Interrogating the Look of the Gaze: Theorizing a Latina Cine-subjectivity

Abstract: This article concerns sexual object choice, transgender subjectivities and emancipatory heterosexuality as imaged in three films: The House of the Spirits (1993), I Like It Like That (1994) and Mi Vida Loca (1994). The author argues, through her examination of the three films, for cinematic ways to refocus and interrogate the look and gender of the gaze, thereby envisioning what the author theorizes as a Latina cinematic subjectivity. The idea of a Latina cinematic subject is presented in order to articulate how at particular moments in the films an autonomous Latina subjectivity is created through narrative and mise-en-scène. It is at these narrative and aesthetic moments that the characters look back at the objectifying gaze, thereby creating a cinematic sexual subjectivity for the characters and a model of agency for the culturally resistant spectator who is doing the looking. The House of the Spirits points to the contradiction of sexual object choice and female desire; I Like It Like That reveals the performative and fluid possibilities of gender, as well as the hybridity of black and Latino cultures; and Mi Vida Loca reflects the struggle for agency in Chicana heterosexual relationships and in their material lives. The author argues that the three portrayals begin important cultural work in the rethinking of sexualities, as they unthink the rigidity of monosexuality, destabilize normative conceptions of gender and reinvigorate agency and egalitarianism in heterosexual relations.     

From Population Control to Reproductive Rights: Understanding Normative Change in Global Population Policy (1965–1994)

This article examines the process of normative change and nascent norm emergence in areas of global policy making through the convening of UN global conferences. Specifically, the article is a case study of how the norms and discourse undergirding and legitimising global population policy have changed from population control to reproductive rights through the passing decades. The United Nations, as a main site of discursive and normative contestation, provides opportunities for global social movements to lodge oppositional claims against states and other actors in world politics. A constructivist approach is used to identify five processes integral to understanding mutually constitutive and fluid agent-structure processes of normative change and nascent norm emergence in global population policy. This research contributes to the extant constructivist literature on the process of norm emergence by suggesting one processual model that can illuminate other cases of norm formation, maintenance, and change regarding other transnational issues.     

Reviews

The Absence of lzanagi By Kei Takei Performed at La MaMa E.T.C., New York June 22–25, 2000

Otome Bunraku performs two Japanese classics Japan Society, New York September 13–16, 2000

Towa—Part I—Kanojo (Eternity—Part I—She) By Kishida Rio Performed at Kinokuniya Southern Theatre, Tokyo August 31‐September 9, 2000

Toothless By Kazuko Hohki Performed at Battersea Arts Centre, London June‐July 2000

Hagi‐ke no San‐Shimai (Three Sisters of the Hagi Family) By Nagai Ai Performed at Theatre Tram, Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo November 4–19, 2000

Women's Gidayū and the Japanese Theatre Tradition. By A. Kimi Coaldrake. 1998. London and New York: Nissan Institute, Routledge Japanese Studies Series. Xxix+262. With nine‐track CD.

Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. By Jennifer Robertson. 1998. University of California Press, Japan. Xvi+278.

Angura: Posters of the Japanese Avant‐Garde. David G. Goodman. 1999. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Viii+91.

About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater. By Dorinne Kondo. 1997. New York and London: Routledge. xiii +277.     

Detecting deception: Practice, practitioners, and theory

Conclusions Of the forty-six types of detectives studied, all but one used the same general procedures to detect deception. (The exception was the adversarial method used by trial lawyers working in the American judicial system.) All others used standard logical systems (both deductive and inductive) in combination with intuitive methods. The more successful detections seemed to be closely associated with intuitive methods, particularly so-called “indirect thinking”. Authors'Note: The “I” in this chapter refers to the principal author, Bart Whaley. Since it was first written in 1999, Whaley has increased the number of types of detectives studies to over 100, and the number of major works cited to over 500. The most important finding was to reinforce the recommendation that effective detection and deception is crucially dependent on large and accurate data bases based on systematically collected and analyzed case studies.