Love Interest Research Articles

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's Frozen as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's <i>Frozen</i> as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

Screening Gender in Shakespeare’s Comedies: Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century. By Magdalena Cieślak

Cieślak’s impressive, assiduously researched new monograph examining twenty-first-century on-screen portrayals of women in Shakespeare offers far more than insightful readings of seven prominent adaptations, though it certainly does that. A thorough compendium of the best in Shakespeare scholarship from the 1980s to the present, the book focuses on women in Shakespeare’s texts as performed on-screen and on-stage, particularly in the comedies and romances. In her introduction, Cieślak asserts, “comedies, with their focus on the agency of female characters, the narratives of their love interests, and the social function of marriage in securing a happy ending, force adaptors to carefully examine and interpret differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts” (30). This outlines her book’s purpose: to identify, examine, and adjudicate the efficacy of the strategies screenwriters and directors have been using to adapt Shakespeare’s comedies to millennial sensibilities. It is a complex...

Design fiction exploration of romantic interaction with virtual humans in virtual reality1

This article discusses the possibilities and potential issues with romantic and sexual interaction with virtual humans in virtual reality, using the design fiction Into thin air as a starting point for these reflections. Design fiction, a dramatized story by engineers/designers, speculate and critically reflect on advantages and risks with future technology. The primary purpose of the design fiction story utilized in this investigation is to highlight the advantages with air ship traveling (concerning climate impact), but since this was a concept that was difficult to dramatize, I choose to have that as a background setting, and instead foreground a bitter-sweet story about seeking love and sex in different virtual reality simulations during the time onboard an air ship. In most cases these attempts at sexual encounters are with actual women, but in one sequence I bring in the concept of virtual humans. The user wears a full-body haptic feedback suit, so he/she can see, hear and feel the virtual agent. In the design fiction and in this article, I speculate that such virtual agents could be created by including three agents to choose between (automatically generated by algorithms); A) a generic blend of celebrities, B) a recreation of the user’s high school love interest, and C) a recreation of a woman the user just had flirted with. In this article I compare this design fiction scenario with real-life VR applications, trying to explore the feasibility of different virtual human scenarios. Virtual reality developers have so far avoided sexual or romantic content in their experiences, possibly to a large extent because the major distribution platform – Oculus – is controlled by Facebook. Facebook have quite strict regulations concerning what is deemed as appropriate as content, and thus curates the available experiences quite strictly. Some experiences subtly hint at romantic encounters, such as the dating simulators Falling in love and Focus on you. I argue that these two experiences are highly limited and linear. In order to create a more complex and convincing romantic/sexual encounter, the virtual agents would need to be driven by a dialog system and AI. One attempt in that direction is the smartphone app Replika, a chat and voice based virtual agent that tries to give the impression of a caring friend (who can venture into text based sexual encounters). The conclusion is that it seems likely that the VR dating simulations will gradually evolve and become more convincing, primarily depending on Facebook’s control over the market, and the slow but steady progress in dialog systems. The possibility to physically/virtually interact with the beloved virtual agents and have satisfying intercourse seems possible, but not something to expect in the near future. Link to the design fiction: https://chalmersuniversity.box.com/s/xmo1dkihicfxgo6qo4zb2onez45m49fl

A DEIXIS ANALYSIS OF SONG LYRICS IN SAM SMITH’S “LOVE GOES” ALBUM

This study applies Yule's theory to evaluate the use of deixis in the lyrics of Sam Smith's song "Love Goes," which appears on his album "Love Goes." 'Deixis' is derived from the Greek word deiknymi, which literally translates as "to demonstrate" or "to point out." In this case, it is employed to draw attention to the elements of the speech that are pertinent to the current context. According to the research, the many types of deixis, their meanings, and why they are utilized in specific song lyrics are explained. The writer explores the numerous sorts of deixis that may be derived by listening to and reading song lyrics from Sam Smith's album "Love Goes," which is based on the descriptive qualitative technique. In the next section, the writer identifies and categorizes the deixis that can be found in song lyrics. The writer's next step is to conduct an analysis of the data, which is supported by Yule's theory at this point. The writer discovered deixis types such as person deixis, geographical deixis, and temporal deixis after examining all of the data from Sam Smith's song lyrics from the "Love Goes" album. All of the tracks on the "Love Goes" album feature 486 deixis per person, 41 deixes per spatial location, and 44 deixis per time. Each of the three forms of person deixis has its own classification: first-person, second-person, and third-person. The first person deixis is employed in order to identify the person who is speaking. This song uses the second person deixis to convey the addresser's identity, which in this case happens to be his girlfriend in the song. The third person deixis is supposed to show an undetermined referent; nevertheless, in this album, it alludes to the persons who are in the immediate vicinity of the singer and his love interest. Spatial deixis is used in every song to identify the location of a participant in a speech event to which the singer or speaker belongs, whereas temporal deixis is used to signify a specific time period that the singer or speaker has lived through or experienced.&#x0D; Keywords: deixis, Sam Smith, song lyrics

Breaking Away dir. by Peter Yates

Reviewed by: Breaking Away dir. by Peter Yates Sheng-mei Ma Breaking Away (dir. Peter Yates, 1979) For a Taiwanese immigrant to critique the 1979 film Breaking Away—set in the midwestern college town of Bloomington, Indiana, where the Little 500 bicycle race is held annually—may seem downright odd. Interests usually denote self-interest, however the self is defined. When I arrived at Indiana University Bloomington (IU) in 1982 for graduate studies in the English department, I soon became familiar with the film that won an Oscar (Steve Tesich's screenplay) and a Golden Globe (Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy). Tesich himself had been trained at IU in the 1960s; in one shot, "English Major" was intentionally scrawled across a used car's windshield. As I had just embarked on my PhD, I should have attended to the taunt: English was a useless major, now that Tesich—a Russian major—had written an award-winning script. I was introduced to the film by Boyd, an IU bus driver who ferried me to campus for classes. Boyd was a typical Hoosier, with a heavy accent that I could hardly decipher—I had enough trouble with Standard English, however "standard" is defined. Boyd obviously took certain pride in this film that depicted the town-and-gown tension. Perhaps because IU was his employer, he harbored mixed feelings about the institution that put Bloomington on the map and food on his table, while also lording over the working-class locals nicknamed "cutters" in the film. If my critique is a nostalgic trip, then it clicks nicely with the central motif of Breaking Away as a flight of fancy into a desired world beyond reach. Returning to the past morphs into a dream for the future—not just for myself, but for the film crew and viewers, past and future. Born in Yugoslavia, the screenwriter Tesich was fourteen when he came to America. A member of Phi Kappa Psi during his years at IU, Tesich seemingly would not have been a typical fit for a midwestern fraternity. Director Peter Yates was an Englishman with no connection to IU until the making of this film. Though his film ends with a freeze frame of a father looking back at his son, Yates never looked back at the Midwest for the remainder of his professional career. None of the leading actors hailed from the Hoosier State, either. Philadelphian Dennis Christopher plays local bicyclist Dave Stohler who wins the Little 500 with injured, bleeding legs and his feet taped to the pedals. Texan Dennis Quaid plays Mike, the high school [End Page 100] quarterback plagued by an inferiority complex in the face of rich frat boys. Hart Bochner, who plays the "hot rodder" Rod on the university swim team and drives a blue Mercedes convertible, is Canadian. And Robyn Douglass arrives from California to play Dave's love interest, Katherine. Clearly, outsiders "broke away" from their biological and experiential selves to fashion this universal dream of the victorious local underdog. The four "B-town boys"—Dave, Mike, Cyril (Daniel Stern), and Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)—languish after high school graduation over a hot summer. They are confronted by the harsh reality of an "invasive species" of rich, athletic, and beautiful college students taking over Bloomington, from their favorite swimming hole in an abandoned limestone quarry to the town's streets. While Mike seethes in frustration and rage, breaking his head during a swimming duel with Rod in the quarry, Dave fantasizes an exit into an Italian alter ego. Prompted by his interest in Cinzano, an Italian bicycle racing team, Dave shaves his legs (as Italian bicyclists do) and speaks to his parents in half-baked Italian. He even goes so far as to take on the persona of an exchange student to serenade his sorority dream girl Katherine, or "Caterina" in Dave's affected Italian (replete with trilling Rs). Dave's father, Ray (Paul Dooley), is a used car salesman and a caricature of the potbellied, bacon-eating, sharpies-in-shirt-pocket Hoosier. Ray gloats over selling the worst car on his lot to a "smart college kid," which suggests that he is, subconsciously at...

Yonder on the Other Side

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article On Mental Health, People, and PlacesFull AccessYonder on the Other SideEzra E. H. Griffith, M.D.Ezra E. H. GriffithSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:29 Dec 2021https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2022.1.26AbstractParis is a beautiful and beguiling city. Visitors must be careful about reacting too quickly to the city’s obvious charm and seduction. I recently attended a Paris performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers (“Vêpres de la Vierge”) at the modern auditorium of the stunning Radio France building. A few days later, I was listening to lectures at the Quai Branly Jacques Chirac Museum on the artistic culture of Bénin, formerly the French colony of Dahomey. Such experiences in quick succession induce relaxation, intellectual stimulation, and enjoyment of the surrounding aesthetics. However, sustaining that state of mind is hard.I am sitting one evening in a small theater watching a play, “Là-Bas de L’Autre Côté de L’Eau” (“Yonder on the Other Side of the Water”), written by Pierre Olivier Scotto and directed by Xavier Lemaire. The scene is French Algeria in the 1950s. Enter France, an attractive and lively young woman who is enamored of things French. She is in love with Moktar, a vibrant Algerian militant—that is, until a young French soldier shows up on the scene and gets France’s head and heart spinning. France’s mother, Marthe, whose husband died at the hands of French soldiers, is not pleased about her daughter’s new love interest. I knew immediately that we were on sensitive ground. Algeria is always a dangerous subject when one is in Paris.William Gardner Smith’s newly republished book, The Stone Face, comes to mind. Smith first published the book in 1963 and focused on the experience of Black Americans exiling themselves to Paris around that time to flee the racism in the United States. An important theme in the book is the discovery by the main protagonist of a puzzling contradiction. The French welcomed the Black American exiles while venting wrath on the Algerians, who were at the bottom of the country’s caste system.A monument on the Seine River memorializes the Algerian National Liberation Front fighters who died in the Paris Massacre in 1961.Brigitte GriffithThe Algerian War (1954-1962) is the setting for the play. The Algerian National Liberation Front (NLF) wants independence from France. However, there is a constituency of French Algerians, including Marthe, demanding the mother country stay the course, keep the colony, and maintain French identity. In the mid-1950s, the independence movement heated up with significant violence. The NLF placed its bombs in Paris and at home with terrifying effect. The French authorities responded firmly and matched terror with their own brand. The Paris Massacre, of October 17, 1961 (referenced in Smith’s book), saw policemen throwing NLF demonstrators into the Seine River, causing the death of hundreds. On October 17, 2019, this event was memorialized by construction of a stele, a monument with an inscription, placed at the Saint-Michel Bridge that crosses the Seine (see photo).French and Algerians had been living side by side for years. Algerians served in the French Army and fought in World War II. However, the French government would not pay pensions to Algerian veterans, although French veterans were compensated. Each side had its grievances. Moktar, too, is caught in the violence. He wants the French out of Algeria. The trouble with that simple demand is that many French Algerians have never set foot in France; France is not their home. The audience understands that finding a solution to the conflict is not easy.By the end of the play, we know that there can be no obvious triumph for anybody. There is a claim that personal identity has been clarified and solidified for some. Young France must put limits on her imagination. The French Republic recognizes long after the war that promises were broken to both sides. Many people died in the Algerian conflict.There are always observers who insist that violence is the only way to overturn the caste ladder. The water between Algeria and France does not magically wash away memories and judgments of the other. If we are not careful, those recollections stoke the fire of vengeance. The path to reconciliation is uncomfortable, not pleasurable like listening to Monteverdi. Nevertheless, the play is a beautiful experience, even if heart rending, to witness dramatic art confronting struggles related to colonization, caste, and indignity. ■Ezra E. H. Griffith, M.D., is professor emeritus of psychiatry and African American Studies at Yale University. ISSUES NewArchived

"Portnoy's Complaint at 50": A Podcast About Roth's Most Infamous Book

"Portnoy's Complaint at 50"A Podcast About Roth's Most Infamous Book Brett Ashley Kaplan (bio) and Samuel J. Kessler (bio) Readers of this special issue might be interested in "portnoy's complaint at 50," an episode in the podcast series Adventures in Jewish Studies, produced by the Association of Jewish Studies. In this episode, Jeremy Shere interviews literary scholars Warren Hoffman, Josh Lambert, and Brett Ashley Kaplan to discuss the hilarity and the controversy surrounding Philip Roth's most famous novel as it turns 50 years old. When published in early 1969, Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate sensation, selling thousands of copies and rocketing to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, turning Roth into an overnight celebrity. Critics loved the book. Reviewing Portnoy's Complaint for the Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt judged the novel "Roth's best work […] and a brilliantly vivid reading experience." But not everyone was so enthralled. Many Jewish readers, including rabbis and other leaders of the Jewish community, were scandalized by the novel's unsparing, satirical depictions of overbearing Jewish mothers and their sex-obsessed sons. And feminist critics, too, took Roth to task for what they saw as his misogynistic portrayal of female characters, not only in this novel but throughout his writings. The guests discuss all these historical reactions and more. As Kaplan explores, we might alternately consider how Portnoy's central love interest, the sexually liberated and nearly illiterate Mary Jane Reed (whom Portnoy calls "the monkey"), embodies what feminist critics call "consent culture." Hoffman describes the book's portrayal of Jewish masculinity as queer, meaning that Portnoy's sexual neuroses and behavior are outside the norm. Hoffman reads Portnoy as reacting against the stereotype of the hysterical Jewish male to assert his identity as a red-blooded, sexually normative American man. And Josh Lambert notes that, going back to Yiddish literature of the nineteenth century, writers have thought about what it means to be Jewish through the lens of who a particular character is going to sleep with. In this way, diasporism becomes a kind of masturbation, and Israel induces impotence, so issues of continuity and Jewish identity come in through the sexuality of the book. [End Page 131] Finally, as the guests describe, 1969 was a cauldron of everything exciting happening at once. The world was undergoing a major transformation, and right at that moment appears a book that basically puts intimate details that are normally not seen on the printed page outside of pornography into the public realm. And people start talking about it. People start feeling that it represents some part of their own experience. Portnoy's Complaint taps into a vein of sexual repression and longing in mid-century America. Adventures in Jewish Studies takes listeners on exciting journeys that explore a wide range of topics featuring the expertise and learning of scholars of Jewish Studies. The Association of Jewish Studies is the largest learned society and professional organization representing Jewish Studies across the globe, with over 1,800 members from more than 30 countries. Find this episode wherever you get your podcasts. [End Page 132] Brett Ashley Kaplan Brett Ashley Kaplan directs the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies at the University of Illinois where she is a professor of Comparative and World Literature and Director of Graduate Studies. She publishes in Haaretz, The Conversation, Salon.com (picked up from Conversation), Asitoughttobemagazine, AJS Perspectives, Contemporary Literature, Edge Effects, and The Jewish Review of Books. She has been interviewed on NPR, the AJS Podcast, and The 21st, and is the author of Unwanted Beauty, Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory, and Jewish Anxiety and the Novels of Philip Roth. She is the editor of the forthcoming Handbook to New Approaches in Cultural Memory Studies, and co-editor of the collection in process: Blewish: Contemporary Black-Jewish Voices. Her first novel, Rare Stuff, is due out in June 2022. Samuel J. Kessler Samuel J. Kessler is Assistant Professor of Religion and Åke and Kristina Bonnier Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. His work focuses on the interaction of religion and modernity in European history and literature...

Marwood, Milton, and Monstrous Women: The Neglected Villain of The Way of the World

Marwood, Milton, and Monstrous Women:The Neglected Villain of The Way of the World Rachel Ewing Tell me if Congreve's Fools are Fools Indeed?1 – Alexander Pope Raphael, said he, thou hear'st what stir on earth / Satan from hell scaped through the darksome gulf / Hath rais'd in Paradise, and how disturbed / This night the human pair, how he designs / In them at once to ruin all mankind.2 – Paradise Lost Although William Congreve's The Way of the World was first performed in 1700, critics regard the play as a glory of the late Restoration stage, a work that deftly pushes established comedic conventions to suit the shifting social norms of the day. Like many Restoration comedies, the play turns on the exploits of a truewit hero with a knavish reputation, who must secure both his sweetheart and her fortune. But Congreve famously tempers the customary bawdy plot points of cuckholding and "ruined" virginity with unexpected complications. Protagonist Mirabell is a reformed rake, a new beau ideal who struggles to overcome his past flirtation with love interest Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort, and his selfish seduction of Lady Wishfort's daughter, Mrs. Fainall. The supporting cast is also notably rounded, acting mostly from individual motivation and personality, rather than according to type. Arguing for the play's exceptionalism, Brian Corman, among many others, has pointed to the significance of Congreve's secondary characters, including his villains: [End Page 65] Lady Wishfort could have been the only obstacle to the marriage of the hero and heroine, but she is not. Mirabell's uncle could have been the traditional senex figure to be overcome by the lovers, but he is not. Fainall could have been the loyal friend of the truewit hero who provides atmosphere through witty, cynical epigrams, and his wife could have been another revenge-seeking, cast-off mistress, but they, too, are not.3 Given this notice of Congreve's character complexity, it is surprising that relatively little critical analysis has focused on Marwood, the strange and lonely nemesis of the celebrated Millamant. When Marwood does appear in critical discussion, she is generally dismissed. Though Richard W. F. Kroll notes her social competency, he ultimately relegates her, along with Fainall and the flatter characters of Witwoud, Petulant, and Willful, to the "'natural' realm," arguing that, unlike Millamant, Marwood succumbs to base passions that she is unable to socialize, losing control of language and eventually lapsing into silence.4 For Pat Gill, she "becomes the butt of the play's satiric joke" as the comedy dramatizes women's subordination to male authority.5 Even Corman, while recognizing Marwood as powerful, claims that Millamant reduces her to "a ranting termagant void of all decorum."6 The circumstances of the play's original performance are one indication that Mar-wood warrants further exploration. Congreve created the part for renowned actress Elizabeth Barry, pairing her with his favorite female lead, Anne Bracegirdle, as Millamant. Though in her youth Barry played many comedic ingenues, she secured her acting reputation with her portrayal of Thomas Otway's ill-fated Monimia, delivering a performance that set a standard of greatness for generations of later tragediennes.7 By the time The Way of the World debuted, Barry, who was then about forty, had come into full command of her powers and was focused primarily on tragic roles.8 James E. Evans is one of several scholars who note that Congreve's play doubtless capitalized on the pairing of Barry and Bracegirdle.9 The actresses were famous for their publicized rivalry and disparate reputations—Barry being known to cause a scandal while Bracegirdle maintained a chaste life-style.10 But Congreve's choice also lends weight to the character of Marwood, written to make the most of Barry's ability to, in the words of one reviewer, "[force] Tears from the Eyes of her Auditory, especially those who have any sense of Pity for the Distress't."11 What results from a reexamination of Marwood as a vehicle for tragic passion? Given the play's critical acclaim as a morally serious comedy in which "real" people make their way in a less than perfect world...

The Georgian Landlady: Surrogate Mother, Love Interest or Hard‐Nosed Businesswoman?

Abstract‘Private lodging’, the letting of a room/rooms in their home by a resident householder, was widespread in Britain's Georgian towns and cities. Contemporary fiction, drama, prints and life‐writing reveal how observers and lodgers often took harsh, gendered attitudes to landladies. They were too attractive, or conversely too ugly, garrulous, mercenary. Lodgers, especially men, often expected a level of service that went beyond a commercial rental agreement: emotional support, company and nursing care, for example. This article uses a range of sources to examine these attitudes and then, reading between the lines, capture the viewpoint of the largely silent Georgian landlady. It uncovers a commercial market‐place of lodging in which middling‐sort women were routinely and skilfully engaged in paid work in the home beyond the provisioning and care of the affective nuclear family.

Beyond Benson: From Law &amp; Order: SVU to Holland’s Grenslanders, Female Masculinity in Crime Dramas Fall Victim to Feminized Tropes

Abstract This article analyzes television’s (2010s) female detectives, Olivia Benson of Law &amp; Order: SVU (NBC, 1999–) and Tara Dessel of Grenslanders (AVROTROS, 2019), as a cross-cultural example of compromised and negotiated female masculinity. Their designed traits of “heterosexuality” and/or “the feminine” are used as countering affects to undermine the female masculinity and queer ambiguity of these characters. Through Detective Dessel, I demonstrate how race further complicates readings of female masculinity. I argue that television depictions of cis-woman characters are ill-served when the possibilities for masculinity or sexual ambiguity is obfuscated by conventionally feminine appearance, heterosexual love interests, and other narrative components.

“This Is a Story about Regeneration”: Understanding The Missing: J. J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories (2018) is an intricate case of playing through an often grotesque and horrific game to develop empathy and understanding for the main character J.J. Macfield. The SWERY developed game involves physically dismembering the titular character to solve puzzles and move forward in her quest to locate her love interest, Emily. At first, it seems absurd and disturbing, but as the player moves through the game or reads the texts on J.J.’s phone, more of her story takes shape. There are odd moments such as a deer-headed character with a distorted voice indicating that there is a medical emergency, and they add to the sense of absurdity in a game that purposefully intends for you to harm your player character. The brutal mechanics are an integral part of J.J.’s journey and story. The game involves multiple suicides, bullying, self-harm, and ultimately, the revelation that the entire game is a narrative about a trans woman who has been in a dream while being revived by paramedics after a real-world suicide attempt. It’s a story of self-acceptance, of seeking the support of those closest to you, and by finishing game, J.J. is able to fight and conquer her self-loathing, represented by a monstrous being carrying a razorblade. J.J.’s physical pain and the body horror throughout the game represent the struggles that she has with body dysmorphia and her pain dealing with intolerance from her mother. This gameplay mechanic frames J.J.’s experiences in a way that is understandable even without her lived experience. I will argue that The Missing’s audio design and gameplay mechanics are integral to creating an empathetic playing experience. The game begins with the message, “this game was made with the belief that nobody is wrong for being what they are,” and that message is key to understanding The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories.

Review: Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll, by Maureen Mahon

Review: <i>Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll</i>, by Maureen Mahon

A Wild Night in Toledo

A Wild Night in Toledo

Transcending the Elements: the Meaning in the Mist and Stars in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

In this senior thesis, I seek to explore the meaning of the mist and the stars in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. I argue that through observation of the mist and the stars as an entrance point to the text, we as readers are able to expand our discussion of the text to incorporate other fundamental aspects of the story. I open with a contextualization of the mist and the stars in Dickens’ previous works, including Bleak House, Oliver Twist, and Sketches by Boz. I argue that the mist stands as a symbol for Pip’s uncertainty about the future and his place in the world, while the stars represent an inaccessible though alluring clarity and transparency. The mist stands as an obstructing force, and the rising of the mist connotes moments of growth and maturation for Pip. The stars act as the cosmic opposition to the mist, and they are synonymous with Pip’s elusive love interest, Estella. Through a reading of the mist and the stars, we gain a deeper connection to the nuances and foundational themes of Great Expectations.

Waldo's Beautiful Things: Possession and Possessing in Otto Preminger's Laura

Despite its highly subjectivised title, Laura – Otto Preminger's dazzling 1944 noir classic – is, according to this article, a film not so much about persons as things. And what spectacularly beautiful things Laura proffers: exquisite objets d'art, chic fashion, striking design. All of which points to a certain psychic condition that underpins Laura: namely, fetishism. Of course, the fetish nonpareil in the film is Laura herself; she is the not so ‘obscure object of desire’ for all and sundry, possessing everyone in the film, and, in turn, being treated by those possessed, as a possession herself. Though the nature of these sorts of possessory regimes differs dramatically, being contingent upon the psychic profile of the possessor: love interest Shelby Carpenter, police detective Mark McPherson and wealthy mentor, Waldo Lydecker. This article will explore Laura's competing possessory regimes, utilising psychoanalytic concepts such as hysteria, repetition compulsion and the death drive, as well as fetishism and sado-masochism to unpack this vivid filmic representation of the ‘Law of Desire’ as a desire for what is, here, law's objet petit a – feminine sexuality itself.

Reading patriarchal manhood, violence and love in Kabir Singh (2019)

ABSTRACT The present essay discusses the visual representation of masculinity in Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Kabir Singh (2019). Kabir Singh is a macho-melodrama and a romantic account of the eponymous character, Kabir Singh, and his spiralling into self-destruction following his separation from his love interest, Preeti Sikka. Through the strategic exploitation of masculine tropes and symbols in the cinematic narrative, Vanga aims to construct the male protagonist, Kabir, as the public face of the hegemonic masculine ideology. The film, which offers to its audience a heteronormative heterotopia, also reinforces the patriarchal agenda through the portrayal of a sentimental, submissive woman with negligible autonomy. The article aims to develop its argument of masculinity and its association with pervasive power in the film through the reading of specific scenes through the intellectual and theoretical apparatuses of R.W. Connell, Michael Kimmell, and Michael Kaufman. It looks at the construction of masculinities as a homosocial enactment and also reads the protagonist’s borderline toxic behaviour through the theories of machoism and overcompensation of masculine identities. The paper concludes with situating Kabir Singh in Bollywood’s continuum of toxic masculinity. Through the deployment of masculinities and its nexus with sexism, this research paper also aims to query how machoistic scripts of masculinity implicate heterosexual romantic relationships.

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney

Reviewed by: Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney Alaine Martaus Goffney, Joya Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry. HarperTeen, 2021 [3368p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780063024793 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780063024816 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 See this month’s Big Picture, p. 373. “You have to be better than that if you want to compete.” This is a pressure eighteen-year-old Quinn Jackson, the only child of successful, wealthy Black parents, knows well. As one of only a few Black seniors in her privileged Austin high school, Quinn has always felt the need to succeed far beyond average, while struggling to navigate a world that always judges her as acting white or acting Black. To deal with the pressure (and to help maintain a façade of the happy overachiever even as she struggles academically), she keeps a journal full of very personal lists: favorites, fantasies, how-tos, to-dos, secrets, and lies. Then the journal goes missing, and Quinn suddenly finds herself being blackmailed with an awful threat: complete the fear-inducing challenges from her To Do Before I Graduate list, or all her secrets (including some serious misrepresentations—okay, lies—to her parents) will be shared online. In desperation, she turns to intriguingly handsome, infuriatingly judgmental fellow Black classmate Carter Bennett, who may be her hero or might just be the culprit. There’s a lot of melodramatic familiarity to the underlying story here; with its blackmail plotline, its list of dares-turned-adventures, and its diamond-inthe-rough love interest, it could easily sit on the shelf beside Pretty Little Liars or Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (BCCB 3/08). There’s certainly commonality to Quinn’s situation, to the pressure she’s under, and to her list-making, journal-writing coping mechanism. Yet while many a teen reader may identify with Quinn’s struggle to be the overachieving person everyone expects, that pressure is depicted here with the added weight of race-focused realities that give the novel a notable substance and distinctive viewpoint. The journal at the novel’s center thus serves as more than just plot device; it’s also a script for the person that Quinn is pretending to be and a roadmap to the life she thinks she should be living, and the various lists that populate the text provide witty character insights into the real Quinn behind the successful, accommodating mask. Its loss is therefore as poignant as it is dangerous; it gives Quinn the freedom to go off-script while forcing her to acknowledge the comfort she finds in pretending. The journal also provides a window into the role that race plays in Quinn’s act, as it hides not just her secret crushes, low test scores, and faked college acceptances, but also her pain at being called an “Oreo, ” her guilt at taking part in popular white girls’ bullying of a talented Black scholarship student, and the fact that she pretends to be “cool with [her] white friends saying the N-word.” Surrounding prose then fleshes out the harshness of micro and not-so-micro aggressions [End Page 373] that inform Quinn’s need for the journal, from snide comments about affirmative action to “jokes” about Quinn being “practically white.” The portrait of a girl divided sets up a contrast with romantic lead Carter and nervy new friend Olivia, who round out Black supporting characters with nuance. It hints at what Quinn ultimately admits: that her defensiveness about of Carter’s judgment and her former bullying of Olivia were an expression of her self-doubt in the face of their confidence. That’s why it’s so essential that Carter and Olivia become unexpected allies, helping Quinn tackle truths she’s been too scared to face and having some surprising, sometimes sweetly romantic fun along the way. These relationships create space for the novel’s honest but never heavy-handed reflections about race, language, and identity. Teen readers looking for a feel-good story that doesn’t ignore the harder issues will appreciate an ending that sees relationships mended, bullies vanquished, and...

How Fire Runs by Charles Dodd White

Reviewed by: How Fire Runs by Charles Dodd White Randi Adams (bio) Charles Dodd White . How Fire Runs. Athens, Oh.: Swallow Press, 2020. 272 pages. Softcover. $22.95. By opening his latest novel with a swastika flag being hoisted into the air and a Nazi salute, "Seig Heil," proclaiming victory, Charles Dodd White warns us the stakes are high in the story to come—and he doesn't disappoint. How Fire Runs is White's fourth novel, and in it he expertly intersects race, social justice, small town politics, community, and environmental destruction. A resident of Knoxville, White utilizes his understanding of east Tennessee to portray a contemporary fictionalized Elizabethton, a town tucked into the bounds of the tri-cities of Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol. [End Page 98] The first parts of the novel prepare the reader for a confrontation between Democrats Kyle Pettus, Gerald Pickens, Frank Farmer, and their allies, with Gavin Noon and his neo-Nazi followers. While they eventually clash ideologically in the debate between Farmer and Noon in the lead-up to the election for a seat on the county commission, this is not the climax of the story. This expert maneuver on White's part—one that left me wondering, Well, what now?—creates necessary chaos and builds a palpable sense of anxiety and suspense that drives the story through destruction and to its resolution. Though literary fiction tends to prefer characterization over plot, sometimes dragging the story along, White shines in his ability to maintain the story's momentum while developing the characters to their full portraiture. The characters populating How Fire Runs represent a wide range of morality and ideology. Noon, leader of the "Little Europe" neo-Nazi compound, is irredeemably reprehensible. His physicality and sense of style, often involving suits and fedoras, make him a caricature of a villain, almost laughably so—except men like him do exist in the world, and the ideology they espouse is even more dangerous. Pettus is the obvious protagonist of the novel, but he is not Noon's antithesis. Farmer, one of few Black members of the community, is the closest this novel gets to a moral good. While he is dragged begrudgingly into the political arena by Pettus, Pickens, and other Carter County politicians who want to keep Noon out of power, Farmer ultimately decides to run against Noon out of a sense of responsibility and protection for his community, despite the fear of retribution from the white supremacists in the county, especially Noon's neo-Nazis. The diverse beliefs espoused by the characters, as well as the actions they take in lieu of these views, cultivate the true-to-life quality of the novel. [End Page 99] While White does not allow Noon a chance for redemption, Jay Harrison, one of Noon's initial followers, is ultimately redeemed. Throughout the novel, the reader is given a glimpse into Harrison's past and how he gets caught up in white supremacy through the need to survive his prison sentence. In a subtle way through Harrison's backstory, White critiques the way in which the prison system's cruelty strips people of their identities, sometimes contributing to the spread and exacerbation of violent, organized white supremacy. As Harrison's relationship with former love interest Emmanuel, a Black artist and marijuana dealer, grows, he begins to find the sense of self that prison stripped from him. It is this internalization that pushes him to leave Little Europe, resurrecting "Jay" and rejecting who he was as "Harrison." White's storytelling blends evocative imagery and language with pithy directness and honesty. This balance contributes to his ability to present contemporary Appalachia with clear reverence without ignoring or excusing the problematic parts of the region's culture that would allow groups like Little Europe to take root and thrive. The only time I found myself questioning the novel's plot was when the conservatives on the county commission band with Pettus and Pickens to stop Noon ascending to power. Certainly, there are conservatives who would act likewise, but given the increasing tribalism of two-party politics, it took more effort to believe. As is often true of Appalachian literature...

ВЛАДИМИРСТОЈШИН: ГЕНЕЗАЈЕДНОГCROSSOVER-а

The paper deals with thestatus of the children’s novels The Cinema in a Matchboxand The Champion Through the Windowby Vladimir Stojšin (1935– 591994) in relation to their affiliation with literature for all ages, i.e. crossover literature. Today, Stojšin is best known as a writer for children, although at the time when he published his first novel for young people, he had already published praised prose works of a very modern orientation. From the very beginning, his novels for children have been received as literature for all ages. As a writer for children, Stojšin remained largely attached to themes and motifs belongingtothe narrative worlds of his previous works. Focusing on the example of the transformation of a character of a prostitute from a novel for adults into the character of platonic love interest of the hero-narrator from thenovelsfor children, the text identifies the narrative devices by which this transformation was carried out. The conceptual apparatus of classical and postclassical narratology was used in the analysis.

“Nieszczęśliwym przewodnikiem jest serce, gdzie pewną a nieodmienną otuchę bierze”. O miłosnych związkach Janusza Aleksandra Księcia Sanguszki w latach 1731-1775

The work deals with the rarely discussed topic of the relationship between Janusz Aleksander Sanguszko and his servant Kazimierz Chyliński. It shows the history of their relationship against the background of Old Polish customs that clearly stigmatize homosexual behaviour. The relationship between the prince and the secretary was characterized by a mismatch in status, property, education and influence. With time, Kazimierz Chyliński managed to gain prestige, which allowed him to control the economic management, the course of particular sejmiks, mediate in contacts between magnates, be a protector of smaller nobility and exert influence on the decisions of the ordinate. This relationship , as the author proves, caused the fall of the nobleman. The jealousy of the local nobility and the prince's servants, a plot conceived by Paweł Karol Sanguszko, contributed to the fall of the once-powerful secretary. Moreover, the work focuses on the marriage of the ordinate with Konstancja née Denhoff. Konstancja, a young woman never married before, very quickly experienced sadness and tears due to her husband's love interests. After the marriage annulment trial, Konstancja moved to Gdańsk. Her second marriage to Józef Rogaliński was also unhappy and caused financial problems.