“This eight-year-old, he’s too little”

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Anindya Raychaudhuri
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
The Body ◽  
Contested Space

This chapter focuses on the construction of childhood in stories of partition. A surprisingly large proportion of the cultural production of partition takes the form of the coming-of-age narrative, so that partition is presented through the child’s gaze. Here, the child’s view is often used to reinforce particular adult political positions through which the child can be socialized into accepting these positions as desirable and natural. As a result the body of narrative becomes a contested space for adult and childhood control. This dynamic is mirrored in the oral history testimony, which is also contested between the child who experienced the event, and the adult who remembers it. Children’s insistence on their ability to understand the situation, the ability to mourn losses on their own terms, and the reinforcing of particular childhood losses as equally important to the apparently more important adult losses becomes a key aspect through which childhood narrators are able to exert control over their experiences and memories.

Dancing Women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha Iyer
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Hindi Cinema

Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema, an ambitious study of two of South Asia’s most popular cultural forms—cinema and dance—historicizes and theorizes the material and cultural production of film dance, a staple attraction of popular Hindi cinema. It explores how the dynamic figurations of the body wrought by cinematic dance forms from the 1930s to the 1990s produce unique constructions of gender, stardom, and spectacle. By charting discursive shifts through figurations of dancer-actresses, their publicly performed movements, private training, and the cinematic and extra-diegetic narratives woven around their dancing bodies, the book considers the “women’s question” via new mobilities corpo-realized by dancing women. Some of the central figures animating this corporeal history are Azurie, Sadhona Bose, Vyjayanthimala, Helen, Waheeda Rehman, Madhuri Dixit, and Saroj Khan, whose performance histories fold and intersect with those of other dancing women, including devadasis and tawaifs, Eurasian actresses, oriental dancers, vamps, choreographers, and backup dancers. Through a material history of the labor of producing on-screen dance, theoretical frameworks that emphasize collaboration, such as the “choreomusicking body” and “dance musicalization,” aesthetic approaches to embodiment drawing on treatises like the Natya Sastra and the Abhinaya Darpana, and formal analyses of cine-choreographic “techno-spectacles,” Dancing Women offers a variegated, textured history of cinema, dance, and music. Tracing the gestural genealogies of film dance produces a very different narrative of Bombay cinema, and indeed of South Asian cultural modernities, by way of a corporeal history co-choreographed by a network of remarkable dancing women.

Barre Matters: Hybrid Formations of Ballet and Group Fitness

Somatechnics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-210
Author(s):  
Pirkko Markula
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Body ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Group Exercise ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Fitness Industry ◽  
Body Ideal ◽  
Health Eating

Employing a variety of theoretical approaches, feminist researchers have critiqued the fitness industry of its singular emphasis on the impossible, narrowly defined feminine body ideal that is likely to cause more mental (e.g., body dissatisfaction) and physical ill health (eating disorders, injuries) than improve fitness. With the focus on social construction of gendered identities, there has been less problematisation of the materiality of the fitness practices and their impact on the cultural production of the moving body. In this article, I adopt a Latourian approach to seek for a more complete account of the body in motion and how it matters in the contemporary world. A barre class as a popular group exercise class that combines ballet and exercise modalities offers a location for such an examination due to the centrality of a non-human object, the barre, that distinguishes it from other group exercise classes. I consider how exercise practices may be constituted in relation to a material object, the barre, and how the physical and material intersect, historically, with the cultural politics of fitness and dance from where the barre originates. To do this, I trace the journey of the barre from ballet training to the fitness industry to illustrate how human and non-human associations create a hybrid collective.

The role of cultural production in celebrity politics: Comparing the campaigns of Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura (1999) and Donald Trump (2016)

Politics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
David S Moon
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Celebrity Politics

This article draws out the significant similarities between the political insurgencies of Jesse Ventura in 1999 and Donald Trump in 2016, charting their own premillennial political collaborations as members of the Reform Party, before identifying wider lessons for studies of contemporary celebrity politicians through a comparison of their individual campaigns. Its analysis is based upon the concept of the ‘politainer’, introduced by Conley and Schultz, into which it incorporates Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the carnival fool. The heterodox nature of both Ventura and Trump’s political campaign styles, it argues, is in part explained by the nature of the cultural spheres within which their public personas were produced; specifically, the fact that these personas, which they carried over from the entertainment to political spheres, were produced within genres of popular culture generally positioned as having ‘low’ cultural value. This, it argues, furnished both with an anti-establishment ethos as ‘no bullshit’ straight-talkers, marking them as outsider candidates able to act as conduits for political protest by an electorate alienated from mainstream political elites. It concludes by emphasising the potential importance that political celebrities’ specific cultural production can play in shaping a subsequent political campaign in general.

Dramaturgy of the Body: Marcello Moretti's Construction of Arlecchino at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-144
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Houle
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
The Body ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

In this article Gabrielle Houle examines the dramaturgical process that actor Marcello Moretti applied to his creation of Arlecchino's body in Giorgio Strehler's globally acclaimed productions of The Servant of Two Masters at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan between 1947 and 1960. She provides a critical analysis of Moretti's interdisciplinary and trans-historical research and creative process, including his study of iconographic representations of the commedia dell’arte, his observation of farmers in Padua in the mid-twentieth century, and the connections he made between his life experiences and his understanding of Arlecchino. She then examines Moretti's acting style, signature postures, and footwork, both as the international press described them and as she observed them in a video recording and in photographs of the productions. The article, based on extensive archival research at the Piccolo Teatro and on interviews with artists who knew both Moretti and Strehler, concludes with a discussion of Moretti's legacy within and beyond Italy. Gabrielle Houle is a theatre scholar, educator, and artist specializing in the recent staging history of the commedia dell’arte, contemporary mask-making practices, and masked performance. She has taught in several Canadian universities, and is a member of the Centre for Oral History and Tradition at the University of Lethbridge, where she is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor.

Morrissey as Latina/o Literary and Cultural Icon

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa M. Hidalgo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fourth Decade ◽  
The World ◽  
United States Mexico ◽  
North And South America

Morrissey is a singer and songwriter from Manchester, England. He rose to prominence as a popular-music icon as the lead singer for the Manchester band The Smiths (1982–1987). After the breakup of The Smiths, Morrissey launched his solo career in 1988. In his fourth decade as a popular singer, Morrissey continues to tour the world and sell out shows in venues throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, Asia and Australia, and across North and South America. Although Morrissey enjoys a fiercely loyal global fan base and inspires fans all over the world, his largest and most creatively expressive fans, arguably, are Latinas/os in the United States and Latin America. He is especially popular in Mexico and with Chicanas/os from Los Angeles, California, to San Antonio, Texas. How does a white singer and pop icon from England become an important cultural figure for Latinas/os? This entry provides an overview of Morrissey’s musical and cultural importance to fans in the United States–Mexico borderlands. It introduces Morrissey, examines the rise of Latina/o Morrissey and Smiths fandom starting in the 1980s and 1990s, and offers a survey of the fan-produced literature and other cultural production that pay tribute to the indie-music star. The body of fiction, films, plays, poetry, and fans’ cultural production at the center of this entry collectively represent of Morrissey’s significance as a dynamic and iconic cultural figure for Latinas/os.

Coming of Age with Anne Moody

Meridians ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-64
Author(s):  
Tracey Jean Boisseau
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Structural Explanation ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Anne Moody

Abstract This essay offers a close reading of Anne Moody’s widely read but under-theorized memoir of the civil rights movement, Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968). This essay’s focus mirrors a main focus in Moody’s narrative: her relationship with her mother. Much of the body of literary criticism, as well as historical writings dealing with African American mother-daughter conflict, centers on the observation that Black mothers have often found themselves in conflict with daughters whom they seek to protect by schooling them in accommodationist behavior to better survive in the face of white racism and violence. To strand the analysis there, however, leaves one unable to understand the historically specific nature of the acute generational conflict between Moody and her mother and leaves one without structural explanation for young people’s unprecedented involvement in the 1950s–1960s civil rights movement. This article explores Anne Moody’s daughterly point of view as expressed in her writing to understand why and how Anne was able to develop a distinct sense of self and consciousness, one that alienated her from her mother and laid the groundwork for her activist leadership as well as that of her generational cohort.

Campaigning and Coming of Age in the 1970s

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-120
Author(s):  
Margaretta Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Beauty Pageant ◽  
Domestic Labour ◽  
Exciting Time ◽  
Post War ◽  
Personal Challenges ◽  
Feminist Strategy

The chapter deploys feminist oral histories to explore the WLM’s key demands and campaigns in the 1970s, including the Miss World beauty pageant protest and the Nightcleaners’ campaign. After unpicking romanticised ideas about feminist consciousness-raising, it suggests that established narratives that gloomily recount the collapse of the post-war consensus overlook an exciting time for a WLM energised by campaigns around women’s domestic labour and reproductive rights, epitomised by the National Abortion Campaign. But the NAC’s successes also involved difficult emotions and ambivalence about feminist strategy and identity, analysed especially through the memories of black campaigners Jan McKenley and Gail Lewis, and Kirsten Hearn from Sisters Against Disablement. The chapter concludes with the story of Karen McMinn, coordinator of Women’s Aid Northern Ireland, using her S&A oral history to recall campaigns against domestic violence in the context of civil strife, and the personal challenges involved in keeping the feminist flame alive. 150 words

Vitality Materialized

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Andrew Finegold
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Complementary Approach ◽  
Indigenous Worldview ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
The Way

In ancient Mesoamerica, the human body was regularly adorned with finely crafted ornaments. These were often made of highly valued and symbolically charged materials that manifested a cluster of interrelated ideas connected to creative energies and natural fecundity. Much recent scholarly attention has been given to materials from which Mesoamerican jewelry was made, including their particular qualities, attributes, and place within the Indigenous worldview. This essay takes a complementary approach to such studies by considering the material and ontological implications of the way some ornaments were articulated with the human body: the piercing of the flesh. In addition to creating spaces to accommodate jewels, the perforation of the body was an activity that carried social significance, most notably in the form of auto-sacrificial bloodletting, but also in rituals that accompanied coming-of-age ceremonies and accession rites. It is argued that all such interventions into the human body should be viewed as a continuum of related behaviors and that holes made within the flesh served as a conduit for the flow of life and vitality. Placed within them, ornaments did more than merely indicate the wearer's status. They drew attention toward, alluded to, and made tangible and permanent the vital potency of the somatic voids they occupied and, by extension, the charisma of the bodies that hosted them. RESUMEN En la antigua Mesoamérica, el cuerpo humano estaba adornado regularmente con adornos finamente elaborados. Estos a menudo estaban hechos de materiales altamente valorados y cargados simbólicamente que manifestaban un conjunto de ideas interrelacionadas conectadas a las energías creativas y la fecundidad natural. En recientes trabajos académicos, se ha prestado mucha atención a los materiales a partir de los cuales se diseñaba la joyería mesoamericana, con un enfoque particular en sus cualidades, atributos y función dentro de la cosmovisión indígena. El acercamiento del presente trabajo pretende complementar estos estudios al considerar las implicaciones materiales y ontológicas de la forma en que algunos ornamentos se articularon con el cuerpo humano: la perforación del cuerpo. Además de crear orificios en los que se podían acomodar joyas, la perforación del cuerpo era una actividad que tenía importancia social, especialmente cuando constituía un acto de auto-sacrificio en forma de sangrado, pero también en rituales que acompañaban las ceremonias de la mayoría de edad y los ritos iniciáticos. Se sostiene que todas estas intervenciones en el cuerpo humano deben verse como un continuo de conductas relacionadas y que los agujeros hechos en la carne sirvieron como conductos para el flujo de la vida y la vitalidad. Los adornos que se colocados en los agujeros no solo indicaban el estatus de una persona. Llamaron la atención, aludieron e hicieron tangible y permanente la potencia vital de los vacíos somáticos que ocupaban y, por extensión, el carisma de los cuerpos que los albergaban. RESUMO Na antiga Mesoamérica, o corpo humano era regularmente adornado com ornamentos finamente trabalhados. Estes eram frequentemente feitos de materiais altamente valorizados e simbolicamente carregados que manifestavam um conjunto de idéias interrelacionadas ligadas a energias criativas e fecundidade natural. Uma atenção acadêmica muito recente tem sido dada aos materiais dos quais as jóias mesoamericanas foram feitas, incluindo suas qualidades, atributos e lugares dentro da visão de mundo indígena. Este trabalho faz uma abordagem complementar a esses estudos considerando as implicações materiais e ontológicas da maneira como alguns ornamentos foram articulados com o corpo humano: a perfuração da carne. Além de criar espaços para acomodar jóias, a perfuração do corpo era uma atividade que carregava significado social, mais notavelmente na forma de sangria auto-sacrificial, mas também em rituais que acompanhavam cerimônias de iniciação e ritos de acessão. Argumenta-se que todas essas intervenções no corpo humano devem ser vistas como um continuum de comportamentos relacionados e que buracos feitos dentro da carne serviam como um canal para o fluxo de vida e vitalidade. Colocados dentro deles, os ornamentos faziam mais do que apenas indicar o status do usuário. Eles chamavam a atenção para, aludiam a, e tornavam tangível e permanente a potência vital dos vazios somáticos que ocupavam e, por extensão, o carisma dos corpos que os abrigavam.

Racial Immanence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marissa K. López
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
The Body ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Quality

Racial Immanence is about how and why artists use the body in contemporary Chicanx cultural production. The book explores disease, disability, abjection, and sense experience in Chicanx visual, verbal, and performing arts from the late 1980s to the early 1990s in order to ask whether it is possible to think of race as something other than a human quality. This attention to the body is a way to push back against two distinct modes of identity politics: first, the desire for art to perform or embody an idealized abstraction of oppositional ethnicity; and second, the neoliberal commodification of identity in the service of better managing difference and dissent. While these two modes seem mutually exclusive, the resistance the artists in Racial Immanence exert toward both suggests a core similarity. By contrast, the cultural objects examined in the book assert human bodies as processes, as agents of change in the world rather than as objects to be known and managed. Within Chicanx cultural production the author locates an articulation of bodily philosophies that challenge the subject/object dualism leading to a global politics of dominance and submission. Instead, she argues, Chicanx cultural production fosters networks of connection that deepen human attachment to the material world, a phenomenon the author terms “racial immanence” that creates the possibility of progressive social change.

scholarly journals More than clothes hangers: cultural intermediaries in the field of fashion

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 2052-2074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick P. Lonergan ◽  
Maurice Patterson ◽  
Maria Lichrou
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Research ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Research Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Fashion Industry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Fashion Models ◽  
Suspension Of Disbelief ◽  
Cultural Intermediaries ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to elucidate how cultural intermediaries shape the subjectivity of other marketplace actors in fashion, thus preserving the illusio underpinning this field of cultural production. Design/methodology/approach Narrative interviews were conducted with cultural intermediaries in the fashion industry. These were supplemented with non-participant observations, carried out simultaneously during the research process. Interview transcripts and field notes were analysed using a combination of holistic-content and categorical-content analysis. Findings As the fashion field is constructed around beliefs as to what constitutes value, the empirical data demonstrate how fashion models’ embody the illusio of the field and authenticate the values, meanings and identities inherent in it through aestheticised and rarefied styles of performance. These activities seduce other market actors and engender a willing suspension of disbelief that in turn mobilises affective intensities resulting in perceptions of legitimacy. Research limitations/implications This research adds greater clarity to what cultural intermediaries do when they mediate between economy and culture. To do this, our research is analysed in terms of the ritual performance, the sensibility of the model, the use of the body and the performative fusion. Practical implications The paper offers practical implications insofar as it deconstructs the two core ritualistic aspects of the fashion industry which each season yields significant tangible outputs in various forms. The combination of narrative inquiry with observation allows for a better understanding of how these events can be best channelled to mediate the illusio of this cultural field. Originality/value To date, there has been very little consumer research that explores cultural intermediaries and less still that offers an empirical glimpse of their performance. This research adds greater clarity to these embodied performances that legitimate other market actors’ suspension of disbelief while also demystifying the ambiguity with which cultural intermediaries are discussed in consumer research.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document