Messages, Sages and Ages, Vol. 5, No. 2, (2018)
Editor: Onoriu Colacel
“FRANTIC FUN AND HIGH SPIRITS”: NAVIGATING THE URBAN OBSCENE IN PETER ACKROYD’S QUEER CITY – Fabian Ivanovici
An atmosphere of uneasy reservation still pervades debates concerning sexualities and gender identities that do not fall in line with social norms and codes of propriety. Imagining a subject outside the discourse of heterosexuality remains an act fraught with incertitude,…
KNOWING FROM WITHIN: THE OBSCENE BODY IN “THE SQUAW” – Luminiţa Elena Turcu
The article focuses on the relationship between woman’s body and text in a piece of short Gothic fiction by Dracula’s author. Woman’s body is in Stoker’s “The Squaw” an obscene text that can be “read” and is open to exploration…
HARDCORE HORROR: THE PLEASURES AND DISPLEASURES OF BREAKING CINEMATIC TABOOS – Jennifer Drissel
Although films of both the “Torture Porn” and “New Extremism” subgenres have been characterized as physically hard to watch, films of the “Hardcore Horror” subgenre push this characteristic to the extreme by purposely tackling taboo issues such as incest, bestiality,…
Messages, Sages and Ages, Vol. 5, No. 1, (2018)
Editor: Onoriu Colacel
SPATIAL METAPHORS AND HAUNTED SPACE: SEMANTICS OF ARCHITECTURAL THERAPEUTIC ENCOUNTERS – STEPHANIE LIDDICOAT
Spaces for therapy and counselling are haunted spaces, spaces whose physical characteristics manifest past inhabitation and cue connections to another’s trauma. This paper explores findings from a research project which examined the perceptions of spatiality of individuals who self harm,…
NARRATED VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS: STORYTELLING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF VIDEO GAME SPACES – DIANA MELNIC
Virtual space is one of the fundamental building blocks of any digital game. It ties directly into the notions of immersion and interactivity, both of which are enacted in relation to space, and it is therefore one of the components…
“VOWELS PLOUGHED INTO OTHER: OPENED GROUND”: DIGGING THROUGH HISTORY IN THE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES OF SEAMUS HEANEY’S POETRY – AOILEANN NÍ ÉIGEARTAIGH
For the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, developing a sense of place is both a physical and spiritual experience. His poems explore his sensory delight in the landscape, its natural beauties and innate sense of freedom allowing him the space within…
MACABRE AND GRAVE-NOURISHED FANTASY IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S HAUNTED HOUSES – JUSTINE SHU-TING KAO
Poe’s “grave-nourished fantasy” is incorporated with “the energy of hope” for an encounter with the dead in an imaginary space. In his myth-infused Gothic house, the protagonist might conform to death (e.g., “The Assignation”), or idealize destruction or death (e.g.,…