Melodrama after the tears : new perspectives on the politics of victimhood / Scott Loren and Jörg Mertelmann (eds).

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Loren, Scott, editor.

Metelmann, Jörg, editor.

Series:

Film culture in transition.

Film culture in transition

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Melodrama in motion pictures.

Melodrama--History and criticism.

Melodrama.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (330 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Melodrama, it is said, has expanded beyond the borders of genre and fiction to become a pervasive cultural mode. It encompasses distinct signifying practices and interpretive codes for meaning-making that help determine the parameters of identification and subject formation. From the public staging of personal suffering or the psychologization of the self in relation to consumer capitalism, to the emotionalization and sentimentalization of national politics, contributions to this volume address the following question: If melodramatic models of sense-making have become so culturally pervasive and emotionally persuasive, what is the political potential of melodramatic victimhood and where are its political limitations? This volume represents both a condensation and an expansion in the growing field of melodrama studies. It condenses elements of theory on melodrama by bringing into focus what it recognizes to be the locus for subjective identification within melodramatic narratives: the victim. On the other hand, it provides an expansion by going beyond the common methodology of primarily examining fictive works - be they from the stage, the screen or the written word - for their explicit or latent commentary on and connection to the historical contexts within which they are produced. Inspiration for the volume is rooted in a curiosity about melodramatic forms purported to increasingly characterize aspects of both the private and the social sphere in occidental and western-oriented societies.

Contents:

Cultures of Suffering and Cinematic Identities

Melodrama and Victimhood: Modern, Political and Militant / Thomas Elsaesser

When Is Melodrama "Good"? Mega-Melodrama and Victimhood / Linda Williams

Melodrama and War in Hollywood Genre Cinema / Hermann Kappelhoff

Race Interactions: Film, Melodrama, and the Ambiguities of Colorism / Christof Decker

The Purloined Letter: Ophuls after Cavell / Ulrike Hanstein

Modernity and the Melodramatic Self

The Melodrama of the Self / Eva Illouz

Rousseau's Nightmare / Vincent Kaufmann

"Emotional Suffering" as Universal Category? Victimhood and the Collective Imaginary / Jörg Metelmann

Collective Traumas and National Melodramas

Legacies of 9/11

Introduction to W.J. T. Mitchell, "The Abu Ghraib Archive" / Scott Loren

The Abu Ghraib Archive / W.J.T. Mitchell

The Melodramatic Style of American Politics / Elisabeth Anker

Tears of Testimony: Glenn Beck and the Conservative Moral Occult / Scott Loren

Holocaust Legacies

The Cultural Construction of the Holocaust Witness as a Melodramatic Hero / Amos Goldberg

Nation and Emotion: The Competition for Victimhood in Europe / Ulrich Schmid.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 22 Feb 2021).

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-003-69962-6

1-04-079392-4

90-485-2357-5

9781003699620

OCLC:

953661482