Comparative Literature Commons^™

Codex Exoniensis, Fols. 123b-124b: An Old English Poetic Romano-British Arts Encomium, Liam O. Purdon

Quidditas

Codex Exoniensis, fols. 123b-124b, commonly called The Ruin, is an Old English poem that has suffered both from physical damage, and from a kind of interpretive “damage,” the result of critical resignation in response to the work’s physical condition, revealing itself as much in continued critical acceptance of the work’s title as in continued acceptance of the critical assumption that the work’s total effect is forever lost to us. Enough of the poem’s whole and fragmentary lines exist, however, to confirm the purpose of two distinct emphases that draw attention to a yearning for restoration of the cultural traditions once …

Visualizing Women: Teaching Modern Images And Medieval Texts About Pre-Modern Women, Esther Liberman Cuenca

Quidditas

This paper examines two visual texts for teaching a course called “Saints, Wives and Witches” at the University of Houston-Victoria: Jennifer A. Rea’s graphic novel Perpetua’s Journey (Oxford, 2018), which illustrates the eponymous North African martyr’s third-century prison diary, and the film Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009), directed by Margarethe von Trotta, who drew on feminist readings of Hildegard of Bingen’s writings for the purposes of dramatization. The course itself followed a chronology that took students from antiquity to the early modern period and was divided into thematic units that highlighted women’s intersecting identities with regards …

Front Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Hellish Indigestion: Consumption As Knowledge In Medieval Descensus Christi Accounts, Harley Joyce Campbell

Quidditas

Present throughout medieval iconography and drama, the hellmouth relays a frightening glimpse of what awaits sinners after death. However, our perception of the hellmouth becomes complicated when we study these images in conjunction with Hell’s portrayal as a speaking character. Ascribing anthropomorphic qualities to Hell makes its theological implications more approachable for a non-clerical audience, effectively forming connections between human sinners and a figure of unimaginable monstrosity. This essay examines the medieval Latin Gospel of Nicodemus and its first Middle English descendant, the verse Digby Harrowing of Hell, in terms of how these texts describe the physiology of Hell …

Premodern Pedagogies: Queer Medieval Materiality, Hilary Rhodes

Quidditas

In this paper, I address some of the challenges facing medieval queer history in the classroom, in academic scholarship, and in public-facing work. My intentions are to dynamically integrate some common pedagogical questions with supporting literature to explore them, and argue that any comprehensive study of premodern men, women, and gender must take queer history into account. The subject may feel intimidating, but I encourage all historians to familiarize themselves with the material, gain confidence in teaching it, and integrate it even outside of dedicated courses on the history of gender and sexuality. The below is offered as a brief …

Animal-Human Vocabulary Builder, Domenick Acocella, Rene Cordero

Open Educational Resources

The assignment helps students individually build a usable, expanding vocabulary of terms and concepts, enabling each to further contribute to the ongoing, evolving written, oral, and visual conversations centered on the use of and thought about animals for food, clothing, work, entertainment, experimentation, imagery, and companionship.

La Fantascienza Italiana Dalla Prospettiva Degli Studi Sulla Traduzione E Postcoloniali, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

A partire dai più recenti studi sulla fantascienza e sulla circolazione dei testi in contesti letterari diversi, l’articolo presenta un’analisi della produzione di fantascienza italiana dalla prospettiva degli studi sulla traduzione e postcoloniali. A lungo considerate come semplici imitazioni dei modelli inglesi e statunitensi, tali produzioni spesso le adattano e ripensano creativamente. Investigare le complesse relazioni intertestuali da cui emerge la fantascienza può permettere di comprendere come l’altro e l’altrove sono stati immaginati e rappresentati in Italia.

Marlon Hacla, Melismas, Christian Jil R. Benitez

Filipino Faculty Publications

Review of Melismas by Marlon Hacla; translated by Kristine Ong Muslim

Table Of Contents

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Letter From The President, Lynn Rhodes

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Crusading As Philosophical Construct: Thoughts And Actions Of Pope Urban Ii, St. Bernard, And Peter The Venerable, Peter Hecht M.Ed., M.A.

Comparative Civilizations Review

The First Crusade was a penitential Holy War to aid the Byzantine Empire and to liberate Jerusalem from the perceived threat of Muslim occupation. The Second Crusade was also a penitential war, but this time it was to support the territory reclaimed by the First Crusade. Many scholars believe that these were the only relevant goals of these crusades. My focus in this paper is to contextualize the many possible goals for the early crusades, and to understand the necessary and complex rationalization of ecclesiastical leadership. This research is intended to contribute to the development of a more nuanced understanding …

The Phenomenology Of Civilization: A Dialogue Between Profs. Gabriel Breton And George Drury At Monteith College Plus, Two Associated Commentaries On Civilization By George Drury, Kenneth Feigenbaum Editor

Comparative Civilizations Review

This dialogue on the nature of civilization took place on the stage at Wayne State University fifty- seven years ago on January 29, 1964, and shortly thereafter. It was part of an interdisciplinary course titled “The Science of Society,” given by Monteith College.

Book Review: Max Weber. Politik Als Beruf (“Politics As A Vocation”), Bertil Haggman

Comparative Civilizations Review

“Politics is a strong and slow drilling of hard boards.” (Die Politik bedeutet ein starkes langsames Bohren von harten Brettern….) This is a quote from the work of one of the most famous sociologists ever, German Professor Max Weber. In 2010 a new edition of his work Politics as a Vocation was published in Berlin, Germany. It is the first in a planned series of new editions of works of the great German sociologist including Staatssoziologie (Sociology of the State) and Wirtschaftsgeschichte (General Economic History).

Indices Of The Comparative Civilizations Review, No. 1-83

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Ross R. Maxwell: An Autobiography, Ross R. Maxwell

Comparative Civilizations Review

Sometimes the most significant event is something that did not happen. I did not go to nursery school or to kindergarten, and I now suspect that this helped me keep my curiosity and imagination unfettered. Either something interested me, or it did not. In school, from first grade to graduate school, I never asked for help. I would listen to others only if what they had to say interested me — if not, I would tune them out.

A Brief Selection Of The Intellectual Contributions Of Ross R. Maxwell To Civilizational Studies, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

Ross R. Maxwell was a man of immense intellectual gifts. Especially in his later years, many of these related to the theory of civilizations. His untimely death has silenced a prolific generator of incisive thoughts about this discipline.

Bits Of Wisdom, Ross R. Maxwell

Comparative Civilizations Review

I collected theses thoughts and intuitions, because in one way or another they were meaningful to me.

R.R.M. 12/20/82

The Ancient Greek Roots Of Cross-Cultural Comparison, Stavros Moutsios

Comparative Civilizations Review

The paper traces the impartial comparative gaze of the Ancient Greeks, in relation to their ontological understanding of the world, and with respect to the domains of epistêmê, politics, and paideia, all operating in the field of logos, which underpinned the life of the democratic polis. The absence of any apocalyptic truth and predefined historical pathway in the Greeks’ conception of the world, their esteem for intellectual activity and philosophical inquiry, and their questioning of their laws and institutions as part of their educational and political life are all, as the paper demonstrates, at the root of …

Herodotus And The Histories: Accounts Of Intercivilizational Contact, Carlos Alberto Ríos Gordillo

Comparative Civilizations Review

The globalization of the earth, the old colonial dream of the sixteenth century, is still a challenge to historical understanding. In the contemporary debate, comparative history and global history have gained increasing interest as we try to explain the four parts of the planet in an overview, which allows us to think about the world, modernity, and universal history in a different way than a simple European expansion in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The theater of observation has become global when it relates Japan to China, India to New Spain, Portugal to Spain, Britain to the Netherlands to Indians, …