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‘Forgive Me Father, for I have Sinned’: The Violent Fetishism of Female Monsters in Hollywood Horror Culture

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Adharshila Chatterjee

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Women’s Christian College, Kolkata. ORCID: 0000-0001-5351-0328. Email: adharshila.chatterjee@gmail.com

  Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.13

Received December 23, 2017; Revised March 10, 2018; Accepted March 20, 2018; Published May 07, 2018.

Abstract

In the generic gothic cornucopia, the figure of the female ‘victim’ becomes merely a physical signifier of the disembodied, biopolitics of violence that underlies the hyperrealistic, reiterative function of the visual body, which is to enact aggression in a vicious unending loop. It is a form of violence that is written on carefully choreographed, gendered bodies, which are manipulated as objects of graphic male fantasies. Since then, popular representations of femininity in the Hollywood gothic culture have remained mostly trapped within the finite, stunted constructions of the infantile, virtuous ‘good’ woman, the carnal/ cold femme fatale and the monstrous Other – terms that are subsumed in a pervasive categorical insulation, which does not allow for much mobility when it comes to their metonymical boundaries. This paper investigates the visual politics and polemics of our cultural engagement with monsters in popular films, which occupies an impressively broad range – “from movie monsters to psychotic killers, from the abusive family member to the horrific politician”. (Baumgartner and Davis 2008) Attempting a conjunction between Kristeva’s conception of the Abject, Laura Mulvey’s postulations on narrative cinema and voyeurism, and Barbara Creed’s theories on feminism, film and femme castratrice, I seek to examine the qualitative scope, evolution and appropriation of the ‘monstrous-feminine’ (Creed) in Hollywood horror/ thriller genre and negotiate the possibility of a female heroine/ anti-heroine whose performative value can disrupt and overhaul the castration complex and sexual anxiety of the classic cinemas of terror.

Keywords: Female Monsters, Monstrous Feminine, Abject Body, Hollywood, Horror

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Modern Advertising Practice: Gender Images and Stereotypes Generation

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Anel Kanatovna Naisbayeva1 Aliya Rmgazinovna Massalimova2 Azhar Kuanyshbekovna Zholdubayeva3

1PhD student, Cultural Studies, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Republic of Kazakhstan. Email: anelechka90@mail.ru

2Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Al-Farabi Kazakh National Universit,

3Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University

 Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.12

Received December 23, 2017; Revised March 10, 2018; Accepted March 20, 2018; Published May 07, 2018.

Abstract

Since nowadays mass media are not only an important institutional setting, but also an information transfer and gaining channel, they have a substantial effect on generation and fixation of gender stereotypes in public consciousness. It is for this reason that mass media are considered as one of the leverages effecting broad public consciousness. Therefore, gender images and stereotypes, which prevail in advertising texts and subjects, become permanent in consciousness of common persons. The relevance of this article is stipulated by the fact that the results of the studies extend scientific perceptions of gender stereotype phenomena, which may promote enhanced study of positive and negative gender stereotypes existing in national advertising. In this article, the main trends in the development of gender stereotypes in modern advertising practice, as well as public stereotype mentality, widespread public stereotypes along with male and female images fixed in public consciousness of people in the former Soviet republics (evidenced from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine), are discussed. With a view to studying gender images and stereotypes’ generation in modern advertising practice, we have carried out a sampling analysis of print (magazine) advertising published in magazines of different countries in the Russian language.

Keywords: advertising, advertising area, gender stereotypes, gender images, gender roles, gender markedness.

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Doubting Descartes: How Berkeley’s Immaterialism Outshines the Cartesian System

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Rocco A. Astore

New School for Social Research. Email: Astor421@newschool.edu

 Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.11

Received February 23, 2018; Revised March 14, 2018; Accepted March 25, 2018; Published May 07,  2018.

Abstract:

The 17th-century Rationalist philosopher, Descartes, famously uttered “cogito ergo sum,” or “I think; therefore, I am.” (1980, 61). Although this declaration caused an irreversible shift in philosophical thought, does it genuinely capture the bond between the nature of existence and consciousness? This essay will commence with an overview of Descartes’s method of doubt, and why it led him to conclude that correct reasoning necessarily leads to certain knowledge of self and an awareness of one’s uniqueness as a substance (1980, 62-64). Next, by entering the skeptical approach of Immaterialist philosopher George Berkeley, this piece will attempt to cast uncertainty on this foundational Cartesian claim. Lastly, this paper will assert why it is that Berkeley’s “esse est percipi,” or “to be is to be perceived,” portrays the link between existence and thought more precisely than what may be Descartes’s most profound articulation.

Keywords: Descartes, cogito ergo sum, consciousness, Berkeley, esse est percipi, existence.

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Development of Global-Mindedness among College Students: a Comparative Study among the Japanese and US Students

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Yuki AMAKI

Organization for International Collaboration, Meiji University, Japan. ORCID id: 0000-0002-6794-8870. Email id: amaki@meiji.ac.jp

 Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.10

Received December 20, 2017; Revised March 14, 2018; Accepted March 30, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

Abstract

It is to be expected that a significant difference should exist in the development of global-mindedness between students with study-abroad experience and those with none. This study seeks to examine how U.S. college students, in comparison with Japanese college students, describe the concept of global-mindedness. The target population for this survey was current undergraduate college students in the U.S. and Japan. In the background section of the survey, I indicated each student’s year in college and whether or not she or he had studied abroad. The next section of the survey sought to measure global preparedness. 209 U.S. college students and 120 Japanese college students responded to this survey. U.S. college students and Japanese students responded in fundamentally similar ways, with some notable differences. Both characterized awareness of other cultures as an essential characteristic of globally minded adults. However, most U.S. college students indicated open-mindedness and global awareness as characteristics of global-mindedness, while many Japanese college students indicated flexibility to work on different teams and possession of foreign language skills. Japanese college students emphasized individual strength, identity, and language ability, whereas U.S. college students emphasized ability to understand other cultures. On study abroad experience, the outcomes did not show measurable differences in global mindedness between those with and those without international experience, either among Japanese or US students. This study highlights differences in the ways Japanese and U.S. college students think about their careers and the degree and kinds of global preparedness necessary to accomplish career goals.

Keywords: global careers, global-mindedness, global leaders, higher education, globalization.

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Clashing Masculinities: Amos Oz’s Panther in the Basement

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Can Bahad?r Yüce

Indiana University, 1011 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47405, cbyuce@indiana.edu, orcid.org/0000-0001-5904-8007. Email: cbyuce@indiana.edu

 Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.09

Received December 14, 2017; Revised March March 31, 2018; Accepted April 10, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

 Abstract

In Middle Eastern fiction, the East-West discourse has largely been discussed through gender representations. Amos Oz’s 1998 novel Panther in the Basement follows this pattern by offering a complex portrayal of concurrent themes regarding the creation of the modern Middle East such as nation-building and empire. The novel narrates the friendship between a Jewish boy and a British soldier. The contrast between the boy’s emerging manhood and the soldier’s deficient masculinity suggests a reading of the tension between nationalism and colonialism through the realm of gender. The boy’s manliness features represent the idealism of the emerging nation-state whereas the soldier’s vulnerable masculinity represents declining imperial colonialism. The novel’s presentation of “clashing masculinities” indicates that a variety of masculinities exist, instead of one type of masculinity. This paper explores how Panther in the Basement offers cultural criticism by deconstructing the conventional conceptualizations of gender.

Keywords: masculinity, nationalism, colonialism, cultural criticism, gender, Amos Oz, the New Man, Middle Eastern literature.

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Analyzing the “Internal Other” in English literature: Welsh Characters in J. Fowles’ A Maggot and A. Burgess’ Any Old Iron

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Zulfiya Zinnatullina1, Liliya Khabibullina2

1 Kazan Federal University, Russian Federation, Orcid: 0000-0003-1616-9911. Email: zin-zulya@mail.ru

2Kazan Federal University, Russian Federation

   Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.08

Received November 01, 2017; Revised March 03, 2018; Accepted March 10, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of depicting the “internal other” in English literature in the second half of the 20th century. For a long time the significance of Welsh characters as the Others was not as essential for English literature as for Irish or Scottish; however, in the second half of the 20th century the attitude to them changes, which, as we suppose, is connected with the establishment of the European Union and foregrounding of the Arthurian myth. This brings about the discussions of English works of literature of the 1980s like A Maggot (1986) by John Fowles and Any Old Iron (1988) by Anthony Burgess. In these novels one can trace particular similarities in the depiction of Welsh characters. For example, the characters have a widespread family name Jones, and also the authors depict such stereotypes of Welsh behavior as craving for alcohol and garrulousness. The narrations of both novels have certain similarities: the main characters participate in a “quest”, the consequences of which must play a significant role in the history of their nation and the world in general. All above mentioned facts argue for the specific status of Welsh characters in the English novel of the end of the 20th century and for a particular place literature allots to them not only in the national but also in the world history.

Key words: Welsh, national character, Fowles, Burgess, contemporary English literature.

Happiness: A Journey rather than a Destination in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead

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Sugeetha K1 & Harini Jayaraman2

1PhD Research Scholar, Department of English and Humanities, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,India. ORCID id: 0000-0002-2668-7440. Email id: k_sugeetha@cb.amrita.edu

2Professor, Department of English and Humanities, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India. ORCID id: 0000-0002-9747-2850. Email id: j_harini@cb.amrita.edu

  Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.07

Received November 27, 2017; Revised April 02, 2018; Accepted April  15, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

 Abstract

The protagonists in the fictional world of Ayn Rand seem to possess the recipe to happiness that matches Hungarian psychologist Csikszentmihalyi’s conditions for a “flow experience”. This study examines the conditions that lead to the state of “flow” in Ayn Rand’s fiction The Fountainhead, with the aim of discovering the criteria that contribute to the leading of a happy life. Although a few critics have discussed the pursuit of happiness in Rand’s novels, the objective of this research is to make a difference by attempting to use Csikszentmihalyi’s psychological theory to understand Rand’s characterization and ascertain the factors that play a major role in the making of a psychologically healthy individual, who as a consequence is frequently in a state of “flow”.

Keywords: flow, happiness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Fountainhead, novelist-philosopher.

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Self and the Quest for Ideal Existential Space: a Study of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

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Saumya Bera1 & Soumyajyoti Banerjee2

1Assistant professor, Haldia Institute of Technology. Haldia, Dist- Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India, 721657. ORCID: 0000-0002-1198-9366. Email: berasaumya@gmail.com

2Assistant professor, Haldia Institute of Technology.

 Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.06

Received November 27, 2017; Revised March 28, 2018; Accepted March 31, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

Abstract:

The present study seeks to explore questions of formation, discernment and inspection of the individual identity through the exploration of existential space. This idea has been explicated through the narrative of Sal in the selected text who attempts to disembark at an understanding about the entirety of human existence. In the present study, Sal begets an identity in his mental space, which is devoid of any rootedness to his present contextual existence. This very realization drives him to go on the road in search of an ideal existential space that might resonate his own ‘self’. However, in doing so, he actually looks for an existential space to form his own identity which consequently gives birth to the conflict, the existential angst. His attempt to ‘be’ by idealizing the ‘other’ and assimilating the ‘otherness’ halts the process of formation of identity. Therefore, Sal’s imagination of ‘self’ and ‘other’ fades away in an unending loop of deference. The study intends to employ the theoretical tool of Existential Space to understand the imaginary constructs that inform the creation and evaluation of the identity of the individual.

Keywords: self, identity, quest, idealization, existentialism, space

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Maggie’s Deafening Silence: Femininity as a Masquerade in Henry James’ The Golden Bowl

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Ali Taghizadeh & Forough Emam

English Department, Faculty of Arts, Razi University, Kermanshah, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Email: altaghee@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.05

Received November 08, 2017; Revised February 06, 2018; Accepted February 15, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

Abstract                                                                                

In Henry James’s The Golden Bowl, although Maggie Verver is in love with her husband, her silence, regarding his affair, is quite enigmatic. However, in the theory of masquerade, which Joan Riviere proposed in a 1929 seminal essay, this idea was deconstructed. According to the theory of masquerade, women submit to the social codes by wearing a mask of womanliness while at the same time surreptitiously following their own phallic desires. Therefore, even their typically virtuous act of silence can be understood as a womanly disguise which is inherently a masquerade. This paper aims to analyze Maggie’s silence, despite the infidelity and betrayal shown to her by her friend and husband, in order to demonstrate how, according to Riviere, her silence and quietness are not signs of victimhood in the patriarchal society but only tactics which she consciously uses to empower herself and achieve what she wants by the end of the novel. In light of the theories of Joan Riviere, this paper intends to illustrate how (in the context of James’s narrative strategies) Maggie comes to empower herself without radically intimidating the value structure of the Jamesian patriarchal society and by the use of silence as a mask of womanliness.

Keywords: Joan Riviere, Masquerade, Henry James, The Golden Bowl

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Sacred Functions of Musical Instruments in the Creative Syncretism of Shamanistic Ritual

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Amanova Roza Aslanova1, Mukhambetova Asiya Ibadulayevna2, Dzhanseitova Svetlana Sattarovna3

1PhD in Art History, Professor at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University. Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek. Email: rza.amanova@gmail.com.

2Sc.D in Art History, Professor at T. Zhurgenev Kazakh National Academy of Art

3Doctor of philology, Professor of Kazakh National Conservatory after Kurmangazy.

Volume 10, Number 2, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.04

Received November 10, 2017; Revised January 25, 2018; Accepted February 05, 2018; Published May 06,  2018.

Abstract

The study explores the spiritual and worldview aspects of shaman’s ritualistic practice through the example of Central Asian Turkic tribes. We tried to show the magico-religious aspect of using the most widespread Kazakh and Kyrgyz musical instruments in the shamanic practice as a ritual that forms the artistic field in the general context of syncretic multi-element complex of shamanistic practice. This study considers the syncretism of creative principles in the shamanistic ritual, and the meanings of the sacred musical instruments (kobyz, tambourine, dombra, asatayak) used in the re shamanistic rituals of the nomadic Turkic religion – Tengrianism. The ritualistic practice of shamans is interpreted as an artistic comprehension of the world, which not only records and reflects the reality, but also bears creative and forming principles, thus becoming an integral part of culture. At that, emphasis is placed on the key role of sacred musical instruments in the shamanistic ritual. The study reveals the spiritual and symbolic meaning of each key musical instrument in the shamanistic ritual separately and in the context of the syncretic complex of the shaman’s ritualistic practice.

Ke?words: Central Asian shamanism, shamanistic ritual, storytelling, Tengrism, shaman tambourine.

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