Showing papers in "Neohelicon in 2006"
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors argue that comparative literature in China is still very energetic playing a leading role in Chinese-Western cultural and academic exchange and communication, and they also argue that even in the age of globalization, comparative literature studies in China are still flourishing as it is closely related to or even combined with world literature into one discipline, with many of the internationally discussed theoretic topics "globalized" in the Chinese context.
Abstract: Starting with questioning Gayatri Spivak's controversial book Death of a Discipline, the present article tries to argue that unlike the case in the United States, comparative literature in China is still very energetic playing a leading role in Chinese-Western cultural and academic exchange and communication. Although, to the author, comparative literature in China did not become an independent discipline until the 1980s, it has been developing so rapidly that it was soon involved in international comparative literature scholarship and has become an important member of the International Comparative Literature Association. Since comparative literature became an independent discipline in mainland China in the 1980s, it has been both combined with “area studies” with its focus on Chinese-Western comparative studies and with the strategy of “crossing borders” and more topics from other disciplines or branches of learning. Even in the age of globalization when many of the other disciplines of the humanities are severely challenged, comparative literature studies in China is still flourishing as it is closely related to or even combined with world literature into one discipline, with many of the internationally discussed theoretic topics “globalized” in the Chinese context.
283 citations
TL;DR: This article explored some recent examples of writing the new Middle Ages and found that the challenge lies in finding a way to connect the mind and the world not only for the historical material, but also for the contemporary scene.
Abstract: The epistemological shift represented by postmodernism and its aftermath has liberated Medieval Studies infusing the field with energetic and controversial studies that have made the field one of the more vigorous (and interesting) in the humanities. Play, humor, relativism, indeterminacy, differential repetition (multiple copies as opposed to an original), performative mimesis, postcolonialism, gender, sexuality, and other concepts associated with postmodern sensibility configure contemporary medieval studies in radically different ways from those of earlier paradigms. These studies undertake to define “a new Middle Ages.” This is not the neomedievalism of late modernism that Umberto Eco described a few years ago. It is rather the period itself, stretching from roughly the 3rd century to the beginning of the 16th century C.E. The contemporary fascination with a period so different from our own, so radically “other,” points to a sense that, despite its alterity — or perhaps because of it — the Middle Ages have something important to tell us about ourselves and our age. It would be difficult to deny the role that popular culture — the many films, books, television shows and other mediatic phenomena — has played both in popularizing and in liberating medieval studies. Besides a flexible approach, these studies also share with popular culture a fascination with the historical context, but in ways only found in the best fiction and film go further to discover means of demonstrating what the historical artifact has to communicate to us: how, for example, it can interrogate or confirm the insights opened by new intellectual paradigms. They show that the challenge lies in finding a way to connect the mind and the world not only for the historical material, but also for the contemporary scene. This article will explore some recent examples of writing the new Middle Ages.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative panorama of Slavic literatures is presented from the perspective of post-modern culture and philosophy (Lyotard, Bauman, Rorty, Prigogine, Foucault, Derrida among others), legitimizing with its theories pluralism, the understanding of the multi-meaning nature of truth, the polyphony of cultures and the significance of all minorities for the spiritual development of humankind.
Abstract: The present essay is devoted to the various manifestations of transformation in Slavic literatures after 1989, when 300 million Slavs found themselves in the cultural paradigm diametrically opposed to the communist one, but not quite what it was designed to be by the dissidents and opposition members, i.e. advocates of civil society. This comparative panorama of Slavic literatures is presented from the perspective of postmodern culture and philosophy (Lyotard, Bauman, Rorty, Prigogine, Foucault, Derrida among others), legitimizing with its theories pluralism, the understanding of the multi-meaning nature of truth, the polyphony of cultures, and the significance of all minorities for the spiritual development of humankind. On the basis of selected examples from the literatures of West-, East- and South-Slavic countries, the author attempts to identify the crucial elements of transformation of the social and literary self-awareness of different generations in the post-communist Slavic countries over the last fifteen years. In the works of J. Topol, V. Pelevin, T. Rozewicz, D. Ugresic, T. Zabuzhko, or D. Bienkowski she seeks an answer to the question what was realized out of various dreams of a better and braver world of pluralism and democracy. How do the transformationers, the transformed and the self-transforming “inhabitants” of the new reality recognize their social and ethical situation? Who are, in light of literature, the heroes of our time, and what is behind the notion of “new sensitivity”? What does the so-called “realcap” (real capitalism) mean in literature? And also, which spaces of freedom does the democratic system open for writers and minorities, and which new worlds of imagination does it create in a search for metaphysical, mythical, thanatological, religious and esoteric dimensions of human existence, constrained in the past by imposed, top-down atheism.
4 citations
TL;DR: Ghandi's satyagraha, passive resistance, initiated in 1906 and Mandela's armed resistance championed by Umhkonto we Sizwe begun in 1961 very probably marked the opposite extremes of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Abstract: Ghandi's satyagraha, passive resistance, initiated in 1906 and Mandela's armed resistance championed by Umhkonto we Sizwe begun in 1961 very probably marked the opposite extremes of the anti-apartheid struggle. The chasm between these two strategies points in the direction of dramatic unfolding of historical events in the racist enclave necessitating a sober reappraisal in tactics. In the cultural onslaught against apartheid in which literature had a focal position the debate was not only about the authentic mode of resistance but also fundamentally about the authentic form of anti-apartheid literature itself. Apartheid South African theatre, polarised by the institutionalised inequalities of the system in white and black communities, inhibited in both by ruthless censorship laws, acknowledging different, even contrasted, philosophical and technical inspiration, offered varying spectacles of the South African experience. If Fugard's (early) drama, demonstrably indebted to Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, valorises an essentially passive form of resistance, Nkosi's attraction to and anxiety about Fanonian revolutionary violence on the other hand respond to South African history itself.
3 citations
TL;DR: Amin Maalouf as mentioned in this paper argued that personal construction and initiative are very powerful antidotes against globalization, standardization of differences as well as contempt for so-called "lesser cultures".
Abstract: It is not necessary to introduce Amin Maalouf, whose national and international reputation has been earned and well established over the past twenty years; his works have been translated into more than thirty languages. Focused onLes identites meurtrieres, published in 1998, our article aims at pointing out where its strength lies. This essay appears as an essential contribution to the issue ofidentity which is common to literature as such but which emerges to an exceptionally high degree in francophone literatures. Clearly against the withdrawal attitude leading to shutting off a community from the rest of the world, Amin Maalouf pleads in favour of negotiation between, on the one hand, the sense of belonging as part of one’s identity and, on the other, the necessity of being part and parcel of modernity. He shows that personal construction and initiative are indeed very powerful antidotes against globalization, standardization of differences as well as contempt for so called “lesser cultures.” Thanks to a very clear expression and a convincing, “straight-to-the-point” line of argument, his essay constitutes a stimulating tool inspiring in-depth reflection and is widely studied in high schools and universities.
3 citations
TL;DR: While memory guarantees a degree of continuity between past and present, it is not without shortcomings as discussed by the authors, which is why the work of Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad (a rising figure in the world of French-language theatre) generally prefers the international kind of memory provided by literature to the historical ties commonly invoked in family retellings of the past.
Abstract: While memory guarantees a degree of continuity between past and present, it is not without shortcomings. Powerless in the face of the future and threatened by oblivion, memory has the ability to imprison individuals and communities alike in a version of the past that has been promoted to the level of historical truth. This is why the work of Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad (a rising figure in the world of French-language theatre) generally prefers the international kind of memory provided by literature to the historical ties commonly invoked in family retellings of the past. Mouawad’s reworking of memory is particularly present in his best-known play,Littoral (1997), which addresses the various ways in which institutionalized forms of memory prevent the development of individual identities.
2 citations
TL;DR: Abla Farhoud, born in Lebanon and emigrant in Canada, retraces in her novelLe bonheur a la queue glissante, published in 1998, the story of Dounia, an elderly emigrant from Lebanon, who experiences a double exile; not only the one of the expatriation out of the homeland, but also that of the senility.
Abstract: Abla Farhoud, born in Lebanon and emigrant in Canada, retraces in her novelLe bonheur a la queue glissante, published in 1998, the story of Dounia, an elderly emigrant from Lebanon, who experiences a double exile; not only the one of the expatriation out of the homeland, but also that of the senility. Intercultural incomprehension as well as intergenerational incomprehension, constitute the base of a melancholic and tender reflection of a sorrowful woman.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make an attempt at a panoramic review of poetry and prose, and discuss the modern literary works which are most significant to the understanding of paradoxes of a national culture.
Abstract: The article is devoted to the investigation of an aspect of the newest developments in Belarusian art and literature. The “inter-life”, the “life on the side” as a special way of orientation of Belarusian people is under scrutiny in a number of cultural chronotopes. In this context it is the comprehension of a Belarusian idea of characters in both literary and real “universes” that makes them “strangers”, a minority in Belarusian cultural zone. The author makes an attempt at a panoramic review of poetry and prose, and she tries to discuss the modern literary works which are most significant to the understanding of paradoxes of a national culture. In this work a number of images or topoi extremely important for modern Belarusian literature are outlined, and some intrinsic features of the collective images of various literary generations are described.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the kulturellen Stereotype im Rahmen der Diskurstheorie is discussed, in which Moderne Identitaten (nationale, gender-, Klassen-, Rassen, Rassens-, Zivilisationsidentitaten) sind in einem stark monologischen Diskurs durchImaginieren, Totalisieren and Naturalisien, Naturalisieseren, Generalisieres, Diskriminieren - Industrialisiere, Dominieren des Eigenen entstanden
Abstract: Der Artikel betrachtet die kulturellen Stereotype im Rahmen der Diskurstheorie: als methodologisch fruchtbare vesteinerte imagologische Identitatskonstrukte uber sich selbst (Autostereotype) oder den Anderen (Heterostereotype). Moderne Identitaten (nationale, Gender-, Klassen-, Rassen-, Zivilisationsidentitaten) sind in einem stark monologischen Diskurs durchImaginieren — Totalisieren — Naturalisieren — Generalisieren — Diskriminieren — Industrialisieren — Dominieren des Eigenen entstanden. Im Rahmen dieser generellen Identitatsbildung befasst sich der Beitrag mit einer spezifischen Erscheinung: der Dissemination der Nation (Dissemination im Derridaschen Sinne), also einer Unmoglichkeit, einen stabilen und einheitlichen Identitatsdiskurs zu schaffen. Als Paradebeispiel wird die Dissemination der modernen kroatischen Nation untersucht. Im 19. Jahrhundert schuf die kroatische Kultur zwei Ideologien und mit ihnen verbunden zwei Imagologien-Stereotype:Kroatozentrismus (in der Politik A. Starcevic, in der Literatur A. G. Matos) undSudslawentum (in der Politik J. J. Strossmayer, in der Literatur Miroslav Krleža). Das Schicksal der modernen kroatischen Nation ist eine standige, unabgeschlossene und nicht enden wollende Dissemination dieser zwei Ideen und ihrer symbolischen Welten. Die Schwankungen zwischen diesen zwei Ideologien, dem Kroatozentrismus und dem Sudslawentum, und den mit ihnen verbundenen Imagologien und Stereotypen, verhinderten die Bildung einer stabilen nationalen Identitat und verschoben die Schaffung eines selbstandigen Nationalstaates an das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts.
1 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between poetic voice and dramatic monologue and defined the ways in which Duffy reworks and reinvents the tradition of monologue, and looked at how three noted critics have read "The Psychopath", one of Duffy's representative dramatic monologues from different perspectives; ranging from Bakhtinian dialogic effect to the question of representation and depiction of masculinity and patriarchy.
Abstract: It is largely accepted by critics that the favourite poetic form within the oeuvre of Carol Ann Duffy is the dramatic monologue. The preponderance of this form in Duffy's poetry could be linked with her equally well-known concern with language as a political instrument and invariably with how language can be deployed for some subtle political purposes. This paper sets out to, first, explore briefly the relationship between poetic voice and dramatic monologue and define the ways in which Duffy reworks and reinvents the tradition of monologue. And this is done by looking at how three noted critics have read "The Psychopath", one of Duffy's representative dramatic monologues from different perspectives; ranging from Bakhtinian dialogic effect to the question of representation and depiction of masculinity and patriarchy.
1 citations
TL;DR: The authors read and reread Georges Schehade's poetry, following the writer's narrow path between reality, memory and dream, and found it humoristic, fantastic, and mysterious.
Abstract: How could we approach narrowly to the poetry of Georges Schehade, so humoristic, so fantastic, and so mysterious? Reading and rereading poems, following the writer’s narrow path between reality, memory and dream.
TL;DR: In this paper, the inner development of Tanios, protagonist of Amin Maalouf's novel The Rock of Tonios, is analyzed by interpreting the important symbols which punctuate the spiritual metamorphosis of the main character and associates it to an initiatory experience.
Abstract: This study attempts to analyze the inner development of Tanios, protagonist of Amin Maalouf’s novel,The Rock of Tanios, by interpreting the important symbols which punctuate the spiritual metamorphosis of the main character and associates it to an initiatory experience. What is noteworthy is that the author describes his character’s “entire life” as “nothing but a succession of passages” and divides the narrative structure of the novel into nine “passages” each of which corresponds to a crucial stage in Tanios’ existential initiation and physical transformation. Even the symbolic significance of the number “nine” will shed an interesting light on the protagonist’s mystical quest which modifies profoundly his interiority. This quest resembles an initiation marked by trials, suffering and deprivations which purify the soul and predispose it to a renaissance, final stage of the initiation. This study will proceed by a sustained observation of Tanios’ physical and mental changes in order to highlight and decipher the symbolic manifestations of the passages which accentuate his life. By adopting this initiatory process, Maalouf manages to enrich his character with an elaborate human destiny.
TL;DR: In her novels and her romances, the Greek writer Lilika Nakos combined personal memories with historical experiences as mentioned in this paper and promoted the feminist cause, especially supporting the women's right to work and education in an era when conservatism dominated the Greek politics and society.
Abstract: In her novels and her romances the Greek writer Lilika Nakos combined personal memories with historical experiences. Through the history of a war that had deeply affected her, Nakos wanted to talk about herself and about the suffering and the destiny of the Greeks simultaneously. Nakos’ work, which was to a large extent auto-biographical, promoted the feminist cause, especially supporting the women’s right to work and education in an era when conservatism dominated the Greek politics and society. Her heroines —personae of the novelist — are working-class women endorsing human and socialist ideas and fighting for social justice.
TL;DR: In this paper, the plaque tournante d a certain quete identitaire is presented as a symbol of the progress of the colonie du nouveau monde.
Abstract: Dans certains de ses romans, Maryse Conde, ecrivaine guadeloupeenne, fait de la mouvance la plaque tournante d’une certaine quete identitaire. Elle fait se deplacer ses nombreux personnages qui cherchent un moyen d’ameliorer leur sort social et economique. Mais le plus souvent, ses personnages, comme on le voit dansLa colonie du nouveau monde, La migration des cœurs, La vie scelerate, Les derniers rois mages, Desirada, etc. …, vivent plutot dans des conditions difficiles dans leurs terres d’accueil ou ils s’entassent dans des taudis insalubres. De la la tendance a avoir peur du phenomene de la mondialisation. Pour Conde, il faut plutot embrasser ce phenomene au lieu d’en avoir peur. Tout ce dont l’homme antillais a besoin c’est d’acquerir une bonne instruction qui lui garantirait une capacite de contribuer sa quote part au progres du nouveau monde global qui est en train de se construire. La est le sens de notre propos.
TL;DR: In this paper, the history of prose and poetry in the post-communist Bulgaria is discussed, and the most challenging female poetic voices are those who cast aside the dictate of the metaphor in favor of a poetic narrative.
Abstract: The paper tries to write both of the history of prose and poetry in the post-communist Bulgaria. It is worth emphasising since in the Bulgarian culture poetry enjoys a higher credit not only among literary genres but also among the arts in general. As a consequence female prose often reminds the structure and texture of contemporary music or visual art rather than of a discursive practice. It rarely relies on what it says or states, nevertheless it tries to articulate unknown female realities and feminine experiences, which, being insusceptible to fabulation, demand from female fiction a highly poetic potential. On the other hand, the most challenging female poetic voices are those who cast aside the dictate of the metaphor in favor of a poetic narrative, which is a strategy almost deprived of tradition in Bulgarian literature. Along the 1990s female literature - taken as literature written mainly by, on and for women - has been fighting on two fronts: first, against patriarchy and its symbolic order, providing the foundations of the Bulgarian literary canon; and second, against the alleged simple and shallow feminist discourse, against the supposed false addressing of female issues, against the enticing exits and vain exiles. This exigent exegesis wants to throw a bridge between approaches that either read female literature as exceptionally female, or indiscriminately as literature per se.
TL;DR: Amin Maalouf as mentioned in this paper presented a cut fresco in the history that presents itself as a love song and expression of gratitude with regard to his family, which is distinguished from his previous works by its autobiographical aspect.
Abstract: With his last novelOrigins that received the Price Mediterranean 2004, the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf realized a cut fresco in the history that presents itself as a love song and expression of gratitude with regard to his family. This novel, which is distinguished from his previous works by its autobiographical aspect, is endowed with a well solid and judicious argumentation and limpid prose that makes the fluid and specified writing erect this Lebanese writer in the row of the most gifted and promising figures in the field of French-speaking literature of the East Mediterranean. Born in Lebanon in 1949, living now in France, and having received the price of Goncourt in 1993, the writer has always had difficulties talking about his roots. But in this novel, he felt the vital need to renew his origins and call upon his historical commemoration to be found with himself, to reconcile himself with his identity without considering it rather as promoting than “deadly”. A plural and enriching identity brings him a new existential dimension that allows him to expose proudly his genealogical alignment and to assert his membership to a well specific Lebanese community. By the recourse to French language in his fictional production, he contributes to the development of a dialogue of the cultures between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
TL;DR: Les Saisons de passage as mentioned in this paper is a collection of selected personal memories published more than two years after her mother's death, dedicated to the memory of Alice Godel, this text serves as a process of mourning and a celebration of life.
Abstract: Andree Chedid’sLes Saisons de passage is a collection of selected personal memories published more than two years after her mother’s death. Dedicated to the memory of Alice Godel, this text serves as a process of mourning and a celebration of life. Through this maternal portrait, the narrator offers us intersections of real and imagined memories, biography and autobiography, and national and personal histories whose content determines its form. This hybrid approach to the text reveals not only a subjective perspective of the mother, source of identity and language, but also a socio-historical vision of Cairo and Paris in the middle of the last century. This article is divided into three parts. First, I derive certain specificities fromLes Saisons de passage and compare them to traditional autobiography in order to show how Chedid’s approach, organization, and refusal of mimesis excludes it from classification as any single genre. Second, I consider biographical aspects ofLes Saisons de passage and the effects of a mother-daughter (con)fusion on the aging process, identity, and textual fluidity. Third, I analyze intersections between national history and autobiography inLes Saisons de passage in order to highlight the influences of certain historical events on Chedid’s personal life and their effects on her beliefs, her writing process, and her body of works.
TL;DR: Theodoros Crassas as discussed by the authors expressed a cosmic, encyclopedic, and mythical sensuality, presenting a simplified and archaic art of syntax, displaying erotic energy via the intensity of the verbal flow, emotional efflorescence, rhythmic movement, via the love towards the language.
Abstract: After having defined the Greek francophony, a marginal literature of a minority, as well as the place which Theo Crassas occupies nowadays in that literary production, we could fetch his favorite topic: the erotic affection. Through this topic, the poet expresses a cosmic, encyclopedic, and mythical sensuality, presenting a simplified and archaic art of syntax. However, the poet is not satisfied with the ordered insobriety and the madness of the sensations; he enjoys displaying erotic energy, via the intensity of the verbal flow, emotional efflorescence, rhythmic movement, via the love towards the language.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the process of transformation in Slovak literature and present multiculturalism as one of the latest Euro-Slovak tendencies in fiction, according to which the works of the younger generation of authors are constructed on authentic feeling and subjective experience.
Abstract: Based on the social and cultural changes in 1989, the paper discusses the process of transformation in Slovak literature. Based on the former three areas of literary production, the article offers a preview of the crucial trends and categories of contemporary literary production. It identifies and specifies the nature and vehicles of expression used in Slovak post-modern narration. It also presents multiculturalism as one of the latest Euro-Slovak tendencies in fiction. Ethical and religious dimensions are an inseparable part of renewed literary production in Slovakia. The production is classified also according to the dominance of empathy and/or subjectivity in a particular text. The latest trends are based either on parody, irony, and pla(y)giarism, or on religious values. The works of the youngest generation of authors are constructed on authentic feeling and subjective experience.
TL;DR: In dem Aufsatz werden Vorstellungsmuster fur die Gestaltung der Kinderfigur in der kroatischen Kinderprosa des 20. Jahrhunderts untersucht as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In dem Aufsatz werden Vorstellungsmuster fur die Gestaltung der Kinderfigur in der kroatischen Kinderprosa des 20. Jahrhunderts untersucht. Zwei grundlegende Kindervorstellungen werden am haufigsten in die Kinderfigur hineinprojiziert: das dionysische, fur unterschiedliche — besonders negative — Einflusse anfallige Kind, das einen Erwachsenen benotigt, um sich von ihm beraten und belehren zu lassen, und an dessen Beispiel das Kind das richtige Verhalten lernen soll, und das apollinische, unschuldige, der Natur nahe Kind, das den schlechten gesellschaftlichen Einflussen widersteht und das der Gesellschaft eine bessere Zukunft verspricht.
TL;DR: In this paper, the connections between Sorbian and German culture are stressed, rather than the divisions between them, which does not necessarily mean a renunciation of a Sorbian identity, but a recognition of present-day realities.
Abstract: The period since unification has seen a new era opening up for Sorbian literature. After the establishment of the tradition of bilingual writing in the GDR it has entered an uncertain, but more open relationship with German culture. It has also entered a post-national world, in which the old national limitations no longer apply. Despite some writers insisting on writing only in Sorbian it is difficult to see how it can go back to being a purely inward-looking literature ignoring the German-dominated cultural environment around it. The number of readers capable of reading in Sorbian is diminishing, and even for the majority of Sorbs who are literate in Sorbian, their major reading language will be German. It is only a minority, primarily the Catholic Sorbs, who will continue to read primarily in Sorbian. Several writers have shown possible paths for the future development of a specifically Sorbian contribution in which the connections between Sorbian and German culture are stressed, rather than the divisions between them, which does not necessarily mean a renunciation of a Sorbian identity, but a recognition of present-day realities. It is nevertheless also true that for a number of Sorbian writers their role as providers of a particular focus for the articulation of concerns about the survival of the Sorbs as a distinct linguistic and cultural group will remain uppermost in their work.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors try to interpret - using the critical concepts of literary anthropology, intercultural studies and theatre sociology -the so-called Parisian phase of Kosor's literary work, his intercultural dramas In Cafe du Dome and Rotonda.
Abstract: Josip Kosor's dramatic work is well known to both Croatian and European readership and theatre public First of all, common reader is well acquainted with the author's so called 'rural dramatic cycle' - especially his most 'specific' and the most appreciated modernistic play, Flame of Passion This paper will try to interpret - using the critical concepts of literary anthropology, intercultural studies and theatre sociology - the so called 'Parisian phase' of his literary work, his intercultural dramas In Cafe du Dome and Rotonda After positioning his dramas in their cultural, historical and literary context, after analyzing their performative background, we will try to (1) discover the so called 'extraliterary alusiveness' that is present in Kosor's dramatic cycle, (2) read out some of the concepts of social, gender and, especially, ethnic stratification, as well as their function in producing cultural stereotypes about American and non-European, especially Far-Eastern world of the early twentieth century
TL;DR: The authors of these novels are not defined by their ethnic affiliations as mentioned in this paper, but by the main characters of their novels are defined by the Danubian family, and the plot is based on conflicts among family members.
Abstract: Towards the end of his life Jules Verne wrote four novels that involve the Danube basin:Mathias Sandorf (1885),Le château des Carpathes (1892),Le secret de Wilhelm Storitz (1910), andLe beau Danube jaune (written in 1901; first published 1988). Neither the Danube itself, nor a new preoccupation with women or death can be said to link all four of them. Alternatively, one may consider these texts as parts of an unintended “roman du fleuve,” a cycle ofFamilienromane in Freud’s sense, in which the plot is based on conflicts among family members. Seen this way, Verne’s narrators portray clashes among siblings in the “Danubian family,” sympathizing now with this now with that nation. The main characters of these novels are not, however, defined by their ethnic affiliations.
TL;DR: In the Mediterranean French-speaking literature, Salah Stetie, the erratic poet with cosmopolitan destiny, embraces the eastern and western banks of the Mediterranean and becomes the perfect mediator between the East and the Occident as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the Mediterranean French-speaking literature, Salah Stetie, the erratic poet with cosmopolitan destiny, embraces the eastern and western banks of the Mediterranean and becomes the perfect mediator between the East and the Occident. On the other side of the Mediterranean, the Memory acts like a catalyst and it fixes the imaginary of the poet who wishes only the Return. Therefore, it is this desire that works out, constructs and illuminates the way the poet operates a true reflection on the memory and the identity through the evocation of the myths and the mythical figures. By a kind of re-actualization of the memory, the myths bridge the world, the country. The author wants to find the union between the man and the world and from his state of exile, he raises questions about his place in the universe. By its dual mythical membership, the Eastern and the Western one, Salah Stetie is also capable to use this ancestral antiquated background which strengthens with its personal capital contribution. In a progressive creative dash, the poet devotes the myth and invents his own myths which propose immutable and eternal values. The renewal and the reformulation of the myth make it possible that the poet restores his perennial and universal dimension.
TL;DR: Mac Wellman is an award-winning American playwright whose theatre can be daunting to a first-time spectator as discussed by the authors, but the audience is encouraged to take the journey, for once the obstacles are overcome, the experience is very rewarding.
Abstract: Mac Wellman is an award-winning American playwright whose theatre can be daunting to a first-time spectator. Since he thinks of his playFnu Lnu as a “new version of Aeschylus’Eumenides,” the classical play can provide entrance to the contemporary play but with adjustments for the experimental mode of presentation. The Furies, for example, are singing sorceresses, and Orestes is an old anarchist reminiscing about the good old days. There is a quester, however, and a quest that takes him beneath the play’s site to the old, lost city that is the Dionysian flux, the source of imagery that is the basis of poetic theatre’s language (as opposed to the literal language of geezer or naturalistic theatre) and of freedom of choice that is the basis of a political, moral, creative society. The spectator-reader is encouraged to take the journey, for once the obstacles are overcome, the experience is very rewarding.
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative review of current Slavic literature and related fields is presented, focusing on contemporary gender and feminist issues in various parts of Slavdom, and the authors highlight the importance of mutual awareness of gender issues within the whole post-communist world.
Abstract: The paper aims at presenting a comparative review of current Slavic literature (and related fields) as reflecting contemporary gender and feminist issues. In various parts of Slavdom the processes of awakening or revitalizing gender awareness have been taking place with various speed and ‘local colour’: in the former Yugoslavia since the end of the 1970s, in Russia since the second half of the 1980s (one should not speak about ‘former Soviet Union’ in this context, since the ‘feminist revival’ concerned mostly some Moscow circles), with the rest of the Slavic post-communist world responding to them sooner or later after 1989. They have faced a strong backlash everywhere, both from conservative/nationalist/populist discourses, as well as – though in different forms and expressed in different rhetoric – from the liberal/democratic/progressive ones. It is of crucial importance to enhance the mutual awareness of gender issues within the whole post-communist world, as well as exchange information and launch international projects concerning relevant topics.
TL;DR: In this paper, the author discusses several aspects of minority problems, such as becoming accustomed to the minority and the problems where minority and majority converge as a result of intercultural dialogue.
Abstract: The article discusses several aspects of minority problems. The author starts with analysing the issue of national-ethnic minorities and a minority's position in relation to a majority organized in a national state. Next, conditions for minority discourse (open or concealed) are examined, whose appearance is always determined by the majority; moreover, the ways of consolidating the identity of the majority are also analysed. Further questions are: minority regarded as otherness, strangeness or hostility, but also as a cognitive value (i.e., “mirror” reflecting the majority). Finally, the article raises the issue of becoming accustomed to the minority and the problems where minority and majority converge as a result of intercultural dialogue. In the second part of the article, the author defines research area, methodology, and - as an instance - refers to some of the analytic writings.
TL;DR: The authors examined a densely intertextual passage in Sartre's Qu'est-ce que la literature? (1948) and found that by associating words with sickness, the author understood not only wartime ideological contamination of language but also modern literary expression in some of its forms.
Abstract: This article suggests a new analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’sQu’est-ce que la literature? (1948) by examining a densely intertextual passage in the text where Sartre associates words with sickness. By the ‘sickness” of words Sartre understands not only wartime ideological contamination of language but also modern literary expression in some of its forms. The hyperbolic statement that is, in itself, marked by wartime rhetoric includes amongst its references a satiric comment on Georges Bataille’sL’Experience interieure (1943).