The celebrity factory: new modes of fashion entrepreneurship

The aim of the paper is to analyze the contribution of celebrity culture to the re-shaping of the fashion industry, distancing from an oppositional view while embracing a systemic one, where celebrity is considered a fundamental engine of the contemporary cultural production of fashion and a global consumerist culture. The scope of our paper tries to overcome the endorsement point of view to address the relationship between celebrity and fashion as a two-way relationship which is re-wiring the fashion industry. The paper will explore the multiple manifestations of the so-called celebrity brand labels, from Kim Kardashian to Victoria Beckham

Making the Invisible Heard: German-Kurdish Cultural Organizations and Transnational Networks

The increasing corpus of theoretical literature on transnationalism remains to be applied to many of the transnational migrant communities which have developed since the advent of modern globalization. This literary essay seeks to provide a perspective on the German-Kurdish community in Berlin, and how they fit into the larger European and Kurdish contexts. It illustrates the convergence of opportunities and disadvantages that German-Kurds face in Berlin, while also investigating what it means to be a Berliner-Kurd. The literary essay accordingly explores the role of language, cultural organizations, and regional networks. In doing so, it is hoped that topics about German-Kurds and transnationalism can be highlighted for further study

Hagiography, Teratology, and the History of Michael Jackson

Before his death, Michael Jackson arguably was one of the most famous living celebrities to walk the planet. Onstage, on air, and onscreen, he captivated the attention of millions of people around the world, whether because they loved him or loved to hate him. In an attempt to explain his popularity and cultural influence, I analyze certain theoretical and methodological approaches found in recent scholarship on western hagiographic and teratological texts, and apply these theories and methods to selected biographies written on Michael Jackson. By interpreting the biographies in this way, I suggest why saints, monsters, and celebrities have received considerable attention in their respective communities, and demonstrate how public responses to these figures are contextual, constructed, and often contradictory

Charles Kingsley's 'Hypatia', visual culture and Late-Victorian gender politics

Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face was first published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1852, but was reissued in numerous book editions in the late-nineteenth century. Though often viewed as a novel depicting the religious controversies of the 1850s, Kingsley’s depiction of the life and brutal death of a strong female figure from late antiquity also sheds light on the way in which the Victorians remodeled ancient histories to explore shifting gender roles at the fin de siècle. As the book gained in popularity towards the end of the century, it was reimagined in many different cultural forms. This article demonstrates how Kingsley’s Hypatia became a global, multi-media fiction of antiquity, how it was revisioned and consumed in different written, visual and material forms (book illustrations, a play, painting and sculpture) and how this reimagining functioned within the gender politics of the 1880s and 90s. Kingsley’s novel retained a strong hold on the late-Victorian imagination, I argue, because the perpetual restaging of Hypatia’s story through different media facilitated the circulation of pressing fin-de-siècle debates about women’s education, women’s rights, and female consumerism

1. 2/3: Wood

Rampike Vol. 1 #\u27s 2 & 3 (Wood – double issue): Mike Ford, Christopher Brady, Dennis Oppenheim, Peter Gnass, Bill Vazan, John Grube, Tom Dean, Louise Nevelson, Louis Stokes, Clark Blaise, George Bowering, Frank Davey, bill bissett, Opal Nations, Ernest J. Oswald, Keith Carter, Noel Harding, Steve McCaffery, David Sharpe, Junebug Clark, Ed Niedzielski, Karl Jirgens, Brian Johnston, Steve Linn, Stephen Hogbin, Don McLeay, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Edith Van Beek, Gord Peteran, John Oughton, Colette Whiten, Lorne Fromer, Howard Hughes, Black Rubber, Eldon Garnet, Joachim Voss, Villia Jefremovas, Harold Jakonen, Terrence McCubbin, Alexis Wallrich

New frameworks in deconstructivist fashion: its categorization in three waves, application of the notions of plasticity, de-design and the inclusion of Bora Aksu and Hussein Chalayan as the third wave Turkish deconstructivist designers

This thesis analyses deconstructivist fashion in a wider framework: from the ways it is defined and its designers. Arguing against positions that classify both material and conceptual features within the single area of ‘‘deconstructivist’’ fashion, it proposes Malabou’s plasticity as an additional methodology to Derridean deconstruction. By utilizing Malabou’s plasticity and introducing the concept/process of de-design(ing), the project claims deconstruction to be a twofold process: 1.The technical de-designing of a garment 2.The conceptual deconstruction caused by the de-designed garment. In terms of its designers, the thesis applies these two processes to the unconventional garments of what it classifies as three different waves of deconstructivist fashion: Japanese, Belgian and Turkish. The thesis also proposes the emergence of a third wave deconstructivist fashion by focusing on the unconventional designs of Bora Aksu and Hussein Chalayan. To study these designs of the third wave and further examples of the previous two waves, the thesis utilizes designer and curator interviews, observation of Turkish local wears and motifs and garments displayed on exhibitions and fashion shows as primary research. The thesis focuses on the concepts of transformation/metamorphosis and culture to establish links between the third wave and the first and second wave designers as well as within the third wave itself. Further, it studies the garments of deconstructivist design from a wider framework, which positions the thesis closer to a cultural studies approach

“Crime is disease”: Contamination of Media in BBC Sherlock

This paper takes as its starting point the conceptual metaphor “crime is disease” as suggested by George Lakoff in order to advance a new reading of the BBC crime drama television series Sherlock (2010- ) based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Among over 200 film versions of Sherlock Holmes, the 2010 Masterpiece version, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, remediated the Victorian detective stories visualising Sherlock’s deductive reasoning on screen. Defined as “flagrantly unfaithful to the original in some respects” and “wonderfully loyal to [the original]” (Sutcliffe 2010), Sherlock appears to be the perfect depiction of Holmes for our times. I intend to track through these references and look at the issues – the remediation of Victorian crime from page to screen, the metamorphosis of Holmes’s character, adapting techniques in crime scenes, etc – which they raise. But my central purpose will be to re-read Sherlock from a subtitling perspective. I will analyse the linguistics of subtitling and text-reduction shifts from a cognitive perspective in order to demonstrate that crime may be conceptualised in subtitling and that Doyle’s detective stories are reproduced faithfully by audio-visual media. Through dialogues, I suggest, subtitling may be considered as a form of deduction in audio-visual crime fiction

The Hilltop 11-10-1995

https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop_902000/1147/thumbnail.jp