From Homer to Hollywood, the western storytelling tradition has canonised a distinctive set of narrative values characterised by tight economy and closure. This book traces the formation of that ...classical paradigm in the development of ancient storytelling from Homer to Heliodorus. To tell this story, the book sets out to rehabilitate the idea of 'plot', notoriously disconnected from any recognised system of terminology in literary theory. The first part of the book draws on developments in narratology and cognitive science to propose a way of formally describing the way stories are structured and understood. This model is then used to write a history of the emergence of the classical plot type in the four ancient genres that shaped it - Homeric epic, fifth-century tragedy, New Comedy, and the Greek novel - with insights into the fundamental narrative poetics of each.
The aim of the thesis is to explore depictions of sexuality in popular science fiction film and television through a focus on storytelling, narrative, characters and genre. The thesis analyses ...science fiction as a film and television genre with a focus on the conventions, interpretations, and definitions of genre as part of larger contexts. Central to the argumentation is films and television series, from Star Wars and Star Trek, to Firefly and Torchwood. The approach allows a consideration of how the storytelling conventions of science fiction are, and have been, affected by its contexts. Through a consideration of a historical de-emphasis on narrative complexity and character formation in science fiction, the thesis displays and analyses a salient tendency towards juvenile and heteronormative narratives. This tendency is represented by a concept that I call the Star’verses, through which this dominant idea of science fiction as a juvenile, techno-centred, masculine, and heteronormative genre became firmly established. This generic cluster has remained a dominant influence on science fiction film and television since the 1980s. However, as argued, a major discursive shift took place in science fiction at the turn of the millennium. This adult turn in science fiction film, and television in particular, is attributed to contextual changes, but also to the influence of television dramaturgy. It explains why science fiction in the 21st century is not as unfamiliar with depictions of sexuality as its predecessors were. This turn does not signal a total abandonment of what the Star’verses represent; it instead contributes to a change to this dominant idea of the generic identity of science fiction. While sexuality has been disassociated from much science fiction, it is also argued that the science fiction narrative has extensive queer potential. Generic conventions, such as aliens and time travel, invite both queer readings and queer storytelling; the latter however is seldom used, especially in science fiction film. A majority of the examples of science fiction narrative that use this queer potential can be found in television. In cinema, however, this progression is remarkably slow. Therefore, the thesis analyses whether the storytelling techniques of Hollywood cinema, to which science fiction film owes much of its dramaturgy, could be considered heteronormative. A comparison is made to television dramaturgy in order to display the possibilities for the serialised, character-focused science fiction narrative. Ultimately, the thesis investigate the possibility for subversive storytelling and whether a normative use of dramaturgy needs to be overthrown in order to tell a subversive story.
In Danish history of theatre, especially shortly after World War II, the theatre critic, Frederik Schyberg (1905-50), and the theatre director, Sam Besekow (1911-2001), were both focused on ...cultural-ethical sides of criticism in theatre. They were occupied by the critical imperative to theatre professionals in order to offer a renewed consciousness to the spectators about the function of theatre art in Danish post war society. Both Besekow and Schyberg had a theatrical gaze on the impact of their profession. When dealing with the ethical side of critical aspects of theatre they took their point of departure from a reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where the play in the play is preceded with Hamlet asking the actor about what Hecuba is to him, and he to Hecuba.
Dette særnummer af Peripeti omhandler Odin Teatrets dramaturgi med udgangspunkt i forestillingerne Ur-Hamlet (2006) og Medeas bryllup (2008). Franco Perrelli skriver om grundlæggelsen af »Det danske ...hus« og Odin Teatrets rødder og forgreninger. Erik Exe Christoffersen skriver om dramaturgier i relation til Ur-Hamlet (2006) og Medeas bryllup (2008) og instruktøren Eugenio Barba reflekterer over den kreative proces som en form for dramaturgisk proces. Artiklerne kan med fordel læses i sammenhæng med Peripeti nr. 2 om teaterlaboratorietraditionen og nr. 10 om dramaturgi samt med særnummeret fra 2007 om serendipitet som organiserende greb i den kunstneriske proces.
For the specialist in the study of narrative structure, this is a solid and very perceptive exploration of the issues salient to the telling of a story--whatever the medium.
The article seeks to argue that it may be fruitful to observe certain tendencies to critique of capitalism through documentary strategies in contemporary theatre in the light of the theatre and ...theories of Erwin Piscator, defending the thesis, that the similarities between the two are larger than what is typically assumed. Three theatrical art works are analyzed: Marat – was ist aus unser Revolution geworden? by director Volker Lösch; Das Himbeerreich by Andres Veiel, and Karl Marx: Das Kapital, erster band by the group Rimini Protokoll. All three are read as piscatorian, in as far as it is shown, how they in different manners return to his concepts, all though the political aspect seems to have been sliding from an insisting hope, to a desperate utopia.
