CP – Number 16 (2011)

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

Diane Arbus’s photographic work is highly representative of sixties America. The major themes of the time—from the Vietnam War to women’s lib and the questioning of social and sexual roles—all are visible in her images. Yet she specialized in freaks of all kinds and, even when she photographed so-called normal or ordinary people, she managed to make them look grotesque, if not abnormal. Her portraits therefore have scarcely anything in common either with the traditional beauty canons, the pathetic faces taken by her predecessors or the stereotypes developed by fashion photography. They rather suggest parodic versions of all these. If Diane Arbus relied heavily on the grotesque mode, it was to convey a highly satiric message. In addition, all her images show a flaw or “punctum” (to take up Barthes’s word), which is not only thematic but also aesthetic. The flaw opens the conventional referential frame, or disfigures the figure, so as to signal mystery, polysemy—that is a metaphoric type of representation. Arbus’s portraits can be said to represent the American social landscape they were taken from.

Keywords:

Arbus, photography, sixties, freaks, personal photojournalism.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0001 [0003784]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

When Lemuel Gulliver, in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, swims to the shores of Lilliput half-unconsciously and faints as soon as he lands, he is arrested by hundreds of Lilliputians for being a giant, monstrous alien. Gulliver finds himself as “othered”, having to learn the language and culture of all the savage lands that he discovers. When Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha fall off an exploded aircraft on the English Channel in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, they land on the English soil alive miraculously. Gibreel grows wings on his shoulders metamorphosing into an angel and Saladin grows horns and hooves turning into Satan. There is a parallelism between Gulliver’s Travels and The Satanic Verses in terms of their representations of foreignness, alienation and monstrosity. This paper analyses the theme of monstrosity in connection with alienation and questions the differences and similarities between Gulliver’s explorations and Saladin and Gibreel’s migration in terms of the meanings imposed upon the foreigners.

Keywords:

alienation, monstrosity, foreigners, Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Swift.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0002 [0003785]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

Doomed to have a troubled history, the Gypsy/Roma people who passed through, travelled about or settled in the Romanian territories are socially represented by nomadism, slavery, marginalization, discrimination and delinquency. Each of these phenomena is associated with particular stages in the process of building their constantly re-emerging ethnic identity.

The present study evolves from a diachronic survey of some classes of Gypsy/Roma groups, taking into account criteria such as social condition (enslaved vs. freed), degree of sedentarism (sedentary vs. nomadic) and traditional occupations (skilful craftsmen, processors of construction materials and entertainers/animators), to an evaluation of the current regional and occupational distribution of Roma communities in the historical regions of Romania (Moldavia, Oltenia and Ardeal) and of the transition from unary to binary naming systems.

Keywords:

representation, ethnic identity, crisis, Gypsy/Roma, naming pattern.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0003 [0003786]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

In the 21t century, maybe more than ever before, the media have started to play such an important role in the lives of people of all ages that ideas, opinions and even beliefs and values tend to be shaped in accordance to what is seen on TV, read in newspapers, magazines or on the internet or heard on the radio. The media, be they written or audio-visual, offer their own representation of the world, which, though sometimes quite far from reality, is central to what ultimately comes to represent people’s social realities. Throughout history, the media depicted women and minorities in stereotypical ways. In response to that, these groups tried to find their own ways of self-representation. Starting from social representations theory and social identity theory, this paper seeks to analyse the manner in which American black women present themselves in their own media through the titles used in Essence, an American magazine dedicated exclusively to black women.

Keywords:

social representations, social identity, black women, titles, linguistic representation.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0004 [0003787]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

In his novel Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie portrays his ideological positioning in a unique way. He changes the perception of history by retelling a nation’s history through Saleem’s personal (hi)story implying that a unique history of a nation can be constructed with fragmented stories of its people who represent all the cultural values and backgrounds of the country. A single person may have plural identities and both the clash and unity of plural identities constitute a unique identity as well as a unique nation. This study includes the analysis of Midnight’s Children as a quest of Rushdie’s representation of ideology through self storying, history and historiographic metafiction and plural identities.

Keywords:

Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, ideology, history, identity, postcolonial literature, postmodern literature.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0005 [0003788]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

The paper develops the hypothetical premise that, generally speaking, English loanwords constitute modes of representing the 21st century’s linguistic intercultural exchanges. The case study refers to the main morphological and semantic changes that occur in the Romanian words of English origin. We have chosen examples from three different domains (fashion, economics and automobiles) in order to bring into light the phenomenon of interculturality at the level of loanwords.

Keywords:

globalization, English (loan)words, Romanian words, bilingualism, Anglicisms, contact, interculturality.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0006 [0003789]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

Drama has been one of the modes of representation of man’s existential problems. This paper deals with the existentialist school of thought of Beckett and Pinter with special reference to absurdity as one of the major characteristics of postmodern era and the existential problems it has assigned on 21st century man. Man’s blurred view of his identity originating from his ambiguous view of his self in this era has turned to one of his focal existential obsessions. The paper highlights the ways through which these two great playwrights represent this theme and try to enable man attain a clearer view of his identity and his existence in the postmodern era.

Keywords:

Beckett, Pinter, representation, self and identity.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0007 [0003790]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam (1998) introduces the reader in the pragmatic temporal, spatial and professional reorientation specific to the end of the twentieth century. Temporally, people feel the pressure of the coming millennium and they feel compelled to mark its arrival in a special manner (politically, artistically or in any other way); spatially, they take advantage of the freedom to move with ease on the map of the contemporary global geography and enjoy the (cultural, touristic or political) benefits of one country or another, and professionally, they adapt to the pragmatic requirements of the chiliastic times. Our paper analyzes the manner in which the main characters in Amsterdam, a music composer and a journalist, cope with these three dimensions giving shape to a state-of-the-nation novel; on the other hand, it intends to rediscover McEwan’s talent in (re)presenting not only the art of reality but also in introducing in the novel, in a very subtle manner, all the arts as natural parts of our lives in an attempt to retrieve their lost status in our economic-driven, consumerist society.

Keywords:

English contemporary reality/ values, art(s), irony.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0008 [0003791]

Issue:

CP, Number 16

Section:

No. 16 (2011)  Editorial

Abstract:

A space is more than a paradigmatic choice of objects to be displayed within the geographical boundaries of a place. Thus, a space is the abode where a(n) (female) inhabiter projects her/his life into meaningful signs through a semiotic plunge into the past and/or the future. Having as theoretical background different semiotic theories (Greimas’s narrative semiotics, van Leeuwen’s social semiotics and Scollon & Scollon’s geosemiotics), various theories on space (E.T. Hall’s and A. Madanipour’s) and different models of semiotic analysis (Cmeciu’s textual semiotics and a semiotic approach to metaphor), the aim of our paper is to decode the semiotic journey performed by the main female character of the tale Stalker written by Patricia Duncker. Our analysis will focus on private spaces (a woman’s body seen as a space of horror and pleasure, the bed, the drawer, the kitchen) and public spaces (the office, the gym, the magazine cover, the TV screen).

Keywords:

chronotope, narrative semiotics, social semiotics, typology of spaces.

Code [ID]:

CP201116V00S01A0009 [0003792]