Comparative Literature Commons^™

The Distorted Lens: Immigrant Maladies And Mythical Norms In Edwidge Danticat’S Breath, Eyes, Memory, Isabel Valiela

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

The immigrant experience is riddled with the complexities of uprooting, and the challenges of fitting into a new environment where the issue of difference plays an important role. An immigrant’s life is multireferential in terms of how he or she views difference and is viewed as different. Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat’s first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory has instances of extreme disfunctionality due to the interplay of past experiences in Haiti and new encounters in New York City, and it includes many scenes in which characters express and negotiate different sets of cultural expectations, trying to reconcile their differences. [excerpt …

Glimpses Of World War Ii In Denmark: Memory And History In Frayn's Copenhagen And Sibbern's Resistance Scrapbook, Adriana Pinegar

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between history and memory is long and complex. While some theorists argue that they are at odds with one another, this thesis explores the necessary relationship between the two. Using Michael Frayn's 1998 play, Copenhagen, and the scrapbook of a Danish police officer and resistance fighter during World War II, the author posits the central role of uncertainty in the negotiation of individual memory and history. The position of the observer or witness to history affects the way the past is remembered and recorded. Individual witnesses, even and perhaps especially where they stray from the accepted historical narrative, …

Dramatizing Power And Resistance: Images Of Women In Pakistani And Indian Alternative Theater, Sobia Mubarak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes Pakistani and Indian plays that illustrate the nexus of power relations that operate in Pakistan and India to disempower women and the way women resist by creating dialogic spaces or fissures in the exploitative system. I have selected plays by Ajoka Theater in Pakistan and plays dealing with the similar thematic concerns by notable Indian playwrights to explore common grounds and points of departure. I have chosen four images of women depicting diverse modes of oppression associated with women’s bodies that are dealt with in these plays.

Chapter 1 examines Barri/The Acquittal by Ajoka theater, and Mother …

The Literary Unconscious: Ideology And Utopia In The Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel In England And Russia, Isra Ahmed Daraiseh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this volume, I have examined a number of works of nineteenth-century realist fiction from England and Russia, using the double interpretive method recommended by Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious. In particular, I have employed the dialectical double hermeneutic suggested by Jameson, who argues that the most productive approach to literary texts is to consider them from the double perspective of ideology and utopia. That is, critics should approach literary texts by seeking out the ideological roots that lie beneath the textual surface and from which the texts grow, while at the same time keeping a careful eye out …

The Fascination Of Manga: Cross-Dressing And Gender Performativity In Japanese Media, Sheena Marie Woods

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The performativity of gender through cross-dressing has been a staple in Japanese media throughout the centuries. This thesis engages with the pervasiveness of cross-dressing in popular Japanese media, from the modern shōjo gender-bender genre of manga and anime to the traditional Japanese theatre. Drawing on theories from gender-studies and performance aesthetics to delineate the female gender in traditional Japanese theatre, I follow the roles of, representation of, and media for women, concentrating on (1) manga, a form of sequential art featuring illustrations with corresponding text, (2) anime, animated productions (where the word anime is the abbreviated pronunciation of “animation” in …

Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring The Effects Of Colonialism, Microaggressions, And Stereotyping From Wild West Shows To Indigenous Literature, Kimberly Dawn Allen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Native Americans have long been, and continue to be, victims of racism, microaggression, and stereotyping. This continued exposure to violence, degradation, belittling, and discrimination work in the forefront to historical trauma and unresolved grief which has led to an increase in the numbers of individuals suffering from mental illness within the Indigenous population. Colonization created a long history of trauma and genocide that effects generations of Native American people, not just the individuals on which the horrific sins were committed. Using the lens of disability studies, this project will examine the ways in which portrayals of Native American people in …

What The Fuck Is This?: Aesthetic Nature Of Being Or Ontology In The Poetry Of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Alexis Stephenson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“What the Fuck is This?” examines the intersection of phenomenology and poetry arguing for an aesthetic nature of Being and focuses on how we know or experience the world instead of Cartesian absolutes. This subjective knowledge does not compete against objective knowledge but simply recognizes the use that poetic language has for communicating the subjective knowledge from experience of being as it unfolds for us. The major movements of the thesis focus on aesthetic objects, aesthetic intersubjectivity, and the aesthetic self. These are labeled “aesthetic” because a phenomenological methodology reveals a dialectic between that which is unfolding and that which …

Dionysus In Spain: The New Divinity In Unamuno’S San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, David Delbar, Roger Macfarlane

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Few characters are as enigmatic as the protagonist of Miguel de Unamuno’s San Manuel Bueno, mártir, and many scholars have attempted to discern the motivations of the saintly Catholic priest who does not believe in an afterlife. Because of the overt biblical allusions in the text and the personal struggles of the author with the Catholic faith, many approach the novella and its protagonist with a Christian interpretation, ignoring Unamuno’s extensive classical background. While Unamuno clearly modeled don Manuel as a Christ figure, he also embedded Dionysian characteristics that have thus far been unexamined in academic treatises of the …

Turn Of The Century Sweden And The Ecological Imaginarytopic Modeling Ecological Thought In Swedish Nature Texts, Benjamin Holt, Dane Christensen, Dr. Christopher Oscarson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The roots of ecology in Scandinavia begin with the botanist Linnaeus in the 18th century, who developed the notion of the economy of nature. Throughout the 19th century, proto-ecologists carried the movement that would eventually be recognized as a legitimate and viable science, studying the interaction between organisms and their environment. Leading up to the turn of the century, the climate in Scandinavia was ripe for organizations to emerge such as the Svenska Turistföreningen (Swedish Tourist Society) and the Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen (Swedish Nature Protection Society), both of which are committed to improving and preserving nature in Sweden.

A Digital Epigraphic Database: Partnership With Duke Collaboratory For Classics Computing, Nozomu Okuda, Dr. Roger Macfarlane

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Digital epigraphic databases can be of interest to scholars who study the past. Epigraphy — a word which combines the two Greek roots epi-, meaning “above” or “on,” and graphe, meaning “writing” — is the study of inscriptions. Among the epigraphic publications are commemorations, dedications, proclamations, and even general information, all of which were engraved upon more or less permanent media. Thus, those messages from the past continue to convey information in the present, thereby making epigraphy an important aid to scholarship of the past. Despite the longevity of inscriptions, their media may be too large, fragile, or …

A New Approach To Museum Exhibits, Allison Rietz, Kerry Soper

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project deals with museum exhibits, the primary cultural product used to justify a museum’s existence; they are also the face of the museum that the public sees. However, because museums are a mix of visual and literary aspects, the point of an exhibit can often get lost in an attempt to include a “Wow Factor”, which may not even relate to the exhibit. And if the exhibits do not appeal to visitors or are confusing, fewer people will come to visit, making it necessary for exhibits to be clear for their audience.

Hybrid, Subversive, And Skeptical Performances Of Gender, Power, And Space In The Postcolonial Avant-Garde, Alyson T. Inouye

Honors Projects

In her one-woman play, Iraqi-American playwright and actress Heather Raffo performs the testimonies of nine resilient Iraqi women, emphasizing their diverse experiences of the American occupation and life under the Baathist regime. Near the end of the play, one of the soliloquies breaks down into incoherence: an instance of poetic rupture. There is revolutionary potential latent in this avant-garde technique, and by applying it to her urgent and immediate postcolonial context Raffo simultaneously enacts and demands a response of justice to the injustices attested to throughout. Through the poetic rupture of Layal’s textual/psychological breakdown, Raffo undermines the system that, by …

勤勞成貧 : 台北城殤小說中的台灣博覽會批判 = Diligence Leads To Poverty : The Critique Of Taiwan Exhibition In Taipei Urban Fiction, Shu Qin Liu

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

一九五Ｏ年代香港詞壇 : 堅社與林碧城 = Classical Poetry In Hong Kong In The 1950s : Solidarity Club And Lin Bicheng, Hsiao Peng Lu

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Notes On Contributors = 客席編輯與作者簡介

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

丟了魂的人 : 蘇童書寫荒誕現實的方式 = Lost Souls : Su Tong's Rewriting Of The Absurd Reality, Jianmei Liu

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Lin Shu Duben 林紓讀本. Wu Renhua Ed. 吳仁華編, César Guarde-Paz

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

廢名《橋》裡的小說方法論 : 兼論厨川白村的影響 = The Methodology Of Fei Ming's Bridge : With Reference To The Influence From Kuriyagawa Hakuson, Toshiyasu Ogawa

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Utopian And Dystopian Literature: A Review Article Of New Work By Fokkema; Prakash; Gordin, Tilley, Prakash; And Meisig, Barnita Bagchi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

文藝與戰鬥，聲音與政治 : 大分裂時代中的「詩朗誦」與「朗誦詩」 = Art And War, Voice And Politics : Poetry Recitation And Recitation Poetry At The Time Of Secession, Chia Ling Mei

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.