Kirjahaku

Can fictions of desire determine real pleasures? Do texts regulate the performance of our sexual identities? In Sexuality and the Reading Encounter, Emma Wilson offers a new account of the intimate relations between reading, identity and identification. Interweaving theoretical debate with analysis of texts by Proust, Duras, Tournier and Cixous, her study reveals the formative potential and transferential pleasures of the reading encounter. Drawing on an understanding of identity as performative, alienated and fictitious, this study argues that the fictions we read act as mirrors and decoys displaying seductive images of intelligible sexual identities. The texts chosen for discussion here draw attention to the strategies by which identity is constructed textually. They work thus to frame the reading encounter and to highlight its formative power. In analysis of these texts, this study works to cut across the axes of homosexuality and heterosexuality, offering an alternative focus on the independence of fantasy and identity.

The films of Atom Egoyan immerse the viewer in a world of lush sensuality, melancholia, and brooding obsession. From his earliest films Next of Kin and Family Viewing, to his coruscating Exotica and recent projects such as Where the Truth Lies, Egoyan has paid infinite attention to narrative intricacy and psychological complexity. Traumatic loss and its management through ritual return as themes in his films as he explores personal scenarios of mourning and broader issues of genocide, exile, and postmemory, in particular in relation to his own Armenian heritage. In this study, Emma Wilson closely analyzes the range of Egoyan's films and their visual textures, emotional control, and perverse beauty. Offering a full-scale chronological overview of Egoyan's work on films up to and including Where the Truth Lies, Wilson shows the persistence and development of certain structures and themes in Egoyan's cinema: questions of exile and nostalgia, trauma and healing, the family and sexuality. While drawing on ideas about intercultural cinema, Wilson also sets Egoyan's films in the context of contemporary Canadian cinema and European art-house cinema. Egoyan's own comments on his films thread throughout Wilson's analyses, and the book features a recent interview with the director.

The films of Atom Egoyan immerse the viewer in a world of lush sensuality, melancholia, and brooding obsession. From his earliest films Next of Kin and Family Viewing, to his coruscating Exotica and recent projects such as Where the Truth Lies, Egoyan has paid infinite attention to narrative intricacy and psychological complexity. Traumatic loss and its management through ritual return as themes in his films as he explores personal scenarios of mourning and broader issues of genocide, exile, and postmemory, in particular in relation to his own Armenian heritage. In this study, Emma Wilson closely analyzes the range of Egoyan's films and their visual textures, emotional control, and perverse beauty. Offering a full-scale chronological overview of Egoyan's work on films up to and including Where the Truth Lies, Wilson shows the persistence and development of certain structures and themes in Egoyan's cinema: questions of exile and nostalgia, trauma and healing, the family and sexuality. While drawing on ideas about intercultural cinema, Wilson also sets Egoyan's films in the context of contemporary Canadian cinema and European art-house cinema. Egoyan's own comments on his films thread throughout Wilson's analyses, and the book features a recent interview with the director.

Providing a modern introduction to French cinema, this book describes the French passion for histories in images that gave birth to the 'Nouvelle Vague' and which is still felt today. The post-war period is the first time French directors think consciously of the idea of cinema in the first person, offering a personal vision and embodying a personal style. Yet this personal vision is also the filter through which films focus on public history, mass events and massive trauma.

Alain Resnais, director of 'Hiroshima mon amour' (1959) and 'L'Annee derniere a Marienbad' (1961), has transformed the representation of memory, fantasy and desire in modern cinema. This illuminating introduction to his work, extending from his earliest documentaries to the musical films of the last decade, traces the evolving patterns of his filmmaking, its changing reflections on mortality, guilt, chance and human doubt. Exploring questions of the time-image, of trauma, of the senses, this volume sets Resnais' films in the context of important current debates in film theory, and provides a concise account of critical discussions of his work in France and beyond. Yet it also offers a highly personal and detailed engagement with individual images and scenes in Resnais' films. A passionate and partial defence of Resnais' work, old and new, this volume stands apart in its attention to the more tangible and moving pleasures of his films, their pathos, rigour and visual beauty.

Celine Sciamma is the most visible and important feminist, and lesbian, director in contemporary international filmmaking. Her fourth feature, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019 and intervened directly in debates about the female gaze, sexuality and specifically how to look at and make a portrait of young women. In her approach to female, non-binary and queer identities, she has focused on the need for agency, binding this imperative into her aesthetic choices and modes of filmmaking. This is the first book-length study of Sciamma's films, focusing on the relationship of her work to the visual arts and exploring the relevance of feminist theory to her unique perspective.

Celine Sciamma is the most visible and important feminist, and lesbian, director in contemporary international filmmaking. Her fourth feature, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019 and intervened directly in debates about the female gaze, sexuality and specifically how to look at and make a portrait of young women. In her approach to female, non-binary and queer identities, she has focused on the need for agency, binding this imperative into her aesthetic choices and modes of filmmaking. This is the first book-length study of Sciamma's films, focusing on the relationship of her work to the visual arts and exploring the relevance of feminist theory to her unique perspective.

The figure of a woman reclining, in repose, displayed, abandoned, fallen, asleep, or dreaming, returns in the work of women filmmakers and photographers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Filmmakers Agnès Varda and Catherine Breillat, and American photographer working in Paris, Nan Goldin, return to the paintings of Titian, Velázquez, Goya, Courbet, and others, re-imagining, and re-purposing, their images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. This book, a sensuous evocation of these feminist works, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. The artists explored align images of repose and sensuality with other images of horizontality and proneness, of strong emotional content, images of erotic involvement, of vulnerability, of bodily contortion, of listlessness, grief, and depression. The reclining nude is for all three artists a starting point for a reflection on the relation of film, projections, and still photography, to painting, and a sustained re-imagining of the meanings conjured through serial returns to a particular pose. This book claims that the image of the reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists – and for all allied in feeling and picturing femininity – in the sensitive, ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages. The reclining nude is an image of passivity, of submission, of hedonism. It allows thought about passivity as pleasure, about depression and grief figured posturally, about indolence as a form of resistance and anarchy. Through this image, female-identified artists have claimed freedom to offer new focus on these extremes of emotion. They are re-imagining horizontality.

The figure of a woman reclining, in repose, displayed, abandoned, fallen, asleep, or dreaming, returns in the work of women filmmakers and photographers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Filmmakers Agnès Varda and Catherine Breillat, and American photographer working in Paris, Nan Goldin, return to the paintings of Titian, Velázquez, Goya, Courbet, and others, re-imagining, and re-purposing, their images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. This book, a sensuous evocation of these feminist works, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. The artists explored align images of repose and sensuality with other images of horizontality and proneness, of strong emotional content, images of erotic involvement, of vulnerability, of bodily contortion, of listlessness, grief, and depression. The reclining nude is for all three artists a starting point for a reflection on the relation of film, projections, and still photography, to painting, and a sustained re-imagining of the meanings conjured through serial returns to a particular pose. This book claims that the image of the reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists – and for all allied in feeling and picturing femininity – in the sensitive, ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages. The reclining nude is an image of passivity, of submission, of hedonism. It allows thought about passivity as pleasure, about depression and grief figured posturally, about indolence as a form of resistance and anarchy. Through this image, female-identified artists have claimed freedom to offer new focus on these extremes of emotion. They are re-imagining horizontality.

Kieslowski's last films have indelibly marked the past decade. His cinema has renewed the representation of the human subject and emotion in film: space and luminous surface reveal the finest, most fragile impressions of states of mind and human consciousness. This study is the first to offer specific focus on Kies'lowski's last films, on his French-language cinema and its place within the broader context of French film-making. Engaging with Deleuze's discussions of the time-image, and recent work in trauma theory, Emma Wilson offers radical insights into the innovation in Kies'lowski's explorations of memory, temporality, loss and desire. A charged defence of Kies'lowski's work, Memory and Survival offers new readings of this cinema of blind chance and fleeting beauty.

In "The Kiss We Never Had," experience the poignant exploration of unfulfilled love and the moments that linger in the shadows of memory. This collection of evocative verses captures the delicate interplay of longing and regret, where each poem weaves a tapestry of emotions that resonate deep within the heart. Through vivid imagery and heartfelt language, the poet invites you to journey through the untold stories of desire, the whispers of unsaid words, and the bittersweet ache of what might have been. Each page turns into a reflection on relationships, vulnerability, and the enchanting yet elusive nature of connection. "The Kiss We Never Had" is not just a book of poetry; it is an introspective dialogue with the past, encouraging readers to embrace the beauty in their own untold tales of love and loss. Let these words stir your soul, awakening the memories locked away, and remind you that sometimes the most profound moments exist in the spaces we dare not occupy.

In "The Nebula Knights," embark on a celestial journey where dreams intertwine with the cosmos. This evocative collection of poems explores themes of bravery, wonder, and the eternal quest for meaning beyond the stars. With each verse, the reader is transported into vivid landscapes where gallant figures navigate the uncharted territories of both the universe and their own hearts. The imagery oscillates between the grandiosity of space and the intimate struggles of the human spirit, creating a tapestry that is both expansive and deeply personal. Through lyrical finesse and emotional depth, the poems illuminate the heroism found in vulnerability, inviting readers to discover the luminous strength that resides within us all. Join the Nebula Knights as they traverse through stardust and shadows, summoning courage amidst the vastness of existence. Engage with this mesmerizing exploration of life, love, and the labyrinth of the cosmos.

In "The Nebula Knights," embark on a celestial journey where dreams intertwine with the cosmos. This evocative collection of poems explores themes of bravery, wonder, and the eternal quest for meaning beyond the stars. With each verse, the reader is transported into vivid landscapes where gallant figures navigate the uncharted territories of both the universe and their own hearts. The imagery oscillates between the grandiosity of space and the intimate struggles of the human spirit, creating a tapestry that is both expansive and deeply personal. Through lyrical finesse and emotional depth, the poems illuminate the heroism found in vulnerability, inviting readers to discover the luminous strength that resides within us all. Join the Nebula Knights as they traverse through stardust and shadows, summoning courage amidst the vastness of existence. Engage with this mesmerizing exploration of life, love, and the labyrinth of the cosmos.

"Endless Paths Together" is a heartfelt exploration of love, growth, and the shared journeys that bind us. Through vivid imagery and evocative language, this collection invites readers to traverse the winding roads of relationships, celebrating both the joys and the trials encountered along the way. Each poem captures moments of connection and reflection, resonating with the universal experiences of companionship and understanding. The verses weave together a tapestry of emotions, from the thrill of new beginnings to the comfort of familiar routines, highlighting the beauty found in the rhythm of togetherness. In "Endless Paths Together," the journey is as important as the destination. Join the author on this lyrical adventure, where each page turns and every line blooms into a testament of love's enduring power, illuminating the paths we walk side by side.

"Endless Paths Together" is a heartfelt exploration of love, growth, and the shared journeys that bind us. Through vivid imagery and evocative language, this collection invites readers to traverse the winding roads of relationships, celebrating both the joys and the trials encountered along the way. Each poem captures moments of connection and reflection, resonating with the universal experiences of companionship and understanding. The verses weave together a tapestry of emotions, from the thrill of new beginnings to the comfort of familiar routines, highlighting the beauty found in the rhythm of togetherness. In "Endless Paths Together," the journey is as important as the destination. Join the author on this lyrical adventure, where each page turns and every line blooms into a testament of love's enduring power, illuminating the paths we walk side by side.