Naslov
Infected Bodies: Biopolitics and Resistance in Contagion and Blindness

Autori
Jurković, Irena

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture / - , 2021, 122-123

Skup
Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture, An Interdisciplinary Conference

Mjesto i datum
Kapadokija, Turska, 13.01.2021. - 15.01.2021

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
pandemics, infected body, biopolitics, Contagion, Blindness

Sažetak
Pandemics and the transmission of infectious diseases seem to be a recurring theme in both literature and the visual arts. Most films dealing with the epidemic, as the main theme or background story, fall somewhere into the genre of fantasy, science fiction, or horror, while the emphasis is usually on the destruction of humanity and the subsequent (post)apocalyptic environment. This paper will focus on two recent films that seem to differ from early virus narratives by their somewhat realistic portrayal of events and by favoring the theme of infection of the social body rather than that of the individual body. The much-discussed Contagion (2011) is a film that narrates the outbreak of the deadly MEV-1 virus, but it is also a film about the societal response to perceived unsuccessful disease management by the authorities. Another film to demonstrate similar problems is Blindness (2008) whose story is following the fast spread of the unknown disease that causes epidemic blindness, but just like Contagion, the spread of the virus causes not only fear and panic but also societal disruption revealing unequal power distribution. Both films lack in visual abject images so typical of virus narratives, which further raises the question of the real enemy in the story, but also shifts the focus to the effects of the epidemic at the macro-level of society. The analysis of the aforementioned films will focus on the representation of the politicization of human biological life, and neoliberal governance systems drawing mainly on the understanding of the biopolitics by Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito. Particular attention will be given to the representation of resistance in films and their success in raising question of whether any form of resistance to biopolitics is possible in modern society.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

POVEZANOST RADA