Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Internal Paper
Abstract: If according to Stephen Greenblatt not only is capitalism the agent of repressive differentiation, but the agent of monological totalization as well I intend to apply his proposal to certain works of the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in order to show to what extent he is informed by a powerful totalizing agent, the American melodrama of the 1950s. Almodovar’s award winning film All About My Mother, displays obvious references to the glamour of the Hollywood movies, particularly to those where some characters are actors or actresses, such as All About Eve, while A Streetcar Named Desire becomes a means to subvert the moral standards of melodrama. Thus, I intend to examine to what extent his allusions stem from a global culture dominated by Anglo myths, and how Almodovar subverts these fictions to carry out a critique of contemporary societal values

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Turkish melodramas present some intriguing gender relations and representation. In some cases, characters in melodrama break away from traditional gender roles. In this paper I would like to investigate why certain melodramas film between 1965 and 75 present non-traditional gender roles in Turkish society and how the hegemonic and the negotiated elements of male and female roles in theses melodramas are presented. There has been important feminist scholarship mainly in the United States and in England that examines the binary nature of the melodramas. Yet very little has been written on 'feminine elements' of male actors and 'active' female spectatorship. With my dissertation, I intend to help fill this gap.
Freudian and Lacanian modes of thinking by their nature are Eurocentric and applied to third world cinema, they naturalize the Western feminist perspective as global. In this paper I will focus on elements of Turkish melodramas that cannot be explain western modes of thinking, showing that a different and unique negotiated space within which the feminine elements of male actors and active female spectatorship exists side by side with the traditional, hegemonic patriarchal gender roles in Turkish melodramas between 1965-75. Also, most Turkish melodramas follow the 'fallen but redeemed by motherhood' formula that reestablishes the patriarchal order at the end. There are, however, some films from this period that defy this formula. An alternative look at these films is imperative, as current feminist theory has not addressed this aspect.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: This paper explores the narrative strategies used within A&E’s Rollergirls to represent the unruly female athletes of roller derby. Unlike other women sports figures, roller derby skaters are not just masculine females who display such qualities as aggressiveness and competitiveness alongside physical strength, agility, and endurance. They are also nonconformist women who subvert heteronormative femininity through their involvement in punk culture. The multiple threats these skaters pose to television’s heterovisuality thus require different strategies of containment than those typically used for other female athletes. A docu-soap that spends equal time on its characters’ gaming and home lives, Rollergirls relies on roller derby’s inherent melodrama to produce engaging entertainment while also imposing melodramatic elements on the skaters’ off-track lives in order to contain their nonconformist gender performances. How viewers negotiate the ambivalent portraits of roller derby skaters produced through Rollergirls’ contradictory melodramatic strategies is a primary question for this study.