Gestural Imaginaries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Ruprecht
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
German Studies ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Vaslav Nijinsky

Gestural Imaginaries: Dance and Cultural Theory in the Early Twentieth Century offers a new interpretation of European modernist dance by addressing it as guiding medium in a vibrant field of gestural culture that ranges across art and philosophy. Taking further Cornelius Castoriadis’s concept of the social imaginary, it explores this imaginary’s embodied forms. Close readings of dances, photographs, and literary texts are juxtaposed with discussions of gestural theory by thinkers including Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, and Aby Warburg. Choreographic gesture is defined as a force of intermittency that creates a new theoretical status of dance. The book shows how this also bears on contemporary theory. It shifts emphasis from Giorgio Agamben’s preoccupation with gestural mediality to Jacques Rancière’s multiplicity of proliferating, singular gestures, arguing for their ethical and political relevance. Mobilizing dance history and movement analysis, it highlights the critical impact of works by choreographers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Jo Mihaly, and Alexander and Clotilde Sakharoff. It also offers choreographic readings of Franz Kafka and Alfred Döblin. Gestural Imaginaries proposes that modernist dance conducts a gestural revolution that enacts but also exceeds the insights of past and present cultural theory. It makes a case for archive-based, cross-medial, and critically informed dance studies, transnational German studies, and the theoretical potential of performance itself.

Auszeit

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
German Studies ◽  
Time Out ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Association

This volume uses literary texts, films and computer games to examine how the specifically modern narrative of time-out is represented. The contributions examine time-out narratives from early Romanticism to contemporary pop and game culture: a polyphonic contribution to the cultural history of time-out, that has yet to be written. The volume is based on a panel organised by Stephanie Catani (University of Würzburg) and Friedhelm Marx (University of Bamberg) as part of the 26th Conference of the German Association of German Studies 2019 at Saarland University. With contributions by Prof. Dr. Sabina Becker, PD Dr. Juliane Blank, Prof. Dr. Stephanie Catani, apl. Prof. Dr. Michael Eggers, Prof. Dr. Jörn Glasenapp, Roya Hauck, PD Dr. Nikolas Immer, Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Marx, Beatrice May, Dr. Jasmin Pfeiffer, PD Dr. Jörg Schuster and Julian Weinert.

scholarly journals The Eye, the Brain, the Screen – What Neuroscience Can Teach Film Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Paul Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cross Model ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
The Brain

“I don’t believe that linguistics and psychoanalysis offer a great deal to the cinema. On the contrary, the biology of the brain – molecular biology – does.” Gilles DeleuzeModels of the brain are inextricably linked to the surrounding cultural episteme: whether it is viewed as a complex clockwork device, a computer, a self-regulating network or even a cinema screen, our understanding of neurophysiology has always relied on discourses and images taken from other fields. In turn, however, our knowledge of cerebral processes (such as sight for instance) has always, inevitably, affected the way that we approach artworks, literary texts and cultural artefacts.Based on this, this paper looks at how recent neuroscientific research on vision and cognition can help us better understand the processes inherent in film theory. Focussing mainly on the recently discovered concept of the mirror neuron but also citing synaesthesia and limbic perceptual processing, I suggest that neuroscience can provide us with a fertile new ground for thinking about areas such as spectatorship and the facilitation of emotional affect, it can also offer us alternatives to monolithic ideas like the Gaze and the patriarchal nature of visual pleasure.Prompted perhaps by a shift in scopic thinking, some recent neuroscientific research has even mirrored film and cultural theory by foregrounding notions such embodiment, cross-model perception and mimesis, adding to the dialogic relationship that exists between these two disciplines. This paper then is not only concerned with how different fields communicate but with how each can provide models, metaphors and frameworks for the other.

Athena’s Way: The Jurisprudence of the Oresteia

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-276
Author(s):  
Desmond Manderson
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Legal Reason ◽  
Legal Decisions ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Legitimacy ◽  
Transformative Process ◽  
New Interpretation

This article offers a substantial new interpretation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, one of the most important literary texts to deal with the question of the rule of law, and one of Western jurisprudence’s founding documents. Perhaps in part because of it has fallen under the shadow of Antigone, the play has tended to suffer from a reductionist reading in which legal reason triumphs over the passions. The present article rereads the text drawing on recent scholarship on Aeschylus’ work. It argues that the central figure of the Furies has been misunderstood: they are not simply expressions of violence and passion; on the contrary, they are the most legalistic of all the figures in the play. The model of judgment introduced by Athena in the resolution of Oresteia does not pit law against emotion, or feud against process, but judgment against law. The trilogy begins by presenting the uncertainty of language as law’s curse, and the certain application of the law its cure; it concludes by radically reframing the question. Now the illusory certainty of law is the curse – and the uncertainty of language its cure. Athena’s way positions legal judgment as something more than the mere following of rules. The article then goes on to show that this approach not only casts a new light on orthodox jurisprudence. It is of profound relevance to the work of Giorgio Agamben and the theory of sovereignty he has famously expounded in Homo Sacer. What ultimately separates Athena’s rule of law from mere decisionism or Agamben’s executive and unlimited sovereignty are the external constraints to which she purposely submits herself. Athena demonstrates a vision of judgment as a participatory and transformative process. Above all, she insists on the essential role of public legal argument and public accountability in a discourse of legal legitimacy, which is not simply limited to judges or particular legal decisions. On the contrary, Athena connects the rule of law to a continuing discussion of legal values and judgments which is never finally settled, and in which all of us, as citizens of Athens, are participants.

scholarly journals O caso Naná: representações de gênero no encontro entre texto e imagem no século XIX

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Vosne MARTINS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Emile Zola ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The Impact

Este texto discute a produção de representações de gênero nos textos literários e nas imagens pictóricas no século XIX, com ênfase na imagem da mulher fatal, tomando como fonte principal o romance de Emile Zola, Naná, publicado em 1879, na França. O objetivo é entender o impacto das idéias sobre as relações de gênero bem como sobre as mulheres no processo de produção cultural, divulgando estereótipos que até hoje estão fortemente enraizadas em nosso imaginário social. Abstract This paper discusses representations of gender in literary texts and pictorial images in nineteenth century, focusing on the image of fatal woman, using as main source Emile Zola’s novel Nana, published in France, in 1879. Its goal is to understand the impact of ideas on gender relations, as well as on women in the process of cultural production, wich spread deeply rooted stereotypes in our social imaginary till today.

SEMANTIC COUNTERPOINT AND THE POETRY OF GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-119
Author(s):  
Dennis Sobolev
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Practical Criticism

IT IS WELL KNOWN that both traditional, historically orientated, literary criticism and new-critical studies were inseparable from a belief in the “unity” of meaning – a belief in the existence, below the multicolored surface of the literary text, of a single semantic center, which unifies the text and turns it into an “organic whole.” Similarly, Russian Formalists and Prague Structuralists, though critical of the notion of the “organic whole” and its use in art criticism by the Neo-Romantics and the Symbolists, never questioned the alleged semantic unity of the literary text. An alternative approach to the problem of meaning was developed in the early books of Michel Foucault and conceptualized in his Archeology of Knowledge; he described meaning as “dispersal” and “dissemination.” A little later, in Dissemination and On Grammatology, Jacques Derrida radicalized Foucault's position by questioning the existence of clear-cut boundaries for Foucault's semantic “dissemination,” and he applied this notion in both philosophy and literary criticism. The resultant polemics between the two major approaches to the problem of the organization of meaning in the literary text caused the extreme polarization of literary studies; moreover, this polemics was often based on the tacit assumption that there exist only these two possibilities of the formal description of such organization: it should be described as either “unity” or “dissemination.” At the same time, from the logical, a priori, point of view, these terms describe only the poles of possible organization of meaning; moreover, practical criticism tends to show that both pure “unity” of meaning and its pure “dissemination” are very rarely found in literary texts. Thus, it seems to me, that those scholars who work in the field of literary criticism and cultural theory should attempt to create more complex and more precise models of the organization of meaning, which will transcend the dichotomy of “unity” and “dissemination.” One of these such models, the model of “semantic counterpoint,” is described and exemplified in this paper.

scholarly journals Avoiding Homosexuality: A Critical Perspective of Bangladeshi Readers to English Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Dipak Kumar Sarkar ◽  
Sharmin Rahman Bipasha
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Critical Perspective

English literature has faced homosexuality in a progressive manner though it has been through a struggling history. That is why a lot of writers of English literature have expressed and enjoyed themselves in their own ways. This paper addresses a few famous writers whose approaches in this regard have been homosexual in type. After looking at the societal love, norms and analysis of Sigmund Freud, this paper approaches Bangladesh and her view in this regard. This paper finds a kind of interdicted move from Bangladesh toward the homosexually important texts and finds the need to have a reciprocal approach. Finally, the outcome of this paper indicates to explain a critical perspective of Bangladeshi readers’ psychology that is how and why they avoid homosexuality as well as literary texts implied with it.

scholarly journals Kaszubska postpamięć

Politeja ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2(65)) ◽  
pp. 153-169
Author(s):  
Daniel Kalinowski
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War

Kashubian Post-memory. Some Contemporary Examples The article contains analyses of several contemporary literary texts concerning the category of post-memory written in the background of the Kashubian culture. It mainly interprets prose works (Drewz, Bunda, Drzeżdżon) as well as the novel on which the film Kamerdyner was based. The analyses led to determining the phenomena defined by Sigmund Freud related to psychoanalysis and referring to the works by A. and J. Assmann, M. Hirsch and D. LaCapra. Thus Kashubian literature, written in Polish and Kashubian, shows post-memory mechanisms in the form of crowding out, transferring, repeating and overcoming the trauma of World War II.

scholarly journals Post-colonialism and Feminism

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
A. L. M. Riyal
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The Common ◽  
Post Colonialism ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Relationship

Since the 1980s, feminism and post-colonialism began to exchange and dialogue, forming a new interpretation space, that is, post-colonial feminist cultural theory. There is a very complicated relationship between post-colonialism and feminism, both in practice and theory. It was obvious that they have always been consistent as both cultural theories focus on the marginalization of the "other" that is marginalized by the ruling structure, consciously defending their interests. Post-structuralism is used to deny the common foundation of patriarchy and colonialism—the thinking mode of binary opposition. However, only in the most recent period, Postcolonialism and feminism "Running" is more "near", it is almost like an alliance. (The factor contributing to this alliance is that both parties recognize their limitations.) Furthermore, for quite some time there have been serious conflicts between these two equally famous critical theories. They have been deeply divided on issues, such as how to evaluate the third world women’s liberation, how to view the relationship between imperialism and feminism, and how to understand that colonialists use the standards of feminism to support their "civilization mission." This article has greatly benefited from the perspectives and materials of Leela Gandhi's Postcolonial Theory; A Critical Introduction.

The Anatomy of Dance Discourse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Schlapbach
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Lucian Of Samosata ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
Original Contribution

This book makes an original contribution to the newly thriving field of ancient Greek and Roman performance and dance studies. It offers a better grasp of ancient perceptions and conceptualizations of dance through the lens of literary texts. It gives attention not only to the highly encoded genre of pantomime, which dominates the stages in the Roman Empire, but also to acrobatic, non-representational dances. It is distinctive in its juxtaposition of ancient theorizations of dance with literary depictions of dance scenes. Part I explores the contact zones of ancient dance discourse with other areas of cultural expression, especially language and poetry, rhetoric and art, and philosophy and religion. Part II discusses ekphraseis of dance performances in prose and poetry. The main bulk of the book focuses roughly on the second century CE (discussing Plutarch, Lucian of Samosata, Athenaeus, the apocryphal Acts of John, Longus, and Apuleius), with excursions to Xenophon and Nonnus. Dance is performative and dynamic, and its way to cognition and action is physical experience. This book argues that dance was understood as a practice in which human beings, whether as dancers or spectators, are confronted with the irreducible reality of their own physical existence, which is constantly changing.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document