Showing papers in "European Journal of English Studies in 2019"
TL;DR: The authors explores the reframing of the fiction/nonfiction distinction in light of the changing cultural dominant in the literary period succeeding postmodernism, and investigates the connec-...
Abstract: This essay explores the reframing of the fiction/nonfiction distinction in light of the changing cultural dominant in the literary period succeeding postmodernism. It investigates the conne...
12 citations
TL;DR: In postcolonial poetics, reading is taken as an inventive, border-traversing activity as discussed by the authors, and reading is viewed as a work-sharing activity between reader and text.
Abstract: In Postcolonial Poetics, ‘reading is taken as an inventive, border-traversing activity’ (1). Boehmer outlines a more productive ‘work[ing] together’ (2) of reader and text, involving a refreshing r...
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigate the metamodern usage of the typically postmodernist devices of metatextuality and ontological slippage in two genres: autofiction and true crime documentary.
Abstract: It is often argued that postmodernism has been succeeded by a new dominant cultural logic. We conceive of this new logic as metamodernism. Whilst some twenty-first century texts still engage with and utilise postmodernist practices, they put these practices to new use. In this article, we investigate the metamodern usage of the typically postmodernist devices of metatextuality and ontological slippage in two genres: autofiction and true crime documentary. Specifically, we analyse Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being and the Netflix mini-series The Keepers, demonstrating that forms of fictionalisation, metafictionality and ontological blurring between fiction and reality have been repurposed. We argue that, rather than expand the scope of fiction, overriding reality, the metamodernist repurposing of postmodernist textual strategies generates a kind of ‘reality-effect’.
11 citations
TL;DR: In literary studies, the concepts of "shame" and "guilt" are often associated with sentimentalism, passive agency or politics of victimhood as mentioned in this paper, which is not the case here.
Abstract: In literary studies, the concepts of ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’ are often associated with sentimentalism, passive agency or politics of victimhood. By drawing upon the recent ‘affective turn’ in cultural ...
9 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the entanglements between fact and fiction, and raised questions about the perception and use of realism and positivity in fiction and fact, raising questions about how realism can be used in fiction.
Abstract: This essay analyses Rushdie’s novel The Golden House and his memoir Joseph Anton to explore entanglements between fact and fiction, raising questions about the perception and use of realism and pos...
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse two of Ali Smith's latest books, Artful (2012) and How to Be Both (2014), through the lenses of metamodernism and the return of the real to fiction.
Abstract: This article will analyse two of Ali Smith’s latest books, Artful (2012) and How to Be Both (2014), through the lenses of metamodernism and the return of the ‘real’ to fiction. It analyses the narr...
8 citations
TL;DR: In the epilogue of the second edition of The Politics of Postmodernism, Linda Hutcheon (2002: 165-66) declares that postmodernism is "a thing of the past" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the epilogue of the second edition of The Politics of Postmodernism, Linda Hutcheon (2002: 165–66) declares that postmodernism is ‘a thing of the past’; for her, it is ‘over’. While in 2002 Hutc...
7 citations
TL;DR: The House is Full of Yogis as mentioned in this paper is one of the few autobiographical texts featuring New Religious Movement conversions, but it is not very common in twenty-first-century life writing, and those that exist are no longer limited to transitions between the world’s major faiths.
Abstract: Representations of religious conversion are not very common in twenty-first-century Anglophone life writing, and those that exist are no longer limited to transitions between the world’s major faiths. One of the few autobiographical texts featuring New Religious Movement conversions is Will Hodgkinson’s The House is Full of Yogis. The Story of a Childhood Turned Upside Down (2014). Despite preserving the major components of a traditional conversion narrative, The House features some departures from the convention which ultimately turn it into an anti-conversion narrative. Among the most important is the fact that the results of the conversion as experienced by the convert’s family seem far from satisfactory. It is only in his adulthood that the memoirist endorses his father’s spiritual choices; as the memoir’s adolescent ‘narrated I’, he is less keen to do so. Consequently, in contrast to the didactic purposes of conventional conversion narratives, The House fails to offer an unambiguous moral les...
6 citations
TL;DR: In William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Antony is conceived of as a character acting in the context of a large-scale exposure to shame and shaming: by his Roman compatriots, enemies...
Abstract: In William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Antony is conceived of as a character acting in the context of a large-scale exposure to shame and shaming: by his Roman compatriots, enemies ...
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper introduced and critically explored a series of autobiographical texts produced in the early 1990s by world-famous British and American philosophers depicting their personal jourselogues, and explored their personal journeys.
Abstract: The article introduces and critically explores a series of autobiographical texts produced in the early 1990s by world-famous British and American philosophers depicting their personal jour...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, much has been made in the scholarship of eighteenth-century autobiography of James Boswell's journals, particularly the London Journal of 1762-3, while critical attention has tended to focu...
Abstract: Much has been made in the scholarship of eighteenth-century autobiography of James Boswell’s journals, particularly the London Journal of 1762-3. While critical attention has tended to focu...
TL;DR: In this paper, the author was a convert to the Catholic faith from a nominal Anglican upbringing, and his novels are often discussed and evaluated in light of the author's religious preoccupations.
Abstract: Graham Greene’s novels are often discussed – and evaluated – in light of the author’s religious preoccupations. As Greene was a convert to the Catholic faith from a nominal Anglican upbringing, cri...
TL;DR: This article used experiments with paratexts, generic conventions and frames of understanding to challenge an audience's ability to distinguish the fictionalised from the non-fictional in a narrative.
Abstract: Narratives that use experiments with paratexts, generic conventions and frames of understanding to challenge an audience’s ability to distinguish the fictionalised from the non-fictional have moved...
TL;DR: The authors argue that the ambivalent nature of shame oscillates between the personal and the public, between hiding and uncovering, and that the feeling of shame is meaningfully illuminated in narrati...
Abstract: This essay argues that the ambivalent nature of shame – a feeling that oscillates between the personal and the public, between hiding and uncovering – is meaningfully illuminated in narrati...
TL;DR: The authors examines poetic representations of the conversion experience by W.H. Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932) using dialogic modes of encountering the other on various levels which all relate back to his conversion to Islam.
Abstract: The article examines poetic representations of the conversion experience by W.H. Abdullah Quilliam (1856–1932). His poems use dialogic modes of encountering the other on various levels which all relate back to his conversion to Islam. The dialogic encounters with the other open up a contact zone in which the interaction between self and God, self and religious community as well as self and non-Muslim discursive environment can unfold. The conversion experience is a driving force in Quilliam’s work, allowing the speaker to construct – through various perspectives – a dynamic as well as fleeting location of the hybrid convert self in relation to British society. The act of conversion, again, constitutes a radical response in articulating the self in a new relationship to God. Simultaneously, the speaker’s poetic strategies reflect his location within a religious minority and implicitly show how he re-interprets the community’s relation to the religious majority. The speaker’s performative act of con...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the potential and ethical implications of encounters between fictionalised characters and real people, through the case studies of Borat, The Ambasson, and The Onion.
Abstract: This article is a study of the critical potential and ethical implications of encounters between fictionalised characters and unsuspecting real people. Through the case studies of Borat, The Ambass...
TL;DR: In 1918, Monsignor Ronald Knox (1888-1957) as mentioned in this paper published a spiritual autobiography entitled A Spiritual Aeneid, which was the immediate fruit of his conversi...
Abstract: In 1918, Monsignor Ronald Knox (1888–1957) – English priest, author, theologian and translator – published a spiritual autobiography entitled A Spiritual Aeneid. The immediate fruit of his conversi...
TL;DR: The authors examined the articulations of shame in relation to Somali women's bodies and against the backdrop of the Somali civil war, and found that women in the British-Somali female population were shamed more than men.
Abstract: Looking at recent writings by British-Somali female authors, this article examines the articulations of shame in relation to Somali women’s bodies and against the backdrop of the Somali civil war. ...
TL;DR: Shame acts as an internal social regulator, and most of the time, it does an unobtrusively good job as discussed by the authors. But shame can also be a bully. Nastier than guilt, which is merely the feeling that o...
Abstract: Shame … acts as an internal social regulator, and most of the time, … it does an unobtrusively good job. But shame can also be a bully. Nastier by far than guilt, which is merely the feeling that o...
TL;DR: The authors investigate religious narratives of conversion in the British press with a view to exploring the public dimension of religion and the general attitudes to reli... and the present study sets out to investigate the media coverage of conversion.
Abstract: The present study sets out to investigate religious narratives of conversion in the British press with a view to exploring the public dimension of religion and the general attitudes to reli...
TL;DR: In this paper, the intersection of femininity, shame, and alcoholism is addressed, considering the particular shame of the woman who drinks via a reading of Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight.
Abstract: This article addresses the intersection of femininity, shame, and alcoholism, considering the particular shame of the woman who drinks via a reading of Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight (1...
TL;DR: Sanghera as discussed by the authors explores how the concept of shame is instrumentalised in the practice of forced marriage in South Asian British diasporic contexts, and explores the role of shame in forced marriage.
Abstract: Jasvinder Sanghera’s autobiographical trilogy explores how the concept of shame is instrumentalised in the practice of forced marriage in South Asian British diasporic contexts. As corollar...