Mary-Ann Constantine and Gerald Porter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262887
- eISBN:
- 9780191734441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262887.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter discusses the way song fragments function in the work of four novelists: James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Christina Stead, and Charles Dickens. It considers silencing, particularly of women, ...
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This chapter discusses the way song fragments function in the work of four novelists: James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Christina Stead, and Charles Dickens. It considers silencing, particularly of women, as an aspect of fragmentation. It shows that women have long been associated with silence, despite having a cultural stereotype of garrulousness. The chapter also determines that intertexts empower the reader due to the ‘multi-accentuality’ of cultural texts and practices.Less
This chapter discusses the way song fragments function in the work of four novelists: James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Christina Stead, and Charles Dickens. It considers silencing, particularly of women, as an aspect of fragmentation. It shows that women have long been associated with silence, despite having a cultural stereotype of garrulousness. The chapter also determines that intertexts empower the reader due to the ‘multi-accentuality’ of cultural texts and practices.
Peter Childs
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748620432
- eISBN:
- 9780748671700
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620432.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Texts takes a wide range of visual, virtual, performative and written texts as a means of exploring both the ‘the literary’ and ‘the textual’ in contemporary culture. Each chapter includes an ...
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Texts takes a wide range of visual, virtual, performative and written texts as a means of exploring both the ‘the literary’ and ‘the textual’ in contemporary culture. Each chapter includes an introduction to the text and aspects of its critical reception as well as an extended analysis using one of sixteen important critical/theoretical approaches from established critical angles like feminism, postcolonial studies, and deconstruction to newer areas such as ecocriticism, trauma theory, and ethical criticism. Each chapter also discusses the features of the type of text under analysis and indicates alternative ways in which the text might be read by drawing on other critical approaches. Illustrating the variety of critical and theoretical tools that can be used for analysis, Texts examines a broad spectrum of contemporary culture from short stories, autobiographies and lyrics, through The Matrix, Harry Potter, and Big Brother, to shopping malls, celebrities, and rock videos. An excellent guide to ways of reading the contemporary world, this is essential reading for anyone who ever wanted to know how to analyse a text, whether it be a poster or a building complex, a political speech or a photograph, an event like the Millennium or a website like Amazon.Less
Texts takes a wide range of visual, virtual, performative and written texts as a means of exploring both the ‘the literary’ and ‘the textual’ in contemporary culture. Each chapter includes an introduction to the text and aspects of its critical reception as well as an extended analysis using one of sixteen important critical/theoretical approaches from established critical angles like feminism, postcolonial studies, and deconstruction to newer areas such as ecocriticism, trauma theory, and ethical criticism. Each chapter also discusses the features of the type of text under analysis and indicates alternative ways in which the text might be read by drawing on other critical approaches. Illustrating the variety of critical and theoretical tools that can be used for analysis, Texts examines a broad spectrum of contemporary culture from short stories, autobiographies and lyrics, through The Matrix, Harry Potter, and Big Brother, to shopping malls, celebrities, and rock videos. An excellent guide to ways of reading the contemporary world, this is essential reading for anyone who ever wanted to know how to analyse a text, whether it be a poster or a building complex, a political speech or a photograph, an event like the Millennium or a website like Amazon.
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/9780748620432.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Unlike many books in the field, this is not a study of literary texts in cultural contexts but a book about cultural texts of the kind increasingly studied through literary approaches. The chapters ...
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Unlike many books in the field, this is not a study of literary texts in cultural contexts but a book about cultural texts of the kind increasingly studied through literary approaches. The chapters analyse a wide range of different texts that are neither poems nor ‘literary’ novels and offer readings of them in the light of issues that arise in literary studies and elsewhere, from considerations of trauma to questions of time, from ethics to spatial dynamics. A number of preselected critical and theoretical perspectives are brought to bear, from ecocriticism to performativity theory to postcolonial studies, but these are used to suggest ways of reading specific texts more than the texts are used to illustrate theoriesLess
Unlike many books in the field, this is not a study of literary texts in cultural contexts but a book about cultural texts of the kind increasingly studied through literary approaches. The chapters analyse a wide range of different texts that are neither poems nor ‘literary’ novels and offer readings of them in the light of issues that arise in literary studies and elsewhere, from considerations of trauma to questions of time, from ethics to spatial dynamics. A number of preselected critical and theoretical perspectives are brought to bear, from ecocriticism to performativity theory to postcolonial studies, but these are used to suggest ways of reading specific texts more than the texts are used to illustrate theories
Benjamin Looker
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226073989
- eISBN:
- 9780226290454
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226290454.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
A Nation of Neighborhoods investigates what the concept of “neighborhood” came to mean to Americans who grappled with vast changes in their urban spaces from World War II to the Reagan era. Across ...
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A Nation of Neighborhoods investigates what the concept of “neighborhood” came to mean to Americans who grappled with vast changes in their urban spaces from World War II to the Reagan era. Across these four decades, the neighborhood constantly reemerged into American social discourse as an imaginative site for fiercely contested models of civic and communal life. In an implicit challenge to the longstanding suburban ideal, urban activists, artists, politicians, writers, and everyday citizens continually harnessed the localist ideals of neighborhood and neighborliness as a way to make sense of, participate in, and occasionally resist the startling transformations overtaking the postwar U.S. city. Examining a succession of radically varying neighborhood visions, A Nation of Neighborhoods contends that the figure of the tight-knit city neighborhood has served as an arena for larger battles over the nature, limits, and contradictions of American democratic life. It asserts that the meaning of this seemingly transparent term is constructed in part through cultural texts, taking shape in forms ranging from films, exhibitions, and novels to political speeches and planning documents. And it demonstrates the ambiguities that arise from a politics of localism, suggesting that in the romantic language of neighborhood communalism the traditional distinctions between left, liberal, and right can blur or even crumble.Less
A Nation of Neighborhoods investigates what the concept of “neighborhood” came to mean to Americans who grappled with vast changes in their urban spaces from World War II to the Reagan era. Across these four decades, the neighborhood constantly reemerged into American social discourse as an imaginative site for fiercely contested models of civic and communal life. In an implicit challenge to the longstanding suburban ideal, urban activists, artists, politicians, writers, and everyday citizens continually harnessed the localist ideals of neighborhood and neighborliness as a way to make sense of, participate in, and occasionally resist the startling transformations overtaking the postwar U.S. city. Examining a succession of radically varying neighborhood visions, A Nation of Neighborhoods contends that the figure of the tight-knit city neighborhood has served as an arena for larger battles over the nature, limits, and contradictions of American democratic life. It asserts that the meaning of this seemingly transparent term is constructed in part through cultural texts, taking shape in forms ranging from films, exhibitions, and novels to political speeches and planning documents. And it demonstrates the ambiguities that arise from a politics of localism, suggesting that in the romantic language of neighborhood communalism the traditional distinctions between left, liberal, and right can blur or even crumble.
Kimberly Chabot Davis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038433
- eISBN:
- 9780252096310
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038433.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This introductory chapter focuses on the progressive potential of empathetic feeling to redress a scholarly bias against compassion, empathy, and sympathy, particularly in American studies. Rather ...
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This introductory chapter focuses on the progressive potential of empathetic feeling to redress a scholarly bias against compassion, empathy, and sympathy, particularly in American studies. Rather than viewing empathy as a “passive ideal” and an impediment to political change, the chapter argues that it is an active cognitive process that can play an important role in changing attitudes and self-perception or even catalyzing action. Tying in with this volume's overall response to critics who believe that the forces of commodification render cultural consumption a tainted vehicle for cross-racial understanding, the chapter argues against a too-hasty dismissal of white consumption of black cultural texts as a potential conduit for social change. In addition, the chapter also discusses multiplex subjectivity and the insider–outsider debate as part of the book's broader ethnographic study.Less
This introductory chapter focuses on the progressive potential of empathetic feeling to redress a scholarly bias against compassion, empathy, and sympathy, particularly in American studies. Rather than viewing empathy as a “passive ideal” and an impediment to political change, the chapter argues that it is an active cognitive process that can play an important role in changing attitudes and self-perception or even catalyzing action. Tying in with this volume's overall response to critics who believe that the forces of commodification render cultural consumption a tainted vehicle for cross-racial understanding, the chapter argues against a too-hasty dismissal of white consumption of black cultural texts as a potential conduit for social change. In addition, the chapter also discusses multiplex subjectivity and the insider–outsider debate as part of the book's broader ethnographic study.
Carol Fadda-Conrey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479826926
- eISBN:
- 9781479819027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479826926.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter addresses a range of Arab-American literary and cultural texts that respond to the post-9/11 political and social terrain in the U.S. They capture and challenge homogenized depictions of ...
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This chapter addresses a range of Arab-American literary and cultural texts that respond to the post-9/11 political and social terrain in the U.S. They capture and challenge homogenized depictions of Arab-Americans, forging in the process what can be identified as revisionaryor counterhegemonic spaces that redefine exclusionary conceptualizations of U.S. citizenship and belonging. In addition to problematizing simplistic types of post-9/11 patriotism that demand a unilateral type of U.S. national identity, the creation of these revisionary spaces responds to racial stereotyping, blanket labeling, and discriminatory profiling by insisting on complex representations of Arab-Americans. The chapter describes how 9/11 and other crises that happened/are happening in the Arab homeland position the formation and development of Arab-American identities within well-cemented racialized structures that hold the political relations between the U.S. and the Arab world at their center—a relationship that is dominated by U.S. political and military hegemony.Less
This chapter addresses a range of Arab-American literary and cultural texts that respond to the post-9/11 political and social terrain in the U.S. They capture and challenge homogenized depictions of Arab-Americans, forging in the process what can be identified as revisionaryor counterhegemonic spaces that redefine exclusionary conceptualizations of U.S. citizenship and belonging. In addition to problematizing simplistic types of post-9/11 patriotism that demand a unilateral type of U.S. national identity, the creation of these revisionary spaces responds to racial stereotyping, blanket labeling, and discriminatory profiling by insisting on complex representations of Arab-Americans. The chapter describes how 9/11 and other crises that happened/are happening in the Arab homeland position the formation and development of Arab-American identities within well-cemented racialized structures that hold the political relations between the U.S. and the Arab world at their center—a relationship that is dominated by U.S. political and military hegemony.
Jodi Kim
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816655915
- eISBN:
- 9781452946221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816655915.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The book as a whole considers culture as an influential site of knowledge, one that proposes confusing analytics and characteristics—a so-called unsettling hermeneutic of American exceptionalism—in ...
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The book as a whole considers culture as an influential site of knowledge, one that proposes confusing analytics and characteristics—a so-called unsettling hermeneutic of American exceptionalism—in the late twentieth century. It presents an alternative reading and theorization of the Cold War and extended a comprehensive way of situating and interpreting Asian American cultural texts. This chapter discusses the connection between the War on Terror, our present imperial directive, and our past imperial mandate: the Cold War. Ultimately, it aims to achieve an extensive analysis of the intersecting lineage that prompted a contemporary moment of neoliberal globalization, imperial decree, and continuing gendered racial establishments of domination.Less
The book as a whole considers culture as an influential site of knowledge, one that proposes confusing analytics and characteristics—a so-called unsettling hermeneutic of American exceptionalism—in the late twentieth century. It presents an alternative reading and theorization of the Cold War and extended a comprehensive way of situating and interpreting Asian American cultural texts. This chapter discusses the connection between the War on Terror, our present imperial directive, and our past imperial mandate: the Cold War. Ultimately, it aims to achieve an extensive analysis of the intersecting lineage that prompted a contemporary moment of neoliberal globalization, imperial decree, and continuing gendered racial establishments of domination.
Jini Kim Watson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816675722
- eISBN:
- 9781452947556
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816675722.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter examines the implications of a developmentalist orientation for both official and alternative nationalisms through theorizations of the postcolonial nation. It focuses on the official ...
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This chapter examines the implications of a developmentalist orientation for both official and alternative nationalisms through theorizations of the postcolonial nation. It focuses on the official national discourses of political speeches and government policies, and the refiguring and imagining of nations in various cultural texts. The chapter also analyzes infrastructures, such as the concrete and metaphoric road, railway, and bridge, which simultaneously turns national space into a free passage for goods, materials, labor, and commodities, and symbolizes the way chosen by the countries’ leaders toward successful development.Less
This chapter examines the implications of a developmentalist orientation for both official and alternative nationalisms through theorizations of the postcolonial nation. It focuses on the official national discourses of political speeches and government policies, and the refiguring and imagining of nations in various cultural texts. The chapter also analyzes infrastructures, such as the concrete and metaphoric road, railway, and bridge, which simultaneously turns national space into a free passage for goods, materials, labor, and commodities, and symbolizes the way chosen by the countries’ leaders toward successful development.
