Queer exceptions Greer, Stephen
2018, 20190201, 2019, 2018-11-23
eBook
Queer expectations is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse ...case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or 'exceptional' subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre's attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or 'exceptional' subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre's attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.
The pastrycook Aron Forss was a well-known person in his hometown Uppsala in the 1840’s and 1850’s, famous both for his popular café and for his femininity. This article analyses the rumors that ...surrounded his person, using paintings, newspaper clippings, and memoirs written by his former customers. Through his business, Forss could lay claim on normative masculinity through the rousing bourgeois ideals of financial success and craftsmanship. Being a successful businessman was a way of securing social acceptance and respectability. However, it was apparently not enough. In order to sustain his business, Forss was forced to put up with harassments. Some of his costumers treated him much like other women in public places were treated—as objects of sexual advance. Several of Forss’s contemporaries describe him with particular fascination. By describing Forss as a spectacle, he is made an exception to the rules of social appropriateness.
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Whereas sorrow and eulogizing typically accompany death, the television program 1000 Ways to Die transforms tragedy into palatable, commodified spectacle. The show shirks the traditional conventions ...of screen death and strings together bingeable televisual narratives of misfortune by borrowing from the historical lineage of death on television news, "mondo" films, and Internet clips featuring actual deaths. These mediated representations maximize the spectacle of death and invite schadenfreude while minimizing its tragic and human components. The gaze-inducing images of death reduce individuals to a "grotesque body" as opposed to a person. Additionally, by villainizing the deceased and constructing them as antagonists responsible for their own deaths, death itself becomes the text's hero and restorer of karmic order.
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This article considers the appeal of immersive recreations of old London for nineteenth-century audiences. When discussed by scholars now, they are most often presented as conduits of official ...ideology engaged in promoting a triumphalist narrative of bourgeois ascendance. Here, I explore their appeal to popular audiences, arguing that they presented a more ambivalent set of meanings than is generally recognised and highlighting instances in which the beholders' experience departed from the stated intentions of the makers or organisers. The article draws out the pervasiveness of the riverside motif, which I argue carried a subtext of yearning for a lost harmony between urban and natural environments in the modern metropolis. The immersive illusionism of these reconstructions has been associated with the idea of "passive" spectatorship in which the viewer is enthralled and their critical faculties dulled or immobilised. I argue against this that the immediacy of old London attractions allowed them to become part of the dream geography of modern spectators severed from their own past. As "mind's eye" images, they functioned as phantasmagoric interstitial spaces that could be called upon to inform and transform the real urban environment, and in which emotions such as loss, trauma and desire could be worked out through the free play of the imagination.
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OBJECTIVE: To understand how the scenario of political spectacularization can lead to democratic failure and if, how and why Brazil goes through it.
METHOD: To carry out this research, the ...hermeneutic philosophical method is used.
RELEVANCE / ORIGINALITY: The exceptional moment of the pandemic due to the dissemination of the SARS-COV-2 virus reflected directly on the multilateral and national policies to be adopted to contain the virus. Therefore, it is essential to observe how, if, and why the policies employed in Brazil in this scenario may cause democratic failure, in order to seek ways to prevent such failure.
RESULTS: One notices a slow and gradual democratic bankruptcy occurring in Brazil that worsens in the trivialized spectacle of the COVID-19 disease pandemic.
THEORETICAL / METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS: This research uses the concepts of spectacle presented by Mário Vargas Llosa in "The Civilization of Spectacle", the perception of democratic failure demonstrated by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in "How Democracies Die", and analyzes the phenomenon of the pandemic in the light of notions of State Theory, Public International Law, Human Rights, and geopolitics.
OBJETIVO: Perceber como o cenário da espetacularização política pode acarretar uma falência democrática e se, como e por que o Brasil passa por uma falência democrática.
MÉTODO: Para realização dessa pesquisa, utiliza-se o método hermenêutico-filosófico.
RELEVÂNCIA/ORIGINALIDADE: O momento excepcional de pandemia pela disseminação do vírus SARS-COV-2 refletiu diretamente nas políticas multilaterais e nacionais a serem adotadas no que tange a contenção do vírus. Por isso, é essencial observar como, se, e por que as políticas empregadas no Brasil nesse cenário podem ocasionar uma falência democrática, para assim procurar meios de impedir tal falência.
RESULTADOS: Nota-se uma falência democrática, lenta e gradual, ocorrendo no Brasil que se agrava no espetáculo banalizado da pandemia da doença COVID-19.
CONTRIBUIÇÕES TEÓRICAS/METODOLÓGICAS: Para realização dessa pesquisa, emprega-se os conceitos de espetáculo apresentados por Mário Vargas Llosa em “A Civilização do Espetáculo”, a percepção de falência democrática demonstrado por Steven Levitsky e Daniel Ziblatt em “Como as Democracias Morrem”, e se analisa o fenômeno da pandemia à luz de noções de Teoria do Estado, Direito Internacional Público, Direitos Humanos e geopolítica.
To assess the visual outcomes and quality of vision of patients receiving the AcrySof
IQ Vivity™ non-diffractive extended vision intraocular lens (NDEV IOL) after uneventful cataract surgery when the ...non-dominant eye is targeted for slight myopia.
Single site, prospective, single-arm study.
Eligible subjects interested in reducing their dependence on spectacles over a range of working distances were enrolled and followed for 3 months after the second eye surgery. Subjects were bilaterally implanted with this NDEV IOL, with a target of emmetropia in the dominant eye and a myopic refraction of -0.75D in the non-dominant eye. At 3 months postoperative, the uncorrected and distance-corrected (with monovision) visual acuity at 40 cm, 66 cm and 4 m were recorded, along with the manifest refraction. Questionnaires related to spectacle independence, patient satisfaction and quality of vision were also administered.
Data from 33 subjects were analyzed. The mean difference between eyes by subject was 0.80 ± 0.37 D. Twenty-nine of 33 (88%) subjects had a binocular uncorrected near VA of 0.2 logMAR or better. Twenty-five of 33 eyes (76%) had a binocular distance-corrected (-0.75 D in the non-dominant eye) VA of 0.2 logMAR or better at all three test distances. Satisfaction with vision at all distances was high. The reported level of spectacle independence was higher than for the same lens without monovision. Visual disturbances were higher than has been previously reported for this lens but were not correlated to the level of monovision.
A target of -0.75 D of myopia in the non-dominant eye of patients bilaterally implanted with this NDEV IOL improved near vision, increasing the rate of spectacle independence in patients relative to those targeted for bilateral emmetropia, with no correlated increases in visual disturbances.
This article examines the current prevalence of fashion designers working in association with celebrity "muses," famous figures drawn from acting and popular music, who serve to front brand campaigns ...but also embody the identity of fashion houses and inspire designers. The article discusses the ancient origin of the Muse figure and explores the ways in which the muse principle was incorporated into fashion via the model, but subsequently included celebrities. In this regard, the article discusses the iconic celebrity muse precedents represented by the creative relationships between Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy, and Jackie Kennedy and Oleg Cassini, arguing that while this dynamic has seen a significant revival in the twenty-first century, it is of a differing kind in that the muse dimension has (drawing upon the concepts of media spectacle and implosion) fused with the contemporary endorser/brand ambassador role. The article considers the key principles of celebrity brand endorsement and explores how the position of brand ambassador has evolved into that of the fashion muse, a term used by designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Nicolas Ghesquière, and Olivier Rousteing in their work with celebrities such as Kristen Stewart, Alicia Vikander, Léa Seydoux, and Kim Kardashian. Therefore, the article argues that the contemporary fashion muse represents the further embeddedness of celebrity within fashion brand communication.
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The concept of holiday is deeply rooted in European cultures. The importance of a holiday for ordinary people consisted in breaking up the monotonous row of workdays filled with toil and care and ...having a good reason for change, rest and fun. All peoples traditionally kept count of the time by using local holidays as milestones. The most ancient of them were closely connected with nature and agriculture. Peasants always celebrated coming of spring, haymaking, harvesting as main events in their rural life. Later, due to growing influence of church on everyday life there appeared more austere and emotionally charged religious holidays. Quite often they were accompanied by exaltation of the crowd expecting miracles or some sacral events. Celebration in peoples' mentality was associated with some action, performance or heartwarming spectacle. Various types of performance, starting from folk theatrical and circus events in medieval market places to present day mass high tech attractions are the inherent elements of festive atmosphere. They carry out the primary function of consolidating all viewers and participants in a single emotional impulse. The great significance of this social phenomenon has always been recognized by the rulersand skillfully used for strengthening their power.
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