Silence, Guilt and Insidious Trauma in Auden’s Early Poems

Silence, Guilt and Insidious Trauma in Auden’s Early Poems The title of the book of poems published in 1941, The Double Man, defines much of W.H. Auden’s life, constantly driven by a sense of duality and paradox. The double functions as a complex, subtle phenomenon in Auden’s case: It highlights an unresolvable tension between his private and public persona. The search for a compromise between personal wishes and social duties is a recurring theme in Auden’s later works but appears with particular intensity in the poems of his youth, resulting in a complex entanglement in which the poet’s identity is often (traumatically) negotiated. Since Auden’s life extended throughout most of the 20th-century—he was born in 1907, in York, and died in Vienna in 1973—his work provides a useful lens through which to examine some of the events that would change the world in unprecedented ways. For much of his career, he was worried about the impact his homosexuality would have on his attempt to fashion himself as a public poet, as the risk of public scandal and even imprisonment was high in Britain and the US until the late 1960s, and the issue of his homosexuality remains one of the most significant contexts for the study of Auden and of the ways he imagined himself. The impossibility of coming out in the 1920s, when he was an adolescent, posed a heavy burden on him and determined to a great extent his future identity and thus his way of life as a whole. Until now, however, the question of how Auden’s earlier poetic output, that is the 1922-1927 poems, has been “marked and structured and indeed necessitated and propelled by the historical shapes of homophobia, for instance, by the contingencies and geographies of the highly permeable closet” (Sedgwick 165), has remained largely overlooked, and much uncertainty still exists about the extent to which the poet’s “coming out” experience circulated in the vicinity of trauma and was marked by it.

John Lennon

In Sarah J. Arroyo’s work, she reflects on the intense impact John Lennon’s song, “Watching the Wheels” had on her at age 10. This impact existed outside of John’s public persona since she was unaware of his cultural influence at the time. Decades later, she analyzes John and Yoko’s last interview conducted hours before his death where they discuss their album Double Fantasy, the album that contains “Watching the Wheels.” She experiences a punctum of recognition and argues that John and Yoko used choric invention in their creative processes and were electrate before their time.

Who Are the Homeless? Centering Anti-Black Racism and the Consequences of Colorblind Homeless Policies

Since first becoming a major social issue in the 1980s, homelessness has been a racialized problem in the United States. Its disproportionate impact on Black Americans is primarily driven by structural racism and the limited housing and employment opportunities for Black Americans. The first major federal legislation to address the needs of the United States’ homeless population—the Stewart B. McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 omitted the root causes of Black housing instability, thereby proving ineffective at mitigating Black homelessness. As a result, Black Americans remain disproportionately impacted today. In addition to being neglected by the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Black men and women experiencing homelessness are more likely to be discriminated against than any other racial group. For example, Black men are more likely to be arrested than anyone else, and Black women are the most likely to experience hyper-surveillance. This paper uses the Public Identity Framework to argue that in the 1980s, advocates and opponents of homeless legislation created two contradictory public personas to shape public discourse and policies for the homeless. A colorblind public persona was used to pass the McKinney–Vento Homeless Act; meanwhile, the public persona of the “underclass” was used to criminalize and shame the homeless. Both personas operated concurrently to create a dual public identity for the homeless that influenced policy and ultimately harmed Black people.

Digital ventriloquism and celebrity access: Cameo and the emergence of paid puppeteering on digital platforms

Cameo is part of a growing set of new media platforms trending toward direct routes for monetizing fame. Cameo allows fans to book personalized shout-out videos and provides celebrities—celetoids and reality stars in particular—access to new modes of income, which became increasingly important amid the pandemic. This research explores how the direct monetization of the fan-celebrity relationship is re-shaping the power dynamic of these parasocial relationships. Using digital ventriloquism as an analytical lens to study reality stars (e.g. Real Housewives) on Cameo, this study introduces the concept of paid puppeteering on digital platforms, defined as a form of digital ventriloquism in which a celebrity’s public persona is manipulated and incentivized through financial means on a paid digital platform for the illusion of close parasocial connections with fans. Paid puppeteering reinforces celebrities as gig workers as Cameo mitigates fan access to celebrities—for a fee.

Jack Monroe and the cultural politics of the austerity celebrity

This article conceptualises home cook Jack Monroe as an ‘austerity celebrity’, a mediated figure who forged her public persona directly through articulations with austerity culture. Drawing on an intertextual analysis of her blogs, cookbooks, interviews, speeches and representations across the media, I argue that Monroe demonstrates the paradox of anti-austerity celebrity in becoming economically successful as the face of modern poverty. Monroe’s navigation of a dual identity of celebrity and activist manifests in her critique of the government, her middle-class precarity, her status as a mother and her queer identity which requires consistent ‘authenticity labour’. In Monroe’s case, this labour is visible as a constant and politicised struggle over the terms of her ‘authenticity’. While unable to manage her more complex middle-class, queer identity, which confronts the established grounds of ‘feckless mothers’, the UK tabloid media attempts to frame Monroe’s success as a rags-to-riches style narrative reinforcing hegemonic rhetorics of resilience and creativity as routes to overcoming adversity. This analysis of the struggles at work in Monroe’s mediated presence demonstrates how the moral imperatives for women to offer to resourcefully manage the ‘challenges’ of austerity cuts, arguably draws attention away from austerity as structurally and politically motivated.

Folklore and Conspiracy Theories of a COVID Dissenter: The Life and Sermons of Father Sergii (Romanov)

The religious studies scholar Bruce Lincoln famously defined myth as “ideology in narrative form” that “naturalizes and legitimizes” social taxonomies. Over two decades, Father Sergii (Romanov), a convicted murderer who turned toreligion while in prison, has used myth to shape his public persona, legitimize his spiritual leadership, cultivate the loyalty of his followers, and articulate a vision of holy Russia that seeks to reconcile the Soviet and imperial pasts. Weaving his personal biography into a narrative of national redemption from the sin of regicide, he has helped construct and lead a complex of monasteries. Drawing on a variety of narratives that emphasize Russian exceptionalism, Sergii and his admirers present the cleric as a divinely appointed emissary to lead their nation to spiritual greatness. Je conspiracy theories that support this worldview have also encouraged Sergii to denounce both secular and ecclesiastical authorities and to reject public health measures designed to stem the coronavirus pandemic. Despite his revolt against his bishop, Sergii remained in control of his convent until his dramatic arrest on 29 December 2020. Jis article analyzes some of Sergii’s mostsignificant narratives, traces their origins, and weighs their social implications.

Weaponized testimonial injustice

Theoretical tools aimed at making explicit the injustices suffered by certain socially disadvantaged groups might end up serving purposes which were not foreseen when the tools were first introduced. Nothing is inherently wrong with a shift in the scope of a theoretical tool: the popularization of a concept opens up the possibility of its use for several strategic purposes. The thesis that we defend in this paper is that some public figures cultivate a public persona for whom the conditions of the notion of testimonial injustice might be taken to apply, and this situation is exploited to their advantage, as a means to advance their political agendas. More specifically, they take advantage of this to generate situations of crossed disagreements, which in turn foster polarization.

The Role of Writing and Sociability for the Establishment of a Persona

This chapter examines the various strategies of intellectual self-formation by female intellectuals. While Henriette Herz created the public persona of the nurturing muse in her salon and established the idea of mutual exchange between the sexes, Rahel Varnhagen took the idea of self-reflection in the eyes of others one step further and, together with her husband, created a monument of remembrance with her collection of letters, fashioning the modern persona as fundamentally constituted through her exchange with others. Bettina von Arnim, finally, had no qualms using the most prominent poet, Goethe, as a prop in her writings, exercising the subversive power of remembrance to establish herself. Even though all these strategies build on the (male) other, they showcase the potential to subvert traditional gender roles.

Hugo Claus

This contribution examines how the Flemish author Hugo Claus forged his media image, from his early literary breakthrough in 1948 until right before his death in 2008. Claus’s relationship with the press was twofold. On the one hand, he did not believe in a ‘clear-cut identity’, which in interviews led him to hide behind a game of masquerades. On the other, he gladly and unequivocally communicated his progressive political and social ideas. This chapter pays ample attention to the early years of Claus’s career, including – amongst other episodes – his membership of COBRA and his sojourns in Paris and Rome. It also discusses his complex relationship with the Catholic Church and with confessional newspapers. Finally, it examines the impact of Claus’s public persona on post-war Flanders.

Is stage-gay queerbaiting? The politics of performative homoeroticism in emo bands

Queerbaiting is a fast-expanding topic in media and cultural studies. In 2015, this author attempted to define queerbaiting as a strategy by which writers and networks attempt to gain the patronage of queer viewers via the suggestion of queer relationships, before denying and laughing off the possibility. Joseph Brennan’s 2019 edited volume has greatly developed the concept of queerbaiting to include a range of meanings, from media industries’ pledges of allegiance to LGBT causes that are not delivered upon to courting queer viewers via paratexts that imply queer relationships that don’t exist in text. Applying the concept of queerbaiting to bands complicates these ideas, as the “truth” or “delivery” of queer representation lies not in a fictional text but the public persona of real performers. Through an examination of stage-gay, the notorious practice of queer performativity on stage by straight performers in the emo music subculture, I investigate how a restrictive notion of “truth” in discussions of queerbaiting can actually close off the very possibilities of transformation and open-ended configurations of sexuality that Alexander Doty’s formulation of queerness promised. Emo bands are the natural case study here, as emo is an offshoot of hardcore and punk that sought to complicate the hegemonic masculinities dominating those genres, both in its musical and lyric content, and the public and paratextual performativity of its artists.