Showing papers in "Cultural Studies in 2020"
TL;DR: The alt-right is a growing radical right-wing network that is particularly effective at mobilizing emotion through digital communications as discussed by the authors, and introduces white thymos as a framework to theorize the...
Abstract: The alt-right is a growing radical right-wing network that is particularly effective at mobilizing emotion through digital communications. Introducing ‘white thymos’ as a framework to theorize the ...
39 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the significance of the plethora of representations of mothers behaving badly in contemporary anglophone media texts, including the films Bad Moms, Fun Mom Dinner and Bad Mom's Christmas, the book and online cartoons Hurrah for Gin and the recent TV comedy dramas Motherland, The Let Down and Catastrophe.
Abstract: This article focuses on the significance of the plethora of representations of mothers ‘behaving badly’ in contemporary anglophone media texts, including the films Bad Moms, Fun Mom Dinner and Bad Mom’s Christmas, the book and online cartoons Hurrah for Gin and the recent TV comedy dramas Motherland, The Let Down and Catastrophe. All these media texts include representations of, first, mothers in the midst of highly chaotic everyday spaces where any smooth routine of domesticity is conspicuous by its absence; and second, mothers behaving hedonistically, usually through drinking and partying, behaviour that is more conventionally associated with men or women without children. After identifying the social type of the mother behaving badly (MBB), the article locates and analyses it in relation to several different social and cultural contexts. These contexts are: a neoliberal crisis in social reproduction marked by inequality and overwork; the continual if contested role of women as ‘foundation parents’; and the negotiation of longer-term discourses of female hedonism. The title gestures towards a popular British sitcom of the 1990s, Men Behaving Badly, which popularized the idea of the ‘new lad’; and this article suggests that the new lad’s counterpart, the ladette, is mutating into the mother behaving badly, or the ‘lad mom’. Asking what work this figure does now, in a later neoliberal context, it argues that the mother behaving badly is simultaneously indicative of a widening and liberating range of maternal subject positions and symptomatic of a profound contemporary crisis in social reproduction. By focusing on the classed and racialised dynamics of the MBB – by examining who exactly is permitted to be hedonistic, and how – and by considering the MBB’s limited and partial imagining of progressive social change, the article concludes by emphasizing the urgency of creating more connections between such discourses and ‘parents behaving politically’.
36 citations
TL;DR: For example, the authors argued that media were "any extensions of man" and that they can be seen as "a kind of race theorists" and "any extension of man's ego".
Abstract: Marshall McLuhan is often considered a media philosopher, not a race theorist. Yet, his work is full of racial implications that often go unexamined. For McLuhan, media were ‘any extensions of man’...
32 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors respond to technofeminist calls to unpack the gendered politics of technologies and create critical crossover between their representation and design, and analyze feminized artificial intelligence.
Abstract: This article responds to technofeminist calls to unpack the gendered politics of technologies and create critical crossover between their representation and design. I analyze feminized artificial i...
25 citations
TL;DR: In recent years, celebrity and popular culture have figured as key sites in the mediated resurgence of feminism, producing competing and contested articulations of feminism as a ‘popular’ phenomeno...
Abstract: In recent years, celebrity and popular culture have figured as key sites in the mediated resurgence of feminism, producing competing and contested articulations of feminism as a ‘popular’ phenomeno...
23 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors have claimed that VR film's immersive qualities can amplify empathy for victims of humanitarian crises a.k.a. virtual reality (VR) film has been described as an empathy machine.
Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR) film has been described as an empathy machine. Filmmakers and producers have claimed that VR film’s immersive qualities can amplify empathy for victims of humanitarian crises a...
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate how grassroots and bottom-up resistance can disrupt global economic globalization, against the backdrop of China as a seemingly ideal model to justify and normalize capitalist globalization.
Abstract: Against the backdrop of China as a seemingly ideal model to justify and normalize capitalist globalization, this article seeks to demonstrate how grassroots and bottom-up resistance can disrupt heg...
20 citations
TL;DR: The Paralympic games is a pedagogic, pervasive, political, powerful, and 'popular' cultural site where the heightened visibility of disability bring into being specific forms of disability as they...
Abstract: The Paralympic games is a pedagogic, pervasive, political, powerful, and ‘popular’ cultural site where the heightened visibility of disability bring into being specific forms of disability as they ...
20 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored European football's cross-cultural appeals in China by focusing on Chinese fans' active readings of this globalized cultural text using analytical tools from both sport sociolo....
Abstract: This essay explores European football’s cross-cultural appeals in China by focusing on Chinese fans’ active readings of this globalized cultural text. Using analytical tools from both sport sociolo...
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for the ongoing relevance of emotional labour in understanding the subjective demands placed on those working at the factory and argue that emotional labour can be seen as a form of emotional labor.
Abstract: Returning to Arlie Hochschild’s foundational work, this article argues for the ongoing relevance of emotional labour in understanding the subjective demands placed on those working at the i...
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors ask how incivility is a strategy related to power and domination, particularly from the president of the United States, and they propose an operational logic for democracy.
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 ...
TL;DR: Catherine Walsh and Walter Mignolo's On decoloniality as mentioned in this paper is an un-disciplinary read, challenging the foundational logic of Western knowledge production, building upon Anibel Quijano's work on colonial knowledge production.
Abstract: Catherine Walsh and Walter Mignolo's On decoloniality is an un-disciplinary read, challenging the foundational logic of Western knowledge production. Building upon Anibel Quijano's work on colonial...
TL;DR: The intervention of British feminists in the South African War is a chapter of feminist history that is rarely included either in the memorialization of the suffrage movement or the genealogies of... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The intervention of British feminists in the South African War is a chapter of feminist history that is rarely included either in the memorialization of the suffrage movement or the genealogies of ...
TL;DR: Much of wildlife conservation literature and practices rely on euro-western nomenclature that are legacies of empire Although seemingly neutral, the practice of re-naming nature depends on politi
Abstract: Much of wildlife conservation literature and practices rely on euro-western nomenclature that are legacies of empire Although seemingly neutral, the practice of (re)naming nature depends on politi
TL;DR: The authors argue that consumers of popular culture engage in practices of "ethical cultural consumption" whereby the consumption of cultural texts is imagined as having the potential to "do good" in the world.
Abstract: This paper argues that consumers of popular culture engage in practices of ‘ethical cultural consumption’, whereby the consumption of cultural texts is imagined as having the potential to ‘do good’...
TL;DR: The bitcoin mania that haunted South Korean society in the winter of 2017-2018 was reported by CNN News while reporting on the Bitcoin mania as mentioned in this paper, which was called Bitcoin Mania.
Abstract: ‘First, it was just tech people. Now, literally everyone is interested in bitcoin’, said CNN News while reporting on the bitcoin mania that haunted South Korean society in the winter of 2017–2018. ...
TL;DR: The versatile forms of artistic and creative practices sparked by social movements worldwide are not limited to artists' intentional aims to create artworks as mentioned in this paper, instead, most of the mixed-method inter...
Abstract: The versatile forms of artistic and creative practices sparked by social movements worldwide are not limited to artists’ intentional aims to create artworks. Instead, most of the mixed-method inter...
TL;DR: The authors argue that much scholarship on terrorism and insurgencies have been "a-mobile" and address this problem by drawing on the "new mobilities paradigm" to explore analytically analy...
Abstract: This article challenges the ways in which much scholarship on terrorism and insurgencies have been ‘a-mobile.’ It addresses this problem by drawing on the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ to explore analy...
TL;DR: The authors argue that slavery and racial terror continue to haunt the narrative of the nation state through an analysis of Louisiana's plantation sites and tours and examine the presences of racism and slavery.
Abstract: This article argues that slavery and racial terror continue to haunt the narrative of the nation state Through an analysis of Louisiana’s plantation sites and tours the authors examine the presenc
TL;DR: In conversations about appropriation and appreciation, twerking is illustrated as a medium that non-Black people are celebrated for (with awards and global tours), while Black people are marginalized as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In conversations about appropriation and appreciation, twerking is illustrated as a medium that non-Black people are celebrated for (with awards and global tours), while Black people – especially B...
TL;DR: In this article, a multi-layered colonial, social and political context was used to understand the effects of Hurricane Maria on the island of Puerto Rico, which caused unprecedented disaster.
Abstract: On 20 September 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico causing unprecedented disaster. From that day onwards, the Puerto Rican multi-layered colonial, social and political context was f...
TL;DR: This paper examined the protean relationship among imperial legacies, nationalized collective memories and urban space from an "off-center" perspective, and proposed a protean approach to public memory.
Abstract: How might scholars of public memory approach the protean relationship among imperial legacies, nationalized collective memories and urban space from an ‘off-center’ perspective? In this essay, I pu...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used Long Live Southbank's successful campaign to retain London's Southbank Undercroft for subcultural use as a case study to generate discussions about young people's experiences and engagements with (sub)cultural heritage and political activism.
Abstract: This article sets out key findings of an interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project that uses Long Live Southbank’s (LLSB) successful campaign to retain London’s Southbank Undercroft for subcultural use – skateboarding, BMXing, graffiti art etc – as a case study to generate discussions about young people’s experiences and engagements with (sub)cultural heritage and political activism. At the heart of this inquiry is the perceived contradiction between the communicative practices of subcultures and social protest movements: the former typically understood to be internally-oriented and marked by strong boundary maintenance, and the latter, to be successful, to be externally-oriented to a diverse range of publics. In explaining the skaters/campaigners negotiation of this contradiction, we look to the inclusive and everyday concepts of ‘inhabitant knowledge’ (Ingold 2000), ‘vernacular creativity’ (Burgess 2009) and ‘affective intelligence’ (Van Zoonen, 2004). In eschewing the exclusionary and contestatory language of (post)subcultural and spatial theories, this article proposes new frameworks for thinking about the political nature of young people’s bodily knowledge and experiences, and the implications of this for the communication of (sub)cultural value.
TL;DR: The article shows how along long-established forms of knowledge – experts’ knowledge, democratic knowledge, market knowledge, and local knowledge – emerges a new kind of knowledge, backed by big-data and algorithms and managed by a quasi-monopolistic platform, which claims a legitimate right to the production of space.
Abstract: This article introduces the notion of algorithmic spatiality as a way to capture the unique spatial knowledge created by digital mobile media, and the way that this knowledge acts upon space, and i...
TL;DR: The fire at Grenfell Tower, a block of public housing flats in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, in June 2017 has come to epitomize the growing divide between Britain's rich and poor as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The fire at Grenfell Tower, a block of public housing flats in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, in June 2017 has come to epitomize the growing divide between Britain’s rich and ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the cultural significance of SoHo, a magazine produced by and addressed to the Colombian elite yet consumed across a wider urban social spectrum, is explored, and an analysis of its cultural significance is carried out.
Abstract: In this article I explore the cultural significance of SoHo, a magazine produced by and addressed to the Colombian elite yet consumed across a wider urban social spectrum. I carry out an analysis o...
TL;DR: The rapid development of Chinese cinema in the twenty-first century has witnessed a blossoming of genre films with frequent references to Hollywood, such as The Great Wall (2016), the monster blockbuster b...
Abstract: The rapid development of Chinese cinema in the twenty-first century has witnessed a blossoming of genre films with frequent references to Hollywood. The Great Wall (2016), the monster blockbuster b...
TL;DR: The authoritarian regime in Angola seeks to control every dimension of life in the country interfering with a set of fundamental rights such as the freedom of assembly, of movement and of expressio...
Abstract: The authoritarian regime in Angola seeks to control every dimension of life in the country interfering with a set of fundamental rights such as the freedom of assembly, of movement and of expressio...
TL;DR: In Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu famously proposes the concept of an aesthetic disposition, a capacity to conceive the world in terms of form rather than function as mentioned in this paper, which can be acquired through education.
Abstract: In Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu famously proposes the concept of an ‘aesthetic disposition’: a capacity to conceive the world in terms of form rather than function. Acquired through educati...
TL;DR: Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia is defined officially as consisting of "two-way relationships built on trust and respect", recognition and acceptance of rig...
Abstract: Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia is defined officially as consisting of ‘two-way relationships built on trust and respect’, recognition and acceptance of rig...