The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the misfit concept defined by the New Materialisms, as it appears in the Canadian movie Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010). Thus, the study focuses on the corporeal dimension, illustrating the human being, capable of experiencing both the fit(ting) and the misfit(ting) condition in its both material and spiritual existence. In this regard, the key-points in the analysis of the film are the focus on the affect, the representation of the vulnerable body as agent,...   ⇨ Read more

What does it take for the cultural analyst to actually engage in a hermeneutical dialogue with ekphrastic artworks and to critically echo their mutual exchanges? How should the art critic acknowledge the dialogism that is intrinsic to different artistic media? It may be as if one adopted not only a meta perspective of interpretation, but also an infra view, by delving into the interstices of artistic praxis. This would amount to a methodological leap, from an encompassing, transcending gaze at artworks and...   ⇨ Read more

The current paper aims to illustrate how Michel Houellebecq's prose revolves around the failure of otherness. His character, always male, is in search of indemnifying options to rebuild the connections that have been suddenly interrupted, such as miscarriages or losing partners due to suicide. At first sight, the woman's figure naturally meets these requirements. Otherness is being reduced to a barren body, that acts as an extension of the traditional female role: woman as an erotic partner and maternal figure....   ⇨ Read more

The following paper addresses two different ways of constructing social and private visibility by means of cinematic investments of corporeal territoriality. Drawing upon transgender and national identity issues in Breakfast on Pluto (2005) it formulates the sense of belonging in relation to body representation. The other type of bodily material belonging is investigated through the cinema of Kusturica. In these films, images of the private are constructed as impossible self-portraits, generating new politics...   ⇨ Read more