Kayfabe is a seamless or attempted-seamless presentation of a character in an effort to maintain audience engagement. Some people may be unaware of the lie, many people are, but they decide to go along with it. It’s about seeing where the performance goes.
Read MoreWhat seems obvious to me is that, around the time that film was emerging as an art form, the construction of prose fiction changed rather dramatically. The primary difference of most 20th Century literature from 19th Century and earlier literature is the filmic quality.
Read MoreSo let’s shake the metaphorical etch-a-sketch and look at one of the central questions of Blade Runner that the “is Deckard a Replicant?” issue really serves as a stalking horse for: What is the relationship between memory and identity?
Read MoreThis is a variation of the Is/Ought problem, which is frankly one of the most frustrating things in the field of philosophy, and something that postmodern philosophy in general suffers from. I’m writing, of course, about the phenomenon where a writer will sit down and describe what is the case with something, and readers, critics, and commentators will then insist that the writer is describing not what actually exists, but what ought to be the case.
Read MoreI am far from an expert on international affairs, and I’m not yet ready to do a book roundup of my own – which will be heavily featuring Japanese literature in translation, in pursuit of a semi-scholarly project I’m working on – so I’m a bit at a loss as to what to write. Hence, I’m going to be continuing my series on Murray Bookchin’s Ecology of Freedom.
Read More