Urban Decay or the Uncanny Return of Dionysus

Written in the familiar genre of ruin poems, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ (1818) is well-expressive of the poet’s profound hatred of tyranny. One of the distinctive features of the poem is the vividly visual images it provides of the ruined statue and the desert as the setting of the poem. Focusing on the images of the desert and ruins, and using the concept of urban decay and mytho-archetypal notions, this study attempts to show that the ruins of the poem anticipate the modern phenomenon of urban decay as the return of the repressed in city-forms. However, what the poem presents as destruction, death, ruins and decay is in fact the potential of bringing about spring and regeneration. Reading this poem in the light of the mentioned concepts provides the reader with an understanding of the function of the ruins in Shelley’s poems as an uncanny Dionysian defiance against both the tyranny of his age and the rationalism of the Enlightenment period.

Jewish Brazilian Post-Holocaust Fiction: The Body as a Source of Polymorphous Memory Discourse in Cíntia Moscovich’s Por que sou gorda, mamãe?

In this article, I propose a reading of the Brazilian novel Por que sou gorda, mamãe? (2006) through the prism of the body as an oblique signifier of polymorphous post-Holocaust memory discourse. I will be employing the idea of the “strange body” in the following, that is, an experience of estrangement that can arise from trauma-induced conflict or fracture and “is capable of testifying to complexes of social operations and realities well beyond not only a given subject, but also a given generation” (Atkinson 2017, 34). In Cíntia Mos­covich’s novel, this strange-bodiness is articulated through the uncanny presence of an obese Jewish female body; a body which bears witness to a subversive force of trauma and denounces the fascist ideology within the continuities of subtly intertwined European and Brazilian histories. European Jewish life in shtetlech, pogroms, exile, and the Holocaust merge not only with the Brazilian context of Jewish immigration, but also with the history of Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

THE UNCANNY: DEVELOPMENT AND PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURE

In 1919 Sigmund Freud raised the interest in the uncanny by claiming in his essay "Das Unheimliche" that something can be familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Since the emergence of the concept in the 20th century, many scholars have presented their own definition of the uncanny. The concept originates from the German unheimlich but the meaning reaches far beyond its dictionary definition. As Masschelein suggests, the word itself "is untranslatable qua form and content" (Masschelein 2011, 7) and as long as the uncanny cannot be understood literally, the ambiguity of the term can lead to a multitude of interpretations. The aim of this paper is to explore how the perception of the uncanny has been changing through the years in connection with the Freudian definition. The paper offers an overview of various interpretations of the concept starting from 1906 until today. The juxtaposition of the most significant views on the uncanny shows how the concept has gradually formed a basis for various fields of study such as literature and art. The paper presents future perspectives of the uncanny where it no longer refers only to the motif of the double or supernatural elements but it also tackles the problems of body transformations and politics.

The Sublime in Motion: Longinus, Freud, and Embedded Metaphors

This paper explores the relevance and the effect of the sublime in connection with Dionysian inspiration, Freud’s concept of the uncanny, and the interpretation of metaphorical thinking developed in the field of cognitive psychology.

Unstoppable Decay and Relentless Hope: Study of Alterity in Popular Culture

Consequences of capitalism’s crises and their manifestations in arts have deeply modified the way we can approach mental health. As Mark Fisher pointed out in 2009 with his book Capitalist Realism, neoliberalism is using mental illness as a way to keep existing. The capacity to think a way out of alienation is deeply linked with arts and popular culture. The article proposes to study the uncanny dialogue between arts and politics in relationships to people, and mental health. The theoretical framework will show how arts are trying to build a way out of alienation, since 2009. The article will illustrate this research with the study of many artistic practices, including our own. The findings will show how the ambiguous and uncanny relationships with the world is used by artists as a way out of alienation, despite the difficulties occurring with mental health in time of crisis.

Disco Elysium as Gothic fiction

Disco Elysium demonstrates many hallmarks of the Gothic through its storyline and representational elements, particularly its emphasis on the instability of its protagonist, the sense of decline and decay conveyed through its setting, and the interconnected secret histories that are revealed through exploration. Furthermore, many of the game’s stylistic and ludic features, such as its dense description and emotive language, and its overwhelming array of options, interactions, and responses, can be understood as engagements with the uncanny and disorienting excess of the Gothic tradition. These Gothic elements manifest most frequently through the game’s attempt to represent psychological complexity within its role playing system, its depictions of urban spaces, and its approach to questions of unresolved memory and history. The presence of these Gothic features in Disco Elysium work to contest the game’s categorisation as a ‘detective role playing game.’ While the genres are closely connected, detective fiction typically follows a trajectory in which the history of the central mystery becomes progressively clearer through the accumulation of information and detail, whereas the Gothic traditionally seeks to maintain and heighten a sense of disorientation. Exploring the tension between Disco Elysium’s Gothic elements and its status as a detective game allows for a richer appreciation of the political and social commentary that emerges from both its narrative and gameplay.