Uncanny Spectacle

Uncanny Spectacle PDF Author: Marc Simpson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300071771
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Drawing on the correspondence of the artist, his friends and his family, as well as a review of contemporary critical responses, this text examines the work of Sargent's early maturity. The text is the catalogue for an exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Summer 1997.

Strapless

Strapless PDF Author: Deborah Davis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440628181
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The subject of John Singer Sargent's most famous painting was twenty-three-year-old New Orleans Creole Virginie Gautreau, who moved to Paris and quickly became the "it girl" of her day. A relative unknown at the time, Sargent won the commission to paint her; the two must have recognized in each other a like-minded hunger for fame. Unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon, Gautreau's portrait generated the attention she craved-but it led to infamy rather than stardom. Sargent had painted one strap of Gautreau's dress dangling from her shoulder, suggesting either the prelude to or the aftermath of sex. Her reputation irreparably damaged, Gautreau retired from public life, destroying all the mirrors in her home. Drawing on documents from private collections and other previously unexamined materials, and featuring a cast of characters including Oscar Wilde and Richard Wagner, Strapless is a tale of art and celebrity, obsession and betrayal.

Textual Practice

Textual Practice PDF Author: Terence Hawkes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134834659
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Place of Darkness

A Place of Darkness PDF Author: Kendall R. Phillips
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477315535
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
“An illuminating history . . . it’s clear that the right story can still terrify us; A Place of Darkness is a primer on how the movies learned to do it.” —NPR Horror is one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema. The term “horror film” was coined in 1931 between the premiere of Dracula and the release of Frankenstein, but monsters, ghosts, demons, and supernatural and horrific themes have been popular with American audiences since the emergence of novelty cinematographic attractions in the late 1890s. A Place of Darkness illuminates the prehistory of the horror genre by tracing the way horrific elements and stories were portrayed in films prior to the introduction of the term “horror film.” Using a rhetorical approach that examines not only early films but also the promotional materials for them and critical responses to them, Kendall R. Phillips argues that the portrayal of horrific elements was enmeshed in broader social tensions around the emergence of American identity and, in turn, American cinema. He shows how early cinema linked monsters, ghosts, witches, and magicians with Old World superstitions and beliefs, in contrast to an American way of thinking that was pragmatic, reasonable, scientific, and progressive. Throughout the teens and twenties, Phillips finds, supernatural elements were almost always explained away as some hysterical mistake, humorous prank, or nefarious plot. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however, constituted a substantial upheaval in the system of American certainty and opened a space for the reemergence of Old-World gothic within American popular discourse in the form of the horror genre, which has terrified and thrilled fans ever since. “[A] fascinating read.” —Sublime Horror

Home in Hollywood

Home in Hollywood PDF Author: Elisabeth Bronfen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231121768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Leading us on a journey through familiar twentieth-century American films, this engaging and provocative book proposes that Hollywood has created an imaginary cinematic geography filled with people and places we recognize and to which we are irresistibly drawn. Each viewing of a film stirs, in a very real and charismatic way, feelings of home. The comfort of returning to films like familiar haunts is at the core of our nostalgic desire. Elisabeth Bronfen examines the different ways home is constructed in the development of cinematic narrative, offering close readings of crucial scenes in classic films.

The Cursed Carolers in Context

The Cursed Carolers in Context PDF Author: Lynneth Miller Renberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000365573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
The Cursed Carolers in Context explores the interplay between the forms and contexts in which the tale of the cursed carolers circulated and the meanings it had for medieval and early modern authors and audiences. The story of the cursed carolers has circulated in Europe since the eleventh century. In this story, a group of people in a village in Saxony skip Christmas mass to perform a circle dance in the cemetery, only to be cursed and forced to keep dancing for a whole year. By approaching the story in specific historical contexts, this book shows how the story of the cursed carolers became a space in which medieval readers, writers, and listeners could debate the meaning and significance of a surprising variety of questions, including ecclesiastical authority, gender roles, pastoral responsibility, and even the conduct of crusades. This consideration of the interplay between text and context sheds new light on how and why the story of the dancers achieved such popularity in the Middle Ages, and how its meanings developed and changed throughout the period. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval European history, literature, and dance, as well as those interested in cultural history.

John Singer Sargent & Chicago's Gilded Age

John Singer Sargent & Chicago's Gilded Age PDF Author: Annelise K. Madsen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300232977
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"An examination of how the work of the American painter John Singer Sargent was displayed, collected, and influential in the civic and cultural development of Chicago, Illinois during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries"--

Global Citizenship and the Legacy of Empire

Global Citizenship and the Legacy of Empire PDF Author: April Biccum
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135218978
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This book investigates the parallels between mainstream development discourse and colonial discourse as theorized in the work of Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said. Aiming to repoliticize post-colonial theory by applying its understandings to contemporary political discourses, author April Biccum critically examines the ways in which development in its current form has recently begun to be promoted among the metropolitan public. Biccum contends that what has begun is a sustained marketing campaign for development that is a repetition, augmentation and ultimately much greater success of the work of the Empire Marketing Board of 1926. Demonstrating how this marketing campaign for development attempts to facilitate support for neo-liberal globalization, Biccum contends that this theatre of legitimation is emerging in response to growing critical voices and counter-hegemonic activity on the international stage. Featuring in depth analyses of the UK, cultural values, DfID, the commemoration of the slave trade and campaigns including Live8 and Make Poverty History, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of postcolonial studies, development studies, and international political economy. It will also offer insights valuable to a wider range of subjects including critical theory and globalization studies.

Ideology and Classic American Literature

Ideology and Classic American Literature PDF Author: Sacvan Bercovitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521273091
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
For more than a decade, Americanists have been concerned with the problem of ideology, and have undertaken a broad reassessment of American literature and culture. This volume brings together some of the best work in this area.

Profiling Shakespeare

Profiling Shakespeare PDF Author: Marjorie Garber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135891893
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The title of this collection, Profiling Shakespeare, is meant strongly in its double sense. These essays show the outline of a Shakespeare rather different from the man sought by biographers from his time to our own. They also show the effects, the ephemera, the clues and cues, welcome and unwelcome, out of which Shakespeare's admirers and dedicated scholars have pieced together a vision of the playwright, whether as sage, psychologist, lover, theatrical entrepreneur, or moral authority. This collection brings together classic pieces, hard-to-find chapters, and two new essays. Here, Garber has produced a book at once serious and highly readable, ranging broadly across time periods (early modern to postmodern) and touching upon both high and popular culture. Contents: Preface 1. Shakespeare's Ghost Writers 2. Hamlet: Giving Up the Ghost 3. Macbeth: The Male Medusa 4. Shakespeare as Fetish 5. Character Assassination 6. Out of Joint 7. Roman Numerals 8. Second-Best Bed 9. Shakespeare's Dogs 10. Shakespeare's Laundry List 11. Shakespeare's Faces 12. MacGuffin Shakespeare 13. Fatal Cleopatra 14. What Did Shakespeare Invent? 15. Bartlett's Familiar Shakespeare