USB Journals (Univ. Köln)
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Close Encounters of an Intimate Kind: Gender and Performance during COVID-19
No full textIntimacy Directors International was founded in 2016 as an organization that targets the artistic direction of intimate scenes (such as sex scenes or romantic scenes) in theatre, film and television. Partially prompted by the #Metoo movement, the intimacy direction effort is an acknowledgement of the sexual harassment and interpersonal discomfort that many performers (largely women) experience in the entertainment industry. The directing approach that is advocated by this group, and other newly formed groups with similar purposes, is one that looks at intimate scene-work much like stage combat or stunt work, where the movements are choreographed in order to prevent harm. There are also frequent check-ins so that the actors feel allowed to voice any anxiety or desire to change or stop what is happening. With COVID-19 bringing performance (particularly live theatre performance) to a halt indefinitely, the effects on performers’ careers are substantial. I focus on the consequences to the intimacy direction movement which already targets gender differently, given the inequity faced by most women in these industries. The Intimacy Directors International organization, according to their website, officially dissolved as of March 15, 2020. While they note that their mission—to initiate the intimacy direction industry—has been accomplished, I will explore how the dissolution of such a supportive and large part of the movement might affect performance as it regains its place in society, particularly for those most negatively affected by the negligent and predatory practices that brought about the need for intimacy direction in the first place
Frontmatter and Editorial
No full textIn lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the editorial:
Gender Studies is not only a means that allows us the examination of social norms pertaining what it means to be a ‘woman’ or a ‘man’, it is also not merely a means to challenge or contest those meanings. More than anything gender studies continues to be critical in the pursue of social, economic, and political justice for all. A means to investigate the production, reproduction and (more often than not) the resistance to norms that produce inequalities. Also, it is of utmost importance to understand that the gender binary is a Western concept and that historically speaking, gender has always been fluid and must maintain to be viewed so
Genderqueer Perspectives on Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and 4.48 Psychosis
No full textThis essay analyses the plays Cleansed and 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane in the context of genderqueer identity. Genderqueer is used as an umbrella term for identities that fall outside the binary of male and female, a concept imposed by a Western hetero- and homonormative society that this work seeks to subvert. Contemporary queer (performance) theory and lived experiences of trans* and queer people form an integral part in understanding the plays’ characters, their struggles and their journey in these plays. This serves as an attempt to disrupt academic discourse around identity in Kane’s works to-date and inform ways to understand genderqueer perspectives
Subverting Pornormativity: Feminist and Queer Interventions
No full textFeminist activist Robin Morgan is famously quoted as saying that "pornography is the theory, rape is the practice". This has long been one of the chief arguments of pornography-critics, both liberal and conservative, and this attitude has largely forestalled the possibility of critical feminist engagement with the medium of pornography. There is, however, a small but growing number of sex-positive feminist pornographers who produce images and films that interrogate and disrupt the phallocentric and heteronormative patterns of mainstream pornography and offer an alternative in the form of pornography that portrays bodies and sexualities in all of their variety. In this article, I provide a brief overview over feminist treatment of pornography, and then contrast it with the recent efforts by sex-positive feminists to reappropriate pornography in holistic and inclusive ways. I will underline my argument by providing examples from feminist producer Tristan Taormino and performer Jiz Lee
Revisit but not Revise: Friendship and the Romantic Imperative
No full textPopular culture apparently feels the need to return, yet again, to Harry’s and Sally’s statement that “men and women can’t be friends” (When Harry met Sally) in another of Hollywood’s romantic comedies. Friends with Benefits, as a close relative of the iconic When Harry met Sally... in terms of theme and plot, is not only revealing with regard to concepts of friendship and/as opposed to romance. The romantic imperative it constructs and represents is certainly a gendered imperative, as well: The crucial issue is the avoidance of romance in a specific constellation, namely cross-sex friendship between two heterosexual individuals – attempts at which, the films suggest, are doomed to failure. In this sense the narratives are driven by (the question of) a “romantic imperative”, that is by debating and depicting the unavoidability of falling in love. When Harry met Sally and Friends with Benefits both participate in the “contemporary phrasings” which, as Victor Luftig puts it, “define male/female friendship according to what it is not”. Concepts such as “‘just friends,’ ‘only friends,’ ‘not lovers’” all “in effect describe friendship negatively” (1) and testify to our lack of conceptions of male-female relations outside heteronormative frameworks. The films’ plots confirm those frameworks in denying alternatives to heterosexual romance. I would like to suggest that at the core of the “friends turned lovers” theme is a particular dynamic of likeness and difference, and that the narration of a process of transition from friendship to romance allows a production of difference that serves certain purposes.
Flapper Girls – Feminism and Consumer Society in the 1920s
No full textFlapper Girls were young women in the years after the First World War who acted explicitly as apolitical individuals. First and foremost, one associates a certain style of fashion with women during the twenties: the bob, rouge on the cheeks, powder on the knees, and short skirts. This is the typical flapper-like behavior: smoking in public, driving in cars, dancing the Charleston or the Shimmy, excessive consumption of alcohol in times of prohibition, nightly celebrations in jazz clubs and at petting parties, where men and women had premarital sexual experiences. These women’s hedonism is highly marked by consumption: consumption of mass industrial products, consumption of mass culture and mass media, consumption of urban nightlife, consumption of sexuality – 1920s consumer society in Germany as well as in the United States received a noticeable boost. The phenomenon of the Flapper and its image in the public sphere will be taken into consideration in regards to its connection to consumer culture with its various facets. In particular the question will be discussed to what extent the Flapper Girl phenomenon has feminist potential.
Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca Skloot.
No full textIn lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the interveiw:
The thriving pharmaceutical industries, modern medical breakthroughs and increased dependency on prescription medicine have captured much media and academic interests lately. Rebecca Skloot’s acclaimed book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks contributes to this discourse. It incisively weaves issues related to gender, race and class with health, medical practice myth, art, miracle, history and science and exposes the benefits and abuse of medical advances. At the center of this book is Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman who died in 1951 of cervical cancer, but the cells from the deadly tumor that were taken without her knowledge or consent live on. “HeLa,” the term scientists used to name her miraculously productive cell line, would propel to fame numerous laboratories, scientists and scholars creating a multi-billion dollar industry
