Deanna You have done some good work so far- particularly in research and in the way you are beginning to focus with theoretical depth on a subject: consider the following to hone the dissertation further… Your title is a little generalised and I feel that to try to phrase it as a specific question you want to answer would give you more focus and specificity. Overall- you seem to be floating over some very big issues such as feminism, abjection, otherness, women in horror etc- can you work to articulate what you actually want to conclude with? Don’t forget to argue against yourself for extra criticality-are there other readings of the film Carrie?- Actually Kristeva’s idea of the abject is much more subtle than just being abut blood and disgust- she also writes about the abject’s relationship to the sublime- how could you look more at the nuance in her writing? In the main, each chapter outline is going in the right direction and is logical in structure, but perhaps you could hone and enrich each chapter and make sure you connect them all with linking passages…and keep the focus tightly aligned to working towards answering your question. Carrie- particularly the last scenes are very Baroque- Over The Top- this is a feature of certain horror films and also other films such as Black Orchid- another monstrous female character as a sort of dark melodrama, perhaps you could find a counterpoint to your discussion rather than look at lots of horror that does the same thing? Think about other themes you might explore- I have set these out as questions/prompts… What is the fundamental function of the horror genre? Get a book that teaches you more about how to understand Freud and ideas such as the Uncanny- that which is ‘familiar and unfamiliar’ What about looking at the notion of archetypes as part of a discussion connected to symbolism/semiotics? You probably need to improve your general understanding also of how Kristeva formed this theory- the relationship of her writing to Freud and Lacan- you need to do some more fundamental secondary reading Look at the text Rabelais and his World by Bakhtin- which talks about the idea of the ‘lower bodily stratum’ and the carnavalesque- these ideas impacted on Kristeva If you are using a psychoanalytic construct to explore this subject- consider how has psychoanalysis been used in film theory and why? You need a better understanding of film theory and philosophy/psychoanalysis as a tool to explore film- read the cinema book by Pam Cook If you are looking at otherness what other philosophical frames explore this idea- Levinas, Lacan and Foucault all do
Deanna
ReplyDeleteYou have done some good work so far- particularly in research and in the way you are beginning to focus with theoretical depth on a subject: consider the following to hone the dissertation further…
Your title is a little generalised and I feel that to try to phrase it as a specific question you want to answer would give you more focus and specificity.
Overall- you seem to be floating over some very big issues such as feminism, abjection, otherness, women in horror etc- can you work to articulate what you actually want to conclude with?
Don’t forget to argue against yourself for extra criticality-are there other readings of the film Carrie?- Actually Kristeva’s idea of the abject is much more subtle than just being abut blood and disgust- she also writes about the abject’s relationship to the sublime- how could you look more at the nuance in her writing?
In the main, each chapter outline is going in the right direction and is logical in structure, but perhaps you could hone and enrich each chapter and make sure you connect them all with linking passages…and keep the focus tightly aligned to working towards answering your question.
Carrie- particularly the last scenes are very Baroque- Over The Top- this is a feature of certain horror films and also other films such as Black Orchid- another monstrous female character as a sort of dark melodrama, perhaps you could find a counterpoint to your discussion rather than look at lots of horror that does the same thing?
Think about other themes you might explore- I have set these out as questions/prompts…
What is the fundamental function of the horror genre?
Get a book that teaches you more about how to understand Freud and ideas such as the Uncanny- that which is ‘familiar and unfamiliar’
What about looking at the notion of archetypes as part of a discussion connected to symbolism/semiotics?
You probably need to improve your general understanding also of how Kristeva formed this theory- the relationship of her writing to Freud and Lacan- you need to do some more fundamental secondary reading
Look at the text Rabelais and his World by Bakhtin- which talks about the idea of the ‘lower bodily stratum’ and the carnavalesque- these ideas impacted on Kristeva
If you are using a psychoanalytic construct to explore this subject- consider how has psychoanalysis been used in film theory and why? You need a better understanding of film theory and philosophy/psychoanalysis as a tool to explore film- read the cinema book by Pam Cook
If you are looking at otherness what other philosophical frames explore this idea- Levinas, Lacan and Foucault all do
Kath Abiker