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Abstract
While the plot of Bithia Mary Croker’s Anglo-Indian ghost stories is often conventional, their unsettling horror lies in the depiction of social pressure British memsahibs encountered upon their arrival in India. Here, they were introduced into communities, which were ruled by minute social requirements. In doing so Croker’s ghost stories not only translate middle-class values into an Indian setting, they also illustrate the volatility of the imperial mind-sets British memsahibs had to navigate.
Abstract
Britpop-band Pulp’s most successful album A Different Class is mostly concerned, as the title indicates, with questions of class-constructions. The song and the respective music video “Common People” deal with the dynamics surrounding gentrification, the motivations and problems that arise when the well-off move into low-income areas. This paper argues that song and video deconstruct the song’s female character perception of the poor as “cool” as a myth in Barthes’s sense. At the same time the male character’s self-image as a member of the working-classes is equally grounded in mythical social signification. The use of several spaces in “Common People” illustrates the ambiguous nature of class-constructions and their semantic codes.
Abstract
While the plot of Bithia Mary Croker’s Anglo-Indian ghost stories is often conventional, their unsettling horror lies in the depiction of social pressure British memsahibs encountered upon their arrival in India. Here, they were introduced into communities, which were ruled by minute social requirements. In doing so Croker’s ghost stories not only translate middle-class values into an Indian setting, they also illustrate the volatility of the imperial mind-sets British memsahibs had to navigate.
Abstract
Intra- and international migration results in the creation of a variety of spaces relegated to structure, process or hinder the mobility of refugees and migrants alike. While migration is often perceived as a primarily mobile event, these spaces do hint at another dimension of life refugees have to endure on a constant basis: indefinite waiting in liminal spaces such as refugee camps or office buildings. These spaces not only create their own temporalities, but they are also found in a sort of legal limbo where rights and responsibilities of those in waiting and those who enforce this waiting become increasingly unclear. This chapter will discuss the representation of such spaces in short stories by E.C. Osondu and Dinaw Mengestu. The theoretical framework will be provided by Marc Augé’s concept of the non-place and Giorgio Agamben’s conept of the camp.
Abstract
Britpop-band Pulp’s most successful album A Different Class is mostly concerned, as the title indicates, with questions of class-constructions. The song and the respective music video “Common People” deal with the dynamics surrounding gentrification, the motivations and problems that arise when the well-off move into low-income areas. This paper argues that song and video deconstruct the song’s female character perception of the poor as “cool” as a myth in Barthes’s sense. At the same time the male character’s self-image as a member of the working-classes is equally grounded in mythical social signification. The use of several spaces in “Common People” illustrates the ambiguous nature of class-constructions and their semantic codes.
Abstract
Intra- and international migration results in the creation of a variety of spaces relegated to structure, process or hinder the mobility of refugees and migrants alike. While migration is often perceived as a primarily mobile event, these spaces do hint at another dimension of life refugees have to endure on a constant basis: indefinite waiting in liminal spaces such as refugee camps or office buildings. These spaces not only create their own temporalities, but they are also found in a sort of legal limbo where rights and responsibilities of those in waiting and those who enforce this waiting become increasingly unclear. This chapter will discuss the representation of such spaces in short stories by E.C. Osondu and Dinaw Mengestu. The theoretical framework will be provided by Marc Augé’s concept of the non-place and Giorgio Agamben’s conept of the camp.