4 research outputs found
Male order menguak maskulinitas/ Edit.: Rowena Chapman; Jonathan Rutherford
No full textxx, 353 hal.; 23 cm
Male order menguak maskulinitas/ Edit.: Rowena Chapman; Jonathan Rutherford
No full textxx, 353 hal.; 23 cm
Masculinity on the run: history, nation and subjectivity in contemporary mainland Chinese cinema
Full text linkThe study investigates representations of masculinities in modern Mainland Chinese cinema from the early reform period to the year 2000. It argues that masculinities from this era are `on the run'; that is, male protagonists' ambiguous relationships with dominant discourses of nation, history and new formulations of subjectivity cause them either to flee from Maoist collective identity categories or more actively to move towards discourses of the sovereignty of the individual brought into China with the `opening up' policies enacted after the Chairman's death. The social and cultural upheavals represented in these films create an atmosphere of uncertainty in which little is solid or settled: for example, although filmmakers may represent their male protagonists rushing from ideas of Maoist manhood, these ambitions and identity figurations, active in the public imagination for so long, still structure male identity, and even male rebellion, acting as reins pulling at the individual agency male filmmakers may try so hard to trace on screen. The result is a recent history of
representation in which male characters stand as symbols for their nation's central dilemma, as it wavers between a collective past and an unknown (both exciting and threatening) future.
Whereas images of women have been analysed (especially those in the Fifth Generation cinema of the 1980s and 1990s), their male counterparts on the Chinese cinema screen have been largely ignored. This study redresses this imbalance and interprets the representation of men on screen through gender theory, cultural studies, and sources on Chinese society. The main chapters of the study concentrate on versions or expressions of masculinities, reflecting a society that has expressed its revolutionary aims through human models. The introduction to each chapter provides a contextualisation of the manner in which masculinities have been configured in other contemporary representational fields and will explain the relevance of the discussed ideas of masculinity in China's recent past. This study contributes both to conceptions of film and gender in China, and will widen the scope of cross-cultural
theorisations of masculinities
Black violence and the politics of representation: selected readings in the twentieth century American novel
No full textPhDThis thesis argues that the representation of black violence in the twentieth
century American novel is shaped by two principal rhetorical strategies, which I term
denial and demonisation. Denial refers to modes of literary discourse which seek to refute
the possibility of black violence, or to circumscribe it as an exclusively intraracial
phenomenon. Demonisation denotes textual strategies which figure a racially determined
form of violence as a natural element of black character. These strategies may appear
antithetical, but they are rarely deployed in isolation. Rather, they appear in complex
combinations in most representations of black violence in American literature, as I
demonstrate using a range of novels by black and white authors which span the twentieth
century. These strategies have their roots in racist ideologies which seek to obliterate any
connection between the impact of racism upon African Americans and black violence.
Hence they are most noticeable in literary texts which reflect and contribute to racist
ideology. However, texts which seek to expose social and cultural causes of black
violence are also unavoidably influenced by these modes of literary discourse, and this
includes the work of African American authors. They have to negotiate the racist tropes
and assumptions encoded within the language and literary forms of hegemonic American
culture, because they have no alternative, completely separate resources for cultural
production. External pressures experienced by any author representing black violence
compound these difficulties. These include the demands of black community leaders and
white liberals not to represent African Americans in ways which may hinder the cause of
racial equality, and the demands of publishers to represent black violence in ways with
proven commercial potential. Furthermore, despite the retreat of racism in modern
America, certain images and fantasies of blackness retain a hold over the American
cultural imaginary, and continue to influence literary discourse. As my thesis
demonstrates, this ensures that denial and demonisation can still be detected in
contemporary American novels
