Abstract This paper looks at a selection of photographs from Sherman's "Disasters and Fairy Tales" collection of work, through Kristeva's theory of abjection.
From the Paper "As Kristeva describes it in "Powers of Horror," abjection preserves what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship in the immemorial violence with which a body becomes separated from another body in order to be (Powers). While this may seem like a complex idea, the makeup of it is actually quite simple to grasp. The pre-objectal relationship that Kristeva speaks of is the time in youth and adolescence prior to the female's realization that she is not a subject and..."
Tags: cindy sherman, julia kristeva, phtography, abject, abjection
Abstract The paper explores the similarities and differences between Mike Kelley and Yoshitomo Nara's usage of the doll motif, and their true purposes in utilizing this unusual totem of popular culture. The paper explains that while Kelley employs the doll motif as a means of probing the nature of abjection, Nara's seems to be exploring adolescent alienation. The paper points out that Nara tends to favor static materials, such as paint, while Kelley's dolls are made of everything from fabrics to stuffed animals. The paper concludes by asserting that behind the work of both artists lies a certain amount of pain.
Outline:
The Abject: Mike Kelley
Totems of Adolescent Alienation: Yoshitomo Nara
Conclusion
From the Paper "The motif of the doll features prominently in the work of both Mike Kelley and Yoshitomo Nara, two of the more famous contemporary artists whose playful deconstructions of the human figure probes questions of authenticity and artifice while simultaneously bowing to the supremacy of popular culture. While Mike Kelley employs the doll motif as a means of probing the nature of abjection, Yoshitomo Nara's prolific usage of the doll seems to be done for slightly different purposes - namely, as a means for exploring adolescent alienation. While the two artists certainly have a lot of similarities - the most obvious one being their mutual affinity for punk rock and their ties to various factions of the youth culture, as represented by their album cover art - it could also be said that they have profound differences as artists."
Tags:abjection, adolescent, alienation, punk, rock
Abstract This paper reviews, discusses and analyzes the work of Mike Kelley. The paper reports that Kelley was born in 1954, the generation of the 60's that was part of a generation forced to come to terms with oil droughts, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. The paper discusses how the abject is one of the most essential elements that Kelley integrates into his installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings.
From the Paper "Kelley understood the comic strip series as a modeling of the nuclear family during the Sixties. The characters in the series had specific roles that the children could connect with in relation to their own surroundings. New characters were introduced after the Sixties started to become more complex in regard to the shifting ego. The Sadie, who looks just like a female incantation of the Sad, becomes his female alter ego. Both of the characters in the new series represented the female and the male aspect of the child. Also within the series, there were sibling and father figures of the family. Additionally he introduces the Sarge, who is a representation of a maternal substitution. In effect, the Sarge is the identifiable father figure within the nuclear family. This patriarchal character represents the male figure as a dominant being in the world of the comic strip yet alludes to the feminine, which is surprising. "Kelley plays with double meaning and mistaken identities. Thus he draws Sarge into patriarchal figure of general, whose eyebrows become Sarge's female breast."
This paper discusses the book, "The City of Joy," by Dominique Lapierre, which projects the underlying message that despite the devastating life of the slum dwellers in Calcutta they have hope and love.
Abstract This paper explains that author Dominique Lapierre researched this book by living with the people of India and the people who try to help them for three years. The author states that critics have called "The City of Joy" one of the most important books on the culture and sociology of India. The paper points out that the author does not look at the topic through rose-colored glasses; he shows the abject poverty in enormous and memorable detail.
From the Paper "This is a story of people who are used to hardships and have learned how to deal with them through courage and good humor. Rather than bemoan the loss of everything he had worked so hard to obtain, Prodip Pal revels in the joy of his sons. "What a blessing those sons were" (Lapierre 7)! This is the central conception to the book, and one from which everyone can learn important lessons. These people do not feel sorry for themselves ? rather they revel in the joys they can find, because they "shared in a communal world and respected its social and religious values, maintaining the ancestral traditions and beliefs" (Lapierre 45). This is why the decrepit slum is called "The City of Joy." It is more than clear they are poor, but they are happy, and it becomes a joy to read about it, even though many of their experiences are quite simply unspeakable."
Tags: india, hardship, courage, poverty, community
Abstract This paper provides an overview of Eva "Evita" Peron's life. The author discusses how Eva spent her early years in abject poverty and as a misfit in Argentine society. The author also discusses how she, after a school play, decided to become an actress and trekked to Buenos Aires. While Eva struggled as an actress, her numerous lovers provided her with security and would eventually allow her to meet the Juan Peron, the up-and-coming military command who would eventually become president of Argentina. Eva eventually married Peron, and acting as First Lady, held a considerable amount of power, power which she used to benefit the poor and feminist concerns. While often compassionate, she despised (and was despised by) the upper classes and could be harsh toward dissidents. After her death by uterine cancer in 1952 at age 32, the country went into mourning.
Abstract This paper will take a close look at the process of globalization and the effects it is having on the Indian economy. It will show that the effects to date have been bitter-sweet. On the one hand, the Indian economy is getting some much needed foreign investment, its traditionally pampered industries are being exposed to a healthy degree of competition, and the overly regulated and efficient administration of the country is being forced to revamp and increase its accountability and transparency. On the other hand, poverty inequality is increasing, which is a major blow given the country's already high degrees of abject poverty. It can also be argued that the country's democracy is being tested to the limit.
Abstract This paper is a personal account of the writer's experiences with lawyers. The paper asserts that the lawyer has come to represent all that is wrong in American society, from dishonesty to abject greed. The paper provides real-life scenarios to illustrate the points made.
From the Paper "My father, on the other hand, perhaps due to his greater financial resources, seemed to have a different kind of attorney, the kind who actually prepared for court, as well as seemed to have some grasp of what he was doing. You see, according to my mother, while she made her best showing in professional attire (no matter that she worked the night shift in a grocery store and purchased her getup at Goodwill), my father, who was at the time living in style with his new mistress, showed up in a faded work shirt and threadbare blue jeans. As my mother tells it, she went home without the child support increase she so desperately needed, burned the unused documents, notes, and receipts she had so carefully prepared for her "useless" attorney, and cried herself to sleep in her secondhand suit."
Abstract Bolivia as a nation, and more specifically, the Cochabamba Valley as a region, have had significant problems recently with the lack of access to safe water resources, exacerbated by the pervasiveness of abject poverty of both the country and the region. This paper shows that the privatization of water services has been implemented as a solution to this lack of access, but so far, these reforms have been anything but successful, especially according to the majority of Bolivians. The paper shows that the results of privatization have included extreme increases in water prices, little improvement in expansion of access and extensive political protest, some of which became violent. However, the paper explains that the alternative of re-nationalization, or returning ownership and control of water resources to the state, has both potential benefits and drawbacks of its own.
From the Paper "The policy of the privatization of Bolivia's water resources was implemented for many economic reasons, and was intended to improve upon the water industries already in place and under the ownership and control of the government. This issue has been characteristically unique from other types of privatization policies for one reason: the necessity of water for human beings to exist. Because of this universal human need for clean, drinkable water, many Bolivians claim that access to it is a right, rather than a privilege. Yet in the midst of a complete lack of alternative sources to safe water, some people will turn to possibly unsafe sources such as rainwater, lakes, and rivers. In the past, this has caused outbreaks of serious diseases such as cholera. In Bolivia, where the problem of poverty is extremely dire and millions of people cannot afford or obtain clean, safe water, the privatization of state-owned water companies has been the government's policy solution to the extreme lack of access to water."
Abstract This paper details the author's personal views on poverty in this persuasive, expository essay. The author -- a self-proclaimed 'bleeding heart' liberal -- says that she finds it sad that in a wealthy country like America, so many citizens live in abject poverty. The essay goes on to discuss reasons for poverty and to critique various options to eradicate the problem.
From the Paper "I have been called a "bleeding-heart liberal" because of my views on poverty, welfare, and related issues. But it is a label I am proud to bear. I have done a considerable amount of reading in this area, and I am convinced that many of the stereotypes one hears about those who are poor and on welfare are simply not accurate. For example, there is the myth that welfare mothers continue to bear children in order to qualify for more money from the government. Yet the increase in income received is often insufficient to care properly for a child, much less to make it "profitable" to have more children."
Tags: poor, impoverished, homeless, hungry, children, elderly, women
Abstract In this essay the writer points out that the relationship between labor and geography is a profoundly important one. Further, the writer notes that this is especially true when one considers how the exploitation of geographic space by Wal-Mart both in the United States and in the world at large has allowed it to curb labor organization and to impose employment conditions upon its workers that can often only be described as criminal. The following paper briefly examines how Wal-Mart has utilized geography both within and without America's borders to pad its bottom line and to keep labor in a state of abject obeisance.
Abstract This paper looks at the global issue of poverty as well as the poverty that exists today in the USA. The author describes the different lives that the poor in America have compared to those struggling to survive in developing countries. He provides some of the causes that lead to abject poverty and concludes that if we cure the world of poverty, we will cure the world of hunger, thirst, illiteracy, and disease.
From the Paper "When Americans think of poverty, many of them tend to think of people living on the street and begging for money in our nation's biggest cities. Many are naive to the fact that almost one billion people are living in "absolute poverty." Absolute poverty, as described by Robert McNamara, are "those living, literally, on the margin of life. Their lives are so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, and disease as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human dignity" (23). The main reason for McNamara's definition is to help Westerners understand that poverty is a lot different to us than it is in the developing world.
"The poor in New York City may be living under a bridge or sleeping on a park bench, but they rarely have to worry about how they are going to eat since the United States offers programs to aid the poor, such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and food stamps. In the developing world, it is a different story. Millions of children receive insufficient amounts of food, especially protein, which thereby causes their brains to remain undeveloped and leads to a higher chance of less-productive lives. Millions of these children die each year before the age of five due to malnutrition and diseases associated with malnutrition (23)."
Abstract This paper examines why Formula One racing has not succeeded in the US and examines the effects that it has on the attempts by global advertisers and FISA to create a truly global sponsorship platform. The paper makes the case that Formula One racing will not be successful in the United States in the future, despite the successful globalization efforts of many of its sponsors. It also demonstrates that F1's failure to capture the US imagination will result in a gradual decline in the importance of the sport to global commercial sponsors (although not for global governmental partners).
Outline:
Introduction
Media Growth through Sports
Interest of the Multinationals
Subject Population and Statistical Analysis
Coming to the United States
Benefits for the Participants
Recent Problems with the US
Conclusion: Making Formula One Relevant for the US Market
From the Paper "Coming to the United States: Benefits for the Participants
The rewards of extending Formula One1 to the US are clear. Although comprising only 5% of the world population, the US accounts for 30% of global GNP (Julius 2005) . Many of the world's largest and most-successful multinationals are headquartered in the US. And the US is the largest car market in the world (Roberts 2006). The potential for sponsorship should exist both inside and outside the US' borders: from multinational companies already sponsoring F1 teams that wish to extend their marketing reach in the sport to the US, to companies (like AT&T) that are headquartered in the US that would like to extend their brand recognition in an effective way to the rest of the world."
Abstract In this article, the writer discusses that in Tolstoy's 'Alyosha the Pot', the life of a peasant is told with such abject complacency that it both ridicules and perverts the way the poor were seen in pre-revolutionary Russia. The writer maintains that Alyosha's demeanor throughout Tolstoy's short story is that of the faithful lapdog; obedient and always following the master's words. The writer discusses that Tolstoy switches the way the story is detailed and instead of a bland world with a colorful hero the reader is given a bland hero with a wicked world much akin to a fairy tale; in short he becomes Cinderella. The writer notes that Tolstoy demonstrates that while the peasant may do things willingly and be treated as a tool, underneath the dutifulness and complacency there are actual dreams, wants, and needs. The aggravation of the reader as for the lack of Alyosha's aspirations is only testament to Tolstoy's demonstration that everyone has wants and to want is to be human. The writer concludes that Tolstoy shows, paradoxically, that everyone is human through the example of someone that is alien to human aspiration.
From the Paper "Traditionally the help married in czarist Russia, it was something that could not be avoided given the living conditions and the similar social standing; this would be no different with Alyosha. After some time working for his employers he developed a crush on the cook, Ustinya, as expected. As in most settings it is here that love, as always, complicates matters and it is here that Alyosha's simplicity magnify root emotion into something more. Alyosha's lack of nuanced personality were skillfully crafted by Tolstoy so that, once the plateau of characterization was reached, anything different would become a bumpy ride of feeling. Alyosha's blunt intentions of marrying Ustinya are not played out as usual, she reciprocates but his simplistic nature leads him to see it as a different kind of love, a love of convenience but love nonetheless. It is here where Alyosha shows signs of being the ardent man that the reader first thought he could be, he has a plan and someone to share his life with. Yet, it is the will of others that he must obey, not just as the employee, but as what his personality dictates, dutiful to a fault."
Abstract This paper outlines the Aryan Nations (AN) movement and how it achieved international support. The paper looks at the competing factions of Aryan Nations and its many small, transitory subgroups. The paper relates that the organization has moved from mere ideology to murder and contends that AN is a pathetic movement that has spurned into a group representing abject hatred and crime. The paper predicts that regardless of who is at the helm, AN will continue to be an extremely dangerous group.
From the Paper "Aryan Nations (AN) is an international anti-Semitic white supremacist group. It was founded in the 1970 decade by Richard Girnt Butler as an arm of the Christian Identity group Church of Jesus Christ-Christian. That year marked the beginning of Butler's determined effort to reinvent his organization with a range of new tactics and ventures designed primarily to capitalize on the growing neo-Nazi Skinhead movement. Butler hosted an annual youth festival for Skinheads at his compound featuring bands playing white power music."
