Transversal Textures

Food has a vital role in a person’s life. It provides sustenance and ensures the proper functioning of the mind and body. It has also always had a social role in encouraging interaction and connection. Additionally, many religions relate food and eating to sexuality, as in the Bible or Kama Sutra. Both forms of food symbolism, communality, and sexuality are present in Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020-ongoing), adapted from Julia Quinn’s book series (2000-2013). Famous for being close-knit, the Bridgertons exhibit incessant camaraderie and deep emotional connection. This paper argues that the series often conveys their familial intimacy through food and eating. Moreover, food is used to show romantic connections and conflicts, such as when Daphne and Colin express desire for their respective romantic interests while eating sweets. Likewise, cherries arguably represent Lady Featherington’s daughters’ virginity. Finally, food serves as a powerful symbol of the social status and knowledge availa...

In 2024, Netflix aired its new addition to the already flourishing genre of dystopian TV series. Ready, Set, Love is a Thai comedy romance show set in a world where an epidemic has all but wiped-out men and lowered the birthrate of baby boys to just 1%, turning men into a coveted treasure. Protected at all times, men live in an isolated area called The Farm, and they find partners via the eponymous dating show. The plot intertwines the love story with a gradual exposure of sinister governmental machinations ubiquitous to dystopia. This article aims to analyze how both the game show and the governmental regime objectify and commodify people to gain commercial profit and biopolitical power. The levels of objectification will be examined through the lens of Marxist postulates and reality television scholarship on the one hand and Foucauldian biopolitics on the other.Keywords: biopolitics, commodification, dystopia, Ready, Set, Love, reality television

U ovoj knjizi sustavno je i kritički obrađena opsežna biografska građa o Marinu Držiću, s posebnim naglaskom na razlikovanje stvarnih i izmišljenih elemenata u različitim tekstovima koji su tijekom stoljeća pokušavali rekonstruirati njegov lik i djelo. Autorica pristupa temi u skladu s modernim teorijama historiografije i književne povijesti, koje upozoravaju na problematičnu narav povijesnih izvora, bez obzira na to radi li se o službenim zapisima, sudskim dokumentima ili rodoslovljima. Još su strukturalisti sredinom 20. stoljeća istaknuli da je granica između stvarnog i izmišljenog u takvim tekstovima često nejasna, a ta je spoznaja kasnije postala ključna za intertekstualna istraživanja. Uzimajući u obzir i sumnju u vjerodostojnost biografskih narativa koji su od razdoblja pozitivizma smatrani temeljnim dijelom historiografskog pisanja, autorica nije u početku ni predvidjela da ulazi u jedno od najdinamičnijih diskurzivnih prostora hrvatske književne historiografije. U tom prostoru,...

Alongside decadent style, form, imagery, and political imagination, decadent subjectivity is one of the defining features of the decadent novel. In Arthur Machen’s texts, various types of decadent characters appear – ranging from occult monomaniacs and cursed men of letters, to hedonists and degenerating youth, all the way to dandies and aesthetes. However, the question arises: are all decadent characters necessarily decadent subjects? This article analyses three dominant types of decadent characters – the Faustian occultist, the flâneur detective, and the martyr of decadence – in Machen’s most well-known decadent works: the novella The Great God Pan (1894) and the novel The Hill of Dreams (1907). It will be demonstrated that while the Faustian occultist and the flâneur detective are undoubtedly constituted as decadent seekers of meaning in modernity, they ultimately do not evolve into reservoirs of decadent antimodernism. On the other hand, the character of the saintly martyr of decad...

This essay delves into the relationship between legal justice and the lived experience of trauma following sexual violence, using Alice Sebold’s memoir, Lucky, as its central case study. Through a detailed textual analysis of the narrative, this study investigates the efficacy of the judicial system in providing meaningful recourse for rape survivors. It examines the journey of seeking legal justice, from the initial reporting of the crime and the subsequent investigation to the emotionally taxing courtroom trial and the ultimate verdict. The analysis pays close attention to the methods employed by defense attorneys, the pervasive influence of societal rape myths on the jury’s perception, and the ways in which the victim’s identity and experiences are scrutinized and often delegitimized within the legal framework (drawing on insights from scholars like Jordan and Rich). Furthermore, the essay extends its scope beyond the courtroom to explore the long-term psychological and emotional af...

In this essay, I examine two premiere national military museums, Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum and Istanbul’s Harbiye Askerî Müzesi, with attention to how each museum renders the legacies of interimperial warfare. In particular, I interrogate the curatorial display of spoils of war and the representation of collective subjects in each museum to argue that they harness and relativize imperial-era violence for the ends of the contemporary nation-state. In the context of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, I focus on the presentation of the Ottomans as definitive enemies of the Habsburgs on the basis of exhibits depicting interimperial battles, especially the 1683 Siege of Vienna. Secondly, I interpret the uncanny relationship between the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian nation-state through the display dedicated to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. With regard to the Harbiye Museum, I focus on the ideological ethnonationalism that saturates the exhibits and t...