Homes for Displaced Figures: Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Dominic Lash
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
The Many

This chapter consists of a close reading of Pedro Costa's 2006 film Colossal Youth. It demonstrates the many distinctions that it puts in play, arguing that one of the film's achievements is that it does not break down distinctions so much as displace or disorientate them, managing thereby to simultaneously orientate and disorientate the viewer. How it does so is traced by means of the networks of significance which the film puts into play (which are also set out in an appendix that breaks down the film and identifies the structure of motifs that runs through it) and a range of different kinds of figuration, involving figures as persons, as metaphors, and as the kind of shapings that were explored in chapter five. It concludes by proposing that the film demonstrates how the notion of "home" can disturb or confuse the distinction between the literal and the figurative, and shows that a home is something that – just as was argued with regard to a film's coherence in chapter four – needs to be achieved.

Bad Dreams and Secret Artists: Translating Freud into Literature

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Popular Approach ◽  
English Reader ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Way

This article addresses the increasingly popular approach to Freud and his work which sees him primarily as a literary writer rather than a psychologist, and takes this as the context for an examination of Joyce Crick's recent translation of The Interpretation of Dreams. It claims that translation lies at the heart of psychoanalysis, and that the many interlocking and overlapping implications of the word need to be granted a greater degree of complexity. Those who argue that Freud is really a creative writer are themselves doing a work of translation, and one which fails to pay sufficiently careful attention to the role of translation in writing itself (including the notion of repression itself as a failure to translate). Lesley Chamberlain's The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud is taken as an example of the way Freud gets translated into a novelist or an artist, and her claims for his ‘bizarre poems' are criticized. The rest of the article looks closely at Crick's new translation and its claim to be restoring Freud the stylist, an ordinary language Freud, to the English reader. The experience of reading Crick's translation is compared with that of reading Strachey's, rather to the latter's advantage.

scholarly journals Samson’s “Thorn Bush” Tagging of Delilah Within Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949): Pricking One’s Scriptural Conscience?

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-106
Author(s):  
Anton Karl Kozlovic
Keyword(s):  
Film Criticism ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Selective Review ◽  
Biblical Epics ◽  
The Many

Legendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was a seminal cofounder of Hollywood, a progenitor of Paramount Pictures, and an unsung auteur who was not only an early pioneer of the religion-and-film genre but became the undisputed master of the American biblical epic. However, the many deftly engineered sacred subtexts, thematic preoccupations, and aesthetic skills of this movie trailblazer were frequently denied, derided or dismissed during his lifetime and decades thereafter. This situation is in need of re-examination, rectification and renewal. Consequently, following a close reading of Samson and Delilah (1949) and a selective review of the critical DeMille, film and religion literature, this article uses Delilah’s (Hedy Lamarr) “thorn bush” tag, given to her during the wedding feast confrontation scene with Samson (Victor Mature), to explicate ten thorn bush themes that reveal some of the hidden depths of C.B.’s biblical artistry. Utilising textually-based humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, this article concludes that DeMille was a far defter biblical filmmaker than has hitherto been appreciated. Further research into DeMille studies, biblical epics, and the religion-and-film field is warranted, recommended and already long overdue.

The Many Faces of Judy Malloy’s Uncle Roger

Traversals ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dene Grigar
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Electronic Literature ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Research Interviews ◽  
The Many

This chapters challenges the accepted view that Judy Malloy produced four versions of her pioneering work of electronic literature, Uncle Roger, showing through material uncovered from archival research, interviews, and Traversals, that there are instead six. Through a close reading of each version, the chapter also reveals subtle as well as significant changes the author made to the work during its 30-year history.

‘PUBLIC JUSTICE’ AS A CRITICAL POLITICAL NORM

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Chaplin
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
The Many ◽  
Theoretical Reflection ◽  
Theoretical Project

'Public justice’ is one of the most widely-invoked of the many distinctive terms coined by Herman Dooyeweerd but, strangely, one of the least well analysed. Dooyeewerd holds that that the identity of the state is defined by a single, integrating and directing norm, the establishment of ‘public justice’. Elaborating the implications of this claim has occupied much neo-Calvinist political reflection and guided much political action inspired by that movement. Yet surprisingly little sustained theoretical reflection has been devoted in recent times to examining its inner meaning and coherence. This article offers some preliminary groundwork necessary to that theoretical project. The first part presents a close reading of Dooyeweerd’s account of public justice, identifies ambiguities and inconsistencies in that account, and suggests a reconstruction displaying its wide-ranging dynamic thrust more prominently. The second part identifies two substantial challenges confronting this account: its relative neglect of processes of democratic deliberation and advocacy, and its underdeveloped critical potentials.

Livy's Preface

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 141-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Moles
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
The Many

Few of the many treatments of this famous preface seem to recognise the need for close reading of the text. The present paper sets out to remedy this deficiency in the hope of achieving three main aims: (1) to demonstrate the coherence and power of Livy's argument, as well as the subtlety of its exposition and the richness of its language; (2) to resolve certain specific problems; (3) to further the continuing debate on important general questions in ancient historiography.Facturusne operae pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nee satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim, (2) quippe qui cum ueterem turn uolgatam esse rem uideam, dum noui semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem uetustatem superaturos credunt.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Angela Frattarola
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Sound Perception ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Many ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
Century Literature

The introduction begins with a close reading of Rudyard Kipling’s “Wireless” in order to clarify the influence of auditory technology on turn-of-the-century literature. While explaining the geographical scope and limitations of the project, the Introduction situates the modernist shift toward sound perception as one of the many breaks with tradition that characterized the period. It also surveys recent scholarship that begins to consider how the soundscape, auditory technologies, and music of the early twentieth century influenced modernist literature.

The Cycle of Summons: A Hymn from the Seventh Song of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q403 1i 31–40)

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Mizrahi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Poetic Structure ◽  
The Many ◽  
Theological Message

The article investigates, by way of close reading, the literary unit that opens the seventh among the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The study begins with a text-critical analysis of the poem based on its extant witnesses, including the many corrections contained in its best preserved copy (4Q403 1i 31–40). It then advances a new proposal concerning the poetic structure of the text, relying on linguistic and stylistic evidence. The literary delineation allows one to discern the generic characteristics of the poem, which place it within the tradition of scriptural hymns. These form-critical insights form the basis for a renewed and nuanced appreciation of the theological message of the hymn.

scholarly journals The Many Ways to Talk about the Transits of Venus: Astronomical Discourses in Philosophical Transactions, 1753–1777

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-257
Author(s):  
Reetta Sippola
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Scientific Journal ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Over Time

This chapter uses topic modelling to explore the evolution of the scientific discourse in the scientific journal Philosophical Transactions in the mid-18th century. Combining cultural historical close reading and statistical topic modelling, the study demonstrates the value of combining ‘new’ and more traditional historical research methods. The study shows that there were at least nine ways of talking about astronomical observations around the two transits of Venus, in 1761 and 1768, and in this reveal several previously neglected themes and unnoticed temporal discourse changes. One notable theme when talking about experiments was the continuity regarding concern for exactness and reliability of the collected knowledge, while others indicate a significant use of algebra to explain astronomical events and that the amount of causal theories has weakened over time. The study furthermore documents a connection between politeness and strategic attention seeking using the transits of Venus. Finally, the results reveal significant astronomical conversations related to terrestrial weather, and the circumstances and equipment of experimenting and observing.

Close Reading as Performance

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-68
Author(s):  
Peter Howarth
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Modernist Poetry ◽  
Social Mediation ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Many

Rather than see close reading as just a means to protect the hypostasized text from its social mediation, this chapter proposes that we see it as one of the many ways in which, over the course of the twentieth century, art has moved from an affair of objects towards one of events, whose modus operandi is performance. In fostering this change, unintentionally or deliberately, close reading is actually moving in the same direction as the contemporary historicists, blurring the borders between art and its contextual medium. Returning close reading to its beginnings as the companion to a theory of modernist poetry may not help it sound less elite. But it will, as the chapter argues, make clearer how modernist poetry was partly aware from the start of the material conditions and social mediations of its reception.

scholarly journals Re-newing the ancient: The Kāśīkhaṇḍa and Śaiva Vārāṇasī

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
Travis L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

University of FloridaThe present essay reassesses the central narratives of that renowned Purāṇic ‘glorification’ (māhātmya) of Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa. In retelling the ancient stories pertaining to Śaiva Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa embeds itself within the authoritative tradition of Vārāṇasī māhātmyas, even while effecting an ambitious literary project: a radical reconfiguration of the Śaiva landscape of the city. This reconfiguration would seek to legitimize new Śaiva forms—most prominently, an imperial temple dedicated to Viśveśvara—while reconciling them with Vārāṇasī’s existing Pāśupata infrastructure. Belying facile characterizations of Purāṇa as mere ‘myth’, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa composers took care in ensuring that the many, interwoven strands of its grand narrative of Vārāṇasī’s past were purposefully linked to ideological concerns of the present. A close reading of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa’s narrative strategies provokes a reevaluation of current scholarly understandings of Vārāṇasī history that view texts as imperfectly reflecting historical realities, rather than as actively constructing that very history.

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