Edward Lamberti
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474444002
- eISBN:
- 9781474476621
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444002.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has had a significant influence on film theory in recent years. This book proposes a relationship between Levinasian ethics and film style. It argues that films ...
More
Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has had a significant influence on film theory in recent years. This book proposes a relationship between Levinasian ethics and film style. It argues that films can convey Levinasian ethics not just through their subject matter but also through their use of style. The book brings this relationship between ethics and style into a productive dialogue with theories of performativity, such as J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, Jacques Derrida’s notion of originary performativity and Judith Butler’s reconfiguration of performativity within the socio-political sphere. It explores Levinas’s influence on film through the study of three directorial bodies of work: those of the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader. The book focuses on a range of films, including the Dardennes’ Je Pense à Vous (1992), La Promesse (1996), Le Fils (2002) and The Kid with a Bike (2011), Schroeder’s Maîtresse (1975), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Terror’s Advocate (2007) and Our Lady of the Assassins (2000) and Schrader’s American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and Adam Resurrected (2008). In doing so, it demonstrates how films can perform a Levinasian ethics through different styles.Less
Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has had a significant influence on film theory in recent years. This book proposes a relationship between Levinasian ethics and film style. It argues that films can convey Levinasian ethics not just through their subject matter but also through their use of style. The book brings this relationship between ethics and style into a productive dialogue with theories of performativity, such as J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, Jacques Derrida’s notion of originary performativity and Judith Butler’s reconfiguration of performativity within the socio-political sphere. It explores Levinas’s influence on film through the study of three directorial bodies of work: those of the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader. The book focuses on a range of films, including the Dardennes’ Je Pense à Vous (1992), La Promesse (1996), Le Fils (2002) and The Kid with a Bike (2011), Schroeder’s Maîtresse (1975), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Terror’s Advocate (2007) and Our Lady of the Assassins (2000) and Schrader’s American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and Adam Resurrected (2008). In doing so, it demonstrates how films can perform a Levinasian ethics through different styles.
Dolores Martín-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume ...
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Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume focuses on what emotions do. Chapters interrogate how emotions do and undo us as both individual and collective bodies. With this aim, this book proposes “emotional bodies” as a tool to understand the performativity of emotional practices as the origin of particular configurations of bodies, such as patients, criminals, medieval religious communities, revolutionary crowds and contemporary humanitarian agencies. The multidisciplinary approach of this volume, which combines a diversity of sources as well as theoretical and historiographical approaches, challenges traditional notions of the body and the emotions, demonstrating the potential of “emotional bodies” to understand past and present societies.Less
Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume focuses on what emotions do. Chapters interrogate how emotions do and undo us as both individual and collective bodies. With this aim, this book proposes “emotional bodies” as a tool to understand the performativity of emotional practices as the origin of particular configurations of bodies, such as patients, criminals, medieval religious communities, revolutionary crowds and contemporary humanitarian agencies. The multidisciplinary approach of this volume, which combines a diversity of sources as well as theoretical and historiographical approaches, challenges traditional notions of the body and the emotions, demonstrating the potential of “emotional bodies” to understand past and present societies.
Tony Kushner
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781786940629
- eISBN:
- 9781786945051
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940629.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there ...
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This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there were particular issues facing Jews escaping from Nazism, but it emphasises that there are deeper trends that shed light on responses to and the experiences of these refugees and other forced migrants from war, poverty, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It argues that those interested in Holocaust studies and migration studies have much to learn from each other. This study focuses on three particular types of refugee movement – women, children and ‘illegal’ boat migrants. Whilst there is focus on British spheres of influence, the scope is global including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, South Asia and Australasia. The approach is historical but incorporates many different disciplines including geography, anthropology, cultural and literary studies and politics. State as well as popular responses are integrated and the auto/biographical practice of the refugees themselves are highlighted throughout this book. Films, novels, museums, heritage sites and memorials are incorporated in this study alongside more traditional sources allowing exploration of history and memory. Many neglected refugee movements are covered and themes such as gender, childhood, place, space, legality, the politics of naming, and performance add to its richness.Less
This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there were particular issues facing Jews escaping from Nazism, but it emphasises that there are deeper trends that shed light on responses to and the experiences of these refugees and other forced migrants from war, poverty, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It argues that those interested in Holocaust studies and migration studies have much to learn from each other. This study focuses on three particular types of refugee movement – women, children and ‘illegal’ boat migrants. Whilst there is focus on British spheres of influence, the scope is global including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, South Asia and Australasia. The approach is historical but incorporates many different disciplines including geography, anthropology, cultural and literary studies and politics. State as well as popular responses are integrated and the auto/biographical practice of the refugees themselves are highlighted throughout this book. Films, novels, museums, heritage sites and memorials are incorporated in this study alongside more traditional sources allowing exploration of history and memory. Many neglected refugee movements are covered and themes such as gender, childhood, place, space, legality, the politics of naming, and performance add to its richness.
David Cecchetto
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816676446
- eISBN:
- 9781452948027
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816676446.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
With the recent emergence of copious scholarship that considers the discursive life of the term “human,” posthumanism has become a timely interdisciplinary discourse. This study is a critical ...
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With the recent emergence of copious scholarship that considers the discursive life of the term “human,” posthumanism has become a timely interdisciplinary discourse. This study is a critical analysis of three strains of this discourse's technologically oriented segment: scientific, humanist, and organismic posthumanisms. Throughout, analyses are presented in an effort to appreciate the insights available from these three perspectives, and to contextualize them in the larger conversations of technology and culture. Ultimately, though, the analyses also unpack how each perspective continues to hold onto certain elements of the humanist tradition that it is mobilized against; in each case, the study desublimates the presumptions that underwrite a given perspective. This study offers at least four unique contributions to the existing literature on posthumanism. Firstly, it nominates the term “technological posthumanism” as a means of focusing specifically on the discourse as it relates to technology without neglecting its other disciplinary histories. Secondly, it suggests that deconstruction remains relevant to this discourse, specifically with respect to the performative dimension of language. Thirdly, it offers analyses of artworks that have not heretofore been considered in the light of posthumanism, specifically emphasizing the role of aurality. Finally, the text's innovative form introduces a reflexive component that exemplifies how the discourse of posthumanism might progress without resorting to the types of unilateral narratives that the dissertation critiques.Less
With the recent emergence of copious scholarship that considers the discursive life of the term “human,” posthumanism has become a timely interdisciplinary discourse. This study is a critical analysis of three strains of this discourse's technologically oriented segment: scientific, humanist, and organismic posthumanisms. Throughout, analyses are presented in an effort to appreciate the insights available from these three perspectives, and to contextualize them in the larger conversations of technology and culture. Ultimately, though, the analyses also unpack how each perspective continues to hold onto certain elements of the humanist tradition that it is mobilized against; in each case, the study desublimates the presumptions that underwrite a given perspective. This study offers at least four unique contributions to the existing literature on posthumanism. Firstly, it nominates the term “technological posthumanism” as a means of focusing specifically on the discourse as it relates to technology without neglecting its other disciplinary histories. Secondly, it suggests that deconstruction remains relevant to this discourse, specifically with respect to the performative dimension of language. Thirdly, it offers analyses of artworks that have not heretofore been considered in the light of posthumanism, specifically emphasizing the role of aurality. Finally, the text's innovative form introduces a reflexive component that exemplifies how the discourse of posthumanism might progress without resorting to the types of unilateral narratives that the dissertation critiques.
Edward Lamberti
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474444002
- eISBN:
- 9781474476621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444002.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The introduction begins by exploring how Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has been taken up by film theorists to date. Much of this scholarship centres on Levinas’s theories of the Other as ...
More
The introduction begins by exploring how Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has been taken up by film theorists to date. Much of this scholarship centres on Levinas’s theories of the Other as found in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (1961), particularly the ‘face’ of the Other, which theorists have discussed in relation to visualre presentation. Levinas developed his ethics, in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), into a performative account of what it feels like to be responsible for the Other. Accordingly, Performing Ethics through Film Style takes a similar approach with film, linking the performativity of Levinas’s writing style with the capacity of films to perform a Levinasian ethics of responsibility for the Other through their styles. The introduction brings in performativity theory – including J. L. Austin’s speech acts, Jacques Derrida’s originary performativity and Judith Butler’s theories of language in the socio-political sphere – to enhance this study of performativity in Levinas and film. And it sets up the subjects of the chapters to follow: the films of the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader. Studying these directors in relation to Levinas shows how films can perform ethics through a wide variety of styles.Less
The introduction begins by exploring how Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has been taken up by film theorists to date. Much of this scholarship centres on Levinas’s theories of the Other as found in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (1961), particularly the ‘face’ of the Other, which theorists have discussed in relation to visualre presentation. Levinas developed his ethics, in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), into a performative account of what it feels like to be responsible for the Other. Accordingly, Performing Ethics through Film Style takes a similar approach with film, linking the performativity of Levinas’s writing style with the capacity of films to perform a Levinasian ethics of responsibility for the Other through their styles. The introduction brings in performativity theory – including J. L. Austin’s speech acts, Jacques Derrida’s originary performativity and Judith Butler’s theories of language in the socio-political sphere – to enhance this study of performativity in Levinas and film. And it sets up the subjects of the chapters to follow: the films of the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader. Studying these directors in relation to Levinas shows how films can perform ethics through a wide variety of styles.
Edward Lamberti
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474444002
- eISBN:
- 9781474476621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444002.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter looks at two early Dardenne films, Je Pense à Vous (1992) and La Promesse (1996). The gap between these two films proved momentous in the Dardennes’ career, as they were able, after the ...
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This chapter looks at two early Dardenne films, Je Pense à Vous (1992) and La Promesse (1996). The gap between these two films proved momentous in the Dardennes’ career, as they were able, after the critical, commercial and, in their eyes, personal failure of Je Pense à Vous, to rethink their approach to film style, which led to La Promesse, the true ‘beginning’ of their career as it is commonly known and their first explicit engagement with Levinas’s ethical philosophy. The chapter considers this radical change in film style to be akin to the distinction that J. L. Austin, in his lectures on performativity, makes between constative and performative uses of language, the first being description and the second being performance. The chapter begins by positing a parallel between the shifts in Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy from the descriptions of Totality and Infinity to the literary performance of Otherwise than Being and the Dardennes’ reconfiguration of their style between Je Pense à Vous and La Promesse. This will show how, just as Levinas sought to clarify his ethics by deploying a more overtly performative style, so the Dardennes achieve a similar, Levinasian style in their filmmaking in La Promesse.Less
This chapter looks at two early Dardenne films, Je Pense à Vous (1992) and La Promesse (1996). The gap between these two films proved momentous in the Dardennes’ career, as they were able, after the critical, commercial and, in their eyes, personal failure of Je Pense à Vous, to rethink their approach to film style, which led to La Promesse, the true ‘beginning’ of their career as it is commonly known and their first explicit engagement with Levinas’s ethical philosophy. The chapter considers this radical change in film style to be akin to the distinction that J. L. Austin, in his lectures on performativity, makes between constative and performative uses of language, the first being description and the second being performance. The chapter begins by positing a parallel between the shifts in Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy from the descriptions of Totality and Infinity to the literary performance of Otherwise than Being and the Dardennes’ reconfiguration of their style between Je Pense à Vous and La Promesse. This will show how, just as Levinas sought to clarify his ethics by deploying a more overtly performative style, so the Dardennes achieve a similar, Levinasian style in their filmmaking in La Promesse.
Edward Lamberti
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474444002
- eISBN:
- 9781474476621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444002.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Conclusion sums up how studying Emmanuel Levinas and film in terms of style and performativity can expand our appreciation both of Levinas’s ethics and of the work of these significant ...
More
The Conclusion sums up how studying Emmanuel Levinas and film in terms of style and performativity can expand our appreciation both of Levinas’s ethics and of the work of these significant filmmakers. This study of a range of films directed by the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader helps open up the different ways in which film style can perform ethics. This opening-up shows that there is no such thing as a singular ‘ethical style’ or ‘Levinasian style’ and no such thing as a singular ‘Levinasian topic’. Rather, the power and importance of Levinas’s ethics can be detected and explored in a range of subject matter and performed through a range of film styles. This realisation paves the way for other studies into ethics, performativity and film.Less
The Conclusion sums up how studying Emmanuel Levinas and film in terms of style and performativity can expand our appreciation both of Levinas’s ethics and of the work of these significant filmmakers. This study of a range of films directed by the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader helps open up the different ways in which film style can perform ethics. This opening-up shows that there is no such thing as a singular ‘ethical style’ or ‘Levinasian style’ and no such thing as a singular ‘Levinasian topic’. Rather, the power and importance of Levinas’s ethics can be detected and explored in a range of subject matter and performed through a range of film styles. This realisation paves the way for other studies into ethics, performativity and film.
Chris McMorran
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824866693
- eISBN:
- 9780824876937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824866693.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter investigates the idea of labor in the tourist industry as a form of feminist praxis in contemporary Japan. It centers on women working in traditional inns, or ryokan, which are found ...
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This chapter investigates the idea of labor in the tourist industry as a form of feminist praxis in contemporary Japan. It centers on women working in traditional inns, or ryokan, which are found around the country. Working as maids and servers, they are paid to reproduce gender ideologies that economically devalue women’s work and spatially fix it to domestic space. However, the job can also provide divorced, separated, or single women liberation from the institution of marriage and its associated reliance on a man, in part by providing a daily wage, a uniform, three meals a day, and a dormitory room. Moreover, employees disrupt conservative ideas about a woman’s place in Japan, using conventional femininity as a tool to create spaces for individual freedom and enrichment in the face of gender inequalities that remain throughout Japanese society.Less
This chapter investigates the idea of labor in the tourist industry as a form of feminist praxis in contemporary Japan. It centers on women working in traditional inns, or ryokan, which are found around the country. Working as maids and servers, they are paid to reproduce gender ideologies that economically devalue women’s work and spatially fix it to domestic space. However, the job can also provide divorced, separated, or single women liberation from the institution of marriage and its associated reliance on a man, in part by providing a daily wage, a uniform, three meals a day, and a dormitory room. Moreover, employees disrupt conservative ideas about a woman’s place in Japan, using conventional femininity as a tool to create spaces for individual freedom and enrichment in the face of gender inequalities that remain throughout Japanese society.
Dolores Martín-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
As a way of conclusion, the afterword comes back to Roland Barthes. His writings on photography and grief (Camera Lucida, 1993), and particularly his conception of the punctum as the element in the ...
More
As a way of conclusion, the afterword comes back to Roland Barthes. His writings on photography and grief (Camera Lucida, 1993), and particularly his conception of the punctum as the element in the photograph that “pricks” you, illustrates how emotions do and undo the subject. Bringing together the main findings of the book, the afterword argues that the subject and its identity are, therefore, the result of the performative work of emotions. But this identity will be necessarily ephemeral, as it is only a particular configuration of a particular doing of emotions, which will be made and remade in each iteration.Less
As a way of conclusion, the afterword comes back to Roland Barthes. His writings on photography and grief (Camera Lucida, 1993), and particularly his conception of the punctum as the element in the photograph that “pricks” you, illustrates how emotions do and undo the subject. Bringing together the main findings of the book, the afterword argues that the subject and its identity are, therefore, the result of the performative work of emotions. But this identity will be necessarily ephemeral, as it is only a particular configuration of a particular doing of emotions, which will be made and remade in each iteration.
Peter Childs
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748620432
- eISBN:
- 9780748671700
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620432.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Big Brother was the first of the high-profile ‘Reality Television’ shows. Pioneered in Holland, it was imported to Britain by the production company Endemol. From the first, the programme was ...
More
Big Brother was the first of the high-profile ‘Reality Television’ shows. Pioneered in Holland, it was imported to Britain by the production company Endemol. From the first, the programme was presented as a sociological experiment, in the vein of Stanley Milgram’s socio-psychological 1960s research to measure the willingness of participants to obey instructions conflicting with personal conscience if directed by an authority figure. However, as the show’s popularity increased the pretext of studying how people behave and interact in a house under ‘laboratory conditions’ diminished while criticisms of the programme’s repetitiveness encouraged changes in the show that raised its level of artificiality. Like the televised input of experimental psychologists such as Oxford University’s Dr Peter Collett, interest in people’s social psychology had all but disappeared after a couple of series and been entirely replaced by a fascination with game-show elements allied to the promise of sex and conflict. Big Brother has thus been considered part of a growing phenomenon known as the ‘television of cruelty’, with some contestants diagnosed as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after appearing.Less
Big Brother was the first of the high-profile ‘Reality Television’ shows. Pioneered in Holland, it was imported to Britain by the production company Endemol. From the first, the programme was presented as a sociological experiment, in the vein of Stanley Milgram’s socio-psychological 1960s research to measure the willingness of participants to obey instructions conflicting with personal conscience if directed by an authority figure. However, as the show’s popularity increased the pretext of studying how people behave and interact in a house under ‘laboratory conditions’ diminished while criticisms of the programme’s repetitiveness encouraged changes in the show that raised its level of artificiality. Like the televised input of experimental psychologists such as Oxford University’s Dr Peter Collett, interest in people’s social psychology had all but disappeared after a couple of series and been entirely replaced by a fascination with game-show elements allied to the promise of sex and conflict. Big Brother has thus been considered part of a growing phenomenon known as the ‘television of cruelty’, with some contestants diagnosed as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after appearing.
David Huddart
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781380253
- eISBN:
- 9781781381540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781380253.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, English Language
This chapter explores how World Englishes can be understood as instances of cultural translation, focusing ultimately on the example of Singapore. It begins by considering the extent to which ...
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This chapter explores how World Englishes can be understood as instances of cultural translation, focusing ultimately on the example of Singapore. It begins by considering the extent to which cultural translation is a problematic because imperialist concept and practice. Arguing against a translation based on the transparency of a demanding and Western globalization, the chapter focuses on different examples of language use in Singapore that can be interpreted in terms of the performative. This stress on the performative draws on both World Englishes studies and postcolonial studies, for example the work of Homi K. Bhabha.Less
This chapter explores how World Englishes can be understood as instances of cultural translation, focusing ultimately on the example of Singapore. It begins by considering the extent to which cultural translation is a problematic because imperialist concept and practice. Arguing against a translation based on the transparency of a demanding and Western globalization, the chapter focuses on different examples of language use in Singapore that can be interpreted in terms of the performative. This stress on the performative draws on both World Englishes studies and postcolonial studies, for example the work of Homi K. Bhabha.
David Huddart
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781380253
- eISBN:
- 9781781381540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781380253.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, English Language
This chapter considers the codifying role of the postcolonial dictionary. Such dictionaries, such as the Macquarie Dictionary, have been understood as declarations of linguistic independence. This ...
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This chapter considers the codifying role of the postcolonial dictionary. Such dictionaries, such as the Macquarie Dictionary, have been understood as declarations of linguistic independence. This chapter argues that the Macquarie Dictionary intervenes as a both a description and declaration of independence, working through what Jacques Derrida, writing on the American colonies’ declaration of independence, calls a fabulous retroactivity. On the one hand, these independent Englishes already existed, and on the other they required the dictionary itself to make them happen: these Englishes both already were and yet also ought to be. The chapter explores the interesting implications of such a structure in our understanding of World Englishes.Less
This chapter considers the codifying role of the postcolonial dictionary. Such dictionaries, such as the Macquarie Dictionary, have been understood as declarations of linguistic independence. This chapter argues that the Macquarie Dictionary intervenes as a both a description and declaration of independence, working through what Jacques Derrida, writing on the American colonies’ declaration of independence, calls a fabulous retroactivity. On the one hand, these independent Englishes already existed, and on the other they required the dictionary itself to make them happen: these Englishes both already were and yet also ought to be. The chapter explores the interesting implications of such a structure in our understanding of World Englishes.
Dolores Martín-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
The introduction situates this volume into different theoretical and historiographical traditions. It starts by examining the meanings of performativity through a reading of Roland Barthes’s A ...
More
The introduction situates this volume into different theoretical and historiographical traditions. It starts by examining the meanings of performativity through a reading of Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse (1977), as his analysis of the utterance “I love you” perfectly illustrates the bodily effects of emotions. The next section moves on to discuss the theoretical grounding of the concept “emotional bodies,” linking the work on emotional practices as developed by anthropologists, cultural historians and sociologists such as Monique Scheer, Jo Labanyi, and Sarah Ahmed with the feminist materialism of Judith Butler and Karen Barad. Finally, the last section makes connections between chapters in different sections, highlighting the common ideas underpinning this book.Less
The introduction situates this volume into different theoretical and historiographical traditions. It starts by examining the meanings of performativity through a reading of Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse (1977), as his analysis of the utterance “I love you” perfectly illustrates the bodily effects of emotions. The next section moves on to discuss the theoretical grounding of the concept “emotional bodies,” linking the work on emotional practices as developed by anthropologists, cultural historians and sociologists such as Monique Scheer, Jo Labanyi, and Sarah Ahmed with the feminist materialism of Judith Butler and Karen Barad. Finally, the last section makes connections between chapters in different sections, highlighting the common ideas underpinning this book.
Pilar León-Sanz
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This essay focuses on studies developed in the field of psychosomatic medicine that connected cancer with patients’ body image and fantasies (1950-1959). At this time, cancer began to acquire more ...
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This essay focuses on studies developed in the field of psychosomatic medicine that connected cancer with patients’ body image and fantasies (1950-1959). At this time, cancer began to acquire more medical and social visibility, and psychosomatic studies pointed to connections between cancer and emotional and personality factors. The chapter shows that scientists such as Seymour Fisher or Sidney E. Cleveland established that there are many aspects of the individual’s body that acquire psychological significance. The analysis also suggests that the body-image variations between individuals depended on the cancer localization, as well as differences in personality. By looking at these sources, this chapter argues that emotions and bodily fantasies became performative forces in the field of psychosomatic medicine.Less
This essay focuses on studies developed in the field of psychosomatic medicine that connected cancer with patients’ body image and fantasies (1950-1959). At this time, cancer began to acquire more medical and social visibility, and psychosomatic studies pointed to connections between cancer and emotional and personality factors. The chapter shows that scientists such as Seymour Fisher or Sidney E. Cleveland established that there are many aspects of the individual’s body that acquire psychological significance. The analysis also suggests that the body-image variations between individuals depended on the cancer localization, as well as differences in personality. By looking at these sources, this chapter argues that emotions and bodily fantasies became performative forces in the field of psychosomatic medicine.
Dolores Martín-Moruno
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
By combining emotion and gender histories, this study analyzes the affective economy of fear ruling during the Paris Commune and its aftermath. This focus allows us to examine the creation of female ...
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By combining emotion and gender histories, this study analyzes the affective economy of fear ruling during the Paris Commune and its aftermath. This focus allows us to examine the creation of female collectives, such as the pétroleuses: the revolutionary women accused of having organized the fires that devastated the French capital during the bloody week. Although there was no evidence about their involvement in this episode, they became the evilest enemy in the eye of the public. Taking Louise Michel’s testimonies as starting point, this chapter analyses abjection as a practice that situated the female revolutionary body outside the borders of civilization. A comparison of past and present terrorist bodies allows us to think about the powers of fear for the creation of fictional enemies.Less
By combining emotion and gender histories, this study analyzes the affective economy of fear ruling during the Paris Commune and its aftermath. This focus allows us to examine the creation of female collectives, such as the pétroleuses: the revolutionary women accused of having organized the fires that devastated the French capital during the bloody week. Although there was no evidence about their involvement in this episode, they became the evilest enemy in the eye of the public. Taking Louise Michel’s testimonies as starting point, this chapter analyses abjection as a practice that situated the female revolutionary body outside the borders of civilization. A comparison of past and present terrorist bodies allows us to think about the powers of fear for the creation of fictional enemies.
Shih-chen Chao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888390809
- eISBN:
- 9789888390441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390809.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This paper analyzes gender performativity in the form of cross-dressing cuteness through cosplaying by a popular male-cosplaying-female fan group “Ailisi Weiniang Tuan (Alice Cos Group)” based in ...
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This paper analyzes gender performativity in the form of cross-dressing cuteness through cosplaying by a popular male-cosplaying-female fan group “Ailisi Weiniang Tuan (Alice Cos Group)” based in China. Drawing from cute studies, gender/queer studies, and fan studies, this paper examines the phenomenon of fake girls as a venue of redefining the boundaries of identity and gender using cosplaying and the notion of cuteness to achieve queerness to address the issue of gender performativity through queered cuteness in today’s China.Less
This paper analyzes gender performativity in the form of cross-dressing cuteness through cosplaying by a popular male-cosplaying-female fan group “Ailisi Weiniang Tuan (Alice Cos Group)” based in China. Drawing from cute studies, gender/queer studies, and fan studies, this paper examines the phenomenon of fake girls as a venue of redefining the boundaries of identity and gender using cosplaying and the notion of cuteness to achieve queerness to address the issue of gender performativity through queered cuteness in today’s China.
Amaleena Damlé
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748668212
- eISBN:
- 9781474400923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748668212.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter explores the theme of the becoming of the body through metamorphosis in Marie Darrieussecq’s writing, analysing the interweaving of Deleuzian traces with contemporary feminist thinkers ...
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This chapter explores the theme of the becoming of the body through metamorphosis in Marie Darrieussecq’s writing, analysing the interweaving of Deleuzian traces with contemporary feminist thinkers Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotti’s theories of performativity and parody. It then explores the interplay between simulation and dispersal in Darrieussecq’s work, relating this to a posthuman vision of the contemporary world within which consciousness is figured in terms of flux and folds. The chapter shows how Darrieussecq’s conceptually inventive writing illuminates Deleuzian notions of becoming and folding, not least in her reconsideration of relations between surface and depth in the torsion between mind, body and universe.Less
This chapter explores the theme of the becoming of the body through metamorphosis in Marie Darrieussecq’s writing, analysing the interweaving of Deleuzian traces with contemporary feminist thinkers Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotti’s theories of performativity and parody. It then explores the interplay between simulation and dispersal in Darrieussecq’s work, relating this to a posthuman vision of the contemporary world within which consciousness is figured in terms of flux and folds. The chapter shows how Darrieussecq’s conceptually inventive writing illuminates Deleuzian notions of becoming and folding, not least in her reconsideration of relations between surface and depth in the torsion between mind, body and universe.
David S. Dalton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781683400394
- eISBN:
- 9781683400523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400394.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter looks at an especially interesting articulation of the posthuman within the indigenista films of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. It identifies an attempt to modernize indigenous peasants by ...
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This chapter looks at an especially interesting articulation of the posthuman within the indigenista films of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. It identifies an attempt to modernize indigenous peasants by exposing their bodies to modern medicine. The chapter views these films in the context of Roberto Esposito’s “immunization paradigm,” a biopolitical theory that compares the medical process of immunization to the state’s role of subject creation. When a people lacks a natural immunity to a vice (improper performativity of race and gender in the case of these films), a new actor, such as the state, must step in and provide an artificial immunity. Using this theoretical framework, the chapter analyzes the films Río Escondido (1947), María Candelaria (1944), Enamorada (1946), and The Torch (1950). The readings suggest that we approach these films as allegories for a postrevolutionary society where immunological discourses prescribe appropriate gender and racial performativity for the nation.Less
This chapter looks at an especially interesting articulation of the posthuman within the indigenista films of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. It identifies an attempt to modernize indigenous peasants by exposing their bodies to modern medicine. The chapter views these films in the context of Roberto Esposito’s “immunization paradigm,” a biopolitical theory that compares the medical process of immunization to the state’s role of subject creation. When a people lacks a natural immunity to a vice (improper performativity of race and gender in the case of these films), a new actor, such as the state, must step in and provide an artificial immunity. Using this theoretical framework, the chapter analyzes the films Río Escondido (1947), María Candelaria (1944), Enamorada (1946), and The Torch (1950). The readings suggest that we approach these films as allegories for a postrevolutionary society where immunological discourses prescribe appropriate gender and racial performativity for the nation.
Jessica Smartt Gullion
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029766
- eISBN:
- 9780262329798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029766.003.0008
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
This chapter explains the ways in which environmental activists use performance to express their pain of living in a polluted region. In many environmental controversies, there is a clash between the ...
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This chapter explains the ways in which environmental activists use performance to express their pain of living in a polluted region. In many environmental controversies, there is a clash between the emotional toll that living with pollution takes on residents, and debates over objective, quantitative indicators of harm. Ultimately, regulatory officials try to seize control of performance and limit affective displays.Less
This chapter explains the ways in which environmental activists use performance to express their pain of living in a polluted region. In many environmental controversies, there is a clash between the emotional toll that living with pollution takes on residents, and debates over objective, quantitative indicators of harm. Ultimately, regulatory officials try to seize control of performance and limit affective displays.
Eva von Contzen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719095962
- eISBN:
- 9781526109675
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719095962.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter provides an introduction to narrative theory as a formal approach to the lives of the saints in the Scottish Legendary. Narratology as a key theoretical field, its main strands as well ...
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This chapter provides an introduction to narrative theory as a formal approach to the lives of the saints in the Scottish Legendary. Narratology as a key theoretical field, its main strands as well as its chances and challenges for the analysis of medieval narrative are discussed and problematised. The formal approach is placed within more general discussions of surface vs. symptomatic reading. Both a close and a deep reading are proposed as an expedient method to scrutinise the narrative art in the compilation. The chapter is rounded off with a section on the various ‘communicative’ instances that come into play when reading and interpreting the legends of the saints.Less
This chapter provides an introduction to narrative theory as a formal approach to the lives of the saints in the Scottish Legendary. Narratology as a key theoretical field, its main strands as well as its chances and challenges for the analysis of medieval narrative are discussed and problematised. The formal approach is placed within more general discussions of surface vs. symptomatic reading. Both a close and a deep reading are proposed as an expedient method to scrutinise the narrative art in the compilation. The chapter is rounded off with a section on the various ‘communicative’ instances that come into play when reading and interpreting the legends of the saints.