Wri$ng  Con$ngency:  “Data-­‐Acts”  The  Digital  Scholarly  Essay    

Enac$ng  the  “Scandal”  of  Mabel  Normand  Vicki  Callahan,  vcallahan@cinema.usc.edu  

 

                           BREAKING  THE  FRAME  

hHp://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/vicki-­‐callahan/index            

       Mabel  Normand              by  C.D.  Gibson  

Fashion  and  Performance:    From  the  Gibson  Girl’s  “Cool  Detachment”  to  a  “Performance  of  Infelici$es”  

     

                                     INTERLOCUTORS  

Opening Frame Invites Dialogue

A  (Quick)  Taxonomy  of  Performance:    Melodrama/Declara$ve  Statements  

                                                                                 Birth  of  a  Na+on,  1915    

Hamilton  King,    Adver$sement  for  Coca  cola  

The  Gibson  Girl  Poses,  Not  Models:  Mickey    

A Fine Romance: The Infelicitous Marriage and Performance of Mabel Normand

PATHS OF FASHION: SOCIAL HISTORY> NEITHER VICTORIAN OR NEW WOMAN PERFORMANCE> NEITHER THEATRE OR CINEMA AESTHETICS> NEITHER REALIST OR FANTASY NARRATIVE> DISRUPTIVE CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC LINES NARRATION/NARRATOR> IRONIC/DETACHED, UNDERMINES NARRATIVE SINGULARITY

Vertical Inter-disciplinarity: Not additive or parallel tracks (film + cultural history) but investigation layered through multiple elements: Text, Still, Moving Image, other Archives. Each element does not fill in or replace but informs and then moves into another plane of exploration.

ETHICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY IN POSSIBLE HISTORIES