bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Serpent’s Egg: Ingmar Bergman’s Exilic Elsewheres in 1970s New German and New Hollywood Cinema
Authors: Stenport Anna Westerstahl , Lunde Arne
Published: May 2021

This chapter focuses on Ingmar Bergman’s historical drama The Serpent’s Egg (1977), made in West Germany during the director’s 5-year self-imposed exile over a tax scandal in Sweden. Set during the hyper-inflationary Weimar Berlin of the early 1920s, the film retells in an expressionist mode the rise of German Nazism. Produced by Italian-born film mogul Dino DeLaurentiis and filmed on set in Munich with an international cast, The Serpent’s Egg was meant to provide an English-language European art film for American audiences, situating Bergman for Hollywood exposure. It simultaneously engaged with a silenced, repressed part of German history that New German Cinema directors had not yet begun to address by the mid-1970s. The massive exterior sets were re-used for Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and served a central role in that episodic TV-miniseries. Thus The Serpent’s Egg becomes not only an ‘elsewhere’ of Bergman’s production and New German Cinema, but also of New Hollywood.
Bridging Places, Media, and Traditions: Lasse Hallström’s Chronotopes
Authors: Wilkinson Lynn R.
Published: May 2021

This chapter investigates the career of Swedish-born director Lasse Hallström, whose international breakthrough came with his 1985 adaptation of Reidar Jönsson’s novel Mitt liv som hund/My Life as a Dog. Not surprisingly, many of his American films have also been adaptations, including his remarkable The Cider House Rules and The Shipping News. This study considers several of Hallström’s adaptations from the points of view of the films’ common ground (the focus on the plight of the unwanted child) and the cultural differences or even clashes they represent. In contrast, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and The Hundred-Foot Journey seem at first to be fairy tales of cultural reconciliation, although they also raise questions about leadership, the culture of everyday life, and adaptation in every sense of the word. Hallström’s adaptations provide us with insights into our own cultures, as well as those of others, while also highlighting the limits of adaptation.
The Cinematic Kon-Tiki Expeditions: Realism, Spectacle, and the Migration of Nordic Cinema
Authors: Bigelow Benjamin
Published: May 2021

This chapter investigates cinematic strategies used to depict Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947 on screen. The critical discourse surrounding Heyerdahl’s 1950 documentary film has centered on the ontology of its images, which film history’s most influential theorist of realism, André Bazin, famously praised in Kon-Tiki. Despite Bazin’s enthusiasm, both expedition and documentary were highly mediated and staged promotional events from the beginning. The only reason a film could be cobbled together at all from the waterlogged 16mm film that Heyerdahl brought home with him was because of the intervention of a Swedish film technician who resized and repaired the badly damaged sequences. In 2013, Norwegian directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg turned to Heyerdahl’s expedition for their own film. In their take, the sedate source material of the documentary has given way to spectacular visual effects and scenes of peril on the high seas. All the absent scenes of danger in the original take center stage in the latter film. Subtext has become text, as Rønning and Sandberg transform the source material into cinematic spectacle.
Iran
Authors: Francis-Dehqani Gulnar
Published: May 2021

Christianity existed in the region by the end of the 5th century, though Zoroastrianism (and later Islam) remained the official religion of Iran. Islam granted dhimmis, or ‘tolerated unbelievers’, and while certain rights varied, they were always regarded as inferior to Muslim nationals. For Muslims, conversion from Islam to Christianity (or any other religion) is regarded as apostasy, both a crime and a sin. Catholic religious orders arrived in the 17th century, while the first Western missionaries arrived in 19th century. Iran saw these influences as threats to Islam, an issue that came to the fore after the 1979 Revolution. Since then, Christians have faced waves of persecution. However, the continued dissemination of bibles (and new Farsi translations) has led to dialogue and ethical engagement with Christianity. The proliferation of bibles is attributed to the house church movement, which began to grow in the late 1990’s and is conducive to the willingness of Iranians to explore Christian faith and commit to following Christ. Whichever way one looks at it, for the time being at least, despite all efforts to destroy it, Persian-speaking Christianity survives in Iran, demonstrating resilience, creativity and determination that in many ways defies Western understanding.
Bangladesh
Authors: Perez sj Pradeep
Published: May 2021

Bangladesh is majority Muslim at 91%, mostly Sunni, with Islam as the state religion since 1988. The Hindus at 8.1% are the largest religious minority. Buddhists make up another 0.7%. Christians of diverse denominations constitute less than 1%. There are two archdioceses and seven dioceses in Bangladesh. While William Carey, who translated and printed the Bible in Bengali, came to Serampore in 1793, Protestant missionary efforts took root during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Christian contribution to Bangladesh’s freedom fight during the Liberation War in 1971 involved about 1,500 Christians with 4,000 more assisting the combatants. However, the slow growth of Christianity in the country is due to resistance to the gospel by Muslims and Hindus who identify Christianity with Western ideologies. Secondly, early missionaries focused their work on education at the expense of evangelism. A third reason is the devastating climate, which has disheartened many missionaries from new efforts at evangelization. Still, the distribution of Christian literature continues to play an important role in evangelistic efforts. Christian relief and development works have evangelized many. The contributions of missionaries and indigenous Christians have proved to be highly significant in different sectors of national life.
The Maldives
Authors: Ross Kenneth R. , Johnson Todd M.
Published: May 2021

The Maldives comprises 1,190 coral atolls lying in the India Ocean to the south-west of India and Sri Lanka. the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim, with Islam dating back to the twelfth Century. Government policy places a high premium on the Islamic identity of the country, and conversion to Christianity is punishable by loss of citizenship and, allegedly, torture. Foreign workers are legally permitted to express their faith, but only privately in their homes when no Maldives citizens are present. Catholics (mainly Filipinos), the Church of South India, the Evangelical Mennonite Church and the Seventh-day Adventists have a small and low-key presence in the country. The number of Christian believers among the indigenous population is thought to be very low, and they are obliged to observe their faith under conditions of utmost secrecy. Criticism of its record on human rights and political
freedoms led the government to announce in October 2016 that it will leave the Commonwealth.
Orthodox
Authors: Istratii Romina
Published: May 2021

The Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have developed distinct traditions. The majority of present-day Orthodox Christians in Central Asia are Slavs who inhabited the Central Asian geography during historical imperial Russian expansion. Central Asia is also home to an Armenian community, affiliated with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches operate on a small scale in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Post-Soviet Union, newly independent republics had become Muslim-majority states. The Armenian Oriental Orthodox community survives today primarily in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, with a few tens of thousands per republic. The Oriental Orthodox church in India has split over Syrian Patriarchy, forming the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Historically, the Armenians in Iran preserved their religio-cultural identity and language, not least because of being allowed to operate their own schools under the jurisdiction of the Church. Despite representation in parliament, Armenians have faced more difficulty finding employment due to discrimination. The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians of South and Central Asia have generally managed to maintain their life and witness to present times amid considerable social, religious and political pressures that have made their environments more difficult.
Theology
Authors: Athyal Jesudas
Published: May 2021

The arrival in South Asia of the Western missionaries marked a turning point in the Babylonian connection of the church. While Christians in South India initially welcomed the missionaries, their reforms turned traditional Christians against the missionaries. Dalit theology emerged, rejecting the notion that a caste-ridden society and Christianity are compatible. The retreat of communism led to the rise of secularism and religious fundamentalism, while in South Asia, this tension led to renewal of religion. ‘Little Traditions’ are the narratives subsumed by mainline religions; they play a role in interreligious encounters. Pentecostalism in India at the beginning of the twentieth century appealed to Dalits as an alternative to the traditional churches. In South Asia, Western ethnocentrism often identified Christianity almost exclusively with European culture. Religiosity and poverty are two realities in Asia and theologising in the region needs to take seriously the struggles for full humanity; double-baptism refers to Christian collaboration with believers of other religions and secular ideologies while engaging with Asian poverty. The role of theology in repressive contexts is to urge the people of God to keep in dialectical tension the vision of the Kingdom of God and the struggles for freedom, justice and equality.
Mission and Evangelism
Authors: Kavunkal SVD Jacob
Published: May 2021

Until the middle of the twentieth century, churches in South and Central Asia were operating from a Western concept of mission: namely, saving souls by proclaiming the gospel. However, since the last quarter of the twentieth century, the kingdom paradigm provided a vision focused on an earth of mutual respect. It tells the story of the gospel transforming subhuman conditions. Mission is not directly church growth but rather, a vibrant kingdom reality. Prophetic mission is not a task than a vocation, dismantling not so much religious differences as the structures of dehumanisation, not confined to the ordained ministry. Missions is movement toward the periphery, with paternalistic mission giving way to a collective evangelism that reminds the church of its pilgrim nature. For Asian Christians, acknowledging the role of other religions is an invitation to follow Christ in his mission of the divine reign amidst a plurality of religions. However, when it comes to an explicit faith in the Lord Jesus, churches face discrimination and persecution. The churches of South and Central Asia are involved in mission not only with a sense of being sent by God but also as participating in God’s self reaching out.
Inter-religious Relations
Authors: Rajkumar Peniel
Published: May 2021

In most parts of South and Central Asia, one religious tradition has a numerical majority. Though Christians are a minority, they have had a considerable influence on society through healthcare and education. Dialogue has been the mode of the church’s mission in the Asian context. Modes of dialogue include: the dialogue of life, which involves the daily sharing of life; the dialogue of collaborative action, which fosters collaboration for justice, peace and ecological wholeness; the dialogue of theological reflection, which involves entrenchment into the beliefs of other religions; and the dialogue of spiritual experience, which brings people of spiritual traditions together. ‘Triple dialogue’ envisages a dialogue not just with the cultures and the religions of Asia but also with Asia’s poor. Inculturation was an attempt to ensure that Christianity was purged of its Western influence. This enabled hospitable forms of Christian interaction– sometimes at the risk of being accused of assimilation, syncretism and/or compromise. Many nations are confronted with a tendency toward nationalistic self-identification based on religion. This can lead to restrictions on proselytism, viewed as an attack on the community and a denigration of traditional values.
The Birth of Nomos
Authors: Zartaloudis Thanos
Published: May 2021

The Birth of Nomos delves into the history of the fundamental ancient Greek word nomos (and its family and other related words) to extensively examine the varied co-existent uses of the terms from the archaic to the early classical period, before and beyond its later meaning of 'law' or 'law-making'. The Birth of Nomos draws on the literary evidence in the works of the poets, philosophers and tragedians including Homer, Hesiod, Alcman, Pindar, Archilochos, Theognis, Heraclitus, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. In doing so it critically reflects on how nomos and its complex genealogy have been used by contemporary philosophers, including Agamben, Foucault, Heidegger, Schmitt, Nancy, Deleuze and Axelos.
The Labour of Laziness in Twentieth-Century American Literature
Authors: Ladyga Zuzanna
Published: May 2021

The Labour of Laziness in Twentieth-Century American Literature focuses on the issue of productivity, using the figure of laziness to negotiate the relation between the ethical and the aesthetic. This book argues that major twentieth-century American writers such as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, John Barth, Donald Barthelme and David Foster Wallace provocatively challenge the ethos of productivity by filtering their ethical interventions through culturally stigmatised imagery of laziness. Ladyga argues that when the motif of laziness appears, it invariably reveals the underpinnings of an emerging value system at a given historical moment, while at the same time offering a glimpse into the strategies of rebelling against the status quo
Laziness in American Literature: The Inaugural Moment
Authors: Ladyga Zuzanna
Published: May 2021

The chapter serves as a historical prelude to chapters on modernism and postmodernism, by providing a historical context for how the trope of laziness evolved in American literature prior to the 20th century. First, it looks at how the motif of laziness functioned in early Puritan literature, how this function was broadened in 18th-century secular and religious didactic literature, and how it eventually developed into an aesthetic device in the Early Republic, when the new trope of laziness combined high Romantic aesthetics of the pastoral with unrefined motifs of vagabondage and delinquency, and in this way addresses the culture’s desire for freedom from the norm of collective labour and from patterns of inclusion and exclusion within the consensual networks of social participation.
Second, the chapter explores the difference between the familiar Romantic topos of idleness, which has no subversive potential with respect to ethical normativity and the topos of laziness, which does. Walt Whitman’s trope of loafing is reread here via the Cynical tradition of performative indomitability as parrhēsia, or speaking truth to power. Herman Melville’s experiments with haptic poetics of laziness in Typee are interpreted as a critique of Romantic moralism and the emerging ethico-aesthetic norm of productivity.
Feminist and Queer Anti-Militarism
Authors: Rossdale Chris
Published: May 2021

This chapter looks at how feminist and queer anti-militarists have understood the relationship between militarism, gender and sexuality. Those relationships have been theorised in some detail by academics working at these intersections, and have occasionally taken centre-stage in British anti-militarist politics, most notably at the time of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the early 1980s. However, they are not often highlighted in contemporary British anti-militarism. The chapter considers the politics of this limited attention, before turning to a series of cases where anti-militarists have focused on the militarised politics of gender and sexuality. Across three vignettes, the chapter shows activists challenging central dynamics of militarism while also calling attention to the reproduction of militarised gender orders within anti-militarism.
Agents of Security
Authors: Rossdale Chris
Published: May 2021

This is the first of two chapters to reflect on how anti-militarists relate to the politics of security. This chapter begins by outlining the intimate relationships between militarism and security, before showing how Critical Security Studies has called for alternative/non-militarised practices of security. The second part of the chapter suggests that anti-militarist direct action could be read as an alternative, anti-hegemonic practice of security where, faced with indifferent or complicit states, activists seek to combat insecurity themselves. The third part of the chapter complicates this story, introducing three more vignettes to reflect on the ways that, even as they seek to ‘do’ security differently, activists remain entangled within hegemonic logics and practices.
The Statutory Framework after 1968
Authors: Norrie Kenneth McK.
Published: May 2021

After an examination of the Kilbrandon Committee’s work in the early 1960s, this chapter will offer an analysis of the major changes to the Scottish child protection process brought about by the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 – including that Act’s increased focus on preventive measures, a greater involvement of the child’s family, and the clarification and enhancement of the role of the local authority. There follows the lead up to and enactment of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, with its increased focus on participation rights and the restructuring of local authority duties towards vulnerable children and those who are now “looked after”. Thereafter, the new regimes regulating the provision of care in residential establishments and in foster care (the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 and the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010) are explored in detail, as is the development of “GIRFEC” as the major Governmental tool. The chapter ends by exploring the restructuring of the children’s hearing system by the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, and the failed “named person” scheme in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Contemporary international conventions are described.
Emergency and Interim Protection
Authors: Norrie Kenneth McK.
Published: May 2021

This chapter explores two separate but related issues: the development of the rules for emergency protection of children, and the development of the rules that allow interim measures to be taken. With emergency protection, the chapter examines the creation and changing criteria for “place of safety warrants”, and then analyses the problems with these warrants, brought to public attention in the Orkney Child Abuse Case, which led to the Clyde Report of 1992 and the replacement of place of safety warrants with child protection orders. Interim measures have been available since the earliest child protection legislation, and the structure of the process to be followed has changed very little since 1889 to the present day, though the measures available on an interim basis have changed from warrants to interim compulsory supervision orders. The chapter ends with an examination of the definition through the years of “place of safety”.
Aftercare
Authors: Norrie Kenneth McK.
Published: May 2021

Aftercare, the duties owed to young people after they leave formal care, has always been an inherent aspect of the child protection process in Scotland, perhaps more so indeed in the early days when the assumption was that child protection necessitated the permanent removal of the child from the parent’s care. Early aftercare obligations were primarily around assistance in finding employment for young people when they reached school-leaving age, though managers of reformatory and industrial schools also had obligations to supervise the young person who had left their care for three years or until their 21st birthday. Latterly, education and training grants were made available, as were other forms of financial assistance. Finally, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 imposed on local authority the obligation of “continuing care” towards young people who had previously been “looked after” by the local authority, and on a range of public bodies to act as “corporate parents” to such care leavers.
English in Australia – Extra-territorial Influences
Authors: Burridge Kate , Peters Pam
Published: May 2021

This chapter discusses the extra-territorial influence of American English on Australian English, in comparison with other varieties within the spectrum of World Englishes. Its aim is to compare the different orientations to American English in Australia that can be observed using qualitative and quantitative methods, and so to illuminate the different ways in which extra- and intra-territorial influences can impact on individual varieties. Two kinds of evidence are presented: (i) attitudinal data derived from Australians commenting in the complaint tradition on elements of pronunciation and spelling; and (ii) corpus data on lexical and morphosyntactic sets where shifting preferences are attributed to American influence. While perceptions of the extent of American influence are inflated, the inventory of Americanisms used in Australia continues to grow.
Englishes in Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, Bermuda and the Falkland Islands: PCE, non-PCE or both? Blurred Boundaries in the Atlantic
Authors: Schreier Daniel
Published: May 2021

This chapter looks at the interplay of extra- and intra-territorial forces that shaped the evolution and sociolinguistic characteristics of four varieties of English spoken in the Atlantic Ocean: the Bermudas, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha and the Falkland Islands. It evaluates general and locally specific forces that operated in the formation of these varieties, with a focus on the nature of various co-existing dialects (ENL, ESL and EFL) in the early contact scenarios that straddle current dividing lines between social and ethnic communities in the respective communities. Some sort of historic ‘push and pull’ operated between extra- and intra-territorial forces in all four varieties. There are domains where the two types cannot be subdivided (attitudes to tourism and immigration) so that external factors (such as settlement policy) have provided the petri dish for the enactment of internal forces at a later stage. This is discussed with reference as to whether dialect contact conditions lend themselves to theorizing and how lesser-known varieties fit into current models of English as a world language.
Synopsis: Fine-tuning the EIF Model
Authors: Buschfeld Sarah
Published: May 2021

Chapter 18 offers a synopsis of the preceding chapters. In the light of chapters 2 to 17, the editor sums up and comments on the advantages, shortcomings, and potential pitfalls of the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces Model and thus evaluates its suitability for both postcolonial and non-postcolonial contexts. The synopsis provides an extended list of extra- and intra-territorial forces which can be identified in the case studies discussed (for a first list of potential forces, see Buschfeld and Kautzsch 2017). It also meets the critical voices raised in some of the contributions and offers some alternations and modifications to the original conception of the model, viz. the revised Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces Model.
Shakespeare's Body Parts
Authors: Griffiths Huw
Published: May 2021

This book provides a sustained, formalist and theoretically-informed reading of the multiple body parts that litter the dialogue and action of Shakespeare’s history plays, including Henry V, Richard II, Richard III, King John, and the Henry IV plays. Starting with a literary critical analysis of these dislocated bodies, the book follows Shakespeare’s own relentless pursuit of a specific political question: how does human flesh, blood, and bone relate to sovereignty? Shakespeare’s treatment of the body is also read against two other bodies of work: early modern political writing, and twentieth- and twenty first-century critical theory. Like Shakespeare’s histories, these develop understandings of sovereign power through considerations of the body: from Jean Bodin’s inalienable sovereignty, located in the body of the monarch, through Hobbes’ mechanistic Leviathan, to Kantorowicz’s “two bodies” and Derrida’s “prosthstatics” in which forms of sovereign power are imagined as machine- or animal-like. Along the way, particular body parts – knees, hands, heads, and throats – come to the fore as particular objects of interest.
Proper Subjects of Gendered Necropolitics: A Case of Constructed Virginities in Turkey
Authors: Savaş Elif
Published: May 2021

Is virginity the glorified signifier of proper and disciplined female subjectivity or is it the site of resistance and sabotage of the hegemonic gender norms? Focusing on hymen reconstruction operations (hymenoplasty) in Turkey and conceptualising them as medico-political assemblages, this chapter explores how virginity is understood and constructed in Turkey and the kinds of female subjectivity configured through these operations. Framing hymen reconstruction cases and virginity within the problematic of necropolitics helps us understand how the enemies to be expunged from the unfolding gendered regime and ideology in Turkey are defined and how the boundaries of a realm where an authorized female subject – the virgin – can dwell are reconstructed. The chapter focuses on the metaphorical death of the (female) subject as a result of the appropriation of its most defining features, such as autonomy on her own body, which renders her a threatening subject when she is not ‘the virgin.’ Thinking about hymen reconstruction as an example of necropolitical performance, this chapter analyses the possible meanings of the death of virginity within the medico-political assemblages of Turkey.
The Scottish Conservatives and Europe: The Reluctant Brexit Party
Authors: Salamone Anthony
Published: May 2021

As Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson was a prominent campaigner for a ‘Remain’ vote in the European Union referendum of June 2016. Following the 2017 general election, meanwhile, Davidson repositioned herself as someone who could – aided by 13 Scottish Tory MPs in the House of Commons – influence the Brexit negotiations and nudge the UK Conservative Party towards a ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ deal with the EU. This chapter considers the impact of Brexit on the Scottish Conservatives during the leadership of Ruth Davidson in four dimensions: Brexit’s distinct Scottish political context, its electoral consequences, the conduct of Brexit within the UK, and the Brexit negotiations themselves. It concludes with reflections on the future prospects for the Scottish party in light of all four dimensions.
Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Literary London
Authors: Robertson Lisa C.
Published: May 2021

This book uncovers a range of new models for modern living that emerged in response to social, economic and political changes in nineteenth-century London, and investigates the literature that gave expression to their novelty. It brings together visual and literary representations to identify a series of new designs for domestic space that change the way people lived together in the metropolis, including model dwellings, women’s residences, settlement housing and the garden city suburb. It focuses on the ways that language shapes the built environment and domestic architecture in particular, but also attends to the ways that domestic practice shapes discursive patterns and literary representation. It argues that these new designs for urban living responded to shifting perspectives about gender, class and sexuality; but equally, it demonstrates that these innovations in domestic design forged opportunities for refashioning both individual and collective identities. Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Literary London offers readers a new blueprint for understanding the ways in which literature imaginatively and materially produce the city’s built environment. In so doing, it also indicates what resources the nineteenth-century city — and the literature that responded to it — can offer for thinking through the most urgent problems of today’s urban environment environments.
Housing Crisis: Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Literary London
Authors: Robertson Lisa C.
Published: May 2021

This chapter describes the historical and social context in which new architectural designs, and new social relationships, for domestic spaces emerged. It describes the books key terms, and establishes the parameters of its argument. This chapter explores the literary representation of domestic space, and its connection to written explorations of individual and collective identities.
Irritating Rules and Oppressive Officials: Convention and Innovation in Evelyn Sharp’s The Making of a Prig
Authors: Robertson Lisa C.
Published: May 2021

This chapter documents the emergence of purpose-built women’s housing in late nineteenth-century London. It investigates the social and economic reasons for its emergence, and looks closely at Evelyn Sharp’s representation of one example of such buildings in her novel The Making of a Prig (1897). Sharp’s representation of the fictional ladies’ chambers ‘Queens Crescent’ (based in part on the Chenies Street Chamber) explores the tensions between the expectations of conventional domesticity and the unusual – and often radical – lives of the women who lived in such buildings.
Fugitive Living: Social Mobility and Domestic Space in Julia Frankau’s The Heart of a Child
Authors: Robertson Lisa C.
Published: May 2021

This chapter examines Julia Frankau’s The Heart of a Child (1908) a novel that documents a poor orphan’s social ascent. Despite the protagonist’s experience of a range of new models of domestic life – including model dwellings, a ‘home for working girls’, and an apartment (based on the Artillery Mansions in Victoria) – she remains circumscribed at each stage by her status as an unmarried woman. This novel’s satirical engagement with slum fiction reveals that all women’s lives are shaped by domestic insecurity – even if they are shaped differently.
Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975
Authors: Guarneri Michael
Published: May 2021

The book takes as its subject a corpus of thirty-three vampire movies made, distributed and exhibited during the peak years of film production in Italy, and certified to be of Italian nationality by state institutions such as the Italian Show Business Bureau and the Italian Film Censorship Office. Positioning itself at the intersection of Italian film history, horror studies and cultural studies, the book asks: why, and how, is the protean, transnational and transmedial figure of the vampire appropriated by Italian cinema practitioners between 1956 and 1975? Or, more concisely, what do the vampires of post-war Italian cinema mean? The aim is to show that – in spite of Italian vampire cinema’s imported and derivative nature, and its great reliance on profits coming from distribution on the international market – Italian cinematic vampires reflect their national zeitgeist from the economic miracle of the late 1950s to the mid-1970s austerity, twenty years of large political and socio-economic change in which gender politics were also in relative flux. The result of an original research into film production data, film censorship files, screenplays, trade papers, film magazines and vampire-themed paraliterature, the book leaves the well-trod track of award-winning art films to shed light on some of the so-called ‘lower forms’ of cinematic culture, looking for the economic backbone and cultural instrumentality of post-war Italian cinema in the run-of-the-mill genre movies rushed through a cheap production and into domestic and international distribution to parasitically (vampirically?) exploit a given commercially successful film.
Vampires of the Late 1950s and Early 1960s
Authors: Guarneri Michael
Published: May 2021

Concerned with the political and socio-economic implications of Italian vampire cinema, the chapter identifies Italian vampires with enemies within (a specific group of people in the nation-state’s social body) and enemies without (scheming foreigners). The chapter focuses on the vampire movies made in the 1959-1965 period, which coincided with the 1958-1963 economic miracle that turned vastly backward, prevalently agricultural Italy into a modern, industrial country. Taking horror parody Tempi duri per i vampiri / Uncle Was a Vampire (Stefano Vanzina as Steno, 1959) as its main case study, the chapter describes a parable of class struggle pointing to the need of renegotiating ancestral class identities in order to survive the dramatic socio-economic changes brought about by the economic miracle. At the same time, a careful analysis of horror-tinged adventures reveals them to be a re-enactment of the Nazi occupation of Italy in the last years of World War Two and, possibly, an allusion to the neofascist resurgence of the early 1960s.
Post-1968 Vampires
Authors: Guarneri Michael
Published: May 2021

Concerned with the political and socio-economic implications of Italian vampire cinema, the chapter identifies Italian vampires with enemies within (a specific group of people in the nation-state’s social body) and enemies without (scheming foreigners). The chapter focuses on six Italian vampire films of various genres made between 1970 and 1975. Directly referencing Karl Marx and Marxist thinkers, ...Hanno cambiato faccia (Corrado Farina, 1971), La corta notte delle bambole di vetro / Short Night of Glass Dolls (Aldo Lado, 1971), Il prato macchiato di rosso (Riccardo Ghione, 1972), L’uomo che uccideva a sangue freddo / Shock Treatment (Alain Jessua, 1973), Dracula cerca sangue di vergine... e morì di sete!!! / Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974) and Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza / Dracula in the Provinces (Lucio Fulci, 1975) liken the then-contemporary ruling political caste and capitalist class to greedy, self-serving vampires that are undefeatable due to their power of adaptation, thereby providing an apocalyptic view on the post-economic-miracle period, from the late-1960s wave of anti-authoritarian protests in Italian universities and factories to the mid-1970s plans for an alliance between Christian Democrats and Communists.
Music, Philosophy and Gender in Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe, Badiou
Authors: Hickmott Sarah
Published: May 2021

This book looks at the way music is used, characterised and understood in the work of Nancy, Labarthe and Badiou. Despite the differences in their philosophical-theoretical positions, they all invoke music – both directly and indirectly – to negotiate their relationship to ontology, politics, ethics and aesthetics. The book situates these texts in a longer genealogy of musico-philosophical interactions and also brings them into dialogue with recent musicological approaches, thus showing how an inherited idea of what music ‘is’ is often assumed rather than critically re-evaluated. It argues that though music is instrumentalized by progressive thinkers as a way of shifting theoretical/philosophical paradigms, it nonetheless does so in a way that has a strong sense of continuity with previous thinking on music. Secondly, the book highlights the way in which music in its metaphysical-ontological guise is often conceived as synonymous with Western high art classical music (which is itself constructed as absolute and transcendent, and ontologically independent of its means of (re)production or context) whilst non-literate, popular, folk and world musics – on the occasions that they are addressed and not simply ignored or denigrated – are notably considered almost exclusively in terms of their social-cultural or technological contexts. Finally, the book demonstrates that much of this takes place through a simultaneous instrumentalization of gender as an organisational category for philosophy, and one which all too often has the consequence of sending women – along with music – to the beyond of pre-, inter-, or post-signification.
Prelude
Authors: Hickmott Sarah
Published: May 2021

Without music life would be a mistake.

Nietzsche1

Il y a d’abord la question de la musique, laquelle, étrangement, n’est jamais la question de la seule musique.

Lacoue-Labarthe2

Selon une très ancienne, très profonde et très solide équivalence–peut-être indestructible –, c’est [la musique] un art féminin, et destiné aux femmes ou à la part féminine des hommes. C’est un art, en tous sens, hystérique. Et c’est pour cette raison, essentiellement, que la musique est l’hystérie. Tout au moins une certaine musique....
‘Catacoustic’ Subjects and the Injustice of Being Born: Lacoue-Labarthe’s Musical Maternal Muse
Authors: Hickmott Sarah
Published: May 2021

This chapter approaches two texts in detail, both of which explicitly focus on the relationship between music and philosophy: ‘L’Echo du sujet’ – a well-known essay from the early collection Typographies I (1979) which theorises a ‘catacoustic’ subject (rooted in a proto- or pre- subjective musico-rhythmic element) – and Le Chant des Muses (2005), transcribed from a talk aimed at teenagers given towards the end of his life. As well as critiquing the alignment of the maternal-feminine with the musical, the chapter probes at Lacoue-Labarthe’s construction of this essentially rhythmical/emotional – and constitutively nostalgic – subject and locates in this gesture his own autobiographical impulse. The chapter also develops from the thinking on tonality outlined with Nancy, to develop a critique of the assumed notion of the musical work: a static, total, bound and autonomous object which obscures its means of production and the labour required for its (re)production (regardless of whether it is actually performed, as such). Finally, in the way that Lacoue-Labarthe expressly puts this into relation to education, socialisation and environment, the chapter argues that there is an important political and ethical value to Lacoue-Labarthe’s conception of a ‘catacoustic’ subject.
Encore: After Music
Authors: Hickmott Sarah
Published: May 2021

What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more […] The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means....
Scots and the Spanish Civil War
Authors: Raeburn Fraser
Published: May 2021

Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, covering the activists and humanitarians who raised funds and awareness at home, as well as the hundreds of Scots who journeyed to Spain to fight as part of the International Brigades that fought for the Republican cause. Their stories reflect much larger narratives of the rise of European fascism, the networks and cultures of international communism and the wider modern phenomenon of transnational foreign war volunteering.
Scots and the Spanish Civil War is a groundbreaking study of Scottish involvement in one of the 20th century’s most famous and divisive conflicts, drawing on newly-declassified government documents and international archives in Spain and beyond. As well as shedding new light on Scottish politics in the 1930s, it is argued that this case study – part of the largest wave of foreign war volunteers in the 20th century – can help us understand other such mobilisations, past and present.
The Stoic Theory of Beauty
Authors: Celkyte Aiste
Published: May 2021

The monograph aims to show that the Stoa, an ancient Greek philosophical school, made a substantial line of enquiry into the nature of aesthetic properties, and thus there are good reasons to analyse and discuss the sub-field of the Stoic thought that could be called ‘Stoic aesthetics.’ This study of Stoic views on beauty begins with the question of indifferents and the challenge it poses for aesthetics. The controversial Stoic theory of values states that ‘beauty’ is one of the so-called indifferents, that is, the things that do not contribute to human happiness and therefore ought not to be treated as the good. It is argued that a thorough reading of the material shows that beauty is not treated as irrelevant in general; the evidence only shows that beauty is an inferior value to virtue. This leaves the possibility of theorising aesthetic objects. This leads to a systematic interpretation of Stoic aesthetics by looking at other pieces of extant evidence where beauty is mentioned, including the argument ‘that only the beautiful is the good’, theological arguments, the claim that only the wise man is beautiful and the Stoic definition of beauty as summetria. The latter, it is argued, is a succinct formulation of the idea that beauty is a function composition, and this idea has emerged in the previous discussions of various arguments involving aesthetic terms. The monograph ends with a discussion of the Stoic views in ancient Greek philosophical context.
Late Schrader: From the Canon to the Canyons
Authors: Stevenson Billy
Published: May 2021

Considers how Paul Schrader’s criticism informs his late films by analyzing the implications of this exchange in three different ways. First, its implications for the discourses of cinematic canonicity as they are constructed and critiqued in Schrader’s article, “Canon Fodder” which is at once an affirmation of the cinematic canon and an exhaustion of the cinematic canon. Second, the implications of this exchange for Schrader’s subsequent film The Canyons (2013), and its project of wrestling a post-cinematic aesthetic from the lexicon of classical Hollywood. Finally, the implications of this exchange are considered for the peculiar role played by Los Angeles in a new post-cinematic canon, wherein this former centre of cinematic cultural production now becomes a privileged site for problematizing the distinction between cinematic and non-cinematic (or post-cinematic) spatialities.
The chapter argues that “Canon Fodder” and The Canyons together represent the beginning of a “late” period in Schrader’s career that encompassing the revisionist gestures of The Walker (2007), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and Dog Eat Dog (2016), but is most fully realized in The Canyons, but still operates as a body of work.
Gaelic in Scotland
Authors: McLeod Wilson
Published: May 2021

This the first comprehensive study of the Gaelic language in modern Scotland, covering the period from 1872 to the present. It considers in detail the changing role of Gaelic in modern Scotland - from the introduction of state education in 1872 up to the present day - including the policies of government and the work of activists and campaigners who have sought to maintain and promote Gaelic. In addition, it scrutinises the competing ideologies that have driven the decline, marginalisation and subsequent revitalisation of the language. Taking an interdisciplinary approach - at the boundary of history, law, language policy and sociolinguistics - the book draws upon a wide range of sources in both English and Gaelic to consider in detail the development of the language policy regime for Gaelic that was developed between 1975 and 1989. It examines the campaign for the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 and analyses its contents and implementation. It also assesses the development and delivery of development and delivery of Gaelic education and media from the late 1980s to the present.
The Cinema of Disorientation
Authors: Lash Dominic
Published: May 2021

Perhaps because they are so immediately absorbing, narrative films can also be profoundly confusing and disorienting. This fascinating book neither proposes fool-proof methods for avoiding confusion, nor does it suggest that disorientation is always a virtue. Instead, it argues that the best way to come to terms with our confusion is to look closely at exactly what is confusing us, and why. At the heart of the book are original close readings of four important recent films: David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (2006), Leos Carax's Holy Motors (2012), Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth (2006) and Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage (2014). Clearly written but critically and theoretically bold, The Cinema of Disorientation: Inviting Confusions explores both how we get (or fail to get) our bearings with respect to a film, and what we might discover by (and while) doing so.
Cognitive Bias in Intelligence Analysis
Authors: Whitesmith Martha
Published: May 2021

Belief, Bias and Intelligence outlines an approach for reducing the risk of cognitive biases impacting intelligence analysis that draws from experimental research in the social sciences. It critiques the reliance of Western intelligence agencies on the use of a method for intelligence analysis developed by the CIA in the 1990’s, the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH). The book shows that the theoretical basis of the ACH method is significantly flawed, and that there is no empirical basis for the use of ACH in mitigating cognitive biases. It puts ACH to the test in an experimental setting against two key cognitive biases with unique empirical research facilitated by UK’s Professional Heads of Intelligence Analysis unit at the Cabinet Office, includes meta-analysis into which analytical factors increase and reduce the risk of cognitive bias and recommends an alternative approach to risk mitigation for intelligence communities. Finally, it proposes alternative models for explaining the underlying causes of cognitive biases, challenging current leading theories in the social sciences.
Material Poetics in Hemispheric America
Authors: Kosick Rebecca
Published: May 2021

Material Poetics in Hemispheric America examines poets and artists in the Americas during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to show how they worked to make language into material objects and material objects into language. It builds a theory of ‘material poetics’ that provides an alternative account of poetry in hemispheric America. It argues that by reframing American poetry to prominently include object-oriented practices within and beyond the United States, material poetry can be seen as representing a significant branch of the American poetic tradition. This book puts contemporary theories of objects and matter into conversation with a variety of American approaches to material poetics. These approaches result in one-word poems more concerned with the look of language than its meaning, artworks that invite viewers to physically engage with language, poems assembled from networks of out-of-place words and things, poetic monuments that meditate on (and take up) space, and poetry that attempts to materialise the remnants of lyrics and lives. By examining five case studies, drawn from Brazil, Chile, the United States, and Canada, it investigates five ways of conceptualizing these poetic objects—as autonomous, relational, assembled, architectural, and posthuman. Poets and artists featured include Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari, Augusto de Campos, Ferreira Gullar, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Juan Luis Martínez, Ronald Johnson, and Anne Carson.