This PhD is a practice as research interrogation of the emancipatory potential of the idea of imperfection. It is framed around the key leading question: ‘How can the generation of imperfect praxis – cultural production in and through social dialogues challenging notions of technical expertise – affirm emancipatory value in a film practice? The thesis documents the development of a participatory film practice, operating in-between d.i.y subcultural activity and practice as research. The film component of the submission engages with the problems involved in representing and authenticating the collective dimension of participatory filmmaking. The emancipatory potential of imperfection has been explored via a broad range of interdisciplinary participatory practices. The core project is Imperfect Cinema, an open-access micro-cinema collective, which navigated the intersection between film and do-it-yourself punk. This interplay between the contested idea of punk and its inherent activism, with the democratic/accessible implications of audio-visual media, is seen as an exemplary site for examining, and dismantling the boundaries between disciplines. In this sense, the nature of the work can be seen as being ‘in-disciplinary’ (Rancière 2008), requiring a mobility and responsiveness to the emergence of contemporary participatory and collaborative processes. The concept of imperfection draws from punk as a set of d.i.y methodological practices and is key to understanding and developing participatory cinema. Imperfection, as a generative conceptual tool, can be described as incorporating and examining methods ‘against methods’ (Feyerabend 1988) in order to acknowledge the uncertainty and fluidity of participatory work. This forms my understanding of what I term imperfect praxis. This praxis requires the emancipatory potential of imperfection to be easily communicable and accessible to different kinds of participants. The emergence of imperfect praxis developed out of collective social spaces where a kind of knowledge can be explored through collaborative and participatory interactions and dialogues, situated and understood through historical, contextual, personal and shared experiences. This thesis consequently represents a ‘moment in time’ in my methodological development, providing me with the structure to identify and disseminate the practice as research.

Ce mémoire porte sur la notion de résistance sous-culturelle chez la sous-culture straight edge dans le contexte du Québec et s’intéresse à la place et au rôle de la musique hardcore à travers cette résistance. S’inscrivant dans le domaine de la sociomusicologie, il est le résultat d’une étude de terrain menée à l’aide d’entretiens auprès de participants à la sous-culture straight edge québécoise. Il s’intéresse au développement de la culture straight edge dans le contexte du Québec et à son organisation en marge de l’industrie culturelle mainstream en explorant son lien et son positionnement par rapport à la scène hardcore québécoise. Cette enquête se penche sur la perception de l’identité sous-culturelle ainsi que sur la représentation du système de valeurs straight edge chez les participants à la sous-culture. Il explore également, à travers l’analyse du discours des participants, leur conception de la société mainstream, des structures de pouvoir et de l’idéologie dominante afin de comprendre leur conception de la résistance. Le mémoire s’intéresse ensuite aux caractéristiques esthétiques du genre hardcore straight edge à travers ses paramètres musicaux et la production et l’utilisation de la voix dans le genre. Il est finalement démontré que la musique hardcore soutien et appuie la résistance sous-culturelle straight edge à travers diverses stratégies d’interprétation, compositionnelles et scéniques, soutenues par les paramètres vocaux et musicaux du genre, les textes des chansons ainsi que le contexte du concert live. / This thesis examines the notion of resistance in the straight edge subculture in the context of Quebec, focusing on the place and role of hardcore music through this resistance. It is part of a sociomusicology field study consisting in interviews with participants in the Quebec straight edge subculture. It is interested in the development of straight edge culture in the context of Quebec and its organization on the margins of the mainstream cultural industry. It also explores the relationship of this subculture with the Quebec hardcore scene. This thesis examines the perception of subcultural identity and the representation of the straight edge value system amongst subcultural participants. It also explores, through the analysis of the participants' discourses, their conception of mainstream society, power structures and dominant ideologies in order to understand their conceptions of resistance. The thesis then looks at the aesthetic characteristics of the straight edge hardcore genre through its musical parameters and the production and use of the voice in this genre. Finally, it is shown that hardcore music supports and sustains straight edge subcultural resistance through various performances, compositional and scenic strategies, supported by the vocal and musical parameters of the genre, lyrics, as well as the context of the live concert.

<p>Splatterpunk was a short-lived, but explosive horror literary movement birthed in the 1980’s that utilized graphic depictions of violence in its prose. Drawing parallels to other subversive and radical art movements like Dada and Hardcore Punk, this paper examines through a Marxist lens how Splatterpunk, influenced by the destructive nature of 1980’s neoliberalism, reflected the violence, categorized as direct and structural, of its period of creation and used extreme vulgarity as an act of rebellion against traditional horror canon.</p>

Written under the name "Malcolm Franklin", this article offers an account of my journey from first-generation college graduate from the rural midwest to college professor. I wrote it as a pedagogical text to give my undergraduates and graduate history students at ETSU a better sense of the challenges that face them if they choose to pursue an academic career path.

Dissertation "Myths of the Czech Music Alternative in the 1980s" presents an anthropological view of the phenomenon of a parallel culture in a limiting situation. On the basis of biographical narratives, additional interviews and data gained from other types of sources, "myths" are constructed for seven major figures of the Czech alternative scene. This is an insider's ethnomusicological interpretation, based on Mircea Eliade's and Bronislaw Malinowski's concepts of myth as recurrent and exemplary models of behavior. The described personalities, Jazz Section (Prometheus), Miroslav Wanek ("hero's journey") Karel Babuljak ("search for paradise lost"), Pavel Zajíček (Odysseus), Mikoláš Chadima ("Rebel"), Oldřich Janota (Hermes), and Marka Míková (Psyche), represent some of the main trends in creative processes of the Czech music alternative scene with myth being used as a metaphor. The metaphor is understood here in the terms of Timothy Rice, i.e. as an organization principle of our thinking, as well as an illuminating image.

This work deals with the phenomenon of tattoo in hardcore subculture. In the theoretical part it reflects the transformation of the concept of subcultures in his historical progress, with an emphasis on the concept of style in the connection of the Center of contemporary culture Studies and post subcultural theory, especially the writing of David Muggleton. The diachronic perspective, this work also deals with the phenomenon of tattoo and its functions and meanings to it in today's society ascribed. An integral part of the theoretical part is to describe hardcore only in terms of its progress in the USA and in Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic, but also in terms of the side of music and shared ideology, which is the main key featuring to this subculture. Concepts described in the theoretical part are then used in actual research, which is conducted by using qualitative methodology. Exploration aims to describe the meanings and functions of the hardcore subculture and determine whether they are content and motivation ascribed to tattoo influenced subcultural ideologies, or whether it is primarily an expression of the contemporary individualistic discourse. In this work tattooing is examined in terms of its individual nature with regard to the subcultural, or wider, societal context, which together...

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka drivkraften bakom volontärarbete på punkfestival. Frågeställningarna innefattar vad punken som subkultur har för betydelse och hur gemenskap bildas inom volontärarbete. Studiens empiri består av fyra kvalitativa intervjuer med individer som har erfarenhet av volontärarbete på punkfestivaler. Dessa intervjuer har sedan kodats med hjälp av tematisk analys. Analysen tar avstamp i teorier kring ritual, symboler, och kollektivt medvetande. Resultatet visar på att punkens grundläggande värderingar bygger på autencitet, kollektivitet och autonomi. Vidare är dessa värderingar sammanvävda med informanternas upplevelser av volontärarbete på punkfestival. Den icke-kommersiella aspekten av festivalerna är viktig för autenciteten och autonomin inom arbetet. Via musiken förkroppsligas dessa värderingar vilket formar meningsskapandet inom volontärarbetet.

Dissertation "Myths of the Czech Music Alternative in the 1980s" presents an anthropological view of the phenomenon of a parallel culture in a limiting situation. On the basis of biographical narratives, additional interviews and data gained from other types of sources, "myths" are constructed for seven major figures of the Czech alternative scene. This is an insider's ethnomusicological interpretation, based on Mircea Eliade's and Bronislaw Malinowski's concepts of myth as recurrent and exemplary models of behavior. The described personalities, Jazz Section (Prometheus), Miroslav Wanek ("hero's journey") Karel Babuljak ("search for paradise lost"), Pavel Zajíček (Odysseus), Mikoláš Chadima ("Rebel"), Oldřich Janota (Hermes), and Marka Míková (Psyche), represent some of the main trends in creative processes of the Czech music alternative scene with myth being used as a metaphor. The metaphor is understood here in the terms of Timothy Rice, i.e. as an organization principle of our thinking, as well as an illuminating image.

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