Seeing in the Dark Houses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lurie
Keyword(s):  
William Faulkner ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Sense Of Wonder

This chapter uses historicist criticism of William Faulkner to suggest a limit to even the best approaches to this deeply historical writer. Attending to what his novels cannot say—or—see about history and racial understanding, I draw on Maurice Blanchot’s philosophy of language to show the category error that scholars make when assuming that Faulkner’s texts yield the historical secret lodged in the imagined structures and complicated texts Absalom, Absalom! and Light and August, each of which bore the title “Dark House” in manuscript form. The chapter shows the more meaningful aporias and lacunae surrounding race and racial meaning in each novel and the U.S. south—problems attendant on language and the effort to name. It offers a model for historical knowledge drawn from Blanchot and from film theory of fascination, a spellbound, rapt sense of wonder before traumatic events, one that elements of Absalom evoke in readers and posits in Quentin Compson.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Lisa Nanney
Keyword(s):  
William Faulkner ◽  
Ernest Hemingway ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
John Dos Passos ◽  
Lost Generation ◽  
Critical Transitions ◽  
John Howard ◽  
The U.S

In 1930, Time magazine’s cover proclaimed John Dos Passos the most important writer on the Left in the U.S., and classified him along with Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner as one of the most important of the “Lost Generation” writers for his innovative modernist novels of the 1920s and 1930s. But by 1938 he had cut ties with leftist organizations in the U.S., begun publishing in anti-Communist journals, become estranged from leftist friends such as Hemingway and playwright John Howard Lawson, and was ostracized by leftist critics for expressing his conviction that Communism was the paramount threat to individual liberties and democracy. Thereafter, his books were often criticized as ideologically doctrinaire, their style as falling far short of his earlier achievements, which had adapted into dynamic narrative the visual devices of cinema. John Dos Passos and Cinema explores these political and critical transitions through the lens of the writer’s little-known work, much of it archival, in the medium of film itself. As a novelist, he had used film as a subject and stylistic source; as screen writer, he evolved his methods directly from the cinema’s visual language, demonstrating how potently the medium could be manipulated for political and commercial profit.

scholarly journals Abstract Clauses and the Descriptive Limits of Originalism: Embracing Legal Realism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
SILVIO ROBERTO VINCETI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
The One ◽  
Armchair Philosophy ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

There seems to be an intuitive distinction between the concrete and abstract clauses of the U.S. Constitution: If concrete clauses–such as the Article II’s requirement that the U.S. President be at least thirty-five years of age–appear fairly uncontroversial as to their meaning and reference, abstract clauses–such as the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments”–show a more vague and debatable content. In the paper, I argue that the peculiar modality of legal change abstract clauses undergo thwarts a complete understanding of the U.S. Constitution in originalist terms. I take up Dworkin’s “moral reading” originalism and Bork’s “orthodox” one as two archetypal reconstructions of the framers’ intent in regard to abstract clauses. Despite substantial differences, both a Borkean and Dworkinian originalism share a commitment to a formal understanding of abstract clauses. For different reasons, however, they both fail in providing a sound account of abstract clauses’ change over time: If Dworkin’s account seems at variance with the rationale of a rigid constitution, a Borkean conception of abstract clauses, although interpretatively sound, appears at odds with reality.From the failure of the two reconstructions, I deduce several conclusions. First, that the best way to make sense of the abstract clauses’ change is to give up any formalist account thereof: Abstract clauses give rise to a plain instance of informal legal change, the reason for that possibly being that formalism is in competition with other human values–namely, the desirability of the outcomes. In that abstract clauses do not comport with formalism, an originalist account thereof is not descriptively accurate.But if abstract clauses do not abide by formal legal reasoning, the lawyer might wonder how to deal with them–especially, when faced in court. I contend that philosophy of language could hardly be of any help, despite the fact that abstract clauses recall the vagaries in reference “indexicals” bring about in analytic philosophy. Conversely, the employment of disciplines that study human behavior in different normative domains might prove decisive.If these reflections wound up agreeable, the validity of the insights of American legal realism would be reaffirmed. On the one hand, constitutional law is, to some extent, “legally indeterminate”; on the other, empirical social sciences–not armchair philosophy–are our best ally in addressing the indeterminacy.

scholarly journals The female detective as the child who needs to know. Saga Norén as an example of potent yet dysfunctional female detectives in contemporary Nordic Noir

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Schwartz ◽  
E. Ann Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Queer Studies ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Feminist Film Theory ◽  
Recognition Theory ◽  
Feminist Film ◽  
Female Detective ◽  
The One ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The global popularity of Nordic Noir, such as the Danish/Swedish production Broen, The Danish production Forbrydelsen, its U.S. and U.K. remakes, the Danish/Swedish production The Millennium Trilogy seems to depend on its insistent interest in a set of maladjusted female detectives. The by now seven seasons of the U.S production Homeland have a similar focus. In this essay, we argue that the struggle these female protagonists endure between extreme potency on the one hand and shameful psychic problems on the other is linked to how these female detectives represent the female position in film in general. Turning to traditional and ongoing discussions in feminist film theory, and combining queer studies and sociological and psychoanalytic perspectives with recognition theory (Felski/Coplan), we ask how we as spectators relate to these women in terms of recognition. In line with that, we ask whether these female detectives should be considered feminist icons who challenge traditional gendered poses on film, or whether, due to their dysfunctionalities, they came to represent some kind of otherness that we sympathize with but also fail to identify with.

“For Fear of a Scandal”: Sexual Policing and the Preservation of Colonial Relations in William Faulkner and Marie Vieux-Chauvet

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenna Sciuto ◽  
Jay Watson
Keyword(s):  
William Faulkner ◽  
Interracial Relationships ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Race And Sexuality ◽  
Historical Transition ◽  
The U.S

This chapter analyzes literary depictions of sexual policing from two periods of historical transition—the late 1930s and early 1940s in Haiti and the U.S. South—in the works of Marie Vieux-Chauvet and William Faulkner. The policing of sexuality portrayed in the novels allowed the beneficiaries of colonialism, the plantocracy in the U.S. South, and the mulâtres-aristocrates in Haiti to control the intersection of race and sexuality and to preserve colonial hierarchies in post-/neo-colonial societies as adherence to them began to wane. However, through the depiction of consensual interracial relationships and same-sex friendships, the novels also hint at other options: alternatives to the replication of destructive colonial hierarchies. By including these examples of resistance, Faulkner and Vieux-Chauvet confront, rather than passively reinscribe, colonial relations in the post-/neo-colonial era.

scholarly journals History and Historiography of Education: Some remarks on the utility of historical knowledge in the age of efficiency

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Tröhler
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
School Policy ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Societal Progress ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

A difficult heritage has been attached to the history of education since its beginnings as a field of study. History of education is as a rule nationally oriented and/or constructed as a linear history of progress. The philosophy of language distinction between ‘paroles’ and ‘langues’ is seen as a methodological route out of these limitations.Taking the example of a currently widely discussed thesis on the connection between notions of societal progress and expectations of education, this paper shows how history can be understood as a struggle between the individual (transnational) ‘langues’ for public dominance. The paper concludes by pointing out how historical knowledge is important for the theoretical discussion and for efficient school policy.

scholarly journals Intergalactic Triumph: American Hegemony Represented in Arrival (2016) Movie

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bella Ernita Ramadhana
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
American Values ◽  
The World ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The U.S

<div class="WordSection1"><p>This research examines a Hollywood movie entitled Arrival (2016) to see how American hegemony is represented and maintained in the movie. This is a qualitative research that is conducted under the framework of American studies. The concept of American values, Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci and Soft Power by Joseph Nye are used to answer the research questions. Semiotic film theory is employed to analyze the data in the form of dialogues and movie scenes. The results show the representation of American hegemony are seen in the characters that show American values, the U.S foreign policy, the U.S military supremacy, and the U.S economic field. Meanwhile, the maintenance of American hegemony is represented in American’s destiny to unify the world and also in hegemony through the language.</p><p> </p><p><em>Keywords</em>: American hegemony, manifest destiny, science fiction, representation, soft power</p></div>

scholarly journals Fearsome Acts of Interpretation: Audiovisual Historiography, Film Theory andGangs of New York

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Mike Meneghetti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Extended Analysis ◽  
Critical Interpretation ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
Historical Fictions

This article revisits Jean-Louis Comolli's “Historical Fiction: A Body Too Much” (1978) in the spirit of film-philosophy's various efforts to reassess the field's seminal texts, and it recasts Comolli's attentive analyses of film acting in terms of the original interpretations they produce. In short, I look to “A Body Too Much’ for its subtle disclosure of an underappreciated substratum of hermeneutics in so called “1970s film theory.” Comolli's study of the discord between actor and referent, I argue, is surprisingly consistent with Paul Ricoeur's pioneering contemporaneous work on metaphor and interpretation, and it leads him to understand the meaningful deployment of film actors in very particular ways. I provide an extended analysis of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) to further demonstrate how the distinctive utilization of actors constitutes both a redescription of the historical past and a spur to interpretation. When critically apprehended as a solution to the broadly construed problems of creating historical fictions (pragmatic filmmaking problems, but also the significant matter of making meaning), the calculated deployment of film actors can reveal a manner of thinking about the historical past – simply put, it can tell us what a film is thinking and how it regards its historical characters and events. In the final analysis, I claim, our attention to – and critical interpretation of – the embodiment of such filmic thinking permits us to grasp the imaginative form of historical knowledge on view in such films.

Allied Encounters

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Escolar
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The U.S

Allied Encounters: The Gendered Redemption of World War II Italy is the first-ever monograph to analyze cultural representations of Allied-occupied Italy, one of the war’s most unstable spaces. While the U.S. military viewed itself as a redemptive force, competing narratives emerged in the Italian imaginary. Both national paradigms, however, are deeply entangled with the gendering of redemption long operative in Anglo-American and Italian discourse, emerging from a Dantean topos that depicts Italy as a whore in need of redemption. Tracing the formation of these gendered paradigms and pointing to their intersection with sexualized and racialized identities, this book examines literary, cinematic, and military representations of the soldier-civilian encounter, by Anglo-Americans and Italians, set in two major occupied cities, Naples and Rome. Informed by the historical context as well as their respective representational traditions, these texts—produced during and in the immediate aftermath—become more than mirrors of the intercultural encounter or generic allegories about U.S.–Italian relations. Instead, they are sites in which to explore other repressed traumas—including the Holocaust, the American Civil War, and European colonialism, as well as individual traumatic events like the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine and the mass civilian rape near Rome by colonial soldiers— that inform how the occupation unfolded and is remembered. In addition to challenging canonical interpretations of emblematic texts, this book introduces several little-known diaries, novels, and guidebooks.

Historical Introduction

1977 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 2-5
Author(s):  
R. D. Heidenreich
Keyword(s):  
Electron Emission ◽  
Secondary Electron ◽  
Secondary Electron Emission ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Secondary Emission ◽  
Wave Nature ◽  
Nobel Prize In Physics ◽  
Primary Electrons ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Mutual Agreement

This program has been organized by the EMSA to commensurate the 50th anniversary of the experimental verification of the wave nature of the electron. Davisson and Germer in the U.S. and Thomson and Reid in Britian accomplished this at about the same time. Their findings were published in Nature in 1927 by mutual agreement since their independent efforts had led to the same conclusion at about the same time. In 1937 Davisson and Thomson shared the Nobel Prize in physics for demonstrating the wave nature of the electron deduced in 1924 by Louis de Broglie.The Davisson experiments (1921-1927) were concerned with the angular distribution of secondary electron emission from nickel surfaces produced by 150 volt primary electrons. The motivation was the effect of secondary emission on the characteristics of vacuum tubes but significant deviations from the results expected for a corpuscular electron led to a diffraction interpretation suggested by Elasser in 1925.

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