Gender studies

The ‘Woman’ of the Crowd: Exploring Female Flânerie

Vol 7 No 3

831 views

Rudrani Gangopadhyay

Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

Volume 7, Number 3, 2015 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

Modernist literature is rife with figures of the flâneur, strolling down the city. When Edgar Allan Poe wrote ‘The Man of the Crowd’, arguably one of the best depictions of this spectator figure, he names this figure the ‘man’ of the crowd, leaving one to wonder if there ever was a woman of the crowd? Or if at all there could be such a figure – a female flâneur in a man’s world. This paper tries to explore this elusive female counterpart to the man of the crowd by examining their course in literary and artistic works born out of early twentieth century Europe.

Keywords: Gender Studies, Modernism, City, Urban, Flânerie

While cities were by no means a phenomenon of the nineteenth century, the advent of industrialization meant a gradual relocation of more and more people from the rural areas to urban centres. As the cities grew, they became the new focus of civilization, a fact that was reflected in the works of nineteenth century European writers and artists. By the arrival of the twentieth century – and of the modernist movement – cities were the focus of all arts, and indeed life itself. A new form of urban lifestyle came to be, which became the subject of most modernist works.

While some modernists “perceived urban living in terms of decay and degeneration … for others, the city was a source of inspiration and beauty”(Kjattansdottir, 2012). Amidst this culture emerges the figure of the flâneur as a “key figure in understanding the modern, urban living brought about by industrialization in Europe” (Kjattansdottir). While the french noun ‘flâneur’ means ‘stroller’ or ‘saunterer’, Walter Benjamin first turned the scholarly focus onto the flâneur. Describing him as the iconic figure of the modern existence, Benjamin portrayed the flâneur as an urban spectator of the society, but one who is alienized from it. This flâneur as “the quintessential figure of modernity, a figure linked to modernity’s changing modes of observation, subjectivity, spectatorship and literary production and illustrative of urbanization, industrialization and technologization of the modern era” (Coulthard, 1999). Serving as both an emblem for the modernist city as well as the modernist writer, the flâneur moved through the crowd of the city by himself, observing and noting the details of passers by and events around him, but carefully remaining anonymous to the crowd. Baudelaire describes the flâneur in the following words in The Painter of Modern Life:

“The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.” (Baudelaire, 1995)

The figure suggests the contradictions of life in the modern city, exploring the relationship between people, modernity and the urban environment within and without himself, “caught between the insistent mobility of the present and the visible weight of the past” (Ferguson, 1994).

In many ways, the unknown man from Poe’s famous short story, “The Man of the Crowd”, whom the author pursues as he remains at the centre of the crowd in London, himself unnoticed, moving through the city relentlessly is the archetypal flâneur figure. However, it goes to show much about the contemporary gender roles that he is a ‘Man’ of the crowd. Traditionally, the flâneur is a man. The very fact that he is a man who ambles along the city all day long and manages to sustain himself – perhaps even devote time to the arts that he gathers inspiration for in the streets – would it make safe to identify a flâneur as a gentleman stroller, thus limiting him from the perspectives of both class and gender. Even if there could have flâneur been a certain amount of flexibility in the class situation, the public sphere of the city would always, without any exception, belong to men. Kevin Milburn illustrates this further:

“throughout history, the city in western society has tended to be a gender bound space; women have traditionally had less opportunity to engage in indulgent practices such as … urban strolling, principally due to gendered conventions concerning the expectation of looking after children, as well as safety concerns, concerns often propagated by men” (Mulburn, 2009).

Benjamin himself has been subject to fierce feminist criticism. His flâneur “has been repeatedly accused of being shaped by his masculine subject position” (Ivanchikova, 2006). There are very few women in the world of Benjamin’s flâneur. Leslie Kathleen Hankins accuses Benjamin’s analysis of being limited by his misogyny…Full Text PDF

Representation and Categorization: Understanding the Hijra and Transgender Identities Through Personal Narratives

Vol 7 No 3

993 views

Rajorshi Das
University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

Volume 7, Number 3, 2015 I Full Text PDF

Abstract:

Following the April 2014 Supreme Court judgment, several attempts have been made to define and specify what constitute the Indian transgender identity. My paper looks at Laxmi Narayan Tripathi’s autobiography Me Hijra Me Laxmi as an important intervention in this debate. Using literary and cinematic works by her contemporaries, I shall argue that while the categorisation of the ‘third gender’ may be necessary to facilitate governmental policies for the community, one has to look beyond law as a legitimizing tool as evident from the uniqueness of Laxmi’s ‘celebrification’ and its impact within Queer activism.

Keywords: Third Gender, Hijra, Laxmi, Transgender, Queer, Supreme Court, Celebrity, Testimony

Introduction:

In December 2013, the Supreme Court reversed the 2009 Delhi High Court judgment, reinstating the constitutional validity of Section 377 originally introduced in the Indian Penal Code by the British government in 1869 to criminalise all non-procreative sexual acts. The major grounds cited for the decision include the lack of prosecution under this law and the insignificance of a “minuscule fraction of the country’s population” (“Supreme Court Sets”, 2013) that gets affected by it. Consequently it came as a surprise when few months later the apex court in response to a writ petition filed by NALSA and supported by activists like Laxminarayan Tripathi (Dutta, 2014, p. 225) not only recognised the transgender community as the ‘third gender’ but also instructed the states to make reservation for them in employment and education sectors. While activists have questioned the inherent contradiction between these two judgements, I argue that it makes a significant (though unintelligent) distinction between gender performativity and sexual orientation. As Jasbir Puar (1998) writes –“one must interrogate not only how the nation disallows certain queers but perhaps more urgently, how nations produce and may in fact sanction certain queer subjectivities over others” (p. 414). Any definition of the Indian transgender is bound to be flawed and limiting unless understood from its cultural context. Aniruddha Dutta points out that the two judges in the latter case failed to come to any definite understanding of the transgender: while Justice Radhakrishnan relies on gender self-determination, Justice Sikri identities surgical evidence as primary criteria and restricts the label to the hijra community (p. 231). This recognition of the hijra as a gender endemic to India is at the cost of excluding those who identify themselves only by their sexual orientations- gays, bisexuals and lesbians.

As someone not belonging to the transgender community, I cannot claim to authenticate any of the experiences testified in Laxmi’s book. However, as a researcher, I can try and understand the various strands of the identity politics by looking at the representations of transgender bodies. My choice of texts like Laxminarayan Tripathi’s Me Hijra Me Laxmi (2015) and Rituparno Ghosh’s Bengali film Chitrangada: A Crowing Wish (2012) is guided their primary focus on the hijra and transgender subjectivities respectively and problematization of these identities due to the celebrity status of the artists/subjects. I will also consider A Revathi’s Our Lives, Our Worlds (2011)—a collection of testimonies based on the theme of izzat–since being written by a fellow hijra, it not only authenticates Laxmi’s narrative but also probes into the specificities while contesting any attempt to homogenize them under umbrella terms like ‘LGBT’. In this process I shall also explore the relationship between gender and genre as evident from Laxmi’s work that heralds a new form of life-writing…Full Text PDF

Is there a Place that is Non-Gendered in this World?: A Critique of Oyewumi’s Non Gendered Yorùbá Family

Vol 6 No 2

1.1K views

Olúkáyò?dé R. ADÉS?UYÌ, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The paper is an appraisal of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s argument that Yorùbá is non-gendered. It examines her arguments in support of this. It finds out that Oyewumi’s claim is not evident in Yorùbá setting. At best, it can be considered to be pseudo argument. The paper concludes, using the methods of conceptual analysis and philosophical argumentation, that since the discourse about gender is a universal phenomenon, and since it cannot be done away given its inherent function, there exists no nation, race group of people without gender. Therefore, Yorùbá cannot be an exception, that is, by implication, Yorùbá is gendered.

[Keywords: gender, non-gendered, feminism, agbo-ilé, ?m?-ìyá]

Introduction

It is not uncommon to hear people talking about gender and sex. In which case, both concepts are parts of human languages. They are very common in the feminist context such that no feminist theory can be discussed without mentioning either of these concepts. However, these concepts have different meanings and interpretations, and their meanings and interpretations depend on the use. For instance, Idowu (2002: 39) has differentiated between sex and gender. For him, the difference is that while sex refers to the genetic and physical characteristics of persons that define their identities to be either male or female, gender refers “to the culturally accepted behaviours and ways of relating to others expected of the two sexes.” In this case, gender is socially constructed (Idowu, 2002: 39). It may imply that gender discussion is neither relative nor contextual.

Oyewumi (2002) has, however, argued that gender discourse is not universal but contextual. This further implies that feminist theory and, of course any discussion are not universal. To argue for this, Oyewumi (2002) uses Africa (Yorùbá) as point of reference to prove that Africans and Africa are non-gendered; rather what is evident is seniority orientation.

This paper examines Oyewumi’s claims and analysis used to deny Africans as non-gendered. Method similar to hers will be adopted, that is, conceptual clarification. This is informed given by her use of method of conceptual clarification. It shall conclude that her claims are not tenable.

An Overview of Oyewumi’s Notion of Gender

Oyewumi (2002) has taken a bold step to look into the issue of gender and conclude that Africans are non-gendered. To prove this, she looks at the issue from one of the African nations, Yorùbá. What she intends to do is to prove that if actually there is a nation or tribe in Africa that is non-gendered, then, it will be easy to establish the fact that Africans are non-gendered. In which case, the argument will be structured thus:

Yorùbá are non-gendered.

Yorùbá are Africans.

Therefore, Africans are non-gendered.

Apparently, the structure of the argument is valid; it is so in the sense that the information in the conclusion, which is Oyewumi’s thesis, is already contained in the premises. While the argument is deductive, it is, however, not sound. The argument, although deductive, is neither plausible nor tenable, bearing in mind that not all deductive arguments are sound; and for there to be a sound argument, the premises and the conclusion must be true and valid (Copi and Cohen, 2002: 42-43 ; Oke and Amodu, 2006: 81).

Before examining the main thesis, a look at her view about gender construct, origin and nature of feminism is necessary. According to Oyewumi (2002), there was a period named the age of modernity which was magnet-like age. It came with a lot of things like “the development of capitalism and industrialization, as well as the establishment of nation states and the growth of regional disparities to the world system” (Oyewumi, 2002). Furthermore, due to modernity, some other things not only surfaced but came to stay. These things, perhaps, still exist up till today; which are gender and racial categories (Oyewumi, 2002). The consequence of this modernity is the expansion of Europe and establishment of Euro/American cultural hegemony throughout the world.

This expansion would not have been felt if nothing had come with it. But it did not come alone; it came with what is today regarded as the best thing to have happened to the ‘uncivilized people’, which is education. This has led to the production of knowledge about human behaviour, history, societies and culture (Oyewumi, 2002). This means that the Europeans have since been in possession and production of knowledge (Salami, 2008: 195-213; Salami, 2009: 131-141). This has affected the history, religion, ethics, philosophy etc of other parts of the world, Africans inclusive, thereby leading to eurocentrism, the view that a particular group is intentionally and deliberately put at the centre and the group at the centre is propagated as being emulated (Summer, 1906; Berry and Kalin, 1995: 329; Toth and Vijder 2002: 252; Bailey and Harindranath, 2006: 304). The effect of this is both positive and negative, but since the focus of this paper is not on this, then, it needs not be discussed further.

Nevertheless, it must be said that the effect of eurocentrism is the racialization of knowledge, as noted by Oyewumi (2002). Of course, one needs not begin to question that due to the fact that most of this formal education training is in line with the European set up. That is the basis of her assertion that “Europe is represented as the source of knowledge and Europeans as knowers” (Oyewumi, 2002)….Access Full Text of the Article

The Upside-Down Swan: Suniti Namjoshi

Vol 6 No 1

636 views

Akshaya K. Rath, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India

Abstract

Diasporic, lesbian and transnational, Suniti Namjoshi—within the framework of postcolonial discourse—attempts to construct an ‘alternative universe’ in textuality. In constructing of an alternative political identity, Namjoshi undertakes a comparative approach in selecting subjects for producing a neo-textual universe, and a comparative study of cross-cultural identities remain central to the analysis of Namjoshi’s work. In this paper I argue that it is because of colonial anti-sodomy law, and because of religious and social stigma that the mission of constructing an alternative universe remains operative in Namjoshi’s work. I also suggest that in Namjoshi’s work, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory merge but her work has been deliberately sidelined by the academia.

In 2006 Suniti Namjoshi (b. 1941) published Sycorax: New Fables and Poems. It included a section on the ‘unsung / untold’ story of Shakespeare’s Sycorax and a section on the ‘new’ life of Protea. By then, taking textual genesis from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and imitating the fashion of many postcolonial texts, in 1984 Namjoshi had published in From the Bedside Book of Nightmare a section entitled “Snapshots of Caliban”. “Sycorax”, a continuation of “Snapshots of Caliban”, of rewriting Shakespeare, attempted to reorganise the structure of the “humanist universe”—a project, rather a challenge, she attempted to undertake in The Jackass and the Lady in 1980. Rewriting Shakespeare to challenge the existing structure of the male-centred ‘humanist universe’ is part of the volumes of writing she has produced. They include rewriting of ancient and canonical fables and stories, and making new ones in the process of defining / identifying the lesbian / feminist ‘self’ amongst birds, beasts and animals. Rewriting canonical texts as a third-world lesbian feminist also includes exploring possibilities of multiple dimensions of traditional stories, fables and poems. For instance, the untold story of Sycorax portrayed in Sycorax, inclusion of an ageing sparrow as the witness of colonialism, and humanising Protea, a character from Greek mythology as a lady, are some of the instances of reorganising the world. Presently celebrated as a fabulist and a poet, Namjoshi has been constantly producing poetry and fables since the publication of her first collection of poems, Poems, in 1967.

Namjoshi’s Because of India: Selected Poems and Fables (1989) and Goja: An Autobiographical Myth (2000) are considered autobiographical and they show her development as a third world lesbian poet. Conversations of Cow (1985) and The Mothers of Maya Diip (1991) thematically remain critical of lesbian identity in a heterosexist world. The collections of work celebrating lesbianism are mostly written outside India and Namjoshi justifies the reasons behind such an exercise in the introductory sections of Because of India.

This article explores that Namjoshi maps the different facets of lesbian desire and identity within the framework of postcolonial discourse. It analyzes the representation of animal imagery with which she identifies the homosexual self. Further, it highlights in principle the way law, religion and social discourses are presented against sexual identities in Namjoshi’s work, and the way she attempts to frame an alternative universe in textuality. It argues it is because of Indian law against homosexuality and social stigma that the mission of constructing an alternative universe remains operative in Namjoshi. Further, it suggests that in Namjoshi’s work, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory merge but her work has been deliberately sidelined by the academia…Access Full Text of the Article

Biological and Psychological Lens to View LGBT Identities

Vol 6 No 1

751 views

Manvi Arora, University of Delhi, India

ABSTRACT
In attempt to understand LGBT studies, it’s important to view it from an interdisciplinary lens. Studies focusing on LGBT people have not been subject of any single discipline with single object of study. The objects to large extend has been lives of LGBT people themselves. Hence, it is important not to isolate their experiences from social and scientific context. This implies that LGBT studies can only be practiced in amalgamation with different disciplines, in particular sociology, anthropology, biology, psychology, literature, law and history. At present in India and in many other cultures, all orientations and behaviours other than heterosexuality have been seen as “unnatural”, “abnormal” or “sinful”. In such a situation it is even more critical to understand Biological and Psychological perspective and theories behind variant sexual orientations, put forward in this paper.
BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
The biological perspective typically has explained human sexuality through reference to research concerning both human biology and sexual behaviour in other species. Biology indicates what is possible, often, what is pleasurable or painful. But biology does not imply what is proper and improper. Religion, traditions, culture and philosophy guides these judgments.
CROSS-SPECIES SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR
Biologists have asserted that we might arrive at a “natural” course of sexual behaviour by observing sexual activities among animals. Since animals are incapable of thinking like humans, they are thus unlikely to be influenced by confounding layers of tradition and belief.
For instance “All male mammals masturbate” (Beach, 1951) and animals also display homosexual behaviours. Female rodents and carnivores are most likely to mount other females when they are in estrus, the time of the month when they can conceive. Females in estrus usually show female mating behaviour in the presence of a male animal. Beach believes that role reversibility “reveals a potential for bisexual behaviour” in these mammals (1976). Chevalier-Skolnikoff agrees with Beach that primates appear capable of displaying both “male” and “female” sexual behaviour pattern. The sexual behaviour of lower animals is highly varied (Chevalier-Skolnikqf, 1976). If we were to accept their behaviours as standard for ourselves, we would probably widely expand rather than limit the range of human sexual activities to penile-vaginal intercourse leading to reproduction.
Theorizing Origins of Sexual Diversion
There are numerous biological theories that try to explain the origin of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgendered roles in humans.
a) The Genetics of Homosexuality
Over the past hundred and fifty years, volumes have been written in the professional disciplines and literature to explain the roots of one’s sexual orientation, particularly if it is homosexual or bisexual. Heterosexuality is assumed to be “normal” and therefore needs no causal explanation. Examination of sexual behaviour and orientation from cross culture, evolutionary and interspecies perspectives bring forth a wide variety of sexual expressions, hence substantiating the non-universal and not natural reasons behind it. Still a lot of work is being done by biologists to discover the root cause of variant sexual orientation.
“Kallmann’s (1952) studies with monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins were once taken as powerful evidence for genetic influence on sexual orientation. Among 40 pairs of identical twins, Kallmann found 100 per cent concordance rate for homosexuality. Among fraternal twins, only 57.7 per cent of the probands of homosexuals were exclusively heterosexuals. In Kallmann’s report, siblings with an identical genetic code in variably shared the homosexual orientation.”…Access Full Text of the Article

Communal Tensions: Homosexuality in Raj Rao’s The Boyfriend

Vol 6 No 1

1.9K views

Oliver Ross, Churchill College, Cambridge University, UK

Introduction

“A speechless Yudi welcomed his Milya with open arms. He wasn’t at all bitter about the manner in which Milya had dumped him. He was too old for self-respect, and too much in love. Tears flowed down his cheeks. His heart was full of gratitude and joy, so that when his prodigal lover complained about how long he had walked, Yudi sat the boy down and knelt before him to massage his chapped and weary feet.

From the far end of the room, two pairs of eyes watched Yudi risk rebirth as a shit-worm by touching the feet of a Bhangi. The eyes belonged to Gauri.” (Rao, 2003, p.226-227)

In this scene from Raj Rao’s novel The Boyfriend, Yudi, the well-educated and affluent Brahmin protagonist, is welcoming back his Dalit lover, Milind, after a prolonged separation. There appears to be an inversion of the inequities of power when romantic relationships straddle differences in age, class and caste, but the tone is not celebratory. Implicit in the hyperbolic description of Yudi’s “speechless” reaction of “joy” and “tears” is a critique of his servility, refracted through the eyes of the ostensibly liberal but ultimately conservative Gauri. The Boyfriend presents Yudi’s Brahminism as one of the ineluctable constituents of identity which coexist and overlap with his self-consciously Westernised homosexual orientation and preclude its ideal embodiment.In addition to spotlighting the Brahmin/Dalit divide, Rao polarises Yudi and Milind by insisting that the former self-identifies as “radically gay”, while the latter falls below the radar of Anglophone identity politics (p.193). Even when the two men are sexually or romantically united, they are separated by the ideological differences embedded in their class and caste, a leitmotif which contributes to Rao’s depiction of Yudi’s more general social alienation.In this article I argue that inThe Boyfriend, dubbed a ‘cult classic’ by readers and scholars alike, Rao hints at an essentialist, sacrosanct homosexuality which has the potential to unite men who love and have sex with men as a result of their shared abjection. In practice, however, gay identity intersects with and is exposed to the deleterious effects of other identity markers like class, caste and religion, and Rao presents this social determinism in apessimistic tone which occasionally borders on nihilism. Subsequently, I show how he aligns homosexuality with wider debates on religious communalism and nationhood in order to centralise its importance and emphasise the function of his novel as irreverent social critique.

A lecturer in English at the University of Pune, Raj Rao wrote his doctoral dissertation at Bombay University on the poems of Nissim Ezekiel. While his poetry is similarly conversational, he is distanced from his mentor by his scatological diction and sexual voyeurism, which Hoshang Merchant (2009) describes as “tearing the veils of linguistic gentility” (p.166). At Pune Rao has inaugurated courses in gay literature and queer studies, but, despite his self-identification as gay, homosexual or queer, his writing makes clear that he acknowledges the contingency of these terms and is attentive to the numerous alternative identity markers available in India.In The Boyfriend and his 2010 novel Hostel Room 131 he adduces bothLGBT movements and longer-standing non-normative South Asian sexual and gender identities like those of the hijra and kothi.

In his introduction to Whistling in the Dark (2009), Rao makes explicit his mobilisation of the signifier ‘gay’ in the name of activism, and this strategic deployment has a correlative in his interest in queer politics. What he calls “the intrinsic quality of resistance built into queerness” (p.xv) echoes the idealism surrounding the term as it was co-opted by queer theory in the Anglo-American academic establishment of the early 1990s, in the wake of the formation of the anti-homophobic umbrella group Queer Nation in New York. Andrew Grossman (2001) dubs Rao a “radical utopian” (p.299); present in much of his academic and creative writing on queer themes, this stance is particularly salient in the introduction to Whistling in the Dark, where he analyses Foucault’s oft-cited remark on the normalisation of homosexuality as an identity category…Access Full Text of the Article

The Portuguese Queer Screen: Gender Possibilities in João Pedro Rodrigues’s Cinematic Production

Vol 6 No 1

431 views

Antônio M. da Silva, University of Kent, UK

Abstract

The Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues has developed a significant cinematic production that has attained international recognition. The three feature films he made in the first decade of the 2000s (Phantom, Two Drifters, and To Die like a Man) engage with queer identities from different perspectives. This article examines the ways in which Rodrigues depicts these and argues that the films provide a spectrum of ‘performatively constituted’ identities that represent a challenge to patriarchy’s hegemonic subjectivities. It contends that such identities consequently represent abjection in a society that ignores them but also that the filmmaker gives them visibility and shows that their subjectivities do matter.

The transgender character Tônia in João Pedro Rodrigues’s Morrer como um homem/To Die like a Man (2009) sings a Portuguese fado in the final sequence of the film that opens with the line “Oh, how I’d like to live in the plural!” This line encapsulates how gender identities are constructed and depicted in the three feature films discussed in this article: they are ‘performatively constituted’ in the sense of Judith Butler’s (1990) assertion that “there is no gender identity behind the expression of gender; […] identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (34). In other words, these identities are ‘floating’ and not restricted to the biologically born gender.

In this trilogy-like set of feature films, which comprises his debut O fantasma/Phantom (2000), Odete/Two Drifters (2005), and To Die like a Man, Rodrigues offers the viewer a number of possible queer subjectivities. Queer means, in this case, all the identities that do not conform to hegemonic norms regarding gender and sexuality, including homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism. Moreover, it can be argued that queer is also what represents “abjection” (Kristeva 1982), which is a view patriarchy exploits to keep heterosexual identities in place. This happens in a rather symbiotic relationship that arguably needs the queer as an opposite to reaffirm what heterosexual identities are (or what they are not). Such a symbiotic relationship is evident in many patriarchal contexts where masculinity is defined mostly in relation to queer: one is either a ‘proper man’ (whatever that means) or he is queer and thus subject to punishment.

Context therefore plays an important role in queer subjectivities, particularly the urban space where such ‘abject’ identities are less susceptible to punishment and are, to some extent, ‘freer’ from severe regulations. This is evident in the three films discussed herein, which show that Rodrigues’s characters become part of the Portuguese urban space, represented in the films by the capital, Lisbon—as will be developed later in this article. However, as Trindade (2010) argues in relation to the Portuguese film Lisboa, Crónica Anedótica/Lisbon, Anecdotal Chronicle, such characters are Lisbon dwellers but they do not constitute a collective entity (or identity). This is a crucial point regarding these three films because the characters’ ‘failure’ to represent the identity of a group (a ‘category’) to the detriment of each individual’s has been an issue critics have picked on. In other words, Rodrigues’s films show the viewer a spectrum of gender identities but these are based on the individuality of the subjects he portrays rather than trying to create a collective queer identity. Despite this, his approach to queer indicates that such a term can work as an umbrella under which various kinds of gender subjectivities are possible. This is strongly indicated by the director himself stating in an interview that each film is a unique story, even if it could be related to the outside world (Lim 2009).

The aim of this article is therefore to discuss the queer subjectivities Rodrigues constructs in his films and how these are related to the urban space in which the characters are placed. It will refer mostly to Julia Kristeva’s theorisation of abjection while discussing the characters’ subjectivities because these queer characters are part of an urban environment that allows them to get on with their lives as they are but makes them ‘socially invisible’ by treating them as ‘abject’ and refusing to see their existence…Access Full Text of the Article

The Homosexual as Pariah: Thinking about Homosexual Existence in the Context of Evangelical Christianity in the 1960’s

Vol 6 No 1

362 views

Taylor Cade West, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Abstract

In the 1960’s some American homosexuals began to speak; they worked to establish a dialogue between themselves and a society from which they were excluded. Evangelical Christians first followed the societal pattern of silence in regards to homosexuality. Later, as the clamor and presence of homosexuals increased, many evangelicals reacted pointedly. The historical coming out of homosexuals and evangelicals’ response, as it is documented in the pages of Christianity Today, serves as a supreme example of the pariah condition that many homosexuals and queer people were experiencing in the 1960s and continue perforce to experience today. It is the purpose of this paper to think about, in the context of evangelical Christianity’s reaction to homosexuality, the homosexual as pariah; to explore the character of a marginal existence.

It is perplexing to live in a society of which one is not a part (as is the case of queer peoples in so many parts of the world). Where silence reigns, where speaking is a forbidden act, one very often will stumble through the world beclouded by a haze. There is no guide for the perplexed, very seldom does a hand reach through the mist and escort a person to a ground upon which one may speak, one may be. Seldom, if ever, does a whisper break the darkness of one’s insecurity and say, “Go elsewhere. Here you have no place.”

The act of the “Homosexual as Pariah” has not come to a close. Still, well into the twenty-first century, a queer person may be born into a family in the presence of which she may never be herself. A homosexual may live in a society from which he is excluded and at times violently oppressed. And as many gains are being made as far as political and social freedoms in some parts of the world, some states are attempting to restore laws that prevent homosexual activity, the meaning of which is a grotesque violation of the private realm of human beings; and other states have enacted legislation which equates public expression of homosexuality as a kind of “horror-propaganda” against a regime already sunk in a morass of civil rights violations.

Universally speaking, the homosexual—along with all queer peoples—is subject to an imperiled existence and it is in this context of simultaneously expanding and contracting freedom that we must contemplate what it means to be a homosexual or queer person in society. The purpose of this paper does not go beyond an attempt to understand.

In our endeavor to understand, it seems appropriate to fall back on the historical example of evangelical Christianity’s reaction to homosexuals as they began to speak out in 1960s America; through this moment in gay history, we may begin to see the quality of homosexual existence in society. In so doing, we will find that the worldview of those who are members of society is diametrically opposed to the reality of those who find themselves at society’s margins. It will also become clear that the price of assimilation into decent society is nothing less than existence itself. And lastly, we shall attempt to discover a possible alternative that is open to the pariah…Access Full Text of the Article

Discursive Sites of Production and Opposition: Post World War I Popular Music Scene in Britain

Vol 5 No 3

1.9K views

Samraghni Bonnerjee, Independent Researcher, Kolkata, India

Download PDF Version

Abstract

The post World War I British music scene was varied, spanning several genres, from croon, swoon, jazz, blues, to swing – with influences both home-grown as well as imported. New dances, jazz music, and cocktail parties were continuously being imported from America, aided by the popularity of American cinema, which shaped the form of leisure activities of Britain throughout the Twenties and Thirties. However, the conservative response to these forms of music was strict, and post War society was involved with means of trespassing the restrictions and legislations. This paper intends to look at the genres of popular music and their spatial sites of performance – dance halls and ball rooms in England as well as the English colonies – as discursive sites of production and resistance. Keep Reading

Clothes Make the (Wo)Man: Eighteenth-Century Materialism and the Creation of the Female Subject

Vol 5 No 3

3.3K views

Aubrey L. C. Mishou, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland

Download PDF Version

Abstract

At once controversial for the change in their construction, and useful in terms of creation the female shape and subject, women’s clothing comes to play a large role in the creation of the female subject in eighteenth-century English novels. Female authors and clothing manufacturers alike utilize the subject of clothing in order to create an autonomous space for the female body. By manipulating the means through which their body may be read (i.e. through clothing and undergarments), women gain a kind of power that reflects their emerging status as consumers and individuals. “Clothes Make the (Wo)Man,” argues that authors such as Lady Montague and Samuel Richardson utilize the theme of female clothing to both confirm the rising social and capitalist power of the female figure in the eighteenth-century marketplace, and reduce this rising female to the subjectivity of her clothing in order to situate her under patriarchal economical control, respectively. Keep Reading

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in