Melodrama After The Tears: New Perspectives on the Politics of Victimhood

Type
other project type
Start Date
November 1, 2011
End Date
September 1, 2014
URI
Status
ongoing
Keywords
victimhood
subjectivity
melodrama
media
sociology
film studies
theology
American studies
Description
Collection of essays resulting in part from the conference "After the Tears" on November 11-12, 2011. Volume to be published with Amsterdam University Press in 2015, (US distributor University of Chicago Press); in series Film Culture in Transition, series editor Thomas Elsaesser.

Volume Contents

Introduction

I. Cultures of Suffering and Cinematic Identities
Victimhood and Melodrama: Modern, Political and Militant
Thomas Elsaesser

When is Melodrama ‘Good'? Mega-Melodrama and Victimhood
Linda Williams

Melodrama and War in Hollywood Genre Cinema
Hermann Kappelhoff

Race Interactions: Melodrama and the Ambiguities of Colorism
Christof Decker

The Purloined Letter: Ophuls after Cavell
Ulrike Hanstein

II. Modernity and the Melodramatic Self
The Melodrama of the Self
Eva Illouz

Rousseau's nightmare
Vincent Kaufmann

"Emotional suffering" as universal category? Victimhood and the collective imaginary
Jörg Metelmann

III. Collective Traumas and National Melodramas
part 1 - Legacies of 9/11

The Abu Ghraib Archive
W.J.T. Mitchell; with introduction by Scott Loren

The melodramatic style of American Politics
Elisabeth Anker

Tears of Testimony: Glenn Beck and the Conservative Moral Occult
Scott Loren

part 2 - Holocaust Legacies
The Cultural Construction of the Holocaust Witness as a Melodramatic Hero
Amos Goldberg

Nation and Emotion. The competition for victimhood in Europe
Ulrich Schmid

Perspectives
Interview with Christine Gledhill
Scott Loren & Jörg Metelmann
Leader contributor(s)
Funder

other

Topic(s)
victimhood
subjectivity
melodrama
media
sociology
film studies
theology
American studies
Method(s)
analytical essays
interdisciplinary
theory from cultural studies and the social sciences
Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)

SHSS - School of Huma...

Eprints ID
207288

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    "È giusto vivere così?" : Contemporary Melodrama and Migration
    (Cambridge Scholars, 2013)
    Metelmann, Jörg  
    ;
    Schrader, Sabine
    ;
    Winkler, Daniel
    Towards the end of the 1990s, immigration becomes ever more present in Italian movie theatres, not least because of the reality of migration in Italy, but probably also because of the success of films like Pummarò and Lamerica. Time and time again, well-known filmmakers choose this topic within the scope of genre cinema as well as melodramatic cinema traditions. Prominent examples of big productions that were also screened outside of Italy are Bernardo Bertolucci's L'assedio (Besieged, 1998), Marco Tullio Giordana's Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti (Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide, 2005), and Giuseppe Tornatore's La sconosciuta (The Unknown Woman, 2006). The success of the melodramatization of migration, as Jörg Metelmann's article shows, is not least the result of the fact that the clear, affective structure of the melodramatic is particularly well suited to expounding upon the ethical implications of absolute, relative, and selfresponsible moralities.
    Type:book section
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/90266