Search

Thinking about the dynamics of precarity challenges us to defy and avoid any essentialised and crystallised category of exploitation and of the worker in the contemporary chain of value extraction. Indeed, since the neoliberal paradigm is often described as a regime shattering any distinction between life and work, such a productive dimension involves tackling subjectivity at the intersection of class, race, gender, ability/disability. The aim of this paper is to examine the recent The Assistant (2019) by Kitty Green, which, because of its melancholic and disempowering affective patterns, embodies a fascinating critical potential in reversing mythologies and imaginative traps related to dreams of individualised self-entrepreneurship. The film allows us to discuss these same intertwined levels by observing the emotional economy entailed in cultural work and how much this ecology can be connected with more general coordinates and strategies of feminisation and extraction of care-related activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nikolaj Lübecker's book, "Twenty-First-Century Symbolism: Verlaine, Baudelaire, Mallarmé," explores the role of poetry in contemporary society. Lübecker argues that poetry can be seen as a form of solid and consistent thought, capable of challenging and reimagining our understanding of the world. The book examines the works of Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé, highlighting their contributions to the redefinition of human existence and the relationship between the individual and the environment. Lübecker emphasizes the ecological nature of subjectivity and the importance of relational dynamics in shaping our perception, emotion, and action. The book ultimately celebrates the power of poetry to inspire and enrich our lives. [Extracted from the article]

This article aims to investigate the political and conceptual power of the successful and highly praised film Bacurau (Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2019) by inserting it within general trends of contemporary visual culture surrounding the issue of cinematic precarity. The discussion will find its analytical coordinates around the notions of chronotope and dialogism. These tools are notoriously attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin and are intended to investigate regular patterns in aesthetic experiences and to evaluate the differential and subversive potential to be attributed to every case study. The grounding assumption of the following analysis is to understand cinematic experience as an ecological encounter and an affective and conceptual interaction in which viewers find the opportunity to explore and experience complex ethical systems: a productive interrelation that allows us also to connect the discussion with reflections upon general dynamics of neoliberal governance and with trajectories of resistance and revolt against it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the film "Inside Llewyn Davis," starring Oscar Isaac. Particular focus is given to the way the film stages melancholic perception of the world and the affective components of the experience in this motion picture, such as camera movements, special effects, and soundtrack. The author discusses the negative emotions that the film generate and the link of the melancholic sensations with the emotional world of Isaacs.