Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Cultural Approach To Emotional Disorders: Introduction, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

In her latest contribution to the growing field of emotion studies, Deidre Pribram makes a compelling argument for why culturalist approaches to the study of emotional "disorders" continue to be eschewed, even as the sociocultural and historical study of mental illness flourishes. The author ties this phenomenon to a tension between two fundamentally different approaches to emotion: an individualist approach, which regards emotions as the property of the individual, whether biologically or psychologically, and a culturalist approach, which regards emotions as collective, social processes with distinctive histories and meanings that work to produce particularized subjects. While she links a strong …

Feeling Bad: Emotions And Narrativity In Breaking Bad, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

In an interview that took place in January 1984, five months before his death, Michel Foucault relates an anecdote to illustrate what he means by 'relations of power':

For example, the fact that I may be older than you, and that you may initially have been intimidated, may be turned around during the course of our conversation, and I may end up being intimidated before someone precisely because he is younger than I am. (292)

His is a simple, almost offhand anecdote but one that has lingered in my mind precisely because of the inadequate means we possess to explain …

Emotions, Genre, Justice In Film And Television: Introduction And Chapter 1, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

In many ways film and television studies are ideally suited for detailed analyses of the place of emotions in narrative and social discourses and practices. Emotions always have been central to how popular culture "works," how it creates its impact and meanings. Popular culture's complex, intricate deployments of emotion are a primary means by which it achives its status as popular. Cultural theorists have moved toward the analysis of popular culture precisely because it has mass emotional appeal and resonance. Herein lies its significance.

Cold Comfort: Emotion, Television Detection Dramas, And Cold Case, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

To speak about emotions is to attempt to address a notoriously challenging and vast category of cultural existence, aking to undertaking an analysis of "the body" or "reason." But as contemporary work in cultural studies and poststructuralism has shown, undertaking explorations of the body and reason are extremely pressing and productive areas of critical inquiry. Culturalist approaches to emotions, however, have only recently begun to emerge as a distinct area of investigation. A useful entry point into the complexities of emotion as a sociocultural category is Raymond Williams' concept, structure of feeling.

What Do I Get? Punk Rock, Authenticity, And Cultural Capital, Brian Cogan Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

After years of alternately being declared either dead, irrelevant, or simply too outrageous to be accepted into the fabric of American culture, and almost thirty years after it first reared it’s mohawk'd head in public, the musical genre known as “punk rock” has finally been accepted as part of mainstream American culture. This is unfortunately not the result of changing musical tastes or a growing acceptance of subversive subcultures on the part of the American audience, but rather, is due to a single factor loathed by most participants in (the wide and diverse variety of) insular punk communities, the increasing …

The Power Of Feeling: Locating Emotions In Culture, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D., Jennifer Harding

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

Within cultural studies, there has been little detailed investigation of emotions as part of everyday personal, cultural and political life. In this article, we argue the need for a cultural studies approach to emotions that focuses in detail on: how emotions are constituted, experienced and managed; what is culturally permissible for specific categories of subjects to express as part of their constitution within contemporary power relations; and the techniques and contexts in and through which the emotional subject is produced. We develop an analytical framework based on a critical review of, first, Michel Foucault's analyses of modern power, discourse and …

Psychic Cleavage: Reading The Art Against The Politics In Independent Film, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

The voice Stewart (Sam Neill) hears in his head is Ada's (Holly Hunter) "mind's voice" which the audience hears twice: in voice-over narration at the opening and closing of The Piano. The otherwise mute Ada describes her mind's voice to nine-year-old Flora (Anna Paquin) while attempting to explain the disappearance of the child's father. The scene is subtitled for the audience as mother communicates with daughter in sign language. Ada tells Flora that she did not need to speak with him (he remained unnamed) as she could, instead, lay her thoughts in his mind, "like they were a sheet." …

Spectatorship And Subjectivity, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

The study of spectatorship is an attempt to understand why we choose to sit in the movie theater seat or on the living-room sofa captivated by a screen. What is it that makes the experience so pleasurable, desirable, meaningful - given that viewing subjects position themselves as filmic or televisual spectators voluntarily, in very large numbers, and with frequent repetition.? What are the relationships between individual and filmic process: how are we linked to screen, narrative, character? Whq exactly is the subject seated before the screen, involved in an activity which has been described as everything from passive absorption to …

Viewer Discretion Advised: Moral And Emotional Codes In Nypd Blue, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

NYPD Blue's opening shot is a white-on-black warning label: "This police drama contains adult language and partial nudity. Viewer discretion is advised." A self-imposed rating on the part of ABC, the show's broadcaster, it originated in response to the police drama's "controversial" use of (limited) profanity and partial nudity, a singular departure for conservative, "family-oriented" U.S. television networks and their advertisers. The addition of a viewer advisory, initiated by network and advertising caution, played on the show's controversial status, turning it to promotional advantage. From its debut, the series began to be watched by many viewers curious about the fuss, …

Straight Outta Money: Institutional Power And Independent Film Funding, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Works: COM (1993-2016)

In the last few years, and despite the increased prominence of American independent films, there have been surprisingly few feature films by women that have "made it" on the independent circuit. The success of an independet film can be considered by the following criteria: securing theatrical release, receiving critical and media attention, and obtaining visibility among audiences. The few films that come to mind as having met these criteria are Lizzie Borden's Working Girls (1986), distributed by Miramax; Julie Dash's Daughter's of the Dust (1991), a Kino release: and most recently, Allision Anders's gas, food, lodging (1992), released by I.R.S. …