scholarly journals Gender and the transsexual body in Transamerica

Literator ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy A. Jensen

Transamerica, by Duncan Tucker, released in 2005, addresses lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer- (LGBTQ-) related themes through a transsexual female protagonist, Bree. This article discusses the film as an important step in the direction of representing the complexity of gender, which, by today’s standards, is more generally appreciated. Because of its subject matter, Transamerica is a contentious film, lauded and condemned in mainstream media for how it dealt with and represented transsexual identities. Despite nominations for a number of awards, the film’s portrayal of transsexual identities was largely ignored in academic discourse at the time. I argue here that the film provides insight into the challenges, requirements, concerns, as well as the consequences of gender-fluid expression, which has been recognised in academia for years and has become a more discussed topic in mainstream society, but the manner in which the film examines these insights was overlooked. I do this by contextualising the film in terms of contemporary examples of transgender existence, which have brought the topic to mainstream discourse, and by applying gender theory concepts to the film. I discuss the protagonist’s physical and emotional journey to self-discovery in the context of the road movie trope. I then look into the protagonist’s gender performance, as well as how the protagonist negotiates this performance in the various places she visits while on the journey. I show that the film encourages open and honest discourse about gender identity and expression; the opportunity for this discussion was not taken in the year of the film’s release.

This collection seeks to position the journey as a persistent presence across cinema, and fundamental to its position within modernity. It addresses the innovative appeal of journey narratives from pre-cinema to new media and through documentary, fiction, and the spaces between. Its examples traverse different regions and cultures, including a sub-section dedicated to Eastern Europe, to illuminate questions of belonging, diaspora, displacement, identity and memory. It considers how the journey is a formal element determining art cinema and popular genres such as sci-fi, romance and horror alike, with a special focus on rethinking the road movie. Through this variety, the collection investigates the journey as a motif for self-discovery and encounter, an emblem of artistic and social transformation, a cause of dynamism or stasis and as evidence of autonomy and progress (or their lack). The essays in it thus document epochal changes from urbanisation, migration and war to tourism and shopping, and all aim to address the diversity of cinematic journeys through developing methodological frameworks appropriate to an understanding of the journey as simultaneously a political question, contextual element and a formal property.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 1311-1327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pala Rajasekharreddy ◽  
Chao Huang ◽  
Siddhardha Busi ◽  
Jobina Rajkumari ◽  
Ming-Hong Tai ◽  
...  

With the emergence of nanotechnology, new methods have been developed for engineering various nanoparticles for biomedical applications. Nanotheranostics is a burgeoning research field with tremendous prospects for the improvement of diagnosis and treatment of various cancers. However, the development of biocompatible and efficient drug/gene delivery theranostic systems still remains a challenge. Green synthetic approach of nanoparticles with low capital and operating expenses, reduced environmental pollution and better biocompatibility and stability is a latest and novel field, which is advantageous over chemical or physical nanoparticle synthesis methods. In this article, we summarize the recent research progresses related to green synthesized nanoparticles for cancer theranostic applications, and we also conclude with a look at the current challenges and insight into the future directions based on recent developments in these areas.


Author(s):  
Emanuela Dalmasso

In this chapter, Emanuela Dalmasso examines the self-discovery and challenges that Western women face when conducting interviews in the MENA region. She looks at three main processes. First, how to cope with only being recognized as a woman and not as a scholar. In practice how to reset, kindly but firmly, the boundaries of the interaction when research participants focus on gender identity instead of the professional one. Second, how to recognize respondents’ various misperceptions of researcher’s identity and how to react to them. Finally, how to understand respondents’ intersectionality by inquiring into practices, not just discourses.


1926 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. H. Worsfold

From the Marine Parade, Tankerton, Whitstable, looking East, one obtains a capital view of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, in which my discoveries have been made which are to form the subject matter of this paper. The grassy cliff at Priest and Sow corner at the end of the road stands at 55 O.D. This height gradually declining round the arc of the bay, to die out entirely in the Long Rock occupying the middle distance and through which the Swalecliffe Brook discharges into the sea. Just beyond, a little to the right, are the disused Swalecliffe Brick Works, with Stud Hill and Hampton lying further back. To the left and edging the horizon, Herne Bay Pier is clearly discernable. The accompanying copy of (Plate I.) the 25-in. Ordnance map of this Tankerton Bay section gives the exact position of the 650 yards from the Parish Boundary Stone eastwards indicated thereon with a X in which are found the gravels and brick-earths which have proved so rich in archaeological treasure trove. The whole of this south-easterly directioned well-drained gently sloping ground, from the Priest and Sow corner to the Swalecliffe brook, forms an ideal camping site. Last April a paper was read by me before the Geological Association, at University College, London, entitled “An Examination of the Contents of the Brick Earths and Gravels of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, Kent,” in which the geological aspect of this section was fairly exhaustively treated, so that in this particular it will be unnecessary for me to do more than give a brief summary of the results of that examination as to the relative age and stratigraphical sequence of the Drift material found here overlying the London Clay.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja Rojek

Rojek Patrycja, Konkretyzacja estetyczna w Zwierzętach nocy (2016) Toma Forda [Aesthetic Concretization in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals (2016)]. „Przestrzenie Teorii” 32. Poznań 2019, Adam Mickiewicz University Press, pp. 401–416. ISSN 1644-6763. DOI 10.14746/pt.2019.32.22. The subject of Austin Wright’s novel Tony and Susan (published in 1993) is the reader’s experience. The peculiar relationship that forms between the main female character - a reader of literary fiction – and the novel itself as well as its author, inspired in 2016 Tom Ford to capture the specifics of the same relationships using the language of moving images. This article presents the effects of studying the complex system of communication situations occurring in the novel and its film adaptation: each of them contains an additional story around which further author-reader relationships are formed. The analysis shows that a significant part of the film’s plot is not a direct insight into the novel, but its concretization projected by a female protagonist. Tom Ford’s film is therefore considered in relation to Roman Ingarden’s theory on aesthetic concretization.


wisdom ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25
Author(s):  
Alla Anatolii MARCHYSHYNA ◽  
Anatolii SKRYPNYK

The paper considers ontology of queer as interpreted in philosophy, social studies and language. The short history of the analysed concept sheds light on transformations of its semantic structure. Queer is viewed inseparably from gender theory where it gets apparent representation as a queer gender identity. The diffusive and trespassing nature makes queer contrary to stable and traditionally immutable sex/gender dichotomy with the normative male/female components. Queer violation of this long-established standard results in revolutionary shifts in the philosophy of human sex/gender freedom of manifestation and recognition, formation and alteration of social stereotypes, introduction and spread of verbal means serving the lingual signs of queer in general and queer gender identity, in particular. Texts of scholarly, publicist and literary functional styles depict “queer” differently depending on the objectives of each register and the appropriate scope of linguistic tools.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Campbell ◽  
Alan Ray

<p>Clinical legal education in Australia traditionally has been based in generalist clinics, where the client and caseload intake is limited primarily by the financial means of clients rather than by the legal subject matter of their problems. The breadth and variety of legal problems which confront clinic students provide insight into and understanding of the operation of the legal system at the grass roots and the legal issues raised rarely seem to reflect directly the law the students have learnt in the classroom.</p><p>In recent years, for both educational and political reasons, Australian Universities have begun to develop specialised clinics, serving clients with problems in a particular area of law.</p><p>This article describes the operation of Monash’s specialised Family Law clinic and considers the factors which, in the Monash experience, have combined to ensure its stability and recognition, within the University and in the broader political context.</p>


2015 ◽  
pp. 133-146
Author(s):  
Tommi Römpötti

This chapter asks what happens to the conventions of the road movie, and in particular its ethos of resistance, when younger and older generations hit the road together in Nordic films of the 2000s. In raising this question I discuss the use of road movie conventions in two Finnish road movies, the fictional Road North (Mika Kaurismäki, 2012) and the documentary Finnish Blood Swedish Heart (Mika Ronkainen, 2012), which both feature stories of father–son pairings driving together towards a new kind of understanding of their roots. The films offer two ways to see how road movies, in essence, work between the national and the transnational. Road North depicts a road journey inside the borders of Finland. Finnish Blood Swedish Heart, in comparison, is profoundly transnational anyway in its subject matter of a father and son duo driving from Finland to their past in Sweden, but film was also financed as a Finnish–Swedish co-production and, before being awarded as the best Finnish documentary of the year, it received the Dragon award for the best Nordic documentary at the Gothenburg International Film Festival 2013.


Author(s):  
Alberto Doria ◽  
Edoardo Marconi ◽  
Pierluca Cialoni

Abstract The correlation between the modal properties and the comfort characteristics of a utility, step-through frame bicycle are investigated. In-plane modal testing of the vehicle is carried out both without and with the rider, and the major differences between the results obtained with the two conditions are highlighted. In order to have an insight into the contribution of the various bicycle components to the transmission of vibrations, the frequency response functions (FRFs) between the main interface points in the vehicle structure are measured and studied. Finally, the modal characteristics are compared with road tests data, emphasizing the relationship between the in-plane vibration modes and the main peaks in the acceleration power spectral densities (PSDs) measured on the road.


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