Regarding the Protests of Others

While much social movement research focuses on how activists actively cultivate affect and how social movements benefit from shared emotions, these ideas rarely intersect with research examining how race constructs emotional responses in a white settler society. I bridge this theoretical divide by examining the 2009 Tamil diaspora protests in Canada to study dimensions of suffering and apathy through the construction of the racialized protest(er). Drawing upon illustrations from a critical discourse analysis of 153 mainstream news articles and interviews with activists and journalists, this paper explores how racial logic frames media and public discourse through (1) the expression of protesters’ suffering and (2) the construction of racial apathy by the Canadian public. The paper theorizes why and how race frames the production of suffering and apathy, and offers considerations for social movement theory.     

电影《香水》的奇观美学

小说《香水》为读者构建了一个荒诞神奇的黑色童话,影片基于原著进行改编,再现小说中曲折离奇的故事。影片用精致的画面和宏大的交响乐使观众产生强烈的视听感受,在对原著的改编上,除导演原有意义外融入了自己的思考,使观众不再只停留在影片美妙的视听语言和曲折离奇的情节建构上,而对影片进行深入挖掘。本文将从奇观美学的角度,对电影《香水》进行整体的分析研究。     

POPULISM AND SPECTACLE

In On Populist Reason Ernesto Laclau proposes that the reputedly ‘empty’ rhetorical excess of populism constitutes the ontological and aesthetic ground on which the existence of an entity called ‘the people’ depends. This essay considers the tensions and affinities between the particular set of aesthetic relations that Laclau attributes to populist rhetoric, on the one hand, and the set of apparently techno-economic relations that Guy Debord describes as the logic of spectacle in The Society of the Spectacle, on the other, arguing that Laclau's conception of populism compels us to recast the ontological problem of the relation that Debord describes between the social and the spectacular in expressly aesthetic terms. Beginning from this premise, the essay contends that the ‘empty’ aesthetic conventions likewise associated with spectacular entertainment – and in particular, the staging of the relation between audience and onstage spectacle that defines the variety showcase aesthetic in this account – enact a set of tropic relations that constitutes the audience as a generalized figure of ‘the people’ in much the same terms as Laclau's rhetoric. Tracing this aesthetic logic through an especially charged performance from the history of blackface minstrelsy, the essay concludes by considering how such a staging of the relation between populism and spectacle might challenge the dominant models for understanding what constitutes ‘popular’ aesthetic form within Cultural Studies, and in the process, afford new critical insights into the formal dimension of Laclau's political logic.     

电影学“景观”概念的论争与实践价值

电影学中的“景观”概念，源自法国情境主义电影理论家居伊·恩斯特·德波的《景观社会》一书。在中国，关于“景观”话语的讨论则始于本世纪初。在电影学中，“景观”特指追求影像的视觉造型效果及其观赏价值的一种镜语范式，它把人们对“电影本体性”的探索从文本叙事层面转移到对影像内在规律的深入把握上。通过对“景观”概念意义功能的全面考察，可以纠偏当代电影在视觉建构过程中“唯景观化”、“奇观第一”等极端现象。     

Twitter,incivility, and presidential communication: A theoretical incursion into spectacle and power

ABSTRACT

By approaching civility as an operational logic for democracy, we ask how incivility is a strategy related to power and domination, particularly from the president of the United States. We propose that Twitter is part of an infrastructure of incivility, through which structures and discursive mechanisms contribute to a devaluation of normative democratic discourses. Spectacle provides a theoretical framework to contextualize the forces at play in mediating our relations. Using President Trump’s Twitter use as a case study, we offer four propositions that together formulate a framework for theorizing the strategic use and deployment of incivility as an increasingly legitimate, yet problematic tool for democratic governance.     

泛爱情时代的真爱乌托邦--论真爱文本的生产与分裂

以怀旧青春电影、真人秀相亲节目和浪漫言情电视剧为主要内容的真爱文本的流行,是当下的重要文化现象之一。真爱文本建构了美好的爱情图景,但文本叙事的失效使其成为乌托邦幻象。大众文化所建构、呈现的欲望化、合理化社会倾向以及个性表征的表面化,改写了现代性所确立的真爱话语的内涵,其对于现实爱情经验的影响和重塑,是真爱文本进行乌托邦想象的动力。改写、置换现实语境是真爱乌托邦的内在话语策略,由此造成了虚幻的真爱想象对真实爱情体验的压抑和取代。     

城市化孕育出的恶之花——论王新军小说中的城市经验

牧民出身的青年作家王新军,不仅在其小说创作中描绘着牧歌式的田园生活,而且不断地尝试着对城市空间的书写。以中篇小说《坏爸爸》和《摸吧》为代表,王新军着力表现了在现代化、工业化和城市化进程中的农民为求生存,而以一种极端或堕落的方式进入城市空间。对此,简单地同情或谴责都是不够的。究其原因,资本的无限扩张、城市生活对乡村生活的挤压以及空间政治的统治都凸显出当今现代化、工业化和城市化进程中的深层问题。     

道格拉斯·凯尔纳“媒体奇观”解读

道格拉斯·凯尔纳是西方著名的文化批判家,本文以其《媒体奇观》一书为蓝本,对其“媒体奇观”概念进行解读,从理论解析到理论溯源,深入分析理论内涵,介绍凯尔纳的“诊断式批判”的研究方法.并从政治角度探讨媒体奇观在美国国内政界的应用以及美国文化输出的实质,最后结合实例分析,简要提出对中国当代文化发展的借鉴意义.     

Beyond the binge in 'booze Britain': market-led liminalization and the spectacle of binge drinking

The contemporary night-time economy has transformed British town centres into liminal spaces where transgression does not subvert normative space, but establishes public drunkenness as integral to a negotiated order. The focus of this paper is the wider dialectic surrounding contemporary 'binge drinking', and in particular the relationship between aesthetic processes aimed at encouraging alcohol-related excitement and excess, and those that seek to exert a measure of rational control over the drink 'problem'. It is the logic of the market that informs governmental policy on alcohol, and the binge drinker is central to the spectacle of the night-time economy as a form of self gratification which also embodies forms of repression.     

Who needs democracy if we can pick our favorite girl? Super Girl as media spectacle

This article examines the 2005 Super Girl phenomenon in China through the lens of media spectacle. I first review some general debate on reality TV and introduce the perspective of media spectacle for analyzing the specific Super Girl case in the Chinese context. I then look at strategies employed for making Super Girl into a media spectacle and how the spectacle mediates between the state, the market, media institutions, and spectators. The production, participation, and interpretation of this spectacle worked together to maintain a series of myths, which reinforce and naturalize the existing power structure rather than challenging the status quo.