European Languages and Societies Commons^™

Confinement, Care, And Commodification In Mati Diop’S In My Room, Brittany Murray

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Confinement, Care, and the Commodification in Mati Diop’s In My Room,” Brittany Murray discusses a short film released in 2020 by the French and Senegalese director, Mati Diop. Shot in the artist’s studio in a Parisian banlieue during mandatory Covid-19 confinement, the film tackles the issues of grief, isolation, and care. The article shows how the film represents these issues, particularly urgent during the pandemic and yet belonging to longstanding concerns about care work and reproductive labor. To mediate between present crisis and a larger historical framework, the article demonstrates how the film’s formal attributes make a …

Reading The Global City: Crisis, Cognitive Mapping And The “Urban Sensorium” In Tom Mccarthy’S Satin Island And Ben Lerner’S 10:04, Marty Gilroy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

“What is the role played by the aesthetics and politics of space,” asks Kanishka Goonewardena, “in producing and reproducing the durable disjunction between the consciousness of our urban everyday life […] and the now global structure of social relations that is itself ultimately responsible for producing the spaces of our lived-experience?” (55). Goonewardena’s account of the “urban sensorium” describes the mediatory, ideological role played by space in this “gap,” informing his adaptation of Jameson’s “cognitive mapping” as a hermeneutics of urban experience vis-à-vis totality. This article considers the mediation of these insights as critical aesthetic strategies in two global city …

Literature And Economy In Portuguese-Speaking Southern Africa, Thomas Waller

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In “Literature and Economy in Portuguese-speaking Southern Africa”, Thomas Waller offers a comparative reading of literary responses to neoliberalization in Portuguese-speaking southern Africa. Reading the proliferation of spectral effects in the Mozambican literature of the late 1980s alongside dystopian depictions of societal collapse in contemporary Angolan fiction, he suggests that writers in the two states have used distinctive aesthetic idioms to register the reintegration of southern Africa into the neoliberal world-system. In the fiction of Mozambican writers Aldino Muianga and Aníbal Aleluia, he shows how the legacy of colonial underdevelopment and its role in the transition to neoliberalism in Mozambique …

Conjunctures, Commodities, And Social State Marxism, Stephen Shapiro

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, “Conjunctures, Commodities, and Social State Marxism,” Stephen Shapiro discusses our current moment as the conjuncture of three temporalities: a secular trend of centrist liberalism, a Kress cycle of managerial capitalism, and three Kondratieff waves. These can be understood by the addition of implied terms in Marx’s advanced discussion of the commodity-form through an approach that Shapiro calls Social State Marxism.

Periodizing The Present: The 2020s, The Longue Durée, & Contemporary Culture, Treasa De Loughry, Brittany Murray

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Trauma, History, And Terror In The Poetry Of Yusef Komunyakaa And Sinan Antoon, Reema Binghadeer

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her comparative study “Trauma, History, and Terror in the Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa and Sinan Antoon,” Reema Binghadeer considers the work of the African American poet Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1941) and the (Arab) Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon (b. 1967) through the lens of trauma theory of some notable theorists including; Freud, Cathy Caruth, Jean Laplanche, Roger Luckhurst, and Shoshana Felman—have negotiated in this field. The article explores the literary manifestations of trauma in two distinct historical periods and geographical settings to show the specificities of each prototype and how the historical-cultural significance and textual meanings of trauma have intertwined …

Precarity In The Times Of Partition: Personal Vs Communal Love In Khushwant Singh’S Train To Pakistan And Saadat Hasan Manto’S “Gurmukh Singh Ki Wasiyat”, Ayesha Perveen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The paper studies how various shades of love respond to precarity in anarchic times by comparing the narrative representation of the aftermath of the Partition of the British colonized Subcontinent into independent countries of India and Pakistan in 1947 with particular focus on Sikh-Muslim relationships in Punjab as presented in Khushwant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan and Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story “Gurmukh Singh ki Wasiyat.” Employing Judith Butler’s concept of precarity, the paper analyzes how both the writers sketch precarity in partition times ensuing in post-Partition communal violence and effacement of love. The selection of the texts is significant …

Mapping Narrations, Narrating Maps: Concepts Of The World In The Middle Ages And The Early Modern Period, Ingrid Baumgartner, Daniel Gneckow, Anna Hollenbach, Phillip Landgrebe

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume offers the author's central articles on the medieval and early modern history of cartography for the first time in English translation. A first group of essays gives an overview of medieval cartography and illustrates the methods of cartographers. Another analyzes world maps and travel accounts in relation to mapped spaces. A third examines land surveying, cartographical practices of exploration and the production of Portolan atlases.

Vîvar Rumagnöl: Preserving Language Through Policy, Education, And Culture, Alexa Christie

Global Honors Theses

This research paper focuses on the planning of preservation and revitalization of an endangered language of Italy, Romagnolo, through measures found in three different sectors of society: government, education, and culture. This tri-fold method shows how language can affect every aspect of a group’s identity and culture and is found to have a place in all businesses, schools, homes, and public offices. The process of language revitalization requires cooperation from many sectors of a society, individuals, educators, and program coordinators included. Language is so deeply ingrained into every culture and identity, and it is a specific and special piece in …

Why No Rallying Force? Factors Of Rassemblement National Underperformance In 2021 French Regional Elections, Amy Rhodes

Honors Theses

Marine Le Pen remains popular within national French politics. However, following the June 2021 French regional elections, her far-right party, Rassemblement National (RN), failed to win a single region. This thesis seeks to explore the factors behind the RN’s surprising lack of success through a comparative historical approach. This thesis also evaluates the applicability of the second-order model on these elections. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (ARA) and Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur (PACA) serve as case studies for this research based upon their diverse electoral results. Regional newspaper articles, national newspaper articles, and candidates’ social media posts from the election cycles serve as the data …

The Work Of La Via Campesina Regarding The Intersection Of Land Occupation And Food Sovereignty, Josephine Drydale

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

La Via Campesina (LVC), a global movement that supports small and local farmers and their communities, is one of the world’s largest food and agricultural rights movements and advocates for agricultural rights in terms of land, ecology, human rights, and more. LVC is known for its establishment of food sovereignty, defined as the right to control one’s production and consumption of food. This new concept placed them on the map, accompanied by their aggressive editorial and advocacy work against ideals they view as neoliberal and food policies that benefit large food moguls while disenfranchising the small farmer. The concept of …

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes, Andrew Demczuk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. …

Resurrecting Gaelic: Modernity And Heritage Language Revival In Scotland In A Comparative Perspective, Sean Coady

Student Research Submissions

Many people from across the world have little or no connection to their heritage languages. Whether this loss is caused by conquest, colonialization, or simply lack of parent-child transmission, many believe that they are missing an integral part of their cultural identity and want to reclaim the languages of their forebearers. There is wide debate about how, why, and if this linguistic reclamation and revitalization should happen because, in the face of modernity and language evolution, the best solutions are not always clear. What constitutes successful language revitalization in the modern world, and why does it happen? Gaelic in Scotland …

Exhuming Franco: Polarization In The Debate Over Historical Memory In Contemporary Spanish Politics, Stephanie Gardiner

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I examine political media to show the different ways that the Spanish right and the left have framed historical memory about Franco. In Chapter 2, I give an overview of the development of the HML and political reactions to the law. I then look at the progression of the law’s goals under the leadership of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Chapter 3, and in how the law was utilized in exhuming Franco, referenced in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 showcases, through quantitative and qualitative data, the overall relationship of how changing historical memory through exhumation elicited reactions from …

The Ethics And Philosophy Of Outdoor Education: Hidden Lessons Within The Leikskoli Curriculum In Isafjordur, Iceland, Cici Conroy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Icelandic curriculum structures itself amongst six pillars: “literacy, sustainability, health, and welfare, democracy, and human rights, equality and creativity” (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2014). The United States national standards for their state public schools focus on two central points: math and English language learning (Participant 6, personal communication, 2022). The way these structures are upheld reflect values, goals, and systems of knowledge. Depending on where a child is raised, the skills learned in the classroom will result in a completely different attitude toward environment, place, and success. In the United States, success seems to be defined by …

How Ultra Firms In Former Soviet And Yugoslav States Became Political Actors, Alex Pelletier

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

When you go to a football match one of the first things that you will undoubtedly notice are the ultras. Their loud coordinated chants and movement fill the stadium with energy that would not be there otherwise, and their tifo and flairs add an artist’s touch to the stands. There are ultras for just about every club, and every city in the world, with each group having their own unique identity. The local standing of football clubs, paired with the devoted and organized structure of ultras has seen them become political and military actors across the world. Ultras based in …

A Comparative Analysis Of Migrant Health Policies And Practices In The Us And Switzerland, Rebecca Mak

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Migrants compose a large proportion of the population in both the US and Switzerland. The social vulnerability of migrants has been well-established in literature, but few studies have attempted to compare healthcare policies and approaches that most effectively support migrant health using multiple measures.

To fill this gap in the literature, this study will comparatively analyze of the efficacy of US and Switzerland migrant health policies and services by assessing access to and quality of care for migrants in each country. Four main features of healthcare systems were analyzed: insurance policy, healthcare utilization, NCD outcomes, and patient perceptions of care. …

Murals & Mother Nature: Urban Environmental Art In Lisbon Reveals Great Concern And Appreciation For The Environment, Ana Gunther

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Urban art is a novel dimension of the environmental movement. Utilizing highly trafficked areas, urban art has the potential to spread environmental messages both because of the size of the audience and because of the contrast between nature-centered art and the urban context. The paper discusses 15 environmental urban artworks in Lisbon and conducts a visual and thematic analysis. The analysis revealed five themes present in Lisbon: the power and beauty of nature, connection with nature, environmental loss and degradation, waste management, and climate change. The most prevalent theme in Lisbon was the connection with nature, followed by a tie …

Intersectional Silencing In The Archive: Salaria Kea And The Spanish Civil War, Kathryn Everly

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Salaria Kea was the only African American woman to serve with the American Medical Unit during the Spanish Civil War. Her experience has been silenced and edited within the archive by traditionally more authoritative voices. Reconsidering the impact of intersectionality on personal experience can lead to a better understanding of Black U.S. participation in voluntary war efforts as well as to a decentering of the predominant euro-centric versions of the war in Spain and of history in general. The impetus of many African Americans to join the fight against fascism in Spain stemmed directly from the Italian invasion of Ethiopia …

The Unfinished Hope Of Gower's Transgender Children, Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski

Accessus

This article examines two of Gower's tales from the Confessio Amantis that deal with trans youths: Iphis and Narcissus. Considering these two tales together, I ask the question: why does one story end with hopeful futurity for the trans masculine youth and the other end with death and the absence of futurity for the trans feminine youth. Connecting these medieval texts to premodern contexts and then with modern contexts, I map the trajectory of centuries long problems facing trans youths. In the end, I conclude that trans youth possess a healthier and more stable future when they receive trans affirming …

Ethical-Reparative Reconfigurations Of The Literary Today, André Cechinel

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay aims to debate the evidence of an ethical-reparative function for literature and literary studies today. Therefore, it is divided into two fundamental moments, two argumentative channels that, without a totalizing intention, point out the general perspective of the current, changing, stuation. On the one hand, the literature of the 20th century is presented through the image of a supposed negativity or radical intransitivity, capable of “undoing the work” in its “aesthetics of suppression.” On the other hand, from an introductory debate around some of the places of transitivity envisioned for literature at the beginning of the 21th century, …

“It Is Not All That Bad”—Hitler And Identity-Building In Er Ist Wieder Da (Look Who’S Back), Yuan Xue

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In Germany, multiculturalism and “leading culture” (Leitkultur) are a pair of closely connected but opposite concepts. Multiculturalism has been accused of being the main reason why culture loses its core cohesion. Despite the persistence of calls for a leading culture in Germany in recent years, many scholars argue that the concept is also problematic. A monopolistic leading culture may be hard to realize in an already pluralistic Europe. I argue that the choice between the two reflects the dilemma of the establishment of German cultural identity. Focusing on the German bestseller Er ist wieder da (Look Who’s Back, 2012), this …

“Passive Revolutions” After The Crisis Of Globalization: Gramsci And The Current Culture Of Populism, Yuri Brunello

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article compares the ways in which two scholars, the anthropologist Kate Crehan and the philosopher Diego Fusaro, analyze Gramsci’s thought, verifying its current relevance and effectiveness in interpreting populism. In Crehan’s recent Gramscian studies the categories of senso comune and buon senso become crucial. Crehan utilizes categories such as “culture” and senso comune to explain both the Tea Party experience and Donald Trump’s election. Fusaro, on the contrary, is an Italian public intellectual who declares himself a sovereignist and who often includes, among the theoretical references of Italian contemporary sovereignism, the author of Quaderni del carcere. In the …

On A Small Glossary Of Academic Anti-Intellectualism, William Díaz Villarreal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article presents the Small Glossary of Anti-intellectualism, where the most common rhetorical strategies and themes of contemporary academic anti-intellectualism are commented on. Anti-intellectualism is as old as intellectual life itself. However, its contemporary version is historically and sociologically rooted in the very structure of modern culture industry. It is a manifestation of a now universal pseudo-culture (Halbbildung) which, according to Adorno, has become the “dominant form of contemporary consciousness.” Arthur Schlesinger said that anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman; today, anti-intellectualism is certainly the antisemitism of several social and political groups, including academia …

The Brazilian System Of Television, Or How To Get A President, Tauan F. Tinti

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to some perhaps unexpected affinities between a considerably expressive segment of the Brazilian culture industry that for several reasons seems to usually fly under most interpretive radars and a certain regressive frame of mind that is becoming increasingly manifest and now holds both considerable political power and a surprisingly firm grip over a portion of the population whose size is still unclear. The following remarks and associations gesture tentatively at what could be preliminarily defined as a constellation of cultural junk being outlined, its shape against the night sky sometimes resembling …

Introduction: A Return To The Bad Old Times, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Fernando Urueta

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Poetic Explorations In Bill F. Ndi’S Worth Their Weight In Thorns: (De)Constructing Hegemonic National Integration And Debating Francophonecentric National Governance., Hassan Mbiydzenyuy Yosimbom

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper explores “hegemonic national integration” and “Francophonecentric national governance” in The Cameroons (TC) poetic scape. The former refers to La République du Cameroun (LRC)-British Southern Cameroons (BSC) or Southern Cameroons (SC) interconnectedness dominated by Francophones. The latter is governance that promotes a Francophone cultural superiority that refuses to see the Cameroonian world through Southern Cameroonians’ eyes. Cameroonians live in a time of enormous fragmenting “Francophonizing” and “Anglophonizing” processes. To flesh this argument out, this paper borrows critical perspectives from Benhabib’s “democratic iterations” and “deliberative democracy” and Rosenau’s “six-governance typology’ as requisites for good governance. It contends that …

Socrates The Degenerate: Irony As Trope Of Decadence, Daniel R. Adler

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Decadence is typically associated with a fall from, or an opposition to, ideals of civilization. Western Civilization traditionally traces its roots to the culture of Ancient Greece. While theorists of periodicity from Vico to Nietzsche and Deleuze, to Hayden White and other contemporary scholars, associate decadence with excess, artificiality and over-indulgence, they also recognize that decadence often incorporates pre-civilized, base or “Other” tendencies. Paradoxically, decadence as a degeneration of an original culture’s values can also rejuvenate that culture’s core values through mutation so that a new version of the original culture arises. In literature, degeneration has also been associated with …

Exploring The Margins Of Kotha Culture : Reconstructing A Courtesan’S Life In Neelum Saran Gour’S Requiem In Raga Janki, Chhandita Das, Priyanka Tripathi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, “Exploring the Margins of Kotha Culture: Reconstructing a Courtesan’s life in Neelum Saran Gour’s Requiem in Raga Janki,” Chhandita Das and Priyanka Tripathi discuss the invisible challenges in life of a famous courtesan Janki Bai Ilahabadi through close analysis of Neelum Saran Gour’s 2018 novel, Requiem in Raga Janki. In this novel, Janki belongs to the infamous kotha but she never fails to seek her subjectivity. This marginal place of Janaki’s belonging will be discussed by appropriating and the theoretical framework of Indian feminist Lata Singh’s (2007) for whom courtesans have been represented as “‘other’ …

Identity Reconfigurations, Memory And Personal History In Norman Manea And Saul Bellow’S ‘Spoken Book’, Simona Antofi, Nicoleta D. Ifrim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, “Identity Reconfigurations, Memory and Personal History in Norman Manea and Saul Bellow’s Spoken Book, ”Simona Antofi and Nicoleta Ifrim analyze the book of interviews Settling My Accounts Before I Go Away: A Words & Images Interview, a two-authored mirror-like writing in which two biographical courses and two scriptural identities engage in dialogue. Their aim is to define a double reading effect embedded into the self-oriented narrative: a collective history of the Jewish exile from the communist totalitarian space (Soviet and Romanian) towards the “promised land,” with literary, cultural and political insertions; then, the legitimation of an …