Enfreakment as an Invective Mode in US-American Popular Culture

Enfreakment 作为美国流行文化中的一种谩骂方式

• 批准号: 507196404
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Katja Kanzler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Amerikanistik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/507196404?language=en
• 关键词: Enfreakment; Invective; Mode; US; American

This project aims to (re-)conceptualize enfreakment as a longstanding, malleable, and powerful practice in US-American popular culture. It proceeds from the assumption that the processes of enfreakment, i.e. the processes by which figures of the ‘freak’ are constructed and staged, can be understood as one, particularly powerful formation of an invective popular culture – of a commercial mass culture that generates popular appeal out of performances of disparagement and debasement, whose invective valences are constantly reflected on in the culture itself. Approaching enfreakment in the context of such invective practices promises new insights both into the extensive, multifaceted culture of freakery, and into invective traditions and dynamics in US-American popular culture. Against this backdrop, the project addresses enfreakment as a process that can be observed in several genres, media, and historical constellations. It approaches these processes as performative procedures that construct as deviant certain, always historically situated instances of bodily non-normativity, and that sensationalize this ‘deviance’ and charge it with societal meanings. The project wants to examine these processes in two genre(-clusters) that span across multiple media and historical constellations, and that are quite different on their surfaces: 1) a cluster that can be described as regional exploitation – novels, films, and tv-formats that, in a sensationalizing manner, stage rural regions and their inhabitant as deviant; and 2) the genre of superhero fiction which, in constructing its ‘superheroes’ as well as its ‘supervillains,’ regularly draws on freakery-related registers of deviance. The project’s research design uses impulses of modal criticism along with concepts of performativity to explore the processual character of enfreakment. In addition, it draws on a cultural concept of disparagement, especially to bring into focus how reflections on the disparaging valences of enfreakment tie pop-cultural instances of enfreakment to broader societal negotiations of social norms and normativity.

这个项目的目的是(重新)概念化美国流行文化中一种由来已久的、可延展的和强大的做法。它源于这样一种假设，即怪胎形象的构建和上演过程，可以被理解为一种特别强大的谩骂流行文化的形成--一种商业大众文化，它通过贬低和贬低的表演产生大众吸引力，其谩骂的价值不断地反映在文化本身中。在这种谩骂做法的背景下处理怪诞，有望获得新的见解，既可以深入了解广泛的、多方面的怪诞文化，也可以深入了解美国流行文化中的谩骂传统和动态。在此背景下，该项目将愤怒作为一个过程，可以在几个流派、媒体和历史星座中观察到。它将这些过程视为行为程序，将其构建为身体非规范性的偏离特定的、总是处于历史背景的实例，并耸人听闻地报道这种“偏离”，并将其赋予社会意义。该项目希望从两个流派(-集群)来考察这些过程，这两个流派(集群)横跨多种媒体和历史星座，表面上非常不同：1)可以被描述为地区性剥削的集群--小说、电影和电视--以耸人听闻的方式将农村地区及其居民描绘成变态；2)超级英雄小说体裁，在构建超级英雄和超级恶棍的过程中，经常利用与变态有关的怪诞记录。该项目的研究设计使用了情态批评的冲动以及表演性的概念来探索情绪的过程性特征。此外，它借鉴了贬低的文化概念，特别是关注对愤怒的贬低价值的反思如何将愤怒的流行文化实例与更广泛的社会规范和规范的社会谈判联系在一起。