Pulp Fiction Research Articles

THE POETICS OF PAIN About the prose of Dubravka Ugrešić

Dubravka Ugrešić after leaving her homeland Croatia, considered herself a transnational writer, and she picked this status with all its consequences. She was very determined not to belong to any nation or national literature, saying, “Wherever she was, if she had to belong to someone, she belonged to her readers”. Consequently, in her texts, she has dealt with individual and collective memory, identity and nationality, as well as the status of women. The characteristic elements of her prose are the private and public life, East and the West, politics, media and poetics, and the melting of „high literature” and pulp fiction. The Study focuses on this unique combination of artwork by Dubravka Ugrešić.

The Translation of Uma Thurman’s Pun in “Pulp Fiction”: Ensemble of translations from the perspective of Relevance Theory

The Translation of Uma Thurman’s Pun in “Pulp Fiction”: Ensemble of translations from the perspective of Relevance Theory

A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)

Abstract Hong Kong has been located in the future tense throughout various genres of writing and popular culture, serving as a model for free-market neoliberal thinkers, as a proof-of-concept for future national reunification and as the backdrop for techno-orientalist and cyberpunk narratives. Paradoxically, within recent Hong Kong cultural productions and civil society debates is often a strong sense of a foreclosed future. This paper traces three fictions that together navigate the shifting temporalization of Hong Kong, from Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (2004), which adapts the pulp fiction writer frame narrative from Liu Yichang’s The Drunkard (1963). The film’s anachronistic 1960s SF unexpectedly finds its way into an emerging genre/movement as seen in the video essay Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) by Lawrence Lek (2016). These three (science) fiction texts reveal Hong Kong as a palimpsest of temporalities – an impossible fiction of ‘50 years of no change’, which somehow still returns as a site from which to imagine the future.

Berlin in English: The German capital in recent Anglophone fiction

This article examines the representation of Berlin in a cluster of recent English-language novels by writers including Amit Chaudhuri, Adrian Duncan, Helon Habila, Hari Kunzru, Lauren Oyler, Chris Power, Bea Setton and Matthew Sperling. Showing how the use of English in Berlin has been at the centre of contemporary German debates about migration and cultural identity and explaining how the image of Berlin in English literature has often been balanced between pulp and literary fiction, it asks if this body of contemporary Anglophone writing amounts to something more than literary tourism. Examining its representation of Berlin as both a mnemonic and touristic space, the acuity of its depiction of the city three decades after reunification, and the ways in which it represents different forms of migration to the city, the article contends that these novels do have valuable things to say, particularly concerning the ways in which an urban literary imaginary is being reconfigured for a digital age.

Women Reading/Women Writing: Anxiety and Āzādī in Twentieth Century Urdu Pulp Fiction

Anglophone pulp fiction has been identified by Paula Rabinowitz as an important site for the production of modernity. I argue that Urduphone novels written by and for women likewise grappled with contemporary social issues and provided an important forum for the discussion of changing gender dynamics. Women novelists wrote fiction that engaged with intergenerational anxieties about changing power relations within the household. Debates on women’s freedom were inscribed in what were called ‘social’ novels, even while the women-centric reading experience was propelled by the engines of print capitalism. In this study, I trace the trajectory of mid twentieth century gender debates by conducting a close reading of Urdu novels by A.R. Khatun and Razia Butt. I also argue that, ultimately, reading for pleasure was an important way for women to participate actively in larger social debates about gender, religion and nationhood itself.

Book Review: Horowitz Publications: Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Paperback

Book Review: Horowitz Publications: Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Paperback

Stories, Frames, and Objects: Pulp Fiction as a Transitional Work

Abstract: This paper considers the bygone American independent film media landscape, of which Pulp Fiction (1994) was an essential part, and explores how the film has aged in light of the present media environment and the trajectory of Tarantino's career. I compare Pulp Fiction with the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991), another American independent film that preceded it by a few years. Then, I illustrate how Pulp Fiction synthesized classical and post-classical filmmaking styles and operated according to a visual minimalism that is one of the film's strengths. The primary outcome of revisiting Pulp Fiction as a product of both its time and its filmmaker's penchant for excavating material from older movies and stories is to conclude that the groundbreaking Pulp Fiction is, in many ways, a transitional work that often reduces its human characters to objects. I argue that later features from the filmmaker are more substantial in their human characters and a concern for social reality and consequences beyond the immediate frame.

Pulp Fiction in the Press: 1990s Film Culture Writing and the Creation of Influence

Abstract: This paper argues that the enormous amount of 1990s in-print press coverage of Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction (1994) was a crucial factor in establishing the film's early legacy. Trade journalists, film reviewers, and cultural commentators all built a sense that Pulp Fiction was the defining indie film of the 1990s, aligning it with the financial and cultural expansion of the indie film sector throughout the rest of the decade. Through the privileged positions these writers held in film culture, they circulated opinions and knowledge about Tarantino and Pulp Fiction , all the while imbuing the film with immense cultural value.

" Pulp Fiction Deserved to Win": Animating Affective Responses to Tarantino's Masterpiece

Abstract: This article considers the intense and sustained fan reaction towards Pulp Fiction (since its 1994 release) through the lens of affect and animation. Specifically, the article draws on Sianne Ngai's concept of animatedness (the act of feeling and being moved) and Roland Barthes's idea of photography animating spectators in divergent and personal ways. Much of these animated and affective responses stem from Pulp Fiction losing to Forrest Gump (1994) at the 1995 Academy Awards, the latter often described as "one of the worst Best Picture winners ever." The faults of Forrest Gump enhance the qualities of Pulp Fiction , a symbiotic relationship formed over the past 30 years by such emotive and hyperbolic language.

"And Your Days Are Just About Over": Escaping the Outlived Era in Pulp Fiction and the Later Films of Quentin Tarantino

Abstract: This essay argues that Pulp Fiction (1994) is a foundational text for Tarantino's recurrent explorations of awakening to—and trying to control the outcomes of—outliving one's era, especially when "one's era" is defined by a shared aesthetic, identity, code, and sense of purpose. Tarantino's characters cannot grasp the totality of their defining eras until signs indicate its eminent demise, at which point they face the existential crisis of wondering if their vocations allow any opportunities for escape. As a means of analyzing the "outlived era" in Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill (2003-2004), and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019), this essay also explores how Tarantino's metafictional engagement with film history and counterfactual rewriting of history allows his characters a means of transcending their eras.

Pulp Theology: Disputation and Divine Intervention in Pulp Fiction

Abstract: Pulp Fiction (1994) prompts its viewer to consider the possibility of divine intervention and to explore the issue of divine justice to which that possibility gives rise. The anachronic plot presentation allows the audience to ponder Vincent and Jules' dispute about whether they experienced a miracle with the knowledge that Vincent will later be killed by Butch. This then prompts a review and reevaluation of Butch's character in relation to the gold watch for which he risks his life. Thus, the audience experiences an increasing capacity to make sense of the theological details that construct the characters, scenes, and dialogue.

Multiple Personalities of Pulp Fiction 's Musical Soundtrack: Liner Notes to a 30th Anniversary

Abstract: Pulp Fiction: Music from the Motion Picture was released in 1994 in coordination with the film Pulp Fiction (1994). Across the film's soundtrack album, variously considered an auteur mixtape, a compilation score, and its own rich text, music formulates a cast of characters alongside those more recognizable from the film's story. Critical analysis reveals multiple and multiply associative and disassociative personalities that afford innovative approaches to the role of the soundtrack and sound-plus-visual imagery in Pulp Fiction .

A Band Apart Together: Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs as Deleuzian Assemblages

Abstract: This article will examine Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) within the context of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's notions of the "assemblage," complex multiplicities that are composed of disparate elements to produce specific effects. It will be argued that Tarantino consistently demonstrates a preoccupation with meta, postmodernist filmmaking, illustrated through nonlinear narrative strategies. When examined in tandem, both films share numerous elements which can be understood as "rhizomatic" connections that form the foundation of Tarantino's singular practice that continues to fascinate and influence to this day.

Walking the Earth between Ezekiel and Kung Fu 's Caine: Pulp Fiction and 1990s (Popular) Culture between Irony and 'Reenchantment'

Abstract: In the cultural milieu of the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) emerges as a compelling exploration of spiritual and moral ambiguity. The film's flamboyantly postmodern narrative intertwines themes of grace and the miraculous, culminating in moments of profound existential reflection—with an ironic twist. Set against the backdrop of a post-Cold War era marked by uncertainty, disillusionment, and hope, Pulp Fiction navigates complex moral and ethical terrain. This paper analyzes Tarantino's movie alongside contemporaneous auteurs such as the Coens and Fincher, exploring their shared engagement with themes of justice, morality, and existential meaning. Through a lens of cultural reenchantment, these films illuminate the moral dilemmas of an era in transition.

Review: 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, ed. by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker

Review: 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, ed. by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker

Tarantino in the Ottoman Empire: Glorious Viziers, Pulp Fiction, and Scrambled Narratives

I wanted to break up the narration, not to be a wise guy, a show guy, but to make the film dramatically better that way. . . . A novelist would think nothing about starting in the middle. And if characters in a novel go back and tell past things, it's not a flashback, it's just telling a story. I think movies should benefit from the novel's freedoms.— Quentin Tarantino1I wrote a prosopography twenty years ago. I published a biography two years ago. In the first case, I offered the collective biography of 282 servants of the late Ottoman period (1839–1909).2 In the second case, I presented the monograph of a grand vizier from the second half of the 18th century, Halil Hamid Pasha (1736–85).3 In the former, I delivered an academic work (stemming from a PhD dissertation) focused on the study of the careers of central and territorial administrators. In the latter, I recounted the rise and fall of the head of the Sublime Porte. A priori, these two books had nothing in common, except that they dealt with pashas. If I mention them together here, it is not to describe the personal evolution of my research. It is to shed some light on an observation that is regularly made, that is, of the inadequacies of the biographical genre in Ottoman history.4 It is to reflect on how to remedy this situation.

A Review of Netflix’s Indonesian Subtitle Translation in the “Pulp Fiction” Movie

ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt at analyzing the Indonesian translation in the film "Pulp Fiction", by observing the pre-existing Indonesian subtitle provided by a Netflix translator, and how it represents the on-screen portrayals. With the analysis, the aim is to investigate the following subtitle translation, in order to evaluate their linguistic or lexical values at how they reflected the dialogues and expressions behind the acts that occurred within the film. This attempt utilized a descriptive-qualitative approach on the basis of case study in order to produce a scientifically acceptable proposition into the matter. Materials relevant to this analysis are comprised of English dialogues from the film itself and the Indonesian translation provided via subtitle, with the collection of data reduced as per Miles and Huberman's instructions and then analyzed in accordance to Newmark's measurements regarding translation methods. It was found, that because of the varying dynamics that occurs within conversations and the ongoing narrative; A translator's familiarity in the domain of a given language has a sizable impact on the resulting translation, since the meanings held behind the ensuing acts and dialogues may vary greatly from one end to the other.

Tarantino’s eloquent villains

Abstract Suspense as an aesthetic effect is a key narrative strategy of thriller movies, serving the function of entertainment for wide audiences. As the plot unfolds, arcs of suspense rely on triggering an appealing sense of anticipation that calls for a resolution. The present study examines the creation of suspense throughout fictional dialogue in Quentin Tarantino’s popular feature films Pulp Fiction (1994), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Django Unchained (2012). In these movies, dialogic interaction is often dominated by eloquent villains who skilfully flout the conversational maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle, thereby exercising verbal power over other interlocutors. As is demonstrated in a qualitative pragma-stylistic framework, the villains’ discursive strategies amount to stylistic deviation resulting in suspenseful implicatures. In particular, suspense is commonly caused by digressing from current topics, by giving too little information or too many details, by being insincere or ironic, and by making equivocal or redundant statements.

Variation of translation reception of Q. Tarantino’s film discourse

Within the framework of the article, the phenomenon of variability of translation reception of Q. Tarantino’s film discourse is considered. The authors conduct a comparative analysis of translation solutions used by the Russian-speaking translators as part of their work on Q. Tarantino’s films when transmitting significant elements of the author’s idiostyle. The focus is on the analysis of variability and evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the Russian-language translations of the film discourse of this director, which together make up the translation reception of his film works. The research methods include the continuous selection method, the method of contextual analysis, the method of functional semantic analysis, descriptive method, the method of contextual analysis, the method of interpretation of the film text, as well as methods of quantitative calculation. The original film texts of Q. Tarantino’s English-language films “Pulp Fiction”, “Inglourious Basterds”, “The Hateful Eight” and “Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood” and their translations into the Russian language have served as the material for the study. The authors analyze the film dialogues and films by Q. Tarantino as the main means of nonverbal and verbal representation of his idiostyle. It is argued that the films by Q. Tarantino are a significant example for the study of some aspects of translation reception into the Russian language due to the presence of a large layer of intertextual component in these works. It is emphasized that the interpretation of a literary text involves projecting the translator’s worldview onto the conceptual sphere of the translated work, as a result of which the latter becomes a co-author of the script. After analyzing the empirical material, the authors conclude that, regardless of the time of the release of the film, translators most often resort to such translation methods, as direct translation, modulation and addition, broadcasting numerous lexical, stylistic and pragmatic-semantic features of Q. Tarantino’s film discourse. Thanks to the development of information and telecommunication technologies and as translators gain more access to information, there are opportunities for improving the quality of translations due to the expansion of background knowledge in the field of pop-cultural and historical realia of the original linguaculture, actualized in the original film discourse.

Mystery of the Talking Skull: Family Secrets in Southern Appalachia

Abstract: When an out-of-town merchandiser goes missing in 1930s rural Southern Appalachia, whiskey and foul play are suspected. The small town of Woodbury, Tennessee, soon forgets and moves on, until the man's skeletal remains are uncovered three years later by two boys digging for mayapple root. Two men are immediately charged with the murder, though only one would be convicted. The trial would attract newspapers from across the state and beyond through the end of the decade. The story was lost to time and largely unknown to the descendants of those involved. The tale might have stayed buried in the past if not for a pulp fiction magazine that made its way back to the family some seventy years later.