Lost in representation: Disabled sex and the aesthetics of the ‘norm’

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 364-378
Author(s):  
Anna Malinowska
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Sexual Performance ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
Sex And Sexuality ◽  
Popular Images ◽  
Insight Into

This article examines depictions of disabled sex as mediated by normative representations of sexual performance and popular images of disability. It analyzes the ways in which disabled intimacies become encoded for mainstream reception through adaptation strategies that adjust disabled sexuality to a normative representational demand. Contextualizing recent popular images of disabled sex with studies on representing disability in popular media, the article shows how, despite the emergence of a new disability paradigm, the experience of sex and sexuality by people with disabilities becomes aesthetically subjugated to the ‘tyranny of the normal’. The author provides an insight into narrative strategies of the popular as well as examining methods used for relating disability and sex in popular culture. The article also advocates for the extension of popular narrative codes to ensure a more inclusive depiction of sexual pleasures, which although deemed ‘disabled’ are, nevertheless, erotic.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra L. Yacovazzi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
The Common ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Maria Monk ◽  
People Today

Nuns in popular media today are a staple of kitsch culture, evident in the common appearance of bobble-head nuns, nun costumes, and nun caricatures on TV, movies, and the stage. Nun stereotypes include the sexy vixen, the naïve innocent, and the scary nun. These types were forged in nineteenth-century convent narratives. While people today may not recognize the name “Maria Monk,” her legacy lives on in the public imagination. There may be no demands to search convents, but nuns and monastic life are nevertheless generally not taken seriously. This epilogue traces opposition to nuns from the Civil War to the present, analyzing the various images of nuns in popular culture as they relate to the antebellum campaign against convents. It argues that the source of the misunderstanding about nuns is rooted in the inability to categorize these women either as traditional wives and mothers or as secular, career-driven singles.

Teaching the Bible and Popular Media as Part of Contemporary Rape Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-439
Author(s):  
Beatrice J. W. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
Biblical Texts

This essay explores pedagogical strategies for addressing rape culture in biblical studies courses, employing Genesis 34 and Judges 19–21 as primary texts. The first section discusses the nature of popular culture and its impact on gender. The following four sections highlight cultural myths about sexual assault by focusing on significant biblical texts and incorporating aspects of popular media to facilitate conversations about rape culture. The conclusion summarizes the main points and encourage further studies that combine the study of popular media and biblical texts. Overall, the essay contributes to the reading and teaching of the Bible within contemporary rape culture so that students become critical interpreters of biblical texts, as they become resistant readers of past and present rape culture.

The Globalization of Superheroes: Diffusion, Genre, and Cultural Adaptations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Hammonds
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Retributive Justice ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
High Demand ◽  
Cultural Adaptations ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
The World ◽  
Entertainment Value ◽  
Industrial Societies

Superheroes are a global phenomenon. The superhero genre has been proliferated through modern industrial societies by way of movies, television, comics, and other forms of popular media. Although virtually every nation in the world has heroic myths, the modern superhero, as marked by the inception of recent American comics heroes in 1929, is a uniquely Western invention. Superheroes are “Western” insofar as they embody and exhibit Western civic values, such as democracy, humanism, and retributive justice. These characters have been communicatively incorporated into globalization processes by means of diffusion and thereby enact aspects of cultural imperialism. Even so, superhero figures have been in high demand across many populations for their entertainment value. As superheroes have diffused in non-Western cultures, they have not only been absorbed by new cultures but also refigured and adapted. These non-Western adaptations have had a recursive influence, such as the global popularity of Japanese manga. The recursive relationship between Western superheroes and their non-Western adaptations implies superheroes are an important aspect of cultural fusion in global popular culture.

Taxing Disability: A Critical Look into the Medical Cannabis Regime under the New Cannabis Act, 2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 436-457
Author(s):  
Rachel Rohr
Keyword(s):  
Medical Marijuana ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Medical Cannabis ◽  
Access To Medicine ◽  
Excise Tax ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Medical Regime ◽  
Taxation Scheme

Medical marijuana users represent many people with disabilities in Canada. Recent legislative attempts have allowed people with disabilities to access cannabis as medicine, however the landscape is ever changing. The Cannabis Act was recently introduced, legalizing marijuana for all; however, people with disabilities have not been accounted for when it comes to the issue of access to medicine. Those who rely on cannabis as medicine and those who enjoy it recreationally are now part of the same system, for better or worse. The new medical marijuana regime, under the new Cannabis Act, boasts a “two-stream” process, and it claims that it will be maintaining and improving the old medical regime alongside the new recreational regime. The applicable taxes tell a different story. Medical marijuana has always been subject to sales tax despite being effectively prescribed by doctors to manage and treat many disabilities and illnesses. Now, with the enactment of the Cannabis Act, medical marijuana is subject to an excise tax too—colloquially known as the “sin tax.” Recreational and medical marijuana are subject to the same taxation scheme, making any notion of a “two-stream” process nonsensical and blatantly unfair. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into the varying faults concerning the medical marijuana regime in Canada, with specific emphasis on the issue of taxation. In the simplest terms, taxing medical marijuana is taxing medicine and effectively taxing people with disabilities. Broken down into five parts, this article discusses the underlying reasons for the taxes surrounding medical marijuana, provides a case study of the most important tax case for medical marijuana users, scrutinizes the lack of recognition of medical marijuana as a proper prescription, outlines the ways to improve legislation, and, finally, explores a potential Charter challenge that can be effectively brought against this taxation.

scholarly journals У каждого своя Сибирь. Два женских рассказа о депортации калмыков

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-800
Author(s):  
Elza-Bair M. Guchinova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

Introduction. The proposed publication consists of an introduction, texts of two biographical interviews and comments thereon. Both the conversations took place in Elista (2004, 2017) as part of the research project ‘Everyone Has One’s Own Siberia’ dedicated to the important period in the history of Kalmykia though not yet sufficiently explored by anthropologists and sociologists — the deportation of Kalmyks to Siberia (1943–1956) and related memories. Goals. The project seeks to show the daily survival practices of Kalmyks in Siberia. In the spontaneous biographical interviews focusing on the years of Kalmyk deportation, not only the facts cited are important — of which we would otherwise stay unaware but from the oral narratives — but also the introduced stories of inner life: feelings and thoughts of growing girls. Methods. The paper involves the use of textual analysis and the method of text deconstruction. Results. The transcribed texts show survival and adaptation strategies employed by the young generation of ‘special settlers’ in places of forced residence. For many Kalmyks of that generation, high school was a ‘glass ceiling’, a limitation in life choices. In the narrative of R. Ts. Azydova, we face a today unthinkable social package for KUTV students with children — this illustrates how the korenization policy for indigenous populations in the USSR worked, and provides insight into daily practices of pre-war Elista. The story of T. S. Kachanova especially clearly manifests the ‘language of trauma’, first of all, through the memory of the body, vocabulary of death and displays of laughter. The texts of the interviews shall be interesting to all researchers of Kalmyk deportation and the memory of that period.

scholarly journals Japanese Concepts of Angels: Analyzing Depictions of Celestial Beings in the shōjo Manga Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunja Sharbat Dar
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Hermeneutic Approach ◽  
Shojo Manga ◽  
Insight Into

White wings, long hair, 'pure' faces: the appearance of angels frequently follows similar aesthetics connected to Christian imagery. Angels and Christian religion also are popular themes in manga, Japanese comics, often intermingled with Buddhist or Shinto notions. Since imagery in popular culture resonates and shapes vernacular and cultural perspectives, manga like Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne (KKJ) provide an important insight into the conceptualization of angels in Japan. This article therefore analyzes the contrary role of angels in KKJ as the Other, the mysterious, serene one, while simultaneously angels are depicted as part of the circle of life every creature undergoes in Buddhist cosmology. Based on a visual hermeneutic approach, this article demonstrates how the intermix of both visual and religious traditions in Japan shape the depiction of angels in Japanese popcultural media.

Live Long and Prosper: Rebooting Star Trek and Reimagining Fandom

Film Reboots ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Erin Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Star Trek ◽  
First Century ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks to Star Trek, a reboot that employed a time travel narrative to simultaneously cast the Star Trek universe as a new continuity and strategically recast iconic characters in a parallel timeline. The chapter asserts that the reinvention of Star Trek property as a twenty-first-century blockbuster required an investment not only in its narrative strategies, but also in a discursively reimagined audience, one that included both pre-existing and future fans. It demonstrates the way in which Star Trek highlights the intersecting logics of the film reboot and the mainstreaming of fandom in popular culture, both of which grow out of serial strategies designed to exploit new and established markets.

The Games Men Play

2017 ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Eric Niemi
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Discourse Communities ◽  
Critical Part ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter conveys the results of a study examining how male students use video games to construct their masculinity. Applying a critical discourse methodology, the study provides insight into how men construct their masculinity within video game discourse communities and how the construction applies to other discourses. It examines how men enter the discourse, what they learn in the discourse, and then how they apply that learning to other discourse communities. It concludes with recommendations and suggestions regarding how video games are a critical part of popular culture that facilitates construction of an identity through the multitude of encounters and relationships within the discourse.

scholarly journals Insight into the genome and brackish water adaptation strategies of toxic and bloom-forming Baltic Sea Dolichospermum sp. UHCC 0315

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonna E. Teikari ◽  
Rafael V. Popin ◽  
Shengwei Hou ◽  
Matti Wahlsten ◽  
Wolfgang R. Hess ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Brackish Water ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Insight Into

Hawaiian Music and Oceanizing American Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (04) ◽  
pp. 1163-1172
Author(s):  
LEAH KURAGANO
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
American Studies ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Culture Concept

American studies has been dedicated to understanding cultural forms from its beginnings as a field. Music, as one such form, is especially centered in the field as a lens through which to seek the cultural “essence” of US America – as texts from which to glean insight into negotiations of intellectual thought, social relations, subaltern resistance, or identity formation, or as a form of labor that produces an exchangeable commodity. In particular, the featuring of folk, indigenous, and popular music directly responded to anxieties in the intellectual circles of the postwar era around America's purported lack of serious culture in comparison to Europe. According to John Gilkeson, American studies scholars in the 1950s and 1960s “vulgarized” the culture concept introduced by the Boasian school of anthropology, opening the door to serious consideration of popular culture as equal in value to high culture.1

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