عنوان

Margins of (t)error :

TLets295764

Margins of (t)error :

[Thesis]

Harbord, Janet.

film, postmodernism and the ideology of signification.

University of Sussex

1992

Ph.D.

University of Sussex

1992

This thesis is an examination of the intersection of mainstreamAmerican film, and postmodern theories of changes in economicand cultural formations, read through the prism of feministdiscourse.The work examines the genre of postmodern film developed bymainstream American studios over the past ten years, askingquestions of what a postmodern film text may mean, and how itrelates to postmodern theory. The thesis presents the analysisin two parts in each section, the first a discussion ofparticular aspects of postmodern theory, the second a closetextual reading of two films. The claims of postmodernism for atheory and culture that celebrates diversity and rejectshierarchy are countered by various analyses from culturalmaterialism, feminism and ethnography. The methodology of filmanalysis is derived from what has become an orthodox feministfilm theory developed in the last twenty years in Screen.The first section examines the imaging of technology and massconsumption in the work of Baudr i Ll.a r d , Jameson and Lyotard,and in the genre of the horror film. The second sectionexplores claims of the deconstruction of structures thatdetermine what is regarded as culturally central and what isregarded as culturally marginal. The discussion focusses on twoareas; the positioning of the Third lvorld subject in postmoderndebate. Secondly, the fetishisation of others - here the blacksubject as representation, and the marginalisation ofmarginal groups from cultural production. The third sectionexamines the process of reading and the interpellation of thesubject into the (visual or written) text. Questions hereaddress the theoretical model of subjectivity in postmoderntexts, and the framework of enunciation in cinema. The lastsection problematises the figurative language of postmodernism,drawing out the implications of a language and imagery ofviolence and apocalypse, and suggests a politics ofpositionality for future discussion.

Feminism; American cinema

Harbord, Janet.

University of Sussex

p

[Thesis]

276903

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