Breaking The Frames

This book argues that the breaking and re-making of frames of analysis underlie the history of theorizing in anthropology. Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew J. Strathern note that this mode of analysis risks fabricating over-essentialized dichotomies between viewpoints. The authors advocate a mindful, nuanced, people-centered approach to all theorizing-one that avoids total system approaches (-isms) and suggest that theory should relate cogently to ethnography. Mindful anthropology, as this book envisages it, is not a specific theory but a philosophical aspiration for the discipline as a whole.

Comics studies has reached a crossroads. Graphic novels have never received more attention and legitimation from scholars, but new canons and new critical discourses have created tensions within a field built on the populist rhetoric of cultural studies. As a result, comics studies has begun to cleave into distinct camps—based primarily in cultural or literary studies—that attempt to dictate the boundaries of the discipline or else resist disciplinarity itself. The consequence is a growing disconnect in the ways that comics scholars talk to each other—or, more frequently, do not talk to each other or even acknowledge each other’s work. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies surveys the current state of comics scholarship, interrogating its dominant schools, questioning their mutual estrangement, and challenging their propensity to champion the comics they study. Marc Singer advocates for greater disciplinary diversity and methodological rigor in comics studies, making the case for a field that can embrace more critical and oppositional perspectives. Working through extended readings of some of the most acclaimed comics creators—including Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Kyle Baker, and Chris Ware—Singer demonstrates how comics studies can break out of the celebratory frameworks and restrictive canons that currently define the field to produce new scholarship that expands our understanding of comics and their critics.

Comics studies has reached a crossroads. Graphic novels have never received more attention and legitimation from scholars, but new canons and new critical discourses have created tensions within a field built on the populist rhetoric of cultural studies. As a result, comics studies has begun to cleave into distinct camps—based primarily in cultural or literary studies—that attempt to dictate the boundaries of the discipline or else resist disciplinarity itself. The consequence is a growing disconnect in the ways that comics scholars talk to each other—or, more frequently, do not talk to each other or even acknowledge each other’s work. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies surveys the current state of comics scholarship, interrogating its dominant schools, questioning their mutual estrangement, and challenging their propensity to champion the comics they study. Marc Singer advocates for greater disciplinary diversity and methodological rigor in comics studies, making the case for a field that can embrace more critical and oppositional perspectives. Working through extended readings of some of the most acclaimed comics creators—including Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Kyle Baker, and Chris Ware—Singer demonstrates how comics studies can break out of the celebratory frameworks and restrictive canons that currently define the field to produce new scholarship that expands our understanding of comics and their critics.

Comics studies has reached a crossroads. Graphic novels have never received more attention and legitimation from scholars, but new canons and new critical discourses have created tensions within a field built on the populist rhetoric of cultural studies. As a result, comics studies has begun to cleave into distinct camps—based primarily in cultural or literary studies—that attempt to dictate the boundaries of the discipline or else resist disciplinarity itself. The consequence is a growing disconnect in the ways that comics scholars talk to each other—or, more frequently, do not talk to each other or even acknowledge each other’s work. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies surveys the current state of comics scholarship, interrogating its dominant schools, questioning their mutual estrangement, and challenging their propensity to champion the comics they study. Marc Singer advocates for greater disciplinary diversity and methodological rigor in comics studies, making the case for a field that can embrace more critical and oppositional perspectives. Working through extended readings of some of the most acclaimed comics creators—including Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Kyle Baker, and Chris Ware—Singer demonstrates how comics studies can break out of the celebratory frameworks and restrictive canons that currently define the field to produce new scholarship that expands our understanding of comics and their critics.

In this urgent response to violence, racism and increasingly aggressive methods of coercion, Judith Butler explores the media's portrayal of armed conflict, a process integral to how the West prosecutes its wars. In doing so, she calls for a reconceptualization of the Left, one united in opposition and resistance to the illegitimate and arbitrary effects of interventionist military action.

Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics explores how graphic narratives reframe global crises while also interrogating practices of fact-finding. An analog print phenomenon in an era shaped by digitalization, documentary comics formulates a distinct counterapproach to conventional journalism. In what ways are ‘facts’ being presented and framed? What is documentary honesty in a world of fake news and post-truth politics? How can the stories of marginalized peoples and neglected crises be told? The author investigates documentary comics in its unique relationship to framing: graphic narratives are essentially shaped by a reciprocal relationship between the manifest frames on the page and the attention to the cognitive frames that they generate. To account for both the textuality of comics and its strategic use as rhetoric, the author combines theories of framing analysis and cognitive narratology with comics studies and its attention toward the medium’s visual frames.

Frames of Protest brings together important empirical research and theoretical essays by leading sociologists, political scientists, and media specialists that focus on social movement frames and framing practices. Frames are new ways of understanding political and social relations that emphasize injustice and the need for change. As such, they are crucial for the development of social movements and protest. Frames of Protest is the only book to focus exclusively on this major research perspective in social movement and protest studies. Thirteen chapters encompass the major themes in the framing perspective to offer a state-of-the-art review. Three chapters present evidence for the determining influence of framing in social movement mobilization. Next, framing activities by the state and the mass media are analyzed. Then, two research reports examine the effect of political opportunities on framing-in Poland under the Communists and in New York City's ethnic politics. Several chapters by leading theorists present a lively debate about the relationship of ideologies to collective action frames. The book closes with a hands-on discussion about analyzing textual materials and interview transcripts to do frame analysis that lends itself to longitudinal and cross-case comparisons.

Mary Ann Caws presents in detail an important feature of modern literary narrative--the setting apart of passages that stand out from the flow of the prose, larger-than-life scenes that seem to hold the essence of the work. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.