‘Everything is awesome’: The LEGO movie and the affective politics of security

Scholarship on the finance-security nexus has typically been concerned with ‘first order’ phenomena, such as the interpenetration of the finance and security sectors. This article contributes to the debate by turning to an apparent epiphenomenon, namely The LEGO Movie, and using it to address some overlooked intersections between popular culture and the finance-security complex. The analysis first focuses on how finance and security are represented in the film, through the plot and the fictional company at the centre of the film’s conflict, to its LEGO minifigure characters and the playsets featured therein. The focus then shifts to how the LEGO Group’s business model informs the film in significant ways, from the plot’s motivation and structure, and the mise-en-scène, to how the film was produced. My argument throughout is that a seemingly innocent or insignificant film in fact participates in the financialization and securitization of daily life through its very style and status as a cultural product. Key here is how The LEGO Movie does this in ways that confound possible critique through the use of irony and cute aesthetics, as well as through its own supposed triviality

Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games

Why do we play games—with and upon each other as well as ourselves? When are winners also losers, and vice-versa? How and to what end do we stretch the spaces of play? What happens when players go ‘out of bounds,’ or when games go ‘too far’? Moreover, what happens when we push the parameters of inquiry: when we play with traditional narratives of ludic culture, when we re-write the rules? An innovative volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays at the nexus of material culture, performance studies, and game theory, Playthings in Early Modernity emphasizes the rules of the game(s) as well as the breaking of those rules. Thus, the titular ‘plaything’ is understood as both an object and a person, and play, in the early modern world, is treated not merely as a pastime, a leisurely pursuit, but as a pivotal part of daily life, a strategic psychosocial endeavor

Qu’est-ce qu’on réadapte ? Ocean’s Eleven et l’esthétique de la finance

Selon André Bazin, « si le cinéma avait deux ou trois mille ans, sans doute verrions-nous plus clairement qu’il n’échappe pas aux lois communes de l’évolution des arts ». Comme il le précise ensuite, cette évolution mène à l’élaboration d’un canon, qui implique des références intertextuelles à d’autres œuvres de la même tradition artistique ou de traditions proches, et une conscience de soi de plus en plus marquée. En deux ou trois mille ans, la peinture, la littérature et la musique ont prod..

Volume 12 Issue 3 The Multifunctional Organization: Two cases for a critical update for research programs in management and organization

Keywords Abstract Organizational identity Social differentiation Function systems Polyphony Computer program Organization and functional differentiation are considered key principles of modern societies. Yet, within organizational studies little research has been conducted on the interplay of function systems, organizations, and society. The few existing studies suppose trends to more functional polyphony. The cases presented in this article, however, support the idea that organizational multifunctionality is the standard case rather than a special case of organization. It is furthermore shown that organizations can change their function system preference and that the translation between function systems can be an organization's main function. A Google Ngram view on functional differentiation finally furthers the idea that changes of function system preferences are not only a matter of individual organizations, but also a matter of entire societies

De la page blanche aux salles obscures

L’adaptation filmique a toujours été essentielle au septième art, qu’il s’agisse du recours aux textes littéraires classiques utilisés dès les premiers films pour donner au nouveau média une aura de respectabilité, de l’utilisation des romans noirs pour populariser la cinématographie des expressionnistes allemands, ou de la pratique actuelle d’adaptations visant à capter un public déjà acquis (par exemple les adeptes des romans de Jane Austen, ou de best-sellers comme Twilight ou des jeux vidéo comme Doom). Toutefois, l’adaptation a souvent été dénigrée : les amateurs des textes-sources déplorent le manque de fidélité du film, alors que les adeptes d’un cinéma « pur » regrettent que ce souci de fidélité aboutisse à un film « littéraire » qui n’explore pas ses possibilités proprement filmiques. Au-delà de ces clivages, cet ouvrage cherche à présenter les enjeux du phénomène : il réunit quinze spécialistes qui traitent des différents aspects de l’adaptation : ses raisons économiques, sa problématisation de la théorie de l’auteur chère à la Nouvelle Vague, et surtout, ce que l’étude comparative du texte et son image peuvent s’apporter mutuellement en termes de supplément de sens. Le livre se conclut avec trois articles qui proposent une méthodologie de l’étude de l’adaptation, incitant le lecteur à son tour à se livrer à des études d’adaptations