Academic Section (Vol. 2, No. 1)

Abstract
Often cast aside as a mere advertisement, a vapid illustration of sound, music video has received little scholarly attention to date. However, especially in the 1980s, the art form enamored entire generations of adolescents, who turned to it because it promised an escape into a less restrictive, more enticing life. This article reads the music video of Laura Branigan’s 1984 pop song “Self Control” in the context of the simultaneous rise of social conservatism and the emerging medium of the music video. I argue that “Self Control” entraps its audience in the artificial, unattainable space music videos create in order to profit off the wish to transgress one’s material surroundings. For this venture, the video appropriates queer, transgressive spaces, aesthetics, and conventions, which were fashioned in the late-1970s disco era. It then subjects disco spaces to two parallel processes. One is that of reworking and refashioning them to appease a mass audience and its tastemakers. The other is that of abstracting these spaces and severing their connection to the lived realities in which they originate. Together, these processes refashion the format of the music video into an industrial product that mediates pleasurable experiences such as free bodily expression and the temporary suspension of marginalization. I trace these developments by analyzing several parameters of film style, including mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing.

Keywords
Music Video – Popular Culture – Queer Studies – Space in Film – Disco

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Abstract
Horror contains all the necessary ingredients for an enticing read: its startling, oftentimes unprecedented elements and imagery manage to produce suspense within a fixed framework that ensures separation between a fictional tormented protagonist and real-life readers. Carmen Maria Machado focuses on yet another strength of the genre, namely its power to give voice to the unspeakable. She reclaims the monstrous female and redefines her as the potent ‘Other.’ Through the lens of Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject, this paper illustrates how body horror in Machado’s short story “Real Women Have Bodies” can be elevated to a functional literary instrument that exposes a readership’s biases towards female realities. Machado’s female characters defy categorization in terms of heteropatriarchal laws and willingly choose existence in a liminal space where ambiguity reigns. By executing their roles as abjects, Machado’s female cast perpetually challenges readers to perceive and re-evaluate their seemingly one-dimensional characters in all their contradictory facets. Ultimately, abject female characters act as signposts, pointing at underlying gaps and fractures in male-oriented societies.    

Keywords
Abjection – Body Horror – Female Subjectivity – Feminism – Julia Kristeva

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Abstract
Disability studies is a comparatively new field within literary studies, focusing on the portrayal of disabilities in literature and the complex connotations, perceptions, and systems of oppression associated with it. This article examines Octavia Butler’s short story “The Evening and the Morning and the Night,” which revolves around the fictional hereditary Duryea-Gode-Disease (DGD) and reveals the pervasive structural oppression experienced by affected characters. The discussion covers the concepts of ableism, empowerment, and intersectionality. Butler’s narrative presents a path towards liberation from discrimination, while underscoring the varying impact of this discrimination based on the individual’s intersectional identity. Ultimately, the examination highlights the significance of communal support as a vital tool in resisting discrimination. It also illustrates how the disease intersects with other social categories to shape unique experiences of oppression.

Keywords
Disability studies – Octavia Butler – Science Fiction – Discrimination

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Abstract
This article studies the use of Affect theory in relation to the notion of hyperobjects to explore if the latter can help transform complex environmental processes into culturally comprehensible concepts. Taking the notion of hyperobjects as a starting point, the cognitive effects of narrative are examined as a source of empathy, for the display of emotional content is one of the qualities of fiction. The article inquires if it can inform audiences’ responses and decision-making processes. Furthermore, the essay explores the affective connection between human and non-human entities by applying the aforementioned theoretical concepts to a close reading of work by the contemporary American poet and critic Juliana Spahr, in particular her poem “Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache” (2005/2011).

Keywords
Ecocriticism – Ecopoetry – Hyperobjects – Affect Theory – Narrative

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Abstract
This article examines how Alice Oseman’s novel Loveless employs both metafiction and autofiction in its narration to establish queer joy. Metafiction hereby connects to romance tropes that are both employed by and reflected on by the protagonist, while the presence of autofictional selves of Oseman relates to asexuality and aromanticism. The analysis considers the struggles, confusion, and pain as depicted in the protagonist’s story, specifically in (autofictional) connection to Oseman and their statements about their own journey as an aromantic and asexual (shortened as aro-ace) person. Most centrally however, both the self-awareness of metafiction and the authenticity of autofiction are read in close connection to queer joy . Ultimately, this article argues that Loveless functions as an alternative love story to the heteronormative script, furthering aro-ace representation and offering hope to any reader seeking love beyond heteronormative romance.

Keywords
Autofiction – Metafiction – Asexuality – Romance Fiction – Queer Joy – YA Novel

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