In different ways, repetition and imitation engage the question of historicity as well as that of representation, which are both at the core of Fredric Jameson’s understanding of postmodernity (1988).[1] When considering historicity and representation in relation to contemporary cultural formations, the pervasiveness of nostalgia is noteworthy.
Repetition is undoubtedly a major theme in contemporary thought. It is both mysterious and common, both overwhelming and banal. Repetition produces monsters and boredom and much else besides. It is excessive and yet simple. Repetition can always be found, in action, at a border between the sayable and the unsayable, the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the past, present, and future. What does the term mean? It tells us little ab
The meaning of a symbol seems not as difficult to decipher when we ponder over how a specific symbolism is widely disseminated and readily adopted among a sufficiently large population. Ostensibly always a collective unconsciousness, the popularisation of a symbol can be pioneered by a single person who is greatly admired in a certain group, and such symbolism can be thoroughly developed through the group's emulation. The story of ruyi (如意) and the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795) of the Qing dynasty serves as a paradigm to prove this point.
When seeking examples of repetition in literature, adaptations – specifically fanfiction – would seem to offer easy sites of comparison between texts demarcated as “sources” and subordinate texts created via the repetition of key features. However, rather than describing a definitive hierarchy between sources and subordinate texts, a consideration of the fanfiction surrounding one particular source reveals a complex web of interdependency, one that can be extended to describe the functions and relations of all texts, not just those that claim explicit inter-relations.
In Molly Bloom’s monologue of James Joyce’s Ulysses we see the fullest expression of an affirmative, “Yes,” a utopian opening onto the potentiality of a radically new future, one unbound and undetermined. My treatment of this form of utopianism relies on what might appear unusual or surprising to many readers—a form of the heuristic genre the philosopher and film critic Stanley Cavell names the comedy of remarriage.
This paper will consider the notion of ‘queer return’ through examining the representation of adoption in contemporary memoirs. I refer, in particular, to the memoirs of Jackie Kay, Red Dust Road (2010) and Jeanette Winterson, Why be happy when you could be normal? (2011).
Repetition and imitation lie at the heart of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s poetry. However, far from being derivative, his works are innovative precisely in their use of derivation to create sites of reflection for what is lost and gained in the movement between original and copy. Finlay (1925-2006) was a Scottish poet and artist who is today most widely recognized for his concrete poetry and for his sculpture and landscape garden, Little Sparta.1 However, his activities were wide-ranging.
As concepts which cross the disciplinary boundaries between the arts and the social sciences, imitation and repetition are frequently connoted in ways dependant on the contexts and time periods in which they occur.
As concepts which cross the disciplinary boundaries between the arts and the social sciences, imitation and repetition are frequently connoted in ways dependant on the contexts and time periods in which they occur.
