Editorial [PDF]
Christine Caruana: University of Malta
‘Beyond the Confines’: An Interview with Terry Eagleton [PDF]
The antae Editorial Board
‘Mn’: Transgressive ‘Penelope’ [PDF]
Lara Cortis: University of Malta
This article will explore notions of female agency and assertiveness in the final chapter (‘Penelope’) of James Joyce’s 1922 modernist novel Ulysses. It will attempt to demonstrate how Molly Bloom transgresses traditional and expected norms of behaviour and thought for a woman living in the early 20th century. I will argue that Molly is in some ways an androgynous figure and that she approximates the male sensibility to a degree. Additionally, the study will illustrate in brief how she challenges women’s marginality in a male-dominated society and how unapologetic she is, and whether this is related to her sexual agency or otherwise. I will also be making brief references to other chapters, in relation to Leopold Bloom particularly, for comparative purposes. I also intend to explore ‘Penelope’ in relation to the obscenity trial of Ulysses and how this might have conditioned its reception by readers. Finally, I will also attempt to suggest that the closing chapter of Ulysses is far less transgressive than might have initially been previously asserted.
Perspectives in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Medieval Transgressive Text? [PDF]
Joseph St John: University of Malta
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a complex Arthurian verse romance that features a beheading game coupled with parallel temptation and hunting scenes. These elements are intertwined; yet this is revealed to hero and reader only towards the end of the narrative. The Gawain-poet presents the reader with ambivalent characters and a hero who does not necessarily comprehend the implications of events unfolding around him. The ambivalence permeating the characters has led to manifold, often conflicting, interpretations of the text. The present article explores the characters of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in particular the two protagonists, with reference to literary analogues and other works that offer meaningful insights, as well as with due regard to medieval conceptions of art and the values enshrined in Sir Gawain’s pentangle. The objective of this essay is to determine whether the poem’s ambivalent elements give rise to a text that is open-ended, thereby transgressing medieval conceptions of art, or whether the pentangle passage outlining Sir Gawain’s moral code provides a fixed point against which to interpret the unfolding narrative. Other forms of transgression, particularly those pertaining to the boundaries of genre, are also discussed.
Transgression or Breaking with Tradition: Reading Millais, Rossetti, and Beardsley [PDF]
Haythem Bastawy: Leeds Trinity University
From their initiation as an art movement in the mid-1840s, the Pre-Raphaelites rooted themselves within the notion of rebelling against Victorian art traditions by drawing upon the stylistic tools of pre-Renaissance art. Similarly, Aubrey Beardsley’s short career in the fin de siècle was oriented within a departure from Victorian accepted artistic norms, framing his work within a Japanese as well as a Gothic-inspired style. This being an apparent similarity between rebellious art in mid-Victorian era and its counterpart in the Victorian fin de siècle makes it the more surprising that it has not been the subject of a thorough analysis, if discussed previously at all. In this article I argue that in spite of their different styles, Aubrey Beardsley on one hand, as well as Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti on the other, were similar in their rebelliousness by attempting to break away from Victorian art traditions. Furthermore, by drawing on Carol Jacobi’s ‘Salt, Sugar and Curdled Milk’, I argue that there is an added element to the comparison which goes beyond the apparent rebellious transgression and further assimilates two stylistically different but similarly rebellious modes of art.
Stratford Centre: Reimagined Playground [PDF]
Carla da Silva: Goldsmiths University of London
The following article is a collection of images looking at how youth counter cultural groups of urban dancers, skateboarders and roller skaters reappropriate a commercial space in East London and reimagine a pluralist playground. The narratives of trespass and occupation of Stratford Centre—a “private-public” space used both as a shopping centre and a 24-hour thoroughfare—are visually explored through photographs depicting moments of happiness, sharing, friendship and creative collaboration between young people. This work challenges the concepts of public space and common right to the city by unveiling the marginalisation and exclusion of these young alternative cultures and the lack of formal urban spaces for (young) people to engage in different activities—more spontaneous and recreational than the ones of work and consumption. Through subversive practices, the young people gathering at night in the underused space of the shopping centre reclaim and take back their right to socialise, express themselves and play. They suggest alternative and sensory rich ways of experiencing urban space and create possibilities of action that are not offered by the capitalist city. Driven by the desire to positively represent this vibrant and inclusive place, this body of work attempts to convey something of the atmosphere of an open space characterised by great social cohesion and performed by a community of young talented people.
Participatory Worlds: Models of Collaborative Textual Production beyond the Entertainment Industry [PDF]
José M. Blázquez: University of Nottingham
Throughout history, participation has been a term closely related to transgression and the democratisation and the balance of the inequalities in society. Participation has continued being a major concept in the digital age where ‘participatory culture’, a culture where audiences get the framework, knowledge and tools to take part in the creation and production of content, has becoming more popular and visible than ever before. Co-creation practices between producers and consumers (also known as value co-creation or co-creation of value) has been seen for many academics, gurus and organisations as a way to generate industrial innovation in the near future. Software development and testing, “modding”, knowledge exchange and participatory journalism are areas where user participation has been applied successfully. However, there are other disciplines where co-creation practices have seen very little improvement within the industry. This is the case of narrative contributions to story-worlds. Entertainment industries, IP owners of the most popular franchises, generally keep a strict control over their fictional worlds and user participation may only be considered as a part of a marketing strategy, market research and customer feedback. Even when channels for participation exist (for example, in the form of a contest), narrative contributions created by fans are merely treated as fan-fiction. In contrast, projects based on participatory story-worlds allow audiences to contribute canonically to the fictional world. Generally supported by independent ventures, the nature of these projects transgress the mainstream, going beyond the rules and conventions established by the industry. However, participatory worlds also keep ties with entertainment industries and with their practices, platforms and conventions. This dual relationship with the mainstream places participatory worlds in the margins of the norm. This paper attempts to bring to light this relationship and demonstrate that participatory worlds are situated both in and out of the system.
