Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Maintaining Undesired Relationships, Jon A. Hess

Communication Faculty Publications

As social creatures, we spend our lives in the company of others, rather than in isolation. Consequently, we maintain many relationships out of need rather than desire. Unfortunately, some of these relationships are ones that we would not maintain if given a choice. Although a considerable amount of research on relational dynamics can be applied to unwanted relationships, scholars have made little attempt to generate an integrated overview of what communication characteristics typify such relationships, how they differ from desirable relationships, or how they should best be maintained.

The maintenance of unwanted relationships piques public interest. Articles with titles such …

The Concept Of Interest In The Western And Middle Eastern Society, Mustapha Ben Amira

Theses Digitization Project

The entire banking systems in the western societies is based on the use of interest. The bank charges the borowers interest on its loans and pays its depositors interest on their deposits. On the other hand, the Middle Eastern banking system is an interest free system that prohibits the use of interest, either in receipt or in payment.

Border Disorder: Image Maintenance On The U.S.-Mexico Border, Richard Pineda

Selected Works Temporary Series

Peter Andreas. Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. ix-152 pages. Notes and index. $39.95.

Perceptions Of Communication In A Family Relationship And The Reduction Of Intergroup Prejudice, Jordan Soliz, Jake Harwood

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

From a contact theory perspective, links between variation in young adults’ perceptions of communication with their grandparents and attitudes toward older adults are examined. The analysis pays particular attention to variation in communication with multiple grandparents and finds links be-tween that and perceived variability in the older adult population as a whole. More variation in perceptions of communication with grandparents is associated with perceptions of older adults as more heterogeneous. However, variation in grandparent relationships is associated with more negative attitudes toward older adults on measures of attitudinal central tendency. The results are dis-cussed in terms of intergroup communication processes, …

“Ferment,” An Ethic Of Caring, And The Corrective Power Of Dialogue, William J. Starosta, Guo-Ming Chen

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This dialogue focuses on the justification of the claim that a critical turn or the fifth moment is happening in the study of intercultural communication.

Border Disorder: Image Maintenance On The U.S.-Mexico Border, Richard Pineda

Departmental Papers (Communication)

Peter Andreas. Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. ix-152 pages. Notes and index. $39.95.

Dread, Route And Time: An Autobiographical Walking Of Everything Else, Phil Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

This response to Reconstruction's Summer 2002 edition, Volume 2, Number 3, autobiogeography: considering space and identity, particularly to the papers of Matthew Wolf-Meyer and Davin Heckman, Subhash Jaireth, Deirdre Heddon and Sally Munt, is an attempt to establish provisionally whether a discourse that sets critical theory, autobiographical practice and a poetics of space in performative motion orbiting each other can add anything to the critical discussion of autobiogeography. Part of my motivation is an antipathy toward criticism that can be applied to everything but itself. Given that hybridity will be an important part of a critical discourse about …

You Still My Girl?: Adolescent Femininity As Resistance In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sophie Levy

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

History is where the dead things are. Buffy, as her Watcher Rupert Giles tells her mother Joyce, resists the historical. She lives very much in the now, and history of course, is very much about the then he stammers, aware perhaps of the history echoing in his British accent (Angel I:7). The show's appeal, however, resides in its battle with history, not its denial. History is the repressed but resurrected, whether personal -- Giles' dark age of demon-worship comes back to (almost) kill him (The Dark Age II:8) -- or cultural, such as the Master's bad Old World …

Review Of Crepuscular Dawn, By Paul Virilio, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Of Marx For A Post-Communist Era, C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Of Ruthless Democracy, By Timothy B. Powell, Matthew Wolf-Myer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Rogerian Rhetoric As Negotiation: Does Its Dependence On Game Theory Pose Ethical Problems?, Stacy Fussell Thorne

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In the war game Diplomacy, players win by gaining control of Europe. In order to win, however, players must successfully negotiate with other players, make alliances with them, and sometimes gain the support of their ally's military resources, their armies or fleets. In the rules of the game, Diplomacy is described as

a game of negotiations, alliances, promises kept, and promises broken. In order to survive, a player needs help from others. In order to win the game, a player must eventually stand alone. Knowing whom to trust, when to trust them, what to promise, and when …

En Attendant Le Plan Marshall : Consommation Endogène De La Littérature Camerounaise, Pierre Fandio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Despite the numerous forms of "aid" it has always received, Africa remains the only continent on the fringe of the tremendous development that the rest of the world has been experiencing in the last two centuries. The sectorial analysis of the literary works in this paper illustrates how the implementation of the various "Marshall Plan" is meant to bring about the development of a whole continent and a country like Cameroon. This could be done by involving actors of the cultural domain in the analysis of data and formulation of solution. Such development could give a boost to profitable endogenous …

"See Me, Touch Me, Feel Me": (Im) Proving The Bodily Sense Of Masculinity, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Ultimately, this paper stems from two cultural strands which intersect in one cultural form, self-improvement advertising aimed at men. The first of these is the figure of the "new man," which appeared in the mid-1980s. The novelty lies in the positioning of masculine bodies precisely for the purpose of being seen. The available criticism was not equipped to account for these positionings. The second cultural strand, the proliferation of technologies which alter the body itself, as opposed to its coverings, makes the gap in the criticism more apparent. The two cultural trends intersect most noticeably in the advertisements for the …

"We Got Married" [Untitled Short Story], Rosa Liksom

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Liksom's Short Story "We Got Married" And (Finnish) Identity Construction, Kimmo Jokinen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Liksom's Short Story 'We Got Married' and (Finnish) Identity Construction," Kimmo Jokinen proposes the validity of common belief today that a shift into a late-modern era is taking place. It has often been claimed in contemporary sociological debates that our "post-industrial" life has become more thoroughly imbricated with culture and signs and sociologists, in their analyses of contemporary life, are interested especially in stories people tell, hear, and read. Based on readers' survey data in Finland, Jokinen analyses the ways in which Rosa Liksom's short story "We Got Married" is being employed in identity construction. For Jokinen, …

Reading Liksom's Short Story "We Got Married" In Post-Communist Bulgaria, Kornelia Slavova

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Kornelia Slavova, in her paper "Reading Liksom's Short Story 'We Got Married' in Post-communist Bulgaria," discusses the intricate interrelations of texts and social practices in postcommunist Bulgaria by analysing Rosa Liksom's short story read by sixty readers. Further, Slavova proposes the study of the uses of stereotypes in fiction and their discursive hardening in extratextual practices at times of radical political and cultural change. With this notion, she focuses on two major stereotypical patterns concerning gender and the supranational opposition East/West. Slavova argues that the latter function as palimpsest structures on which earlier bipolar representations from the communist Cold-War era …

Reading Liksom's Short Story "We Got Married" In A Cultural And Political Perspective, Erkki Vainikkala

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Reading Liksom's Short Story 'We Got Married' in a Cultural and Political Perspective," Erkki Vainikkala examines Rosa Liksom's short story as well as one reader's response to the text. In Vainikkala's analysis, the short story is described as a structure of inversions and reversals where sequences are opened and cut short, standpoints are offered and taken back immediately, and where the code of realism is suggested but not carried out as the development of the story lacks convincing motivation. The resulting effect of exhaustion, evident also in the manifestation of pathological narcissism in the story, is seen …

Reading Liksom's Short Story "We Got Married" In Post-Communist Estonia, Malle Järve

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Reading Liksom's Short Story 'We Got Married' in Post-communist Estonia," Malle Järve discusses the reception of Rosa Liksom's text in post-communist Estonia. After gaining independence, Estonians became exposed to varieties of literature including avant-garde texts which did not fit easily with the expectations and rules of interpretation developed during Soviet rule. Based on data collected in 1993 and 1998, Järve focuses on the cultural repertoire (discourses, stereotypes, values, literary expectations, etc.) used by readers while constructing meaning to the text, perceived predominantly as foreign/Other. Järve's objective is an attempt to explain: 1) who/what the Other in the …

Cultural Studies And Cultural Text Analysis, Urpo Kovala

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Cultural Studies and Cultural Text Analysis," Urpo Kovala discusses the role of textual analysis in cultural studies. He begins with a sketch of different conceptions of textual analysis within cultural studies by pointing to differences in the concepts of text and context themselves. Next, Kovala explores the reasons for including textual analysis as a category and method in cultural studies and in humanities and social sciences scholarship generally. Finally, Kovala sketches briefly a model for the cultural analysis of text where his main point is that the argument about the incompatibility of cultural studies and textual analysis …

Introduction To Cultural Text Analysis And Liksom's Short Story "We Got Married", Urpo Kovala

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Selected Bibliography Of Textual Analysis In Cultural Studies, Xianfeng Mou, Urpo Kovala

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Liksom's Short Stories And The Ironies Of Contemporary Existence, Chris Pawling

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Liksom's Short Stories and the Ironies of Contemporary Existence," Chris Pawling examines Rosa Liksom's short stories in her volume One Night Stands. Pawling proposes that Liksom's texts can be understood as postmodern pastiches (Jameson) of different literary voices which in turn are couched in an "affect-less" prose that attempt to inhabit the mental universe of the narrator/protagonist without necessarily endorsing any aesthetic or ethical point of view. Liksom's fictional universe is populated by individuals who are alienated from the life of predictable routines and are searching for "action" in scenes of low life in late-night city bars. …

Reframing Rhetorical Theory And Practice Through Feminist Perspectives (Book Review), Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In Feminist Rhetorical Theories, Karen Foss joins Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin to provide deeper insight into the origins of their critique of rhetoric and their advocacy of invitational rhetoric by reviewing the backgrounds of and arguments made by several feminist theorists who suggest that patriarchal values are embedded within the core tenets of traditional rhetorical theory. The first two chapters of the book review the core concepts of rhetoric, feminism, and theory and provide a brief overview of feminist scholarship that has been published within communication studies over the past thirty years. Following these introductory chapters, Foss, Foss, …

Poe Translated By Baudelaire: The Reconstruction Of An Identity, Anne Garrait-Bourrier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Poe Translated by Baudelaire: The Reconstruction of an Identity," Anne Garrait-Bourrier argues that Poe and Baudelaire seem to have developed what could be described as a father-son or teacher-student relationship. Baudelaire devoted half of his life to the translation into his mother tongue of Edgar Allan Poe's tales and the other half to the creation of poetry which was inspired, to say the least, by the American writer. Garrait-Bourrier proposes that the influence Poe exerted is undeniable and particularly manifest in Les Fleurs du Mal, so akin to Poe's spirit of "spleen" and the systematic deconstruction of …

Comparative Literature In An Age Of "Globalization", Lois Parkinson Zamora

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Lois Parkinson Zamora, in her paper "Comparative Literature in an Age of 'Globalization'," presents a definition of globalization and considers how its cultural and spatial displacements have, and might, change traditional disciplinary practices of comparative literature. Zamora discusses how contemporary Latin American writers dramatize and evaluate the forces of globalization in their fiction and she exemplifies her observations with texts by Carpentier, Borges, Paz, Fuentes, Puig, García Márquez, and Vargas Llosa. Further, the author proposes that the cultural specificity of fictions by contemporary Latin American writers may serve as an antidote to current processes of cultural homogenization.

The Memoir And Representations Of The Self: New Books By Vlasopolos And Picard, Ralph Freedman

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Investigative Spaces In The Poetry Of Pierre Reverdy, Jules Supervielle, And Henri Michaux, Hugo Azérad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Investigative Spaces in the Poetry of Pierre Reverdy, Jules Supervielle, and Henri Michaux," Hugo Azérad revisits the notion of poetic space and tries to re-examine it in a novel light. In so doing, Azérad re-adapts phenomenology, which tells us that space outreaches itself in the shape of an horizon of perception. But can we posit a space which would progressively do away with perceiver and perceived alike, a space which poetry (art?) can help establish? Azérad attempts to approach poetic space as if it were a utopian place of encounter, different from the physical or psychological dimensions …

In Conversation With Itamar Even-Zohar About Literary And Culture Theory, Dora Sales Salvador

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Dora Sales Salvador presents, in "In Conversation with Itamar Even-Zohar about Literary and Culture Theory," the text of an interview with literary and culture theoretician Itamar Even-Zohar (Tel Aviv University). In the interview, Sales Salvador discusses with Even-Zohar his polysystem theory, a framework that emerges from the wish to foster open dialogue between different trends in culture research. The discussion suggests that there are assumptions shared by practitioners of cultural studies and Even-Zohar's culture research framework he has been developing since 1993. At the same time, the discussion reveals that it is also necessary and perhaps much more important to …

Nolan's Memento, Memory, And Recognition, Adrian Gargett

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Adrian Gargett, in his paper "Nolan's Memento, Memory, and Recognition," analyses Christopher Nolan's film Memento. Gargett employs Deleuzian film theory in a general consideration of the relationship between thought and film. Gargett proposes that Memento acts as a type of intellectual stimulant that has the viewer deciphering a puzzle in process: what is identified in Memento is the way in which memory and the work of memory are presented in the film's narrative construct. In his analysis Gargett argues that memory is not added on; rather, it is already present, and that the Deleuzian abstract quality does not lie in …