LMKB416 Memes and Appropriation

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2016
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
prof. Eckart Voigts (lecturer), doc. Mgr. Petr Bubeníček, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Zbyněk Fišer, Ph.D.
Department of Czech Literature – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Eva Zachová
Supplier department: Department of Czech Literature – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 10. 10. 14:10–17:25 U37, Wed 12. 10. 10:50–14:05 U33
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 25 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/25, only registered: 0/25, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/25
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Syllabus
  • 1. Remix Culture and Recombinant Appropriation This paper considers the ways in which new intertextual forms engendered by emerging technologies—mashups, remixes, reboots, samplings, remodelings, transformations—further develop the impulse to adapt and appropriate, and the ways in which they challenge the theory and practice of adaptation and appropriation. It argues that broad notions of adaptation in adaptation studies and the emergence of media protocols are useful for the analysis of recombinant appropriations and adaptations/appropriations in general. It explores the political and aesthetic dimensions of participatory mashups and viewer engagements with, and appropriations of, transmedia franchises, taking a variety of Internet memes and the BBC franchise Sherlock as case studies and focusing on the politically, ethically, and aesthetically transgressive potential of recombinant adaptations. 2. From Paratext to Polyprocess: The ‘Quirky’ Mashup Novel This paper seeks to bring the field of “recombinant adaptation” – mashups and remixes on digital platforms – in dialogue with the Genettian idea of the pretext. Genette held that paratexts shape a given text’s “relations with the public” (Genette 1997: 14). More recently, Birke and Christ (2013) have elaborated Ginette’s ideas for a situation of convergence culture and transmedia storytelling, examining how paratexts fulfil interpretive, commercial or navigational functions in determining contemporary readers’ transmedia experience of narratives. 3. Atrophied Cinema? Animated GIFs, Meme Micronarratives and the Practices of Appropriation in Everyday Life Short audiovisual clips are standard fare in web-based databases and searchable platforms. This paper addresses a type of extremely short visual narrative frequently shared in the mashed-up environments of social media – the ‘moving pictures’ of the animated gif. The animated gif is a small, shareable image file that combines several images, thus enabling mashers to produce a visual micronarrative within a single image file. The paper mixes the approaches of narratology and popular culture studies: Do the – frequently grotesque, or macabre – direct stimuli of the animated gif, following Tom Gunning’s argument, undermine the narrativity and fictionality of current audio-visual narration, turning what was formerly cinema into an atrophied world of non-fictional, funfair remixing? How do we contextualize these atrophied, minimalist, viral meme clips with the immersive attractions of 3D cinema, computer games and further VR experiences?
Assessment methods
seminar paper
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
General note: Bloková výuka ve dnech 10.10. - 12.10.2016: po 10. 10. 14:10-17:25 U37, út 11. 10. 10:50-12:25 U25, st 12. 10. 10:50-14:05 U33.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 0.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2016/LMKB416