FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts
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Fictional, Factual, and Flying Space: Throwing at the Theatre in The Author on the Wheel
Get PDFThe anonymously-written one-act play The Author on the Wheel, or, a Piece Cut in the Green Room premiered at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on April 18, 1785 (The Daily Universal Register April 18, 1785). It follows a theatre manager with an awful, yet necessary task on his hands: to substantially revise and cut down a play in between the play’s first and second performances. The opening night performance of the play was such a failure that it provoked the audience to throw fruit at the actors to show their disdain; therefore the cast refuses to perform until the script is substantially changed. The revision session in the green room does not go according to plan, and after much insult and humiliation from the manager, cast, and crew, the arrogant author storms out with his manuscript, ready to inflict his awful dialogue on another unsuspecting theatre company.Spaces in the theatre, due to their dynamic and potent properties, offer a way to examine meanings created by spectators and performers in terms of physical space, fictional space, and even textual space. Through my study of The Author on the Wheel, I consider a part of performance that complicates the idea of physical stage space to an extreme (and sometimes even dangerous) degree while somehow managing to avoid much historical and theoretical scrutiny: the thrown object. I investigate the movement between and amongst spaces made by the thrown object. The thrown objects to which I am referring are the apples, pears and oranges hurled toward the stage by the fictional audience in The Author on the Wheel. The incident of the thrown object occurs only as a memory in the play, recounted in the after-performance discussion in the green room. Through this dialogue, the characters tell tales of acting on the stage whilst enduring a barrage of fruit
Come, Armageddon! Come! Queer Nihilism and the Margin of the Urban
Get PDFTo think about the literal position of a queer subject, that is, the place where the subject is materially and in relation to other subjects, is to confront the myriad ways in which that subject will be conditioned depending upon how proximate space is normatively differentiated and vice versa. In the context of urban space, by which I mean less a quantity than a quality of density, the spatial narrative that supports the queer subject is twofold—emigration and speculation. First, x escapes a repressive and oppressive rural environment to seek amnesty, either in the form of celebrated welcome or anonymity, in an urban one. Subsequently, x forages into the concrete jungle, creating and in pursuit of circuits of sexual partners and diverse sociabilities.This trajectory, however, has become increasingly contested, both for the way in which it upholds an imaginary boundary between rural and urban and for the subjects it obscures in the process. Pointedly, Karen Tongson, in her essay The Light That Never Goes Out: Butch Intimacies and Sub-Urban Sociabilities in ‘Lesser Los Angeles,’ provides a reading of Samuel Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities next to Richard Florida’s Cities and the Creative Class to suggest that “the cultural value assigned to urban modes of queer life—to its mobility, style, innovation, improvisation, liveliness, and ‘contact’—has appreciated urban property values while depreciating modes of racialized queer sociability.” Significantly, then, cultural capital appreciates not only in direct proportion to urban property values, but also in favour of the “upwardly mobile queers,” who will eventually be able to inhabit them (364).While Tongson’s analysis is site-specific to east Los Angeles, I want to take a less local approach and consider how alongside locating queers as being complicit with gentrification, might they also be positioned outside of it. I will consider what the aesthetic implications of this might be on sub-urban space. I employ the term sub-urban, as distinct from both urban and suburban, to name a reconceptualization of the city that takes into account the necessary excess produced by the city that cannot be contained by its zoning. This conception hearkens to the etymology of the sub- in suburban, as outside of and spatially beneath the elevated and walled Roman city.The paper will proceed in three parts. The first, The Queen Is Dead, turns to a filmic example of adult sub-urban space. The second, I Sit Down on the Sling Seat and See the City Spread Out between My Legs, provides a textual example of adolescent sub-urban space. And the third, The Future Is Always a Day Away, establishes the theoretical framework in which the argument is couched. Significantly, this framework draws on Lee Edelman\u27s indictment against the Child in his book No Future, which itself draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis and the idea that the future is linguistically-bound. Edelman’s Child is analogized to the discourse surrounding gentrification not only as it privileges creating safe neighborhoods for the rearing of real children, but also as it invests in the idea of a brighter future
Spaces Turning into Places: Mental vs. Institutional Places and Spaces in Colin Thubron’s A Cruel Madness
Get PDFPsychiatric hospitals by and large fulfil a dual function: historically, they derive from societies\u27 need to isolate those individuals not conforming to the established morals (Foucault, Madness 61). In the eighteenth century, conceptions of madness had taken on notions of contagion and disease, which society allegedly needed to be protected from (Smart 22). Even nowadays, the protection of society remains a factor, albeit on the basis of the unintentional threat posed by potentially violent mentally ill individuals (Goffman 4). On the other hand, the purpose of psychiatric hospitals is to care for individuals who, due to their mental illness, are incapable of caring for themselves (Goffman 4). This double function is also reflected in the word asylum, which can not only refer to a "lunatic asylum" ("Asylum," def. 4.), the predecessor of the psychiatric hospital, but can also denote a "secure place of refuge, shelter, or retreat" ("Asylum," def. 2).Whether to protect society or to provide a place of retreat, mental hospitals need to delimit and control contact with the outside. Hence, their barriers to social intercourse are "often built right into the physical plant" in the form of locked doors and windows and surrounding walls (Goffman 4). These boundaries can symbolise both aspects of asylum: they can provide protection from a dangerous outside and may also be experienced as restrictive and confining. Michel de Certeau\u27s conception of places and spaces can be usefully deployed for an analysis of how psychiatric patients make do within these institutions. The same pertains to representations of such patients in literature. This paper will analyse Colin Thubron\u27s A Cruel Madness in light of the questions of how Daniel Pashley, the narrator, perceives and negotiates the boundaries of the institutions he finds himself in; how he creates spaces of his own; and what exactly the boundaries that delimit this creation of individual spaces are
“What a story it could be”: Identity and Narrative Strategy in Ali Smith’s Like
Get PDFRemarking upon its dual narrative structure, muddled chronology and conflicting accounts of past events, Ali Smith described her debut novel Like as “a nasty warring book, a book of two sides” (qtd. in Murray 222). The connection made here between the “warring” nature of the novel and the opposing narratives that constitute its “two sides” is crucial, and reveals that the conflict described by Smith relates as much to Like’s fragmented structure as it does its content. Indeed, the “warring” that takes place in Like occurs not only in its various settings – the bedrooms, dormitories and theatres in which its protagonists, Amy and Ash, witness their carefully concealed relationship bloom and wither – but also between its contrasting sections, each narrated from a different point in time. What is at stake in this war of words is the memory and legacy of the love once shared between the novel’s now estranged protagonists: a love which is brought proudly to the forefront of Ash’s personal account of the past, yet is largely absent from the third person, present tense narrative that constitutes Amy’s section of the text. Offering the reader a series of readings (and re-readings) of events and encounters in this way, Like reveals itself to be a novel concerned with the strategies behind storytelling, with the memories one might artfully preserve, discard, embellish or invent when fashioning a version of one’s history and, in turn, of oneself.
‘At Home in Dust’: Francesca Woodman’s House Series, Revisited
Get PDFA reassessment of Francesca Woodman’s work is due, particularly with respect to how her photographs contribute to theorizing “the space of the subject” (Kirby 11). Woodman’s House Series, which she completed in Rhode Island between 1975 and 1978, then a young student photographer of the Rhode Island School of Design, provides fertile ground to assess the importance of ‘space’ to Woodman’s work and its critical reception. Carol Armstrong’s essay “Francesca Woodman: A Ghost in the House of the Woman Artist” argues that Woodman’s “use of space—that of the house most often—of very old houses (inhabited by very young bodies)” is indicative of an identity resting on the threshold of gender (348). The “spatial aspect” of Woodman’s work, Armstrong argues, reveals the female as a “figure of irruptive difference” occupying a “ludic space”, where play is an act of self-definition (350).Woodman’s affinity with places marked by dirt, dust and decay, however, is discordant with the easy categorization of her as one on the verge of a preoccupation with ‘feminine space.’ “Space and where we are in it” writes Kathleen Kirby in Defining the Space of the Subject: Investigating the Boundaries of Feminism, “determines a large portion of our status as subjects” (Kirby 12). It is my suggestion that the issues of identity in theHouse Series demand a fresh look, which considers their spatial context. Looking closely at photographs House #3 and House #4, I will explore the themes of identity and place, woman and artist, with the conviction that these contrasting themes are united. Edward Casey argues in Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place World that “body and place belong together” (45) and I begin this analysis of Woodman’s House Series with the assertion that place, or where we are, “has everything to do with what and who we are” (Casey xiii)
Ecocriticism and Terraforming: Building Critical Spaces
Get PDFScience fiction employs a distinctive language to engage speculatively yet critically with our contemporary world. Space, with its discrete planetary bodies and other cosmic objects, functions both as an emblem of science fiction and operates in a more general sense as a space in which to map social, ideological and ontological boundaries between cultures and between humanity and the universe. This is especially evident in narratives of terraforming. They engage with climate change and environmental philosophy and bring these discourses into contact with a postcolonial geopolitics that is reflected upon through the colonisation of other worlds. Science fiction makes use of plausible representations of science to build spaces on separate worlds where these issues can be confronted and alternative socio-political configurations entertained. This dynamic can be seen at the intersections between ecocritical and postcolonial theory in Kim Stanley Robinson\u27s acclaimed Mars trilogy, comprising Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars. In order to highlight the critical spaces put into play and the distinctive contribution science fiction makes to these issues, my point of entry will be the language of science fiction. I examine the megatextual trope of terraforming and the significance of Robinson\u27s development of this motif before analysing specific chronotopes and the values connected to them. I then consider Edward Said\u27s discussion of space and the Other to ask how Robinson\u27s Mars trilogy operates as an exploration of dialogised spaces concerned with imagining socio-economic issues from ecocritical and postcolonial perspectives. First, however, I begin by considering M.M. Bakhtin\u27s concepts of the chronotope and dialogism alongside Damien Broderick\u27s notion of the science fiction megatext
Creating Oneself as a Mother: Dreams, Reality and Identity in Doris Lessing’s the Fifth Child (1988)
Get PDF"With a few symbols a dream can define the whole of one\u27s life, and warn us of the future, too" (Schlueter 71).In this extract from an interview by Jonah Raskin in 1969, Doris Lessing explained the importance of dreams in her major work, The Golden Notebook; but it could just as easily be applied to a large part of her extensive novelistic corpus. Throughout her diverse literary output, Lessing uses traditional narrative methods such as tales and fables "as a creative vehicle to examine the states of consciousness of the human soul" (Galin 23). Through use of all these fantastic elements, she endows several of her novels, such as The Fifth Child (1988), with a dreamlike atmosphere in which reality and imagination merge. If dreams can define one\u27s entire life, they will also provide the clues to one\u27s own identity, illuminating areas that we do not have access to in conscious life. Identity is a major issue in the novels of Doris Lessing, especially those dealing with female protagonists trying to define their own selves amongst the different roles they perform in life. The subconscious, through dreams and imagination, plays an important part in this quest, since a person\u27s identity is built up by both conscious factors and subconscious forces.The aim of this paper is to show how Doris Lessing\u27s The Fifth Child can be read as a valid representation of a failure in the construction of identity; the novel dramatises the way in which the dreams and fantasies of the subconscious can destroy or fatally interrupt the identity-building process. The Fifth Child, which is described by Jones in the New York Review of Books as "a horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse" (30-31), combines dreaming, imagination and a sense of female identity which is endangered and comes close to disappearing. A closer look into The Fifth Child and its multi-layered treatment of identity as a form of troubled self-creation will help us to appreciate its integral role in the Lessing canon
Metamorphosis and Identity – “Cinetheatrical” Spaces in Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon
Get PDFIn his interviews, Peter Greenaway infamously claims that we have never seen films, only literature or theatre put on screen. He, being a painter himself, mostly characterises his construction of film-narrative as image-centred, a position in opposition to that of traditional plot-centred movies based on verbal narration. He wanted to make a cinema of ideas and not of plots, trying to use the same aesthetics as painting, which always paid great attention to formal devices of structure and the composition of framing (Woods 18). Not only is there a competitive relationship between the plot and the visual narration, but in his films the mediums used also vary. This contributes to the multi-layered structures of his movies, which are not limited by artificially imposed boundaries, but are centred on notions such as the place and space of performance and the self-reflective nature of art. The framework of intermediality, consequently, gains crucial significance within the discourse on Greenaway’s movies. On the one hand, it includes various mediums, allowing the interweaving of late-twentieth century visual arts (cinema and television) with theatre; on the other hand, it presupposes flexibility and a need for artistic fusion, creating a profusion of texts, images, and sounds within the given artistic constellation. This variability of expression requires variable spaces and this paper seeks to substantiate the interrelation between the metamorphosis of locations and identity in Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon
Introduction: Special Issue of FORUM on Identity
Get PDF\u27Identity\u27 is a word that we have learned - with good reason - to be wary of. Its suggestion of solidity and fixity makes it a dangerous and divisive concept that elides the flux and instability that characterizes selfhood. In academic discourses, identity has been theorized exhaustively and the idea of the subject as de-centred and constantly shifting is taken-for-granted. But still \u27identity\u27 won\u27t go away. Indeed, in some arenas of public culture, \u27identity\u27 remains a necessary concept around which to consolidate ideas of selfhood that may not be so readily accommodated in prevailing definitions of the self
The New Individualist Perspective: Identity Transformations in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis
Get PDFIn this article I examine some implications of the extraordinary financial and economic crisis sweeping the globe since 2008 – referred to in what follows as the Great Global Crash – with specific reference to the social theory of the new individualism (Elliott and Lemert, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Elliott 2008, 2009; Elliott and Urry 2010; Elliott, Katagiri and Sawai 2010).[1] The global shocks to worldwide production, financial, consumption and real estate systems unleashed by the crisis of September 2008 has carried profound consequences for economic and social development, both in terms of extensity and intensity, as well as significant implications for global security and political stability. As an indication of the global scope and depth of the macroeconomic financial crisis of 2008, the United Nations (2009) – in a report titled "World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009" – estimated that governments worldwide have spent in economic stimulus packages in excess of US2.6 trillion has been spent worldwide in fiscal stimulus packages, and that worldwide unemployment as a direct result of the financial and economic crisis might reach fifty million jobs (although the report also notes that such a figure could well double).Widely viewed as the worst world recession since the Second World War, the global policy response to the economic and financial crisis of 2008 – centred on monetary, fiscal and financial measures to stabilize financial markets and revive the global electronic economy – has sought to introduce sounder economic management and better policy regulation of the financial sector in order to achieve more sustainable economic goals for the twenty-first century. Some critics have labelled such policy responses as spelling the death of neo-liberalism, or the demise of unfettered, turbo-charged economic globalization. As a consequence, the new individualism – as a construct of identity modes underpinning the global electronic economy of mass consumerism, mass indebtedness and neo-liberalism more generally – has come in for some sustained and probing criticism (see, among others, Smith 2007 and Beasley 2009). However I shall argue in this article that, rather than heralding a new era of austerity or significant cultural reform of the global electronic economy and its associated fast-speed ways of life throughout the expensive, polished cities of the West, that the global financial crisis has ultimately produced a reinforcement and intensification of the ethos of new individualism. The upshot, in sociological terms, has been a lifting of the new individualism to the second power