INTRODUCTIONPercival Everett (born 1956) is an American writer of African American origin and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He began his literary career in 1983 and now Everett's literary production has been impressive. At the beginning of his career he addressed traditional to his generation themes - sport, especially baseball as a national symbol of American society; consequences of the Vietnamese War as a specific theme of the lost generation in American literature of the second half of the 20th century. Among his literary works there are postmodernist interpretations of Greek myths, some westerns, and parodies of this genre. Actually Everett's novels embody all tendencies of the contemporary American literature such as postmodernist play with history and text, postmodernist irony, parody, deconstruction, a new interpretation of the traditional themes of American literature.Nowadays Percival Everett is considered to be one of the most accomplished and prolific African American writers. On the one hand his creativity can be referred to American Black literature as one of the main essential components of American multicultural literature. But on the other hand addressing traditional themes and conflicts of African American literature, Everett rejects, deconstructs or plays with African American component. Consequently, most of the critics regard Everett as an African American writer of a "new generation".MATERIALS AND METHODSThe given article is based on that Everett's novel represented a new interpretation of being African American in the modern American society. As literature reflects social processes, we affirm, that this problem is relevant for the American society today, when historical and racial prejudices are overcome, and Multiculturalism predominates in social, political and cultural life of the nation.Everett appeals originally to the image of African American in his novel I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009). We analyze the novel from the point of view of the African American identity and distinguish the forms of its representation in the work of fiction. The traditional methods of analyzes of contemporary multicultural Literary Studies are used in our research. We refer to the works of several scholars, both American and Russian, such as H.L. Gates's Canon Formation, Literary History, and the Afro-American Tradition: From the Seen to the Told, R.B. Stepto's Teaching Afro-American Literature: Survey or Tradition. The Reconstruction of Instruction, D.J. Franco's Ethnic American Literature. Comparing Chicano, Jewish, and African American Writing, M. Tlostanova's The Multicultural Debate and American Fiction of the Late 20th Century.DISCUSSIONOriginally published in 2009, Everett's I Am Not Sidney Poitier gained a great amount of views among American literary critics. The main character of the novel is a young African American with a strange name Not Sidney Poitier. Everett creates the main's character name by adding a particle not to the name of Sidney Poitier. Sidney Poitier is an icon for American and African American society. Sir Sidney Poitier is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author and diplomat. In 1964, Poitier became the first Bahamian and first African American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of these achievements was bolstered in 1967, when he starred in three successful films, all of which dealt with issues involving race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, making him the top boxoffice star of that year. He was equally paid as White actors in 60-70s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of classic Hollywood cinema, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.From 1997 to 2007, he served as the non-resident Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama. …

To Whom the Oscar Goes: The Image of African American in Percival Everett's Novel and Sidney Poitier's Films


 War and Peace and Anna Karenina are widely recognized as two of the greatest novels ever written. Their author, Leo Tolstoy, has been honoured as the father of the modern war story, and as an innovator in psychological prose and forerunner of stream of consciousness. Leo Tolstoy: A Very Short Introduction examines the life and work of Leo Tolstoy, exploring both his celebrated novels and non-fiction writings, addressing the eternal questions of love, death, war, peace, faith, and activism found in them. It also considers Tolstoy’s different roles as a writer, thinker, and activist, highlighting those aspects of his work that are still relevant today.

Leo Tolstoy: A Very Short Introduction

The trial of Elizabeth Cree

Modelle der Literaturverfilmung im neuen deutschen Film : Fassbinders "Fontane Effi Briest" und Schlöndorffs "Homo Faber"

The article is devoted to the study of the ancient heritage reception in modern culture. In the last decades the media environment, in which the antique knowledge representation is in hands of authors – non-professionals in ancient history, has become a major source of historical perceptions in society. Many figures of antiquity have been turned into media characters attributed with features and notions at the athors’discretion and in mass audience interests. A famous Greek philosopher Socrates appears such a personality in contemporary media space. The article offers the analysis of some cases of the Socrates’ image usage in socio-cultural practices – education and performance. The educational sphere is represented by a current trend “Philosophy for children”, which applies the principles of Socratic dialogue as a basic teaching method. And the reconstruction of Socrates’ trial, held in New York and Athens in 2011-2012 accordingly, is taken as an illustration of performance practices. The author has arrived to the conclusion that all the described examples have to do with “adaptive interpretations” (Wojciech Wrzosek), characteristic not only of professional historiography, but of mass historical perceptions in modern society as well.

https://rals.scu.ac.ir/article_15127_b554d344b00868dd4fa62d937028509e.pdf

Socrates’ Casus in Contemporary Media Space

The paper focuses on Anna Karenina, the famous masterpiece by Leo Tolstoy, and its latest screen versions. The fruitful collaboration, accomplished by two remarkable figures of contemporary British culture – the director Joe Wright and the playwright Tom Stoppard as a scriptwriter – was released in 2012. Since screen adaptation of classics, as well as any kind of remake, is undoubtedly challenging but nevertheless intriguing for both creators and viewers, it seems to be an exciting topic for research. The situation when a piece of great literature is transposed into a different medium, such as a film, commonly gives rise to fierce debates, which, in turn, becomes thought-provoking. What is more, the fact of making the film by the British crew basing on the Russian literary chef-d'oeuvre allows assuming the dialogue of cultures is implied in the considered work of cinematographic art. Thus, these aspects of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and its interpretation and reception are highlighted in the study undertaken. Furthermore, the study intends to analyse and investigate this masterpiece's literary and morphological aspects from a unique perspective.

https://rals.scu.ac.ir/article_16276_7958d4bfa3385e2560744b2ecff64139.pdf

Literary Analysis of 'Anna Karenina' on British Screen

One of the features that characterizes postmodern fiction is an intense interest in the past, and especially so – in Victorian period, chiefly in its sensational aspects. Therefore we witness a revival of Victorian crime novel and this tendency can be traced not only in recent English literature, but in other literatures as well, Russian in particular. This gave birth to the term “neo-Victorian novel”, referring to the pieces, which recreate the atmosphere of the period, introduce a lot of intertextual allusions and references to the well-known Victorian novels and exploit most popular subjects of the 19th century literature. However as we will argue in this essay the authors often use these plots as implicit metaphors of postmodern art as such. It will be demonstrated on the example of two Neo-Victorian novels – “The Trial of Elizabeth Cree” by Peter Ackroyd (1995) and “The Decorator” by Boris Akunin; for the latter Ackroyd’s novel can be also regarded as one of the precedent texts. Both novels give their versions of the story of Jack the Ripper but what is more important in our case – employ akin plot structures, images and artistic devices, which in fact become metaphoric actualization of postmodern techniques.

/pdf/metaphors-of-postmodernism-in-neo-victorian-fiction-the-3t6c5e6yk6.pdf

Elena M. Apenko.

Papers

Literary Analysis of 'Anna Karenina' on British Screen

Metaphors of Postmodernism in Neo-Victorian Fiction: “The Trial of Elizabeth Cree” by Peter Ackroyd and “The Decorator” by Boris Akunin