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The Geographic Clash Of Civilizations?, Mojtaba Sadeghi 2024 Independent Scholar

The Geographic Clash Of Civilizations?, Mojtaba Sadeghi

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Geographic Clash of Civilizations represents a significant geographic-civilizational reality and process, a phenomenon that has occurred and is expected to unfold increasingly in the third millennium. Understanding, analyzing, and forecasting this phenomenon relies solely on the geographic conceptualization of civilization. Through that perspective, the world is undergoing another instance of the geographic clash of civilizations, a clash more profound than the Clash of Civilizations, impacting the survival or collapse of human civilizations. The geographic clash of civilizations epitomizes an inescapable conflict between the soul (das-man) and the body (no-da-sein) of a civilization, stemming from …


Book Review: Arabia Felix: From The Time Of The Queen Of Sheba (Eighth Century B.C. To The First Century A. D.), Tseggai Isaac 2024 Brigham Young University

Book Review: Arabia Felix: From The Time Of The Queen Of Sheba (Eighth Century B.C. To The First Century A. D.), Tseggai Isaac

Comparative Civilizations Review

Arabia Felix is a book about Sheba, “modern Yemen” with added highlights on the broader region of Arabia. The author gives an in-depth analysis on how Arabia captured the attention of ancient empires. Arabia also conducted rich trade with her contemporary civilizations such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Persians who “encountered caravans of aromatic products coming from South Arabia.”


The Dravidian And Āryan Migrations In Europe And India, Alexander Jacob 2024 Independent Scholar

The Dravidian And Āryan Migrations In Europe And India, Alexander Jacob

Comparative Civilizations Review

Much has been written about the relationship between the Indo-Āryans and the Dravidians. Debates have proliferated on the question of whether the Āryans invaded Dravidian India or whether they were indigenous to Dravida. If we consider the literary evidence of the ancient Indians we can inform a different view of the origins of Indian Brāhmanical religion and the historical relationship between the two major population groupings of India.


Book Review: Why War?, Stephen T. Satkiewicz 2024 Brigham Young University

Book Review: Why War?, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Pay any attention to current events and it seems that war and conflict are everywhere: from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to the eruption of conflict in the Middle East in October 2023, to on-going geopolitical tensions in the Pacific over the status of Taiwan. It was only a decade or so ago that many were confidently predicting not only the decline but the outright end of war, as Steven Pinker boldly argued in his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.


Full Issue, 2024 Brigham Young University

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.


The Truth And Other Fictions: The Nuance Of Truth In Medieval Literature, Mark-Allan Donaldson 2024 CUNY Graduate Center

The Truth And Other Fictions: The Nuance Of Truth In Medieval Literature, Mark-Allan Donaldson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, “The Truth and Other Fictions,” is an exploration of the functional relationship between fiction and truth. It discusses truth as a type of nuanced information which may exist in a variety of forms (i.e., objective truth, narrative truth, emotional truth, cultural truth, etc.) and explores how these truths may be created or communicated through the medium of literature. The dissertation also explores how fiction, either narrative or structural, assists in said creation and communication of truth and in some cases is the necessary component to these processes. The Middle Ages and its literature provide the ideal staging ground …


Singing Petrarch In The Cinquecento: Embodied Reading And The Italian Madrigal, Thomas A. Hedrick III 2024 CUNY Graduate Center

Singing Petrarch In The Cinquecento: Embodied Reading And The Italian Madrigal, Thomas A. Hedrick Iii

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how composers of sixteenth-century Italian madrigals highlighted poetic line rhythm, repeated vowel sounds (or assonance), and word repetition in figures of speech—all elements of the verse that have been previously overlooked by scholars, who have traditionally focused on musical depictions of the text’s semantics. The analysis in chapters 2, 3, and 4 shows that composers used a consistent set of techniques from the madrigals of Arcadelt to those of Monteverdi, and musical examples draw from large collection of madrigals on Petrarch sonnets. The analytical methodology is built on the premise that Cinquecento encounters with poetry can be …


Dante’S Volgare And The Pastoral Presence: An Analysis Of The Concept Of Language In The Divina Commedia, Paola M. Rodriguez 2024 CUNY Graduate Center

Dante’S Volgare And The Pastoral Presence: An Analysis Of The Concept Of Language In The Divina Commedia, Paola M. Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dante’s conception of the Italian vernacular, the “volgare illustre”, is a central concern of his work and one which catalyses and nurtures, both overtly and covertly, his creation of the Commedia. Although Dante positions himself in his writings as the continual defender and most prolific poet of the vernacular, isolating a specific linguistic use and structure, a coherent definition of what vernacular Dante privileges or what appropriate usage he adheres to, is a difficult and often confusing task. The existence of two eclogues, the only works by Dante to have been written after the majority of the Commedia had been …


Review Of Emily Sun’S On The Horizon Of World Literature, Jing Yang 2024 University of Alberta

Review Of Emily Sun’S On The Horizon Of World Literature, Jing Yang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.


The Malvinas/Falklands War In Transatlantic Narratives: Exploring Collective Memory And Negotiating Self/Other Identity, Andrea R. Bellot 2024 Universitat Rovira I Virgili Tarragona

The Malvinas/Falklands War In Transatlantic Narratives: Exploring Collective Memory And Negotiating Self/Other Identity, Andrea R. Bellot

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Malvinas/Falklands War in Transatlantic Narratives: Exploring Collective Memory and Negotiating Self/Other Identity", Andrea R. Bellot examines the remembrance of the Malvinas/Falklands War (1982) through cultural texts for children, presenting a comparative analysis of post-war narratives from both the United Kingdom and Argentina. Through a detailed exploration of "The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman" by British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs (1984), and the Argentine TV cartoon show "La Asombrosa Excursión de Zamba en las Islas Malvinas" (2012), broadcasted on Paka Paka, Bellot discusses how collective memory and national identity are crafted and contested …


Chinese Ideas And American Politics: Confucius As A Guideline For Leadership, Alfred Hornung 2024 Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz

Chinese Ideas And American Politics: Confucius As A Guideline For Leadership, Alfred Hornung

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Chinese Ideas and American Politics: Confucius as a Guideline for Leadership", Alfred Hornung traces the influence of Chinese ideas on American politics with a focus on the works of Confucius. The more than 2.500-year-old impact of the Chinese philosopher on public conduct and his pursuit of virtuous perfection has served as a guideline for leadership emanating from China to Europe and America. For this trajectory of ideas, the historic and the new Silk Road play a decisive role. The exchange of goods along the land-based and maritime routes, which inform Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, also …


All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’S Translation Of Shui Hu Zhuan And Its Effects On Her Writing Career, Zhihui Sophia Geng 2024 College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University

All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’S Translation Of Shui Hu Zhuan And Its Effects On Her Writing Career, Zhihui Sophia Geng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’s Translation of Shui Hu Zhuan and its Effects on Her Writing Career,” Zhihui Sophia Geng focuses on Pulitzer Prize winner and Noble Laureate Pearl Sydenstricker Buck’s All Men Are Brothers, her translation of the classical Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan. She examines the reception of her translation and analyzes the significance of All Men Are Brothers to Buck’s literary career. By providing the first complete translation of Shui Hu Zhuan to an English-speaking audience, Buck made a significant cultural contribution to the United States and English-speaking cultural spheres. The …


Engaging China: Beckett’S Debt To Pound, Giles, And Laloy, Lidan Lin 2024 Southwest Jiaotong University China; Purdue University Fort Wayne

Engaging China: Beckett’S Debt To Pound, Giles, And Laloy, Lidan Lin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Engaging China: Beckett’s Debt to Pound, Giles, and Laloy," Lidan Lin examines Ezra Pound’s influence on Samuel Beckett. In their dealings with China, Pound and Beckett are both indebted to such sinologists and cultural transmitters as Ernest Fenollosa, H. A. Giles, Louis Laloy, and Laurence Binyon who introduced Chinese culture, literature, and arts to the Western world through translation and their writings about China. Lin situates the Pound-Beckett connection in the broad cultural context of the early 20th century. She argues that while modernism’s turn to China as a cultural paradigm was collectively brought about by …


Translation As Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders In Contemporary China, Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang 2024 American University

Translation As Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders In Contemporary China, Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Translation as Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders in Contemporary China,” Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang examines four groups of selected writings centered on one of Robert van Gulik’s more well-known Judge Dee novels, The Chinese Maze Murders (written first in English but not published until 1956). Different from most publications on van Gulik and his novels, Zhang examines the impact of censorship and self-censorship on the writing, rewriting, and (re)adapting, “literal” and “liberal/free” translation of the Judge Dee stories traveling between Chinese and English, between China and the West, for Chinese and non-Chinese audiences. Focus is given …


Exotic Construction Of An Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’S Creative Translation Of Li Ch’Ing-Chao’S Ci-Poems And Its Influences, Yuqun Fu 2024 School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Southwest University of Science and Technology, China

Exotic Construction Of An Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’S Creative Translation Of Li Ch’Ing-Chao’S Ci-Poems And Its Influences, Yuqun Fu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Exotic Construction of an Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’s Creative Translation of Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-Poems and its Influences,” Yuqun Fu discusses Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-poems and her identity as a woman intellect in the patriarchal and feudal Song Dynasty of China. Due to Kenneth Rexroth’s feminist perspective and Sappho complex as well as his own pursuit to excel in the hipster stylistics of the newly prospering Beat writers, Rexroth turns to the Eastern women poets to fuel his own cause, especially in his idiosyncratic way of interpreting and translating Li Ch’ing-Chao. His translation focuses on gender identity and …


Precarious Refugee: Self-Optimization And Neoliberal Rationality In Rawi Hage’S Cockroach, Shahab Nadimi 2024 University of Alberta

Precarious Refugee: Self-Optimization And Neoliberal Rationality In Rawi Hage’S Cockroach, Shahab Nadimi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Precarious Refugee: Self-Optimization and Neoliberal Rationality in Rawi Hage’s Cockroach," Shahab Nadimi examines Rawi Hage’s Cockroach as an example of refugee literature in the light of current debates about neoliberal biopolitics and the idea of a new form of life. Refugees, who are neither identified as citizens nor totally as strangers, are forced to compete in unequal circumstances of economic mobility with other citizens, often leaving them in a condition of personal debts, unemployment, and mental distress. Nadimi investigates Cockroach’s depiction of psychological breakdown, suicidal attempts, and metamorphosis as symptomatic of and critical to the neoliberal …


The Female Best-Friend Novel: Narration And The Reconsideration Of The Political Act, Neta Stahl 2024 Johns Hopkins University

The Female Best-Friend Novel: Narration And The Reconsideration Of The Political Act, Neta Stahl

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “The Female Best-Friend Novel: Narration and the Reconsideration of the Political Act,” Neta Stahl argues that twentieth- and twenty-first-century women novelists borrowed the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century best-friend narrative, reintroducing it for the purpose of challenging the very concept of the political act, namely, what modern, liberal society considers as a political action and what stands behind it. The article focuses on four novels written by novelists from four different countries: the American novelist Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973); the Israeli novelist Ronit Matalon’s Sarah, Sarah (2000); the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante’s L’amica geniale: Storia di chi fugge e …


The Balancing Act Of Justice: Juggling Affects In The Pursuit Of Fairness, Andrea Allen 2024 Washington University in St. Louis

The Balancing Act Of Justice: Juggling Affects In The Pursuit Of Fairness, Andrea Allen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation, I aim to examine the different identifications and affects that occur in the pursuit of justice as explored in early modern texts. I explore the relationship, and differences, between pity, compassion, and mercy in various early modern texts such as Chapman, Marston, and Jonson’s Eastward Hoe; Shakespeare’s King Lear and Measure for Measure; Spenser’s Faerie Queene; and Middleton’s The Old Law. I look at the role that the imagination plays in allowing people to identify with the pain and perspectives of others, especially as it enhances or limits one's ability to sympathize with victims and offenders. More …


Place And Placelessness: An Ecocritical Approach Towards The Mountain Imagery In Country Music, Siyuan Ma 2024 Duquesne University

Place And Placelessness: An Ecocritical Approach Towards The Mountain Imagery In Country Music, Siyuan Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing upon cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s frame of place and placelessness, this ecocritical project explores how the mountain landscapes serve to construct regional, national, cultural, spiritual, religious, even racialized identities in various human societies. Using the U.S. country music as a primary example, I argue that what country music fundamentally draws from the imagery of the Appalachian Mountains is not the Anglo-Saxon ballad music or pastoral lifestyle of/from the mountains, but the powerful sense of place and placelessness (arguably only) the mountainous scenes are capable to provoke. This exploration serves to illuminate the commonalties between humanities of different cultures and …


Desire As A Framework For Adaptation: Examining Aku No Hana As An Unconventional Adaptation Of Les Fleurs Du Mal, Zoe Dalley 2024 Utah State University

Desire As A Framework For Adaptation: Examining Aku No Hana As An Unconventional Adaptation Of Les Fleurs Du Mal, Zoe Dalley

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In this project, I began by arguing that the 2009 to 2014 manga series Aku No Hana by author and artist Shūzō Oshimi should be considered an unconventional adaptation of the 19th century collection of poems Les Fleurs Du Mal by French poet Charles Baudelaire. I then turned my analysis to the practice of adaptation more broadly, using desire, a central theme to both of my chosen primary texts, as my lens through which I examined some of the central complexities and paradoxes inherent to adaptation, such as the simultaneous expectation of textual faith and a new authorial vision. I …


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