It Starts with Gravity and Momentum
Loading...
Date
2017-06-28
Authors
Campbell, Andrew Douglas
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Outlined here is a trajectory of research into the relationship between identity and narrative, with a particular focus on how that relationship subverts the boundary between mainstream and margin. Drawing on a Lacanian analysis of language as a fixed structure that the subject is molded to fit into, I propose that, through narrative, identity is a similar structure that draws on both verbal and nonverbal communication. Not to be misunderstood narrative and identity are not static, as the one informs the other and the other shapes the one a feedback loop forms that evolved as minor shifts in popular narrative and social norms develop.
One major rule of both narrative and identity performance is to identify sameness and difference. In the second section, paradoxes of sameness and difference are unpacked, and a healthy skepticism of context (how difference is framed, or the parameters of any given difference) is supported.
Moving into more concrete material, the third section analyzes the communicative means of narrative. Championing the cinematic image (and afterimage), superficial veneer, sentimental flourish, ornamentation as being inextricable from deeper meaning to the point of supporting a claim that 'deeper meaning' doesn't exist since it is defined only through an understating of surface. Any attempt to separate meaning from its surface is a disservice to representation.
The fourth and final section deals with how this surface changes. Jumping off of Kristeva's ideas on grief and atemporality, I work with material metaphors and cultural tenets to interrogate how the fabric of society is altered in times of crisis. Major questions in this section are: After the trauma, what is the goal of recovery? What is it to 'get over it'? Do we desire a return to a previous state? Is such a return possible and should it be desired in the first place? Trauma, crisis (personal and social) leave the surface irrevocably changed and denial of that change is potentially irresponsible. Each scar is a new story.
Description
18 pages