Laurence Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264577
- eISBN:
- 9780191734267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264577.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Anthony David Nuttall (1937–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was born on April 25, 1937, and grew up in Hereford. He attended Hereford Grammar School and then Watford Grammar School, where he ...
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Anthony David Nuttall (1937–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was born on April 25, 1937, and grew up in Hereford. He attended Hereford Grammar School and then Watford Grammar School, where he received a thorough, old-fashioned classical education. Nuttall then went to Merton College in the University of Oxford, where he met his lifelong friend Stephen Medcalf. In 1962, he was appointed lecturer in English at the new University of Sussex, rising to professor ten years later, and in 1978 he became Pro-Vice-Chancellor. After twenty-two years teaching at Sussex, Nuttall applied for a fellowship at New College, Oxford. Common Sky (1974) was the book in which he emerged as a critic with a distinctive and compelling way of looking at literature. Another book, Overheard by God (1980) is about George Herbert's poetry, but its first, riveting sentence displays the brilliance of its immodesty. In New Mimesis (1983), Nuttall discusses the present state of literary theory. He also wrote Essay on Man (1984), The Alternative Trinity (1998), and The Stoic in Love (1989).Less
Anthony David Nuttall (1937–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was born on April 25, 1937, and grew up in Hereford. He attended Hereford Grammar School and then Watford Grammar School, where he received a thorough, old-fashioned classical education. Nuttall then went to Merton College in the University of Oxford, where he met his lifelong friend Stephen Medcalf. In 1962, he was appointed lecturer in English at the new University of Sussex, rising to professor ten years later, and in 1978 he became Pro-Vice-Chancellor. After twenty-two years teaching at Sussex, Nuttall applied for a fellowship at New College, Oxford. Common Sky (1974) was the book in which he emerged as a critic with a distinctive and compelling way of looking at literature. Another book, Overheard by God (1980) is about George Herbert's poetry, but its first, riveting sentence displays the brilliance of its immodesty. In New Mimesis (1983), Nuttall discusses the present state of literary theory. He also wrote Essay on Man (1984), The Alternative Trinity (1998), and The Stoic in Love (1989).
Simon Mussell
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526105707
- eISBN:
- 9781526132253
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526105707.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
The book provides a new perspective on the early work of the Frankfurt School, by focusing on the vital role that affect and feeling play in the development of critical theory. Building on ...
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The book provides a new perspective on the early work of the Frankfurt School, by focusing on the vital role that affect and feeling play in the development of critical theory. Building on contemporary theories of affect, the author argues that any renewal of critical theory today must have an affective politics at its core. If one’s aim is to effectively theorize, criticize, and ultimately transform existing social relations, then a strictly rationalist model of political thought remains inadequate. In many respects, this flies in the face of predominant forms of political philosophy, which have long upheld reason and rationality as sole proprietors of political legitimacy. Critical theory and feeling shows how the work of the early Frankfurt School offers a dynamic and necessary corrective to the excesses of formalized reason. Studying a range of themes – from melancholia, unhappiness, and hope, to mimesis, affect, and objects – this book provides a radical rethinking of critical theory for our times.Less
The book provides a new perspective on the early work of the Frankfurt School, by focusing on the vital role that affect and feeling play in the development of critical theory. Building on contemporary theories of affect, the author argues that any renewal of critical theory today must have an affective politics at its core. If one’s aim is to effectively theorize, criticize, and ultimately transform existing social relations, then a strictly rationalist model of political thought remains inadequate. In many respects, this flies in the face of predominant forms of political philosophy, which have long upheld reason and rationality as sole proprietors of political legitimacy. Critical theory and feeling shows how the work of the early Frankfurt School offers a dynamic and necessary corrective to the excesses of formalized reason. Studying a range of themes – from melancholia, unhappiness, and hope, to mimesis, affect, and objects – this book provides a radical rethinking of critical theory for our times.
Necati Polat
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474416962
- eISBN:
- 9781474427098
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416962.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This book explores the transformation of Turkey’s political regime from 2002 under the AKP rule. Turkey has been through a series of major political shifts historically, roughly from the mid-19th ...
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This book explores the transformation of Turkey’s political regime from 2002 under the AKP rule. Turkey has been through a series of major political shifts historically, roughly from the mid-19th century. The book details the most recent change, locating it in its broader historical setting. Beginning with the AKP rule from late 2002, supported by a wide informal coalition that included liberals, it describes how the ‘former’ Islamists gradually acquired full power between 2007 and 2011. It then chronicles the subsequent phase, looking at politics and rights under the amorphous new order. This highly accessible assessment of the change in question places it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country over the past 150 or so years, covering all of the main issues in contemporary Turkish politics: the religious and secular divide, the Kurds, the military, foreign policy orientation, the state of human rights, the effective concentration of powers in the government and a rule by policy, rather than law, initiated by Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian populism. The discussion at once situates Turkey in the broader milieu of the Arab Spring, especially in terms of Islamist politics and Muslim piety in the public sphere, with some emphasis on ‘Islamo-nationalism’ (Millî Görüş) as a local Islamist variety. Effortlessly blending history, politics, law, social theory and philosophy in making sense of the change, the book uses the concept of mimesis to show that continuity is a key element in Turkish politics, despite the series of radical breaks that have occurred.Less
This book explores the transformation of Turkey’s political regime from 2002 under the AKP rule. Turkey has been through a series of major political shifts historically, roughly from the mid-19th century. The book details the most recent change, locating it in its broader historical setting. Beginning with the AKP rule from late 2002, supported by a wide informal coalition that included liberals, it describes how the ‘former’ Islamists gradually acquired full power between 2007 and 2011. It then chronicles the subsequent phase, looking at politics and rights under the amorphous new order. This highly accessible assessment of the change in question places it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country over the past 150 or so years, covering all of the main issues in contemporary Turkish politics: the religious and secular divide, the Kurds, the military, foreign policy orientation, the state of human rights, the effective concentration of powers in the government and a rule by policy, rather than law, initiated by Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian populism. The discussion at once situates Turkey in the broader milieu of the Arab Spring, especially in terms of Islamist politics and Muslim piety in the public sphere, with some emphasis on ‘Islamo-nationalism’ (Millî Görüş) as a local Islamist variety. Effortlessly blending history, politics, law, social theory and philosophy in making sense of the change, the book uses the concept of mimesis to show that continuity is a key element in Turkish politics, despite the series of radical breaks that have occurred.
Albert Russell Ascoli
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234288
- eISBN:
- 9780823241231
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234288.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter, like the previous one, interrogates the use of a single text or author to define a major break in Western cultural and especially literary history, in this case Auerbach's reading in ...
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This chapter, like the previous one, interrogates the use of a single text or author to define a major break in Western cultural and especially literary history, in this case Auerbach's reading in Mimesis of a single story of the Decameron (IV.2, the story of “Frate Alberto”) to define a break between the allegorical figuralism of Dante's Commedia and the supposed “realism” and “naturalism” of Boccaccio's style. The chapter argues that Auerbach, while he may have been correct to assert that Boccaccio contributes to the development of a mimetic style in the western literary tradition, misses fundamental aspects of the story he analyses, and the day in which it is situated, particularly its intricate reflections on the problem of representing “the real” in literature and on the presumptuousness of Dante's claims to bear witness to the truth of human life after death.Less
This chapter, like the previous one, interrogates the use of a single text or author to define a major break in Western cultural and especially literary history, in this case Auerbach's reading in Mimesis of a single story of the Decameron (IV.2, the story of “Frate Alberto”) to define a break between the allegorical figuralism of Dante's Commedia and the supposed “realism” and “naturalism” of Boccaccio's style. The chapter argues that Auerbach, while he may have been correct to assert that Boccaccio contributes to the development of a mimetic style in the western literary tradition, misses fundamental aspects of the story he analyses, and the day in which it is situated, particularly its intricate reflections on the problem of representing “the real” in literature and on the presumptuousness of Dante's claims to bear witness to the truth of human life after death.
Simon Mussell
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526105707
- eISBN:
- 9781526132253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526105707.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on ...
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Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on objects/things, especially within the much-hyped field of ‘object-oriented ontology’ or ‘speculative realism’. After drawing attention to the major social and political deficiencies of these contemporary approaches to objects, the chapter offers an account of early critical theory that draws out a more philosophically viable and socio-politically engaged orientation toward the object world. To make the case, the author recovers elements of Siegfried Kracauer’s materialist film theory, before exploring two complementary concepts from Adorno’s work, namely, the preponderance of the object, and mimesis. Offering a staunch critique of Habermas’s rejection of mimesis, the chapter considers critical theory’s emphasis on a political and affective aesthetics as playing a crucial part in how one conceptualizes and experiences objects. As a result, a key distinction is drawn between today’s avowedly post-critical, non-humanist ontologists on one side, and the critical proto-humanism that motivates the early Frankfurt School on the other.Less
Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on objects/things, especially within the much-hyped field of ‘object-oriented ontology’ or ‘speculative realism’. After drawing attention to the major social and political deficiencies of these contemporary approaches to objects, the chapter offers an account of early critical theory that draws out a more philosophically viable and socio-politically engaged orientation toward the object world. To make the case, the author recovers elements of Siegfried Kracauer’s materialist film theory, before exploring two complementary concepts from Adorno’s work, namely, the preponderance of the object, and mimesis. Offering a staunch critique of Habermas’s rejection of mimesis, the chapter considers critical theory’s emphasis on a political and affective aesthetics as playing a crucial part in how one conceptualizes and experiences objects. As a result, a key distinction is drawn between today’s avowedly post-critical, non-humanist ontologists on one side, and the critical proto-humanism that motivates the early Frankfurt School on the other.
Christian Schmidt
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781617039973
- eISBN:
- 9781626740280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039973.003.0011
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter provides a reading of three novels – Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle and Slumberland and Percival Everett’s A History of the African American People [Proposed] by Strom Thurmond as ...
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This chapter provides a reading of three novels – Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle and Slumberland and Percival Everett’s A History of the African American People [Proposed] by Strom Thurmond as Told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid – that engage in degenerative satire, which complicates the mimetic representation of satiric texts. This chapter argues that these novels satirize not only clichéd tropes of blackness but also the presumption that blackness can or should be represented. Ultimately, this chapter shows how these novels destabilize the very notion of blackness.Less
This chapter provides a reading of three novels – Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle and Slumberland and Percival Everett’s A History of the African American People [Proposed] by Strom Thurmond as Told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid – that engage in degenerative satire, which complicates the mimetic representation of satiric texts. This chapter argues that these novels satirize not only clichéd tropes of blackness but also the presumption that blackness can or should be represented. Ultimately, this chapter shows how these novels destabilize the very notion of blackness.
Paul Carter
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719085055
- eISBN:
- 9781526109958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085055.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter develops a speculative account of the role that listening and architecture may have in reconfiguring the desire of anthropology to know the other through the face-to-face encounter. It ...
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This chapter develops a speculative account of the role that listening and architecture may have in reconfiguring the desire of anthropology to know the other through the face-to-face encounter. It stages three heterogeneous scenes of listening: the libretto and scenography for Luciano Berio's music theatre work, La Vera Storia, the staging of the conditions of self-knowing in the Phaedrus and some miscellaneous speculations about the visagéité of the wall. Through these scenes the wall is explored as a site of whispering, a gathering place of echoes and the place where it is proposed that anthropological insights may be had in recognizing that listening is always a matter of listening in and overhearing and being overheard.Less
This chapter develops a speculative account of the role that listening and architecture may have in reconfiguring the desire of anthropology to know the other through the face-to-face encounter. It stages three heterogeneous scenes of listening: the libretto and scenography for Luciano Berio's music theatre work, La Vera Storia, the staging of the conditions of self-knowing in the Phaedrus and some miscellaneous speculations about the visagéité of the wall. Through these scenes the wall is explored as a site of whispering, a gathering place of echoes and the place where it is proposed that anthropological insights may be had in recognizing that listening is always a matter of listening in and overhearing and being overheard.
Hélène Ibata
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526117397
- eISBN:
- 9781526136114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526117397.003.0003
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Chapter 2 furthers the argument that Burke’s Enquiry presented a challenge to visual artists by focusing on its contribution to theories of artistic representation. It places Burke’s views on ...
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Chapter 2 furthers the argument that Burke’s Enquiry presented a challenge to visual artists by focusing on its contribution to theories of artistic representation. It places Burke’s views on painting’s representational inadequacy within a broader reflection about the artistic medium, mimesis, and the presentation of the unpresentable. After arguing that the Enquiry outlines a shift from a mimetic conception of art to one which emphasises the artistic medium and, ultimately, the process of production of the artwork, the chapter examines the relevance of the Enquiry to modern aesthetics, by viewing it from the perspective of recent theories of the sublime (Lyotard’s in particular). This approach makes it possible to see in Burke’s conception intimations of what could be called an aesthetics of endeavour, in which the sublime becomes an immanent event of artistic production.Less
Chapter 2 furthers the argument that Burke’s Enquiry presented a challenge to visual artists by focusing on its contribution to theories of artistic representation. It places Burke’s views on painting’s representational inadequacy within a broader reflection about the artistic medium, mimesis, and the presentation of the unpresentable. After arguing that the Enquiry outlines a shift from a mimetic conception of art to one which emphasises the artistic medium and, ultimately, the process of production of the artwork, the chapter examines the relevance of the Enquiry to modern aesthetics, by viewing it from the perspective of recent theories of the sublime (Lyotard’s in particular). This approach makes it possible to see in Burke’s conception intimations of what could be called an aesthetics of endeavour, in which the sublime becomes an immanent event of artistic production.
Hélène Ibata
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526117397
- eISBN:
- 9781526136114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526117397.003.0010
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This final chapter concludes the study with another major figure of British art, Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner’s lifelong ambition to emulate the powers of poetry is shown to have led him to ...
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This final chapter concludes the study with another major figure of British art, Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner’s lifelong ambition to emulate the powers of poetry is shown to have led him to provide one of the most adequate pictorial responses to the challenge initiated by Burke’s Enquiry. After examining the various channels through which eighteenth-century theories of the sublime reached Turner, the argument focuses on his radical transformation of the pictorial medium, as a means to overcome the mimetic limitations of visual representation and articulate the presentation of the unpresentable. His art is understood as the culmination of the reflection about the artistic medium which had been set in motion by the quest for the sublime, and by the growing awareness of inadequacies inherent to mimetic pictorial representation. It may be seen as the place where the aesthetics of the Enquiry were taken to their radical conclusion, leading to a resolute change of paradigms in visual representation.Less
This final chapter concludes the study with another major figure of British art, Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner’s lifelong ambition to emulate the powers of poetry is shown to have led him to provide one of the most adequate pictorial responses to the challenge initiated by Burke’s Enquiry. After examining the various channels through which eighteenth-century theories of the sublime reached Turner, the argument focuses on his radical transformation of the pictorial medium, as a means to overcome the mimetic limitations of visual representation and articulate the presentation of the unpresentable. His art is understood as the culmination of the reflection about the artistic medium which had been set in motion by the quest for the sublime, and by the growing awareness of inadequacies inherent to mimetic pictorial representation. It may be seen as the place where the aesthetics of the Enquiry were taken to their radical conclusion, leading to a resolute change of paradigms in visual representation.
Gian Maria Annovi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780231180306
- eISBN:
- 9780231542708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231180306.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
In chapter Two, I examine the thematization of authorial performance in La Divina Mimesis (Divine Mimesis, 1974). Composed over the course of several years, Divine Mimesis is Pasolini’s attempt to ...
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In chapter Two, I examine the thematization of authorial performance in La Divina Mimesis (Divine Mimesis, 1974). Composed over the course of several years, Divine Mimesis is Pasolini’s attempt to rewrite Dante’s Comedy and is comprised of drafts, working notes, tentative paratexts, and photographs. In it, Dante emerges as one of the most persistent and complex Pasolinian authorial personae, a model not only for his early realism, but also for his use of autobiography. Previous criticism of Divine Mimesis considered it a literary failure, or, at best, a metaphor for the shattering of authorial subjectivity. However, I argue that it is a pivotal work within Pasolini’s oeuvre, skillfully reinforcing the idea of an author in control of his work and even its reception. Divine Mimesis introduces us to an interpretative system in which authorship and the performance of an author failing in producing a cohesive text become central and explicit, producing a conception of identity as fluid, unfinished, or in the making.Less
In chapter Two, I examine the thematization of authorial performance in La Divina Mimesis (Divine Mimesis, 1974). Composed over the course of several years, Divine Mimesis is Pasolini’s attempt to rewrite Dante’s Comedy and is comprised of drafts, working notes, tentative paratexts, and photographs. In it, Dante emerges as one of the most persistent and complex Pasolinian authorial personae, a model not only for his early realism, but also for his use of autobiography. Previous criticism of Divine Mimesis considered it a literary failure, or, at best, a metaphor for the shattering of authorial subjectivity. However, I argue that it is a pivotal work within Pasolini’s oeuvre, skillfully reinforcing the idea of an author in control of his work and even its reception. Divine Mimesis introduces us to an interpretative system in which authorship and the performance of an author failing in producing a cohesive text become central and explicit, producing a conception of identity as fluid, unfinished, or in the making.
Benjamin Y. Fong
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231176682
- eISBN:
- 9780231542616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231176682.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Employs the drive theory developed in the first three chapters toward a reinterpretation of the culture industry thesis of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
Employs the drive theory developed in the first three chapters toward a reinterpretation of the culture industry thesis of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
Vincenzo Di Nicola
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823280261
- eISBN:
- 9780823281602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823280261.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
While the goal of both clinical work and cultural research generally is the transformation and transcendence of trauma, these communities struggle to characterize trauma as a unified discourse even ...
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While the goal of both clinical work and cultural research generally is the transformation and transcendence of trauma, these communities struggle to characterize trauma as a unified discourse even within one discipline. This chapter makes three proposals that provide order for the concept of trauma through conceptual dichotomies that divide their discourses: first, the term has accrued a supplementarity or excess, which helps explain the variation between the clinical use of trauma and its cultural avatar; second, theorists must separate the ways the word trauma deployed within the trauma process; third, trauma must be separated radically from Event, which is the subtext of a cultural trauma theory. This philosophical archaeology offers keys of translation between these competing cultural and psychiatric trauma theories, calls to deactivate the desubjectivation associated with trauma, and opens new prospects for interdisciplinary research in these intersecting fields based on the possibilities of the Event.Less
While the goal of both clinical work and cultural research generally is the transformation and transcendence of trauma, these communities struggle to characterize trauma as a unified discourse even within one discipline. This chapter makes three proposals that provide order for the concept of trauma through conceptual dichotomies that divide their discourses: first, the term has accrued a supplementarity or excess, which helps explain the variation between the clinical use of trauma and its cultural avatar; second, theorists must separate the ways the word trauma deployed within the trauma process; third, trauma must be separated radically from Event, which is the subtext of a cultural trauma theory. This philosophical archaeology offers keys of translation between these competing cultural and psychiatric trauma theories, calls to deactivate the desubjectivation associated with trauma, and opens new prospects for interdisciplinary research in these intersecting fields based on the possibilities of the Event.
Freddie Rokem
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823239450
- eISBN:
- 9780823239498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239450.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The appearance of the supernatural on the theatrical stage as well as on the movie screen, in particular through a deus ex machina, but also in the form of ghosts or dybbuks, is still, even after the ...
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The appearance of the supernatural on the theatrical stage as well as on the movie screen, in particular through a deus ex machina, but also in the form of ghosts or dybbuks, is still, even after the declaration of God's death a frequent phenomenon in modern and contemporary art. The stage can be seen as a utopian site, an aesthetic ‘no-place’, where the supernatural can appear, even if the audience does not necessarily ascribe to the religious belief-systems this kind of appearance implies. The chapter explores the interactions between the ‘language’ of performance, through which a certain dynamics is activated in the space we call the stage, on the one hand, and religious discursive practices or belief-systems, on the other, creating a discursive encounter where the religious things (alluding to the ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet as the thing that appears again tonight) enter and even invade the aesthetic sphere of the performance.Less
The appearance of the supernatural on the theatrical stage as well as on the movie screen, in particular through a deus ex machina, but also in the form of ghosts or dybbuks, is still, even after the declaration of God's death a frequent phenomenon in modern and contemporary art. The stage can be seen as a utopian site, an aesthetic ‘no-place’, where the supernatural can appear, even if the audience does not necessarily ascribe to the religious belief-systems this kind of appearance implies. The chapter explores the interactions between the ‘language’ of performance, through which a certain dynamics is activated in the space we call the stage, on the one hand, and religious discursive practices or belief-systems, on the other, creating a discursive encounter where the religious things (alluding to the ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet as the thing that appears again tonight) enter and even invade the aesthetic sphere of the performance.
Deborah Martin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719090349
- eISBN:
- 9781526109606
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719090349.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Chapter 1 argues that in La ciénaga, her first feature film, Lucrecia Martel effects an important challenge to the aesthetic codes which have defined intellectual and resistive cinema. It shows La ...
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Chapter 1 argues that in La ciénaga, her first feature film, Lucrecia Martel effects an important challenge to the aesthetic codes which have defined intellectual and resistive cinema. It shows La ciénaga to be a highly reflexive film which uses many of the distancing and defamiliarising techniques associated with political and counter cinemas. Yet the film’s aesthetics also function to challenge a disembodied intellect, or Cartesian viewing subjectivity by forming a transgressive material relationship between the viewer’s body and the sticky, swampy body of the film. Attending to the film both as a text with meaning, but also as a ‘body that performs’ (Kennedy), the chapter shows how the digetic experiments of child characters, and the filmic experiments which accompany them, work to counter the stagnation of the body and the domestication of perception associated with dominant cinematic forms. The chapter also shows how the processes of defamiliarisation in which the film engages are countered by its tactile and sensorial aesthetics, which it undertands as a form of refamiliarisation, a bringing into bodily proximity, of that which is abjected and excluded by the social order.Less
Chapter 1 argues that in La ciénaga, her first feature film, Lucrecia Martel effects an important challenge to the aesthetic codes which have defined intellectual and resistive cinema. It shows La ciénaga to be a highly reflexive film which uses many of the distancing and defamiliarising techniques associated with political and counter cinemas. Yet the film’s aesthetics also function to challenge a disembodied intellect, or Cartesian viewing subjectivity by forming a transgressive material relationship between the viewer’s body and the sticky, swampy body of the film. Attending to the film both as a text with meaning, but also as a ‘body that performs’ (Kennedy), the chapter shows how the digetic experiments of child characters, and the filmic experiments which accompany them, work to counter the stagnation of the body and the domestication of perception associated with dominant cinematic forms. The chapter also shows how the processes of defamiliarisation in which the film engages are countered by its tactile and sensorial aesthetics, which it undertands as a form of refamiliarisation, a bringing into bodily proximity, of that which is abjected and excluded by the social order.
Viola Shafik
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823242245
- eISBN:
- 9780823242283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823242245.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter relates mass-mediated abuses against Arabs and Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo to relevant U.S.-American films since the 1980s and to Middle Eastern films in order to show ...
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This chapter relates mass-mediated abuses against Arabs and Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo to relevant U.S.-American films since the 1980s and to Middle Eastern films in order to show how such cultural representations are tied to the international power structure and what ideological premises underpin them. It argues that while depictions of physical abuse in U.S. and Middle Eastern films are interdependent and cross-referential, the two sets of film differ substantially in their choice of genres and modes of representation. Moreover, while characterizations of ethnic difference vary according to the particular political and racialized agenda being espoused, those relating to sexual difference follow a more uniform set of codifications. Emphasis on physical traits, such as weakness, passivity, and penetrability, are crucial to delivering a gendered political message that links recourse to torture to a drive for absolute power and gender domination.Less
This chapter relates mass-mediated abuses against Arabs and Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo to relevant U.S.-American films since the 1980s and to Middle Eastern films in order to show how such cultural representations are tied to the international power structure and what ideological premises underpin them. It argues that while depictions of physical abuse in U.S. and Middle Eastern films are interdependent and cross-referential, the two sets of film differ substantially in their choice of genres and modes of representation. Moreover, while characterizations of ethnic difference vary according to the particular political and racialized agenda being espoused, those relating to sexual difference follow a more uniform set of codifications. Emphasis on physical traits, such as weakness, passivity, and penetrability, are crucial to delivering a gendered political message that links recourse to torture to a drive for absolute power and gender domination.
Diana Espírito Santo
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813060781
- eISBN:
- 9780813050850
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060781.003.0005
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
This chapter contains some of the book’s most central arguments, namely, those pertaining to the nature of knowledge, materiality, performance and mimesis in relation to the constitution, experience, ...
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This chapter contains some of the book’s most central arguments, namely, those pertaining to the nature of knowledge, materiality, performance and mimesis in relation to the constitution, experience, and expansion of particular selves (both of mediums and spirits). It is argued that “developing” is a paradoxical cosmogonic process in that it brings into existence that which already exists, a world of spirits, one that nevertheless wills its instantiation in matter and body in order to achieve presence and effect. The chapter further explores the mechanics and functions of espiritismo’s bread-and-butter ritual, the misa espiritual, and discusses notions of “education” and “materialization” relative to the dead and to the experience of spiritual differentiation and communion.Less
This chapter contains some of the book’s most central arguments, namely, those pertaining to the nature of knowledge, materiality, performance and mimesis in relation to the constitution, experience, and expansion of particular selves (both of mediums and spirits). It is argued that “developing” is a paradoxical cosmogonic process in that it brings into existence that which already exists, a world of spirits, one that nevertheless wills its instantiation in matter and body in order to achieve presence and effect. The chapter further explores the mechanics and functions of espiritismo’s bread-and-butter ritual, the misa espiritual, and discusses notions of “education” and “materialization” relative to the dead and to the experience of spiritual differentiation and communion.
Eric S. Jenkins
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748695478
- eISBN:
- 9781474406413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748695478.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
These chapter outlines how Disney's full-length feature films developed an alternative mode to graphic narrative called “animistic mimesis.” This mode enabled viewers to feel the special affection of ...
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These chapter outlines how Disney's full-length feature films developed an alternative mode to graphic narrative called “animistic mimesis.” This mode enabled viewers to feel the special affection of wonder, which means sensing something as alive that one cognitively knows is not. The chapter illustrates, through an analysis of Fantasia, how Disney's use of colour, shadow, sound and gesture enabled the development of animistic mimesis.Less
These chapter outlines how Disney's full-length feature films developed an alternative mode to graphic narrative called “animistic mimesis.” This mode enabled viewers to feel the special affection of wonder, which means sensing something as alive that one cognitively knows is not. The chapter illustrates, through an analysis of Fantasia, how Disney's use of colour, shadow, sound and gesture enabled the development of animistic mimesis.
Leigh Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748627691
- eISBN:
- 9780748684441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748627691.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The chapter places the argument of the book in relation to the most important work on the relation between modernism and the occult over the last 20 years. In challenging the conclusions of much of ...
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The chapter places the argument of the book in relation to the most important work on the relation between modernism and the occult over the last 20 years. In challenging the conclusions of much of this work, the chapter argues that occult discourses need to be seen as engaging with the idea of magic, and that a particular reading of magical ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries can open up a new way of thinking about modernist uses of occult discourses. The chapter also introduces new ways of thinking both of the idea of experiment and of mimesis, concepts that will be central to the argument in the rest of the book, and argues that modernists needed magical mimesis in order to construct their experiments.Less
The chapter places the argument of the book in relation to the most important work on the relation between modernism and the occult over the last 20 years. In challenging the conclusions of much of this work, the chapter argues that occult discourses need to be seen as engaging with the idea of magic, and that a particular reading of magical ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries can open up a new way of thinking about modernist uses of occult discourses. The chapter also introduces new ways of thinking both of the idea of experiment and of mimesis, concepts that will be central to the argument in the rest of the book, and argues that modernists needed magical mimesis in order to construct their experiments.
Mark Currie
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748676293
- eISBN:
- 9780748684465
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676293.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter surveys the discussion of unexpected events and the concept of surprise in the theory of narrative. It begins in the work of Aristotle and Ricoeur, and explores a set of ideas about ...
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This chapter surveys the discussion of unexpected events and the concept of surprise in the theory of narrative. It begins in the work of Aristotle and Ricoeur, and explores a set of ideas about narrative form in relation to time, fate and contingency. It then looks at recent work by Sternberg and the role of mimesis in discussions of surprise. The chapter introduces a stand of argument from Aristotle to the present which links the discussion of surprise to questions of literary value, and shows that these generally depend on assumptions about mimesis, or the relation of narrative to life. The chapter discusses the general lack of attention to questions of expectation, anticipation, prolepsis and futurity in the theory of narrative.Less
This chapter surveys the discussion of unexpected events and the concept of surprise in the theory of narrative. It begins in the work of Aristotle and Ricoeur, and explores a set of ideas about narrative form in relation to time, fate and contingency. It then looks at recent work by Sternberg and the role of mimesis in discussions of surprise. The chapter introduces a stand of argument from Aristotle to the present which links the discussion of surprise to questions of literary value, and shows that these generally depend on assumptions about mimesis, or the relation of narrative to life. The chapter discusses the general lack of attention to questions of expectation, anticipation, prolepsis and futurity in the theory of narrative.
Michal Peled Ginsburg
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262601
- eISBN:
- 9780823266517
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262601.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The introduction provides a historical and theoretical context for the study. It discusses the emergence of the painter as a literary character in the nineteenth century and the changes it produced ...
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The introduction provides a historical and theoretical context for the study. It discusses the emergence of the painter as a literary character in the nineteenth century and the changes it produced in portrait stories; introduces C. S. Peirce’s terms “icon” and “index,” which will be used to describe the ways painter, subject, and viewer can be inscribed in the portrait; and deals with the portrait’s uncanniness and its relation to death. In contrast with other studies, this book insists on the specificity of “portrait” within the larger categories of “painting” or “art,” studies the portrait in relation to mimetic and referential representation rather than to the fantastic, and considers the portrait not as motif that can be detached from the rest of the text but as a topos (a set of variables) to be analyzed in relation to each story’s plot, narrative structure, and thematic concerns.Less
The introduction provides a historical and theoretical context for the study. It discusses the emergence of the painter as a literary character in the nineteenth century and the changes it produced in portrait stories; introduces C. S. Peirce’s terms “icon” and “index,” which will be used to describe the ways painter, subject, and viewer can be inscribed in the portrait; and deals with the portrait’s uncanniness and its relation to death. In contrast with other studies, this book insists on the specificity of “portrait” within the larger categories of “painting” or “art,” studies the portrait in relation to mimetic and referential representation rather than to the fantastic, and considers the portrait not as motif that can be detached from the rest of the text but as a topos (a set of variables) to be analyzed in relation to each story’s plot, narrative structure, and thematic concerns.
