scholarly journals Socio-cultural Positioning of Age Identities in Picturebooks

2020 ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Johari Murray

This study explores literal and metaphorical narrations of age by looking closely at two picturebooks published at the turn of the twenty-first century. The evolutionary Western understanding of the child, childhood and children’s literature is briefly periodized as a tension between pragmatic and philosophical concerns. Representations of age are taken to be embedded in socio-cultural positions that implicate historical periods, geographic locations, and economic structures. Ethnicity and gender are similarly discussed as immanent features. Age is presented as much a biological phenomenon as a performative social act of a given culture. The ideas, feelings and events depicted in each picturebook are approached from a structuralist and a postmodernist perspective with the aim of providing a complementary analysis of child representations in alignment with the adult presence, and not necessarily through the lens of aetonomativity. My analysis points to possible applications of the design of age narrations to current and future literacies.

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-106
Author(s):  
Myriam J. A. Chancy

This chapter explores depictions and representations of the genocide of Rwanda in order to examine how “autochthonomy” and “lakou consciousness” make themselves manifest in global/transnational contexts. What each of the representations reveals is a partial exposure of a silence that appears to be symptomatic of trauma. The chapter relies on Pierre Bourdieu’s twin-concepts of the “unthinkable” and “unnameable” and how these concepts might be of further use in understanding the representation of the implicit “silence” of trauma. The chapter ultimately argues that artists who consciously emulate African Diasporic aesthetics in their representations of genocide also engage counter-hegemonic modes of representation that are explicitly and increasingly feminist regardless of the producer’s gender identity.


Author(s):  
Barbara Ransby

In this chapter the author reflects on what it means to be a black female historian in the twenty-first century. She challenges those who argue that it should simply mean being a good scholar and that notions of race and gender are anachronisms. She draws from her personal experiences in graduate school and in the academy as well as those of many other female historians of African descent to reflect on the slow and erratic progress but also persistent, intractable prejudice augmented by decades of institutional racism. She also elaborates on the significance of political activism, parenting, and mentors to her work and her life.


Author(s):  
Jane Shaw

The churches of the Anglican Communion discussed issues of sex and gender throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Arguments about gender focused on the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. Debates about sexuality covered polygamy, divorce and remarriage, and homosexuality. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, these debates became intensely focused on homosexuality and were particularly fierce as liberals and conservatives responded to openly gay bishops and the blessing and marriage of same-sex couples. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the sex and gender debates had become less acrimonious, the Anglican Communion had not split on these issues as some feared, but the ‘disconnect’ between society and the Church, at least in the West, on issues such as the Church of England’s prevarication on female bishops and opposition to gay marriage, had decreased the Church’s credibility for many.


Author(s):  
Michael Charlton

This essay explores two distinct historical periods in the Hollywood musical through a Butlerian reading of gender as a performance. The two example films from the studio era, Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and the restored version of George Cukor’s A Star is Born (1954), are contextualised not only within the studio system but through the constructed star personae of their leads—Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Rob Marshall’s Chicago (2002), the two example films from the twenty first century, are contextualised within a Jamesonian post-modern aesthetic and as examples of the non-studio, non-star filmic text as act of nostalgia. In contrasting these historical periods, the essay posits that the studio musical was, in fact, always already “post-modern” in its fragmentation of narrative in favour of the star performance, which constructs the gendered persona of the star. In addition, it is suggested that the sub-textual subversion of traditional female roles within the studio star performance is in many ways more effectively critical of gender conventions than the intentionally parodic aesthetics of Luhrmann and Marshall.


Elements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Kim

As our nation and society attempt to introduce the notion of post-raciality in the twenty-first century, it becomes clear that this idealistic view of race relations in the United States can only be seen as valid when whiteness is considered to be “normal” or “neutral.” This prioritization of whiteness can be easily identified throughout popular culture, especially with the tendency of mainstream film and television to whitewash casts. However, one of the most prominent shows of the current age, Orange is the New Black (OITNB), has a cast that challenges the blindly accepted hegemonic standards by bringing marginalized communities to the center of attention. While it shatters many preconceived stereotypes dealing with race, class, and gender through its diverse array of characters, the show’s handling of its Asian characters seems only to perpetuate racist tropes. This essay examines why we have developed a blindspot for Asians when dealing with race and race relations by using OITNB as a quintessential microcosm of society at large


Author(s):  
Ricardo D. Trimillos

For the Philippines in the twenty-first century strands of modernity, globalization, and nation are closely interwoven, the result of processes in play during the previous twentieth century. The time period under discussion has two important “bookends”—the close of the Philippine-American War in 1912 and the onset of martial law in 1972, six decades which in this chapter are referred to as the period of Developing Modernity, a duration of relative social and political stability enabling self-reflection upon identity and nation. Philippine commercial music during this time illustrates and informs these processes in play, which is examined through the careers of two female vocalists with national and international reputations, jazz singer Katy dela Cruz and chanteuse Pilita Corrales. Each singer, although part of the same commercial music industry, presents a distinctive trajectory of engagement with nation and culture during the Developing Modernity period. Regarding relevance for the present twenty-first century, each references alternative modernities relative to the international circulation of mediatized music and the globalization of vocalized and gendered bodies. Both argue for cultural continuities within environments of social change.


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