Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Geomancing Dib's Transcultural Expression In Translation, Madeleine Campbell

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Geomancing Dib's Transcultural Expression in Translation" Madeleine Campbell analyses Mohammed Dib's treatment of symbols and mythologies from Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. Campbell contextualizes lexical, syntactic, and intertextual elements in Dib's texts with reference to Oriental schemas including the pre-Islamic Mu'allaqāt, The Conference of the Birds by Farīd ud-Dīn Attār and elements of Sufi symbolism. Further, Campbell examines how these elements serve to develop a liminal yet multilingual "reference system" within the framework of the French language. Dib's poetic aesthetic goes beyond surrealism in the intensity of its ontological enquiry and appears to go beyond Sufism in …

Comparative Literature And Cultural Studies: A Book Review Article About Wang's Work, Tian Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Comparative Literature, (Comparative) Cultural Studies, Aesthetic Education, And The Humanities, Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Comparative Literature, (Comparative) Cultural Studies, Aesthetic Education, and the Humanities" Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser discusses comparative literature in the context of cultural studies and aesthetic education. Her starting point is the complexity of comparative literature as an academic discipline propelled by intellectual curiosity for what lies across the barriers which stand in the way of understanding and enjoying creative acts of all kinds everywhere and at all times. Literary and artistic investigations which focus on aesthetic values lead us towards general aesthetics, analyses which situate the arts and literature in context with little regard for aesthetic criteria take us …

A Survey Of Twentieth-Century Literary Theory And Criticism In Chinese, Xiaoming Chen, Anfeng Sheng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "A Survey of Twentieth-century Literary Theory and Criticism in Chinese" Xiaoming Chen and Anfeng Sheng survey Chinese-language scholarship that for the reason of the East-West divide is less known in the West. Although heavily influenced by both Western and Soviet Marxist thought, twentieth-century Chinese literary theorization and criticism produced much incisive scholarship based on the vast knowledge existing in Chinese culture and literary scholarship. Chen and Sheng survey pioneering works by numerous Chinese literary theorists and critics who have been influential in their own time and exerted persistent modeling influences until today and the article is meant …

Comparativist Imagology And The Phenomenon Of Strangeness, Małgorzata Świderska

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Comparativist Imagology and the Phenomenon of Strangeness" Małgorzata Świderska presents an imagological-hermeneutic conception of the interpretation of national, ethnic, and/or (inter)cultural strangeness in literary works. Świderska develops her concept of comparativist imagology from the work of Paul Ricoeur's concept of multiple étrangeté and from the work of Jean-Marc Moura. Świderska applies her conceptualization of comparativist imagology to Heimito von Doderer's "Divertimento No I" and Das letzte Abenteuer. Ein Ritter-Roman.

Challenges And Possibilities For World Literature, Global Literature, And Translation, Kathleen Shields

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Challenges and Possibilities for World Literature, Global Literature, and Translation" Kathleen Shields argues that Goethe's concept of Weltliteratur was grounded in translation practice: in creating a canon representing the best of each nation, translation occupied centre stage. Nation-building in Europe in the nineteenth century was combined with the idea of transnational literature where translation was an important tool of transmission and exchange, as well as a way of decentering from a strong monolingual base. There are four challenges for comparative literature now. Firstly, the nation state is weakening. Secondly, despite the growing interest in world literature since …

The Paradox Of Testimony And First-Person Plural Narration In Jensen's We, The Drowned, Divya Dwivedi, Henrik Skov Nielsen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Paradox of Testimony and First-Person Plural Narration in Jensen's We, the Drowned" Divya Dwivedi and Henrik Skov Nielsen posit that the analysis of narratives of limit-experiences provides insight into literature's relation with the formation of community and subjectivity. Testimonies such as Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and other narratives of survivors of concentration camps, especially the Muselmänner, focus on aspects of community. Dwivedi and Nielsen discuss how in Carsten Jensen's novel We, the Drowned group identity, intersubjectivity, and the possibility for and mode of testimony about traumatic events are narrated. Although Jensen's …

World Humanism(S), The Divine Comedy, Lao She's "灵的文学与佛教" ("Literature Of The Soul And Buddhism"), And Gao's Soul Mountain, Letizia Fusini

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "World Humanism(s), the Divine Comedy, Lao She's "灵的文学与佛教" ("Literature of the Soul and Buddhism"), and Gao's Soul Mountain" Letizia Fusini analyzes the Lao She's and Xingjian Gao's conceptions of literature as an activity concerning the realm of the spirit. Fusini utilizes Dante's Divine Comedy for comparison between the literary ideals pursued by the two Chinese writers and regards Lao She's and Gao's humanist and non-political approach underlying their respective notions. Considering Lao She's call for the emergence of a "Chinese Dante" (1941), Fusini contends that China might have found its own "Dante" in …

The Persistence Of "Cathay" In World Literature, Eugene Eoyang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Persistence of 'Cathay' in World Literature" Eugene Eoyang argues that China has only recently begun to occupy a place in world literatures as evidenced by the absence of Chinese literature from the early editions of the widely adopted Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces and its token representations in subsequent editions. "Orientalized" images of China still persist partly stemming from the continuing currency of stereotyped images of the Chinese promoted by publishers, by Western Sinologists, and even by expatriate Chinese. A cottage industry has developed which privileges the study of images of China (however distorted and oversimplified) …

African Literatures And Border Issues, Chimdi Maduagwu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "African Literatures and Border Issues" Chimdi Maduagwu posits that borders or boundaries are constructions which have social and symbolic implications and that they are also relevant in a variety of social processes versus class stratification. Modern Africa is a political construction from European colonialism and what we have today as countries of Africa were closely knit nation states (which colonialists identified as tribes) who had their distinct features. However, the advent of colonialism tore into the original nation state structure based on given ethnic relationships and in its place constructed sovereign states or countries, which only considered …

Literary Aspects In New Media Art Works, Narvika Bovcon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Literary Aspects in New Media Art Works" Narvika Bovcon discusses examples of new media literature in the works of new media artists Jaka Železnikar and Srečo Dragan. While Železnikar is primarily a net artist who authors new media poetry and online linguistic interventions, the literary segments in Dragan's work are based in conceptual art and video art and he uses them to initiate a happening. Bovcon argues that studies of new media literature — of those works which require a readerly perception — should take time and attempt to capture the general flavor of such works which …

Monomedial Hybridization In Contemporary Poetry, Jan Baetens

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Monomedial Hybridization in Contemporary Poetry" Jan Baetens argues that the debate on hybridization tends to overemphasize the blurring of boundaries between signs and sign types in all possible forms: combination of types within a given work (multimodal "image-texts," comics and photo-novels, sound poetry, etc.), adaptation and remediation of one sign type by another one (filmic adaptations of novels or novelizations of films, for instance), and, more generally, the simultaneous elaboration of works in various media (the phenomenon that Jenkins called "convergence" or trans-media storytelling). While all these hybridizations have become mainstream today, if we take into account …

Complexity, Hybridity, And Comparative Literature, Marina Grishakova

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature" Marina Grishakova discusses "implied hybridity" in discourses, aesthetic systems, and media as a form of emergent complexity — as distinct from hybridity resulting from the mixture or blending of heterogeneous elements. Grishakova argues that complexity theories widely used in social sciences and, to a lesser extent, in literary and cultural studies, suggest a possibility to avoid dualistic thinking and offer a flexible conceptual framework for comparative literature studies. Aesthetic systems, as part of society's "imaginary," respond to, and reorganize in response to, impulses received from other domains, but also modify their environments …

On Some Worlds Of World Literature(S): A Book Review Article On Ďurišin's, Casanova's, And Damrosch's Work, Anton Pokrivčák

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Transcultural Literature And Contemporary World Literature(S), Arianna Dagnino

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Transcultural Literature and Contemporary World Literature(s)" Arianna Dagnino argues that within the emerging field of transcultural literary studies and despite the inevitable issues raised by categorization, we may classify transcultural literature within the wider domain of world literature(s). Dagnino presents a brief overview of the growing importance of a transcultural perspective in the fields of (comparative) cultural studies and literary studies and proceeds by outlining the main contours of transcultural literary theory and its main differences in respect to (im)migrant and postcolonial literary theories. Further, Dagnino analyzes the contemporary understanding of the field of world literature(s) and …

Ethical Criticism And Literary Studies: A Book Review Article About Nie's Work, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Translation, Cross-Cultural Interpretation, And World Literatures, Qingben Li, Jinghua Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Translation, Cross-cultural interpretation, and World Literatures" Qingben Li and Jinghua Guo discuss how to make what is national literature become part of world literatures and posit that there are at least two ways by this can be done: translation and cross-cultural interpretation. Translation covers not only the conversion of language, but also the selection and variation of culture. In the context of modern Chinese literature, cross-cultural interpretation often emerges in the form of applying Western theories to explain Chinese texts in order to facilitate appreciation by Western audiences and to support the need of the internationalization of …

Darkness Is Your Candle, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2013-2014 Raise the Bar

World music supergroup East of the River has a very different type of holiday concert in store this upcoming season. With a focus on the winter solstice, family, and new beginnings, Darkness Is Your Candle explores music of the Mediterranean, Balkans, Armenia, and the Middle East, presenting the earliest songs of those extraordinary cultures. Taking its name from the work of Persian poet Rumi, the program shifts from a lunar atmosphere in the first half of the program into rebirth and daylight in the second half, creating a unique and unforgettable musical journey for the New Year.

The Shift In Pedagogy: Authoritarian And Egalitarian Styles Of Teaching, Cayley Yamashita

Dance Department Best Student Papers

No abstract provided.

Early Career Theatre Production Portfolio, Emphasis In Lighting Design, Mara Johnson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis project is to create both a traditional and digital portfolio, with the intention of showcasing myself as a theatre artist. It cohesively compiles, organizes, and displays the theatre design and technical skills I have acquired during my four years as a student in Western Michigan University's Department of Theatre. It contains a variety of work, including in-class exploratory projects as well as realized productions, in both digital and traditional mediums. Projects range from scenic painting to hand rendering to 3D modeling and visualization to advanced programming.

The main focus of the portfolio is my work …