Showing papers in "Neohelicon in 2019"
TL;DR: A surprisingly large number of late medieval German verse narratives are deeply occupied with conflicts in love due to the commodifying nature of the relationship established by the male wooer or his beloved lady.
Abstract: A surprisingly large number of late medieval German verse narratives are deeply occupied with conflicts in love due to the commodifying nature of the relationship established by the male wooer or his beloved lady. Instead of pursuing love in accordance with the ideals and norms of courtly culture, in these texts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we observe that suddenly contracts are set up either to force the woman to grant her body to the wooer, or to block the lover from imposing himself upon the lady. Late medieval poets such as Jans Enikel, the anonymous author of Mauritius von Craun, or Dietrich von der Gletze/Glezze present increasingly problematic cases where love is substituted by contractual conditions, bartering, and exchange commercializing and perverting the erotic aspect altogether.
9 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that satire can be used to raise environmental awareness, which requires ethical and political responsibility, and foreground environmental concerns among people and policy makers. But they do not discuss the relationship between satire and environmentalism.
Abstract: Despite several claims on the political inconsequence and moral ambivalence of humor and satire, I contend that satire can be employed to raise environmental awareness, which requires ethical and political responsibility, and foreground environmental concerns among people and policy makers. South Park is investigated to illustrate how an alliance between satire and environmentalism can further environmental causes. The show’s environmental satire happens at three levels: direct environmental satire aiming to promote environmental ethics and encourage change; satire directed against environmentalists; and satire linking environmental issues with other adjacent concerns including politics, economy, culture, race, ethnicity, science and religion.
5 citations
TL;DR: This article studied motif reconstruction in three full-English translations of a Chinese classical novel Shuihu Zhuan, including All Men Are Brothers (1933), Outlaws of the Marsh (1980) by Sidney Shapiro and The Marshes of Mount Liang (1994-2002) by John and Alex Dent-Young.
Abstract: Many studies have been conducted in the investigation of narration in the field of translation, but most of these mainly focus on the agent and the way of narrating. In a different vein, the present paper explores the other side, i.e., the narrated aspect, or what is to be narrated. It centres on the issue of motif reconstruction in the three full English translations of a Chinese classical novel Shuihu Zhuan—All Men Are Brothers (1933) by Pearl S. Buck, Outlaws of the Marsh (1980) by Sidney Shapiro and The Marshes of Mount Liang (1994–2002) by John and Alex Dent-Young. A description of how the motif of cannibalism is presented in each translation will be given based on a parallel corpus of 189 clauses. The discussion of motif belongs to the range of the “narrated,” which is believed to be not only more transposable, but also more translatable than discourse. Despite this translatability, however, the findings reported in the present study reflect that certain motifs of Shuihu Zhuan may be changed or even lost in the translating process. The study of motif reconstruction in translation may very well help to call translation scholars’ attention to the macrostructural level of the text by focusing on “unusualness factors” that are activated and deactivated through mediation of translators.
3 citations
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the conditions and contexts of translated fiction, especially Turkish fiction, in international publishing and literary circles are investigated, focusing on the dynamic relationship between sites of cultural production and institutionalizing, and using recent trends in the global dissemination of Turkish literature as a case study.
Abstract: This study is an investigation of the conditions and contexts of translated fiction, especially Turkish fiction, in international publishing and literary circles. Based on current discussions on what constitutes “world literature” and interviews conducted with cultural intermediaries in the transnational publishing world, this article focuses on the factors influencing the production, circulation, and reception processes of transnational fiction in the global literary field. These factors include the process of selection in international publishing houses and the ways in which translated fiction is presented and received in the literary publishing world, such as through book reports, reviews, and awards. The case of Orhan Pamuk as an example of a “celebrity author” in the current world literature canon is discussed in comparison with the entry of another Turkish author, Hasan Ali Toptas, into global circulation “against the odds” according to many of the criteria relevant for “world literature.” Thus, focusing on the dynamic relationship between sites of cultural production and institutionalizing, and using recent trends in the global dissemination of Turkish literature as a case study, the article draws attention to the consideration of material conditions of global literature, institutions of literature, and the necessity of interrogation of the assumptions on which “world literature” debates are based. Since the world literature canon is in the process of formation at the moment, demystifying the production, circulation, and reception processes of this formation and drawing attention to the uneven representation of literatures from the world is crucial to our understanding and the formation of a more inclusive system.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a comparison is made between two different time periods where the representation and repression of Chinese women went through a change from a socialist aesthetic to commodity fetish: how female images were depicted in the political propaganda posters the state and party issued during 1940s to 1980s; and how women have become newly objectified and valued in terms of their individual appearance, thus the objects of beauty, in the post-reform and opening-up.
Abstract: Women’s bodies are often sites for exploitation, political propaganda, and the materialization of normative gender ideologies. Given the long historical transcendence and impact of patriarchal systems of thought such as Confucianism, paired with the simultaneous invisible and visible gaze of the male consumer in the market system of contemporary China, how has the female body been represented and repressed in the Chinese context? Employing the perspectives of iconology and Marxist feminism as both tools and theoretical frameworks for studying gender and gendered aesthetics in China after 1949, when a new ideology of gender equality, as well as the perception that women can ‘hold up half the sky’ began to take root in China under the leadership of the state and party. What will be discussed in this paper are the ways in which gendered bodies, the female body in particular, are constructed (engendered with meaning), governed, represented, and objectified in China through literary and artistic creation that have shaped social aesthetic values. A comparison will be made between two different time periods where the representation and repression of Chinese women went through a change from a socialist aesthetic to commodity fetish: how female images were depicted in the political propaganda posters the state and party issued during 1940s to 1980s; and how women have become newly objectified and valued in terms of their individual appearance, thus the objects of beauty, in the post-reform and opening-up.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied the relationship between the elite and mass culture in Russian literature and found that mass culture mostly follows the elite's interpretation of Pushkin by developing a cult of the poet considered as a common value and a national pride as well as a high standard language-personality.
Abstract: This article was inspired by Mircea Eliade’s The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion, which strongly relates to the theory of literary decentrism. This approach is important for the understanding of the reasons, conditions and forms of Pushkin’s cult coexistence between elite and mass culture. The reception of classical literature in Russia can be described as a three-dimensional system that embraces the following aspects of Russian national culture: (a) national identity and pride (the literary canon considered as verticality or depth); (b) mass social practice (education—the length); (c) both mass and elite creativities (from kitsch to renovation in arts—the width). Pushkin’s position in this system and the stability of his ranking as ‘Nation’s poet number one’ is due to his double-faced Janus role. Pushkin was always recognized as both a sacred, and in the same time a profane figure. The author also discusses the pan-cultural ability of classical literature to challenge the cultural identity of future generations, including the era of new media and digitalization (supported by RSF 16-18-02032). The findings of the study are as follows: (1) in the post-communist cultural period, adaptations and interpretations of Pushkin’s works by neo-avant-garde culture have gone wild; (2) this provoked a conservatism in the reception of Pushkin’s work by the elite (by inhibiting further research processes and novel interpretations around the creativity of the poet); (3) mass culture mostly follows the elite’s (‘conservatives’) interpretation of Pushkin by developing a cult of the poet considered as a common value and a national pride as well as a ‘high standard language-personality’; (4) uniting elite and mass positions in their conservatisms generates some new forms of avantgarde rejection of Pushkin—this, paradoxically, filled the absence of new interpretations with fresh views of this poet’s works.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigates the ways in which white American's fear of racial degeneration and foreign influence produces a pathological link between otherness and disease, operating in diverse racist discourses ranging from xenophobic anti-socialism/anti-communism to the pseudoscientific medical discourse of neurasthenia.
Abstract: This article investigates the ways in which late nineteenth and early-to-mid twentieth centuries white American’s fear of racial degeneration and foreign influence produces a pathological link between otherness and disease, operating in diverse racist discourses ranging from xenophobic anti-socialism/anti-communism to the pseudoscientific medical discourse of neurasthenia. What Americans feared was in fact fear itself. Examining Sigmund Freud and Roberto Esposito’s theories about anxiety and immunity, this article argues that fear of fear itself, a paradoxical objectless fear, symptomatically reveals the productive power of fear, which searches for an object to be dreaded from “others,” such as foreigners, immigrants, and racial minorities. This article, in this sense, (mis)construes that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous 1933 inaugural “fear itself” speech is not a rhetorical gesture intended to emphasize the ungroundedness of Depression-era American fear, but a veiled call for generating a displaced object of fear that will enable contemporary Americans to find ways of coping with anxiety.
2 citations
TL;DR: Tan and Mukherjee as mentioned in this paper argued that the Asian American identity is not a male identity but a matrilineal continuum resisting historico-cultural erasure and used betrayal as a tool to undermine patriarchy and their protagonist's struggle to rewrite normative narratives of American identity through personal and cultural transformation.
Abstract: In focusing on the ethnic American fictions of Amy Tan and Bharati Mukherjee, this paper seeks to contest the generalisation that the Asian American identity is male. Being women of colour, Tan and Mukherjee have formulated creative ways of countering the racism of the mainstream white culture by reclaiming the right to tell their own stories. Exemplifying radically different ways in which racial and ethnic minorities often seek assimilation into the mainstream society, this paper exhibits how these writers reconstruct Asian American women’s subjectivity by articulating their longing for freedom from the oppression of both American and Chinese/Indian patriarchy. Premised on the reality of the Chinese woman sharing with her Indian counterpart the erasure of her individuality, her subordination to patriarchy and its institutions, this paper foregrounds the multiple modes of resistance embraced by immigrant women to counter patriarchal oppression. The matrilineal continuum resisting historico-cultural erasure in Tan’s fiction speaks to Mukherjee’s use of betrayal as a tool to undermine patriarchy and her protagonist’s struggle to rewrite normative narratives of American identity through personal and cultural transformation. Further, this paper probes how these writers adopt the testimonial narrative style as a means of ‘writing back’. In inaugurating new modes of women empowerment, these writers dismantle the notion of vulnerability associated with immigrant women. In conclusion, the paper investigates how authentically Tan and Mukherjee, who enjoy the privileges of the First world, are able to represent economically marginalised Third World immigrant women.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigates the relationship between literary poetics, translation poetics and translation and demonstrates that when a translator is also a literary critic, his literary poetic as reflected in his indirect discourse on translation may have a significant influence upon his translation poetry.
Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between literary poetics, translation poetics and translation. The translator discussed in this context, Liang Shiqiu, is also a literary critic, and this is thus a case study of the performability of his Chinese translation of Shakespeare. We will discuss two important issues: (1) What is the relationship between the translator’s literary poetics and his translation poetics? (2) To what extent can the translator’s literary poetics exert an influence upon his translation? The study demonstrates that when a translator is also a literary critic, his literary poetics as reflected in his indirect discourse on translation may have a significant influence upon his translation poetics (as reflected in his direct discourse on translation). Also, a translator’s translation poetics in turn can have a direct influence upon the translation (e.g. its performability). The translator’s literary poetics is something internal, which may determine his intention, and thus has a fundamental influence upon the translation.
TL;DR: This article conducted a comparative foregrounding analysis of the translations of four selected text types and their respective source texts, focusing on whether the foregrounding practice is retained, altered or removed in the translated texts.
Abstract: Foregrounding, the linguistic deviation and novelty, is endowed with literary-aesthetic value which is closely associated with “literariness.” My project offers a renewed attempt to enquire into literariness in a spectrum of text types ranging from academic discourse and newspaper articles to fiction and poetry by investigating foregrounding practices in both literary and non-literary texts. Through a comparative foregrounding analysis of the translations of the four selected text types and their respective source texts, I focus on whether the foregrounding practice is retained, altered or removed in the translated texts. The analysis has identified significant stylistic differences between the source texts and their translations, which enable me to reconstruct the translator’s conscious and unconscious thought in making decisions with regard to foregrounding. My investigation shows that the translator has a varied degree of awareness of foregrounding depending on the text types. The findings highlight the needs for both translators and translation scholars to be aware of the foregrounding practice in literary and non-literary texts. For translators, such an awareness helps enhance their professional reliability; for the translation scholars, it broadens their horizons in translation process research.
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative study of two internationally acclaimed texts of Holocaust literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies, a love story and Bernhard Schlink's The reader, is made, focusing on the sociopsychological world of Jews and Germans in the post-Holocaust era.
Abstract: This thesis makes a comparative study of two internationally acclaimed texts of Holocaust literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Enemies, a love story and Bernhard Schlink’s The reader. Special attention will be given to the sociopsychological world of Jews and Germans in the post-Holocaust era, namely the Jews’ collective anxiety and the Germans’ collective shame. While doing so, we will call into focus the traumatic symptoms of the two female protagonists Masha and Hanna respectively, and treat the widespread skepticism towards traditional religions and moral philosophy. The questions of how to reconcile the past and the present and how to face the future constitute the thematic core of the texts in case. Both texts reflect the historical catastrophe and reveal the scarred human psyche. They work to offer illuminating insights into the great complexity of human nature. The two texts are a compelling reminder that religious, political and cultural enmities and conflicts may result in irreparable individual and collective trauma, thus necessitating negotiation, dialogue and cooperation between different cultural groups in order to make constructive (rather than destructive) cultural choices.
TL;DR: The authors examines the establishment of women's voice and an alternative women's history in the ghost stories by late nineteenth-century Chinese writer Wang Tao and British writer Vernon Lee, and argues that the haunting liminality of the ghost in Gothic ghost stories may offer a better strategy for the marginalized group to re-inscribe their presence into reality than a polarization between official and unofficial histories.
Abstract: This article examines the establishment of women’s voice and an alternative women’s history in the ghost stories by late nineteenth-century Chinese writer Wang Tao and British writer Vernon Lee. Situating ghost stories as a Gothic mode that offers the marginalized groups, especially women, the opportunity to re-inscribe their voice and subjectivity into a fictional history through the motif of the returning ghost, this cross-cultural analysis proceeds to investigate the possible manipulation and mediation of that gendered voice in the history-making of ghost stories. Continuing the tradition of Chinese zhiguai (namely “the records of the strange”) to fashion an unofficial history of the ghost against the official history of the state, Wang’s two stories of victimized female ghosts centralize the obliterated women’s narration of their own history yet veil the mediation involved in the male historian’s history-making. Reading Lee’s ghost story “Amour Dure” as a meta-critique of the kind of history-making through ghost-making exemplified in Wang’s tales, the article argues that the haunting liminality of the ghost in Gothic ghost stories may offer a better strategy for the marginalized group to re-inscribe their presence into reality than a polarization between official and unofficial histories.
TL;DR: In this article, the British Empire's own age consciousness is projected onto the agent's perception of Africa as a symbol of immaturity in the late nineteenth century, a time period marked by anxieties of degeneration.
Abstract: Late nineteenth-century imperial adventure fiction for boy readers is known for its depiction of British travelers’ attempt at their own imperial regeneration, which takes the form of conquering Africa. In reducing Africa into an empty space that is immature, primitive, and therefore ahistoric, the travelers wish to separate the modern present in England from the prehistoric past in Africa. However, by reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of darkness (1899) through the lens of age and postcolonial criticism, my article shows that it is the British Empire’s own age consciousness that is projected onto her agent’s perception of Africa as a symbol of immaturity in the late nineteenth century, a time period marked by anxieties of degeneration. The article looks at how Conrad questions childish aspects of the European traveler’s fantasy of imperial regeneration in letting him feel oppressed by—fail to destroy—the power of the old landscape in Africa. Ultimately, the article contends that in Conrad’s Darkness, the old African landscape acts as an antagonist, who puts on display the traveler’s vulnerability to degeneration and therefore testifies to the impossibility of unstoppable development on the part of European empires.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the influence of Brecht and Chinese drama beyond national boundaries, and they can gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of world drama, and their contribution is evident from the fact that numerous prominent Chinese playwrights and directors claim to be his disciples.
Abstract: Inspired by his (mis)reading of Chinese theatre, Bertolt Brecht advanced the concept of the alienation effect as a means of making theatre a more efficient act of resistance against the capitalist social order. Brecht’s work first became known in China in 1929. Despite his affinity with Chinese culture, Brecht’s reception in China has never been a smooth process due to the interactions of diverse social, political, and cultural factors. Chinese dramatists and scholars began undertaking more rigorous, systematic, and substantial study of Brecht only after 1949. His work was seen as an alternative to the Stanislavsky system, which was dominant in the Chinese theatrical world of the time. Despite interruptions during the Cultural Revolution, the influence of Brecht is now pervasive, and his contribution is evident from the fact that numerous prominent Chinese playwrights and directors claim to be his disciples. By tracing the influence of Brecht and Chinese drama beyond national boundaries, we can gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of world drama.
TL;DR: The authors explored cross-cultural semiotics model in the multidimensional perspective in order to rethink the relationships between works originality and its creation, besides China and the West as well.
Abstract: This paper explores cross-cultural semiotics model in the multidimensional perspective in order to rethink the relationships between works originality and its creation, besides China and the West as well. The multi-dimensional model of cross-cultural semiotics put forward in the paper defends a temporal semiotic orientation, rather than a purely spatial approach for intercultural interpretation. With China’s rapid development in technological changes and its impact upon inter-medial practices, the model is contemplated as intercultural avenues for learning about the West and exporting Chinese culture to the world.
TL;DR: Although Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen and Caryl Phillips' The Final Passage were written ten years apart, they display many similarities as mentioned in this paper, such as the protagonist's journeys to the mother country, the destination of both these female figures is England "the mother country" where they hope to realise dreams, live better lives as preached to them by the colonial education system.
Abstract: Although Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Caryl Phillips’s The Final Passage were written ten years apart they display many similarities. Both of the novels depict female protagonists, Adah and Leila respectively, who were born and bred in former British colonies, namely Nigeria and St. Kitts, who find themselves benefiting from the British colonial education system. Both heroines end up in relations with less qualified and low achiever, irresponsible husbands and are doubly colonised in a sense. The destination of both these female figures is England “the mother country” where they hope to realise dreams, live better lives as preached to them by the colonial education system. These two heroines who also bear children, do reach their geographic destinations and both in the adaptation process break free from their unsuccessful marriage bondage. From this point onward although both do manage to survive in their new homelands, the similarities seem to end. Adah who is more ambitious, builds herself and her children a new life in London, working and studying and adapting well to the new country, Leila on the other hand barely survives. For Adah London does become the land of freedom, achievements and self realisation, but Leila is weighed down by many factors and the new country is different than that she had imagined in many ways such as climate, life style and culture which are also discouraging for quite a number of immigrants arriving in England. Leila feels disillusioned and finds herself constantly yearning for her former home and expressing her wish to return there one day. Buchi Emecheta’s partly autobiographic novel depicts a success story in her desired destination, Caryl Phillips’s novel displays the grim reality of the coin’s other side where the immigrant experiences disillusionment, dissatisfaction in what the mother country provides.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, which they position within the context of black American radical theatre and show how Hansberry’s theatrical rhetoric challenges the public dynamics of racial separation and performs an ongoing role in destabilising the assumptions about the legitimacy of the reproduction of colonial differences.
Abstract: The article is written in the light of critical whiteness studies and the critical discourse regarding the political implications of literary works. It deals with Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, which I position within the context of black American radical theatre. In particular, the article will show how Hansberry’s theatrical rhetoric challenges the public dynamics of racial separation and performs an ongoing role in destabilising the assumptions about the legitimacy of the reproduction of colonial differences.
TL;DR: Alaa al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building and Elif Shafak's The Flea Palace emerge as microcosmic representations of contemporary Egypt and Turkey, respectively, through their focus on apartment buildings and their residents as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Alaa al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building and Elif Shafak’s The Flea Palace emerge as microcosmic representations of contemporary Egypt and Turkey, respectively, through their focus on apartment buildings and their residents. Both the Yacoubian Building of Cairo and Bonbon Palace of Istanbul, once famous for their grandeur and now in a dilapidated state, embody the social, political and economic transformation of each society not only through the depiction of diverse characters inhabiting these buildings but also with the architectural and spatial characteristics of the buildings themselves. As social hierarchies and relations are mapped onto spatial organization and architectural details, the very physicality of these buildings gains importance to comprehend the complicated, and at times tumultuous, individual and collective stories and histories. This article focuses on the uses of space and history of urban space to examine the representation of the notions of memory, nostalgia, and disillusionment within the context of these two societies. As these multi-story buildings become manifestations of the multilayered history and structure of each society, they also reveal the tensions and fragmentation in contemporary urban life and space. While both these novels, with the microcosm of buildings’ residents, strive to create a sense of collective belonging as one big family living under the same roof, their rather bleak portrayals of the buildings, nonetheless, underline a fragmented and ruptured sense of belonging and overall disenchantment, thus questioning the idea of shared destiny and the promise of common future.
TL;DR: This paper analyzed and compared the forms of calculation in the novels and diaries of some East Central European writers, such as Kafka, Kosztolanyi, and Musil, who thrived in the first decades of the twentieth century.
Abstract: The opposition between quantitative sciences and the humanities is a well-known problem of cultural debates, along with its reflection in the conflicting approaches to digital humanities. As the emphasis has moved from long-standing scientific methods of quantification to the overall digital turn of everyday life, this process sheds light on the varying sociocultural conditions for calculations in modern societies. Consequently, numbers cannot be conceived as inherent properties of things by discovery through experimentation and explanation: this essentialist conception seems to originate in a misunderstanding of nineteenth-century scientific research and its claim of objectivity. Rather, quantification and the cultural matrices of calculation build a raster image serving as an interface between world and mind. In this broad sense, everyday life is deeply pervaded by numbers. Moreover, the ability for calculations cannot be treated as a uniform skill any more. Instead, it varies in accordance with different cultural forms and functions. Number-based practices are also represented widely in modern literature and in non-literary works, such as being in the letters and diaries of many writers. The essay is thus intended to analyze and compare the forms of calculation in the novels and diaries of some East Central European writers—such as Kafka, Kosztolanyi, Musil—who thrived in the first decades of the twentieth century. In so doing, it describes three models through which calculation as a cultural practice enters the field of literature.
TL;DR: For instance, this article investigated the historical meaning of the sonnets and the larger meaning of art's role in the society, and found that although Auden at the time had tendencies to transcend politics, his attitude to the war in China and his view on art-politics relation in general was more complex than critics have so far allowed.
Abstract: Auden’s “Sonnets from China” are often understood as abstract thinking on war and peace or as account of the author’s personal spiritual progress, but as descriptions of his “journey to a war,” the “Sonnets from China” are better understood as sonnets about China. Auden’s other writings of this period, including the “Travel-diary” of Journey to a war and journal publications, help to show many of the historical references behind the sonnets. Chinese news reports at the time also reveal the sonnets’ specific contexts and the extent to which Auden’s sonnets can be understood as descriptions of the war in China. Although Auden at the time had tendencies to transcend politics, his attitude to the war in China and his view on art-politics relation in general was more complex than critics have so far allowed. This essay is not just an enquiry into the historical meaning of the sonnets, but also an investigation into the larger meaning of art’s role in the society.
TL;DR: In this paper, the author departs from the observation of a typo in a recurring quote from Hugh of Saint Victor's Didascalicon in Edward Said's works, a problem which upon closer inspection is symptomatic of an attitude toward religious thought that is counterproductive for Said's arguments concerning a secular reading of texts.
Abstract: This paper departs from the observation of a typo in a recurring quote from Hugh of Saint Victor’s Didascalicon in Edward Said’s works, a problem which upon closer inspection is symptomatic of an attitude toward religious thought that is counterproductive for Said’s arguments concerning a secular reading of texts. For decades, the words “in visible and transitory things” have been printed as “invisible and transitory things,” substantially changing the meaning of the text. Furthermore, following on Auerbach’s footsteps, Said draws from Hugh to substantiate central categories for his thought, namely exile, love, and the world, but, either willingly or unwillingly, he suppresses the original meaning of such concepts in Hugh, arriving to a characterization of them that is solely grounded on an anachronistic, 20th century perspective. By rereading Hugh in its original context, in light of the Bible and medieval Neoplatonism, we may arrive to a better understanding to how ideas that came to be of great importance to Comparative and World Literature came to occupy their place.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors frontally address the issues raised by scholars working in the field of world literature in relation to renewed challenges to translation and for that matter, Translation Studies.
Abstract: World literature has continued to draw attention in humanities research. Since the possibility of world literature rests on international circulation, translation has a pivotal role to play. However, in recent years, serious doubt has been cast on the meaningfulness of this role, foregrounding the chronic issue of untranslatability that is seen to undermine the chance of world literature. There is no denying that if the role of cross-cultural communication is played inadequately or unsatisfactorily, the circulation of national literatures is impeded to become world literature. Through the heterogeneity of different context dimensions, cross-cultural interpretations and forms of mediating cultures in various manifestations are brought to the fore about the essential need for further investigation and research. This paper attempts to frontally address the issues raised by scholars working in the field of world literature in relation to renewed challenges to translation and for that matter, Translation Studies. Translation happens at a specific location and time, which in turn govern and determine what happens to and in translation. The quality, or rather acceptability, of translation for the purpose of enabling the circulation of literary texts across national boundaries will be re-examined in connection with world literature, the success of which necessitates cross-cultural transformation as exemplified in inscribing the putative literary value into translation.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the friendship between Oscar Francois de Jarjayes and Queen Marie Antoinette in the anime version of Riyoko Ikeda's the Rose of Versailles.
Abstract: This article examines the friendship between Oscar Francois de Jarjayes and Queen Marie Antoinette in the anime version of Riyoko Ikeda’s the Rose of Versailles. Oscar is born female but is raised male and becomes Commander of the Queen’s Royal Guards. The intended shōjo (young girl) audience identifies with both characters. Current scholarship mainly focuses on Oscar’s character, but this study places equal emphasis on Marie Antoinette, since the anime humanizes her character and demonstrates how the Queen’s interactions with Oscar bring out the noble elements of her disposition. The characters grow together and then apart against the backdrop of the French Revolution, with the Revolution standing as a metaphor for the internal struggle Oscar faces when grappling with her gender identity. Marie Antoinette supports and validates Oscar, but the friendship ends when Oscar identifies with the Revolution and the Queen refuses any compromise to the power of the Crown. Oscar’s ultimate rejection of her class and her alliance with the Revolution corresponds directly to the questioning of her gender identity and her ultimate self-acceptance. By contrast, Marie Antoinette’s final self-affirmation comes not through rebellion but through staunch confirmation of royal authority. The process of self-definition is what leads to the downfall of both Oscar and Marie Antoinette, with the former meeting a noble death in the taking of the Bastille, and the latter dying at the guillotine in tragedy and disgrace but redeemed slightly by her friendship with, and memories of, Oscar.
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated the influence of A Doll's House on the development of spoken drama in China and its reception as a cultural event, especially the reception of Nora in China.
Abstract: The 1920s witnessed the maturing of the Chinese spoken drama in terms of both playwriting and performing practices. One of the thematic concerns of the dramas from this period is the independence and emancipation of women, of which Nora, a protagonist in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, once served as an example. A Doll’s House was at that time one of the most frequently staged foreign plays in China and exerted great influence on playwrights, performance art, and audiences alike. Consequently, quite a few early spoken dramas were modelled on A Doll’s House in terms of plot and structure. Therefore, the development of spoken drama in the 1920s is not only an event of performance, but also a literary event, and in a larger sense, even a cultural event due to the widespread discussions of Nora and her subsequent transformation into a symbol of individualism, feminism and socialism. In this article, the following questions are to be addressed: What did the performances of A Doll’s House in the 1920s look like? How did the early spoken dramas imitate A Doll’s House, especially the plot of Nora’s departure from home? How did the reception of Nora in China become a cultural event? What influence did this event exert on drama, literature and the New Culture Movement at that time?
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors analyzed how Greek tragedy is performed and understood by Chinese opera writers and directors, and what meaning this sort of intercultural theater could convey to both western and oriental worlds.
Abstract: Since early twentieth century, western theatric classics have been performed in the form of Chinese operas on stage, but the majority of adapted operas are works of Shakespeare, Ibsen and O’Neill, with few of them from ancient Greek tragedies. Here, we choose Hebei clapper opera Medea directed by Luo Jinlin as an example to analyze how Greek tragedy is performed and understood by Chinese opera writers and directors, and what meaning this sort of intercultural theater could convey to both western and oriental worlds. The clapper opera Medea presented the audience worldwide with striking operatic performance and successful integration of the west and the east. Two starring actresses demonstrated their strengths of acting Medea respectively: Peng with her long-term basic training of solid martial arts, being vigorous and nimble, mainly expressed Medea’s sadness and strong will of revenge; Liu, who was already in her 50s when performing, mainly exploited her strengths of expressing “emotions” by skillful singing. However, Critics hold different views towards this “Medea,” because she is not only different from the original character, but also different from any female characters in traditional Chinese operas. Nevertheless, Chinese Medea is shaped in depth with emphasis on her “affection”—her mixed and complex passions of pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy through adaptive ways of narrating and performing on stage, which made Medea understandable and laudable. Finally, when discussing how to understand and evaluate intercultural complexity of performing Greek theater via Chinese opera, we propose positive or “celebratory” evaluation. We hold that literary classics would not be ruined by imitation, adaptation, re-writing and anti-writing, or impaired when staged in foreign artistic form, for we view these changes not as damages of original work, but as an “afterlife” with which the original work enhances its vitality and influence.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the influence of terrible social visions on the development of the characters of two novels, Das Ende unserer Tage (2012) (The End of Our Days) and Otared (2015) (Mercury) by the Egyptian writer Muhammad Rabie, and compare the similarities between the dystopian images in both novels and the theoretical approach of Agamben.
Abstract: The theoretical considerations about the relationship between sovereignty and homo sacer of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben serve the analysis of the German novel Das Ende unserer Tage (2012) (The End of Our Days) by the German author Christian Schule and the Arabic novel Otared (2015) (Mercury) by the Egyptian writer Muhammad Rabie, because there are relevant parallels between the dystopian images in both novels and the theoretical approach of Agamben. Furthermore, the dystopian visions can be traced back to a repressive reality, which many people today cannot escape. The paper aims to compare the influence of terrible social visions on the development of the characters of both novels.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the effects of these court cases on Turkish publishers and translators' subsequent publication/translation behaviors regarding their choice of books to publish/translate and strategies for publishing/translating obscenity.
Abstract: In 2011, the Turkish publishers (Irfan Sanci and Hasan Basri Ciplak) and translators (Suha Sertabiboglu and Funda Uncu) of the books The Soft Machine and Snuff were taken to court on the grounds of obscenity. This article investigates the effects of these court cases on Turkish publishers’ and translators’ subsequent publication/translation behaviours regarding their choice of books to publish/translate and strategies for publishing/translating obscenity. The study is informed by corpus methods and the results are discussed in the light of interviews conducted with Sanci, Sertabiboglu and Uncu. The study concludes that although the publishers and translators under investigation continued publishing/translating books containing obscenity, their publication/translation behaviours changed to some degree after the court cases.
TL;DR: This article argued for the relevance of what Paul Valery called the "implex" to philosophical areas of interest like potentiality and virtuality, and scientific areas like developmental psychology and theories of learning.
Abstract: This article argues for the relevance of what Paul Valery called the “implex”, to philosophical areas of interest like potentiality and virtuality, and scientific areas of interest like developmental psychology and theories of learning. It offers an exposition of the wider context of Valery’s coinage, by delving into his extensive notebooks, in addition to its immediate place of introduction, Idee fixe. As a majority of Valery’s comments and reflections on the concept are suggestive and provisional, the article attempts to piece together a background that must have been generative for it. The implex is traced to its larger context of emergence through an engagement with several anticipatory or accompanying models like organs, machines and faculties.