scholarly journals Bloody Disgusting! Abjection, Excess & Absurdity: The Carnivalesque Cohesion Between Horror & Comedy in Film & Television

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sarah Crowther

Horror and comedy. Screaming and laughing. Two genres and the visceral responses which they provoke, broadly considered to be polarised, apparently juxtaposed. This thesis argues that horror and comedy can be significantly more cohesive in their thematic traits, visual presentation and narrative events, than might initially be considered. Expanding a relatively underexplored academic field and building on the work of Paul (1994), the doctorate explores gross-out cinema and television in both theory and praxis. Part One opens with scholarly exploration of core theories of genre, horror and comedy. Semiotic and historical analysis and close reading of key texts in the horror, comedy, and hybrid horror comedy genre identifies and considers shared representation across the genres. Analysed texts include The Evil Dead series (1981-1992), Grimsby (2016), Nighty Night (2004-2005) and Braindead (1992). The core shared themes and representations across the genres are posited as abjection, excess and absurdity. Each of these elements is then explored in context of the tension of horror and humour co-present in the grotesque (Thomson, 1972). The paradoxical pleasure in reception (often in the disgust response) is found to align to the transgressions of the carnivalesque, and moreover, the carnivalesque grotesque (Danow, 1995, Bakhtin, 1974 et al.). These findings are then uniquely applied in praxis in Part Two in the original feature length film script Knitters! in which the women of the Potter’s Bluff Townswomen’s Guild must face an indestructible supernatural foe in an isolated Lake District resort. In the Lake District no-one can hear you scream! The Part Three exegesis reflects rigorously on the application of thesis findings in praxis, alongside detailed gnosis of the practical construction of a feature length script including close consideration of plotting, narrative pacing and characterisation.

2021 ◽  
pp. 175048132110177
Author(s):  
Shushan Azatyan ◽  
Zeinab Mohammad Ebrahimi ◽  
Yadollah Mansouri

The Velvet Revolution of Armenia, which took place in 2018, was an important event in the history of Armenia and changed the government peacefully by means of large demonstrations, rallies and marches. This historic event was covered by Armenian news media. Our goal here was to do a Discourse-Historical Analysis of the Armenian Velvet Revolution as covered by two Armenian websites: armenpress.am-the governmental website and 168.am-the non-governmental website. In our analysis we identified how the lexicon related to the Armenian Velvet Revolution was negotiated and legitimized by these media, and which discursive strategies were applied. We concluded that ‘Armenpress’ paid more attention to the government’s speeches, discussions, meetings and tried to impose the opinion of the government upon the people. In contrast, ‘168’ tried to present itself as an independent website with a neutral attitude toward the Velvet Revolution but, in reality, as we can conclude from the negative opinions about the Velvet Revolution in the coverage of ‘168’, it also represented the government’s interests. There was also a discursive struggle over the exact meaning of ‘revolution’ and the sense of ‘velvet’ in politics and the academic field that was to some extent introduced by these media.


2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-49
Author(s):  
Russell Skiba

Background/Context Research in the latter half of the 20th century purporting to show significant racial differences in intelligence and social behavior appears to pit civil rights concerns against the freedom of scientific inquiry. The core hypotheses and presumptions of recent research on racial difference are not new, however, but spring from a two-century-old program of research that has sought to demonstrate racial differences in socially valued traits. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this review was to explore the history of racial difference research in order to (1) elucidate the central themes of that research and (2) explore the reasons for the persistence of those themes into modern racial difference research. Research Design The investigation is a historical analysis of research on racial differences from the late 18th century to the present. Conclusions/Recommendations Both the methodologies and the willingness to express the core hypotheses of a fixed differential between races on socially important characteristics have changed over time, yet adherence to a set of core research questions has remained relatively unchanged across generations of researchers. Although the consistent conflation of its political and scientific aims has, to some extent, compromised the scientific status of racial difference research, consistent links to social and economic policy have also ensured its intergenerational reproduction. Convergent shifts across a number of disciplines suggest that a Kuhnian-type paradigm shift may be under way that will redefine both the strategies and the types of questions that may characterize future research in the areas of race, ethnicity, and culture.


Author(s):  
Nathan Coombs

This chapter argues against the Hegelian-Marxist narrative, in which Lenin’s reading of the Science of Logic in 1914 led him to refound Marxist dialectics. Through a close reading of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks it is shown that although he made withering remarks about Engels’s and Plekhanov’s dialectics, this did not lead Lenin to reject the core principles of dialectical materialism. Indeed, it is demonstrated that Lenin neither intended to nor accomplished a refoundation of Marxist dialectics in 1914. The notion of quantity-quality leaps Lenin adds to his works from the time onwards show him less as an innovator in Marxist philosophy and more as a keeper of the flame of dialectical materialist orthodoxy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Jodi G. Welsch ◽  
Jennifer Jones Powell ◽  
Valerie J. Robnolt
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-202
Author(s):  
Pedro Salgado

Ao inserir a luta de classes no centro da análise histórica, o Marxismo Político propõe uma reinterpretação da disciplina de Relações Internacionais que pode ser entendida em três passos. O primeiro é uma visão histórica da formação do sistema de estados moderno, a partir de transformações da geopolítica feudal após a origem do capitalismo. O segundo, uma metodologia historicista que parte da forma como a operação de tal sistema pode ser entendida através dos conflitos entre classes com suas respectivas estratégias de espacialização. Por fim, resta justificar a centralidade da luta de classe, e de “classe” enquanto categoria analítica, através do retorno à obra de Marx, resgatando a forma como a noção sociológica de agência é antecipada em sua filosofia da práxis. Assim, reinscrevendo a distinção entre “global” e “(inter)nacional” nas relações sociais que lhe dão origem, a disciplina de Relações Internacionais assume a forma de Sociologia Histórica.ABSTRACTBy bringing class struggle into the core of historical analysis, Political Marxism suggests a reinterpretation of International Relations that can be understood in three steps. Firstly, a historical account of of the rise of the modern states-system through the transformations in feudal geopolitics after the rise of capitalism. Secondly, the development of a radically historicist methodology that is explains this system's operation through the conflict between classes and their respective spatialization strategies. At last, the justification for having class struggle at the core of the analysis, and of "class" as an analytical unit, comes from a return to Marx's work to see how he grounds the sociological notion of agency in his philosophy of praxis. Therefore, by reviving the distinctiong between "global" and "(inter)national" in the social relations that give birth to this very distinction, the discipline of International Relations assumes the form of Historical Sociology.Palavras-chave: Relações Internacionais, Marxismo, GeopolíticaKeywords: International Relations, Marxism, GeopoliticsRecebido em 24 de Abril de 2017 | Aceito em 07 de Agosto de 2017Received on April 24, 2017 | Accepted on August 7, 2017 DOI: 10.12957/rmi.2016.28437 


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-98
Author(s):  
Daniella Ysabel B. dela Cruz

The paper aims to perform a close reading of Singaporean short story author Stephanie Ye. Using formalism as the core discipline, the researcher aims to develop and explain the concepts of time and memory presented by the author. In addition, a critique of the writing style and syntax in relation to the themes of the story will be tackled as well.  


Author(s):  
Anika Roberts-Stahlbrand

This article will apply food regime theory to an examination of the rise and fall of the apple industry in Nova Scotia between 1862 and 1980. From the 1860s until World War II, apples were a booming cross-Atlantic export business that continued the colonial bonds to Britain. But after the war, Britain developed its own domestic apple industry, and Nova Scotia apples failed to capture a loyal and secure market based on taste or quality. This led to the decline of the industry by the 1980s. Since that time, a new local apple industry based on taste and craft processing has arisen in Nova Scotia.  This article affirms the broad historical analysis of food regime theory, while drawing attention to the need for an ecological enhancement of the theory. 


Author(s):  
Rachel Fulton Brown

By the later Middle Ages, every man, woman, or child, cleric or lay, who could read would have known the Hours or ‘Little Office’ of the Virgin Mary. Even those who could not read the Office in full would have known to recite its opening antiphon (Ave Maria) at the appropriate hours of the day. This chapter argues that a close reading of the texts of the Hours themselves is necessary to appreciate fully the place that Mary held in the hearts and minds of her medieval devotees. Through the hymns, antiphons, and psalms that make up the core of her Office, Mary is revealed as above all the temple in which God made himself present to the world, the Lord whom the psalmist called upon to make his face shine on his people. It was with this understanding of Mary that her medieval devotees sought to serve her through the recitation of her Hours.


Author(s):  
Yin Qian ◽  
Zhuoyuan Xing ◽  
Xiaohua Shi

Abstract Local historical documents originated from daily life of people belong to special collection resources that were not published publicly. They are valuable assets of universities and libraries. At present, most documents had only finished digitalization or partial datalization work. However, the requirements of deep knowledge mining in documents data, providing visual analysis, and effectively supporting the research of historic humanities scholars had not been fully met. Taking the local historical documents project of Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an example, using relevant techniques of digital humanities (DH), the in-depth analysis and utilization research of documents data were carried out. On the one hand, the core database of the documents was established based on standardizing metadata cataloguing and establishing metadata association. On the other hand, based on the core database, an intelligent DH system platform was constructed. The platform is to realize full-field retrieval and display of the documents, text analysis, association analysis, statistics, and visual presentation of knowledge. In addition, in the process of using the platform for research, humanities scholars can continuously expand the data dimensions and the relationships between data, achieve intelligent supplementation of documents data and platform self-learning. The concept of DH has led to a new direction of database construction and platform development. In the exploration and practice of DH, libraries should continue to widen thinking, improve service and innovation capabilities, and provide better research perspectives, research environments, research support, and research experience for humanities scholars.


Author(s):  
Justin R. Ritzinger

This chapter offers an analysis of Taixu’s Maitreyan theology through a close reading of his commentaries on the Three Essentials—the texts he identified as the cult’s foundation. These were the “Chapter on Knowing Reality,” the Yoga Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa, and the Sutra of Maitreya’s Ascent. It argues that Taixu found in these texts, and in his interpretations augmented, indigenous analogues to the key values that inspired him as a young anarchist: science, a revolutionary ethic, and utopia. These texts further allowed him to bring these values into meaningful relationship with the core Buddhist good of Buddhahood.


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