Narrative Taste And Social Perspectives

This study of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus demonstrates the applicability of narrative models to drama. It presents a major contribution not only to Sophoclean criticism but to dramatic criticism as a whole. For the first time, the methods of contemporary narrative theory are thoroughly applied to the text of a single major play. Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus is presented as a uniquely rich text, which deftly uses the figure and history of the blind Oedipus to explore and thematize some of the basic narratological concerns of Greek tragedy: the relation between the narrow here-and-now of visible stage action and the many off-stage worlds that have to be mediated into it through narrative, including the past, the future, other dramatizations of the myth, and the world of the fifth-century audience.

This exciting collection addresses action and adventure from the silent to the contemporary period exploring diverse questions of aesthetics, industry and ideology. Action has established itself as one of the leading commercial genres of the New Hollywood cinema, generating extensive debate in the process. Contributors consider how action might best be defined, how it has developed historically, and how it works formally. The critical reception and standing of action and adventure cinema is considered in relation to questions of national culture, violence and the 'art' of cinema. Themes explored include genre and definitions; early action, sensation and melodrama; authorship and action; national and transnational action-adventure traditions; action aesthetics; spectacle and narrative; stars and bodies; class; gender; race and ethnicity. Attempting to evaluate the significance of this type of filmmaking for both popular cinema and film studies, the book underlines the central place of action and adventure within film history.

In the first book of Szantos trilogy, a Canadian lives a year in a Mexican village and finds his life and beliefs progressively subverted and reconstituted.

The Condesa of M. is a plot-twisting tale within a tale that explores Mexicos darker religious underworld.

�â�€�œStories of desire, chance, promise, brought from the down below. Against the rules of heaven, what hope is there?�â�€� Ted tells stories. High on a cloud above Mount Washington, he peers down at the earth, listening to the memories of the mortal folk he watches. Lola, once a famous Hollywood bombshell, now a god, listens to his stories. Ted�â�€�™s words capture her heart, just as she captured the hearts of her fans. Down on Earth, three families experience joy, tragedy, hope, and loss. Milton and Theresa are activists, conservationists, parents, lovers, fighters. Johnnie Cochan is a self-styled ecological leader, haunted by sadness and fear. And Carney is a disaster recovery specialist who can quench an oil-platform fire but finds love hard to hold onto. Through their attractions and battles, their futures become bound, as Cochan�â�€�™s vision for a new utopia, a massive construction project, threatens to rupture everything. Whatever Lola Wants is story about stories�â�€�”those we tell others, and those that fill us up. It is also about the stories we tell ourselves and the ways they make us who we are�â�€�”admired artists, despised monsters, adored immortals.

Examines differences in taste between modern French classes, discusses the relationship between culture and politics, and outlines the strategies of pretension.