Metropolitan (Im)Migrants In The "Lettered City",
2012
Bergen Community College
Metropolitan (Im)Migrants In The "Lettered City", Stacey Balkan
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Metropolitan (Im)migrants in the 'Lettered City'" Stacey Balkan employs Ángel Rama's discussion of audience as a means of analyzing a Latin American diaspora that exists beyond the "rational periphery" of the state. Herein, the term diaspora is redefined as a translocal phenomenon wherein the metropolitan (im)migrant moves from rural margin to urban center. Normative definitions of exile — persons displaced from autonomous nation-states — are likewise scrutinized in the context of what the Rama terms a post-contemporary "city of letters." This post-contemporary city is the subject of what Mabel Moraña refers to as a "subaltern boom" — …
China As The Other In Odoric's Itinerarium,
2012
National Taiwan Normal University
China As The Other In Odoric's Itinerarium, Dinu Luca
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "China as the Other in Odoric's Itinerarium" Dinu Luca discusses the various ways in which the otherness of China is approached and integrated in the fourteenth-century travel text associated with Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone. Luca explores the multiple ways in which the text can be examined in relation to Odoric, his travels, and his text. Luca takes vision as a unifying trope and explores the meanings it acquires (sight, concept, projection) as Odoric abandons the familiar space of wonder and confronts the otherness of China. Several well-known episodes are discussed and one particular exchange (known …
On Naipaul's Cultural Positions In The Middle Passage,
2012
Kansai University
On Naipaul's Cultural Positions In The Middle Passage, Shizen Ozawa
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "On Naipaul's Cultural Positions in The Middle Passage" Shizen Ozawa discusses V.S. Naipaul's first travel writing. An account of his "returning" journey to the five Caribbean "colonial societies," The Middle Passage constitutes a major turning point in Naipaul's long literary career. Whereas his earlier novels depict his homeland of Trinidad ironically, although with a certain warmth and sympathy, from The Middle Passage on the world depicted both in his fictions and non-fictions turns bleaker. Correspondingly, his authorial persona changes from that of a West Indian writer to a controversial chronicler of chaotic postcolonial conditions. Ozawa analyses …
The Life Writing Of Hart, Inspector-General Of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service,
2012
Tunghai University
The Life Writing Of Hart, Inspector-General Of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service, Henk Vynckier, Chihyun Chang
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In their article "The Life Writing of Hart, Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service" Henk Vynckier and Chihyun Chang analyze the life and writing of Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911). Hart arrived in China in 1854 and served as Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service 1863-1911. Although Hart disparaged his own role, Jonathan Spence views him as a key adviser to the Qing government. Despite of the historical importance of Hart's texts, of his seventy-seven volume diary only eight of the volumes have been published and the remaining volumes remain largely unexamined. Vynckier and Chang examine the complex transmission …
Reading Wordsworth With Hegel And Deleuze,
2012
Hong Kong
Reading Wordsworth With Hegel And Deleuze, Douglas Berman
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Reading Wordsworth with Hegel and Deleuze" Douglas Berman reexamines Wordsworth poem, The Ruined Cottage, in terms of the importance of the Pedlar, who serves as the witness and singular moral authority in the text. Berman focuses on the inherent tension between impermanence, as exemplified by the trope of wandering, and the redemptive vision which shapes the ending of the second version of the poem (1798). While recognizing the strength of earlier critics, particularly the New Historicists, who emphasized Wordsworth's displacement of social and material reality into nature, Berman argues that wandering, both in its physical form, and …
Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East,
2012
National Sun Yat-sen University
Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East, I-Chun Wang
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East" I-Chun Wang analyses the wonders referred to the realm of Prester John and the imagination of India as exemplified in the pseudo-letter of Alexander the Great. The pseudo letters attributed to Prester John and Alexander demonstrate imagination and identity construction. Throughout history, terra incognita suggested a longing to discover new lands and utopia. Cathay, India, Timbuktu, and El Dorado have drawn the imagination of Westerners in different periods are represented in legends, folktales, literary texts, and travel and pseudo-travel texts. Including the said pseudo-letters, …
Evans's And Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels,
2012
National Pingtung University of Education
Evans's And Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels, Hui-Chu Yu
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Evans's and Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels" Hui-chu Yu investigates Katharine Evans's and Sarah Cheevers's account of their experiences as Quaker missionaries in Malta between 1658-1662. For Evans and Cheevers traveling was a mission ordained by god and thus their journey is less a trip for the gratification of exploration than spiritual and physical trials. With a purpose to spread Quaker texts, Evans and Cheevers traveled to different lands such as Ireland and Malta. Although they perceived the hostility toward their belief, they still claimed to be god's handmaids with an aim to preach their religious belief. Their …
“A Singapore Ramayana: Academic Freedom And The Liberal Arts Curriculum”,
2012
University of Bristol
“A Singapore Ramayana: Academic Freedom And The Liberal Arts Curriculum”, Rebecca Gould
Rebecca Gould
No abstract provided.
Aesthetics In Gao's Soul Mountain,
2012
University of Sydney
Aesthetics In Gao's Soul Mountain, Mabel Lee
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Aesthetics in Gao's Soul Mountain" Mabel Lee analyses Nobel Laureate 2000 Xingjian Gao's aesthetics. Transnational conglomerates today control the book industry from publishing house to bookshop and through aggressive market strategies they exert considerable influence on readers. Nonetheless, there are writers who refuse to capitulate to market demands and seek only to actualize their aesthetic ideas in the creation of literary texts. One such writer is Gao, author of the novel Soul Mountain. Lee posits that Gao's aesthetics is founded on the close interrogation of both Chinese and European models and practices and explores specific …
Evans's The Turducken And Chekhov's The Seagull,
2012
Swarthmore College
Evans's The Turducken And Chekhov's The Seagull, Brian R. Johnson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Evans's The Turducken and Chekhov's The Seagull" Brian R. Johnson approaches The Turducken as a travesty of The Seagull, examining six iconic scenes from The Seagull, in order to explore the satirical effect of the altered scenes. In December of 2008, Bedlam Theatre of Minneapolis presented The Turducken, "a holiday dinner theater spectacular inspired by Anton Chekhov's The Seagull." Playwright Josef Evans takes Chekhov's 1895 work and turns the classic piece into a musical and farcical satire. The plot of The Turducken follows the plot of The Seagull, and some scenes …
Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter,
2012
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter, Simona Mitroiu
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Metaphor Translation As A Tool Of Intercultural Understanding,
2012
Jadavpur University
Metaphor Translation As A Tool Of Intercultural Understanding, Ipshita Chanda
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Metaphor Translation as a Tool of Intercultural Understanding" Ipshita Chanda takes up specific cases of metaphor translation as a methodological exercise towards understanding intercultural exchange. Chanda's study is based on a semiotic and linguistic understanding of metaphor as a signifying and cognitive device. When a metaphor is translated from one linguistic-literary field into another, the process of translation itself yields some specific operational steps for studying inter- and cross-cultural relations. Here, translation is not proposed as a framework but as practical method: the translation of metaphor becomes an exercise in strategy for the pedagogy of …
On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece,
2012
The New York City College of Technology
On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece, Despina Lalaki
Publications and Research
Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary …
Béla Bartók: The Father Of Ethnomusicology,
2012
Cedarville University
Béla Bartók: The Father Of Ethnomusicology, David Taylor Nelson
Musical Offerings
Béla Bartók birthed the field of ethnomusicology as an academic discipline through his tireless pursuits of folk music, his exposition of the sound of the rural people, and his incorporation of folk-style into his own personal compositions. His work revealed to the world that folk music exists, is important, and stands as an independent academic discipline. I argue that Bartók’s efforts established the field of ethnomusicology because he was one of the first musicians to branch into the study of ethnic music by travelling to collect samples of music, by aurally recording and transcribing folk-tunes, by re-writing these songs into …
New Forms Of Contemporary Aesthetics: A Review Article Of New Works By Camerotti And Quaranta,
2012
Complutense University Madrid
New Forms Of Contemporary Aesthetics: A Review Article Of New Works By Camerotti And Quaranta, Marina Mantini
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Nostalgia In Oral Histories Of Israeli Women,
2012
Achva College of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Nostalgia In Oral Histories Of Israeli Women, Yael Zilberman
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Nostalgia in Oral Histories of Israeli Women" Yael Zilberman explores the narration of nostalgia of elderly women about the city of Be'er Sheva. In their narration, the subjects of the study create textual and spatial practices which are engendered and create analogies between the city, their maturing/ed bodies, and by-gone youth. Further, the grief owing to the perceived condition of the city intensifies the idealized description of the city and the longing for its past. Zilberman's study brakes new ground in that the study of urban experience within folklore is a lesser explored field as the urban …
Evoking A Memory Of The Future In Foer's Everything Is Illuminated,
2012
University of Amsterdam
Evoking A Memory Of The Future In Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Doro Wiese
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Evoking a Memory of the Future in Foer's Everything is Illuminated" Doro Wiese discusses Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. In the text a photograph plays a decisive role: the image of two young people drives the Jewish American Jonathan to visit the Ukraine. The photograph is presumably of Jonathan's grandfather Safran and a woman named Augustine who saved Safran's life during a nazi raid of his village: the photograph becomes an ekphrasis, a description of a visual work of art in another medium which transforms the generic characteristics of written and photographic representations. According to Anselm …
Egypt's Police State In The Work Of Idris And Mahfouz,
2012
Western Kentucky University
Egypt's Police State In The Work Of Idris And Mahfouz, David F. Dimeo
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Egypt's Police State in the Work of Idris and Mahfouz" David F. DiMeo examines how two leading twentieth-century authors of politically committed fiction addressed an angry generation's confrontations with former members of the oppressive state police apparatus. Yusuf Idris's The Black Policeman (1962) and Najib Mahfouz's al-Karnak (1974) remain particularly relevant as today's Egyptian activists confront the vestiges of the former regime's security forces. Using Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnival as a paradigm for analysis, DiMeo examines how both texts present sharp contrasts between hollow quests for public revenge through purges and a genuine overturning of …
Intercultural Approaches To Cities And Spaces In Literature, Film, And New Media: A Review Of New Work By Manzanas And Benito And López-Varela And Neţ,
2012
Polytechnic University Madrid
Intercultural Approaches To Cities And Spaces In Literature, Film, And New Media: A Review Of New Work By Manzanas And Benito And López-Varela And Neţ, Ana María Martín Castillejos
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Victims Of The City In Novels Of Zola And Dostoevsky,
2012
Wilmington College
Victims Of The City In Novels Of Zola And Dostoevsky, Marta L. Wilkinson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky" Marta Wilkinson argues that urbanity in its nineteenth-century setting functioned as the culpable agent in criminal behavior found in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and in several of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. Wilkinson an analysis of the novels based on Merlin Coverly's concept of psychogeography which supports the extension of the cityscape as an integral part of the novels' characters. Further, Wilkinson illustrates how in Zola's and Dostoevsky's novels the city reigns triumphant as characters fall victim to disease, drink, or are left with desperate choices: in Dostoevsky's novel …
