From his first to his last novel, Pynchon has addressed the “constraints” hemming in human existence and gestured to different ways of transcending these. After summarizing the way his novels exemplify this twofold movement I will offer a reading of his last novel Bleeding Edge and show how the dialectic between structures of power and human resistance continue to order the narrative. My reading of the novel will argue that, like in his previous work, the cooption of utopian potential resurfaces in this work and offers a vivid way of analyzing “speculative change” in literature.
{"title":"Structure and Resistance in Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge","authors":"S. Grgas","doi":"10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.6","url":null,"abstract":"From his first to his last novel, Pynchon has addressed the “constraints” hemming in\u0000human existence and gestured to different ways of transcending these. After summarizing the way his novels exemplify this twofold movement I will offer a reading of his\u0000last novel Bleeding Edge and show how the dialectic between structures of power and\u0000human resistance continue to order the narrative. My reading of the novel will argue\u0000that, like in his previous work, the cooption of utopian potential resurfaces in this work\u0000and offers a vivid way of analyzing “speculative change” in literature.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"8 1","pages":"111-126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75287100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article provides a glimpse into the echo of the European refugee crisis in contemporary European cinema and the modes of narration deployed in representations of the phenomenon that is rapidly changing the European political and cultural landscape. The representation of the crisis seems to be bringing about a crisis of representation. Mainstream media refugee images are penetrating both the big screens and television production. Drama and victimhood are, consequently, inevitably becoming the dominant modes of narration (See Rosi’s Fuocoammare), but a growing number of filmmakers address the issue in rather creative ways, bravely experimenting with the nature of the cinematic event as a whole.
{"title":"To Unsee the Sea","authors":"Paul Jurišić","doi":"10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.7","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a glimpse into the echo of the European refugee crisis in contemporary European cinema and the modes of narration deployed in representations of the\u0000phenomenon that is rapidly changing the European political and cultural landscape.\u0000The representation of the crisis seems to be bringing about a crisis of representation.\u0000Mainstream media refugee images are penetrating both the big screens and television\u0000production. Drama and victimhood are, consequently, inevitably becoming the dominant\u0000modes of narration (See Rosi’s Fuocoammare), but a growing number of filmmakers\u0000address the issue in rather creative ways, bravely experimenting with the nature of the\u0000cinematic event as a whole.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"28 1","pages":"127-144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81512629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An artistic creation expressed as a cultural phenomenon symbolizes the characteristics of a nation’s soul and mental life. And the cultural heritage of a nation, which shows us the religious symbols and signs in the great nature to be harmonized with the profane and the sacred, is also easily found in the East and the West. Troytsa, Jangseung, Sotdae: these can be taken as representative. Regarding the Romanian cultural heritage of Troytsa, the village tutelary deity conforms very similarly to Korean Jangseung and Sotdae. Jangseung and Sotdae, representative popular sculptured creations of Korean folk beliefs, and which are related to the totem pole, are close to villagers’ lives, being the divine protection of the village’s peace, as well as functioning as a signpost and a boundary, ensuring a good harvest and preventing misfortune, etc. A Sotdae, which features a bird on top of a pole, is recognized as an object of belief mixed between the “Tree of the World” and the “Bird of the Soul” in northern-cultural Asian shamanism. Unlike them, the Romanian Troytsa, which took root in an ancient faith (the Totem of the Tree), is a divine, sculptured creation mixed with Christianity, generally located at the entrance of a village or at an intersection of roads. These tutelary deities and their variations share functions and characteristics, but their features and patterns are different. Jangseung have angry and fearful countenances in order to turn away diseases and evil spirits, but Sotdae and Troytsa maintain the style of a menhir or a column as one of the folk beliefs related to the totem pole. Even today, Troytsa, Jangseung, Sotdae are being generated and developed as representative cultural prototypes and village tutelary deities.
{"title":"Village Tutelary Deities as a Cultural and Axiological Symbol in Korea and Romania","authors":"Jeong Hwan Kim","doi":"10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.1","url":null,"abstract":"An artistic creation expressed as a cultural phenomenon symbolizes the characteristics\u0000of a nation’s soul and mental life. And the cultural heritage of a nation, which shows\u0000us the religious symbols and signs in the great nature to be harmonized with the profane and the sacred, is also easily found in the East and the West. Troytsa, Jangseung,\u0000Sotdae: these can be taken as representative. Regarding the Romanian cultural heritage\u0000of Troytsa, the village tutelary deity conforms very similarly to Korean Jangseung and\u0000Sotdae. Jangseung and Sotdae, representative popular sculptured creations of Korean\u0000folk beliefs, and which are related to the totem pole, are close to villagers’ lives, being\u0000the divine protection of the village’s peace, as well as functioning as a signpost and\u0000a boundary, ensuring a good harvest and preventing misfortune, etc. A Sotdae, which\u0000features a bird on top of a pole, is recognized as an object of belief mixed between the\u0000“Tree of the World” and the “Bird of the Soul” in northern-cultural Asian shamanism.\u0000Unlike them, the Romanian Troytsa, which took root in an ancient faith (the Totem of\u0000the Tree), is a divine, sculptured creation mixed with Christianity, generally located at\u0000the entrance of a village or at an intersection of roads. These tutelary deities and their\u0000variations share functions and characteristics, but their features and patterns are different. Jangseung have angry and fearful countenances in order to turn away diseases\u0000and evil spirits, but Sotdae and Troytsa maintain the style of a menhir or a column as\u0000one of the folk beliefs related to the totem pole. Even today, Troytsa, Jangseung, Sotdae\u0000are being generated and developed as representative cultural prototypes and village\u0000tutelary deities.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"4 1","pages":"9-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91308601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents a philological and imagological analysis of the mutual contradictions of two types of characters in the corpus of Mediterranean literature. The highlander and the seasider, one brutal and the other imbedded in the hetero-conception of the other, belong to standard Mediterranean literary types, namely archetypes, from myths to the present. Literature on the Mediterranean and about the Mediterranean is abundant with typified descriptions of the highlander being a tough guy, violent, and the seasider as cunning, envious or a serial seducer. The imagology of these types and their mutual opposition is the topic of this philological analysis. The paper focuses on a comparative analysis of this imagotype/stereotype existing throughout the Mediterranean and transmitted from one literature to another throughout the centuries. The aim of the work is to review and summarize the literature concerning the archetypes of the highlander and the seasider in order to have a better understanding of the patterns of imagotypes and archetypes in the collective imaginary represented by Mediterranean literature.
{"title":"Brutal Highlanders and Crooked Coastals","authors":"Inoslav Bešker","doi":"10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.8","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a philological and imagological analysis of the mutual contradictions of two types of characters in the corpus of Mediterranean literature. The highlander and the seasider, one brutal and the other imbedded in the hetero-conception of the other, belong to standard Mediterranean literary types, namely archetypes, from myths to the present. Literature on the Mediterranean and about the Mediterranean is abundant with typified descriptions of the highlander being a tough guy, violent, and the seasider as cunning, envious or a serial seducer. The imagology of these types and their mutual opposition is the topic of this philological analysis. The paper focuses on a comparative analysis of this imagotype/stereotype existing throughout the Mediterranean and transmitted from one literature to another throughout the centuries. The aim of the work is to review and summarize the literature concerning the archetypes of the highlander and the seasider in order to have a better understanding of the patterns of imagotypes and archetypes in the collective imaginary represented by Mediterranean literature.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"158 2","pages":"147-181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72425730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The unreadable and the illegible tend to be treated as the “other” of writing. Playing on one of the meanings of xenography – writing in a language unknown to the writer – this paper explores the possibility that the metaphorical “gravity assist” of literature, rather than engaging the resources of content and imagination, actually resides in the cognitively inaccessible layers of writing as a material phenomenon. If we accept Harman’s definition of realism as something that can’t be translated into human knowledge without energy loss, regions of unintelligibility in literary writing take on a completely different meaning, and appear as zones coinciding with the asemic material exteriority, equally unavailable to thought and mimesis. Writings of Thomas Ligotti (The Red Tower), Reza Negarestani (Cyclonopedia) and Mark Z. Danielewski (The Familiar) are examined in the light of various atypical formal devices they use to convey a certain “otherness,” introducing varying degrees of unreadability as a response to the “inscrutability of the Real itself” (Fisher) and enforcing new types of non-hierarchical distribution of agency between writer, reader and text.
不可读和难以辨认的东西往往被视为写作的“他者”。利用异域写法(xenography)的其中一个含义——用作者不知道的语言写作——本文探讨了文学的隐喻性“重力辅助”的可能性,而不是利用内容和想象的资源,实际上存在于作为一种物质现象的认知上难以企及的写作层面。如果我们接受哈曼对现实主义的定义,认为现实主义在没有能量损失的情况下是无法转化为人类知识的,那么文学写作中不可理解的区域就具有了完全不同的意义,并且出现在与无意识的物质外部性相一致的区域,同样无法思考和模仿。Thomas Ligotti(《红塔》)、Reza Negarestani(《Cyclonopedia》)和Mark Z. Danielewski(《熟悉》)的作品通过各种非典型的形式手段来传达某种“他者性”,引入不同程度的不可读性,作为对“真实本身的不可知性”(Fisher)的回应,并在作者、读者和文本之间强制执行新型的非等级分配。
{"title":"Readability Thresholds","authors":"Luka Bekavac","doi":"10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38003/CCSR.1.1-2.4","url":null,"abstract":"The unreadable and the illegible tend to be treated as the “other” of writing. Playing on one of the meanings of xenography – writing in a language unknown to the writer – this paper explores the possibility that the metaphorical “gravity assist” of literature, rather than engaging the resources of content and imagination, actually resides in the cognitively inaccessible layers of writing as a material phenomenon. If we accept Harman’s definition of realism as something that can’t be translated into human knowledge without energy loss, regions of unintelligibility in literary writing take on a completely different meaning, and appear as zones coinciding with the asemic material exteriority, equally unavailable to thought and mimesis. Writings of Thomas Ligotti (The Red Tower), Reza Negarestani (Cyclonopedia) and Mark Z. Danielewski (The Familiar) are examined in the light of various atypical formal devices they use to convey a certain “otherness,” introducing varying degrees of unreadability as a response to the “inscrutability of the Real itself” (Fisher) and enforcing new types of non-hierarchical distribution of agency between writer, reader and text.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"69-90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75403173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Final Issue Cultural Studies Review","authors":"C. Healy, K. Schlunke","doi":"10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6939","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"22 1","pages":"1-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81679173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2013, the Singapore government announced a plan to build the Cross Island Line (CRL), the country’s eighth Mass Rapid Transit train line. Since its release, the proposal has caused ongoing heated debate as it involves going underneath Singapore’s largest remaining reserve: the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Following extended discussions with environmental groups, the transport authority later stated that they would now consider two route options: a direct alignment running underneath the Central Reserve, and an alternative route that skirts the reserve boundary. The authority warned that the skirting option could increase the construction cost significantly and cost commuters an extra few minutes of travel time. Intriguingly, in contrast to the underground rail project that threatens to further fragment the Central Reserve, another, more visible, repair work is taking place at the edge of the same reserve, aiming to reconnect fragmented habitat through an eco-bridge. Through these two seemingly contrasting yet intimately related case studies in a highly developed city-state, this article explores the complexity and ambivalence of urban movement and its entanglement with development, techonology and urban natures. How are the discourses of urban mobility directed by the desire for ‘velocity’, the politics of invisibility, and a fixation on certainty? What might it mean to reconfigure contemporary practices and ethics towards multispecies movements in an increasingly urbanised environment? Amid the growing expansions of infrastructure and public transportation in Singapore and around the world, often in the name of sustainability and liveability, this article unsettles some taken-for-granted, velocity-charged and human-centred approaches to urban movement and explores the serious need to craft new possibilities for a more inclusive and flourishing urban movement.
{"title":"Re-imagining urban movement: at the intersection of a nature reserve, underground railway and eco-bridge","authors":"Jamie Wang","doi":"10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6213","url":null,"abstract":"In 2013, the Singapore government announced a plan to build the Cross Island Line (CRL), the country’s eighth Mass Rapid Transit train line. Since its release, the proposal has caused ongoing heated debate as it involves going underneath Singapore’s largest remaining reserve: the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Following extended discussions with environmental groups, the transport authority later stated that they would now consider two route options: a direct alignment running underneath the Central Reserve, and an alternative route that skirts the reserve boundary. The authority warned that the skirting option could increase the construction cost significantly and cost commuters an extra few minutes of travel time. Intriguingly, in contrast to the underground rail project that threatens to further fragment the Central Reserve, another, more visible, repair work is taking place at the edge of the same reserve, aiming to reconnect fragmented habitat through an eco-bridge. Through these two seemingly contrasting yet intimately related case studies in a highly developed city-state, this article explores the complexity and ambivalence of urban movement and its entanglement with development, techonology and urban natures. How are the discourses of urban mobility directed by the desire for ‘velocity’, the politics of invisibility, and a fixation on certainty? What might it mean to reconfigure contemporary practices and ethics towards multispecies movements in an increasingly urbanised environment? Amid the growing expansions of infrastructure and public transportation in Singapore and around the world, often in the name of sustainability and liveability, this article unsettles some taken-for-granted, velocity-charged and human-centred approaches to urban movement and explores the serious need to craft new possibilities for a more inclusive and flourishing urban movement.","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"8-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89980245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Kerala: A Cultural Studies Tour","authors":"Simon During","doi":"10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/CSR.V25I2.6911","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85219874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quotidian: Just Another Casual Saturday","authors":"M. Chakraborty","doi":"10.5130/csr.v25i2.6929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v25i2.6929","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51871,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies Review","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87011099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}