Bakhtin carnival and the grotesque body

Bakhtine a décrit le carnaval comme un espace utopique, populiste et festif. Mon propos est que le Grand Magal, un événement religieux mouride au Sénégal ainsi qu'une fête nationale populaire, partage de nombreux parallèles notables avec le carnaval, un argument qui permet de mieux comprendre son importance de même que sa nature. Tout comme le carnaval, le Grand Magal est un espace contradictoire où les oppositions binaires s'estompent : les participants y célèbrent non seulement leur foi mais aussi leur existence humaine en embrassant les plaisirs mondains. Temporairement libérée des règles et des rôles habituels dictés par la vie quotidienne, la communauté mouride peut envisager le futur et le renouvellement, et ainsi échapper aux difficultés de la réalité. Fondée en 1887 par le Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba – fondateur du mouvement soufi musulman – à la suite d'une vision sacrée, la ville de Touba, au Sénégal, est le centre spirituel des Mourides. Chaque 18 Safar, au mois de novembre, environ 4 à 5 millions de Soufis font leur pèlerinage – leur zyara – à Touba. Celui-ci se nomme le Grand Magal : le Magal Gu Ma en wolof. Mag signifie « être important » ou « être vieux ». Magal peut donc être traduit par « célébration » ou « anniversaire » (Coulon 1999 : 196). Pendant le Magal, les disciples mourides – les talibés – font une circumambulation autour des monuments associés au Fondateur, tels que sa tombe, qui se trouve dans la grande mosquée construite en son honneur. Ils présentent des offrandes à leurs marabouts et surtout font des oblations au Khalife Général, qui est

This article explores space imagery in the music of George
Clinton and David Bowie and argues that different horizons of Black and
white terrestrial experience give rise to divergent astral imaginaries.
Analysis of song lyrics, liner notes, and statements by the artists in light
of their social contexts and the theoretical lens of Bakhtin’s grotesque
body shows that Bowie models white imaginations of evolutionary
transcendence in contrast to Clinton as provocateur of a Black
carnivalesque seeking liberation from lived inequality.

This paper reworks a chapter of my PhD thesis where I discussed some emergences of carnival fights in Moniage Guillaume long (MGl); the imagery was linked to ritual anthropogenetic practices, finally refracted in “archetypal” plots. Here, it is more specifically identified as the reverberation of Carnival-Lent fights. On this basis I carefully propose to predate such representations, shedding new light on some remarks by Le Goff and nuancing the majority position in this regard (e.g. Bertolotti 1991). Furthermore, a glance on Enfances Guillaume provides a new framework for MGl. The fight with the double is seen as à deux tranchants: 1) heroic initiation; 2) potential of a parodic dialogue: co-essential polarities in the dialectic identifi cational process of a complex character-sign.

מחקר זה  מתמקד בטוקבקים התגובות שישראלים כותבים באתרי אינטרנט, ובמונח המתאר זירה תקשורתית זו. לאור ניתוח פרשני של תגובות כאלה בעשר השנים האחרונות המאמר מתחיל בתיאור הפוטנציאל הקרנבלי הקיים בטוקבקים. אלה יכולים לממש את הקרנבל הבכטיניאני, כשהם מדגישים את הנמוך, הגופני ובייחוד את הפתיחות, השוויוניות וחוסר הכבוד לעמדות כוח. ממדים קרנבליים אלה היו יכולים להפוך את זירת הטוקבק לזירה דמוקרטית מלאה, שלא כמרחב הציבורי הבורגני, אולם מהטוקבקים נעדרים שני אלמנטים חשובים: צחוק משחרר ופעולה חברתית חוץ-לשונית.
חלקו השני של המאמר מתאר את מילת המפתח "טוקבק" בתוך מארג מילות המפתח הישראליות. הטוקבק כמילת מפתח מתאר זירה תקשורתית שבה המשתתפים מציגים זהות פוליטית על ידי הכפשת הצד הפוליטי ההפוך להם, בדרך כלל ללא הבעת דעה או ביסוסה. הטוקבק הוא טקס כסאחיסטי של אנטי-פראיירים שכל עניינם לקטֵר. כך הטוקבק ומארג מילות המפתח הישראלי מאפשרים קיומה של תרבות דמוקרטית מוגבלת, המקיימת שיח פוליטי ער הנעדר פתיחות לשינוי דעה והנעה לפעולה חברתית – אלמנטים חשובים בדמוקרטיה.

pp. 17-43.

This chapter tracks how Halloween and Day of the Dead have increasingly entangled across the U.S./Mexican Borderlands throughout the 2010s.  It then reviews the scholarly disputes over whether these two holidays enjoy genuinely pre-colonial indigenous origins or strictly Medieval European ones; yet though the two camps may disagree vociferously, they nevertheless both still conclude that these holidays engage in anti-colonial resistances, since they belie the erasure of native peoples.  Then, by means of Octavio Paz’s The Labyrinth of Solitude, this discussion pivots to an examination of how the dead resist colonialism in literature; of necessity, this argument also draws upon (and critiques) Bakhtin’s theory of the Carnivalesque as it can be applied to both holidays.

This article analyzes three characters created by Astrid Lindgren, Pamela
L. Travers, and Jan Brzechwa. Pippi Longstocking, Mary Poppins, and
Mr. Inkblot, the title characters of classic fantasy fiction for children, are discussed through their appearances, identity, as well as status and interpreted as embodiments of a fool defined as the central figure of carnivalesque in accordance to Mikhail Bakhtin theory.

This academic work evidences the proposal of Míjail Bakhtin regarding the concept of carnival as space for encounters and rupture through the interactions of dynamic characters, parody and choral stories.

This essay connects Bakhtin's work with the novel "El rincón de los justos", by Jorge Velasco Mackenzie, in which pages the space is used to delimitate time and actions. This novel shows a dystopian cosmovision based on the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, which is seen as a place surrounded by marginality and chaos.

Il contributo intende ripercorre l’Εἰρήνη aristofanea in una retrospettiva data dall’apporto del centrale L’opera di Rabelais e la cultura popolare. Riso, carnevale e festa nella tradizione medievale e rinascimentale, di Michail Bachtin (1895-1975), sulla scia degli studi di Wolfgang Rösler e Bernhard Zimmermann. Sfruttando come strumento critico la teorizzazione dell’essenza della festa carnevalesca, con i suoi elementi principali, le sue occasioni, le sue forme e le sue ragioni, ci si propone una lettura della commedia alla specola dei principi teorico-critici illustrati nell’Opera di Rabelais, cercando di delineare il particolare rapporto dell’uomo aristofaneo con il senso che permea la sorte di ciascuno e sembra governare le invisibili trame del destino e della storia.
In particolare, l’analisi si focalizza sulle scene rappresentate nella commedia, sugli elementi costitutivi e peculiari di queste e sul valore antropologico che l’agone comico poteva avere presso i Greci. Secondo questa via esegetica, il destino dell’uomo aristofaneo, durante il periodo della festa cittadina in cui si rappresenta la commedia, è all’insegna di un’“utopia fantastica” in cui il δῆμος è in grado di autodeterminarsi ed autogovernarsi. L’ésprit che viene a crearsi in questa situazione è quello del “sentimento carnevalesco del mondo”, il quale permette il capovolgimento secondo una “scoronazione carnevalesca”, dalla quale nasce una sorta di vuoto che viene preso dal popolo, unico responsabile di se stesso in questa parentesi temporanea. Il personaggio di Trigeo, in particolare, è il promotore del “rovesciamento”: sfidando paratragicamente gli dèi, egli conquista la pace per il suo popolo, riportando così in Grecia i tempi di benessere. Il tutto viene celebrato con un banchetto (il simbolico banchetto nuziale di Trigeo ed Opora), altro elemento di centrale importanza tanto nella commedia quanto nell’analisi bachtiniana, la quale permette di interpretarlo come la celebrazione della “conclusione sempre gravida di un principio nuovo” tipica della festa popolare.

En este artículo, publicado en New Left Review, Nº 216 (marzo/abril 1996), Craig Brandist compara el trabajo de Antonio Gramsci y de Mikhail Bajtín, quienes, aunque desde vertientes diferentes, se basaron en el trabajo de Benedetto Croce para atacar -en el caso del primero- a la dictadura fascista y -en el del segundo- a la dictadura estalinista.

I explore the mutually enriching dialogue between the grotesque (based on Mikhail Bakhtin) and postcolonial literature that provides a leitmotif in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses on multiple levels: first and foremost, it defines the migrant protagonists’ experience as one of metamorphosis, transgression and change; in the grotesque just as in the experience of migration, the familiar and the unfamiliar conflate, and this is foregrounded in The Satanic Verses in striking manner: the protagonists Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta transform physically into grotesquely jointed creatures, one an incarnation of the archangelic divine, the other a goatish Satan. In so, the often violent physicality of the grotesque foregrounds the migrant’s identity formation to be one in which the self not only encounters, but physically integrates and eventually transforms constructions of alterity. In very concise terms, identity here emerges to be a relational process, and this is the reason, too, why the grotesque has been hailed as a new form of postcolonial ethics (Majumdar 99) concerned with representations of alterity. The grotesque, however, is also a transformatory force, which overtopples hierarchies and binary oppositions. In The Satanic Verses, the migrant protagonists are thus empowered, by way of their transformations, not only to cross but temporarily to displace borders; their chimerical forms interact with the narrative structure and multiple voices of the text to question the value of cultural hierarchies and divides. The grotesque opens up these borderlines into spaces of hybridity and creative energy, and takes effect, too, on the discourses of fundamentalism that are deconstructed in the text itself and became decisive in the notoriously dramatic aftermath of its publication.

This paper will focus on how the rise in popularity of zombie literature in the 21 st century is reflective of a western cultural need to address the fear of the unknown through popular culture. Through the flesh-eating zombie, we enter a parallel world where everything familiar in our communities becomes evil. The genre reflects the fear in Western society of the neighbor who has turned against you, survival in the midst of government collapse, and the monster within. Zombie fantasy literature allows society a venue to deconstruct what is known while dealing with these fears and the unbridled hate of the unthinking zombie through a collective experience using popular culture. What this fantasy subgenre allows, the author will explain, is a monster that embodies an individual human's greatest fears. At times, the zombie reflects the fear of social breakdown; at others, the zombie reflects aging and death. The versatility of this embodiment of fear allows it to be a genre that continues to evolve. Using the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin on carnival and festive folk humor, the author will discuss how the zombie genre has provided fantasy lovers a desconstructive space to deal with fear, death, and hate in a genre that breaks down what western society has constructed for itself, and also allows readers to rebuild the future without constraint. Zombies, however, always leave room for humanity to hope for life and the future. This popular culture phenomenon goes beyond mere entertainment as it reaches into the heart of viewers and allows them to express their greatest emotions.

Final and Published version :
“Il potere delle batutte : transformazione sociale, cultura popolare e media nell’Albania post-socialista.” in ed.
Antonio d’Alessandri, Armando Pitassio, Dopo la Pioggia. Gli Stati della ex Jugoslavia e l'Albania
(1991 - 2011), Italia: Argo, AISSEE, Octobre 2011, pp. 379-394.

Fotocinema. Revista Científica de Cine y Fotografía [en ligne], n° 5, octobre 2012, p. 94-111.

En 2009, durante el rodaje de Los abrazos rotos, Pedro Almodóvar dirige un cortometraje cómico, La concejala antropófaga, pretexto a un juego de reescritura paródica y emblemático de las conexiones transtextuales que se establecen en toda la producción almodovariana. Este artículo se propone esbozar un análisis del relato fílmico desde la perspectiva grotesca bajtiniana. Se tratará de determinar en qué medida sexo, política y canibalismo se conjugan para forjar una figura grotesca propicia a una celebración de la materialidad del cuerpo, celebración teñida de sátira política. El personaje de la concejala golosa, cocainómana y ninfómana se caracteriza por una tendencia al desbordamiento – físico y verbal – y un exceso de vitalidad sintomáticos de la relación dialógica que ella mantiene con el mundo. Figura humana con vigor sobrehumano, aparece como un ser híbrido y monstruoso, un organismo excéntrico en el sentido grotesco del término, ansioso de devorar literalmente el mundo. Tal exaltación del cuerpo grotesco se plasma en un monólogo a medio camino entre la confesión íntima y el discurso político, verdadera sátira de la retórica derechista.

Yirminci yüzyılın en başarılı yönetmenlerinden Luis Buñuel’in İspanya İç Savaşı’nı deneyimleyen, Paris’ten Hollywood’a, oradan da Meksika’ya kadar uzanan, düş gücüyle sarmalanmış yaşamı, yalnızlıkla ve muzırlıklarla doludur. Buñuel’in kendini ciddiye alan her şeyi bir hamlede alaşağı eden gerçeküstücü ve muzır sinema dili en çok burjuvaziyi hedef
almıştır. Yönetmenin karşısına aldığı din, aile, devlet, okul gibi kurumların burjuva dünyası içindeki rolünü mizahi bir dille sorgulayan tutumu, hemen her filminde kendini göstermiştir. Buñuel’in bu ‘bilinen’ tutumunun altında ölümü ve erotizmi uzlaştıran bir öz vardır. Georges Bataille’a göre de ölüm ve erotizm birliği, gülmenin ve hıçkırığın düzensizliği içinde,
“şiddetin ve benliği aşan zevkin taşkınlığı içinde, korkunun ve coşkunun benzerliğiyle” kavranır. İnsanı korkunun içine hapseden şey aynı zamanda onu kurtaran şeydir. Buñuel’in başvurduğu sanat simsarlığı, iki zıt kutup olarak görünen gerçekliğin, ölümün ve erotizmin buluştuğu zor yakalanır noktada, sado-mazoşist ve nevrotik nekrofil fantezilerle,
gerçeküstücülüğün abject (murdar) çehresine katkıda bulunmuştur.
Bu kitapta, Buñuel filmlerinde ölümün erotizme bağlanma noktası; filmlerde kullanılan mekânların karakter çeşitliliğiyle kazanılan karnavalesk özün yaşam ve ölüm devinimine olan katkısı; Bataillean ölüm ve erotizm birliği düşüncesiyle açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır. Buñuel
sinemasına farklı bir pencereden bakan Evrim Nacar, ölüm ve erotizm arasında dengesini bulmuş yönetmenin hayatının farklı dönemlerine ait dört filminin gizlerine tanıklık etmeye çabalamıştır.

Abstract
The book, told with the tone of dark humour, is of a bourgeoisie mass, who despite not appropriating sexuality as “evil” are nevertheless are unable to rid themselves of sadomasochistic games and neurotic necrophiliac fantasies, and the self-absorbed lives of the clergy which hang in the balance of their wealth. This work, siding with the ranks of “praise the chains” against the discourse of freedom of the bourgeoisie, tries to explain dark humour, which is a tool to intensify Bunuel’s criticism against certain classes, with the aid juxtaposition of death and eroticism and the carnivalesque theory.

This article argues that a Russian analytical paradigm of carnival culture can help explain the successful presidential campaign of President Donald J. Trump. Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin developed the notion of carnival culture while analyzing Francois Rabelais' work and its connection to the popular culture of Renaissance. Carnival ethos stood in opposition to the 'official' and 'serious' church sanctioned and feudal culture, by bringing out folklore and different forms of folk laughter that Bakhtin denoted as carnival. Carnival culture with its opposition to the official buttoned-up discourse is supposed to be polar opposite, distinguished by anti-ideology and anti-authority, in other words, anti-establishment – the foundation of Trump's appeal to his voters. This article examines the core characteristics of carnival culture that defined Trump's presidential campaign from the start.

Chapter published in
Junkanoo and religion : Christianity and cultural identity in The Bahamas : papers presented at the Junkanoo Symposium, March 2002

Author: College of the Bahamas. Department of Religious Studies.
Publisher: Nassau, Bahamas : Media Enterprises Ltd., 2003.
Edition/Format:   Print book : Conference publication : EnglishView all editions and formats
Database: WorldCat
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Subjects
Jonkonnu (Festival) -- Bahamas.
Religion and culture -- Bahamas.
Christianity and culture -- Bahamas.
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The aim of this essay is to give a brief introduction on Marches of the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, and Transsexual Community (abbreviated with LGBT). First of all, the problematic of “authentically homosexual” space (Bell et al. qtd. in Hold and Griffin 409) in relation to the emergence of the queer scene is discussed. Consequently, this space must be appropriated in order to serve the needs of the LGBT-community. Due to the fact that “the dancefloor has always been a holy place”, the appropriation of space is demonstrated with the example of music in gay clubs (Gill 134 qtd. in J. Taylor 175). Since LGBT-parades show certain similarities with carnival, the fourth section of this essay is then devoted to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival. Bakhtin’s hypothesis is that carnival “buries and revives” (12) the dominant system. Carnival does both, it weakens but also strengthens the dominant system. Therefore, Gay-parades can be also considered as a catalyst of political antagonism (Stallybrass and White qtd. in Lundberg 187).

Die Kritik an den bestehenden sozialen Verhältnissen im vorrevolutionären Deutschland zählt zu den zentralen Themen des prägnanten Werks Georg Büchners. In seinen Dramen denunziert er die Heuchelei und Frivolität der oberen Klassen sowie ihre Unterdrückung der ärmeren Schichten zur Befestigung der sozialen Hierarchien. In Anlehnung an die Arbeiten Martins (2015, 2017) zur entstehungsgeschichtlichen und konzeptionellen Parallelität von Georg Büchners letzten Dramen Leonce und Lena und Woyzeck wird im vorliegenden Beitrag versucht, die Rolle der Ästhetik des Grotesken bei der Darstellung sozialer Umstände in den erwähnten Stücken Büchners zu bestimmen. Der Fokus der Untersuchung liegt auf den grotesken Elementen und Motiven bei der Darstellung der unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Sphären. Dazu zählen u.a. die Automaten, die Aufhebung der Grenzen zwischen Tieren und Menschen sowie der Wahnsinn des Titelhelden in Woyzeck. Dabei werden die Theorien Kaysers und Bachtins zum Grotesken herangezogen, die exemplarisch die Ambivalenz dieser ästhetischen Kategorie zeigen.

Author tries to interpret Bakhtin’s thought as a certain philosophical proposal, behind the canon of numbering him among representatives of philosophy of dialogue. This proposal, however interesting, has probably not been noticed so far, what proves inspirational power of Bakhtin’s works. The key term in his "Rabelais and his world" is the “grotesque realism”. Although, Bakhtin puts this term initially in the context of historical and poetical peculiarity of Rabelais’ work, we can clearly see Russian philosopher growing tendency towards explicating grotesque realism as a general philosophical approach, as an original formula of philosophical materialism. The author, making use of this situation, brings into his article the concept of “grotesque materialism”, as a Bakhtin’s philosophical proposal, characterized by peculiar and original – in the light of whole philosophical materialism tradition – understanding the substance as a indivisible unity of what is eternal, social (cultural) and physical, as a whole which does not allow isolation and alienation of its elements, as a vivid power which grows, creates and revives, as an issue perceived positively and affirmatively.

Автор интерпретирует творчество Бахтина как в некотором роде философское предложение, выходя при этом за правило видеть Бахтина как представителя философии диалога. Этого предложения до сих пор пожалуй не замечается, оно совсем интересное, и во всяком случае доказывает инспирационной силы сочинений Бахтина. Центральным термином "Творчества Франсуа Рабле" является „гротескный реализм”. И хотя Бахтин помещает его сначала в контексте исторической поэтики и литературного содержания произведения Рабле, то вместе с этом легко увидеть – всё больше нарастающее – понимание гротескного реализма как мировоззрения, как своеобразной формы философского материализма. Автор статьи, используя это, вводит термин „гротескный материализм” как именно некоторое философское предложение Бахтина, в котором мы находим особенное, оригинальное – по сравнению со всей традицией философского материализма – понимание материи как целостного, неразрывного единсва того, что космическое, общественное (культурное) и чуственное, как целого не позволяющего на обособление своих элементов, как силы живой, растующей, рождающей, воскресающей; воспринимающей положительно и афирмативно.

Autor stara się zinterpretować myśl Bachtina jako pewną propozycję filozoficzną, wychodząc przy tym poza kanon zaliczania rosyjskiego myśliciela do filozofii dialogu. Byłaby to propozycja niezbyt chyba dotychczas dostrzegana, dosyć interesująca, a w każdym razie dowodząca inspiracyjnej mocy prac Bachtina. I tak kluczowym terminem w Bachtinowskiej "Twórczości Franciszka Rabelais’go" jest „realizm groteskowy”. Choć pojęcie „realizm groteskowy” umieszcza Bachtin wyjściowo w kontekście poetyki historycznej oraz literackiej swoistości dzieła Rabelais’go, to zarazem wyraźnie obecne jest w pracy rosyjskiego myśliciela – i to w sposób narastający – objaśnianie realizmu groteskowego jako stanowiska światopoglądowego, jako w istocie pewnej oryginalnej formuły materializmu filozoficznego.
Autor artykułu, wykorzystując tę sytuację, wprowadza określenie „materializm groteskowy” jako właśnie pewną propozycję filozoficzną Bachtina, charakteryzującą się swoistym i oryginalnym – na tle całej tradycji materializmu filozoficznego – rozumieniem materii jako całościowej, nierozerwalnej jedności tego, co kosmiczne, społeczne (kulturowe) i cielesne, jako całości nie dopuszczającej do izolacji i wyobcowania swych elementów, jako siły żywej, rosnącej, rodzącej i wskrzeszającej, postrzeganej pozytywnie i afirmatywnie.

I have grown quite passionate with the never-dying clown figures, the medium of carnival: they always fall down, they are hit to death, but they always rise up. Starting from Bakhtin’s Rabelais-monography, I have tried to identify some key elements and significant features: _how they show up in ritualistic performances, in apophatic system criticism, in the lonely role of the homo sacer status, transgressing the borders of law, the limits of reason and the frontiers of death. In the Renaissance, the concept of folly comprise simultaneous meanings and bring them into play repeatedly (several times pointed out by Foucault and Bakhtin).  Shakespeare, the cunning theatre manager, seems to have remained faithful to the popular tradition and the carnivalesque legacy of clowns. In Hamlet, the Gravediggers, the genuine clowns of the play, bring about a turning point in the drama, in King Lear the question seems to be how we can relate to Lear as a fool, and to his Fool, who is a fool.  Are we able to discern the ritual clowns in tricksters of Shakespeare's comedies? Feste and Malvolio in Twelfth Night; or, What You Will are highly typical clown partners on the stage: one always disciplining, the other always misbehaving; this is Father against Brat, Dictator against Revolutionist, always stern and somber Death against always defeated, and still victorious Life. How does this opposition shape the whole play according to the Bakhtinian concept of carnival?

Since 1990, The Simpsons’ annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes have constituted a production sub-context within the series, having their own conventions and historical trajectory. These specials incorporate horror plots and devices, as well as general references to science fiction, into the series’ base in situation comedy. The Halloween specials disrupt the series usual family-oriented sitcom structure, dissolving the ideological balances that stabilise that society. By depicting the Family and community in extreme circumstances, in seeing the horror of ‘how things could be’, the Treehouse episode leave us with hanging questions about the nature of social being that bleed into the regular sitcom-style episodes. By breaking from the comparatively realistic social-satire that characterizes the series as a whole, the Halloween specials cast a reflexive gaze back onto “The Simpsons” itself. As a result, the “Treehouse” episodes are valuable as a means of examining the strategies and implications of the series as a whole. Bakhtin’s model of the carnivalesque is utilised to underscore these disruptive traits that characterise the Treehouse episodes.

The antihero Harley Quinn was first introduced as the Joker's "henchwench" in Batman: The Animated Series (1992). The character soon developed a dedicated fan base, including enthusiasts who did not conform to traditional definitions of comic book fans. Recognizing Harley Quinn's popularity, DC Comics subsequently incorporated the character into comic book continuity. Today, Harley Quinn is a transmedia icon extended across multiple media platforms. In this article, audience research and creator interviews were performed to show how Harley Quinn has been used by both fans and industry stakeholders to transform long-standing (and often outdated) definitions of comic book fandom. Much of Harley Quinn's transformative potential comes from invoking a carnivalesque tradition that defies boundaries. Harley Quinn's popularity is not simply symptomatic of a widening comic book fandom but was active in that transformation.

I have a longstanding interest in John Ruskin’s writings about work and craftsmanship, which influenced Gandhi’s philosophy. In recent years I have been intrigued by Ruskin’s seminal work on the “grotesque.” His ideas fed into the modern arts of caricatures, the sketchiness and rough unfinished quality in modern paintings.  Ruskin recognized the vitality in spontaneous playfully weird images, like gargoyles and cartoons. My interest in C. G. Jung’s and James Hillman’s depth psychology exploring archetypal images also relates to Ruskin’s ideas about fantasies and the fantastic, about dominant imaginative ideas that predate the term “archetype.” Furthermore, Ruskin’s interest in the Gothic in architecture and other areas gave me incentive and curiosity to explore the Gothic style and today’s Goths. I find the scholarship on these topics to be rich and thought-provoking, worth deeper exploration, as my extensive endnotes suggest. I started exploring Ruskin’s ideas on grotesques, and after over four decades the topic continues to attract me. I find that Archetypes can be explored in many ways—in song lyrics and saints’ biographies, in writings about compassion and helping others, in trickster figures, and in grotesque imagery.

On pourra définir l'effet grotesque comme ce vertige particulier qui s'empare du récepteur et le déstabilise –au moins provisoirement– par l'intrusion d'éléments (images, codes linguistiques, éléments habituellement antagonistes et exclusifs les uns des autres, etc.) qui perturbent sa perception normale et les conditions habituelles du sens.

Largely unburdened by the pressures of patronage and designed to supply a growing public demand for pictures of all sorts, early modern prints have long been recognized as  forum for singularly imaginative expression. Even within this circumscribed category of artistic production, ornament prints—encompassing a wide range of printed works that could be used as the basis for decorative projects and that were collected as independent art works in their own right—stand out for embodying some of the medium’s most fanciful statements. Ornament prints are regularly studied for insights into the history of style and design, but they have rarely been examined for their unusual imagery or for what that imagery can tell us about their distinctive brand of fantasy. Focusing on a 1635 print by Isaac Briot after a decorative design by the goldsmith Pierre Delabarre, which shows a Commedia dell’Arte figure carrying a floral motif on his back and a boy aiming bellows at his rear, this essay shows that the creators of ornament prints marshaled ideas about wind and air—often bawdy and scatological—to give expression to what was exceptional about their inventions.

There exists a specific genre of grotesque meme art on Instagram. Created, curated and appropriated by an Anglophone community of multi-media artists (i.e. @djinn_kazama, @males_are_cancelled2, @thebottomtext, @patiasfantasyworld, @aquarium.drinker), these memes seek to alienate Instagram’s mainstream, viral-meme consuming audience through grotesque aesthetics and transgressive subject matters. This essay will explore the aesthetic and semantic composition of these memes and their position in the digital marketplace through the lens of ‘the Grotesque and Carnivalesque’ (Bakhtin 1965, Milner 2016, Milner and Phillips 2017, Seta 2019) and ultimately suggest that the grotesque meme is the product of a ‘digital carnival’.
In the medieval carnival, social hierarchies are toppled and replaced by a mode of expression that favours marginalised and traditionally silenced voices (Bakhtin 1965, 15). These voices employ grotesque parody to debase ideas of bodily functions, cultural objects, norms, and figures, temporally subverting mainstream culture with the use of a vulgar form of speech. This mode of communication is inextricably tied to the concepts of ambivalent, all-encompassing “festive laughter” and the crude language of the marketplace, or “billingsgate”. Festive laughter echoes through the internet incessantly, instead of being limited to the temporal confines of the physical carnival. While the digital market, where virality, engagement and online visibility is both the currency and the object of transaction, generates a boundless and rhizomatic digital marketplace talk. Grotesque memes are borne of this digital billingsgate and never-ending festive laughter, as grotesque realism was out of the medieval marketplace and carnival.
The community of meme artists who create and disseminate grotesque memes are made up of mostly queer people of colour, often working creative yet precarious jobs. They offer services and products, beyond memes, on a multi-platform marketplace, and have to maintain a constant presence in this marketplace in order to make a living. Here, they wield significant influence, or “clout”, in contrast to their relative lack of social and economic power within dominant institutions in the creative industries. This digital marketplace tended to by precariously situated meme artists is open and active all hours of the day, everyday. It has its own vulgar and crude mode of communication which also feeds into and from the festive laughter of the continuous carnival, constantly bubbling away on the internet. Their memes exhibit a self-confessed and intentional garishness which stand in opposition to the aspirational aesthetics of mainstream social media influencers, yet coexist on the same platform and utilise a similar entrepreneurial logic. They laugh at this aspirational spirit widespread on social media platforms, but also laugh at themselves for contributing to it too, in true carnivalesque fashion. 
This essay, which is based on my doctoral research, will consider these similarities between the Bakhtinian conceptualisation of the carnival and this particular meme marketplace. It will trace festive laughter, billingsgate and grotesque realism from the medieval carnival into digital platforms with the use of a subgenre of Instagram memes.

Le grotesque est un effet et non un fait. Partant de ce constat, cette étude se présente comme un essai d'interprétation de cette expérience existentielle que serait le grotesque avant d'être une catégorie esthétique. Rémi Astruc propose de voir dans le grotesque un mécanisme anthropologique fondamental que les sociétés mettent en place pour penser l'altérité et le changement. Le grotesque en art serait ainsi le moyen d'exposer une éthique dans la modernité, indissociable d'une esthétique.

During the latter decades of the twentieth century there was a steady rise in the number of event-specific festivals that were designed to broaden the participation of Australian audiences in new forms of community-based entertainment. 

This investigation explains how the processual phases of Paulo Freire’s conscientização process were applied as guiding principles within the context of an event-specific theatre-making project that involved multiple cohorts of undergraduate participants over an eight-year period.  The thesis is grounded in the empirical experience of their cultural praxis as theatre-makers who collaborated to devise and present street theatre, parades, and cabarets for performance amongst V8 motor sport enthusiasts.

Recent literature concerning critical performance autoethnography is reviewed.  Ethnohistoric primary source documentation is used to develop a multi-case study that examines how certain categories of embedded theory - conscientização, the carnivalesque aesthetic, popular theatre theory, and permaculture design principles – contributed to the evolvement of a new approach for guiding the work of devising original entertainments for event-specific popular audiences. 

This investigation demonstrates how Baz Kershaw’s theoretical/conceptual categories concerning ‘the dialectical processes of community-based performance’ and ‘the radical in performance’ can be used as analytic tools for critically evaluating instances of ‘performance beyond theatre’.  This line of inquiry results in the articulation of new propositions for the processual conduct of devising event-specific entertainments.

Five conclusions concerning practice as research into performance are drawn from this study.  (1) When grounded in ethnohistoric primary source documentation, critical performance autoethnography offers theatre practitioners a new epistemic stance for using their own theatre practice as the basis for conducting theoretical/conceptual research into live performance.  (2) The conscientização process, as characterised by Paulo Freire, provides a pertinent guide for the conduct of dramaturgical research that is designed to generate original entertainments for event-specific popular audiences.  (3) When applied as informing principles for production processes that are designed for these purposes, the conscientização process displays conceptual symmetries with the characteristic phases of theatre production.  (4) Kershaw’s propositions concerning ‘the dialectical processes of community-based performance’ and ‘the radical in performance’ represent cogent new principles that can be used for guiding pre-production dramaturgical research as well as providing analytic categories for interrogating performative outcomes.  (5) When attention is paid to Kershaw’s ‘points of process’ concerning the ‘radical in performance’, those processes will promote the conscientização of theatre-makers as they labour to devise original entertainments for performance amongst event specific popular audiences.

Keywords: conscientização; conscientisation; devised performance; the ‘radical in performance’; event-specific theatre; popular theatre; the carnivalesque; permaculture design principles; ecologies of performance; qualitative research; theoretical/conceptual research; critical performance autoethnography; embedded multi-case study.

Language: English
Document Type: Research Thesis (PhD)

Maîtrise en Études anciennes, concentration littératures anciennes, Maître ès arts (M.A.) Québec, Canada

Sous la direction du professeur Alban Baudou

Perse débute son œuvre en rejetant systématiquement toutes les sources inspiratrices traditionnelles, dont la fontaine d'Hyppocrène, ce qui lui donne l'occasion de traiter Pégase de « canasson ». Alors que les interprétations d'ensemble réalisées par le passé sont faussées par une appréciation minimisant la construction systématique des « Satires », l'objectif de cette étude est de démontrer que leur thème unificateur est la critique de la production / transmission et de la consommation de la littérature à l'époque néronienne.

Dans le premier chapitre, en démontrant l'omniprésence des processus d'imitation et d'émulation dans le texte, puis en mettant au jour leur complexité et leur richesse sémantique, nous exposons la métatextualité des « Satires », confirmant notre hypothèse de départ. L’analyse des « Satires » dans le cadre théorique du grotesque bakhtinien conduit dans un deuxième temps à révéler que le vice et la vertu y sont appariés respectivement à la mauvaise et à la bonne littérature et que Perse vise à détruire la première grâce à la philosophie. Par l'analyse de ce message subversif sous-jacent, nous expliquons quels sont les effets négatifs de la mauvaise littérature et les façons dont il faut s'y prendre pour la contrer. Dans le troisième chapitre enfin, grâce aux énoncés programmatiques et à diverses analyses stylistiques, nous donnons à connaître la cible de Perse: les poètes urbains philhellènes, cancres littéraires avides et présomptueux. Le style de Perse, en revanche, se distingue par son audace, son aspect « mordax », sa modestie et sa romanité issue du « mos maiorum ». 

Grâce à notre étude, la cohérence des « Satires », trop souvent tenues pour composites, apparaît nettement.

What is street art? This paper offers a definition of street art as an art kind or art form based on its essential value: its subversiveness. It argues that street art is essentially subversive partly in virtue of using public space as a technical resource. By hijacking a portion of the urban landscape with its colorful forms and witty designs, street art challenges familiar ways of practicing the city, while creating ‘temporary autonomous zone’ of free expression. There, corporate control over the city’s visible surfaces is ridiculed and people reclaim their right to use the city. In this sense, street art functions as a carnivalesque tactic of social resistance, favoring the emergence of alternative ways to imagine our urban life and our uses of public space. By considering its subversiveness, one can also explain how street art, one the one hand, significantly differs from official public art while, on the other, including graffiti as its original and most radical style.

This article examines Henri Lefebvre's concept of revolution-as-festival, its textual sources and its relationship to contemporary notions developed by Georges Bataille and the Situationist International. It is a companion-piece to the examination of Bataille's revolution-as-festival in Third Text 104, vol 24, no 3, May 2010. The author argues that Lefebvre's revolution-as-festival embodies the multiple methodological ambiguities of his ‘open’ dialectical approach, and his attempt to transplant Surrealist and Dadaist concerns into a Marxian framework. It is, paradoxically, these ambiguities that allow his revolution-as-festival to become a useful concept: firstly as a discursive making-visible and valorization of the art and culture of social movements; and secondly as a term through which to critically re-imagine this art and culture's limits and possibilities. This potential is borne out, not least, in the influence of Lefebvre's essay ‘Revolutionary Romanticism’ on the founding debates of the Situationist International.