Restany, Frank Popper, Harald Szeeman, Robert C. Morgan, Vinton Cerf, Roy Ascott, and Eduardo Kac.Less
This book introduces readers to the iconoclastic work of the French media artist Fred Forest. A pioneer in the fields of video art in the 1960s and internet art in the 1990s, and cofounder of the Sociological Art Collective (1974) and the Aesthetics of Communication International Group (1983), Forest is best known as an ironic media hijacker and tinkerer of unconventional interfaces and alternative platforms for interactive communication that are accessible to the general public outside the exclusive precincts of the art world. He has also made headlines as an outspoken critic of the French contemporary art establishment, most famously by suing the Centre Pompidou in 1994 over its opaque acquisitions practices. This book surveys Forest’s work from the late 1960s to the present with particular emphasis on his prankster modus operandi, his advocacy of an existentially relevant form of counter-contemporary art―or “invisible system-art”―based on the principle of metacommunication (i.e., tasked with exploring the “immanent realities” of the virtual territory in which modern electronic communication takes place), his innovative “social” and “relational” use of a wide range of media from newspapers to Second Life, his attention-grabbing public interventions, and the unusual utopian dimension of his work. Never a hot commodity in the art world, Forest’s work has nonetheless garnered the attention and appreciation of a wide range of prominent intellectuals, critics, curators, technology innovators, and fellow artists including Marshall McLuhan, Edgar Morin, Vilém Flusser, Abraham Moles, Jean Duvignaud, Paul Virilio, Pierre Lévy, Pierre Restany, Frank Popper, Harald Szeeman, Robert C. Morgan, Vinton Cerf, Roy Ascott, and Eduardo Kac.
Amy Johnson Frykholm
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195159837
- eISBN:
- 9780199835614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159837.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter describes the way that readers use the Left Behind series to “read” and understand contemporary culture and the signs of the end of the world. Drawing on a wide range of beliefs and ...
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This chapter describes the way that readers use the Left Behind series to “read” and understand contemporary culture and the signs of the end of the world. Drawing on a wide range of beliefs and expectations about how the world will end, readers examine culture for signals that their understanding of the world is true. This chapter focuses specifically on technology and consumer culture as significant elements within end-times reasoning. When taken together, these cultural readings suggest that evangelical dispensationalism is taking on increasingly world-engaged forms and dispensing with its more escapist elements.Less
This chapter describes the way that readers use the Left Behind series to “read” and understand contemporary culture and the signs of the end of the world. Drawing on a wide range of beliefs and expectations about how the world will end, readers examine culture for signals that their understanding of the world is true. This chapter focuses specifically on technology and consumer culture as significant elements within end-times reasoning. When taken together, these cultural readings suggest that evangelical dispensationalism is taking on increasingly world-engaged forms and dispensing with its more escapist elements.
Patrick Crowley and Shirley Jordan (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620658
- eISBN:
- 9781789623918
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620658.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The chapters in this book respond to important questions about the formal properties of French literary texts and the agency of form. A central feature of twentieth- and twenty-first century French ...
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The chapters in this book respond to important questions about the formal properties of French literary texts and the agency of form. A central feature of twentieth- and twenty-first century French and Francophone writing has been the exploration of how cultural forms (literary, philosophical and visual) create distinctive semiotic environments and at the same time engage with external realities. The aim of this volume is to explore how the formal properties of a range of texts inflect our reading of them and, through that exploration, to renew the engagement with form that has been a key feature of French cultural production and of analysis in French studies.Less
The chapters in this book respond to important questions about the formal properties of French literary texts and the agency of form. A central feature of twentieth- and twenty-first century French and Francophone writing has been the exploration of how cultural forms (literary, philosophical and visual) create distinctive semiotic environments and at the same time engage with external realities. The aim of this volume is to explore how the formal properties of a range of texts inflect our reading of them and, through that exploration, to renew the engagement with form that has been a key feature of French cultural production and of analysis in French studies.
Rebecca M. Bodenheimer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781628462395
- eISBN:
- 9781626746886
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462395.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Derived from the nationalist writings of José Martí, the concept of Cubanidad (Cubanness) has always imagined a unified hybrid nation where racial difference is nonexistent and nationality trumps all ...
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Derived from the nationalist writings of José Martí, the concept of Cubanidad (Cubanness) has always imagined a unified hybrid nation where racial difference is nonexistent and nationality trumps all other axes of identity. Scholars have critiqued this celebration of racial mixture, highlighting a gap between the claim of racial harmony and the realities of inequality faced by Afro-Cubans since Independence in 1898. This book argues that it is not only the recognition of racial difference that threatens to divide the nation, but that popular regional sentiment further contests the hegemonic nationalist discourse. Given that music is a prominent symbol of Cubanidad, musical practices play an important role in constructing regional and local, as well as national, identities, and the book thus suggests that regional identity exerts a significant influence on the aesthetic choices Cuban musicians make. Through the examination of several genres, the book explores the various ways that race and the politics of place are entangled in contemporary Cuban music-making. It argues that racialized discourses that circulate about different cities affect both the formation of local identity and musical performance. Thus, the musical practices discussed—including rumba, timba, eastern Cuban folklore, and son—are examples of the intersections between regional identity formation, racialized notions of place, and music-making.Less
Derived from the nationalist writings of José Martí, the concept of Cubanidad (Cubanness) has always imagined a unified hybrid nation where racial difference is nonexistent and nationality trumps all other axes of identity. Scholars have critiqued this celebration of racial mixture, highlighting a gap between the claim of racial harmony and the realities of inequality faced by Afro-Cubans since Independence in 1898. This book argues that it is not only the recognition of racial difference that threatens to divide the nation, but that popular regional sentiment further contests the hegemonic nationalist discourse. Given that music is a prominent symbol of Cubanidad, musical practices play an important role in constructing regional and local, as well as national, identities, and the book thus suggests that regional identity exerts a significant influence on the aesthetic choices Cuban musicians make. Through the examination of several genres, the book explores the various ways that race and the politics of place are entangled in contemporary Cuban music-making. It argues that racialized discourses that circulate about different cities affect both the formation of local identity and musical performance. Thus, the musical practices discussed—including rumba, timba, eastern Cuban folklore, and son—are examples of the intersections between regional identity formation, racialized notions of place, and music-making.
Jan Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474456944
- eISBN:
- 9781474476867
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474456944.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
What strategies are visual artists and filmmakers using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our particular historical moment? This question is answered by considering the methods ...
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What strategies are visual artists and filmmakers using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our particular historical moment? This question is answered by considering the methods and political implications of artists or filmmakers working in a contemporary western art context today. Leading into extended analyses of works by Frances Barrett, Claire Denis, Angela Brennan, and Alex Monteith, the book considers two forces that have informed contemporary artmaking: the economic conditions that began changing social realities from the 1970s forward; and the current tendency of the political aesthetic to move away from direct political content or didacticism to a concern for the sensate effects of materials. This is framed by Jacques Rancière’s ‘distribution of the sensible’ and Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism. As historical ground for understanding the contemporary condition, Artmaking in the Age of Global Economics pays particular attention to the divisions that opened up between progressive writers, theorists and artists in the late 20th century. Suggesting an alternative approach to understanding art’s historical antecedents, it avoids received art-historical narratives or canonical figures, refuting both the autonomy of art as well as the separation of artist from the work they produce. It locates, instead, contemporary art in a worldly context of responsibility that opens up to an ethics of practice. [211]Less
What strategies are visual artists and filmmakers using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our particular historical moment? This question is answered by considering the methods and political implications of artists or filmmakers working in a contemporary western art context today. Leading into extended analyses of works by Frances Barrett, Claire Denis, Angela Brennan, and Alex Monteith, the book considers two forces that have informed contemporary artmaking: the economic conditions that began changing social realities from the 1970s forward; and the current tendency of the political aesthetic to move away from direct political content or didacticism to a concern for the sensate effects of materials. This is framed by Jacques Rancière’s ‘distribution of the sensible’ and Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism. As historical ground for understanding the contemporary condition, Artmaking in the Age of Global Economics pays particular attention to the divisions that opened up between progressive writers, theorists and artists in the late 20th century. Suggesting an alternative approach to understanding art’s historical antecedents, it avoids received art-historical narratives or canonical figures, refuting both the autonomy of art as well as the separation of artist from the work they produce. It locates, instead, contemporary art in a worldly context of responsibility that opens up to an ethics of practice. [211]
Kishwar Rizvi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469621166
- eISBN:
- 9781469624952
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469621166.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The Transnational Mosque is the first book-length study to provide a nuanced understanding of the role of mosques in the construction of Muslim identity through the lens of their political, ...
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The Transnational Mosque is the first book-length study to provide a nuanced understanding of the role of mosques in the construction of Muslim identity through the lens of their political, religious, and architectural history. The primary subject in current debates on Islam is the reinterpretation of history, which is often linked to an idealized age of Caliphal rule, the painful legacy of colonialism, or an imagined regional identity. The debates hinge upon what might the future hold for Muslim nations and their subjects. This discussion concerns not simply a monolithic transformation of ideology, but a contested space where governments and communities of belief compete for the dissemination of their own version of Islamic identity. This book is a study in which the built environment is a critical resource for understanding culture and politics in the contemporary Middle East and the Islamic world. By concentrating on the epitomes of Islamic architecture, mosques, especially those built at the turn of the twenty-first century, the study elucidates their significance as sites for both the validation of religious praxis and the construction of national and religious ideology.Less
The Transnational Mosque is the first book-length study to provide a nuanced understanding of the role of mosques in the construction of Muslim identity through the lens of their political, religious, and architectural history. The primary subject in current debates on Islam is the reinterpretation of history, which is often linked to an idealized age of Caliphal rule, the painful legacy of colonialism, or an imagined regional identity. The debates hinge upon what might the future hold for Muslim nations and their subjects. This discussion concerns not simply a monolithic transformation of ideology, but a contested space where governments and communities of belief compete for the dissemination of their own version of Islamic identity. This book is a study in which the built environment is a critical resource for understanding culture and politics in the contemporary Middle East and the Islamic world. By concentrating on the epitomes of Islamic architecture, mosques, especially those built at the turn of the twenty-first century, the study elucidates their significance as sites for both the validation of religious praxis and the construction of national and religious ideology.
Thomas S. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231169424
- eISBN:
- 9780231537889
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169424.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In these closing pages I look at W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and consider the possible afterlife of the outward turn, of the prolonged existence of a technique after its period of emergence and ...
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In these closing pages I look at W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and consider the possible afterlife of the outward turn, of the prolonged existence of a technique after its period of emergence and relevance would seem to have closed.Less
In these closing pages I look at W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and consider the possible afterlife of the outward turn, of the prolonged existence of a technique after its period of emergence and relevance would seem to have closed.
Anne Allison (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 1953
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479889389
- eISBN:
- 9781479830893
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479889389.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
In Japan: The Precarious Future, a group of distinguished scholars of Japanese economics, politics, law, and society examine the various roads that might lie ahead for this East Asian nation. Will ...
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In Japan: The Precarious Future, a group of distinguished scholars of Japanese economics, politics, law, and society examine the various roads that might lie ahead for this East Asian nation. Will Japan face a continued erosion of global economic and political power, particularly as China’s outlook improves exponentially? Or will it find a way to protect its status as an important player in global affairs? Contributors explore issues such as national security, political leadership, manufacturing prowess, diplomacy, population decline, and gender equality in politics and the workforce, all in an effort to chart the possible futures for Japan. Both a roadmap for change and a look at how Japan arrived at its present situation, this collection of thought-provoking analyses is essential for understanding the current landscape and future prospects of this world power.Less
In Japan: The Precarious Future, a group of distinguished scholars of Japanese economics, politics, law, and society examine the various roads that might lie ahead for this East Asian nation. Will Japan face a continued erosion of global economic and political power, particularly as China’s outlook improves exponentially? Or will it find a way to protect its status as an important player in global affairs? Contributors explore issues such as national security, political leadership, manufacturing prowess, diplomacy, population decline, and gender equality in politics and the workforce, all in an effort to chart the possible futures for Japan. Both a roadmap for change and a look at how Japan arrived at its present situation, this collection of thought-provoking analyses is essential for understanding the current landscape and future prospects of this world power.
Nizan Shaked
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992750
- eISBN:
- 9781526128171
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992750.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on ...
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The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the present. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with philosophically abstract ideas, and traces key strategies in contemporary art today to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics, movements that have so far been historicized as mutually exclusive. It demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their impact spread far beyond the individuals or communities that originated them. Commencing with the early oeuvre of Adrian Piper, a first generation Conceptual artist, this book offers a study of interlocutors that expanded the practice into a broad notion of conceptualism, including Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, and Charles Gaines. By turning to social issues, these artists analyzed the cultural conventions embedded in modes of reference and representation such as language, writing, photography, moving image, or installation and exhibition display.Less
The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and the sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the present. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with philosophically abstract ideas, and traces key strategies in contemporary art today to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics, movements that have so far been historicized as mutually exclusive. It demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their impact spread far beyond the individuals or communities that originated them. Commencing with the early oeuvre of Adrian Piper, a first generation Conceptual artist, this book offers a study of interlocutors that expanded the practice into a broad notion of conceptualism, including Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser, and Charles Gaines. By turning to social issues, these artists analyzed the cultural conventions embedded in modes of reference and representation such as language, writing, photography, moving image, or installation and exhibition display.
Vincent Sherry
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195178180
- eISBN:
- 9780199788002
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178180.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter follows the development of Ezra Pound's modernist poetry as it responds to the culture of Great War Britain. As an American in London, Pound is alert to the postures of the partisan ...
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This chapter follows the development of Ezra Pound's modernist poetry as it responds to the culture of Great War Britain. As an American in London, Pound is alert to the postures of the partisan press of Liberal England, and as a former colonial, he animates powerfully to the self-contradictory language of the former imperial power. His response to the verbal culture of war-time journalism informs the multi-part review he serialized through 1917 in the New Age, “Studies in Contemporary Mentality”. The “seeming reason” he locates as the tone of the political times is answered in his own poetry with a style of mock logic or sham rationality that is new to his developing opus. This tone is heard as the major development in his creative translation, Homage to Sextus Propertius, in his fictional autobiographical sequence, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and in the initial installments of his emergent life-work, The Cantos.Less
This chapter follows the development of Ezra Pound's modernist poetry as it responds to the culture of Great War Britain. As an American in London, Pound is alert to the postures of the partisan press of Liberal England, and as a former colonial, he animates powerfully to the self-contradictory language of the former imperial power. His response to the verbal culture of war-time journalism informs the multi-part review he serialized through 1917 in the New Age, “Studies in Contemporary Mentality”. The “seeming reason” he locates as the tone of the political times is answered in his own poetry with a style of mock logic or sham rationality that is new to his developing opus. This tone is heard as the major development in his creative translation, Homage to Sextus Propertius, in his fictional autobiographical sequence, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and in the initial installments of his emergent life-work, The Cantos.
