Aga Skrodzka - Böcker

Stereotypes often cast communism as a defunct, bankrupt ideology and a relic of the distant past. However, recent political movements like Europe's anti-austerity protests, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street suggest that communism is still very much relevant and may even hold the key to a new, idealized future. In The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures, contributors trace the legacies of communist ideology in visual culture, from buildings and monuments, murals and sculpture, to recycling campaigns and wall newspapers, all of which work to make communism's ideas and values material. Contributors work to resist the widespread demonization of communism, demystifying its ideals and suggesting that it has visually shaped the modern world in undeniable and complex ways. Together, contributors answer curcial questions like: What can be salvaged and reused from past communist experiments? How has communism impacted the cultures of late capitalism? And how have histories of communism left behind visual traces of potential utopias? An interdisciplinary look at the cultural currency of communism today, The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures demonstrates the value of revisiting the practices of the past to form a better vision of the future.

Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe explores the interlocking complexities of two liminal concepts: magic realism and East Central Europe. Each is a fascinating hybrid that resonates with dominant currents in contemporary thought on transnationalism, globalisation and regionalism. In this critical and comprehensive survey, Aga Skrodzka moves the current debate over magic realism’s political impact from literary studies to film studies. Her close textual analysis of films by directors such as Jan Švankmajer, Jan Jakub Kolski, Martin Šulík, Ivo Trajkov, Dorota Kędzierzawska, Ildikó Enyedi, Béla Tarr and Emir Kusturica is accompanied by an investigation of the socio-economic and political context in order to both study and popularise an important and unique tradition in world cinema. The directors’ artistic achievements illuminate the connections between a particular aesthetics and the social structure of East Central Europe at a precise moment of contemporary history.Provides the first comprehensive analysis of magic realism in cinemaOffers an examination of the post-socialist cinema as representative of the hybridised space and consciousness of East Central EuropeGives chronological overview of the existing theories of magic realism to the extent in which they apply to globalised visual culturesConsiders the cinema of East Central Europe in the context of transnationalism and postcoloniality

Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe explores the interlocking complexities of two liminal concepts: magic realism and East Central Europe. Each is a fascinating hybrid that resonates with dominant currents in contemporary thought on transnationalism, globalisation and regionalism. In this critical and comprehensive survey, Aga Skrodzka moves the current debate over magic realism’s political impact from literary studies to film studies. Her close textual analysis of films by directors such as Jan Švankmajer, Jan Jakub Kolski, Martin Šulík, Ivo Trajkov, Dorota Kędzierzawska, Ildikó Enyedi, Béla Tarr and Emir Kusturica is accompanied by an investigation of the socio-economic and political context in order to both study and popularise an important and unique tradition in world cinema. The directors’ artistic achievements illuminate the connections between a particular aesthetics and the social structure of East Central Europe at a precise moment of contemporary history.Provides the first comprehensive analysis of magic realism in cinemaOffers an examination of the post-socialist cinema as representative of the hybridised space and consciousness of East Central EuropeGives chronological overview of the existing theories of magic realism to the extent in which they apply to globalised visual culturesConsiders the cinema of East Central Europe in the context of transnationalism and postcoloniality

This book examines the visual politics of the cinematic figure of the 'sex slave' from its origins in silent film to its iterations in blaxploitation cinema, European art cinema, Nollywood, and, in its most concentrated form, the Hollywood blockbuster thriller. Through close analysis of several film texts that is informed by feminist theory, visual studies, critical race studies, and the political economy of sex work, this book argues that the sex slave has long functioned as a disciplinary spectacle that simultaneously commodifies and punishes female flesh. The sex slave is used to 'sell' a libidinal fantasy of rescue, not of the trafficked woman or child, but of the very economic and social order that exploits them.