Academic literature on the topic 'Hall, Joshua Criticism and interpretation'

Research on the book of Joshua is developing significantly in a variety of different areas. The review summarizes current scholarship in six distinct methodological approaches: (1) textual criticism; (2) composition and literary context; (3) history, archaeology and geography; (4) violence, genocide and conquest; (5) literary and ideological studies; and (6) reception history. The article will conclude with a brief summary of recent collected studies and commentaries on Joshua. The focus of interpretation will be the last ten years supplementing Greenspoon (2005).

This article considers the formative strategies of François Mauriac’s 1932 novel, Le Noeud de vipères (Vipers’ Tangle), in light of contemporary Mauriac criticism. According to his most adamant critics, Mauriac was, at best, a secular writer, and, at worst, an insidious sensualist posing as a Catholic. This article offers an account of how Le Noeud de vipères succeeds in satisfying his conservative readership and gesturing toward a different conception of edifying literature with the tools of what Joshua Landy has called “formative fiction,” shifting critical attention from the novel’s content to its interpretation.

The reality of violence is a reality in relationship that has never disappeared from human life, the triggers also vary, ranging from personal issues, politics, economic culture, even religion. Violence is an action that always results in a bad impact for those who are the object of violence, so that it is not expected to exist in human relations. Furthermore, it cannot be denied that religion is one of the causes of violence, this is caused by various factors, one of which is the problem is about interpretation of the biblical text’s, so that it is necessary to study or interpret the biblical text with the right approach. The description in this research will focus on Joshua 6:1-27 with a narrative criticism approach which is certainly supported by other approaches such as historical criticism and grammatical criticism. So that through this study it will lead to an understanding that the story of the destroyed carried out by Joshua and the nation of Israel is a legitimate act because they acted on God's command. So that Joshua's actions cannot be classified as acts of violence in the name of religion. Abstrak: Realitas kekerasan adalah realitas dalam hubungan yang tidak pernah lenyap dari kehidupan manusia, pemicunya pun beragam, mulai dari masalah pribadi, politik, budaya ekonomi, bahkan agama. Kekerasan adalah tindakan yang selalu menghasilkan dampak buruk bagi mereka yang menjadi objek kekerasan, sehingga tidak diharapkan ada dalam hubungan manusia. Lebih jauh, tidak dapat dipungkiri bahwa agama adalah salah satu penyebab kekerasan, hal ini disebabkan oleh berbagai faktor, salah satunya adalah masalah penafsiran teks Alkitab, sehing-ga perlu dipelajari atau ditafsirkan teks Alkitab dengan pendekatan yang tepat. Des-kripsi dalam penelitian ini akan berfokus pada Yosua 6:1-27 dengan pendekatan kritik naratif yang tentu saja didukung oleh pendekatan lain seperti kritik sejarah dan kritik gramatikal. Sehingga melalui penelitian ini akan mengarah pada pemaha-man bahwa kisah kehancuran yang dilakukan oleh Yosua dan bangsa Israel adalah tindakan yang sah karena mereka bertindak atas perintah Tuhan. Sehingga tinda-kan Yosua tidak bisa digolongkan sebagai tindakan kekerasan atas nama agama.

AbstractIn their article ‘Romancing the stones: towards a virtual and elemental Avebury’ (Archaeological dialogues 1998, 5.2, 143–64), Joshua Pollard and Mark Gillings argued that traditional cartography no longer suffices to understand sites like Avebury. In the absence of excavation, new technological possibilities like Virtual Reality and GIS were according to them more than electronic gadgets but genuine alternatives to the usual maps and plans. Mark Bowden takes issues with what he perceives to be exaggerated criticisms of traditional archaeological survey techniques. In particular, he suggests that, far from being ‘sterile’ as Pollard and Gillings state, conventional survey plans are imbued with meaning, and are essential tools of analysis and interpretation. Users of archaeological earthwork plans must study them carefully and be critically aware to get the greatest benefit from them. Innovative new approaches must be pursued vigorously, but well-tested traditional techniques which still have value should not be abandoned lightly, Bowden argues. Pollard and Gillings reply to this challenging criticism.

The author reconsiders the interpretation of the concept of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 based on the fact that the composition was created during Stalin’s Great Terror of the 1930s and after a harsh criticism of his compositions by the Communist Party and the USSR government in the early 1930s. During the creation of the Symphony No 5, the Soviet music experts defined its concept as a celebration of a “happy” life of Soviet people, However, in the author’s opinion, the symphony has another idea. The researcher notes that the triumph of the Symphony No 5 in the global culture had happened only owing to the director’s interpretation by Yevgeny Mravinsky during the premiere at Leningrad Philharmonic Hall on November 21, 1937, after which the Symphony was performed all over the world and became the gold standard of the Soviet music. Probably, Shostakovich intended to create an optimistic finale for the Symphony. But there are many examples when the composer’s goal doesn’t correspond with the final result. The author provides the conclusion that almost all music experts, who analyze this symphony, use abstract phrases: contrast themes, lyrical image, enemy, etc. But the only proven fact is that a “mechanistic” march is a heavy and ponderous advance of the power of a tyrant eliminating everything he wants based on the principle “who is not with us is against us”. This idea pierces into the Forth and later the Seventh Symphonies by Shostakovich. Today, the Symphony is still a music masterpiece and a part of the global music heritage, but the new socio-cultural interpretations of modern directors each time reveal the new faces of this composition.  

THE BIBLE & ANCIENT SCIENCE: Principles of Interpretation by Denis O. Lamoureux. Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing, 2020. 218 pages. Paperback; $15.99. ISBN: 9781951252052. *"Simply stated, I believe the literary genre of Genesis 1-3 is an ancient account of origins. Notably, it is deeply rooted in ancient science" (p. 195). *Denis O. Lamoureux is Professor of Science and Religion at St. Joseph's College at the University of Alberta. He possesses three earned doctorates (dentistry, theology, and biology) and tells of an intellectual and spiritual journey out of atheism, through fundamentalism, and to his current position. Consequently, if there was ever a model voice that displays the academic and personal experience necessary to speak formidably about the hermeneutical issues associated with Genesis 1-3 and the other creation texts of the Bible, it is Lamoureux. *The study begins with what seems like a simple question, "Is the Bible a book about science?" However, before the opening chapters are completed, the reader understands that the question is anything but simple. In fact, the difficulty of the conversation is poignantly displayed when he offers answers to his leading question from two giant figures within the evangelical tradition. Henry M. Morris answers in the affirmative, but Billy Graham answers negatively. Yet, to his credit, Lamoureux does not dwell on this disagreement. He quickly emphasizes that a proper answer to his question requires an entanglement with issues of hermeneutics, or principles of interpretation (p. 13). Consequently, the remainder of the book is a journey through the wild and woolly world of biblical hermeneutics on the way to answering the question of whether the Bible is a book about science. *Lamoureux guides the reader toward his answer by discussing twenty-two hermeneutical principles that range from the mundane topics of "literalism," "literary genre," and "historical criticism" to the more complex, such as "cognitive competence," "accommodation," and "concordism." Each chapter is devoted to one principle, and all the chapters are organized similarly. They discuss the principle and then specific applications to the creation texts. This approach produces manageable-sized chapters that can be pondered without a fear of being overwhelmed by complex arguments; however, presenting an argument by a series of propositional statements can obfuscate how each proposition interacts with the others and how they all cooperate. In Lamoureux's defense, however, he does well to minimize any dissonance. *Ultimately, Lamoureux finds himself landing between Morris and Graham when answering his leading question. According to Lamoureux, the Bible contains science, but it's ancient science. And that qualification makes all the difference. The biblical writers are indeed talking about the origins of the universe, but they are doing so in terms of an Iron Age worldview while using Iron Age concepts. Therefore, their "science" is incompatible with the scientific inquiry and discourse of today. This conviction implies that concordism neither does justice to the text and its message nor frames a useful conversation. *In pushing back against any simplistic appropriation of the Bible's message upon the demands of modern scientific discourse, Lamoureux offers a very nuanced proposal. But at its heart is a respect for the ancient worldview of the biblical authors with all its frustrating peculiarities. For example, Lamoureux emphasizes how things such as the rhetoric and ahistorical symbolism of parables must be respected. Simple enough; however, Lamoureux also recognizes that ancient Israel perceived the universe through a three-tiered concept, a reality that finds itself alongside flat-earth theories in the hall of fame of modern-day cosmological ludicrousness. Similarly, ancient Israel's botanical awareness was clearly ignorant of the data we have today. Therefore, Lamoureux's discussions eventually bring the reader to a crossroad. How can a reader respect the Bible if it is invoking principles of, say, botany or any other field of science, in ways that run counter to contemporary scientific discourse? Is the reader confronted with the terrible situation in which they must support the Bible's claims despite the contradictory scientific evidence? Are they forced to abandon any notion of inerrancy? *It is at this point that the integrity of Lamoureux's argument reaches a critical point. His argument cannot work without certain hermeneutical principles. First, the principle of accommodation argues that God accommodates himself to humanity--through language, culture, concepts, etc.--in order to ensure effective communication. So, in the example of Israel's botanical awareness, God is "using the botany-of-the-day" to ensure that the audience would understand the message. Similarly, this should also be applied to Israel's three-tiered universe and other cosmological concepts. Second, the message-incident principle argues that the mode of communication is incidental to the core message. To be clear, "Incidental has the meaning of that which happens to be alongside and happening in connection with something important" (p. 46). Therefore, applied to the creation texts, ancient science is incidental but important to delivering spiritual truths (p. 47). Third, Lamoureux champions incarnational inspiration. According to Lamoureux, the incarnation, as understood in Jesus, becomes the analogy par excellence for understanding the nature of scripture. It is fully divine and fully human. The Bible, like Jesus, transcends time and history. And God's perfect message comes through finite and imperfect humanity. *Many of Lamoureux's arguments echo similar arguments made by biblical scholars in recent memory. For example, Kenton Sparks, in God's Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (2008), emphasized accommodation in his attempt to balance a conviction that the Bible contains factual errors but is also inerrant. Peter Enns systematically argued for incarnational inspiration, as in Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (2005). John Walton and Brent Sandy display affinities to Lamoureux's message-incident principle in their work The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority (2013). Consequently, the pitfalls that face these scholars face Lamoureux as well. If accommodation explains the scientific ignorance of the biblical writers, is inerrancy the best description of scripture? Or, because the incarnation is unique to the realities of Jesus, how appropriate is it to invoke it as an analogy for something else? At what point does it break down (cf. Ben Witherington, The Living Word of God [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007], 35-49)? *I wholeheartedly agree with Lamoureux that it is paramount for the interpreter to dutifully consider the text on its own terms, particularly since I take seriously the notion that God used ancient Israel to communicate his redemptive plan. Thus, the interpreter should yield to Israel's concepts, conventions, and philosophies on the way to understanding the message before they move to appropriation for theological discourse. Nevertheless, several elements in The Bible and Ancient Science could be fine tuned. These include Lamoureux's framing of the discussion of translating Genesis 1:1 (pp. 75-81) as a text-critical issue, when it is more of a translation problem. Lamoureux also presents a generic, almost flat, portrait of the classic criticisms of biblical studies (e.g., textual criticism, literary criticism, historical criticism) that does not support a nuanced understanding of their results for the creation texts. *A little more significant is Lamoureux's understanding of Paul's typological argument in Romans 5. He struggles with the possibility that Paul's argument appears historical in nature. He states, *"As a consequence, Paul undoubtedly believed Adam was a historical person and that the events of Genesis 2-3 really happened. However, it must be emphasized that Paul's belief in the reality of Adam and the events in the Garden of Eden does not necessarily mean they are historical" (p. 175). *Thus, he is forced to wrestle with the implications of his argument as it confronts the semantics of the text. He may well have been influenced by Enns in how he tries to navigate this, but a difficult tension remains (Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins [2012]). For Lamoureux, and Enns for that matter, it is difficult to advocate a framework-like typology which usually interprets historical figures in the context of history as, in this instance, functioning with a significant level of historical ignorance. *A deeper commitment to comparative investigations would also have enhanced Lamoureux's argument. He is certainly aware of non-Israelite texts and how they help us understand the concepts, conventions, and message of the biblical text, for he references them in his discussions of worldview and ancient conceptions of the universe. However, reading Genesis 1-2 in the shadow of texts such as the "Enuma Elish" and the "Memphite Theology" crystalizes the form and function of the genre as well as the Old Testament's theological emphases. *Nevertheless, overall Lamoureux gets far more right than wrong and this work is valuable. It makes potentially complicated concepts accessible and applies them to the very important debate about what "inerrant" means when describing the nature of scripture. *Reviewed by David B. Schreiner, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Old Testament, Wesley Biblical Seminary, Ridgeland, MS 39157.

The English Country House happens to be one of the most iconic topoi in English literary studies. Since narratologists have long privileged time over space, narrative space remained a relatively unexplored territory until the twentieth century, which intensified the interest in the house as the thematic fulcrum of literary works. British novelist Sarah Waters’s first venture into the realm of the sub-genre of English Country House fiction, The Little Stranger (2009) is a befitting discourse that appropriates the poetics of manorial space. Hundreds Hall, the Warwickshire seat of the Ayreses, encapsulates many roles as the epicentre of the story and as a powerful symbol of the gradual decay of English aristocracy in the post-World War II Britain. The article will try to incorporate Gaston Bachelard’s spatial criticism elaborated in his The Poetics of Space (1958) and the concept of heterotopia by Foucault for the interpretation/ (s) of the narrative. The study seeks to locate Bachelard’s bourgeoisie points of view, which the author subverts by portraying the rise of the proletariat. The focus of the article is to highlight the ingenuity of Waters’s creative process, which resorts to the genre of English Country House fiction to capture the condition of British aristocrats in a time of crises.

IntroductionSince its launch in 2005, YouTube has fast become one of the most popular video sharing sites, one of the largest sources of user generated content, and one of the most frequently visited sites globally (Burgess and Green). As YouTube’s popularity has increased, more and more people have taken up the site’s invitation to “Broadcast Yourself.” Vlogging (video blogging) on YouTube has increased in popularity, creating new genres and communities. Vlogging not only allows individuals to create their own mediated content for mass consumption—making it a site for participatory culture (Burgess and Green; Jenkins) and resembling contemporary forms of entertainment such as reality television—but it also allows individuals to engage in narrative and identity forming practices. Through filming their everyday lives, and presenting themselves on camera, YouTubers are engaging in a process of constructing and presenting their identity online. They often form communities around these identities and continue the practice in dialogue and collaboration with their communities of viewers on YouTube. Because of YouTube’s mass global reach, the ability to create one’s own mediated content and the ability to publicly play with and project different self representations becomes a powerful tool allowing YouTubers to publicly challenge social norms and encourage others to do the same. This paper will explore these features of YouTube using the recent “The Power of MAKEUP!” movement, started by NikkieTutorials, as an example. Through a virtual ethnography of the movement as developed by Christine Hine—following the people, dialogue, connections, and narratives that emerged from Nikkie’s original video—this paper will demonstrate that YouTube is not only a tool for self transformation, but has wider potential to transform norms in society. This is achieved mainly through mobilising communities that form around transformative practices, such as makeup transformations, on YouTube. Vlogging as an Identity Forming Practice Vlogging on YouTube is a contemporary form of autobiography in which individuals engage in a process of documenting their life on a daily or weekly basis and, in doing so, constructing their identity online. Although the aim of beauty vlogs is to teach new makeup techniques, demonstrate and review new products, or circulate beauty-related information, the videos include a large amount of self-disclosure. Beauty vloggers reveal intimate things about themselves and actively engage in the practice of self-representation while filming. Beauty vlogging is unique to other vlogging genres as it almost always involves an immediate transformation of the physical self in each video. The vloggers typically begin with their faces bare and “natural” and throughout the course of the video transform their faces into how they want to be seen, and ultimately, who they want to be that day, using makeup. Thus the process of self-representation is multi-dimensional as not only are they presenting the self, but they are also visually constructing the self on camera. The construction of identity that beauty vloggers engage in on YouTube can be likened to what Robert Ezra Park and later Erving Goffman refer to as the construction and performance of a mask. In his work Race and Culture, Park states that the original meaning of the word person is a mask (249). Goffman responds to this statement in his work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, saying the mask is “our truer self, the self we would like to be” (30). Beauty vloggers are engaging in the process of constructing their mask—their truer self and the self they would like to be—both through their performance on YouTube, and through the visual transformation that takes place on camera. Their performance on YouTube not only communicates a desired identity, but through their performance they realise this identity. The process of filming and the visual process of constructing or transforming the self on camera through makeup brings the subject into being. Scholarship in the fields of Life Writing and Digital Media including Autobiography, Automedia and Persona Studies has acknowledged and explored the ways narratives and identities—both online and offline—are constructed, created, shaped, chosen, and invented by the individual/author (Garner; Bridger; Eakin; Maguire; Poletti and Rak; Marshall; Smith and Watson). It is widely accepted that all representations of the self are constructed. Crucially, it is the process of documenting or communicating the self that is identity forming (Richardson; Bridger), as the process, including writing, filming, and posting, brings the subject or self into being (Neuman). The individual embodies their performance and realises the self through it. Park and Goffman argue that we all engage in this process of performing and realising the self through the roles we play in society. The significance of the beauty vlogger performance and transformation is the space in which it occurs and the community that it fosters. YouTube as a Transformative Tool and MirrorThe space in which beauty vloggers play with and transform the self on camera is significant as digital technologies such as YouTube invite exploration of the self. Networked digital media (Meikle and Young) invite multiplicity, heterogeneity, and fragmentation in/of identity performances (Bolter; Gergen; Turkle, "Parallel Lives"). These technologies create opportunities for defining and re-defining the self (Bolter 130), as they allow people to present a more multi-mediated self, using both audio-visual components and text (Papacharissi 643).YouTube, in particular, allows the individual to experiment with the self, and document an ongoing transformation, through film (Kavoori). Many scholars have described this ongoing process of identity construction online using the metaphor of “the mirror” (see Kavoori; Raun; and Procter as recent examples). In his research on trans gender vlogging on YouTube, Tobias Raun explores the theme of the mirror. He describes vlogging as a “transformative medium for working on, producing and exploring the self” (366). He argues the vlog acts as a mirror allowing the individual to try out and assume various identities (366). He writes, the mirroring function of the vlog “invites the YouTuber to assume the shape of a desired identity/representation, constantly assuming and evaluating oneself as an attractive image, trying out different ‘styles of the flesh’ (Butler 177), poses and appearances” (367). In reference to trans gender vlogging, Raun writes, “The vlog seems to serve an important function in the transitioning process, and is an important part of a process of self-invention, serving as a testing ground for experimentations with, and manifestations of (new) identities” (367). The mirror (vlog) gives the individual a place/space to construct and perform their mask (identity), and an opportunity to see the reflection and adjust the mask (identity) accordingly. An important feature of the vlog as a mirror is the fact that it is less like a conventional mirror and more like a window with a reflective surface. On YouTube the vlog always involves an audience, who not only watch the performance, but also respond to it. This is in keeping with Goffman’s assertion that there is always an audience involved in any performance of the self. On YouTube, Raun argues, “the need to represent oneself goes hand in hand with the need to connect and communicate” (Raun 369). Networked digital media such as YouTube are inherently social. They invite participation (Smith; Sauter)and community through community building functions such as the ability to like, subscribe, and comment. Michael Strangelove refers to YouTube as a social space, “as a domain of self-expression, community and public confession” (4). The audience and community are important in the process of identity construction and representation as they serve a crucial role in providing feedback and encouragement, legitimising the identity being presented. As Raun writes, the vlog is an opportunity “for seeing one’s own experiences and thoughts reflected in others” (366). Raun identifies that for the trans gender vloggers in his study, simply knowing there is an audience watching their vlogs is enough to affirm their identity. He writes the vlog can be both “an individual act of self validation and . . . a social act of recognition and encouragement” (368). However, in the case of beauty vlogging the audience do more than watch, they form communities embodying and projecting the performance in everyday life and thus collectively challenge social norms, as seen in the “The Power of MAKEUP!” movement. Exploring the “The Power of MAKEUP!” MovementOn 10 May 2015, Nikkie, a well-known beauty vlogger, uploaded a video to her YouTube channel NikkieTutorials titled “The Power of MAKEUP!” Nikkie’s video can be watched here. In her video Nikkie challenges “makeup shaming,” arguing that makeup is not only fun, but can “transform” you into who you want to be. Inspired by an episode of the reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which the competing drag queens transform half of their face into “glam” (drag), and leave the other half of their face bare (male), Nikkie demonstrates that anyone can use makeup as a transformative tool. In her video Nikkie mirrors the drag queen transformations, transforming half her face into “glam” and leaving the other half of her face bare, as shown in Figure 1. In only transforming half of her face, Nikkie emphasises the scope of the transformation, demonstrating just how much you can change your appearance using only makeup on your face. Nikkie’s video communicates that both a transformed “glam” image and an “unedited” image of the self are perfectly fine, “there are no rules” and neither representations of the self should bring you shame. Figure 1: thumbnail of Nikkie’s videoNikkie’s video started a movement and spread throughout the beauty community on YouTube as a challenge. Other famous beauty vloggers, and everyday makeup lovers, took on the challenge of creating YouTube videos or posting pictures on Instagram of their faces half bare and half transformed using makeup with the tag #thepowerofmakeupchallenge. Since its release in May 2015, Nikkie’s video has been watched over thirty million times, has been liked over five hundred and thirty thousand times, and has received over twenty three thousand comments, many of which echo Nikkie’s experience of “makeup shaming.” “The power of makeup” video went viral and was picked up not only by the online beauty community but also by mainstream media with articles by Huffington Post, Yahoo.com, Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, DailyLife, POPSUGAR, Enews, Urbanshowbiz, BoredPanda, and kickvick among others. On Instagram, thousands of everyday makeup lovers have recreated the transformation and uploaded their pictures of the finished result. Various hashtags have been created around this movement and can be searched on Instagram including #thepowerofmakeupchallenge, #powerofmakeupchallenge, #powerofmakeup. Nikkie’s Instagram page dedicated to the challenge can be seen here. “The power of makeup” video is a direct reaction against what Nikkie calls “makeup shaming”—the idea that makeup is bad, and the assumption that the leading motivation for using makeup is insecurity. In her video Nikkie also reacts to the idea that the made-up-girl is “not really you,” or worse is “fake.” In the introduction to her video Nikkie says,I’ve been noticing a lot lately that girls have been almost ashamed to say that they love makeup because nowadays when you say you love makeup you either do it because you want to look good for boys, you do it because you’re insecure, or you do it because you don’t love yourself. I feel like in a way lately it’s almost a crime to love doing your makeup. So after last weeks RuPaul’s Drag Race with the half drag half male, I was inspired to show you the power of makeup. I notice a lot that when I don’t wear makeup and I have my hair up in a bun and I meet people and I show them picture of my videos or, or whatever looks I have done, they look at me and straight up tell me “that is not you.” They tell me “that’s funny” because I don’t even look like that girl on the picture. So without any further ado I’m going to do half my face full on glam—I’m truly going to transform one side of my face—and the other side is going to be me, raw, unedited, nothing, me, just me. So let’s do it.In her introduction, Nikkie identifies a social attitude that many of her viewers can relate to, that the made-up face isn’t the “real you.” This idea reveals an interesting contradiction in social attitude. As this issue of Media/Culture highlights, the theme of transformation is increasingly popular in contemporary society. Renovation shows, weight loss shows, and “makeover” shows have increased in number and popularity around the world (Lewis). Tania Lewis attributes this to an international shift towards “the real” on television (447). Accompanying this turn towards “the real,” confession, intimacy, and authenticity are now demanded and consumed as entertainment (Goldthwaite; Dovey; King). Sites such as YouTube are arguably popular because they offer real stories, real lives, and have a core value of authenticity (Strangelove; Wesch; Young; Tolson). The power of makeup transformations are challenging because they juxtapose a transformation against the natural, on the self. By only transforming half their face, the beauty vloggers juxtapose the “makeover” (transformation) with “authenticity” (the natural). The power of makeup movement is therefore caught between two contemporary social values. However, the desire for authenticity, and the lack of acceptance that the transformed image is authentic seems to be the main criticism that the members of this movement receive. Beauty vloggers identify a strong social value that “natural” is “good” and any attempt to alter the natural is taboo. Even in the commercial world “natural beauty” is celebrated and features heavily in the marketing and advertising campaigns of popular beauty, cosmetic, and skincare brands. Consider Maybelline’s emphasis on “natural beauty” in their byline “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.” This is not the way the members of “the power of makeup” movement use and celebrate makeup. They use and celebrate makeup as a transformative and identity forming tool, and their use of makeup is most often criticised for not being natural. In her recreation of Nikkie’s video, Evelina Forsell says “people get upset when I’m not natural.” Like Nikkie, Evelina reveals she often receives the criticism that “the person with a full on face with makeup is not you.” Evelina’s video can be watched here.“The power of makeup” movement and its participants challenge this criticism that the made-up self is not the “real” self. Evelina directly responds to this criticism in her video, stating “when I have a full face of makeup . . . that’s still me, but a more . . . creative me, I guess.” The beauty vloggers in this movement use makeup and YouTube as extensions of the self, as tools for self-expression, self-realisation, and ongoing transformation. Beauty vloggers are demonstrating that makeup is a tool and extension of the self that allows them to explore and play with their self-representations. In the same way that technology enables the individual to extend and “reinvent him/herself online” (Papacharissi 645), so does makeup. And in the same way that technology becomes an extension of the self, or even a second self (Turkle, The Second Self; Vaast) so does makeup. Makeup is a tool and technique of the self. Vlogging is about storytelling (Kavoori), but it is also collective—it’s about telling collective stories (Raun 373) which can be seen in various vlogging genres. As Geert Lovink suggests, YouTube is one of the largest databases of global shared experience. YouTube’s global popularity can be attributed to Strangelove’s assertion that “there’s nothing more interesting to real people . . . than authentic stories told about other real people” (65). Individuals are drawn to Nikkie’s experience, seeing themselves reflected in her story. Famous beauty vloggers on YouTube, and everyday beauty lovers, find community in the collective experience of feeling shame for loving makeup and using makeup to transform and communicate their identity. Effectively, the movement forms communities of practice (Wenger) made up of hundreds of people brought together by the shared value and use of makeup as a transformative tool. The online spaces where these activities take place (mainly on YouTube and Instagram) form affinity spaces (Gee) where the community come together, share information, learn and develop their practice. Hundreds of YouTubers from all over the world took up Nikkie’s invitation to demonstrate the power of makeup by transforming themselves on camera. From well-established beauty vloggers with millions of viewers, to amateur beauty lovers with YouTube channels, many people felt moved by Nikkie’s example and embodied the message, adapting the transformation to suit their circumstances. The movement includes both men and women, children and adults. Some transformations are inspirational such as Shalom Blac’s in which she talks about accepting the scars that are all over her face, but also demonstrates how makeup can make them disappear. Shalom has almost five million views on her “POWER OF MAKEUP” video, and has been labelled “inspirational” by the media. Shalom Blac’s video can be watched here and the media article labelling her as “inspirational” can be viewed here. Others, such as PatrickStarrr, send a powerful message that “It’s okay to be yourself.” Unlike a traditional interpretation of that statement, Patrick is communicating that it is okay to be the self that you construct, on any given day. Patrick also has over four million views on his video which can be watched here. During her transformation, Nikkie points out each feature of her face that she does not like and demonstrates how she can change it using makeup. Nikkie’s video is primarily a tutorial, educating viewers on different makeup techniques that can manipulate the appearance of their natural features into how they would like them to appear. These techniques are also reproduced and embodied through the various contributors to the movement. Thus the tutorial is an educational tool enabling others to use makeup for their own self representations (see Paul A. Soukup for an overview of YouTube as an educational tool). A feminist perspective may deconstruct the empowering, educational intentions of Nikkie’s video, insisting that conceptions of beauty are a social construct (Travis, Meginnis, and Bardari) and should not be re-enforced by encouraging women (and men) to use make-up to feel good. However, this sort of discourse does not appear in the movement, and this paper seeks to analyse the movement as its contributors frame and present it. Rather, “the power of makeup” movement falls within a postfeminist framework celebrating choice, femininity, independence, and the individual construction of modern identity (McRobbie; Butler; Beck, Giddens and Lash). Postfeminism embraces postmodern notions of identity in which individuals are “called up to invent their own structures” (McRobbie 260). Through institutions such as education young women have “become more independent and able,” and “‘dis-embedded’ from communities where gender roles were fixed” (McRobbie 260). Angela McRobbie attributes this to the work of scholars such as Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck and their emphasis on individualisation and reflexive modernisation. These scholars take a Foucauldian approach to identity construction in the modern age, where the individual must choose their own structures “internally and individualistically” (260), engaging in an ongoing process of self-monitoring and self-improvement, and resulting in the current self-help culture (McRobbie). In addition to being an educational and constructive tool, Nikkie’s video is also an exercise in self-branding and self-promotion(see Marwick; Duffy and Hund; and van Nuenen for scholarship on self-branding). Through her ongoing presence on YouTube, presenting this video in conjunction with her other tutorials, Nikkie is establishing herself as a beauty vlogger/guru. Nikkie lists all of the products that she uses in her transformation below her video with links to where people can buy them. She also lists her social media accounts, ways that people can connect with her, and other videos that people might be interested in watching. There are also prompts to subscribe, both during her video and in the description bar below her video. Nikkie’s transformation is both an ongoing endeavour to create her image and public persona as a beauty vlogger, and a physical transformation on camera. There is also a third transformation that takes place because her vlog is in the public sphere and consequently mobilises a movement. The transformation is of the way people talk about and eventually perceive makeup. Nikkie’s video aims to end makeup shaming and promote makeup as an empowering tool. With each recreation of her video, with each Instagram photo featuring the transformation, and with each mainstream media article featuring the movement, #thepowerofmakeup movement community are transforming the image of the made-up girl—transforming the association of makeup with presenting an inauthentic identity—in society. ConclusionThe “The Power of MAKEUP!” movement, started by NikkieTutorials, demonstrates one way in which people are using YouTube as a transformative tool, and mirror, to document, construct, and present their identity online, using makeup. Through their online transformation the members of the movement not only engage in a process of constructing and presenting their identity, but they form communities who share a love of makeup and its transformative potential. By embodying Nikkie’s original message to rid makeup shaming and transform the self into a desired identity, the movement re-enforces the “made-up” image of the self as real and authentic, and challenges conceptions that the “made-up” image is “fake” and inauthentic. Ultimately, this case study explores YouTube as a site that allows individuals to play with, construct, and present their identity. YouTube is a tool with which, and a space in which, people can transform themselves, and in doing so create communities which can work together to publicly challenge social norms.References Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash. Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge, England: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers, 1994. Bolter, Jay David. "Virtual Reality and the Redefinition of Self." Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment. Eds. Ronald L. 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Beyond Communities of Practice. Eds. David Barton and Karin Tusting. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 214–32. Gergen, Kenneth. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. Basic Books, 1991. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1991. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Goldthwaite, Melissa A. "Confessionals." College English (2003): 55–73.Hine, Christine. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. ———. Virtual Ethnography. Ed. Sage Research Methods, Online. London: SAGE, 2000. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Updated and with a new afterword. New York: New York UP, 2008. Kavoori, Anandam P. Reading Youtube: The Critical Viewers Guide. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. King, Barry. "Stardom, Celebrity and the Parra-Confession." Social Semiotics 18.2 (2008): 115–32.Lewis, Tania. "Changing Rooms, Biggest Losers and Backyard Blitzes: A History of Makeover Television in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia." Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 22.4 (2008): 447–58.Lovink, Geert. "The Art of Watching Databases: Introduction to the Video Vortex Reader." Video Vortex Reader: Responses to Youtube. Eds. G. Lovink and S. Niederer. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2008. 9–12.Maguire, Emma. "Home, About, Shop, Contact: Constructing an Authorial Persona via the Author Website. " M/C Journal 17.3 (2014).Marshall, P. David. "Personifying Agency: The Public–Persona–Place–Issue Continuum." Celebrity Studies 4.3 (2013): 369–71.Marwick, Alice Emily. Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013.McRobbie, Angela. "Post‐Feminism and Popular Culture." Feminist Media Studies 4.3 (2004): 255–64.Meikle, Graham, and Sherman Young. Media Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.Neuman, Shirley. "'Autobiography'." Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice. Ed. Marlene Kadar. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1992. 213–30.Papacharissi, Z. "The Presentation of Self in Virtual Life: Characteristics of Personal Home Pages." Journal of Mass Communication Quarterly 79.3 (2002): 643–60. Park, Robert E. Race and Culture. New York: Free Press, 1950.Poletti, Anna, and Julie Rak. Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Madison, Wisconsin: U of Wisconsin P, 2014.Procter, Lesley. "A Mirror without a Tain: Personae, Avatars, and Selves in a Multi-User Virtual Environment." M/C Journal 17.3 (2014).Raun, Tobias. "Video Blogging as a Vehicle of Transformation: Exploring the Intersection between Trans Identity and Information Technology." International Journal of Cultural Studies 18.3 (2015): 365–78.Richardson, Laurel. "Getting Personal: Writing-Stories." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 14.1 (2001): 33–38.Sauter, Theresa. "'What's on Your Mind?' Writing on Facebook as a Tool for Self-Formation." New Media & Society 16.5 (2014): 823–39.Smith, Michael J. "E-Merging Strategies of Identity: The Rhetorical Construction of Self in Personal Web Sites." Ohio University, 1998.Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010.Soukup, Paul A. "Looking at, with, and through Youtube[TM]." Communication Research Trends 33.3 (2014): 3.Strangelove, Michael. Watching Youtube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010.Tolson, Andrew. "A New Authenticity? Communicative Practices on Youtube." Critical Discourse Studies 7.4 (2010): 277–89.Travis, Cheryl Brown, Kayce L. Meginnis, and Kristin M. Bardari. "Beauty, Sexuality, and Identity: The Social Control of Women." Sexuality, Society, and Feminism. Eds. 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"An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube." 2008. <http://mediatedcultures.net/youtube/an-anthropological-introduction-to-youtube-presented-at-the-library-of-congress/>.Young, Jeffrey R. "An Anthropologist Explores the Culture of Video Blogging. (Michael L. Wesch)." The Chronicle of Higher Education 53.36 (2007).

Reality TV has emerged as a visible site for contemporary debates over modern fame. In fact, while issues of ‘taste’ and cultural value have long since shaped conceptions of celebrity (Turner, Bonner, Marshall 178), the issue of fame has played a central role in the negative cultural criticisms of Reality TV. Reality programming is often invoked as short-hand to illustrate the moral ills of contemporary fame – as if it has somehow swept away the certainties of ‘the past’ where discourses of public recognition, visibility and reward are concerned. In exploring Reality TV as a site of contemporary fame, I examine here some of these claims to ‘transformation’, not so much to defend the form’s participation in celebrity culture, as to indicate that there is more going on here than these (increasingly familiar) critiques appear to suggest. We can note, for example, their tendency to simplify the history of fame (which of course then makes it far easier to situate Reality TV as a conclusive break with the past). Equally, these criticisms seem of limited use when it comes to considering what is clearly a broader cultural fascination with fame in Reality TV. Furthermore, such critiques tend to operate at a very general level, often paying little attention to how fame is actually articulated in Reality TV, and the possibilities of differences between formats. The period 2000-1 saw a number of global reality game shows emerge in the UK and elsewhere and in general terms, critics often foregrounded fame as part of a broader negative response to the use of factual programming as primarily entertainment. The pervasive screen examples of ‘would-be presenters’ or ‘wannabe models’ were invoked as antithetical to perceptions of factual programming’s traditionally more ‘worthy’ (and implicitly public service) agenda (Holmes, “All”). But in the context of fame, it is more appropriate to suggest that a number of critical positions on Reality TV have emerged. For example, in what is probably the most prevalent perspective in circulation, contestants have persistently been constructed as exemplifying, and in many ways accelerating, a shift toward a fame culture in which an emphasis on ‘famous for being famous’ has regrettably triumphed over the concepts of ‘talent’ and ‘hard work’ (Holmes, “All”) (even though this perspective is clearly far from new) (see Marshall 9-11). Second, and related to the emphasis on ‘undeserved’ fame above, has been a position which foregrounds the prominence of falsity and manufacture. Here, Reality TV contestants are seen as falling victim to the manipulative powers of a ruthless fame-making machine. Often yoked to an emphasis on the ephemeral nature of their celebrity, here we encounter cautionary tales about the price of public visibility and the lure of immediate wealth, a penalty when, as one programme put it, ‘instant television fame is over in a dream’ (Tonight with Trevor McDonald, ITV1, 13 Feb. 2004). In contrast, the centrality of the ‘ordinary’ person turned celebrity has been read in terms of democratisation, both in relation to access to the televisual airwaves (a position championed by broadcasters and producers, for example) (Bazalgette) and to the dynamics of public/ media visibility itself (see Biressi and Nunn). These positions clearly intersect, their distinctions largely inflected by the perspective of the observer. For example, what is the producer’s claim to ‘democratisation’ is the critic’s class-based distaste for all these ‘awful ordinary’ people on television (see Bazalgette). While each of these positions is limited and simplistic, collectively they do speak to changing cultural conceptions of fame. Joshua’s Gamson’s (Claims, “Assembly”) work in particular has usefully suggested a picture in which certain positions on, or ‘explanations of fame’, have had a historical significance in vying for cultural visibility (although the contours of these narratives must be swiftly drawn here). With the growth of the arts and technologies and the establishment of celebrity as a mass phenomenon (see Gamson, “Assembly” 261), public visibility became increasingly detached from aristocratic standing, with discourses of democracy – as epitomised by the American context – increasingly coming to the fore. With the Hollywood studio system representing celebrity’s later period of industrialisation, and with a controlled production system producing celebrities for a mass audience, the earlier theme of ‘greatness’ became muted into questions of ‘star quality’ and ‘talent’ (Gamson, “Assembly” 264). While the focus may now have been predominantly on the culture of the ‘personality’, Gamson argues that the primary narrative was still one of ‘natural’ rise (“Assembly” 264). However, what is crucial here is that the increasing visibility of the publicity machine itself gradually began to pose a threat to this myth. Shaped by industrial and cultural shifts such as the decline of the Hollywood studio system and the emergence of television, as well as the increasing growth of celebrity journalism, the second half of the 20th century witnessed the increasing prevalence of the ‘manufacture’ discourse, where it henceforth becomes what Gamson describes as a ‘serious contender’ in explaining celebrity (Claims 44). This is not to suggest that the older ideological myths of fame are entirely obscured but rather that, perhaps as never before, the two positions precariously jostle for visibility in the same space. Indeed, Gamson suggests that by the late 20th century, it was possible to discern strategies intended to ‘cope’ with the increasing potential for disjuncture here. In particular, he points toward the twin devices of the ‘exposure’ of the process and the construction of an ironic and mocking perspective on celebrity culture, both of which can be seen to offer the audience a flattering position of power (Claims 276). In many ways, Reality TV would appear to be paradigmatic of these discursive shifts in fame. While I emphasise the specificity of particular formats below, Reality TV in the form of Big Brother, Pop Idol or celebrity-reality shows (such as I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!), have made a particular claim to ‘reveal’ or ‘expose’ the process of fame construction – whether in terms of following ‘ordinary’ hopefuls from the audition stages to their entrance into the media world, or by claiming to offer us an unprecedented ‘access’ to existing celebrities (‘stripping’ away the celebrity façade). (While of course what Richard Dyer termed ‘the negotiation of authenticity’, or the bid to think in terms of ‘really’, has long since structured the textual mediation of celebrity, it can conceivably be seen to have witnessed an accelerated shift in these contexts.) Equally, in terms of the decline of older myths of fame, these shows exhibit a self-conscious acknowledgement of the process of image production and construction, and the use of celebrity for commercial purposes. Lastly, in mediating the threat of the manufacture discourse, they evidently speak quite explicitly to an emphasis on the ‘power’ of the audience given that, through the now familiar use of interactivity (see Holmes, “But”), they construct the audience as operating as the ultimate creator of the celebrity. This already begins to indicate how, responding to and participating in particular discursive shifts in fame, Reality TV negotiates contemporary discourses on celebrity in complex and contradictory ways. Yet this would also need to acknowledge the differences and specificities of particular formats. For example, Big Brother may well be invoked as the ultimate example of the decline of older myths of fame. The programme does not suggest that a special ‘talent’, or ‘hard work’, are necessary for fame. Indeed, time in the house is clearly organised around an excess of leisured time in which, as the primary antidotes to boredom, eating, sleeping and sunbathing are repetitiously played out before the camera’s gaze. Contestants talk self-consciously about being ‘produced’ as celebrities while in the house (in terms of the programme and wider press coverage), with the understanding that each other’s behaviour and self-presentation is clearly directed to this end. The highly opportunistic and potentially calculating conception of fame is thus self-consciously displayed in the programme itself. In comparison, drawing on the older genre of the TV talent show, the Reality pop programmes such as Popstars (2001, UK), Pop Idol (2001-2, 2003, UK), Fame Academy (2002, 2003, UK) and most recently, The X-Factor (2004, UK) are more explicitly configured around the ‘search’ for a star. In this respect, they are specifically concerned with dramatising a power relationship between music industry and audience, a dialogue which is mapped onto the narrative of the star-making process. Certainly, on one level, they are self-consciously a product of the manufacture era of fame, produced for the scrutiny of a media-aware audience entirely conversant with the concept of ‘image’ construction. In tracking the contestants through auditions, training and re-styling, we witness the open production of the famous self – often trying on different ‘images’ week by week – and the ideological constraints (such as those pertaining to body image or physical appearance) under which this process must take place. The judges equally claim to be representative articulations of the ‘reality’ of the business by foregrounding the importance of image ‘packaging’ and the selling of the self. (As the notoriously ‘nasty’ judge Simon Cowell explains in one edition of Pop Idol, ‘Ten year old girls in Hull have to want to be you… They have to buy into the “image”. Do you see?’) (12 Sep. 2003). In short, they often boldly foreground the capitalistic nature of celebrity production. But at the same time, these programmes clearly draw upon, and arguably engage the audience by, much articulating older myths of fame. Given that, in Gamson’s terms, the pervasive nature of the manufacture discourse ultimately represents a threat to the commercial enterprise of celebrity, these shows provide exemplary evidence of the ways in which the two claims-to-fame stories continue to jostle for cultural legitimacy. Celebrating a mythic emphasis on a unique, authentic and gifted self, there is a persistent bid to lay claim to an indefinable sense of ‘specialness’. Indeed, the phrases ‘you’ve got “star quality” or the “X factor” have become an increasingly self-conscious convention in the shows themselves – as suggested by the naming of the most recent UK format, The X-Factor. In their emphasis on ‘ordinariness’, ‘lucky breaks’, ‘specialness’ and ‘hard work’, they are paradigmatic of the meritocratic ideology of the ‘access myth’ (Dyer, Stars). As Fame Academy’s singing coach Carrie Grant gravely tells the contestants: ‘The only place where “success” comes before work is in the dictionary’ (14 Dec. 2002). In this respect, without the irony or humour that has become such a pervasive aspect of contemporary celebrity coverage (see Gamson, Claims, “Assembly”), the programmes clearly also re-peddle traditional explanations of fame for contemporary cultural consumption (Holmes, “Reality”). Dismissals of these programmes in terms of their promotion of ‘manufactured pop’ ignore the fact that ‘authenticity’ is not really configured around the music itself. Pop music (and particularly TV pop) has historically been configured as ‘the most inauthentic music’ (Moore 220), whether in terms of industrial production, form/ sound, or artist expression and identity. But in many ways the programmes openly acknowledge the derivative and packaged nature of ‘pop’. The aspirant pop stars often sing cover versions on the shows (although they are valued and praised for inserting their ‘individual’ style), and in Pop Idol we witness each of the three finalists record the winning song in the studio prior to the result of the (live) television vote. In this respect, evoking Adorno’s famous critique of popular music’s standardised form, their voice is a cog in a wider machine – a component part which can be substituted and exchanged. But Reality TV’s serial form, aesthetic style and pursuit of ‘the real’, asks us to buy into the authenticity of the self, that the participants are – despite the image packaging – somehow the same person that auditioned at the start. There is often equally the suggestion that Reality TV may bring out the ‘real’, ‘special’ self that was partly inside all along: As one contestant in Fame Academy is chastised after a live performance: ‘We’ve had you showing that you can be Westlife or Bryan Adams, but have we had Barry yet? Where, Barry, is the “Barryness” of Barry?’ (19 Sep. 2003). But in broad terms, with factory workers, waitresses or train drivers turning into superstars, contestants are often imagined as being more ‘authentic’ because of their class background, something which has historically been conceived to signify ‘ordinariness’ within narratives of fame. This is again paradigmatic of the older, traditional discourse of the success myth (and its close companion, the American Dream) (Dyer, Stars). In the Reality format, this is also factored though the sense that we have ‘known’ them in the moment of authentic ‘pre-fame’, when, in short, they were ‘just like us’. In the context of his wider argument that stars work to articulate ideas of personhood or selfhood (Dyer, Stars), one of Richard Dyer’s key interventions was to suggest that stars function to work through discourses of individualism (see also Marshall). Working from a broadly Marxist perspective, he explained how the perpetual attempt to negotiate authenticity in the star image worked to promote a particular concept of personhood on which capitalist society depends. Dyer conceptualised this as ‘a separable, coherent quality, located “inside” consciousness and variously termed “the self”, “the soul”, “the subject”…’ (9). Although, in the context of contemporary celebrity culture and the discourses of postmodernism, Dyer’s model of the self has been critiqued and challenged (see Lovell, King), it by no means seems redundant here. We are absolutely encouraged to seek out, recognise, and believe in, the ‘inner’ self in Reality TV, while the highly performative and mediated context of the form makes this quest more paradoxical than ever. In fact, while programmes such as Big Brother and Pop Idol may display significantly different discourses on, or explanations of fame, this ideology of selfhood permeates much of Reality TV. While in Big Brother there is much self-reflexive and dizzying discussion of ‘who is being their real selves? Who is simply playing up for the camera?’, we are asked to judge the contestants (and they are asked to judge each other), precisely by this criteria of ‘authenticity’. We only need note that – from Big Brother, the pop programmes to the celebrity-reality shows – winners are often chosen and applauded because they are seen to have been the most ‘true’ to themselves. Again, despite the self-reflexive and performative context of Reality TV, this suggests highly conservative ideologies of selfhood and individualism. As Dyer reminds us, we have historically valued stars who appear to ‘bear witness to the continuousness of their own selves’, given that ‘sincerity and authenticity are two qualities greatly prized in stars’ (11). While it is not my intention to make assumptions about audience reading strategies here, it is worth noting that existing audience research (Hill, Jones) into Reality TV has emphasised how viewers indeed obtain satisfaction from the search for ‘the real’ in Reality TV, and from actively negotiating the tensions between construction, performance and authenticity. Annette Hill describes how the ‘game’ is ‘to find the “truth” in the spectacle/performance environment’ (337), and as this quote implies, this is far from suggesting that audiences have given up on the idea of ‘the real’ in Reality TV (Hill, Jones). The primary site on which this is played out is the representation of the self – an arena which stardom and celebrity has historically placed centre stage (Dyer, Marshall). As this suggests, then, the two fields have much to discuss. While I have only touched briefly on the detail of the formats here, this discussion emphasises how Reality TV demands closer consideration in the context of claims suggesting its ‘transformation’ of celebrity. Its position with a longer history of fame, the specificities of particular formats, and the ideological parameters in which they function, all question any simple or homogenous interpretation of its impact on celebrity culture. References Adorno, Theodor. “On Popular Music.” 1941. On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. Eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. London: Routledge, 1990. 22-38. Bazalgette, Peter. “Big Brother and Beyond.” Television (Oct. 2001): 20-3. Biressi, Anita, and Heather Nunn “The Especially Remarkable: Celebrity and Social Mobility in Reality TV.” Mediactive 2 (2004): 44-58. Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: BFI, 1979 (reprinted 1998). Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: BFI, 1986. Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Gamson, Joshua. “The Assembly Line of Greatness: Celebrity in Twentieth-Century America.” Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Eds. C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 259-82. Hill, Annette “Big Brother: The Real Audience.” Television and New Media 3.3 (2002): 323-41. Holmes, Su. “’All You’ve Got to Worry about Is Having a Cup of Tea and Doing a Bit of Sunbathing…’: Approaching Celebrity in Big Brother.” Understanding Reality TV. Eds. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London: Routledge, 2004. 111-35. Holmes, Su. “But This Time You Choose!: Approaching the Interactive Audience of Reality TV.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.2 (2004): 213-31. Holmes, Su. “Reality Goes Pop!: Reality TV, Popular Music and Narratives of Stardom in Pop Idol.” Television and New Media 5.2 (2004): 147-72. Jones, Janet. “Show Your Real Face: A Fan Study of the UK Big Brother Transmissions (2000, 2001, 2002).” New Media and Society 5.3 (2003): 400-21. King, Barry. “Embodying an Elastic Self: The Parametrics of Contemporary Stardom.” Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. Eds. Thomas Austin and Martin Barker. London: Arnold, 2003. 29-44. Lovell, Alan. “I Went in Search of Deborah Kerr, Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore But Got Waylaid…” Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. Eds. Thomas Austin and Martin Barker. London: Arnold, 2003. 259-70. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Turner, Graeme, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall. Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Holmes, Susan. "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?': Conceptualising Fame in Reality TV." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/07-holmes.php>. APA Style Holmes, S. (Nov. 2004) "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?': Conceptualising Fame in Reality TV," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/07-holmes.php>.

The questions posed and examined in Violent Femmes take their genesis from psychoanalytic arguments which contend that identity is not a stable monadic thing but rather a continuing process of engagement and negotiation between the self and others. Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, and Christopher Bollas, amongst others, have noted the temporary, coalitional, and provisional nature of the ways in which identity is apprehended and experienced. This thesis expands upon such a theoretical framework of identity formation to specifically question the ways in which the formation and maturation of an artistic identity may, in part, be predicated upon the psychological capacity to enact violence within the realm of the imaginary. Violent Femmes examines the complex relationship between psychological violence and artistic identity as that relationship is recorded in the autobiographical writings of Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, and Emily Carr.
This project traces the written vestiges of Woolfs, Hall's, and Carr's individual internalised struggles to formulate an artistic identity in specific relationship with an already established 'model' of artistic creativity and identity. Woolfs, Hall's, and Carr's struggles to claim a personal artistic identity, in some ways from their individual model of the artist, are waged within the minds of the authors themselves. However, the violence enacted within their imaginations---the violence perpetrated against the models of the artist---is thrust into the external world, not only within the writings of these three women, but also by the ways in which each author resolves or fails to resolve her own violent conflict with her imaginary model of the artist.

Dentre os vários aspectos das ciências da religião, um deles pode ser compreendido na sua função, que permite ao homem expressar sentido à vida, a partir de um sistema lógico no qual uma nova cosmovisão é construída para legitimar uma realidade humana. Esta dissertação tem por objetivo, portanto, compreender a função social de um texto bíblico, como expressão de uma realidade, perceber o tipo de sociedade que está por trás dele e qual o sujeito histórico responsável pela produção do texto. Procura-se saber como esse sujeito histórico reelaborou suas próprias tradições diante de um mundo simbólico, plural e concorrente. E, por fim, como desenvolveu uma fundamentação religiosa para apresentar sua visão de sociedade. A partir dessa abordagem, fez-se uso do capítulo 24,1-28 do livro de Josué para a análise de uma sociedade e da práxis do sujeito histórico que produziu suas tradições. E, assim, procurou-se chegar ao modo de organização social de um povo, na época do pós-exílio, período do Império Persa. Para tanto, a título de orientação teórica, para análise do texto, elegeu-se o método sociológico, para compreensão da narrativa de Js 24,1-28, como sistematização teológica necessária para firmar a coesão das tradições populares, e dar novo sentido à religião Javista face às culturas diversificadas do mundo religioso daquele tempo. Isso se realizou através da formalização de uma aliança. A aliança feita com Iahweh e os vários grupos (dos remanescentes e dos exilados), compreendida como uma proposta para legitimar um novo projeto que garantisse a justiça e o direito das famílias dos remanescentes que estavam sendo excluídas pelos exilados, que defendiam a organização social implantada, em Canaã, pela administração Persa. Essa organização social, criada no interesse do Império Persa, era constituída de vilas, também chamadas de casa dos pais, e tratadas como unidades corporativas. Essa organização social da província de Judá, com a chegada dos exilados, favoreceu a restauração do templo e o culto, como resultado da vontade política da administração Persa.
Among the various aspects of religious studies, the one chosen here can be understood in its function of enabling man to express the meaning to life, founded on a logical system in which a new worldview is constructed to legitimize a determined human reality. This dissertation aims, therefore, to understand the social function of a biblical text as an expression of reality; it aims to understand the type of society behind the text, as well as the historical subject responsible its production. The paper seeks to discover how this historical subject reworked its own traditions before a pluralistic and competing symbolic world, and, finally, how a religious basis to express their vision of society was developed. From this perspective, chapter 24,1-28 of the book of Joshua will be used for the analysis of the society and the praxis of the historical subject which produced their traditions. We have tried to understand the mode of social organization of the people during the post-exilic period of the Persian Empire. By way of theoretical orientation for text analysis, the sociological method for understanding the narrative of Js from 24.1 to 28 was chosen to illustrate the theological necessary to establish the cohesion of popular traditions, and to give new meaning to Yahwist religion in face of the diverse cultures of the religious world of that time. This was possible through the realization of a covenant. The covenant made between Yahweh and the various groups, both those who remained in Judah and those who went into exile, was understood as a proposal to legitimize a new project that would ensure justice and the rights of those families of remainders excluded by the exiles, who were defenders of the social organization implanted in Canaan by the Persian administration. This social organization, created in the interest of the Persian Empire, was consisted of villages, also called father houses, were treated as corporate units. With the arrival of the exiled, this social organization of the province of Judah favored the restoration of the temple and worship, as an expression of the political will of the Persian administration.

This dissertation examines the legends of the Biblical book of Joshua in an attempt to identify the relics of reminiscence that reside within the document. The initial step in this process is presenting the neuropsychological perspective of myth making and the nature of confabulation in oral tradition. The natural segue is then made to the Deuteronomistic history of the text and the formation of the initial source legend. From this investigation the basic structure of the Primary Conquest Source Legend is exposed. The next step is a comparison of this Source Legend with the history of proto-Israel. This investigation provides a clear contextual epoch for the legend of conquest against Jericho and Ai. A related finding is the contextual epoch for the second source legend used to form the present text of Joshua.
Religious Studies & Arabic
D.Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)

The present research has been aimed at investigating how imperialism and colonialism are located both in the biblical text (cf. Joshua 1-12) and in present day interpretive postcolonial contexts such as that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An investigation was made of the unequal power dynamics at play between the Israelites who are depicted as mercilessly conquering the indigenous peoples of Canaan in the name of the deity, and the Canaanites. How were/ are such power dynamics played out in the Katangese, Democratic Republic of the Congo’s context in the relations between the then colonizers, that is, the Belgians as well as the neo-colonial African rulers and the Congolese peoples? It is argued that the Belgians assumed the role akin to that of the Israelite invaders as they mercilessly invaded the “promised land”, that is, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ending with the brutal extermination of African peoples justified on biblical precedents. A conclusion is made that within the context of postcolonial biblical interpretation, the conquest narrative of Joshua 1-12 is one of the most traumatic stories in which violence is committed by one nation on another in the name of the deity. Postcolonial biblical criticism was found to be an appropriate approach in assisting the researcher to navigate through violent biblical texts with a view to coming up with a transformative reading of the texts in the (Katangese) context of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies)