Border crossing: Grayson Perry’s queerly utopian English journey

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Graham H. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Judith Butler ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
First Century ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Artistic Identity ◽  
Fictional Character ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemporary Artist ◽  
Rake's Progress ◽  
The Relationship

In 2012, British contemporary artist Grayson Perry undertook a journey from Sunderland in northern England to the Cotswolds in the south. His stated aim was to explore the relationship between class and taste in twenty-first-century Britain. This journey was screened on the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 as a three-part documentary entitled All in the Best Possible Taste. Throughout his journey, Perry uses his observations and interactions with those he meets to produce a series of six large tapestries, The Vanity of Small Differences (2012). These tapestries, inspired by Hogarth’s series of paintings entitled A Rake’s Progress (1733), trace the meteoric rise, and tragic fall, of a fictional character Tim Rakewell, whose ascension through the social ranks ends in a rather violent death (this narrative echoes that of Hogarth’s equally fictional Tom Rakewell). In my article, I analyse Perry’s documentary, and in particular the artwork, which he produces as a part of that documentary, using concepts borrowed from Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Michel Maffesoli and Louis Marin, among others. I argue that Perry’s purported exploration of the relationship between British (or rather English) class and taste is in fact primarily concerned with two other things: first, Perry’s own status as a contemporary artist – a desire to portray himself as a ‘latter-day Hogarth’, if you will; and second, contemporary art’s capacity to be both relevant to society and popular among members of that society. Ultimately then, via his performative exploration of subjectivity in this documentary and indeed elsewhere in his work, Perry ‘queers’ not just masculinity, but also, and perhaps more importantly, received notions of national, social and artistic identity.

Archaeology and the Letters of Paul

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Salah Nasrallah
Keyword(s):  
Judith Butler ◽  
First Century ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Feminist Historiography ◽  
The Many ◽  
Political Economic

Through case studies of archaeological materials from local contexts, Archaeology and the Letters of Paul illuminates the social, political, economic, and religious lives of those whom the apostle Paul addressed. Roman Ephesos, a likely setting for the household of Philemon, provides evidence of the slave trade. An inscription from Galatia seeks to restrain traveling Roman officials, illuminating how the travels of Paul, Cephas, and others may have disrupted communities. At Philippi, a donation list from a Silvanus cult provides evidence of abundant giving amid economic limitations, paralleling practices of local Christ followers. In Corinth, a landscape of grief includes monuments and bones, a context that illumines Corinthian practices of baptism on behalf of the dead and the provocative idea that one could live “as if not” mourning. Rome and the Letter to the Romans are the grounds to investigate ideas of time and race not only in the first century, when we find an Egyptian obelisk inserted as a timepiece into Augustus’s mausoleum complex, but also of Mussolini’s new Rome. Thessalonikē demonstrates how letters, legend, and cult are invented out of a love for Paul, after his death. The book articulates a method for bringing together biblical texts with archaeological remains in order to reconstruct the lives of the many adelphoi—brothers and sisters—whom Paul and his co-writers address. It is informed by feminist historiography and gains inspiration from thinkers like Claudia Rankine, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, Wendy Brown, and Katie Lofton.

Insubordinate Plasticity: Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou

Hypatia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-606
Author(s):  
Natalie Helberg
Keyword(s):  
Judith Butler ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
The Social ◽  
Capacity For Change ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this article, I explore the relationship between performativity, as it appears in Judith Butler's work, and plasticity, as it appears in the work of Catherine Malabou. I argue that these concepts are isomorphic. Butler and Malabou both hold that resistance to contemporary forms of power, or “insubordination,” is contingent on a subject's ability to become other than what it is; Butler articulates this ability in terms of performativity, and Malabou articulates it in terms of plasticity. I reveal the social-constructivist dimension of Malabou's work while also making apparent the extent to which Butler's work, contrary to her own way of conceptualizing it, and hence surprisingly and uneasily, presupposes a biologically basic capacity for change. Plasticity is this biologically basic capacity. Both thinkers affirm the idea that insubordinate forms of transformation can be impeded by the discourse that conditions what a subject can think. I suggest that this is an insight that must be heeded, even as I seek to affirm a form of plasticity beyond discourse.

Historicity, Peoplehood, and Politics: Holocaust Talk in Twenty-First-Century France

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 968-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Arkin
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Anthropological Literature ◽  
French National Identity ◽  
Holocaust Narratives ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractDrawing on ethnographic data from the mid-2000s as well as accounts from French Jewish newspapers and magazines from the 1980s onward, this paper traces the emergence of new French Jewish institutional narratives linking North African Jews to the “European” Holocaust. I argue that these new narratives emerged as a response to the social and political impasses produced by intra-Jewish disagreements over whether and how North African Jews could talk about the Holocaust, which divided French Jews and threatened the relationship between Jewishness and French national identity. These new pedagogical narratives relied on a very different historicity, or way of reckoning time and causality, than those used in more divisive everyday French Jewish Holocaust narratives. By reworking the ways that French Jews reckoned time and causality, they offered an expansive and homogenously “European” Jewishness. This argument works against a growing postcolonial sociological and anthropological literature on religious minorities in France and Europe by emphasizing the contingency, difficulty, and even ambivalence around constructing “Jewishness” as transparently either “European” or “French.” It also highlights the role played by historicity—not just history—in producing what counts as group “identity.”

Tragedy in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Theatre Production

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Escolme
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Problems ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Tragic Hero ◽  
Theatre Architecture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
The Common ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship between actor and scenography in twentieth and twenty-first century productions of Hamlet and King Lear, particularly the common theatrical trope of realist acting on abstract stage sets. It argues that whilst in some productions the notion of tragic hero as common man reduces the plays to a set of psychological problems, in others, contrasts and tensions between acting style and scenography or theatre architecture have created what the author calls a ‘politics of intimacy’. These productions have made it possible for detailed, realist acting on non-naturalistic stage sets to pose potent questions about the social and political meanings of human relations in the plays. They have allowed for an audience experience that involves both psychological intimacy and ideological critique.

scholarly journals A Retórica da Morte na Narrativa de Tito Lívio (Século I a.C.) * The Rhetoric of Death in Livy´s Narrative (First-Century B.C.)

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
LUCIANE MUNHOZ DE OMENA ◽  
SUIANY BUENO SILVA
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ab Urbe Condita ◽  
The Relationship

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> O artigo aborda algumas questões conceituais e políticas da relação entre morte e retórica na <em>Ab Urbe Condita</em> de Tito Lívio. Traçaremos algumas reflexões acerca da morte voluntária da aristocrata Lucrécia e, dessa forma, compreenderemos a relevância de seu papel político no discurso histórico a partir dos aparatos da memória, que se vinculam à arte do convencimento, e de suas interferências no espaço social durante o século I a.C.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> Morte – Retórica – Memória – História e Política.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> The article discusses some conceptual issues and policies of the relationship between death and rhetoric in <em>Ab</em><em> Urbe Condita</em> by Livy. We are going to describe some reflections on the voluntary death of the aristocrat Lucrezia and thus understand the relevance of its political role in historical discourse from the memory apparatus, which are linked to the art of persuasion, and their interference in the social space during the first century B.C.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Death – Rhetoric – Memory – History and Politics.</p>

scholarly journals The Turn to Precarity in Twenty-First Century Fiction

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-29
Author(s):  
Jago Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biographical Study ◽  
Way Finding ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract Recent years have seen several attempts by writers and critics to understand the changed sensibility in post-9/11 fiction through a variety of new -isms. This essay explores this cultural shift in a different way, finding a ‘turn to precarity’ in twenty-first century fiction characterised by a renewal of interest in the flow and foreclosure of affect, the resurgence of questions about vulnerability and our relationships to the other, and a heightened awareness of the social dynamics of seeing. The essay draws these tendencies together via the work of Judith Butler in Frames of War, in an analysis of Trezza Azzopardi’s quasi-biographical study of precarious life, Remember Me.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeehyun Lim
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
A Site ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
The Relationship

The epilogue reflects on the future of bilingual brokering in the twenty-first century through David Henry Hwang’s bilingual play, Chinglish. While Chinglish seemingly overturns the social construction of bilingual personhood along the terms of possessive individualism by championing interlingual lapses, irregularities, and mistakes, this attempt to free the linguistic subject from the constraints of language as capital is delivered through a careful rendition of English-Mandarin bilingualism, enabled through such institutional actors’ interest in the play as the Chinese state. These conditions of possibility for Hwang’s bilingual play serve as a reminder that while bilingual personhood may recede from cultural significance as a site of examining the relationship between racial subjectivity and capital, bilingualism in cultural politics is still enmeshed in the flows of capital.

Hoe machtig is een minister ? : De politicus in de netwerkmaatschappij

Res Publica ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Mark Eyskens
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
First Century ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
Rising Power ◽  
The Relationship

Defining a minister's power is not an easy exercise. It bas to be put in a broader framework: a pluralistic democracy, that has respect for human rights and basic freedoms and a market economy that is developping towards a national border crossing competition and cooperation. But there are also some basic rules coming from national but also regional and supranational institutions. There nowadays exists a so called 'Gulliver-effect': the state represented by the governement is like a giant that is threatened by a lot of surrenders whoforce him towards a powerless existence. Although citizens often have the impression politics is capable of doing anything it wants to, policy makers more often have to cope with restrictions that obstruct them in their policy aims.At the beginning of the twenty-first century ministers are heavily counterbalanced by other institions. Trade unions, big lobby groups, administration, the cabinets, the party executive and party president, parliament and the media: they all threaten a minster's power. Also the rising power of regional and supranational decision levels makes the power of a politician decline. In the future, rising information and communication skills will not only change the character of politics but also that of modern society. The internet, the globalisation ofeconomy and other changes will transform politics in a fundamental way. Leadership, power and authority will change strongly and the relationship between the citizens and their authority will never be the same again.

The Unaccountable Subject: Judith Butler and the Social Conditions of Intersubjective Agency

Hypatia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Dow Magnus
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Judith Butler's Kritik der ethischen Gewalt1 represents a significant refinement of her position on the relationship between the construction of the subject and her social subjection. While Butler's earlier texts reflect a somewhat restricted notion of agency, her Adorno Lectures formulate a notion of agency that extends beyond mere resistance. This essay traces the development of Butler's account of agency and evaluates it in light of feminist projects of social transformation.

scholarly journals LIBERATING THECENA

2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 614-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Roth
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
World View ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Seminal Paper ◽  
The Social ◽  
Number Of Individuals ◽  
The Relationship

That the extraordinary narrative experiment known as theSatyriconhas regularly stimulated scholarly investigation into the relationship between status and freedom is not surprising for a work, the longest surviving section of which features an excessive dinner party at the house of alibertus. Much of the discussion has concentrated on the depiction of the dinner's host and his freedmen friends. Following the lead of F. Zeitlin and others in seeing the depiction of a ‘freedmen's milieu’ in theCena, J. Bodel argued in a seminal paper published twenty years ago that theCenaopens a window onto the ‘freedman's mentality’. The last ten years or so have seen a revival of the theme, with much emphasis on the display of an open society in theCena, even a Saturnalian world-view, based on a suspension or reversal of the traditional social hierarchies, all framed by a general air of excessive liberality: whatever satirical lens theSatyricon’s author is seen to have projected onto Trimalchio and his freedmen friends,theyare understood as celebrating ‘freedom's defining difference’. In the light of such a unifying conceptualization of theCena’s motley crew, it is not surprising that scholars have come to understand the libertine assemblage as a reflection of ‘the social class of the “freedmen” in first-centurya.d.Italy’. After all, ‘class’ can be defined as ‘a number of individuals (persons or things) possessing common attributes’, and, with specific regard to human society, as ‘a division of society according to status’.

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