Showing papers in "Neohelicon in 2021"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a cognitive theoretical account of the factors or dynamics that underlie the creative literary production and argue that literature specialists need to recognize how creativity develops within the literary domain and what criteria we can set as standards for the appreciation of literary creativity.
Abstract: Creative works are always multifaceted and complex; therefore, I argue that literature specialists need to recognize how creativity develops within the literary domain and what criteria we can set as standards for the appreciation of literary creativity. In this paper, I attempt to provide a cognitive theoretical account of the factors or dynamics that underlie the creative literary production. This study has two major purposes. First, the paper explains specific, basic processes of literary creativity and reveals how they function in the composition and comprehension of creative literary works, demonstrating their applicability to both acclaimed canons and works of contemporary writers. Second, it draws on cognitive theories in order to emphasize the cognitive and developmental benefit of the conscious awareness, practice and application of the cognitive processes underlying literary creativity. The selected creative processes are fundamental to the composition of literary works; therefore, they are the most commonly used and recurrent in acknowledged literary works. They include retrieval of knowledge, conceptual integration, compression, ambiguity, association between categories, effectiveness, and problem solving. The paper also argues that these cognitive processes of literary creativity are interdependent and overlapping as the construction of one process entails the functioning of another.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the Taoist elements in the evocation of Chinese landscapes in Pound's Cantos 4 and 49 and argue that these two landscapes represent the glimpses of the tranquil, temporary paradiso that Pound has been attempting to reach throughout his poetic career.
Abstract: The paper seeks to discuss the Taoist elements in the evocation of Chinese landscapes in Pound’s Cantos 4 and 49. Canto 4’s Peach Blossom Poetics is believed to be the first under the Tianyuan of Chinese landscape poetry initiated by Tao Yuanming (365–427). This type of poetry shows the pastoral, tranquil life of natural beauty. The settings are domestic and localized, most being backyards, small rivers, huts or countryside. The images in Tianyuan poetry are serene and peaceful with no impositions of the human. They tend to explicitly focus on the scene itself rather than on the viewers or any human elements. On the other hand, Canto 49’s Seven Lakes represents the Shanshui poetry that originated from the works of Xie Linyun(385–433). This type of work displays adventurous treks through beautiful and untamed mountainous regions. In spite of their seemingly different settings, the essence of the two styles is the same. The two cantos elucidate the Taoist philosophy of “non-action,” which follows the effortless and spontaneous movement of nature. These two landscapes represent the glimpses of the tranquil, temporary paradiso that Pound has been attempting to reach throughout his poetic career.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a pragmatic analysis of the forms of variability and transience present in print and digital literatures is presented, and the most common conception of the work deals with these properties by proposing a formulation of this dominant viewpoint in the form of a front-end dispositive.
Abstract: Digital literary productions often combine both the ephemeral dimensions of their screen-readable manifestation and the perennial dimension of their program. Their status thus lies between a totally ephemeral pole of performance and a totally perennial pole of reproducible publication. This “two-sided” status questions our conception of the work. The article begins with a pragmatic analysis of the forms of variability and transience present in print and digital literatures. It then examines how the most common conception of the work deals with these properties by proposing a formulation of this dominant viewpoint in the form of a “front-end dispositive.” Recognizing a blind spot in thinking, he examines how these properties are addressed in models that are better suited to the digital, notably the procedural model. It concludes by proposing the concept of “reading machine,” a technological system that aims to give access to the semiotic dimensions that develop outside screen reading, without suppressing the ephemeral.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the ephemeral nature of the work of art (i.e., a theatrical play) in the moment of its interaction with the social network Twitter is discussed.
Abstract: This paper proposes a reflection on ephemerality by discussing whether the digitalisation that affects our lives is more precarious than life itself It focuses on the problem of the ephemeral nature of the work of art (ie, a theatrical play) in the moment of its interaction with the social network Twitter Starting from the TweetUp initiative of the RLT Neuss near Dusseldorf in 2013, in which F Hebbel’s play The Nibelungen (1861) was performed, the paper investigates the TweetUp as a specific form of art communication, ephemeral as it is, an evanescent trace of something (the performance) destined to disappear very soon, but of which it is still a fragmentary testimony The TweetUp initiative raised the issue of memory, culminating in the obsession with commentary via tweet, which is constantly threatened with oblivion Methodologically, the tweets found on the web today are examined on the basis of Sara Pesce’s reflections on short-lived multimedia digital paratexts, preceded by Nicolini’s ones on the ephemeral value of Italian theatre performances in the 1980s Like symbiotic mushrooms, tweets establish a relationship both with the performance and with the everyday life of actors and spectators Meanwhile, the activity in which the audience takes part leads them to reflect on the potential of the individual memory of the new millennium, which has replaced the collective historical memory in the twentieth century, preparing individuals to acquire awareness of their own social role, according to new forms of citizenship The Brechtian approach of the TweetUp initiative contributes to replacing the emotional detachment of the spectator, which the author’s written text produced, with the texts now produced by the audience Finally, this paper closes with some reflections on the waste-nature of the Tweets, which is ultimately no more ephemeral than material reality is perishable and temporary
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on genres, facts and truth as bearers of particularly important relations to media for both epistemological and narratological reasons, and conceive individual genres as elements of an unstructured, expandable, heterogeneous and ever-changing list.
Abstract: For all its theoretical prominence, medium remains an elusive concept, because it is not an analytic category created by theoreticians to serve a specific purpose, but a word of natural language, and like most of the words of language it has multiple senses. One way to address the issue of media is through their relations to other concepts. In this article I focus on genres, facts and truth as bearers of particularly important relations to media for both epistemological and narratological reasons. In contrast to models that regard genres as members of a system distinguished from each other through homogeneous criteria, I conceive individual genres as elements of an unstructured, expandable, heterogeneous and ever-changing list. In this approach, genres are defined positively—by their semantic content, their formal rules, or their pragmatic function—and new genres develop when new needs arise for communication. Media can be defined as distinct modes of communication, while genres are distinct forms of expression within media. But this distinction does not offer a fool-proof criterion of distinction, and it is often difficult to distinguish media from genres, especially in digital textuality. Truth, or more precisely the ability to claim truth, is not a property common to all members of a certain medium, but rather one that creates distinctions within media, as well as between them. Language-based media, film, photography and audio recording have the greatest power to claim truth: language-based ones, because they can articulate propositions; recordings, because they are based on mechanical capture of auditive or visual data that exist in the world. But most media can be used to tell either factual or fictional stories (with some exceptions discussed in the paper). This variability does not occur on the level of genre: all texts of the same genre share the same status with respect to truth and fictionality.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors search for testimonies in social networks for three products of children's literature: My Little Pony, Caillou and Manolito Gafotas, in order to observe what is being said in social network about.
Abstract: Our starting point is the hypothesis that we live in a post-digital and post-global era, even a post-data one. In this current time, our objects of study have become transmedial and the different media versions of a product cannot be separated one from the other, but rather should be taken as one single object. These transmedial cultural objects are subject to readings, discussions, and appropriation in social networks such as Goodreads, Tumblr, or Reddit, which in turn exist in a “permanent now,” ephemeral by its very nature. In this context, we ask ourselves what is the role and the function of the literary. We search for testimonies in social networks for three products of children’s literature: My Little Pony, Caillou and Manolito Gafotas, in order to observe what is being said in social networks about. Working with Goodreads, Babelio, Reddit and Tumblr that function as platforms for reviews and fan expression, we will carry out an analysis of our corpus by means of some digital tools. We show how literature still acts as a legitimizing instance and how social networks function as a vector for globalization/localisation in the current post-digital, post-global and transmedial context.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors focused on power imbalance in translaboration from a historical perspective by consulting the practical instances in Chinese translation history, firstly by defining it and the factors contributing to it, and then by noting its main features, limitations, and potential.
Abstract: This article focuses on power imbalance in translaboration from a historical perspective by consulting the practical instances in Chinese translation history, firstly by defining it and the factors contributing to it and then by noting its main features, limitations, and potential in translaboration. It goes on to argue that, although, a power imbalance is inevitable in translaboration, it can be used to form a more effective structure, at the same time, as striking a more democratic balance by giving stakeholders the flexibility needed for multiple roles in different translaboration events, as well as a changeable power within translaboration practice as a whole.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the representation of ephemerality in case studies of Estonian digital culture, and ask whether ephemeral could be considered a category of criticism in the study of representations of digital culture.
Abstract: Ephemerality is a notion that has become relevant in analyzing digital cultural phenomena. Initially, the notion ephemera was used to denote the fragmented documents of everyday life. However, during the spread of contemporary digital culture, the notion of ephemerality has been widely used in discussing the production and reception of social media, digital literary and art works etc. Such cultural phenomena could be characterized as temporary and having a short lifespan. The objective of the present article is to examine the representation of ephemerality in case studies of Estonian digital culture, and to ask whether ephemerality could be considered a category of criticism in the study of representations of digital culture. For finding answers we examine in our article two different types of manifestations of digital culture in Estonia: digital literature created by Estonian authors, and digital literary heritage projects carried out in Estonia, which are presented as network-based interactive information environments. As a result of our research we conclude that we can analyze these examples of digital literature and digital literary historical projects in the context of ephemerality indeed. Thus, we argue, ephemerality is one of the essential notions which can be used in analyzing digital culture.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze two recently published French novels, namely Un amour d'espion by Clement Benech (2017) and Licorne by Nora Sandor (2019), in terms of how social networks affect in new ways the processes whereby identity is built and negotiated.
Abstract: While digital tools and platforms have become part of our everyday life, authors of fictional narratives voice the emerging hopes and fears resulting from interactive digital media. In this paper, I analyze two recently-published French novels, namely Un amour d’espion by Clement Benech (2017) and Licorne by Nora Sandor (2019), in terms of how social networks affect in new ways the processes whereby identity is built and negotiated. Both novels focus on characters whose development as human beings is prevented by the contrasting illusions of ephemerality and digital hypermnesia. I show that the way characters use social media entails a sense of virtual disembodiment that shapes their perception of their physical bodies and surrounding spaces. I also argue that their online activity as represented in the novels invites reflections on the archival values of images and on social networks as fragmentary repositories of the self. In conclusion, I discuss how issues of ephemerality and disembodiment affect narrative choices in both novels.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that by resituating juxiang into their specific material and existential contexts, Han seeks to transcend the narrow liberals versus New Left split and to retrieve individual things' and persons' complicated meanings, functions, sensibilities, subjectivities and social relations, which are missing from both the liberal and New Left discourses.
Abstract: The Chinese intellectual circle, which used to be united in opposing reified Maoism in the 1980s, has split into two major intellectual factions since the 1990s: the liberals and the New Left. Because of his criticisms of the excesses of modernization, globalization and liberalization, the novelist Han Shaogong is widely regarded as a New Left intellectual. His fictional works are often interpreted as illustrations of pre-existing New Left positions. Instead of reading Han’s works as manifesting any particular factional position, this article explores Han’s larger non-factional contributions to the Chinese intellectual debate and discourse in post-Tiananmen China. This article argues that by resituating juxiang (concrete images, objects, scenes, events and specific human characters) into their specific material and existential contexts, Han seeks to transcend the narrow liberals versus New Left split and to retrieve individual things’ and persons’ complicated meanings, functions, sensibilities, subjectivities and social relations, which are missing from both the liberal and New Left discourses. In particular, Han’s thematizing of the ignored contingent agency of concrete objects and inanimate matters, which make a difference to the state of political affairs, can complement the existing intellectual discourse that privileges abstract structural forces and open a new venue of research into contemporary Chinese politics and public events.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the ephemeral character of conceptual art and the artistic approaches to archiving of art are scrutinized in the writings and works of Marcel Duchamp, providing relevant models for dealing with maintenance and obsoleteness issues of archiving also in contemporary new-media art and its presentations.
Abstract: The use of digital information technologies in the humanities, and the various new-media art projects, presents a plethora of opportunities for the archiving of the digitized/digital cultural content, such as online databases and virtual museums. On the other hand, the digital archives are never something permanent, they are vulnerable as regards the maintenance and also the technological development in general, which makes software and hardware obsolete after only a few years. The paper reflects on both issues by considering the case studies of visualizing a literary-history database and of translating new-media art exhibitions from the real gallery space into a virtual museum presentation. The ephemeral character of conceptual art and the artistic approaches to archiving of art are scrutinized in the writings and works of Marcel Duchamp, providing us with relevant models for dealing with maintenance and obsoleteness issues of archiving also in the contemporary new-media art and its presentations. The strategies of recreation and reinterpretation of past art works for contemporary audiences, and their integration into new artistic explorations of artists and students, are suggested as forms of preserving of cultural heritage.
TL;DR: In this article, the Lerdahl-Jackendoff proposal of analyzing poetry as a kind of musical form is discussed, with the goal of identifying distinguishing features that differentiate poetic from prosaic discourse, and from musical structure.
Abstract: The following proposal for research begins with the observation that in specific contexts of performance poetic language appears to allow for varying degrees of access across language boundaries. This cross-language access, if it can be verified empirically, might be attributed to distinguishing features that differentiate poetic from prosaic discourse, on the one hand, and from musical structure on the other, an important problem in its own right. To approach this research question it is recommended to begin with poetic works as they are performed for a listening audience and to prioritize, at the beginning of the research project, composition and performance from the popular culture, broadly defined, and from the traditional genres of the oral tradition. Another point of reference for this discussion, which follows from the above recommended approach, is the Lerdahl-Jackendoff proposal of analyzing poetry as a kind of musical form.
TL;DR: The authors argue that documentation of pandemics offers important reminders of epidemiology but also about how race, class, gender, and sexuality are involved both in the representation and in the movement of disease.
Abstract: Pandemic literature (and there is a sprawling canon of it) tells us much about the past so that we can learn for our future, but we have been poor students. We should have been better prepared for Covid-19, and even merely scratching the surface of pandemic literature by examining Albert Camus’s The Plague and Phillip Roth’s Nemesis is very revealing. Despite the remarkable heterogeneity of our world, there are some things about disease that are shared globally, and many things that are recorded in literature are pertinent to the current pandemic situation. Remembering past pandemics is vital to dealing with future ones. This article argues that documentation of pandemics offers important reminders of epidemiology but also about how race, class, gender, and sexuality are involved both in the representation and in the movement of disease. Fiction gives us the chance to revise our thinking both about our relationship with microbes and about how we imagine a balance between individual liberties and social responsibility. These matters seemed to many of us entirely novel concerns brought out by the novel coronavirus. In reality, they are not novel and have long been the concerns of pandemic literature. There are great dangers in forgetting this.
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative reading of French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet's "The secret room" and Chinese writer Wang Anyi's 'The public kitchen' is performed to explore the different means and degrees of spatiality in these two short stories.
Abstract: Whereas Lessing distinguishes painting as a spatial art from poetry as a temporal art, Joseph Frank proposes the increased spatiality in modern poetry and novel, which feature the juxtaposition of images, the fragmented narrative, and the suspended meaning-construction until the entirety is perceived. Although excluded from Frank’s study, modern short story also exemplifies the spatial form to a remarkable degree. Through a comparative reading of French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet’s “The secret room” and Chinese writer Wang Anyi’s “The public kitchen,” this article explores the different means and degrees of spatiality in these two short stories. In contrast with the obliteration of time elements in Robbe-Grillet’s story, time itself is spatialized in Wang’s story, and the space becomes an embodiment of the passing of time. It is then argued that, the time-inherent narrative reveals modern Chinese short story’s “modified correspondence” with its Western counterpart, which can be attributed to the paradoxical yearning for a sense of historical continuity in the path of China’s modernization.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore transmedia principles in impressionism spanning painting, music and literature, and identify, name, and systematize stable principles which universally characterize impressionism.
Abstract: This article explores transmedia principles in impressionism spanning painting, music and literature. The introduction focuses on concepts with the suffix-ism in scholarly communication (especially in literary theory and the general theory of art). Applying the concept of intermediality, it is possible to explore the intersection of all three above-listed arts and to identify, name and systematize stable principles which universally characterize impressionism. Theoreticians of intermediality (I. Rajewsky, W. Wolf) characterize these principles as non-media-specific and migrating, indicating that a particular aesthetic may be applied in different arts. The principles identified in this paper (hic et nunc, transposition, three-dimensionality and imagination, the two-stage reception of impressionist works, equivalent principles in techniques for expressing colour and light, similar genres and themes, and a shared goal–the optical integrity of the world) indicate that impressionism takes a unified noetic approach to reality, and thus these principles can be characterized as transmedia principles. Paradoxically, thanks to these principles, we are aware of the specificity of each of the arts as a distinctive system of signs. Parallel or equivalent structures can thus occur in different arts, accentuating either the visual aspect (painting), the auditive aspect (music), or a combination of both aspects (literature).
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the potential of transdisciplinarity through the use of theories of diffraction, and post-colonial feminist subjectivity, foregrounding essentialist categorisations of race, gender and space and then interrogate these with reference to a reading of text and art-installation in terms of space and matter.
Abstract: This article explores the potential of transdisciplinarity through the use of theories of diffraction, and postcolonial feminist subjectivity. The authors foreground essentialist categorisations of race, gender and space and then interrogate these with reference to a reading of text and art-installation in terms of space and matter. The post-colonial novel by V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River (1979) and post-apartheid art installation by Igshaan Adams, When Dust Settles (2019) have been selected to illuminate insights concerning space, matter and identity (concerning race and gender particularly) in the early and later post-colonial and post-Apartheid moments, using the theories developed by Barad, Anzaldua and Minh-ha on diffraction, liminality and gender. Through the selection the article contributes to the diffractive practice of transdisciplinary readings not only of two genres, but also what insights arise for the reader-viewer from an intra-active reading in terms of the relationship between the subject and an endangered earth and its inhabitants (human and non-human). A common theme explored in the novel and the installation, is the internalisation of space-relations, whether in the form of the landscape and (postcolonial) subjectivity, or the domestic space and the engendering of identity. The authors suggest that a transdisciplinary understanding of matter and subjectivity, underscores the importance of an ethical responsibility to matter.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine trauma theory with a theory of place to study Elizabeth Bowen's unique way of representing trauma, namely, her utilization of place as a dimension to register trauma, and interpret The House in Paris as a reproduction of traumatic spatial experience of flux and dislocation in the interwar period.
Abstract: Adopting a “pluralistic model” of trauma, the present study combines trauma theory with a theory of place to study Elizabeth Bowen’s unique way of representing trauma, namely, her utilization of place as a dimension to register trauma. It interprets The House in Paris as a reproduction of traumatic spatial experience of flux and dislocation in the interwar period. It argues that in The House in Paris (1935), places, especially houses, become alive, not only demonstrating the haunting of trauma and mimicking the traumatic psychology of the protagonists, but also revealing historical contexts behind trauma—in particular, the exclusion and isolation of Jews and people with mixed Jewish identities in the interwar period. For Bowen, the voyage of subjectivity in the interwar period renders her protagonists traumatized rather than enabling them to find an attachment to place. So detrimental is the effect that it is impossible for them to “work through” their trauma.
TL;DR: Literary translation is a process of cognitive-pragmatic inference based on the translator's literary knowledge and ability to detect the expressive energies of textual structures, communicative clues, and the ways they are affected by relationships within the cognitive contexts of the source text and target text as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Literary translation, above all, is a search for literariness. The difficulty of literary translation lies in deciphering the communicative clues of the literariness of the source text (ST) and recovering them in translation. This is a process of cognitive-pragmatic inference based on the translator’s literary knowledge and ability to detect the expressive energies of textual structures, communicative clues, and the ways they are affected by relationships within the cognitive contexts of the ST and target text (TT). With the comparative analysis of Mai Jia’s novel Jie Mi and its English version Decoded, this paper illustrates the cognitive-pragmatic inferential process, revealing the communicative clues in the ST proper nouns, culture-specific concepts, and figurative psychological description, and discussing whether the English version restored them for target readers. It also comparatively analyses two categories of translation rewriting as clues of cognitive pragmatic differences between the ST and the TT. The comparative analysis explicates how the cognitive-pragmatic inference is vital for the success of literary translation and indicates how the translators can be more sensitive to literariness in their translation process.
TL;DR: The importance of W. H. Auden's syllabic poetry is not generally understood and the few studies that discuss it in some depth tend to focus on its technical inventiveness and are confined in an Anglocentric or Eurocentric context.
Abstract: Whereas W. H. Auden experimented with syllabic verse persistently in the latter half of his career and wrote a large quantity of poems in syllabic meter, the importance of his syllabic poetics is not generally understood and the few studies that discuss Auden’s syllabic verse in some depth tend to focus on its technical inventiveness and are confined in an Anglocentric or Eurocentric context. Inspired and enriched by the prosody of world poetry, Auden’s syllabic verse has much wider moral implications than any national or cultural perspective can contain. Moreover, the way Auden treated the relationship between the local and the universal in his syllabic verse shows its affinity with Goethe’s view of world literature.
TL;DR: In this paper, a rare case of poetry translation where one historically well-circulated piece becomes identified with a native creation with the change of time was considered, where the Hungarian poet Sandor Petőfi's poetry was celebrated as an exemplar of patriotic verse and was fervently accepted and reacted to as a resounding battle call.
Abstract: This paper considers a rare yet meaningful case of poetry translation where one historically well-circulated piece becomes identified with a native creation with the change of time. Upon introduction to a revolutionizing China, the renowned Hungarian poet Sandor Petőfi’s poetry was celebrated as an exemplar of patriotic verse and was fervently accepted and reacted to as a resounding battle call. Efforts to introduce the poet’s works to Chinese readers were pioneered by the country’s progressive writers and leading intellectuals of the time under the auspices of renowned publishers. Since China embarked on its modernization journey, the motive of seeking historical relevance of literary works has been receding into the background, resulting in a dwindling zeal for revolution-themed works. Petőfi’s most widely memorized piece “Liberty and Love” started to receive alternative interpretations that gradually undermined its historical reading and obscured its genuine authorship, thus working to subvert and subjugate the original. Drawing from documented sources and published literature, the paper presents various Chinese translations of the famous lines and, in a comparative analysis, seeks possible explanations for the sweeping preference for a more domesticated yet less faithful version. To account for the changes in the interpretation and evaluation of the preferred translation, the paper then explores the linguistic factors that may have played a part in shaping the poem’s translation and reception among Chinese readers. In summarizing the major findings of the case study, the paper further reflects on the role of language in the translation of literary works and how it may serve to shape the landscape of world literature. This focused analysis aims to help demystify the Hungarian poet’s less well-understood popularity among Chinese readers. Going beyond the analysis of a particularistic case, the discussion offers implications for weaving the precious lines from minoritized languages into the rich tapestry of world literature.
TL;DR: In this paper, the frequency variation in dialect representation has been handled in translation with a case study of three Chinese translations of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, where the translators have relied on variations in frequency of dialect use for desired effects, and the variation patterns in frequency in the ST are often changed and even reversed in the translations to re-characterize the heroine Tess and change the nature of the tragedy.
Abstract: Dialect, when used with standard language in novels, creates a voice of difference for characters with a specific social or geographical origination. This different voice is often hybrid with various sub-voices in textual representation for nuanced characterization. The sub-voices are created with the use of different dialect features, and variations in frequency of dialect use. While previous studies have focused mainly on qualitative analysis of linguistic features used in dialect translation, only limited attention has been given to the issue of frequency in dialect translation and the hybridity of the dialectal voice. This article focuses on examining how frequency variation in dialect representation has been handled in translation with a case study of three Chinese translations of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. It proposes a quantitative method, the frequency variation measure, designed for comparative studies of dialect variations in frequency in source texts and their translations. The case study shows that the translators have relied on variations in frequency of dialect use for desired effects, and the variation patterns in frequency in the ST are often changed and even reversed in the translations to re-characterize the heroine Tess and change the nature of the tragedy. The proposed method makes it possible to examine the intra-textual variations in dialect representation of literary texts and translations, and shed new light on how a dialectal voice and its various sub-voices are created in a (translated) text.
TL;DR: The authors presented an analysis of Michael Chabon's Moonglow (2016) including the digital epitexts the author shared on his account on social media Instagram (2015-2018).
Abstract: This article presents an analysis of Michael Chabon’s Moonglow (2016) inclusive of the digital epitexts the author shared on his account on social media Instagram (2015-2018). Following a (rhetorical) co-constructive approach, the analysis shows Chabon’s combined use of digital epitexts and genre ambiguity and highlights the relevance of both narrative resources for the co-construction of Moonglow. In particular, I claim that the onomastic connections providing trauma autofictions like Moonglow with authenticity (cf. Worthington 2018) are realized through the digital epitexts on Instagram. These digital epitexts, in turn, come into being in the context of an ephemeral personal narrative, while Chabon’s use of mixed framing clues is linked with the current interest in sincerity and relationality of twenty-first-century American fiction.
TL;DR: In this article, the author traces the links between ecophobia and centuries-old bios/zoe dichotomy in Atwood's Surfacing novel with a specific focus on the haunting memories of the unnamed protagonist/narrator.
Abstract: This article analyzes Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing (1972) in light of Simon Estok’s ecophobia hypothesis. Based on Estok’s compelling argument that ecophobia inherently relates to other types of discriminatory and violent acts arising from xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, racism, and speciesism, the article traces the links between ecophobia and centuries-old bios/zoe dichotomy in Atwood’s novel with a specific focus on the haunting memories of the unnamed protagonist/narrator. The primary argument of the article is that the protagonist in Atwood’s Surfacing experiences an in-between state, in her quest beyond gender and geography, and thus experiences various sentiments evoked by ecophobia, such as self-victimization, madness, and disgust. The article claims that during her search for her missing father, the narrator in Surfacing journeys from the status of bios to the independent ‘wilderness’ zone of zoe, finally resolving to unite back with the so-called civilized order of bios, which explains the underlying ecophobic tendencies that are uniquely human. Using postcolonial and ecofeminist theoretical background to support Estok’s arguments in this array, the author claims that understanding ecophobia requires more than equating it with other forms of discrimination but necessitates facing the failure of heteropatriarchal, anthropocentric human culture that embeds the primal dichotomy of bios/zoe.
TL;DR: The Yellow Sound as mentioned in this paper is a stage composition, as described by Wassily Kandinsky, inspired by the principles of the Gesamtkunstwerk and the symbolist theory of correspondences.
Abstract: While completely repudiating representational or realistic art in The Yellow Sound, Wassily Kandinsky embraced some models of avant-garde drama and prefigured others. Influenced by the principles of the Gesamtkunstwerk and the symbolist theory of “correspondences,” Kandinsky also explored some of the themes of expressionistic drama, such as the eternal contradiction between Dionysian frenzy (yellow) and Apollonian “classicism” (blue) and the never-ending battle between the spiritual and the physical. In emphasizing the importance of collage and the juxtaposition of different arts within a total work of art, he also anticipated the dadaist theories of automatic writing, chance collages, and random stage compositions. Finally, however, The Yellow Sound in its pure form cannot be identified with any particular avant-garde movement: instead, it is sui generis, presenting its own form and perhaps its own movement. This essay explores The Yellow Sound—a stage composition, as Kandinsky described it—in depth.
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the intellectual and cultural context of Europe at the time, with special attention to European writers and intellectuals who had an influence on Huxley and who helped to pave the way for his interest in the East and oriental matters early in his life, without ignoring the influence that they would also have on him in later years.
Abstract: Aldous Huxley was deeply influenced in his formative years by the East, and this is key to understanding his later evolution as a writer. Towards an exploration of this, the current study analyses the intellectual and cultural context of Europe at the time, with special attention to European writers and intellectuals who had an influence on Huxley and who thus helped to pave the way for his interest in the East and oriental matters early in his life, without ignoring the influence that they would also have on him in later years. Secondly, Orientalism is addressed both as an influence on Huxley and as a modern critical theory, with the aim of demonstrating the author’s modernity in light of this. Finally, the study analyses the work Jesting Pilate, not only in terms of its oriental prospects and proclivity as an intellectual travel book, but also as a means of tracing the oriental elements therein as determining factors in Huxley’s seminal stage during his European years. This is seen as a necessary amalgam, and one that would be further developed in his later output, during the so-called American years.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the intertextual and intercultural reports which appear in occidental literature, in this case French, and an “oriental” (Balkan) literature (in this case Serbian) and raise the same question: the condition of Turkish women at the time of the decline of Ottoman Empire.
Abstract: In this paper we will be referring to two particular novels—The Emancipated (Nove) by Jelena Dimitrijevic and The Disenchanted (Les Desenchantees) of Pierre Loti. We will be analyzing the intertextual and intercultural reports which appear in occidental literature, in this case French, and an “oriental” (Balkan) literature, in this case Serbian. Both novels raise the same question: the condition of Turkish women at the time of the decline of Ottoman Empire. The main purpose will be to make the Serbian writer Jelena Dimitrijevic better known to a wider audience, given that her life and work show us a prolific nature which requires a more profound appreciation. After the detailed examination of the works of both writers, at the same time so close and so different, the results of our comparative analysis assert and prove not only a rich and complex intertext regarding the relationship Occident–Orient, but offer guidelines relevant for a reflection into all layers of the identity and the otherness.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline the image of the Arabs based on three narrative texts: Das Tier, das weint (2004) (The Animal that cries) by the German Writer Michael Kleeberg, Die Nachte auf ihrer Seite (2015) and Staub (2018) (Dust) by German Writer Svenja Leiber.
Abstract: Since the 9/11 attacks and the war on terrorism is the Middle East the scene of the various conflicts and problems that cast their shadow not only on the affected Arab countries, but also on many countries worldwide. From an imagological point of view, this article outlines the image of the Arabs based on three narrative texts: Das Tier, das weint (2004) (The Animal that cries) by the German Writer Michael Kleeberg, Die Nachte auf ihrer Seite (2015) (The Nights on Her Side) by the German Writer Annika Reich and Staub (2018) (Dust) by the German Writer Svenja Leiber. The article aims to answer the following questions: why do the three works present the Arab world? And how do these narrative texts cross the boundaries between the literary fictionalized world and the reality? In order to answer these questions, the term “Imagology” and its tasks are concisely outlined. Subsequently, the contents of the three works will be explained in chronological order, because they deal with the image of the Arab World through epochal changes. Finally, the works will be analyzed in the light of the social and political changes, that influence the images of the Arab World in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
TL;DR: The authors discusses what it means to write a modern epic in the Chinese context using Shi Tang's heroic narratives as an example and examines how he domesticated the culture of minorities into the nationalistic discourse of Republican China while at the same time shunning the propagandistic tendency of People's Poetry.
Abstract: The paper discusses what it means to write a modern epic in the Chinese context using Shi Tang’s heroic narratives as an example. Through a brief comparison of the trajectory of the epic in twentieth century China and its Western counterpart, using Eliot’s and Auden’s (mock-)epics as examples, this paper argues that the former’s differences in its re-construction of history are due to an extremely weak strain of epic narrative tradition in China that has been usurped by the form of heroic elegy, focusing on the epitome of national characteristics within the discourse of collectivism. Seeing Shi Tang’s modern epics as rewriting and translating Chinese traditional heroic stories of nomads for a contemporary readership, this paper examines how he domesticated the culture of minorities into the nationalistic discourse of Republican China while at the same time shunning the propagandistic tendency of People’s Poetry. Rather than fitting Shi Tang’s epic into a European critical paradigm, this paper shows that any culturally biased categorization of genres might hinder the possibility of its manifestation in the Chinese context. Moreover, this paper also shows that the localization of “epic” as a literary genre is significant in the modernization of vernacular Chinese poetry.
TL;DR: The education of Henry Adams as mentioned in this paper employs a consistent third-person narrative technique in which the author refers to himself by various epithets such as “the boy,” “young man, young man, private secretary, historian, “Henry Adams, or simply “Adams.
Abstract: Henry Adams’s autobiography The education of Henry Adams employs a consistent third-person narrative technique in which the author refers to himself by various epithets such as “the boy,” “young man,” “the private secretary,” “the historian, “Henry Adams,” or simply “Adams.” His pronoun of choice is invariably “he.” While this practice undoubtedly imbues the text with a comic tone and a certain wry outlook, the third-person narration also provides a blended situation in which Adams is able to refer to himself and his actual experiences, but at the same time develop his complicated theory of history in which he places himself as an insignificant actor among much larger historic forces. Third-person reference thus creates an awareness of the author in simultaneous stages of his life via conceptual blending.
TL;DR: The authors conducted a cross-cultural study of Don DeLillo's novels from a Buddhist perspective and found that the author's engagement with mysticism also owes debts to his knowledge of Buddhism.
Abstract: This essay conducts a cross-cultural study of Don DeLillo’s novels from a Buddhist perspective. DeLillo’s writing has long been concerned with profound spiritual and religious yearning, but it has often been read within a Catholic context due to the author’s Catholic background. This essay argues that DeLillo’s engagement with mysticism also owes debts to his knowledge of Buddhism. By referring to DeLillo’s early adulthood experience in the 1960s, I position DeLillo’s novels in a postsecular narrative which means not only the resurgence of religious belief in a secular age but the coexistence of various beliefs in both social and literary context proposed by John McClure. Specifically, this essay will examine DeLillo’s Buddhist engagement within the framework of three turnings of the dharma wheel, namely, the four noble truths, emptiness and Buddha nature. This new framework would allow me to explore systematically how DeLillo’s Buddhist imagination has filtered into the fabric of everyday life of his characters. And reading through the lens of Eastern religion would also open up new possibility in understanding both DeLillo and contemporary American postsecular literature.