Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications

The saga writers of medieval Iceland rhetorically engage with contemporary social issues in their narratives, including issues faced by women and, in particular, the treatment of women in regard to their marriages. Many of these medieval social issues are still relevant today, including gender politics, matters of consent, and spousal abuse. This study limits its analysis of these themes to narratives in two genres of medieval Icelandic literature: the heroic cycle (heroic eddic poetry and the legendary Völsunga saga) and the Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). In all of the narratives much is at stake for the leading female characters; the primary difference is that depending on genre, the actions females make to subvert the dominant patriarchy vary greatly, from drastic on the one hand to subtle yet effective on the other.

In this study, McGillivray explores the cultural environment in which the Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál was composed and reexamines the relationship between form and content in the poem and the respective influences of pre-Christian beliefs and Christian religion on the text. The poem has a dual aspect, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as a sacred story. It serves both as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and also as a myth itself, relating the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge. The dialogue continues to captivate those enthusiastic about myth and history in the present, even as it did the medieval audiences who heard it.

This article defends the relevance of Slavoj Žižek in the field of film studies through a close reading of his book, The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieslowski Between Theory and Post-Theory (2001). In this book, Žižek responds to critiques of film theory, particularly those of David Bordwell and Noël Carroll in their anthology, Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (1996). In doing so, Žižek adds significantly to film theory by addressing errors found in early psychoanalytic film theory, and amending them in a way that focuses more specifically on questions about ideology and subjectivity. The first part of this article demonstrates the way in which a psychoanalytic interpretation of cinema can add to a theory of ideology and subjectivity; while the second part focuses on Žižek’s interpretation of Kieslowski’s films, which serve as a means for defending Theory [capital T] against post-Theory. For Žižek, this split in film studies indicates the existence of class struggle in intellectual discourse at the level of ideology.

Slavoj Žižek is one of the world’s most important contemporary public intellectuals. Much of his popularity stems from his constant and recurring references to popular culture and cinema, as well as his own appearances in films such as The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and Examined Life. Although Žižek refers to cinema in order to help explain difficult concepts in his theoretical writing, film scholars question whether Žižek has his own theory of film. This book argues that Žižek’s writing on film radically reorients the scope of contemporary film studies. Returning to questions about ideology and subjectivity, Flisfeder argues that Slavoj Žižek’s theory of film aims to re-politicize film studies and film theory in order to take on the political challenges of the twenty-first century.

Drawing primarily on Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian reading of Kant and Hegel, but also taking up arguments made by Joan Copjec and Fredric Jameson, this article asserts a conception of the ‘feminine sublime’ in accordance with the political-philosophical approach of dialectical materialism. The article begins by distinguishing between historical and dialectical materialism in order to assert what is at stake in the Marxian critique of ideology, followed by a discussion of the Lacanian conception of the feminine subjective position. The conception of the ‘feminine sublime’ articulated here draws connections between the feminine and proletarian subjective positions, and proposes a way of articulating an ethics of revolutionary subjectivity.