Freedom and Vengeance on Film
Freedom and Vengeance on Film

Author: Robert E. Watkins

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-05-31

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0857727370

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Films both reflect and construct social reality, especially in the way they employ, affirm and critique the discourses through which we grasp political life. This book examines five contemporary feature films that engage our deep attachments to two core political ideas freedom and vengeance asking: what do audiences learn about freedom and vengeance from film, and what are the political consequences of the reproduction or disruption of their meanings? Often, contemporary films represent the pursuit of freedom and revenge in a depoliticized way, erasing the precarious character of social life. Other films, however, foreground the negotiation of unchosen relations and circumstances in their drama. Films examined include Into the Wild, Mystic River, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Wendy and Lucy and Winter s Bone."

The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter
The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter

Author: Albie Sachs

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-07-03

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0520283627

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On April 7, 1988, Albie Sachs, an activist South African lawyer and a leading member of the ANC, was car-bombed in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, by agents of South Africa’s security forces. His right arm was blown off, and he lost sight in one eye. This intimate and moving account of his recovery traces the gradual recuperation of his broken body and his triumphant reentry into the world, where his dream of soft vengeance was realized with the achievement of democracy in South Africa. This book captures the spirit of a remarkable man: his enormous optimism, his commitment to social justice, and his joyous wonder at the life that surrounds him. A new preface and epilogue reflect on the making of Abby Ginzberg’s documentary film titled Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa. (For information about the film, see www.softvengeancefilm.org.)

Freedom and Vengeance on Film
Freedom and Vengeance on Film

Author: Robert E. Watkins

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-05-31

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0857729411

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Films both reflect and construct social reality, especially in the way they employ, affirm and critique the discourses through which we grasp political life. This book examines five contemporary feature films that engage our deep attachments to two core political ideas freedom and vengeance asking: what do audiences learn about freedom and vengeance from film, and what are the political consequences of the reproduction or disruption of their meanings? Often, contemporary films represent the pursuit of freedom and revenge in a depoliticized way, erasing the precarious character of social life. Other films, however, foreground the negotiation of unchosen relations and circumstances in their drama. Films examined include Into the Wild, Mystic River, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Wendy and Lucy and Winter s Bone."

Honor and Political Imagination
Honor and Political Imagination

Author: Smita A. Rahman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-11-26

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 019764211X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Honor and Political Imagination, Smita A. Rahman reckons with the enduring power of honor in contemporary political and popular culture and the desire for heroism that accompanies it, while attending to the dangers that such a desire brings. Rahman argues that while there may be a place for honor in the political imagination, it remains a contested and complicated one. Including close readings of honor in popular culture, Rahman explores the tragic cost of the pursuit of honor, but also underlines its ability to inspire heroic political action.

Freedom and Negativity in Beckett and Adorno
Freedom and Negativity in Beckett and Adorno

Author: Natalie Leeder

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-05-04

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1786603217

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since his notorious 1961 lecture, 'Trying to Understand Endgame', Theodor W. Adorno's name has been frequently coupled with that of Samuel Beckett. This book offers a radical reappraisal of the intellectual affinities between these two figures, whose paths crossed all too fleetingly. Specifically the book argues for a preoccupation with the concept of freedom in Beckett's works - one which situates him as a profoundly radical and even political writer. Adorno's own more explicit reconceptualization of freedom and its scarcity in modernity offers a unique lens through which to examine the way Beckett's works preserve a minimal space of freedom that acts in opposition to an unfree social totality. While acknowledging both the biographical encounters between Adorno and Beckett and the influence Beckett's writings had on Adorno's aesthetics, Natalie Leeder goes further to establish a dialogue between their intellectual positions, working with a range of texts from both writers and seeking insight in Adorno's less familiar works, as well as his magnum opera, Aesthetic Theory and Negative Dialectics.

Orwell's Revenge
Orwell's Revenge

Author: Peter Huber

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-05-05

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 150112773X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Mark Zuckerberg's ‘A Year of Books’ Selection George Orwell’s bleak visions of the future, one in which citizens are monitored through telescreens by an insidious Big Brother, has haunted our imagination long after the publication of 1984. Orwell’s dystopian image of the telescreen as a repressive instrument of state power has profoundly affected our view of technology, posing a stark confrontational question: Who will be master, human or machine? Experience has shown, however, that Orwell’s vision of the future was profoundly and significantly wrong: The conjunction of the new communications technologies has not produced a master-slave relation between person and computer, but rather exciting possibilities for partnership. In an extraordinary demonstration of the emerging supermedium's potential to engender new forms of creativity, Huber’s book boldly reimagines 1984 from the computer's point of view. After first scanning all of Orwell’s writings into his personal computer, Huber used the machine to rewrite the book completely, for the most part using Orwell’s own language. Alternating fiction and non-fiction chapters, Huber advances Orwell’s plot to a surprising new conclusion while seamlessly interpolating his own explanations and arguments. The result is a fascinating utopian work which envisions a world at our fingertips of ever-increasing information, equal opportunity, and freedom of choice.

Shadow Philosophy: Plato's Cave and Cinema
Shadow Philosophy: Plato's Cave and Cinema

Author: Nathan Andersen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-16

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1317805887

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Shadow Philosophy: Plato’s Cave and Cinema is an accessible and exciting new contribution to film-philosophy, which shows that to take film seriously is also to engage with the fundamental questions of philosophy. Nathan Andersen brings Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange into philosophical conversation with Plato’s Republic, comparing their contributions to themes such as the nature of experience and meaning, the character of justice, the contrast between appearance and reality, the importance of art, and the impact of images. At the heart of the book is a novel account of the analogy between Plato’s allegory of the cave and cinema, developed in conjunction with a provocative interpretation of the most powerful image from A Clockwork Orange, in which the lead character is strapped to a chair and forced to watch violent films. Key features of the book include: a comprehensive bibliography of suggested readings on Plato, on film, on philosophy, and on the philosophy of film a list of suggested films that can be explored following the approach in this book, including brief descriptions of each film, and suggestions regarding its philosophical implications a summary of Plato’s Republic, book by book, highlighting both dramatic context and subject matter. Offering a close reading of the controversial classic film A Clockwork Orange, and an introductory account of the central themes of the philosophical classic The Republic, this book will be of interest to both scholars and students of philosophy and film, as well as to readers of Plato and fans of Stanley Kubrick.

Just the Facts
Just the Facts

Author: David T.Z. Mindich

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 081475614X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

If American journalism were a religion, as it has been called, then its supreme deity would be "objectivity." The high priests of the profession worship the concept, while the iconoclasts of advocacy journalism, new journalism, and cyberjournalism consider objectivity a golden calf. Meanwhile, a groundswell of tabloids and talk shows and the increasing infringement of market concerns make a renewed discussion of the validity, possibility, and aim of objectivity a crucial pursuit. David T. Z. Mindich reaches back to the nineteenth century to recover the lost history and meaning of this central tenet of American journalism. His book draws on high profile cases, showing the degree to which journalism and its evolving commitment to objectivity altered and in some cases limited the public's understanding of events and issues.

Revenge Drama in European Renaissance and Japanese Theatre
Revenge Drama in European Renaissance and Japanese Theatre

Author: K. Wetmore

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-04-14

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0230611281

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Revenge Drama in European Renaissance and Japanese Theatre is a collection of essays that both explores the tradition of revenge drama in Japan and compares that tradition with that in European Renaissance drama. Why are the two great plays of each tradition, plays regarded as defining their nations and eras, Kanadehon Chushingura and Hamlet, both revenge plays? What do the revenge dramas of Europe and Japan tell us about the periods that produced them and how have they been modernized to speak to contemporary audiences? By interrogating the manifestation of evil women, ghosts, satire, parody, and censorship, contributors such as Leonard Pronko, J. Thomas Rimer, Carol Sorgenfrei, Laurence Kominz explore these issues.

Executing Freedom
Executing Freedom

Author: Daniel LaChance

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-02-09

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 022658318X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the mid-1990s, as public trust in big government was near an all-time low, 80% of Americans told Gallup that they supported the death penalty. Why did people who didn’t trust government to regulate the economy or provide daily services nonetheless believe that it should have the power to put its citizens to death? That question is at the heart of Executing Freedom, a powerful, wide-ranging examination of the place of the death penalty in American culture and how it has changed over the years. Drawing on an array of sources, including congressional hearings and campaign speeches, true crime classics like In Cold Blood, and films like Dead Man Walking, Daniel LaChance shows how attitudes toward the death penalty have reflected broader shifts in Americans’ thinking about the relationship between the individual and the state. Emerging from the height of 1970s disillusion, the simplicity and moral power of the death penalty became a potent symbol for many Americans of what government could do—and LaChance argues, fascinatingly, that it’s the very failure of capital punishment to live up to that mythology that could prove its eventual undoing in the United States.