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.     

在韵律和舞姿之间(二)——叶芝的抒情诗与舞蹈意象探幽

爱尔兰诗人叶芝的诗作中承载"舞蹈"意象的舞者多为女性,在与同代诗人笔下的"舞者"形象进行比较之时,考察叶芝对于男女两性的思考并认为其笔下的女性舞者具有独立的主体性。叶芝将"舞蹈"意象安插在爱尔兰本土的神话传说构成的背景之中,在唤醒爱尔兰人欢乐和悲哀的心理残迹之时激活深蕴着民族性的集体无意识,进行民族身份的追寻和认同。     

The Legality of the Image

Intimate links exist between political power, law and images. Theology, philosophy and law have always developed elaborate rules about visuality. The iconophilic and iconoclastic traditions complemented one another and combined to construct subjectivity and to reconcile humanity with finitude. In modernity, law replaced religion and philosophy conceptualised legality through the aesthetic category of the sublime. The law understands the importance of the governance of images for the maintenance of the social bond and helps organise a regime of permitted images and forbidden idols which amounts to a complex legal administration of aesthetics and a related aesthetic organisation of law.     

凝视中的权力——对多丽丝·莱辛《屋顶丽人》的解读

"凝视"是多丽丝·莱辛的小说《屋顶丽人》中的一个重要母题。本文从男性通过对女性的凝视,以规范其所谓的社会行为和女性对男权社会的解构出发,阐释了凝视中的权力对抗。     

Rethinking Constructs of Maternity in the Novels of Elena Ferrante and Alice Sebold

This article explores how Alice Sebold and Elena Ferrante place the feminine—and indeed often the maternal—body at the very centre of their narratives. The body—as a locus that filters the broader tensions and conflicts experienced by their female protagonists—in fact emerges as a key site of ‘contestation’ in their works. Through a close analysis of a selection of ekphrastic images, and photographic metatexts in particular, the author draws attention to how the two authors employ textual negotiations of the feminine body to question and problematize normative conceptions of femininity and motherhood. Ultimately, the author suggests that they not only challenge but also shift the perspective of, or indeed refocalize the dominant visual narrative of, the maternal/feminine body and the long history of objectification of the latter. In so doing, the author situates the two writers at the forefront of rethinking contemporary constructs of maternity and femininity.     

那一盆泡了两千年的洗澡水——"苏珊娜与长老"或裸女沐浴的原型及演变

"苏珊娜与长老"是西方裸体画中被反复表现过的一个题材,本文通过分析其中几个基本元素:沐浴、裸女与偷窥,考察这些元素背后的男权文化意识.文章强调的是,观看传统中把妇女定位于被看者、置于男性凝视的主控操纵,强化了男性权力,剥夺了女性的主体性.而女性艺术家的另类表达,可以看作是对这个传统的抗争.反思视觉艺术的传统,挑战其权威,目的是使妇女的身体和性别在艺术中拥有一个新的位置,这不仅是一个艺术问题,而且是整个社会和文化需要解决的问题.     

Multimodal turn allocation in ESL peer group discussions

This article reports on multimodal practices used by English as a Second Language students as they work to distribute primary speakership within their peer group discussions. Following Goodwin’s participation framework, the focus is on the embodied conducts of the non-talking recipients and their nonvocal displays of emerging speakership in peer discussions. Analyses of the non-primary speakers’ gaze, gestures, touch, and bodily conduct show that the students’ turn allocation practices embody their sensitivity to the spatial and visual field of co-participants, project changing participation frameworks, and achieve incremental coordination of speaker nomination. Explorations of such nonvocal behaviors lead to a detailed understanding of the students’ embodied participation frameworks and the visible processes through which the students claim or avoid speakership during peer group discussions.     

A chromatic presence: Barbara Hammer and “What You Are Not Supposed to Look At”

Since the 1970s, Barbara Hammer has been known for her photographs and experimental films chronicling and exploring lesbian experience. Since her 2006 diagnosis of ovarian cancer, she has ventured into an unflinching depiction of her own illness, aging, and dying. In “What You Are Not Supposed to Look At,” a 2014 collage series collaboration with Ingrid Christie, Hammer and Christie illuminate new modes of thinking about life, illness, and what we are describing the prismatic gaze: a mode of looking that subverts objectification and objectivity by positing sensuality, relationality, and spectacularity.     

Masculinity,homosexuality and sport in an Islamic state of increasing homohysteria

Although a considerable degree of research has examined the intersection of masculinities, sexualities and sport in the West, this is the first article to address male homosexuality in sport within a Muslim context. To analyze the intersection of sport, masculinities and homosexuality we interview Ghazi, 20, a competitive male bodybuilder in Tunisia. We utilize his narrative to illustrate the similarities and differences between the construction of stigma in both the West and that of Muslim culture in Tunisia. Primarily, we highlight the profoundly negative representation of homosexuality in Tunisia, and the broader Islamic social world, and how it affects the construction and development of masculinity for this Muslim, gay athlete. We utilize Anderson’s notion of homohysteria to help situate the relationship between the expression of femininity and social perceptions of homosexuality in Tunisian culture, comparing it to the Western zeitgeist three decades earlier.