stories as social critique: the Vision of china in the Films of Jia Zhangke

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad Ng
Keyword(s):  
Social Critique

Challenging representations of Muslims and cultural métissage in the ethnic comedies L’Italien (2010) and Mohamed Dubois (2013)

2021 ◽  
pp. 095715582110091
Author(s):  
Ramona Mielusel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
The Public ◽  
French Culture ◽  
French People ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Legislative Measures

In this article, I am looking at two popular ‘ethnic’ comedies, L’Italien (2010) and Mohamed Dubois (2013), that promote dialogue and conviviality between Franco-Maghrebi and Franco-French people in France while questioning the societal feasibility of legislative measures of inclusiveness, visibility and equality of chances promoted by the government in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Considering some challenges in the representations, the comedies offer, at times, a social critique of certain stereotypical views on Islam and the destiny of Muslims on French soil, but they conclude in an optimistic tone supporting the idea that there is cultural métissage in France and that Muslims and Christians do mix in today’s diverse France. The popularity of these comedies attests to the fact that there is a need to bring up the issues of Islam in France and of the cohabitation between Muslims and Christian French citizens in the public sphere. I suggest however that while the Franco-Maghrebi’s ‘essentialist identity’ is challenged in the films, there are still neo-colonialist tensions in the artistic productions that entail ambivalence towards the Muslim characters. In a Franco-French dominated film-consuming culture, the Franco-Maghrebi characters are still subject to mimicry, which consistently maintains their subordinate position in the French culture.

Private Writings

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-75
Author(s):  
Caroline Pollentier
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Micro Power

This chapter examines Virginia Woolf’s private writings as ethical and political technologies of privacy. In the light of Michel Foucault’s ethics of self-writing, Woolf’s notebooks, letters, and diaries are read as various ‘techniques of living’ rehearsing an elusive tension between immediacy and self-consciousness. The chapter considers in turn the archival impulse of her notebooks, the pragmatics of intimacy at work in her letters, and the aesthetics of daily life outlined in her diaries. Through these daily ‘notes’, Woolf configured various acts of self-making ranging from social critique to psychological immunity. She was also keenly aware of the extent to which her daily ‘scribbling’ or ‘scratching’ was becoming increasingly entangled with new technologies of recording and communication. By relating these archaic media to the social rise of ‘the very private’ in modernity, Woolf mobilized her private writings as untimely techniques of resistance, generating founding, if vulnerable, forms of micro-power.

Muriel Spark's Early Fiction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Stage Play ◽  
Insight Into

This book presents a detailed critical analysis of a period of significant formal and thematic innovation in Muriel Spark’s literary career. Spanning the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, it identifies formative instances of literary experimentation in texts including The Comforters, The Driver’s Seat and The Public Image, with an emphasis on metafiction and the influence of the nouveau roman. As the first critical study to draw extensively on Spark’s vast archives of correspondence, manuscripts and research, it provides a unique insight into the social contexts and personal concerns that dictated her fiction. Offering a distinctive reappraisal of Spark’s fiction, the book challenges the rigid critical framework that has long been applied to her writing. In doing so, it interrogates how Spark’s literary innovations work to facilitate moments of subversive satire and gendered social critique. As well as presenting nuanced re-readings major works like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, it draws unprecedented attention to lesser-discussed texts such as her only stage play, Doctors of Philosophy, and early short stories.

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