Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.
Drawing on a large corpus of narratives recorded at a church shelter for abused domestic helpers in Hong Kong, this monograph explores how the women discursively construct themselves in sharing sessions with other helpers. They see themselves as ‘helpers’ who have come to Hong Kong to help their families, to help the people in the city, and to serve God. A wide variety of competing identities are constructed in the narratives: submissive helper, sacrificial mother, daughter and wife, and powerless traumatised victim, but also resourceful indignant migrant women who, through sharing and peer support, become empowered to fight against abusive employers. This book provides a detailed discourse analysis of the women’s narratives, but it also explores larger issues such as global migration, exploitation, language and power, abuse and the psychology of evil, intergroup communication, and peer support and empowerment.
This volume offers an innovative set of critical examinations of the field of psychopathology. It investigates the social formation of psychopathology across different cultural, discursive, and political contexts and draws upon theory from two traditional domains of psychology social and abnormal psychology. The diverse topics covered include xenophobia, anorexia nervosa, witch hunting, post-traumatic stress, homosexuality, race categorization, and crosscultural issues. The various topics work in concert to unseat the notion of psychopathology as comprising decontextualized, individualized, essentialist categories of organic illness. "
Christianity and the Culture Machine is a precedent-shattering approach to combining theories of media and culture with theology. In this intensive examination of Christianity's role in the cultural marketplace, the author argues that Christianity's inability to effectively contest the ideology of secular humanism is not a theological shortcoming, but rather a communications problem: the institutional church is too wedded to an outmoded aesthetic of Christianity to communicate effectively. Privileging authority and obedience over the egalitarian and transformative goal of Christianity, the church fails to recognize how it undermines the vitality of the Christian narrative and message. In the absence of a more compelling vision offered by the official church, a new aesthetic can be found forming within the margins of popular culture texts. Despite its past failures in representing the Bible in mainstream film and television, the culture industry now offers more compelling versions of core Christian theology without even realizing it--within the margins of the main storylines. This book analyzes the aesthetic principles employed by these appropriations and articulations of Christian discourse as a means of theorizing what a new aesthetic of Christianity might look like.
Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, "When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue." Little serious work has been done on the subject of film dialogue, yet what characters say and how they say it has been crucial to our experience and understanding of every film since the coming of sound. Through informative discussions of dozens of classic and contemporary films—from Bringing Up Baby to Terms of Endearment, from Stagecoach to Reservoir Dogs--this lively book provides the first full-length study of the use of dialogue in American film. Sarah Kozloff shows why dialogue has been neglected in the analysis of narrative film and uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact. She uses narrative theory and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film. The second part of the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role and nature of dialogue in four film genres: westerns, screwball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas. Focusing on topics such as class and ethnic dialects, censorship, and the effect of dramatic irony, Kozloff provides an illuminating new perspective on film genres.
This introduction to practicing literary theory is a reader consisting of extracts from critical analyses, largely by 20th century Anglo-American literary critics, set around major literary texts that undergraduate students are known to be familiar with. It is specifically targeted to present literary criticism through practical examples of essays by literary theorists themselves, on texts both within and outside the literary canon. Four example essays are included for each author/text presented.
In a calm, sustained style, the author breaks new ground in the ongoing feminist theological pilgrimage, one that will make traditionalists squirm and liberationists cheer." 'Choice' In 'The Power to Speak', Rebecca Chopp offers an exhilarating defense of feminist theology as proclamation and good news for all. Arguing for a critique and transformation of language, subjectivity, and politics, this thoughtful, engaged book opens new directions in feminist thought." Elizabeth Fox-Genovese A provocative treatment of feminist theology's deepest potential to transform the discipline through language." 'WATERwheel' Rebecca Chopp is developing an original theological position. Her interpretation of Christian faith and Christian theology as having to do primarily with 'emancipatory transformation' breaks through the individualistic pietism of modern liberalism as well as the provincialism of many of the liberation theologies." Gordon D. Kaufman
Elsie B. Michie here provides insightful readings of novels by Mary Shelley, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot, writers who confronted definitions of femininity which denied them full participation in literary culture. Exploring a series of abhorrent images, Michie traces the links between the Victorian definition of femininity and other forms of cultural exclusion such as race and class distinctions.
This volume gathers authors from 16 countries who analyze different forms and strategies of resistance in around twenty different contexts in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. They discuss a variety of settings, from cyberwars to civil wars, from police and state repression, to pogroms and genocide.
Thailand’s politics has been contentious in recent years. With a military coup in 2006 and another in 2014, the country has moved from being a promising electoral democracy to a military dictatorship. Electoral politics was embraced enthusiastically by some groups, including those in rural areas of the north and northeast, but came to be feared by groups variously identified as the old elite, royalists and the establishment. The transition to authoritarianism saw large and lengthy street protests and considerable violence. This book examines the background to and the sources of conflict and the turn to authoritarianism. It addresses: the return of the military to political centre stage; the monarchy’s pivotal role in opposing electoral democracy; the manner in which sections of civil society have rejected electoral politics; and the rise of powerful non-elected bodies such as the Constitutional Court.