Gulliver, Travel, And Empire,
2012
Yale University
Gulliver, Travel, And Empire, Claude Rawson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Gulliver, Travel, and Empire" Claude Rawson analyzes Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels as a central document of European intellectual history. Rawson focuses on the relationship between ethnicity and human identity and asks what constitutes humanity and how individual groups qualify (or not) for human status. Posing teasingly as a "parody" of travel books, it is both a series of voyages and an ethnically widening arc of moral exploration as Book Four at once expresses an ambivalent perception of the Irish under English rule and extends to what Swift/Gulliver calls "all Savage Nations" and ultimately takes in what Swift …
Evans's And Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels,
2012
National Pingtung University of Education
Evans's And Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels, Hui-Chu Yu
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Evans's and Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels" Hui-chu Yu investigates Katharine Evans's and Sarah Cheevers's account of their experiences as Quaker missionaries in Malta between 1658-1662. For Evans and Cheevers traveling was a mission ordained by god and thus their journey is less a trip for the gratification of exploration than spiritual and physical trials. With a purpose to spread Quaker texts, Evans and Cheevers traveled to different lands such as Ireland and Malta. Although they perceived the hostility toward their belief, they still claimed to be god's handmaids with an aim to preach their religious belief. Their …
The Life Writing Of Hart, Inspector-General Of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service,
2012
Tunghai University
The Life Writing Of Hart, Inspector-General Of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service, Henk Vynckier, Chihyun Chang
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In their article "The Life Writing of Hart, Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service" Henk Vynckier and Chihyun Chang analyze the life and writing of Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911). Hart arrived in China in 1854 and served as Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service 1863-1911. Although Hart disparaged his own role, Jonathan Spence views him as a key adviser to the Qing government. Despite of the historical importance of Hart's texts, of his seventy-seven volume diary only eight of the volumes have been published and the remaining volumes remain largely unexamined. Vynckier and Chang examine the complex transmission …
Cannibalism, Ecocriticism, And Portraying The Journey,
2012
Sungkyunkwan University
Cannibalism, Ecocriticism, And Portraying The Journey, Simon C. Estok
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Cannibalism, Ecocriticism, and Portraying the Journey" Simon C. Estok discusses the ways early modern preoccupation with cannibalism is at once rooted in and reflective of an ecophobic environmental ethics. Looking both at descriptions of metaphoric and literal cannibalism, Estok shows that imagining cannibalism was central to the travel narrative and to its investments in writing the center and the periphery, the human and the nonhuman, the acceptable and the repugnant — binaries which reveal ethical positions, not only toward people, but, more broadly, toward the natural environment. Estok argues that it is relevant to discuss the discourse …
Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East,
2012
National Sun Yat-sen University
Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East, I-Chun Wang
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East" I-Chun Wang analyses the wonders referred to the realm of Prester John and the imagination of India as exemplified in the pseudo-letter of Alexander the Great. The pseudo letters attributed to Prester John and Alexander demonstrate imagination and identity construction. Throughout history, terra incognita suggested a longing to discover new lands and utopia. Cathay, India, Timbuktu, and El Dorado have drawn the imagination of Westerners in different periods are represented in legends, folktales, literary texts, and travel and pseudo-travel texts. Including the said pseudo-letters, …
On Naipaul's Cultural Positions In The Middle Passage,
2012
Kansai University
On Naipaul's Cultural Positions In The Middle Passage, Shizen Ozawa
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "On Naipaul's Cultural Positions in The Middle Passage" Shizen Ozawa discusses V.S. Naipaul's first travel writing. An account of his "returning" journey to the five Caribbean "colonial societies," The Middle Passage constitutes a major turning point in Naipaul's long literary career. Whereas his earlier novels depict his homeland of Trinidad ironically, although with a certain warmth and sympathy, from The Middle Passage on the world depicted both in his fictions and non-fictions turns bleaker. Correspondingly, his authorial persona changes from that of a West Indian writer to a controversial chronicler of chaotic postcolonial conditions. Ozawa analyses …
Introduction To New Work About The Journey And Its Portrayals,
2012
National Sun Yat-sen University
Introduction To New Work About The Journey And Its Portrayals, I-Chun Wang
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Horizontality And Impossibility In Kafka's Parabolic Quests,
2012
Chinese Culture University & National Taiwan Normal University
Horizontality And Impossibility In Kafka's Parabolic Quests, Frank W. Stevenson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Horizontality and Impossibility in Kafka's Parabolic Quests" Frank W. Stevenson explores a horizontal-parabolic interpretation of several Kafka narratives. The key idea is that the meaning/truth of a parable is being thrown-beside-itself "on the horizontal": thus it is impossible not only to vertically reach any higher meaning/truth but even to "cross-over" to a truth which has now been horizontally "displaced." Noting that Derrida's and Agamben's reading of "Before the Law" — the narrator cannot "enter into the Law" because the latter "prescribes nothing," is nothing but an "opening" — not only excludes any vertical-hierarchical dimension but even any …
Power And Representation In Anglo-American Travel Blogs And Travel Books About China,
2012
University of Leeds
Power And Representation In Anglo-American Travel Blogs And Travel Books About China, Stefano Calzati
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Power and Representation in Anglo-American Travel Blogs and Travel Books about China" Stefano Calzati presents a comparative analysis between two travel books and two travel blogs written by Anglo-American travellers about China. The assumption is that travel books and travel blogs, being two differently mediated forms of travel writing, share some similarities: they are "autodiegetic narratives" and they bear a (cross)cultural potential. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis I investigate how Anglo-American travel writers represent themselves and Chinese people as to what extent the definition of travel writing is medially affected; 2) to what extent the cross-cultural …
Travel And Empire In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good,
2012
Tamkang University
Travel And Empire In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, Yi-Chin Shih
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Travel and Empire in Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good" Yi-chin Shih analyzes Our Country's Good from the perspective of travel in order to explore the exercise of empire and the practice of resistance. Considered as one of the luminaries in British theater, Timberlake Wertenbaker (1951-) has produced several successful works, especially Our Country's Good (1988), which won her a Laurence Olivier Award for the Best Play and solidified her reputation as an important playwright in world theater. Our Country's Good is based on real historical facts about the First Fleet's transportation of criminals from England to Australia …
Contemporary Us-American Satire And Consumerism (Crews, Coupland, Palahniuk),
2012
University of Rhode Island
Contemporary Us-American Satire And Consumerism (Crews, Coupland, Palahniuk), J.C. Lee
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Contemporary US-American Satire and Consumerism (Crews, Coupland, Palahniuk)" J.C. Lee focuses on contemporary satire's potential (or lack thereof) for change, reform, or rebellion through an investigation of works by Harry Crews, Douglas Coupland, and Chuck Palahniuk, all of which target consumerism. The said writers employ satire not to initiate rebellion or cultural change, but to reflect the problematic role of institutions in modern life and, in turn, the potential, even hope, for personal growth. Lee's analysis of texts by Crews, Coupland, and Palahniuk is intended to question satire's potential as a form of cultural critique and institutional …
Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter,
2012
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter, Simona Mitroiu
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece,
2012
The New York City College of Technology
On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece, Despina Lalaki
Publications and Research
Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary …
New Forms Of Contemporary Aesthetics: A Review Article Of New Works By Camerotti And Quaranta,
2012
Complutense University Madrid
New Forms Of Contemporary Aesthetics: A Review Article Of New Works By Camerotti And Quaranta, Marina Mantini
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Evans's The Turducken And Chekhov's The Seagull,
2012
Swarthmore College
Evans's The Turducken And Chekhov's The Seagull, Brian R. Johnson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Evans's The Turducken and Chekhov's The Seagull" Brian R. Johnson approaches The Turducken as a travesty of The Seagull, examining six iconic scenes from The Seagull, in order to explore the satirical effect of the altered scenes. In December of 2008, Bedlam Theatre of Minneapolis presented The Turducken, "a holiday dinner theater spectacular inspired by Anton Chekhov's The Seagull." Playwright Josef Evans takes Chekhov's 1895 work and turns the classic piece into a musical and farcical satire. The plot of The Turducken follows the plot of The Seagull, and some scenes …
Barthelme's "Paraguay," The Postmodern, And Neocolonialism,
2012
University of British Columbia
Barthelme's "Paraguay," The Postmodern, And Neocolonialism, Daniel Chaskes
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Barthelme's 'Paraguay,' the Postmodern, and Neocolonialism," Daniel Chaskes explores the analytic opportunities afforded by conjoining globalizing critical approaches with a story by an author who has often been circumscribed by the postmodern rubric. Donald Barthelme's "Paraguay," written the summer after Nelson Rockefeller's fact-finding mission to South America in 1969, provides a chance to consider modes of anti-colonial critique in Barthelme's work. It also offers examples of a more self-reflective criticism aimed at the U.S. counterculture and the indeterminacies of postmodernism. Chaskes reads "Paraguay" with the aim of understanding Barthelme's hemispheric interest and he investigates the multiple cultural …
Intercultural Approaches To Cities And Spaces In Literature, Film, And New Media: A Review Of New Work By Manzanas And Benito And López-Varela And Neţ,
2012
Polytechnic University Madrid
Intercultural Approaches To Cities And Spaces In Literature, Film, And New Media: A Review Of New Work By Manzanas And Benito And López-Varela And Neţ, Ana María Martín Castillejos
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Evoking A Memory Of The Future In Foer's Everything Is Illuminated,
2012
University of Amsterdam
Evoking A Memory Of The Future In Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Doro Wiese
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Evoking a Memory of the Future in Foer's Everything is Illuminated" Doro Wiese discusses Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. In the text a photograph plays a decisive role: the image of two young people drives the Jewish American Jonathan to visit the Ukraine. The photograph is presumably of Jonathan's grandfather Safran and a woman named Augustine who saved Safran's life during a nazi raid of his village: the photograph becomes an ekphrasis, a description of a visual work of art in another medium which transforms the generic characteristics of written and photographic representations. According to Anselm …
Egypt's Police State In The Work Of Idris And Mahfouz,
2012
Western Kentucky University
Egypt's Police State In The Work Of Idris And Mahfouz, David F. Dimeo
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Egypt's Police State in the Work of Idris and Mahfouz" David F. DiMeo examines how two leading twentieth-century authors of politically committed fiction addressed an angry generation's confrontations with former members of the oppressive state police apparatus. Yusuf Idris's The Black Policeman (1962) and Najib Mahfouz's al-Karnak (1974) remain particularly relevant as today's Egyptian activists confront the vestiges of the former regime's security forces. Using Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnival as a paradigm for analysis, DiMeo examines how both texts present sharp contrasts between hollow quests for public revenge through purges and a genuine overturning of …
Metaphor Translation As A Tool Of Intercultural Understanding,
2012
Jadavpur University
Metaphor Translation As A Tool Of Intercultural Understanding, Ipshita Chanda
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Metaphor Translation as a Tool of Intercultural Understanding" Ipshita Chanda takes up specific cases of metaphor translation as a methodological exercise towards understanding intercultural exchange. Chanda's study is based on a semiotic and linguistic understanding of metaphor as a signifying and cognitive device. When a metaphor is translated from one linguistic-literary field into another, the process of translation itself yields some specific operational steps for studying inter- and cross-cultural relations. Here, translation is not proposed as a framework but as practical method: the translation of metaphor becomes an exercise in strategy for the pedagogy of …
