Search

Ligeti's oeuvre contains two great representations of death: the Requiem and Le Grand Macabre. But these are no ordinary essays on mortality. Their musical substance and themes are often allied to the grotesque as a trope, in which the ugly and deformed appear as characters and their actions in the opera, or musical techniques pushed beyond acceptable limits in the Requiem and other works. In taking the title of ourconference at face value, I wish to show how the grotesque in such readings is but a mask for a peculiar relationship with death found throughout Ligeti's work: a sign of the undead, that life substance which persistsbeyond life, in defiance of social and symbolic norms. In this paper I will identify how, in the opera and in instrumental works, Ligeti adopts narrative and musical positions that could be called grotesque, with reference to Julie Brown and Esti Sheinberg's application of the grotesque to music by Bartók and Shostakovich. But I will further show how these grotesque elements—as a negation of the proper, of narrative laws andmusical conventions—were already implicit within those conventions, retroactively inscribed as their vulgar support. As such, the grotesque in Ligeti embodies the threshold between a symbolic life and death: one madeliteral in the plot of Le Grand Macabre but existing metaphorically in Continuum, the Chamber Concerto, and the Études for piano.

Ligeti's oeuvre contains two great representations of death: the Requiem and Le Grand Macabre. But these are no ordinary essays on mortality. Their musical substance and themes are often allied to the grotesque as a trope, in which the ugly and deformed appear as characters and their actions in the opera, or musical techniques pushed beyond acceptable limits in the Requiem and other works. In taking the title of our conference at face value, I wish to show how the grotesque in such readings is but a mask for a peculiar relationship with death found throughout Ligeti's work: a sign of the undead, that life substance which persists beyond life, in defiance of social and symbolic norms. In this paper I will identify how, in the opera and in instrumental works, Ligeti adopts narrative and musical positions that could be called grotesque, with reference to Julie Brown and Esti Sheinberg's application of the grotesque to music by Bartók and Shostakovich. But I will further show how these grotesque elements—as a negation of the proper, of narrative laws and musical conventions—were already implicit within those conventions, retroactively inscribed as their vulgar support. As such, the grotesque in Ligeti embodies the threshold between a symbolic life and death: one made literal in the plot of Le Grand Macabre but existing metaphorically in Continuum, the Chamber Concerto, and the Études for piano.

The easy way marionettes and puppets can cross the boundaries between lifeless objects and living creatures makes puppetry the ideal artistic expression to picture liminal states between life and death. This ability, commonly used nowadays in puppet and marionette performances, leans on two major changes in the history of representations: the Romantic opposition of nature and technique, which transformed the animation of objects into a disturbing and uncanny experience, and the post-traumatic perception of human beings reduced to the status of things in the totalitarian regimes, genocides, and mass murders of the twentieth century. The article examines how, in two different contexts (the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, then the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-first century), poets and puppeteers can use these representations as the starting point of a new dramaturgy. Performed in 1892 at the Petit-Théâtre des Marionnettes de la Galerie Vivienne, Pigeon’s comedy L’Amour dans les enfers ironically presents Arlequin and Pierrot as two ghosts who ask Pluto to bring them their widows, but the men are repelled by them because they look like two corpses. In van Lerberghe’s Les Flaireurs and Maeterlinck’s La Princesse Maleine (both 1889), we can see how the imagery of death, first stimulated by fairground shows and Holden’s Théâtre des Fantoches, eventually transforms itself into a dramaturgy of slow and immaterial forces: death appears no more as a character or an event but as the very substance of the drama, a set of multiple effects and accidents that stretch across the whole performance. But puppetry can also provide visibility to annihilated, invisible people. Examples are taken from four plays about the Nazi death camps, one written during the Holocaust (Haschenburg’s Hledáme strašidlo, 1943), then three contemporary ones (Segal’s Le Marionnettiste de Lodz, 1984; Cagnard’s Les Gens légers, 2006; Cuscunà’s È bello vivere liberi, 2009). The article examines how puppets and marionettes are used as poetical and dramaturgical means to represent on stage the process of extermination and the haunting images it left in our memory. Keywords: puppetry; death; symbolism; contemporary drama; Shoah; undead; Holocaust, Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1 (2022): Puppet, Death, and the Devil: Presences of Afterlife in Puppet Theatre

In France, the fantastic genre spreads from the 1830’s. From its introduction, the problem of its own definition bothers the criticism. This literature seems to resist to a characterisation made by words. To define the genre, intellectuals call on literary figures who slowly become synonyms of the fantastic. The gloss nominates E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Poe as hegemonic and perennial authors of the genre. Thus, they turn the definition into a sham, their works fixing the idea of the fantastic. However, this loophole leads to several rhetorical and critical issues. Firstly, examples are not arguments, secondly, they overshadow literary forms of pre-hoffmannian supernatural that triggers off historiographic omissions. The written form develops the difficulty to grasp and unify such an uneven genre. In contrast, image, and in particular illustrations that support narratives, builds a graphic identity to the fantastic which compensate the literary criticism defaults. Engraving uses a pre-existing and traditional iconography, that is bond with the extraordinary, in order to portray the genre. Nonetheless, graphic motifs don’t necessary suit these new stories. Then, artists have to break away from the usual restrictions of the representation to depict a universe that eludes the laws of nature, and therefore, the rules of composition. The combination of the iteration of the figures to their slow corruption shapes the visual unity of the fantastic., Le genre fantastique se déploie en France à partir des années 1830. Dès son introduction, le problème de sa définition occupe la critique. Cette littérature semble résister à la caractérisation par les mots. Pour déterminer le genre, les littérateurs font appel à des figures qui deviennent, peu à peu, synonymes du fantastique. La glose investit E. T. A. Hoffmann et Edgar Poe en en faisant les auteurs hégémoniques et indétrônables du genre. Ils sont alors une parade à la définition, leurs œuvres fixant le fantastique. Toutefois, cette esquive engendre plusieurs problèmes rhétoriques et critiques. D’une part les exemples ne sont pas des arguments, d’autre part ils éclipsent des formes de littérature du surnaturel pré-hoffmanniennes qui donnent lieu à des oublis historiographiques. L’écrit développe une difficulté à saisir et à unifier un genre si disparate. En revanche l’image, et notamment les illustrations qui accompagnent les récits, construit une identité graphique du fantastique qui pallie les manquements de la critique littéraire. La gravure use d’une iconographie préexistante et traditionnelle liée à l’extraordinaire pour mettre en image le genre. Néanmoins, les motifs ne conviennent pas systématiquement à ces écrits novateurs. Les artistes doivent alors se détacher des carcans habituels de la représentation pour figurer un univers qui échappe aux lois de la nature et donc de la composition. La combinaison de l’itération des figures à leur lent dévoiement modèle l’unité visuelle du fantastique.

O ile w na zachodzie Europy badania nad pamięcią starały się docierać do głosów stłumionych przez narracje dominujące, zwrot pamięciowy w aktualnym polskim wydaniu otwarcie fliruje z postprawdą, torującą drogę nowej hegemonii. Korzystając z bezbronności postrukturalistycznej humanistyki, przejmuje on jej kolejne narzędzia i zaprzęga w służbę propagandowej retoryki. Nowy projekt pamięci wspólnoty zrywa z ricoeurowską tradą: pamięć zablokowana – pamięć powtórzenia – pamięć zobowiązana, wybierając blokadę i powtórzenie jako zalecany modus pamiętania („pamięć nieumarła” = paradoksalna posthumanistyczna realizacja kategorii undead). Tendencja ta zostaje ukazana na przykładzie ewolucji dyskursu o pogromie kieleckim. In Western Europe, memory studies are marked by an effort to give voice to those silenced by dominant narratives. In Poland, meanwhile, the current ‘memory turn’ openly flirts with post-truth and paves the way for a new hegemony. This way of framing memory takes advantage of the poststructuralist humanities’ defenceless position, and it gradually appropriates its tools and yokes them to the rhetoric of propaganda. The new project of collective memory breaks with Ricœur’s triad of blocked memory – memory of repetition – obligated memory. It privileges blockage and repetition as modes of commemorating (‘undead memory’ – a paradoxical posthumanist realization of the category of the undead). Tokarska-Bakir demonstrates this tendency in a case study on the development of public discourse on the Kielce pogrom of 1946.

O artigo, oriundo de uma pesquisa em andamento, objetiva trazer uma discussão lacônica sobre elementos apreensíveis do conceito de fantástico na minissérie "Amorteamo" (2015, Rede Globo, Brasil). Neste trabalho, o cemitério é visto como o lócus principal de enunciação da presença fantástica em uma narrativa ficcional que têm, como norte da trama, a temática melodramática acerca dos mortos-vivos. É sobre estes dois pontos (cemitério e mortos-vivos) que o exercício de análise localiza-se tendo como base as implicações de que o acabamento estético, o estilo televisivo, as gramáticas televisuais e as peculiaridades do formato minissérie também atravessam a compreensão do relato fantástico na diegese da obra. This article derives from a work in progress and aims to present a discussion about apprehensible elements of the concept of the fantastic in the miniseries Amorteamo (2015, Rede Globo, Brazil). Melodramatic undead characters and the cemetery are understood as central points of the fictional narrative in relation to the fantastic presence in this TV drama. In this essay, we aim at exploring the space of the cemetery and the undead, both essential for the development of the fantastic narrative. The following essay explores these two points and it is based on the implications that the aesthetic, the television style, the television grammars and the peculiarities of the miniseries format are also essential for the understanding of the fantastic narrative in the Amorteamo's diegesis.

Tekst stanowi omówienie przemian pozycji wsi w kulturze i prozie polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku. Podstawowe tezy: 1) w latach 90. XX wieku zanika nurt chłopski w literaturze (ze względu na utratę reprezentacji symbolicznej i politycznej), a w jego miejsce pojawia się proza o tematyce wiejskiej; 2) fabularnym wykładnikiem podwójnej śmierci nurtu chłopskiego staje się motyw umierania wsi (wyludnienia, biedy) oraz status nieumarłych (upiorów, widm) nadawany zbiorowości wiejskiej; 3) dopiero w tekstach drugiej dekady XXI wieku wieś przedstawiana w literaturze zaczyna wytwarzać nowe więzi społeczne, nowe metody produkcji i zmienioną narrację. Exploring the changing position of the village in Polish culture and fiction at the turn of the twenty-first century, Czapliński argues that: 1) the 1990s see a decline in the literary peasant tradition (due to the loss of symbolic and political representation); in its place we get fiction that thematizes the village; 2) in the plot, the double death of the peasant tradition is expressed through the motif of the dying village (depopulation, poverty) as well as the status of the undead (ghosts, spectres) imparted on the village community; 3) only in works of the 2010s, literary representations of the village begin to give rise to new social ties, new methods of production and other narratives.

Cet article examine la manière dont les genres littéraires narratifs (roman et nouvelle) se sont approprié la figure du zombie mythifiée au cinéma par George A. Romero. Une première partie situe la figure littéraire du zombie par rapport à ses modèles cinématographique (Romero) et bédéistique (Kirkman). Une seconde partie identifie cinq catégories de récits représentatives de cette appropriation littéraire : les anthologies de nouvelles de zombies, les romans de genre zombie, les zomédies et les pots-pourris, les fictions zombies hors du monde anglophone et les spéculations zombies littérairement élaborées., The purpose of this paper is to examine how the literary narrative forms (novels, short stories) have seized the zombie, an iconic figure that mostly pertains (thanks to George A. Romero) to the horror film genre. We draw a comparison between the literary zombie and its cinematic (Romero) and comic (Kirkman) counterparts. We then identify five categories of zombie books : the zombie short fiction anthologies, the zombie novels per se, the zomedies and mash-ups, the zombie fiction that stems from non-Anglophone countries, and the elaborate (in literary terms) zombie speculations.

The enormous popularity of zombies and the undead in contemporary times has created an interest and theoretical relevance for these creatures. This thesis will study the undead and their stay in the liminal space between life and death. The goal is to understand what the effect these undead have on our understanding of death. This will be achieved through the use of a collection of texts written during the Middle Ages in Britain. These texts I will use in this thesis is The Vision of Tundale, Sir Owain, The Gast of Gy, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and two tales from The Canterbury Tales, The Prioress's Tale and The Second Nun's Tale. Through these texts I will study the liminal position of the undead, and see what their death will do to our understanding of death. In Chapter 1 I will study the purgatory visions: The Vision of Tundale, Sir Owain, and The Gast of Gy. I will see how these protagonists inhabit a liminal phase, and how they contribute to a new understanding of life after death, and illustrate the injection of life into death. The liminal aspect of literature will also be discussed, and I will highlight how literature is able to convey knowledge of death and the afterlife. In Chapter 2 I will explain the internal journey made by Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The processes of self-discovery will be the main focus in light of the conflict between faith and magic. I will then move on and study if liminal phases enable the possibility for self-discovery. The question then become if these liminal phases leads to change and conversion. In Chapter 3 I will study the miracles in The Prioress's Tale and The Second Nun's Tale. In this chapter I will show that the internal process of change can be externalized, and influence the witnesses of the liminal phase instead of the subjects themselves. I will also study what the consequences is to the fact that death starts working again. Den enorme populæriteten til zombier og vandøde i disse moderne tider, har skapt en teoretisk interesse og relevans for disse skapningene. Denne oppgaven går inn på de vandøde, og deres opphold i liminelle rom mellom liv og død, hvor målet er å oppdage hva disse vandøde gjør med vår forståelse av døden. Dette vil bli gjort ut ifra et utvalg av tekster som er skrevet i England under Middelalderen. Tekstene som benyttes vil være The Vision of Tundale, Sir Owain, The Gast of Gy, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, og fra The Canterbury Tales vil jeg benytte The Prioress's Tale og The Second Nun's Tale. Gjennom disse tekstene vil jeg se på de vandødes liminelle posisjon, og hva deres posisjon kan gjøre med vår forståelse av døden. I kapittel 1 vil jeg se på The Vision of Tundale, Sir Owain og The Gast of Gy, og hvordan disse bidrar til en ny forsåelse av livet etter døden. Jeg vil poengtere den liminelle posisjonen til protagonistene, og forklare hvordan de kan bidra til å skape en forståelse og insjisere liv inn i døden. Den liminelle siden til literatur vil også bli tatt opp og da vil jeg ta for meg hvorfor literatur er særskilt egnet til å dele kunnskap om uobserverbare rom. Kapittel 2 vil gjennomgå den interne reisen Sir Gawain gjør i Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Introspeksjon og gransking av sin egen identitet vil være i hovedfokus, i lys av konflikten mellom tro og magi. Jeg vil da se om liminelle faser som skyldes trusselen om død bidrar til introspeksjon, før jeg ser på om dette leder til forandring og omdannelse av personlighet og tro. Kapittel 3 vil gå nærmere inn på miraklene som finner sted i The Prioress's Tale og The Second Nun's Tale. Jeg vil vise at den interne endringsprosessen blir eksternalisert, og påvirker istedenfor subjektene av de liminelle fasene. Jeg vil også se på hva følgene er av at døden starter opp igjen, når disse martyrene dør helt. Master i Engelsk MAHF-ENG ENG350

O presente ensaio visa refletir sobre a diversão com uma estética da violência nos cult moviese alguns de seus efeitos na subjetividade contemporânea. Toma por base o referencial psicanalítico cotejado com a perspectiva crítica de Theodor Adorno. O texto utiliza o conceito de diversãocomo fonte de crítica à indústria cultural, no intuito de demonstrar o modo em que certa estética da violência produz uma espécie de sublimação passiva e alienante em boa parte dos sujeitos, que passam a representar, sobretudo do ponto de vista político, uma espécie de "mortos-vivos", ou seja, de zumbis impotentes, como atestam as análises de Slavoj Žižek. O filme Funny games[Violência gratuita] de Michael Haneke ilustra essa análise. This essay aims to reflect on the fun with an aesthetic of violence in cult movies and some of its effects in contemporary subjectivity. It is based on some concepts of psychoanalytical theory in combination with the critical perspective of Theodor Adorno. The text makes use of the concept of diversion(at the same time as fun, entertainment, distraction or its opposite: deviation) as a source of criticism of the cultural industry, in order to demonstrate how certain aesthetic of violence produces a passive sublimation and, in a certain way, alienates many subjects, mainly at the political point of view. They represent a sort of "undeads", or helplesslies zombies, as demonstrated by the analysis of Slavoj Žižek. The movie Funny Gamesby Michael Haneke ilustrates this analysis. Cet article a le butde réfléchir sur l'amusement avec une esthétique de violence dans les cult movieset certains de ses effets sur la subjectivité contemporaine. La discussion s'appuie sur le référentiel psychanalytique rassemblé sous la perspective critique de Theodor Adorno. Le texte fait usage de la notion d'amusement comme une source de critique de l'industrie culturelle, afin de démontrer comment une certaine esthétique de violence génère la sublimation passive et aliénante sur de nombreux sujets, qui représentent, principalement du point de vue politique, une sorte de "morts-vivants", ou zombies impuissants, comme en témoigne l'analyse de Slavoj Žižek. Le film Funny Gamesde Michael Haneke illustre cette analyse. Este ensayo tiene como objetivo reflexionar sobre la diversión con una estética de la violencia en los cult moviesy algunos de sus efectos en la subjetividad contemporánea. Se basa en el Psicoanálisis según la perspectiva crítica de Theodor Adorno. El texto hace uso del concepto de diversión como fuente de crítica a la industria cultural, con el fin de demostrar cómo cierta estética de la violencia produce una sublimación pasiva y alienante en muchas personas que van a representar, principalmente del punto de vista político, una especie de "muertos vivos", o zombies que no pueden hacer nada, como lo demuestra el análisis de Slavoj Žižek. La película Funny games[Horas de terror] de Michael Haneke ilustra este análisis.

Dans ce texte nous résumons quatre essais récents sur le phénomène actuel du zombie ainsi qu’un collectif sur l’œuvre de Richard Matheson dont la première version filmique du roman Je suis une légende a servi d’inspiration à l’ur-film de zombies, La nuit des morts vivants de George A. Romero. Tandis que Pierre Cassou-Noguès et Maxime Coulombe signent des traitements plus philosophiques du zombie, leurs ouvrages diffèrent beaucoup dans leur forme et leur fonction. Pour leur part, Amélie Pépin et Vincent Paris offrent des études plus limitées du zombie en tant que phénomène filmique et sociologique.

O que um vampiro representa? Por que ocupa tal lugar na cultura? O vampiro é um invariante cultural com diferenças culturais. O vivente é um não morto (undead), e o não morto ainda está vivo. Do ponto de vista psicanalítico, qual é, então, essa relação com os dentes e com a mordida que contamina, que faz com que o outro se torne também um vampiro? O vampiro é um bebê que morde e tem um desejo ambivalente de imortalidade. O leite materno é vital como o é o sangue para o vampiro. A brincadeira de mordiscar, para o bebê winnicottiano, conta mais do que a mordida para o bebê kleiniano. O bebê kleiniano é mais próximo do vampiro do que o bebê winnicottiano.The Vampire, a live undead. What does a vampire represent? Why does he have such a place in the culture? It is a cultural invariant with cultural differences. The living is an undead and the undead is still living. From a psychoanalytical point of view, what is the connection to teeth and to bites that contaminate, and make the other become a vampire? The vampire is a baby that bites and who has an ambivalent desire of immortality. Maternal milk is as vital as blood for the vampire. The game of biting for the Winnicottian baby is more important than the bite for the Kleinian baby. The Kleinian baby is closer to the vampire than the winnicotian baby.

This thesis examines the social theory of Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. It focuses on Žižek’s work between 1989 and 2006, and offers an interpretation based on a reading of three central concepts: the Other, fantasy, and the act. All these concepts occupy the intersection between Lacan’s three orders (Imaginary, Real, Symbolic), which in Žižek’s theory means that they express a tension shared by all social order. The first chapter approaches Žižek’s conception of “the social” through an introduction of the Lacanian concept of "the Other." Attention is paid to how (a) the Other is constitutively split between its role as a Symbolic network of signifiers, and its enigmatic (Real and Imaginary) capacity to support this Symbolic network; (b) a similar split marks several of Žižek’s Lacanian and Hegelian concepts. Moreover, the chapter contrasts Žižekian sociality with those of Giddens, Luhmann and Althusser. The second chapter gives an account of the topological place of fantasy in Žižek’s theory. Relating Žižek’s theory to Critical Theory, deconstruction and Deleuzian philosophy, fantasy is presented as a concept countering new forms of “bad infinity” (Hegel) in modern social theory. The third chapter links Žižek’s theory of the act to the theories of Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Alain Badiou. Commenting on Rex Butler’s brilliant reading of Žižek, the thesis argues that Butler’s definition of the act is too negative. Instead, the thesis proposes a definition which emphasises the act's productive dimension, insisting on how the act ultimately involves the transformation from masculine to feminine enjoyment. The last chapter critically observes the different treatments Lacan and Derrida receive in Žižek’s text. The argument concludes that the Žižekian text relapses into a "masculine logic of exception", insofar as it leaves Derrida’s phallus untouched, while treating Lacan as the only one lacking phallus.

This thesis examines the social theory of Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. It focuses on Žižek’s work between 1989 and 2006, and offers an interpretation based on a reading of three central concepts: the Other, fantasy, and the act. All these concepts occupy the intersection between Lacan’s three orders (Imaginary, Real, Symbolic), which in Žižek’s theory means that they express a tension shared by all social order. The first chapter approaches Žižek’s conception of “the social” through an introduction of the Lacanian concept of "the Other." Attention is paid to how (a) the Other is constitutively split between its role as a Symbolic network of signifiers, and its enigmatic (Real and Imaginary) capacity to support this Symbolic network; (b) a similar split marks several of Žižek’s Lacanian and Hegelian concepts. Moreover, the chapter contrasts Žižekian sociality with those of Giddens, Luhmann and Althusser. The second chapter gives an account of the topological place of fantasy in Žižek’s theory. Relating Žižek’s theory to Critical Theory, deconstruction and Deleuzian philosophy, fantasy is presented as a concept countering new forms of “bad infinity” (Hegel) in modern social theory. The third chapter links Žižek’s theory of the act to the theories of Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Alain Badiou. Commenting on Rex Butler’s brilliant reading of Žižek, the thesis argues that Butler’s definition of the act is too negative. Instead, the thesis proposes a definition which emphasises the act's productive dimension, insisting on how the act ultimately involves the transformation from masculine to feminine enjoyment. The last chapter critically observes the different treatments Lacan and Derrida receive in Žižek’s text. The argument concludes that the Žižekian text relapses into a "masculine logic of exception", insofar as it leaves Derrida’s phallus untouched, while treating Lacan as the only one lacking phallus.