Author: Amanda Hobson Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9463007148 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Gender in the Vampire Narrative addresses issues of masculinity and femininity, unpacking cultural norms of gender. This collection demonstrates the way that representations of gender in the vampire narrative traverse a large scope of expectations and tropes. The text offers classroom ready original essays that outline contemporary debates about sexual objectification and gender norms using the lens of the vampire in order to examine the ways those roles are undone and reinforced through popular culture through a specific emphasis on cultural fears and anxieties about gender roles. The essays explore the presentations of gendered identities in a wide variety of sources including novels, films, graphic novels and more, focusing on wildly popular examples, such as The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and Twilight, and also lesser known works, for instance, Byzantium and The Blood of the Vampire. The authors work to unravel the ties that bind gender to the body and the sociocultural institutions that shape our views of gendered norms and invite students of all levels to engage in interdisciplinary conversations about both theoretical and embodied constructions of gender. This text makes a fascinating accompanying text for many courses, such as first-year studies, literature, film, women’s and gender studies, sociology, popular culture or media studies, cultural studies, American studies or history. Ultimately this is a text for all fans of popular culture. “Hobson and Anyiwo chase the vampire through history and across literature, film, television, and stage, exploring this complexity and offering insightful and accessible analyses that will be enjoyed by students in popular culture, gender studies, and speculative fiction. This collection is not to be missed by those with an interest in feminist cultural studies – or the undead.” – Barbara Gurr, University of Connecticut “Hobson and Anyiwo push the boundaries of the scholarship as it has been written until now.” –Catherine Coker, Texas A&M University Amanda Hobson is Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Women’s Resource Center at Indiana State University. U. Melissa Anyiwo is a Professor of Politics & History and Coordinator of African American Studies at Curry College in Massachusetts.
Author: R. Barry Rutland Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0886292980 Category : Gender identity Languages : en Pages : 269
Book Description
It is impossible to imagine a community that is not divided into at least two gender groups. It is equally impossible to imagine a community that does not tell or enact stories. The relationship between these universal aspects of human culture is the mainspring of Gender and Narrativity. From Genesis to Freud, the Western narrative tradition tells the same old story of masculine dominance/feminine subservience as a matter of divine will or natural truth. Here, nine Canadian scholars challenge and interpret this tradition, in effect "re-telling" the story of gender, and themselves intervening in the narrative process. Critical readings from a wide range of literary texts - medieval and modern, European and Canadian - replace abstract theory in these studies, while sociology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and new history are the axes of discussion. This book exemplifies the current range and diversity of Canadian critical writing.
Author: Simon Brodbeck Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134119941 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 669
Book Description
The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the most important texts to emerge from the Indian cultural tradition. At almost 75,000 verses it is the longest poem in the world, and throughout Indian history it has been hugely influential in shaping gender and social norms. In the context of ancient India, it is the definitive cultural narrative in the construction of masculine, feminine and alternative gender roles. This book brings together many of the most respected scholars in the field of Mahabharata studies, as well as some of its most promising young scholars. By focusing specifically on gender constructions, some of the most innovative aspects of the Mahabharata are highlighted. Whilst taking account of feminist scholarship, the contributors see the Mahabharata as providing an opportunity to frame discussion of gender in literature not just in terms of the socio-historical roles of men and women. Instead they analyze the text in terms of the wider poetic and philosophical possibilities thrown up by the semiotics of gendering. Consequently, the book bridges a gap in text-critical methodology between the traditional philological approach and more recent trends in gender and literary theory. Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata will be appreciated by readers interested in South Asian studies, Hinduism, religious studies and gender studies.
Author: Derek Longhurst Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136321527 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
Recent years have witnessed important new initiatives in the study of popular fictional modes of writing. At one time the field could have been described with reasonable accuracy by two traditions: one that analyzed the production and distribution of popular fiction as commodities; and one whose proponents regarded popular fiction as the negative which offered definition to the exposure of the positive - the ‘great’ canonic literary tradition. Generally, then, popular fictions were to be ‘evaluated’ according to the institutionalized norms which had been established as common sense practice around literary studies. The decade of the 1970s, however ushered in a bewildering range of theoretical debates - a crucial gain was establishment of interdisciplinary courses in communication, cultural and media studies, providing a network of contexts within which serious analysis could evolve and progress. Responding to a fundamental challenge from feminism, a primary objective of this book is to propose that all narrative and its reading are intrinsically inflected by sexual politics. Various approaches represented here demonstrate problems of confronting the gendered pleasures of reading. Questions about self, sexuality and identity within specific historical formations are raised. The objective is to frame, describe and unearth the notion of ‘men as readers’ as a project rather than as the usual, unquestioned normative procedure. Drawing eclectically upon Marxist, psychoanalytic and discourse theory, the essays set out readings of popular texts and genres – the Western, the sentimental novel, detective and crime fiction, political thrillers and horror and science fiction – in the interest of provoking other readers to see the critical study of popular fiction as unthinkable without gender as a central concern.
Author: Brian Nelson Publisher: University of Delaware Press ISBN: 9780874137071 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
These essays engage with narratives and narrative issues, in particular on the issue of performance in and of narrative, with the telling of performance and the performance of telling, and the way stories perform gender and identity. They focus on narrative as such, on narrative genres, and on particular narratives, but they all seek to inform thinking on narrative.
Author: Andrei Nae Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000440656 Category : Games & Activities Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
This book investigates the narrativity of some of the most popular survival horror video games and the gender politics implicit in their storyworlds. In a thorough analysis of the genre that draws upon detailed comparisons with the mainstream action genre, Andrei Nae places his analysis firmly within a political and social context. In comparing survival horror games to the dominant game design norms of the action genre, the author differentiates between classical and postclassical survival horror games to show how the former reject the norms of the action genre and deliver a critique of the conservative gender politics of action games, while the latter are more heterogeneous in terms of their game design and, implicitly, gender politics. This book will appeal not only to scholars working in game studies, but also to scholars of horror, gender studies, popular culture, visual arts, genre studies and narratology.
Author: Michael Goodrum Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi ISBN: 1496818814 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
Contributions by Dorian L. Alexander, Janine Coleman, Gabriel Gianola, Mel Gibson, Michael Goodrum, Tim Hanley, Vanessa Hemovich, Christina Knopf, Christopher McGunnigle, Samira Nadkarni, Ryan North, Lisa Perdigao, Tara Prescott-Johnson, Philip Smith, and Maite Ucaregui The explosive popularity of San Diego’s Comic-Con, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Luke Cage all signal the tidal change in superhero narratives and mainstreaming of what were once considered niche interests. Yet just as these areas have become more openly inclusive to an audience beyond heterosexual white men, there has also been an intense backlash, most famously in 2015’s Gamergate controversy, when the tension between feminist bloggers, misogynistic gamers, and internet journalists came to a head. The place for gender in superhero narratives now represents a sort of battleground, with important changes in the industry at stake. These seismic shifts—both in the creation of superhero media and in their critical and reader reception—need reassessment not only of the role of women in comics, but also of how American society conceives of masculinity. Gender and the Superhero Narrative launches ten essays that explore the point where social justice meets the Justice League. Ranging from comics such as Ms. Marvel, Batwoman: Elegy, and Bitch Planet to video games, Netflix, and cosplay, this volume builds a platform for important voices in comics research, engaging with controversy and community to provide deeper insight and thus inspire change.
Author: Frances Gregg Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0773573968 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 205
Book Description
Who is Frances Gregg? In her youth she was a poet in her own right, a friend of Ezra Pound, and an intimate of Hilda Doolittle and John Cowper Powys. In our literary history, particularly the history of Modernism, she has been a mysterious presence. Now, with this publication for the first time of The Mystic Leeway, we have Gregg's testament to her lovers, her life, her deeply troubled times, and to Art. Written over the three years before her tragic death in the bombing of Plymouth in 1941, this memoir marks the course of Gregg's journey, both spiritual and physical, through a passionate life. With painful and amusing honesty, Gregg records her experience of other icons of Modernism, including William Butler Yeats, May Sinclair, Alice Meynell, George Moore, Jacob Epstein, Walter Rummel, and Louis Wilkinson.
Author: Tory Young Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000346153 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 189
Book Description
This book argues for the importance of narrative theories which consider gender and sexuality through the analysis of a diverse range of texts and media. Classical Narratology, an allegedly neutral descriptive system for features of narrative, has been replaced by a diverse set of theories which are attentive to the contexts in which narratives are composed and received. Issues of gender and sexuality have, nevertheless, been sidelined by new strands which consider, for example, cognitive, transmedial, national or historical inflections instead. Through consideration of texts including the MTV series Faking It and the papers of a nineteenth-century activist, Queer and Feminist Theories of Narrative heeds the original call of feminist narratologists for the consideration of a broader and larger corpus of material. Through analysis of issues including the popular representation of lesbian desire, the queer narrative voice, invisibility and power in the digital age, embodiment and cognitive narratology, reading and racial codes, this book argues that a named strand of narrative theory which employs feminist and queer theories as intersectional vectors is contemporary and urgent. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Textual Practice.
Author: Elleke Boehmer Publisher: Manchester University Press ISBN: 9780719068782 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 268
Book Description
This text combines Boehmer's keynote essays on the mother figure and the postcolonial nation, with incisive new work on male autobiography, 'daughter' writers, the colonial body, the trauma of the post-colony, and the nation in a transnational context.
Author: Amanda Hobson
Author: R. Barry Rutland
Author: Simon Brodbeck
Author: Derek Longhurst
Author: Brian Nelson
Author: Andrei Nae
Author: Michael Goodrum
Author: Frances Gregg
Author: Tory Young
Author: Elleke Boehmer