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How have men used art music? How have they listened to and brandished the musical forms of the Western classical tradition and how has music intervened in their identity formations? This collection of essays addresses these questions by examining some of the ways in which men, music and masculinity have been implicated with each other since the Middle Ages. Feminist musicologies have already dealt extensively with music and gender, from the 'phallocentric' tendencies of the Western tradition, to the explicit marginalization of women from that tradition. This book builds on that work by turning feminist critical approaches towards the production, rhetorical engagement and subversion of mascul...
The first comprehensive scholarly study of Spanish erotic cinema, from the 1920s until the present dayThis book covers a significant part of the history of Spanish film, from the 1920s until the present day. Starting with a study of the kiss in silent films, the volume explores homoerotic narratives in the crusade films of the 1940s, the commodification of bodies in the late Franco period, and the so-called destape (literally aundressing) period that followed the abolition of censorship during the democratic transition.Reclaiming the importance of Spanish erotic cinema as a genre in itself, a range of international scholars demonstrate how the explicit depiction of sex can be a useful tool t...
In post-Franco Spain, a re-shaping of notions of the masculine has been under way for some time. The authors of "Live Flesh" demonstrate how contemporary Spanish films, during this modern period, have contributed to this process. They do so by visualizing the ways in which Spanish men have been abandoning old self images and adopting new ones, and they explain and explore the complexity and diversity of these fresh cinematic creations of masculine identities. The book's point of focus is Spanish films of the democratic period, both popular and auteur, made by directors of national and international prominence, such as Pedro Almodovar, Alejandro Amenabar, Bigas Luna or Julio Medem, as well as...
This book argues for a renewed understanding of the fundamentally uncanny quality of the medium of photography. It especially makes the case for the capacity of certain photographs—precisely through their uncanniness—to contest structures of political and social dominance. The uncanny as a quality that unsettles the perception of home emerges as a symptom of modern and contemporary society and also as an aesthetic apparatus by which some key photographs critique the hegemony of capitalist and industrialist domains. The book’s historical scope is large, beginning with William Henry Fox Talbot and closing with contemporary indigenous photographer Bear Allison and contemporary African American photographer Devin Allen. Through close readings, exegesis, of individual photographs and careful deployment of contemporary political and aesthetic theory, The Photographic Uncanny argues for a re-envisioning of the political capacity of photography to expose the haunted, homeless, condition of modernity.
Costume design is a crucial, but frequently overlooked, aspect of film that fosters an appreciation of the diverse ways in which film and fashion enrich each other. These influential industries offer representations of ideas, values, and beliefs that shape and construct cultural identities. In Fashioning Spanish Cinema, Jorge Pérez analyses the use of clothing and fashion as costumes within Spanish cinema, paying particular attention to the significance of those costumes in relation to the visual styles and the narratives of the films. The author examines the links between costume analysis and other fields and theoretical frameworks such as fashion studies, the history of dress, celebrity s...
Borrowing its title from Gregg Araki's 2005 film, in which the camera's contemplation of the male body encourages us to feel that body, and covering a broad span of subjects and films, "Mysterious Skin" offers a wider, more representative picture of the depiction of the male body in contemporary world cinemas than has hitherto been attempted. An international array of major experts explore the treatment of masculinity and the male body in the cinemas of Africa, Australia, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, North America, Spain, Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as Hollywood.Their common concern is to reveal how the representation of the male body is used in films to convey a country's anxieties about its national identity and history, as well as how it engages with questions of racial, sexual or gender politics. They discuss key actors, directors and films of these countries, from Ewan MacGregor in Peter Greenaway's "The Pillow Book", through the films of Wong Kar Wai, to Paul Hogan as Mick Dundee in "Crocodile Dundee". In so doing, "Mysterious Skin" also provides a strong overview of important cinema produced around the world in the last twenty years.
OCEANS attends to the inextricable human and nonhuman agencies that affect and are affected by the sea and its running currents within contemporary art and visual culture. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, dividing and connecting humans, who carry saltwater in their blood, sweat and tears. They also represent a powerful nonhuman force, rising, flooding, heating and raging in unprecedented ways as the climate crisis unfolds. Artists have envisioned the sea as a sublime wilderness, home to mythical creatures and bizarre species, a source of life and death, a site of new beginnings and tragic endings, both wondrous and disastrous. From migration to melting ice caps, th...
Wonder has an established link to the history and philosophy of science. However, there is little acknowledgement of the relationship between the visual arts and wonder. This book presents a new perspective on this overlooked connection, allowing a unique insight into the role of wonder in contemporary visual practice. Artists, curators and art theorists give accounts of their approach to wonder through the use of materials, objects and ways of exhibiting. These accounts not only raise issues of a particular relevance to the way in which we encounter our reality today but ask to what extent artists utilize the function of wonder purposely in their work.
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