Maoist Laughter

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Political ◽  
Proper Position ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Inner Contradictions ◽  
Mao Era

This volume aims to restore laughter to its proper position in the Mao-era culture. The Mao era was actually a period when laughter was bonded with political culture to an unprecedented degree. Spurred by dynamic political exigencies, many cultural products sought to utilize laughter as a more pliable form of political expression. Laughter was used to highlight antagonisms or downplay differences, to expose and ridicule the class enemy, or to meliorate and conceal contradictions; it could be ritualistic or heartfelt, didactic or cathartic, communal or utopic. In Maoist culture, laughter became a versatile discourse that brought together the political, the personal, the aesthetic, the ethical, the affective, the physical, the aural, and the visual. Therefore, the art of laughter was carefully moderated and regulated for political ends. Maoist laughter reveals the diversity, complexity, dynamics, and inner contradictions in the cultural production and reproduction in Mao’s China.

Introduction: Space and the Sixties

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Yasmine Ramadan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Political ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Critical Moment ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Egyptian Literature ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Sixties Generation ◽  
Egyptian History

The first part of the chapter presents the members of the sixties generation, telling the story of their emergence onto the cultural scene in Egypt. It outlines the socio-economic and political context of which they were both a part and an expression. Who are these writers? When and how did they emerge? What is significant about their work? Why did they appear at such a critical moment in Egyptian history? What are the sources of literary and aesthetic inspiration? This chapter draws on an array of primary material from the journals of the time whose pages were filled with discussions about this emerging generation. This presentation of the sixties generation is undertaken with an attention to the broader context of the literary sphere in Egypt, what Bourdieu calls “the field of cultural production.” The second part of the chapter focuses on the theoretical arguments for the examination of space in literature, examining the broader “spatial turn” in the humanities and social sciences, engaging this approach within the context of modern and contemporary Egyptian literature. A focus upon spatial representations expands our analysis of the work of the sixties writers, bringing together the thematic, the aesthetic, and the political.

scholarly journals “How I became what I am”: an aesthetics of twist cinema in films from the 1960s and 1970s

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-313
Author(s):  
Karla Adriana Martins Bessa
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Bloody Sunday ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract: The article analyzes the political and theoretical potentialof cinematographic language to express and rebuild the relationship between sexual and gender differences. As cultural products, the three films analyzed - A Casa Assassinada (1972), Sunday, bloody Sunday (1971) and Les Amities Particulières (1964) - allude to feminist issues of the time, as well as instigating a reading of gender beyond the narratives, by historicizing the visibility of the female body, heteronormativity, and the subversiveness of forbidden loves as represented through the films’ structure. The text argues, from a queer perspective, that the aesthetic nature of twist cinema, within the limits of each style and period, was precisely the boldness to run risks in its visual grammar, not making political concessions in challenging the moral canons of current society.

Dante Alighieri

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Bartoloni
Keyword(s):  
Dante Alighieri ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Artistic Process ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is invoked several times in the work of Giorgio Agamben, often in passing to stress a point, as when discussing the political relevance of désoeuvrement (KG 246); to develop a thought, as in the articulation of the medieval idea of imagination as the medium between body and soul (S, especially 127–9); or to explain an idea, as in the case of the artistic process understood as the meeting of contradictory forces such as inspiration and critical control (FR, especially 48–50). So while Agamben does not engage with Dante systematically, he refers to him constantly, treating the Florentine poet as an auctoritas whose presence adds critical rigour and credibility. Identifying and relating the instances of these encounters is useful since they highlight central aspects of Agamben’s thought and its development over the years, from the first writings, such as Stanzas, to more recent texts, such as Il fuoco e il racconto and The Use of Bodies. The significance of Agamben’s reliance on Dante can be divided into two categories: the aesthetic and the political. The following discussion will address each of these categories separately, but will also emphasise the philosophical continuity that links the discussion of the aesthetic with that of the political. While in the first instance Dante is offered as an example of poetic innovation, especially in relation to the use of language and imagination, in the second he is invoked as a forerunner of new forms of life. Mediality and potentiality are the two pivots connecting the aesthetic and the political.

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

Perempuan dalam Kungkungan Budaya Politik Patriarkhis

MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Cultural Reconstruction ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Women's Networks ◽  
Women's Political Participation

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document