Mother Trouble: the Maternal-Feminine in Phallic and Feminist Theory in Relation to Bratta Ettinger's Elaboration of Matrixial Ethics
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Locations of Motherhood in Shakespeare on Film
Volume 2 (2), 2009 ISSN 1756-8226 Locations of Motherhood in Shakespeare on Film LAURA GALLAGHER Queens University Belfast Adelman’s Suffocating Mothers (1992) appropriates feminist psychoanalysis to illustrate how the suppression of the female is represented in selected Shakespearean play-texts (chronologically from Hamlet to The Tempest ) in the attempted expulsion of the mother in order to recover the masculine sense of identity. She argues that Hamlet operates as a watershed in Shakespeare’s canon, marking the prominent return of the problematic maternal presence: “selfhood grounded in paternal absence and in the fantasy of overwhelming contamination at the site of origin – becomes the tragic burden of Hamlet and the men who come after him” (1992, p.10). The maternal body is thus constructed as the site of contamination, of simultaneous attraction and disgust, of fantasies that she cannot hold: she is the slippage between boundaries – the abject. Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject (1982) ostensibly provides a hypothesis for analysis of women in the horror film, yet the theory also provides a critical means of situating the maternal figure, the “monstrous- feminine” in film versions of Shakespeare (Creed, 1993, 1996). Therefore the choice to focus on the selected Hamlet , Macbeth , Titus Andronicus and Richard III film versions reflects the centrality of the mother figure in these play-texts, and the chosen adaptations most powerfully illuminate this article’s thesis. Crucially, in contrast to Adelman’s identification of the attempted suppression of the “suffocating mother” figures 1, in adapting the text to film the absent maternal figure is forced into (an extended) presence on screen. -
Vision, Desire and Economies of Transgression in the Films of Jess Franco
A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details 1 Journeys into Perversion: Vision, Desire and Economies of Transgression in the Films of Jess Franco Glenn Ward Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex May 2011 2 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been, and will not be, submitted whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature:……………………………………… 3 Summary Due to their characteristic themes (such as „perverse‟ desire and monstrosity) and form (incoherence and excess), exploitation films are often celebrated as inherently subversive or transgressive. I critically assess such claims through a close reading of the films of the Spanish „sex and horror‟ specialist Jess Franco. My textual and contextual analysis shows that Franco‟s films are shaped by inter-relationships between authorship, international genre codes and the economic and ideological conditions of exploitation cinema. Within these conditions, Franco‟s treatment of „aberrant‟ and gothic desiring subjectivities appears contradictory. Contestation and critique can, for example, be found in Franco‟s portrayal of emasculated male characters, and his female vampires may offer opportunities for resistant appropriation. -
Bracha L. Ettinger's the Matrixial Borderspace
Seduction into Reading: 1 Bracha L. Ettinger’s The Matrixial Borderspace Noreen Giffney, Anne Mulhall and Michael O’Rourke Bracha’s Blessing Bracha L. Ettinger in her studio, 2009 (photo: A. Berlowitz) Bracha L. Ettinger, born in Tel Aviv, is a contemporary artist (mainly producing drawings and paintings), a senior clinical psychologist, and a practicing psychoanalyst, who interweaves and enmeshes all three domains by practising what she calls ‘matrixial painting’, a process which challenges the phallic structuration of the Symbolic. Her visual poiesis uncovers the complicities between the twin erasures of sexual difference and jewish difference and this disclosure (rather than foreclosure) of the feminine and the jew in her writing/painting brings about a wholescale reconfiguration of both Western aesthetics and of the (putatively masculine) gaze. 2 Her matrixial artworks have been 2 exhibited extensively in major museums of contemporary art, including The Drawing Center in New York (2001) and most recently in exhibitions at The Freud Museum in London curated by Griselda Pollock (2009) and The Finnish Art Academy in Helsinki (2009). Bracha’s oeuvre , or, better, her oeuverture , a corpus which emphasises an open gravitational mobility, includes a number of books and essays on topics relating to psychoanalysis, philosophy, visual culture, feminism and ethics. 3 Her writing extends and challenges the work of contemporary philosophers and psychoanalysts (many of whom are her friends) including Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Edmond Jabès and Luce Irigaray. A groundbreaking theoretician, Bracha works at the intersection or borderline between feminism, psychoanalysis and aesthetics and for over two decades she has been forging or weaving a new ‘matrixial’ theory and language with major aesthetical, analytical, political, and most crucially ethical implications. -
Griselda Pollock Feminist Interventions in Art's Histories* Is
Griselda Pollock Feminist Interventions in Art's Histories* 1 * Der Beitrag ist eine Is adding women to art history the same as producing feminist art history? Deman gekiirzte Fassung des ding that women be considered, not only changes what is studied and what becomes Vorworteszu dem Buch: Griselda Pollock (Hrsg.), relevant to investigate, but it challenges the existing disciplines politically. Women Vision and Difference. have not been omitted through forgetfulness or mere prejudice. The structural Feminism, Feminity and sexism of most academic disciplines contributes actively to the production and per Histories of Art, Methuen, 1987. petuation of a gender hierarchy. What we learn about the world and its peoples is ideologically patterned in conformity with the social order within which it is produ ced. Women's studies are not just about women but about the social systems and ideological schemas which sustain the domination of men over women within the other mutually inflecting regimes of power in the world, namely those of class and those of race.2 Feminist art history, however, began inside art history. The first question was »Have there been women artists?« We initially thought about women artists in terms of art history's typical procedures and protocols studies of artists (the mono graph) , collections of works to make an oeuvre (catalogues raisonnes), questions of style and iconography, membership of movements and artists' groups, and of course the question of quality. It soon became clear that this would be a straitjacket in which our studies of women artists would reproduce and secure the normative status of men artists and men's art whose superiority was unquestioned in its dis 1 Freely paraphrased from guise as Art and the Artist. -
Fears and the Female Circumstance: Women in 1970S Horror Films Lorian Gish
Pace University DigitalCommons@Pace Honors College Theses Pforzheimer Honors College 2019 Fears and the Female Circumstance: Women in 1970s Horror Films Lorian Gish Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Fears and the Female Circumstance: Women in 1970s Horror Films Lorian Gish BFA Acting for Film, Television, Voice-over, and Commercials Minor: Classical and Medieval Studies Thesis Advisor: Shaun Seneviratne Film Studies Presentation: May 8th, 2019 Graduation: May 23rd, 2019 Gish 1 Abstract More than ever before, stories commenting on real female fears are invaluable to the natural social progression of film as an art form. The core female-centric themes in prominent 1970s horror films are: coming of age, sexual identity, domesticity, pregnancy, and reproductive rights. This thesis first employs empirical research as groundwork for analysis on specific film works by elaborating on expert opinion of the horror genre as well as its foundational elements. Thus, that analysis of the return of repressed fear(s), audience projection of monster and victim, and male gaze, applies to iconic 1970s horror films such as Carrie (1976), Halloween (1978), and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Films that capture fear comment on universal themes of female perceptions, through specific visual and textual techniques and practices. Gish 2 Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... -
Possibilities for Feminist Scenic Design Raynette Halvorsen Smith
Spring 1990 153 Intersections Between Feminism and Post-modernism: Possibilities For Feminist Scenic Design Raynette Halvorsen Smith Introduction Is there latitude in the profession of scenic design for feminist artistic expression? Is it possible to locate a practice in scene design which can shift the feminist critique from the margins to the center of this craft? Or is this profession of scenic design, the oldest recognized design area, too steeped in patriarchal theatre culture to admit feminist expression and retain its identity? It is my position that Post-modernism creates a context that would allow feminist expression in scenic design, expression which, until recent develop ments in feminist theory, has not been possible. This exploration of feminism and Post-modernism cannot outline the details of a new feminist scenic practice, but only point to ideas, directions, and tendencies which allow for such a possibility. First I should clarify what is meant by "feminist expression." There is danger of eliding opposing feminist ideologies in the attempt to characterize this expression. However, in an essay titled "Feminist Art and Avant- Gardism," Angela Partington outlines two important premises broad enough to encompass differences in feminist ideology. She expands feminist expression into the term "feminist art practice" with two major criteria. These are defined as: Raynette Halvorsen Smith is a professional scenic designer and a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829. She has written a number of articles on feminism and design, most notably "Where Are the American Women Scene Designers?", for which she received the Herbert D. Greggs Award from the United States Institute of Theatre Technology. -
Powers of Horror; an Essay on Abjection
POWERS OF HORROR An Essay on Abjection EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES: A Series of the Columbia University Press POWERS OF HORROR An Essay on Abjection JULIA KRISTEVA Translated by LEON S. ROUDIEZ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York 1982 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kristeva, Julia, 1941- Powers of horror. (European perspectives) Translation of: Pouvoirs de l'horreur. 1. Celine, Louis-Ferdinand, 1894-1961 — Criticism and interpretation. 2. Horror in literature. 3. Abjection in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PQ2607.E834Z73413 843'.912 82-4481 ISBN 0-231-05346-0 AACR2 Columbia University Press New York Guildford, Surrey Copyright © 1982 Columbia University Press Pouvoirs de l'horreur © 1980 Editions du Seuil AD rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Clothbound editions of Columbia University Press books are Smyth- sewn and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Contents Translator's Note vii I. Approaching Abjection i 2. Something To Be Scared Of 32 3- From Filth to Defilement 56 4- Semiotics of Biblical Abomination 90 5- . Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi 113 6. Celine: Neither Actor nor Martyr • 133 7- Suffering and Horror 140 8. Those Females Who Can Wreck the Infinite 157 9- "Ours To Jew or Die" 174 12 In the Beginning and Without End . 188 11 Powers of Horror 207 Notes 211 Translator's Note When the original version of this book was published in France in 1980, critics sensed that it marked a turning point in Julia Kristeva's writing. Her concerns seemed less arcane, her presentation more appealingly worked out; as Guy Scarpetta put it in he Nouvel Observateur (May 19, 1980), she now intro- duced into "theoretical rigor an effective measure of seduction." Actually, no sudden change has taken place: the features that are noticeable in Powers of Horror were already in evidence in several earlier essays, some of which have been translated in Desire in Language (Columbia University Press, 1980). -
Corporeal Aesth/Ethics : the Body in Bracha L
Title: Corporeal Aesth/ethics : The Body in Bracha L. Ettinger's Theory and Art Author: Anna Kisiel Citation style: Kisiel Anna. (2019). Corporeal Aesth/ethics : The Body in Bracha L. Ettinger's Theory and Art. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA IN KATOWICE Anna Kisiel CORPOREAL AESTH/ETHICS THE BODY IN BRACHA L. ETTINGER’S THEORY AND ART Dissertation written under the supervision of prof. zw. em. dr hab. Wojciech Kalaga Sosnowiec 2019 WYDZIAŁ FILOLOGICZNY UNIWERSYTET ŚLĄSKI W KATOWICACH Anna Kisiel KORPORALNA EST/ETYKA CIAŁO W TEORII I SZTUCE BRACHY L. ETTINGER Praca doktorska napisana pod kierunkiem prof. zw. em. dr. hab. Wojciecha Kalagi Sosnowiec 2019 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 Part 1. WITH-IN(TER) THE MATRIXIAL REALM Chapter 1. THE MATRIX: CONTEXTS – TROPES – IMPLICATIONS 16 1. Remnants of the Other 16 2. Not Only the Phallus 18 3. Trans-subjective Matrixial Ethics 34 4. Almost-boundless Canvas Space 45 5. Towards the Aesth/ethics 54 Chapter 2. HUMAN(E) ORIGINS: THE FEMALE BODY AS AN ETHICAL SITE 56 1. Bodies and (proto-)Ethics 56 2. A Prototype for Connectedness 57 3. Knowledge in / of the Humanising Specificity 70 4. Aesth/ethical Encounter 80 5. Human(e) Origins 89 Chapter 3. THE PERPLEXING FEMININE: GENDER(LESSNESS) OF THE ETTINGERIAN BODY 92 1. About / for / of Women 92 2. Femininity and Universality 94 3. Fe-male Privilege 102 4. Ettingerian Mythos 108 5. A Gendered Family Album 116 6. Perplexing Gender(lessness) 125 4 Part 2. ENCOUNTERS IN COM-PASSION Chapter 4. THROUGH / WITH / IN THE BODY: THEOLOGICAL RESONANCES OF THE MATRIXIAL SPECIFICITY 128 1. -
Restless Dreams and Shattered Memories: Psychoanalysis and Silent Hill
B R U M A L Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/brumal.182 Research Journal on the Fantastic Vol. III, n.° 1 (primavera/spring 2015), pp. 161-182, ISSN: 2014–7910 RESTLESS DREAMS AND SHATTERED MEMORIES: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SILENT HILL Ewan Kirkland University of Brighton [email protected] Recibido: 25-01-2015 Aceptado: 18-05-2015 Abstract This paper applies psychoanalytic frameworks to the survival horror franchise Silent Hill, a series which is itself informed by psychoanalytic themes. Concerns include the construction of game space as maternal womb, cinematic sequences as primal fanta- sies, and the representation of memory across the games within a psychoanalytic con- text. The horror genres’ preoccupation with monstrous mother figures is evident in boss battle adversaries, the depiction of gamespaces as bloody «maternal caves», and in narratives concerning characters’ searching for their parental origins Distinguishing between videogames’ playable sequences and cinematics as conscious and sub-con- scious aspects, cut-scenes are analysed as reproducing primal fantasies, serving to ex- plain protagonists’ backstory and situating play within narrative contexts. Such mo- ments intrude into the game, marking transformations between the ordinary world and the abject Otherworld, or heralding the emergence of psychoanalytically-resonant monstrous creatures which the protagonist must destroy. Finally, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is examined as a game which, even more than others, foregrounds the series’ explicit reference to psychoanalytic preoccupations, engaging with contemporary un- derstandings concerning the relationship between memory, media and fantasy. Keywords: Silent Hill, survival horror, psychoanalysis, videogames, memory. Resumen En el presente artículo se aplica el marco de estudio psicoanalítico a la serie de survival horror Silent Hill, ella misma basada en temas psicoanalíticos. -
Downloadable
Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including the display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: ____________________________ ______________ Matthew Boyd Smith Date Bits and Pieces: Brutality in Millennial Horror Films and French Art Cinema By Matthew Boyd Smith Master of Arts Film and Media Studies ___________________________ Matthew Bernstein, Ph.D. Advisor ____________________________ Michele Schreiber, Ph.D. Committee Member ___________________________ Karla Oeler, Ph.D. Committee Member Accepted: ___________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________ Date Bits and Pieces: Brutality in Millennial Horror Films and French Art Cinema By Matthew Boyd Smith B.A., University of South Carolina, 2007 Advisor: Matthew Bernstein, Ph.D. An abstract of A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Film and Media Studies 2013 Abstract Bits and Pieces: Brutality in Millennial Horror Films and French Art Cinema By Matthew Boyd Smith This thesis examines a new strain of brutality in American and French horror films in the 2000s. -
Aesthetic Wit(H)Nessing in the Era of Trauma
EURAMERICA Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 2010), 829-886 © Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica http://euramerica.org Aesthetic Wit(h)nessing in the Era of Trauma Griselda Pollock Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History and School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds 2.08 Old Mining Building, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Israeli/French artist and psychoanalytical theorist, Bracha Ettinger has declared: “In art today we are moving from phantasm to trauma. Contemporary aesthetics is moving from phallic structure to matrixial sphere.” In analysing the significance of this claim, this article will bring together the legacies of feminist, post-colonial cultural theories in relation to the current focus on trauma, memory and aesthetics in an international context. The understanding of the twentieth century as a century of catastrophe demands theoretical attention be given to concepts such as trauma, as artists with deep ethical commitments bring issues of traumatic legacies to the surface of cultural awareness and potentially provide through the aesthetic encounter a passage from the traces of trauma. This article introduces, explains and analyses the contribution of Bracha Ettinger as a major theoretician of trauma, aesthetics and above all sexual difference. In addition, it elaborates on her parallel concept of a matrixial aesthetic practice, enacted through a post-conceptual Invited article, Received September 16, 2010 Proofreaders: Hsueh-mei Chen, Ying-bei Wang 830 EURAMERICA painting, that retunes the legacies of technologies of surveillance and documentation/archiving, as a means to effect the passage to a future that accepts the burden of sharing the trauma while processing and transforming it. -
Our Project Is Not to Add to Art History As
‘Our project is not to add to art history as we know it, but to change it.’ The establishment of the Association of Art Historians and the emergence of feminist interventions, 1974-1990 Victoria Horne Introduction In 1974 The Burlington Magazine announced that, ‘at an inaugural meeting in Birmingham in March this year an Association of Art Historians was formed with a regular constitution.’1 The following year the AAH began organising national conferences and in 1978 commenced publication of an affiliated journal titled Art History. This was a formative moment in British art history, during which the professional status of the discipline was strengthened within the context of an expanding higher education system. This article investigates the intersections between professional legitimation and disciplinary critique that marked this period in recent history. In 2017, as the UK Association of Art Historians expansively rebrands itself as the Association for Art History, it is worth looking back and taking stock of this earlier moment of disciplinary self-recognition, institutionalisation and diversification. The coincident emergence of the professional organisation for art history scholars and feminist critique provides a fascinating glimpse of the contradictory forces at play in shaping the contemporary field. Women’s unprecedented academic inclusion and consequent investigations into their predecessors’ historical absence demanded the development of new theories, methodologies and ways of looking at, thinking and writing about art and its history. Feminist intellectual enquiry therefore ascended, entwined with the expanded participation of women in art and academia, but not reducible to it. As Deborah Cherry informed readers of Art History in 1982 this enquiry was not intended to be additive but deeply transformative: ‘Our project is not to add to art history as we know it, but to change it.’2 Thus, feminism’s explicitly political scholarship was fuelled by a profound aspiration to reshape the historical imagination of the late twentieth century.