1,721,078 research outputs found
Introduction: memory on the move
No full textThis introductory essay situates the four sections of the book in ongoing discussions on the methods, ethics, and politics of memory studies. Starting from the observation that memory is increasingly being studied as a dynamic process rather than a static product, it identifies the four main dimensions of mnemonic mobility in a globalized and digitalized world: transcultural, transgenerational, transmedial, and transdisciplinary. Underlining that these four dimensions cannot be studied in isolation from each other, it contends that attention to the interrelations between them is indispensable for the study of memory today. The essay shows how all twelve chapters in the book contribute to the project of capturing the dynamics of memory
Trauma beyond the biomedical paradigm : avenues for a subject-oriented and contextual trauma approach
Full text linkThe psychiatric construct of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is often viewed as a universally valid and scientifically backed construct. In recent years, several clinicians and academics have laid bare some of the shortcomings of this influential trauma model. In this dissertation, the author focuses on four core criticisms of PTSD: (1) problems with the proposed causal mechanism; (2)individualization of stress responses; (3) decontextualization and (4) depoliticization of traumatic reactions). He uses historical, psychoanalytical and philosophical analyses to construct a contextual and subject-oriented trauma approach
Performing the Anthropocene : climate change, embodiment, and affect in contemporary theatre
No full textLiterary critics have extensively discussed Anthropocene fiction and (to a lesser degree) poetry, but relatively little attention has been paid so far to the strategies used within contemporary narrative based theatre to tackle the challenges the Anthropocene poses to the human imagination
The proposed new geological epoch defined by human impact requires a shift in thinking that decentres human experience and brings non-human scales to the fore. A prominent strand within ecocriticism questions whether linguistic narrative is an appropriate mode for imaginative engagement with the Anthropocene, because it is so closely tied to anthropocentric thinking and human actions and intentions. Theatre seems to face an even bigger challenge than fiction in this regard. Unlike written narrative, performed narrative is dependent not only on human language, but also on human bodies that act out, or at least convey, the story.
Starting from these observations, this PhD thesis explores how the embodied nature of theatre can offer opportunities to think through the pressures and challenges of the Anthropocene. It is situated at the intersection of literary studies and theatre studies, and draws on ecocriticism and affect theory as well as narratology and performance theory.
The corpus consists of plays that deploy innovative formal structures to capture aspects of this epoch, but that simultaneously explore possible affective responses to the friction between the human and more-than- human scales that characterizes the Anthropocene. Alongside two well- known British plays – Lungs by Duncan Macmillan and Oil by Ella Hickson – the thesis discusses several lesser-known plays: Sila by the Canadian playwright Chantal Bilodeau, KillJoy Quiz by the Brazilian-Belgian writer and performer Luanda Casella, and World without Us and Are we not drawn onward to new erA by the Belgian collective Ontroerend Goed.
The aim of this study is twofold: on the one hand, it complements existing literary research on Anthropocene fiction by focusing on theatre instead of novels. On the other hand, it seeks to shed light on how intimate ties to human experience might not be a liability but an asset for narrative modes insofar as they can help bridge the scalar gap between the personal and the geological. The mismatch between scales can easily lead to paralysing affects like climate denial, cynicism, or apathy. This thesis explores how theatre, not despite but because of its embodied nature, might provide unique opportunities to evoke and explore alternative affects like expanded empathy, thoroughgoing irony, or stubborn hope.Literatuurwetenschappers hebben uitvoerig aandacht besteed aan romans en (in mindere mate) poëzie over het antropoceen, maar tot nu toe is er nog weinig onderzoek gedaan naar de strategieën die gebruikt worden in het hedendaags teksttheater om de uitdagingen te tackelen die het antropoceen stelt aan de menselijke verbeelding.
Het antropoceen, het voorgestelde nieuwe geologische tijdperk dat gedefinieerd wordt door de impact die de mensheid heeft op de planeet, vereist een paradigmawisseling die de menselijke ervaring uit het centrum duwt en niet-menselijke schalen voor het voetlicht plaatst. Een prominente stroming binnen de ecokritiek trekt in twijfel of talige verhalen wel een geschikte modus zijn om het antropoceen te verbeelden, omdat ze zo nauw verbonden zijn met antropocentrisch denken en menselijke acties en intenties. Theater lijkt wat dat betreft voor een nog grotere uitdaging te staan. Waar geschreven fictie enkel gebonden is aan de menselijke taal, is live gebrachte fictie daarbovenop ook nog afhankelijk van menselijke lichamen die het verhaal vertolken, of toch op zijn minst vertellen.
Vertrekkend van deze observaties onderzoekt deze dissertatie hoe de belichaamde natuur van theater opportuniteiten kan bieden om na te denken over de problemen en uitdagingen waar het antropoceen ons voor stelt. Het proefschrift situeert zich op het kruispunt tussen literatuur- en theaterwetenschappen, en ent zich op ecokritiek, affect theorie, narratologie en performance theorie.
Het corpus bestaat uit theaterwerken die innovatieve vormelijke structuren gebruiken om aspecten van dit tijdperk te vatten. Daarbovenop verkennen deze werken mogelijke affectieve houdingen ten aanzien van de frictie tussen de menselijke en de bovenmenselijke schalen die eigen is aan het antropoceen. Naast twee bekende Britse theaterstukken – Lungs van Duncan Macmillan en Oil van Ella Hickson – bespreekt dit proefschrift een aantal minder bekende werken: Sila van de Canadese theaterauteur Chantal Bilodeau, KillJoy Quiz van de Braziliaans-Belgische schrijver en performer Luanda Casella, en World without Us en Are we not drawn onward to new erA van het Belgische collectief Ontroerend Goed.
Het doel van de studie is tweeledig: door te focussen op theaterwerken in plaats van romans vormt het een aanvulling op bestaand literatuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek over antropoceenfictie. Daarnaast wil het licht werpen op de manieren waarop de intieme banden met de menselijke ervaring die fictie karakteriseren niet enkel een nadeel, maar ook juist een voordeel kunnen zijn, doordat ze kunnen bijdragen aan het overbruggen van de kloof tussen de persoonlijke en de geologische schaal. De mismatch tussen die schalen kan gemakkelijk leiden tot verlammende affecten zoals ontkenning, cynisme of apathie. Dit proefschrift onderzoekt hoe theater, niet ondanks maar dankzij zijn belichaamde wezen, unieke mogelijkheden zou kunnen bieden om alternatieve affecten zoals verruimde empathie, diepgaande ironie of koppige hoop te kunnen opwekken en exploreren
Sick men of late capitalism : immunity and precarity in recent American fiction and performance art
Full text linkFictionalizing the sixth mass extinction : roots, exclusions, biases
No full textThis thesis explores how contemporary literature in English engages with what has come to be known as the sixth mass extinction, the ongoing extinction event as a result of human activity that is causing a devastating loss of biodiversity not seen since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Building on existing environmental humanities scholarship, the thesis demonstrates and tests literature’s capacity to complement or counter the spectacular, apocalyptic, and exclusionary modes through which species extinction is often portrayed in popular culture, and thereby to contribute to understanding and ameliorating our dire environmental predicament. Drawing on materialist and multispecies theories, the study pursues two avenues of research: it examines species extinction as both, and simultaneously, a material reality and a cultural discourse. In the first part of the thesis, I investigate how fiction mediates and registers the structural drivers of biodiversity loss, which tend to be neglected in coverage of the extinction crisis. Here, my investigation centres on the link between species extinction and what Nicole Shukin has described as a twofold circulation of animal life under capitalism, where animals are rendered as both disembodied signifiers and as products for consumption. I argue that literature that attempts to dramatize species extinction risks participating in a process I call animal fetishism, i.e., acts that contribute to the dissemination of extinct and vulnerable species as “undying” images and that obscure the historical conditions of their exploitation and endangerment. I further show how whaling fiction can be used to illumine the other side of this process, namely the slaughter and commodification of whales and other animals in what Jason W. Moore has termed the capitalist world-ecology. In such fictional works, the twin endangerment of whales and Indigenous cultures finds formal expression in irrealist narrative styles, as the texts convey the bewildering effects of colonial capitalism’s socio-ecological destruction.
The second part of the thesis probes the web of values, biases, and exclusions that characterizes species extinction discourse. I discuss the issue of taxonomic bias and the fact that representations of endangered species gravitate towards the cute, visible, and charismatic. Specifically, I analyze how authors grapple with the representational challenges of narrating the multispecies complexities of the sixth mass extinction and the vulnerability of non-charismatic creatures such as plants and insects. I also take up the bias towards biological entities and the species category within extinction discourse, and investigate how literature responds to the extinction of non-living entities, such as snow and glaciers, that large-scale environmental change is already engendering. My discussion concludes by considering the limitations of framing and studying species extinction as a problem in isolation from a more holistic environmental context
Countering erasure and invisibilisation : the potential of literature to open up the justice imagination in the Syrian context
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