Next Wednesday’s guest lectures organised by the Narrative Research Group (4-5pm in W240) will be the second of two special sessions focusing on the international research of NRG members.
Drs Richard Berger and Peri Bradley will be presenting work recently delivered at the Popular Culture Association Conference, entitled Activating Kafka: the double-logic of an adaptation and Camping Out With Lady Gaga: An Investigation of the Political Potential of Female Camp Performance respectively (abstracts below).
The talks will be followed by a joint book launch for recent publications by various members of the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community in the Global BU room (DG68) near the library (5-7pm). All are very welcome! – wine, beer and a light buffet are on offer and hopefully it will be a good opportunity for us to catch up before the Xmas break.
Hope to see you there!
All the very best
Julia
Convenor, Narrative Research Group (CsJCC)
NRG Research Seminar
Wednesday 9 December 4-5pm W240
In the second of two special sessions focusing on the international research of Bournemouth academics, Drs Richard Berger and Peri Bradley will be presenting research recently delivered at the 2015 Popular Culture Association Conference.
Richard Berger – Activating Kafka: the double-logic of an adaptation.
In 1962 Orson Welles’ adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial, was released to lukewarm reviews. However, right up until his death in 1985, Welles persisted in telling interviewers that The Trial was his greatest film. In 1993, Harold Pinter again adapted the work for film – this time more ‘faithfully’ – and Welles earlier version was drawn back into a critical sphere where it was re-appraised as the definitive Kafka on screen. Far from straying too widely from Kafka’s seminal novel, Orson Welles in fact had a profound understanding of the German-speaking Czech writer’s work, and the his dark nightmarish humour. From Citizen Kane to Chimes at Midnight, the ‘utterance’ of Kafka is visible across all of Welles’ work, which has served to further Kafka’s paratextual ‘afterlife’.
Peri Bradley – Camping Out With Lady Gaga: An Investigation of the Political Potential of Female Camp Performance.
This paper explores the under-researched area of female camp, its relationship to feminism, and its political possibilities for women specifically. Previous studies of Camp and Camp performativity have relied on issues of sensibility and minority positioning – such as Sontag and Isherwood – but here I hope to expand on this original concept to provide a more inclusive definition of Camp that investigates the notion of female Camp as part of a historical and archetypal tradition present in both US and UK media that brings Camp and Camp performance out from the cultural periphery and into the mainstream in a positive – rather than negative way.