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Sensate Vision: From Maximum Visibility to Haptic Erotics
Get PDFFor years, moving-image pornography has been shaped by a desire for “maximum visibility,” according to film scholar Linda Williams (1999), informing pornography’s formulaic and repetitive graphic depiction of the mechanics of the sexual act, as well as its intense scrutiny of the female body, and its different generic tropes, the most important one being the so-called “money shot,” consisting of the external male ejaculation. However, in the course of the last two decades, a corpus of feminist, lesbian, and queer pornography has appeared, which not only expresses a particular interest in bringing to screen female sexual pleasure, but also problematizes pornography’s obsession with maximum visibility, instead seeking to convey the tactile and visceral “feel” of the sexual encounter. By taking up Laura Marks’s concept of “haptic visuality” as a particular feminist strategy, this article takes into account two examples of alternative pornography, namely Touch (2013) and One Night Stand (2006), in order to describe the ways in which these films not only appropriate the carnal appeal of pornography, but also reconfigure it, experimenting with different ways of visualizing female sexuality, and opening up not only what pornography might look like, but also what it might do
Violence and Gender in the Globalized World, edited by Sanja Bahun and V.G. Julie Rajan
No full textBook review of Sanja Bahun and V.G. Julie Rajan (eds), Violence and Gender in the Globalized World: The Intimate and the Extimate (Ashgate, 2nd ed, 2015)
Challenging and Redressing Police Failures in the Context of Rape Investigations: The Civil Liability Route
No full textThe question of police attitudes to and conduct of rape complaints has been in the British public eye now for some time. A damning succession of studies have catalogued police failings, from initial reporting through to final disposition of a case, generating a mountain of data evidencing deep structural, institutional, and cultural problems going to the heart of the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. Located within a broader policy context of growing concern over the low rate of convictions for rape cases and set against a backdrop of substantial reform of rape law, not just in England and Wales but around the globe, the police handling of rape investigations has attracted repeated criticism and public scrutiny.One way of addressing these concerns is through strategic civil litigation. ooking beyond the UK, it is clear that both tort and human rights arguments have been successfully invoked to redress systemic and operational problems pertaining to the police conduct of rape investigations. Within the UK, such developments have been constrained by the doctrinal framework, particularly by the strong judicial deference given to policy considerations against civil liability first articulated in Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire (1989). However, recent developments in human rights law and, in particular, the successful suit against the Metropolitan police for investigative failures in the context of the ‘Black cab rapist’ case (DSD & NBV v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (2014)) suggest that this avenue of redress may now be opening up.How should this development be viewed in the context of the wider problem rape presents to criminal justice? Can civil liability be deployed effectively to bring about transformative cultural and institutional change in the context of investigating and prosecuting rape? Might it deliver results where all else appears to have failed? The purpose of this paper is to begin to explore these questions
About the cover image
No full textThis volume features a piece of artwork by Hannah Tiernan. Hannah graduated in 2013 from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and is now studying photography at Griffith College Dublin. She works mainly in photography but also in sculpture and installation. She has exhibited her work on a number of occasions in Dublin, including a solo show at the Hendrons Collider gallery space. The image Sharper Edge came about through observing abstract forms in everyday objects. The picture was taken of a broken glass block window in a converted factory. As the block was hollow, the break resulted in a natural layered effect. This effect was not necessarily obvious to the naked eye when seen in 3D however when taken digitally in a photographic 2D format, the result was more surreal. For more of Hannah's work please visit her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HannahTiernanArtist?ref=stream
Vizenor and Beckett: Postmodern Identifications
Get PDFThrough the use of an epigraph from The Unnamable and repeated echoes in Dead Voices, Vizenor established a relation to Beckett’s work. This paper traces the influence of Beckett in Vizenor and questions how Vizenor reads Beckett, particularly in political and postcolonial terms. Rather than the prevailing view that Beckett is an apolitical and ahistorical writer, the relation with Vizenor hinges on a postmodern and postcolonial awareness of the dangers of imposed and restrictive identities. This awareness finds expression in both authors as both an aesthetic and political concern. It is argued that both authors seek to undo all forms of rigid identity within the works in an attempt to maintain a fluidity which might inform attempts at continuance and resistance. However, as can be seen in the wanaki game of Dead Voices, Vizenor’s sense of fluid identity is implicated in a communal “we”, whereas Beckett’s solitary voice in The Unnamable eschews any form of community, thus leading one to question the efficacy of Vizenor’s position. Nevertheless, the paper argues that Vizenor’s deployment of Beckett reveals that both authors adopt a committed political stance at the most fundamental aesthetic levels of the novel form
Jackalope Walks into a Minneapolis Bar
Get PDFCreative fiction about transformative Blue Ravens, Bear, and Jackalope
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