419 research outputs found
Figurations of exile in Hitchcock and Nabokov
No full textThis comparative study of Alfred Hitchcock and Vladimir Nabokov makes an important contribution to cultural analysis by opening up the work of two canonical authors to issues of exile and migration. Questions about the contingencies of history and the rupture of the real are hardly ever brought to bear on their highly self-reflexive texts. Barbara Straumann counters this critical gap by reading real-life exile as the ‘absent cause’ of Alfred Hitchcock's and Vladimir Nabokov's brilliant virtuosity. Her ‘cross-mapping’ of the two seemingly disparate authors takes as its point of departure the conditions of exile in which they found themselves and goes on to show how the relentless playfulness of their language and irony points to the creation of a new home in the world of signs. Straumann's close reading of selected films and literary texts focuses on Speak, Memory, Lolita, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Suspicion, North by Northwest and Shadow of a Doubt and explores the connections between language, imagination and exile. This book is aimed at those with an interest in Nabokov, Hitchcock, Freud, Lacan, cultural theory, media and/or exile
“‘An Excellent Man of Business’: The Female Banker and Her Socio-Economic Agency in Margaret Oliphant’s Hester (1883)”
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Vocal effect and resonance: voice in Henry James's "The Bostonians"
No full textIn its theoretical framework, my paper participates in the debate over voice ‘after’ Derrida. Drawing on other poststructuralist and phenomenological approaches as well as recent contributions in the area of performance and cultural studies, I claim that the voice can be treated as an effect of resonance. Inherently performative and dialogic, the voice emerges by resonating with something else as well as by effecting resonances elsewhere. In Henry James’s The Bostonians (1886), this figuration is epitomized by the charismatic speaker Verena Tarrant. Her extraordinary public voice is read, manipulated and spoken by various figures of authority, who treat her as a stake in their struggle for power and publicity. Possessed by her vocal gift, they seek in turn to take possession of it. Yet while she lends her voice to others by echoeing their ideas and phrases, catchwords and clichés, Verena simultaneously produces an impact on her audiences which eludes full appropriation. Her impersonal voice may express neither self-presence nor agency, but its effect is one of powerful resonance. Exceeding the text’s satire of the feminist movement and publicity culture, Verena’s doubly mesmeric voice refers us to an ambiguous and unresolvable fascination, both highlighted and performed by The Bostonians, for the voice in general and the public voice of modernity in particular
Entrepreneurship through Acquisition in Switzerland - Motivators and barriers to buying a Swiss SME
No full textSwitzerland is experiencing a crisis because a significant portion of its small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lacks succession planning. Although entrepreneurship is prominent in the country, most of it focuses on launching new ventures rather than acquiring existing firms. This thesis examines key motivators and barriers that shape the intention of potential entrepreneurs to pursue entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA), which could contribute to addressing the succession crisis
Maggie Smith: Grand Old Lady of British Cinema
No full textWer sie mit A Room with a View entdeckt hat oder sogar erst aus Downton Abbey kennt, kann sich fast nicht vorstellen, dass Maggie Smith einmal jung war. Vor sechzig Jahren stand die 1934 geborene Varieté- und Theaterschauspielerin in Nowhere to Go zum ersten Mal vor der Kamera – in einer Rolle, die in ihrer Ambivalenz viele spätere vorwegzunehmen scheint: forsch und scheu, risikofreudig und ängstlich zugleich, ein gutbürgerliches Mädchen mit einem Hang zur Halbwelt. Unsere Retrospektive zeichnet die vielseitige Laufbahn der Grand Old Lady des britischen Kinos nach
Medial effects: the singer and her voice in Willa Cather's the song of the lark
No full textHow does narrative literature as a medium map the representational elusiveness of the voice? What are the typical narratives revolving around the singer? Does her performance of scores and libretti turn her into the medium of voices other than her own? Or does she transform the operatic stage into a vehicle of self-expression? My discussion of The Song of the Lark focuses on the ways in which Willa Cather’s Künstlerroman uses the voice as a trope of self-discovery. The singing of its exceptional protagonist, Thea Kronborg, appears to emanate from her unique self, her distinct ‘voice’. While the novel thus emphasises, and in fact valorises, her self-sufficiency, it can simultaneously be seen to foreground the notion that the voice always mediates between the individual and the collective. Thea Kronborg emerges not only as the textual effect of a multiplicity of ‘voices’, namely the myriad descriptions offered both by the narrator and other focalising figures. Her voice also absorbs American landscapes and dreams so as to expand into a song that has both individual and universal resonances
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