Another word for feeling : affect and still images in the work of Paul Auster, David Thomson and Atom Egoyan

Starr, Paul. (2004). Another word for feeling : affect and still images in the work of Paul Auster, David Thomson and Atom Egoyan PhD Thesis, School of English, Media Studies and Art History, The University of Queensland.

       
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Author Starr, Paul.
Thesis Title Another word for feeling : affect and still images in the work of Paul Auster, David Thomson and Atom Egoyan
School, Centre or Institute School of English, Media Studies and Art History
Institution The University of Queensland
Publication date 2004
Thesis type PhD Thesis
Supervisor Tony Thwaites
Frances Bonner
Total pages 268
Collection year 2004
Language eng
Subjects L
420399 Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified
751001 Languages and literature
Formatted abstract This cultural studies thesis analyses the cultural roles played by the gaps between affect and representation, where affect is considered as the emotions, the senses and sensation, taken together. These gaps are explored and developed in a series of analyses of how three contemporary writers and filmmakers address still images and affect. It is argued that the works of Paul Auster, David Thomson and Atom Egoyan offer bridges between affect and representation, without collapsing the one onto the other.

This thesis introduces the idea that the systematic and excessive, surprising aspects of affect can be understood in terms of economies of affect. After an analysis of how affect has been considered in some of the social sciences, the argument addresses some key bodies of work in cultural studies: the writings of Lawrence Grossberg, Brian Massumi and Meaghan Morris, and then, as an example of work on affect with a focus on still images, Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida.

Using this as a starting point, a selection of Paul Auster's novels and films can then provide a focus on affect and photography, while also raising crucial issues such as how affect can be adapted and mediated between media. A discussion on affect and the representation of landscape takes the argument to a consideration of David Thomson's writings on film, and the particular case of mediation between the visual and the written. Atom Egoyan's films, particularly The Sweet Hereafter, Felicia's Journey and Calendar, broaden this out to various other technologies, media and forms, including literary adaptation and video. The conclusion reprises these issues, but now in the speculative context of an ecological and historical role for affect.
Keyword Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature
Auster, Paul, 1947- -- Criticism and interpretation
Thomson, David, 1914-1988
Egoyan, Atom, 1960-

 
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Created: Fri, 24 Aug 2007, 18:38:50 EST