Ghostly Boundaries: Transnational Tensions and Adapting Animation in the Ghost In The Shell Franchise

2019 ◽  
pp. 141-157
Author(s):  
Brian Ruh

Brian Ruh’s essay analyzes the representational politics in the Japanese-originated Ghost in the Shell franchise (1989-Present). Media franchises continue to struggle with representation, both in front of the camera (e.g., the marginalization of LGBTQ characters in franchise films) and behind it (e.g., a lack of female directors on franchise projects). As Ruh explains, Rupert Sanders’s 2017 American, live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation sparked a controversy in representation after casting Scarlett Johansson in the lead role of Motoko Kusanagi.

Author(s):  
Arun Kumar ◽  
Hari Bapuji ◽  
Raza Mir

AbstractScholars of business and management studies have recently turned their attention to inequality, a key issue for business ethics given the role of private firms in transmitting—and potentially challenging—inequalities. However, this research is yet to examine inequality from a subaltern perspective. In this paper, we discuss the alleviation of inequalities in organizational and institutional contexts by drawing on the ideas of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, a jurist, political leader and economist, and one of the unsung social theorists of the twentieth century. Specifically, we focus on Ambedkar’s critique of the Indian caste system, his outline of comprehensive reform, and prescription of representational politics to achieve equality. We contend that an Ambedkarite ethical manifesto of persuasion—focussed on state-led institutional reforms driven by the subaltern—can help management researchers reimagine issues of inequality and extend business ethics beyond organizational boundaries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Theo van Leeuwen

The paper presents a framework for the distinctive feature analysis of movement and mobility in texts, performances and semiotic artefacts, showing its applicability to the analysis of meaning-making in dance, music, animated and live action film and video, and product design. Emphasis is placed on the role of movement and mobility in identity design. Identity design is realized by the style in which movements are performed and can be analysed in terms of the gradable distinctive features present in any movement – direction, expansiveness, velocity, force, angularity, fluidity, directedness and regularity. The paper includes a historical dimension, focusing on the development of movement and mobility as semiotic resources, and argues for the pioneering role of modernist artists in this development.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pallab Kumar Biswas ◽  
Helen Roberts ◽  
Rosalind Heather Whiting

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of female director affiliations to governing families on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures in the context of Bangladeshi firms. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a quantitative empirical research method grounded in Socioemotional Wealth (SEW) theory. Data was sourced from Bangladeshi publicly listed non-financial sector companies’ annual reports and stock exchange trading and publication reports and consists of 2,637 firm-year observations from 1996 to 2011. Pooled multivariate regression models are used to test the association between corporate social and environmental disclosure and female directors, and the family affiliation (or not) of those directors. Findings The findings provide strong evidence that female directors who are affiliated to the governing family, founders and other board members reduce CSR disclosure in family firms; unaffiliated female board directors enhance CSR disclosure, and this effect is significant in both family and non-family firms. Research limitations/implications Definitions of family firms and affiliated directors may lead to over-generalization in the results. Originality/value The study highlights variation in the nature of female board appointments in emerging market family-controlled firms. The findings bring attention to the role of affiliated female director appointments in family ownership structures and speak directly to family business owners, advisors and policy makers about the importance of unaffiliated female directors as catalysts of improved CSR disclosure in family and non-family firms.


2020 ◽  
pp. 000183922097569
Author(s):  
Pier Vittorio Mannucci ◽  
Davide C. Orazi ◽  
Kristine de Valck

The growing relevance of improvisation for successful organizing calls for a better understanding of how individuals develop improvisation skills. While research has investigated the role of training and simulations, little is known about how individuals develop improvisation skills when formal training is not an option and how individual-level factors shape development trajectories. We explore these issues in a longitudinal qualitative analysis of live action role-playing. Our findings reveal a three-stage process of improvisation development shaped by the presence of task and social structures, which act as both constraints and resources. Moreover, our findings illuminate how collaborative and competitive orientations shape whether improvisers perceive these structures as a resource that they need to nurture and renew (i.e., collaborative) or to seize and exploit (i.e., competitive). We also show that individual orientations are not always enduring but can change over time, engendering four types of improvisation development trajectories. Our work provides a longitudinal account of how individual orientations shape the process of improvisation development. In so doing, we also explain why individuals who are skilled improvisers do not necessarily improvise effectively as a collective, and we reconcile different conceptualizations of improvisation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Beáta Pusztai

Abstract With respect to adaptation studies, contemporary Japanese popular culture signifies a unique case, as different types of media (be those textual, auditive, visual or audio-visual) are tightly intertwined through the “recycling” of successful characters and stories. As a result, a neatly woven net of intermedial adaptations has been formed - the core of this complex system being the manga-anime-live-action film “adaptational triangle.” On the one hand, the paper addresses the interplay of the various factors by which the very existence of this network is made possible, such as the distinctive cultural attitude to “originality,” the structure of the comics, animation and film industries, and finally, the role of fictitious genealogies of both traditional and contemporary media in the negotiation of national identity. On the other hand, the essay also considers some of the most significant thematic, narrative, and stylistic effects this close interconnectedness has on the individual medium. Special attention is being paid to the nascent trend of merging the adaptive medium with that of the original story (viewing adaptation as integration), apparent in contemporary manga-based live- action comedies, as the extreme case of intermedial adaptation. That is, when the aim of the adaptational process is no longer the transposition of the story but the adaptation (i.e. the incorporation) of the medium itself- elevating certain medium-specific devices into transmedial phenomena.


Author(s):  
Andrea Bachner

What imaginaries, tropes, and media have influenced the way we theorize now? The Mark of Theory argues that inscription constitutes one of the master metaphors of contemporary theory. The book understands inscription as a scene that takes place where and when a material surface is breached and forced to bear marks. As a trope that draws on a wide array of practices of marking, from tattooing to circumcision, from photographic imprints and phonographic grooves to marks on a page, inscription provides an imaginary that orients, governs, and irritates theoretical thought. By tracing inscriptive imaginaries from the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century up to today, The Mark of Theory offers a wide-ranging conceptual genealogy of contemporary thought. With its poststructuralist attention to figurative language and its media studies focus on objects, phenomena, and practices of mediation, this book works through core theoretical formations of poststructuralism, understanding them as a past legacy of a thought to come, as a prehistory of our current moment. By focusing on the ways in which theoretical works express, illustrate, and concretize their conceptual tenets, The Mark of Theory also reflects on the role of materiality and mediation in theory. As a theoretical tropology that takes the medium and materiality of metaphor seriously, it argues that different inscriptive practices and media imaginaries not only shape conceptual thought but that they determine representational politics and ethical choices.


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