intertextuality seminar

7/26/2019 Intertextuality Seminar

1/8

Understanding Media and Communication:

A Life of Crime

SEMINAR

4 NOV

INTERTEXTUALITY

Lecture

wk 1 Mon 7 Oct Introduction

wk 2 Mon 14 OctNarrative

wk 3 Mon 21 Oct Genre

wk 4 Mon 28 Oct Representation

wk 5 Mon 4 Nov Intertextuality

wk 6 Mon 11 Nov Transmediality

wk 7 Mon 18 Nov Conclusions

Syllabus


2/8

INTERTEXTUALITY

SEMINAR

Recap: intertextuality

Intertextuality is pervasive and inescapable

Individual texts always refer to each other:

together, they constitute an intertext

Intertextuality is ideological in its representationsand discourses

Intertexts are situated in a social, cultural andpolitical context


3/8

Recap: active audiences

Meaning is not (only) in the text: audiences co-create it

Audiences actively construct ideological meanings

This process of meaning-making is cumulative, open-endedand inclusive: texts generate meanings generate texts,connected in an intertextual construct

A particular way of creating texts/meanings occurs whenaudiences literally produce new texts, adding their own(counter)hegemonic contribution to the intertextual web

Ideological representations:

Colonialism


4/8

Colonialism: ideology and

discourse

Orientalism:

us and them

a style of thought

a body of theory and practice

a system of knowledge and representation

a relationship of domination

politics and institutions


5/8

Power-laden binary where

Us the West speaks for/of

them the silent East

East is projected as a

dangerous, irrational and

specular other

The mirror other emerges as

a mediating category to cope

with the very new/different

and control it

Colonialism, Orientalism and

Sherlock Holmes:

Afghanistan

Victorian Dr John H. Watson:Army doctor

Afghanistan veteran

Wounded at the battle of Maiwand

heroic battle

murderous savages

benevolent caretaking UK government

Remnants of an Army: Dr. Brydon's arrival at Jalalabadby E.Butler (1879)


6/8

Dr John H. Watson today:

Army doctor

Afghanistan veteran

Post-traumatic stress disorder Chaotic scary fight

No visible enemies

Desolation and abandonment

Task 1: Orientalist

representations

The Sherlock Holmes intertext includesvarious colonialist and orientalistrepresentations. Sherlock(2010)tackles some of these ideological

representations.

1. Watch this clip from the series: whatrepresentations can you identify?Where do you think they are comingfrom? How are they reproduced?

2. What is the position of this clip inrelation to the ideologies in the 19th

century Sherlock Holmes text, asseen earlier?


7/8

ACTIVE AUDIENCES

Task 2: Active audiences

1. In groups, choose to analyse either Twilightor Harry Potter

2. Map an intertext of texts related to your choice. Here "text"means any type of narrative, artifact, activity related to thecentral text. Model your work on the example on thehandout provided.

3. You MUST include both officially and unofficially producedtexts.

4. What types of creativity are at work here? What do youthink of the different texts you come up with? How do thesetexts compare? How do you feel about them?

Prepare to discuss your findings with the class.


8/8

Group Tutorials 4 NOVEach week, wewill assign you agroup task to beperformed overlunch. Bring yourcompleted taskback to your group

tutorials fordiscussion.

ET130 ET135

1.30 Group 3 Group 8


2pm Group 5 Group 10



Tutorial times for today above. Each week we willrotate times for fairness, so make sure you notethis down each week. Please be on time!

Lunch Task1. As a group, pick a scene from a narrative text you are familiar

with (could be one of the texts we analysed so far, but you canpick anything you like).

2. Re-write the scene, changing one or more of the following:medium, genre, narrative structure/plot, settings, ideology,

hegemony, intertextuality, characterisation. Make sure yourchanges are not just cosmetic or superficial. Draw on thenotions presented in todays lecture, and in the module ingeneral.

3. Bring your work to the group tutorials. Be prepared to discussyour version of the scene in relation to the original, and toexplain your choices.

4. How much of an author you are? Whats the differencebetween your text and the official one?

intertextuality seminar

Documents