No abstract is available for this article.
When the master’s tools fail: Racial euphemism in Shakespeare appropriation, or, the activist value of Premodern Critical Race Studies
Abstract
As premodern studies continues to develop tools for anti-racist scholarship and pedagogy, this essay establishes the stakes of adaptation/appropriation studies especially committing to these efforts. Turning to the novel The Serpent of Venice, I demonstrate how appropriations that engage with race too often employ what I frame as racial euphemism: palliative engagements with race that sidestep questions of power and inequity. This is especially true for those attempting to maintain distance between Shakespeare and questions of race, and especially racism, often under the guise of historical accuracy. This racially euphemistic approach, therefore, disseminates to especially wide audiences white supremacist approaches to race. Premodern Critical Race Studies provides a vital activist framework, and with it, important conceptual and methodological tools, that help adaptation/appropriation scholars identify racial euphemism in premodern retellings, while at the same time offering appropriators scholarship that can help them craft anti-racist appropriations that resist the idea of a race-neutral past.
Seeing Shakespeare: Narco narratives and neocolonial appropriations of Macbeth in the US–Mexico Borderlands
Abstract
This essay examines the racializing logics and consequences of drawing analogies between the works of William Shakespeare and the devastatingly violent realities of the drug trade in the Americas. The particular prominence of Macbeth in the wide range of Shakespearean invocations and appropriations in contemporary US narratives about narcotrafficking cannot be attributed simply to the fact that it is a tale of bloody ambition. Rather, the repeated mapping of a play that comes to its conclusion with an English military invasion of its “barbarous” Scottish neighbors onto the US–Mexico Borderlands speaks to much deeper histories of colonial conquest and to neocolonial interventionist policies and actions of the present. The essay concludes by turning to two recent instances in which theater artists have translated and significantly revised Macbeth in order to reframe dominant narratives about narcotrafficking, racial supremacy, and the border. These productions demonstrate the disruptive and transformative potential of Shakespearean appropriations that resist neocolonial power structures and ideologies.
Book review: Rudrangshu Mukherjee, A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Ahead of Print.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857. Penguin, 2021, 221 pages, ₹699 (Hardbound), ISBN 978-0-670- 09066-2.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857. Penguin, 2021, 221 pages, ₹699 (Hardbound), ISBN 978-0-670- 09066-2.
More real, or just more surveillance? Panopticism and shifting authenticity paradigms in BeReal
Convergence, Volume 29, Issue 5, Page 1183-1198, October 2023.
BeReal has become a popular app among younger social media users, with a premise that privileges a brief, random, and unvarnished look into one’s life once a day. Hailed as the ‘anti-Instagram’ or ‘anti-TikTok’, the app eschews filters, performance, influencers, and sponsored content in favor of authenticity. While curated authenticity has long been a hallmark of internet culture, BeReal seems to employ authenticity not as a performance strategy but as a value, tapping into criticisms of the inauthentic. Through the walkthrough method of social media app analysis, I employ ethnographic research tenets to analyze how BeReal forwards a different type of authenticity to its users from its discourse, design, interface, and features. The findings are two-fold: First, BeReal privileges authenticity-as-realness instead of authenticity-as-performance, using spontaneity and timed posting windows to severely limit the time one can craft a post. Second, BeReal acts as a panopticon, because the omnipresent possibility of posting means users are always already aware of the potential. Authenticity-as-realness is not uncomplicated; it relies much more heavily on neoliberal self-monitoring and panopticism to be ready for anything, as opposed to a finely tuned and intricately crafted performance with lighting, makeup, and editing. This indicates considerations of authenticity are changing on social media platforms, putting performance at odds with panopticism.
BeReal has become a popular app among younger social media users, with a premise that privileges a brief, random, and unvarnished look into one’s life once a day. Hailed as the ‘anti-Instagram’ or ‘anti-TikTok’, the app eschews filters, performance, influencers, and sponsored content in favor of authenticity. While curated authenticity has long been a hallmark of internet culture, BeReal seems to employ authenticity not as a performance strategy but as a value, tapping into criticisms of the inauthentic. Through the walkthrough method of social media app analysis, I employ ethnographic research tenets to analyze how BeReal forwards a different type of authenticity to its users from its discourse, design, interface, and features. The findings are two-fold: First, BeReal privileges authenticity-as-realness instead of authenticity-as-performance, using spontaneity and timed posting windows to severely limit the time one can craft a post. Second, BeReal acts as a panopticon, because the omnipresent possibility of posting means users are always already aware of the potential. Authenticity-as-realness is not uncomplicated; it relies much more heavily on neoliberal self-monitoring and panopticism to be ready for anything, as opposed to a finely tuned and intricately crafted performance with lighting, makeup, and editing. This indicates considerations of authenticity are changing on social media platforms, putting performance at odds with panopticism.
Microstock images of artificial intelligence: How AI creates its own conditions of possibility
Convergence, Volume 29, Issue 5, Page 1226-1242, October 2023.
The main goal of this paper is to account for the ‘algorithmization’ of microstock imagery. By this term, the authors refer to a material process implying the chronic use of graphic editors, semi-automatic keywording allowing complex and dynamic proto-classifications, and access to the images via search engines. The algorithmization of microstock imagery also goes along with the exploitation of producers’ labour, so that the authors recognize in it a form of digital labour. Moreover, the term ‘algorithmization’ is meant to underline that this material process has symbolic effects on the image contents as well as on people’s expectations and imaginaries of these contents. The paper analyses, in particular, the case study of microstock images depicting artificial intelligence (AI). By producing hundreds of thousands of visual representations of AI that spread via the Web and beyond it, algorithmized microstock imagery also produces its own symbolic conditions of possibility, that is, the expectations and imaginaries that contribute to the success of AI beyond its concrete effectiveness. The paper is structured into three sections. In the first section, the authors account for the existing literature on stock imagery. They contend that this literature focuses too much on the symbolic message, and too little on the material processes of production of these images. In the second section, the authors describe an empirical analysis they conducted on Shutterstock images depicting AI. In the third section, they distinguish three forms of digital labour and show that microstock imagery entertains resemblances to and differences from each form. They contend that despite its peculiarities, microstock image production is a paradigmatic form of digital labour due to its convergence towards algorithmization. In the conclusion, the authors show how, for microstock images depicting AI, the algorithmic loop of microstock imagery is complete.
The main goal of this paper is to account for the ‘algorithmization’ of microstock imagery. By this term, the authors refer to a material process implying the chronic use of graphic editors, semi-automatic keywording allowing complex and dynamic proto-classifications, and access to the images via search engines. The algorithmization of microstock imagery also goes along with the exploitation of producers’ labour, so that the authors recognize in it a form of digital labour. Moreover, the term ‘algorithmization’ is meant to underline that this material process has symbolic effects on the image contents as well as on people’s expectations and imaginaries of these contents. The paper analyses, in particular, the case study of microstock images depicting artificial intelligence (AI). By producing hundreds of thousands of visual representations of AI that spread via the Web and beyond it, algorithmized microstock imagery also produces its own symbolic conditions of possibility, that is, the expectations and imaginaries that contribute to the success of AI beyond its concrete effectiveness. The paper is structured into three sections. In the first section, the authors account for the existing literature on stock imagery. They contend that this literature focuses too much on the symbolic message, and too little on the material processes of production of these images. In the second section, the authors describe an empirical analysis they conducted on Shutterstock images depicting AI. In the third section, they distinguish three forms of digital labour and show that microstock imagery entertains resemblances to and differences from each form. They contend that despite its peculiarities, microstock image production is a paradigmatic form of digital labour due to its convergence towards algorithmization. In the conclusion, the authors show how, for microstock images depicting AI, the algorithmic loop of microstock imagery is complete.
The participatory politics and play of canceling an idol: Exploring how fans negotiate their fandom of a canceled ‘fave’
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
What happens if your favorite artist gets canceled? Can you remain a fan after such a controversy? This study explores how fans – those with a strong affective bond toward their fan object – negotiate their fannish position and practices after the cancellation of their idol. Fans are asked to re-evaluate their fandom, and potentially their participation in it: a political turning point in their fannish career. To better understand this phenomenon, this study examines the fandom of the canceled Dutch singer and The Voice coach Marco Borsato. Doing so, it highlights how fans negotiate, give meaning to and understand the cancellation of their ‘problematic fave’ by drawing on an interview study with twelve Dutch fans of Marco Borsato complemented with an analysis of online fan comments. A thematic analysis of this data shows the complexity of being a fan of a canceled artist. Further, it reveals how fans navigate the everyday political and cultural consequences of being a(n ex-)fan in this situation. Findings illustrate how some fans steadfastly commit to their fandom and dismiss the allegations, while others are more careful in publicly expressing their affection and wish to first learn more about the situation. They feel conflicted about the situation and turn their fandom into something more /private. Based on these findings, this article unfolds what motivates some to step away from this cancel case and Borsato, while others defend him at all costs. Through this lens, we can argue that this might resonate with and help us better understand for example polarized views in society at large. So, seemingly innocent fannish play offers a first look and step toward an understanding of how such processes play out on a macro-level.
What happens if your favorite artist gets canceled? Can you remain a fan after such a controversy? This study explores how fans – those with a strong affective bond toward their fan object – negotiate their fannish position and practices after the cancellation of their idol. Fans are asked to re-evaluate their fandom, and potentially their participation in it: a political turning point in their fannish career. To better understand this phenomenon, this study examines the fandom of the canceled Dutch singer and The Voice coach Marco Borsato. Doing so, it highlights how fans negotiate, give meaning to and understand the cancellation of their ‘problematic fave’ by drawing on an interview study with twelve Dutch fans of Marco Borsato complemented with an analysis of online fan comments. A thematic analysis of this data shows the complexity of being a fan of a canceled artist. Further, it reveals how fans navigate the everyday political and cultural consequences of being a(n ex-)fan in this situation. Findings illustrate how some fans steadfastly commit to their fandom and dismiss the allegations, while others are more careful in publicly expressing their affection and wish to first learn more about the situation. They feel conflicted about the situation and turn their fandom into something more /private. Based on these findings, this article unfolds what motivates some to step away from this cancel case and Borsato, while others defend him at all costs. Through this lens, we can argue that this might resonate with and help us better understand for example polarized views in society at large. So, seemingly innocent fannish play offers a first look and step toward an understanding of how such processes play out on a macro-level.
Beautytube: Enacting postfeminism on the YouTube multi-channel network ICON from 2015 to 2016
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
This production study utilizes postfeminist theory as a lens for seeing ‘beauty work’ on YouTube via the multi-channel network (MCN) ICON Network, a collaboration between the production company Endemol Shine and beauty YouTuber Michelle Phan. By bringing to focus the unique year of 2015–2016 when YouTube beauty production was largely produced within MCNs, the study sets the stage for the proceeding professionalization of YouTube content creation under legacy production and distribution companies in the 2020s. In-depth producer interviews with ICON management and YouTubers illuminated MCN business practices and producer perceptions of YouTube beauty production. Interview data was analyzed for its articulation within ICON as a postfeminist media culture (Gill, 2007) through (a) work conditions of beauty video production and (b) best practices of beauty video production. Results indicate that ICON is a site where the markers of feminism, postfeminism, and transnational feminism intersect and collide. These intersections contextualize today’s beauty influencing landscape which pushes for independence from MCNs, transparency, and authenticity.
This production study utilizes postfeminist theory as a lens for seeing ‘beauty work’ on YouTube via the multi-channel network (MCN) ICON Network, a collaboration between the production company Endemol Shine and beauty YouTuber Michelle Phan. By bringing to focus the unique year of 2015–2016 when YouTube beauty production was largely produced within MCNs, the study sets the stage for the proceeding professionalization of YouTube content creation under legacy production and distribution companies in the 2020s. In-depth producer interviews with ICON management and YouTubers illuminated MCN business practices and producer perceptions of YouTube beauty production. Interview data was analyzed for its articulation within ICON as a postfeminist media culture (Gill, 2007) through (a) work conditions of beauty video production and (b) best practices of beauty video production. Results indicate that ICON is a site where the markers of feminism, postfeminism, and transnational feminism intersect and collide. These intersections contextualize today’s beauty influencing landscape which pushes for independence from MCNs, transparency, and authenticity.
Disrupting Brazilian television: Streaming and the decline of Globo’s hegemony in video cultures
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print.
The Brazilian audiovisual landscape has been monopolized by the Grupo Globo conglomerate and its commercial broadcast network, TV Globo, which established a common video experience centered on the telenovela. Although cable and the internet sowed seeds of discontent in the 2000s, it was only with the advent of video streaming services in the 2010s that Brazil's video landscape was transformed. This led to the multiplication of video cultures and greater access to transnational audiovisual flows. This article frames streaming as a competitive force that has compelled Grupo Globo to diversify its storytelling and representation, highlighting its potential to disrupt Brazil's video cultures and exposing the limits of cultural proximity. It examines how streaming services affect Brazilian video cultures and how preexisting conditions in Brazil provide opportunities and limitations to underline streaming's disruptive potential for Brazil's video cultures and Globo's declining hegemony and ability to adapt to the digital era.
The Brazilian audiovisual landscape has been monopolized by the Grupo Globo conglomerate and its commercial broadcast network, TV Globo, which established a common video experience centered on the telenovela. Although cable and the internet sowed seeds of discontent in the 2000s, it was only with the advent of video streaming services in the 2010s that Brazil's video landscape was transformed. This led to the multiplication of video cultures and greater access to transnational audiovisual flows. This article frames streaming as a competitive force that has compelled Grupo Globo to diversify its storytelling and representation, highlighting its potential to disrupt Brazil's video cultures and exposing the limits of cultural proximity. It examines how streaming services affect Brazilian video cultures and how preexisting conditions in Brazil provide opportunities and limitations to underline streaming's disruptive potential for Brazil's video cultures and Globo's declining hegemony and ability to adapt to the digital era.
‘They are now pocket videos, not home videos’: Streaming and reconfiguration of video consumption in Nigeria
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print.
This article examines how streaming is altering established viewing practices that traditionally characterised video film consumption among domestic Nigerians. Following the creation of the Nigerian video industry (Nollywood) as a straight-to-video film industry, audiences watched movies solely through the technologies of television sets and video players. The fluid and opaque circulation of video copies located audience consumption practices within informal realms and communal spaces. This article analyses how streaming is catalysing a distinctive viewing culture in Nigeria. It argues that streaming is formalising access to Nollywood movies, upending the communal practices associated with legacy video viewing, and fostering an individualised viewing culture though some informal communal practices persist in the streaming ecosystem. By emphasising the role of smartphones and apps in the emergent streaming culture, this article demonstrates how streaming is restructuring the temporal, spatial, and affective features of audience engagements that traditionally characterised movies viewing in Nigeria.
This article examines how streaming is altering established viewing practices that traditionally characterised video film consumption among domestic Nigerians. Following the creation of the Nigerian video industry (Nollywood) as a straight-to-video film industry, audiences watched movies solely through the technologies of television sets and video players. The fluid and opaque circulation of video copies located audience consumption practices within informal realms and communal spaces. This article analyses how streaming is catalysing a distinctive viewing culture in Nigeria. It argues that streaming is formalising access to Nollywood movies, upending the communal practices associated with legacy video viewing, and fostering an individualised viewing culture though some informal communal practices persist in the streaming ecosystem. By emphasising the role of smartphones and apps in the emergent streaming culture, this article demonstrates how streaming is restructuring the temporal, spatial, and affective features of audience engagements that traditionally characterised movies viewing in Nigeria.