Digital Commons Network^™

Trans-Atlantic Interrogation: Fabienne Pasquet’S La Deuxième Mort De Toussaint Louverture, Mariana F. Past

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In “Trans-Atlantic Interrogation: Fabienne Pasquet’s La deuxième mort de Toussaint Louverture,” Mariana Past situates the Haitian-Swiss novelist’s understudied narrative within the context of Caribbean letters and the Haitian literary tradition, then discusses the broader, intertextual implications of Toussaint Louverture’s “second” death for Haiti and the trans-Atlantic world. To what end does Pasquet deploy the aged ghost of a Haitian revolutionary icon being invoked by German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist in the Fort de Joux castle-cum-prison within France’s remote, mountainous Jura region? What is at stake when the diasporic writer reincarnates a legendary German poet as protagonist, placing him …

From Franz Kafka To Franz Kafka Award Winner, Yan Lianke: Biopolitics And The Human Dilemma Of Shenshizhuyi In Liven And Dream Of Ding Village, Melinda Pirazzoli

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

To date, many studies have exhaustively explained how and why Yan Lianke deals with both the intimate relationship between disease and biopolitics and the relationship between utopia and dystopia. These are certainly the most important themes in Liven (2004) and Dream of Ding Village (2006). However, biopolitical discourses cannot fully account for the complexity, depth and humanity of these novels, which in addition to exploring the complex and protean meaning of life also represent shenshizhuyi, an expression coined by Yan Lianke to describe his human dilemma in representing the complex relationship between shen 神 (soul, spirit, mind and myths) …

Hanay Geiogamah’S Body Indian And Foghorn As “Plays With A Purpose”, Danica Čerče

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Hanay Geiogamah’s Body Indian and Foghorn as ‘Plays with a Purpose,’” written against the backdrop of critical whiteness studies, Danica Čerče discusses how Geiogamah’s theatrical rhetoric intervenes in the assumptions about whiteness as a static, privilege-granting category and system of dominance. By focusing on various techniques and strategies mobilized to define and affirm Native Americans’ authentic rather than imposed identities, the article shows that humor is one of the prime textual devices in Geiogamah’s plays to renegotiate what Walter Mignolo calls “the racist structure of power.”

Problems With Perceptual And Cognitive Idiosyncrasies In Li Wenjun’S Translation Of The Benjy Section Of Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, Aaron L. Moore

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Problems with Perceptual and Cognitive Idiosyncrasies in Li Wenjun’s Translation of the Benjy Section of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury,” Aaron Lee Moore conducts a close explication of a 2014 English-Chinese edition of part of The Sound and the Fury. Li Wenjun’s translation of the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury is certainly admirable in its graceful rendering of Faulkner’s complex, idiosyncratic prose style into accessible Chinese—and particularly laudable in its meticulous tracking of the a-chronological sequence of Benjy’s stream of consciousness narrative. However, problems arise in the translation due to an …

The Female Fantastic Vs. The Feminist Fantastic: Gender And The Transgression Of The Real, David Roas

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Since Ann Richter coined the term “fantastique féminin” in 1977, many works in different languages have postulated a “female” way of writing fantastic texts, depending on the selection of themes, language, characters, supernatural elements, and the portrayal of the uncanny and the monstrous. This claim on the existence of a "female fantastic" reflects central issues in Feminist Literary Theory: on the one hand, the will to identify an aesthetic mode opposed to the dominant patriarchal discourse (female writing, the use of specific themes, etc.); on the other hand, the argument that there are marginal genres, forms and styles voluntarily removed …

Introduction: New Perspectives On The Female Fantastic, David Roas, Patricia Garcia

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Immortal Celebrities: Tourism In Hollywood Cemeteries, Marta Soligo

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

This research is a critical study of tourism at four cemeteries in the Los Angeles area between 2013 and 2019. We examined these venues through the lens of celebrity tourism, since they are known as “Hollywood memorial parks,” hosting the graves of some of the most famous stars in the world. Through a qualitative study, we aimed to understand how the relationship between these venues and the entertainment industry works as a “pull factor” for tourists. Firstly, we identified the motivations behind the increasing number of tourists who add Los Angeles cemeteries to their must-see list. Although scholars often define …

Choose Your Own Adventure: A Comparative Analysis Of Storytelling Elements In Selected Immersive Experience Attractions, John E. Balido

Experience Industry Management

Stories are powerful tools used to both connect and communicate through a multitude of mediums. Movies, marketing campaigns, and experience design in theme parks are modern examples of storytelling, using various practices to bring the narrative to life. The purpose of this study was to analyze the manipulation of storytelling elements to create and build an immersive adventure experience in selected theme park attractions. A comparative analysis was conducted on theIndiana Jones Adventure and the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance rides at Disneyland using an instrument that analyzed both experience design and storytelling practices. Findings concluded that the practices …

Amjambo Africa! (March 2021), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Museveni of Uganda..........2/3

College applications andscholarships ........................4/5

Publisher’s Editorial/BetterDays Ahead? ..........................6

Translations

French ............................7/24

Swahili............................8/24

Somali ............................9/24

Kinyarwanda...............20/24

Portuguese ...................21/24

Influential Black leaders .....10

Community masks fromTracey Sesselberg.................11

World Market Basket ..........12

Fishermen feed MainersHealthy cooking with Yvonne ElingaOrganization updates .........13

Burundi Star.........................14

Messan Jordan Benissan inCamden ................................15

Photo essay/Onyx Emelo ...16

Helping kids in Angola.......17

News from Africa................18

Avoiding scams & fraud .....19

Biden proposes immigration changes .................................27

Amjambo Africa! (February 2021), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue

buyoya’s legacy ............................2/3

lockdown in Tchad .....................2/3

lewiston equity Committee .......4/5

editorial ...........................................6

News from africa ..........................10

MlK Day ..................................10/15

Diversity Northern light .............11

World Market basket ...................12

basbousa with Nahla alsafarSomali cooperativesyouth programming ...............13/24

‘Temperature’ by Zoza ................14

Jalali to release new book ............15

Immigration reform ......................16

Help with tax season ....................19

Columns ...................................22/23

Pam leo .........................................26

Translations

French ...........................................7

Swahili ..........................................8

Somali ...........................................9

Kinyarwanda .............................20

Portuguese ................................21

Art After Dark: Economies Of Performance, New York City 1978–1988, Meredith Mowder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Art After Dark: Economies of Performance, New York City 1978-1988 examines the interwoven social and economic histories of New York City and performance in the late 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation traces the growth and visibility of performance art, moving from the recession of the 1970s and early years of public funding for the arts, to the downtown nightclub scene of the 1980s, the history of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, and artistic experiments with television in the 1980s.Looking closely at the economic conditions under which performance occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s, this dissertation …

Matthew Potolsky’S The National Security Sublime: On The Aesthetics Of Government Secrecy, Nolan Higdon

Secrecy and Society

Matthew Potolsky’s brilliantly woven The National Security Sublime: On the Aesthetics of Government Secrecy offers a powerful and engaging discussion of national security and government secrecy. His findings concerning the influence artists have on citizens’ perception of national security is a major contribution to the field. It highlights Americans false sense of awareness regarding government secrecy, that in itself enables government secrecy. Potolsky has made a massive contribution to the study of government secrecy that is sure to spark future research concerning the intersection of national security and aesthetics.

Critically Imagining A Decolonised Vision In Australian Poetry, Cassandra Julie O'Loughlin

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Postmodern ecocriticism, given its broad range of perspectives, offers an agreeable platform for articulating a new, advanced and inclusive framework for a decolonising theorisation of literature and the environment. This article seeks to identify Australian Western decolonising poetry that sits in harmony with Indigenous aural and literary versions of communicative engagement with Country. The concept of human embeddedness in ecological relationships and biological processes as part of a complex matrix of interdependent things is embraced. In particular this article focuses on inclusivity and interconnectedness of all life forms to illustrate aesthetic and conceptual interfaces between Aboriginal Australia and Western poetics. …

Out Of Time: Temporal Performativity And Resistance In Popular American Film, Television, And Theater, Meghan Johnston Aelabouni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that religious world-making in popular culture can reveal and resist hegemonic times. Taking as my primary case study the United States in the 2010s, particularly the shift from the Obama to the Trump era, I analyze cultural constructions of time—as sacred history, destiny, and “the times”—that reflect and shape national identity and belonging in the American imagined community. In this context, such temporal constructions have privileged whiteness and heteronormative masculinity, positioning those who embody or approximate this norm as “of the times,” while also displacing BIPOC, women, and queer people as “out of time.” I posit time …

Amjambo Africa! (January 2021), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue

COVID and women......................2/3

Reza Jalali..........................................4

Editorial............................................6

Translations

French ............................................7

Swahili............................................8

Somali ............................................9

Kinyarwanda...............................20

Portuguese..................................21

News from Africa..........................10

Scholarship.....................................11

Year in Review..........................12/13

Celebrating Diversity....................16

Finance .............................................9

Insurance........................................22

Roseline Souebele.........................22

Rupal Shah.....................................23

Dora Mills.......................................23

Long Hungry Winter.....................24

Education Academy ................26/27

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

Dressing The Witch: Clothing, The Body, And Accusations Of Witchcraft In Puritan New England, Rachel Murrell

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Though this infamous period in American history has been examined numerous times, this paper aims to analyze the role in which “soft culture,” in particular dress and clothing, played in the search for witches amongst Salem women in 1692. Of necessity to this analysis is a thorough examination of early American material culture and the role in which early New Englanders interacted with newfound notions of materiality. This analysis examines two distinct points of contention at the crux of this cultural turn: the maintenance of and visual adherence to rigid social class standards through clothing and the visual interpretation of …

"Beyond The Lines": A Reassessment Of Civil War Prisons, Beth Kruse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Beyond the Lines”: A Reassessment of Civil War Prisons, challenges the historical interpretations of Civil War military prisons. Specifically, it analyses the political, social, and economic conditions of these systems by not only adding omitted gender, class, and race scholarship but flushing out the power dynamics between these group and military administrations. The re-examination of primary source material by reading against the grain to find overlooked insights reveals these sources not only provide a wealth of information about omitted groups, but that they have been misinterpreted. Additionally, applying the concepts of historical memory establishes how the Lost Cause shaped not …

The Museum As A Mirror: Reinterpreting And Delinking American Landscape Art From Colonial Narratives, Blythe C. Romano

Honors Theses

Art museums have recently been looking at their existing collections with heightened scrutiny, revisiting their decision to display colonial works uncritically in their gallery spaces, and reconsidering the idea that there is such a thing as a unified art historical canon. These conversations regarding reinterpretation are necessary for all museums that choose to display art with problematic histories, as this information is owed to visitors -- especially within the settler colonial context. The Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine is one site where such collection and gallery “reinterpretation” has begun to be implemented and discussed. For example, in …

Masculinity And Cold War Fairy Tales: Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, Donald Barthelme, And Ross Macdonald, Susan E. Wood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of fairy-tale allusions to explore masculinity in four novels published during the Cold War period. This notable focus on men and masculinity held in common across these four novels from four different decades is interesting because it suggests that the shift in focus to women and feminist ideals in fairy-tale revisions of the 1970s and after is even more stark a shift than has yet been recognized by scholars. This dissertation finds that Eudora Welty’s novella The Robber Bridegroom (1942), Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita (1955), Donald Barthelme’s novel Snow White (1967), and Ross Macdonald’s novel …

The (Mis) Representation Of Racialized Minorities: Barbie Dolls As Social Problems In India, Namrata Ashvinbhai Bhadania

English Faculty Publications

The relation between commodities and consumers is directly related to the transactional relationship between kids and their interaction with the toys. The paper aims to critique how female representation through Barbie Dolls in popular culture shapes female identity. Production and consumption of Barbie dolls in India became a way of socializing mechanism to educate young Indian girls on the concept of beauty. A notion of beauty is attached to blue eyes, skinny waist, and fair skin giving rise to “American Exceptionalism” (Madsen, 2009, p. 14), where the model nation conceptualizes itself though national identity where perceiver compels to transform themselves …

The Dutch Atlantic And American Life: Beginnings Of America In Colonial New Netherland, Roy J. Geraci

Theses and Dissertations

The Dutch colony of New Netherland was one of the earliest attempts at a non-indigenous life on the east coast of North America. That colony, along with the United Provinces of the Netherlands and Dutch Atlantic as a whole, played crucial roles in the development of what would become the United States. This thesis project examines the significance New Netherland held in American history as well as explores topics which allow for new and inclusive narratives of that history to reach further exploration. Similarly to how individuals from various cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds all come to exist amongst one another …

The Meat Of The Gothic: Animality And Social Justice In United States Fiction And Film Of The Twenty-First Century, Amber Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Meat of the Gothic: Animality and Social Justice in United States Fiction and Film of the Twenty-First Century— situates twenty-first century US gothic narratives in relation to animal studies, even as it illuminates how these narratives interrogate the effects of historic and ongoing global systems of human oppression: slavery, imperialism, and capitalism. Instead of reacting to bias by asserting a claim to a humanity perpetually imbricated in divisions of class, race, and gender, present-day authors and filmmakers create characters who form communities that include nonhuman actors as a means of generating empowerment and critique. My approach to these narratives …

Antiwar Literature In The United States Since 1945, Kelly Roy Polasek

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines literary resistance to US militarism since 1945. I maintain that a requirement of antiwar literature is a disruption or break from the pro-war narrative that seeks to justify and normalize the wars and militarism that saturate this historical period; literary works about war that do not deviate from this narrative are simply war literature. In chapters on John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946), poetry and performance protests of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1970-72), Rob Halpern’s Common Place (2015), and works of speculative fiction by Omar El Akkad (American War, 2017) and N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season, 2015), …

Singing Solidarity: Class Consciousness, Emotional Pedagogy, And The Songs Of The Industrial Workers Of The World, Tara Forbes

Wayne State University Dissertations

Singing Solidarity looks at songs and song culture in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from its inception to its decline near the start of WWI and examines how IWW songs engaged with, transformed, and directed workers’ feelings to “spur [them] to action” (Gould 47). Songs in the IWW repertoire created a sense of group identity and cohesion, supporting the IWW’s project of class consciousness and working-class solidarity. This solidarity, I argue, was felt rather than theorized. The felt solidarity of the IWW collective was intensified through the act of singing as a group, which was simultaneously an instantiation …

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

"With The Commodity In The Hand": A Practical Investigation Of The Intersection Of Material Culture With Performance Theory, Katharine M. Given

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the intersection of performance theory and material culture through the practices of garment reconstruction. In chapter 1, I examine key theorists in the fields of material culture and performance studies and articulate the connections between the two fields. In chapter 2, Using practice as research, I recount the experience of building reproduction garments from the eighteenth century using historically appropriate tools and methods, as well as the experience of wearing those garments. Finally, in Chapter 3, I walk through a possible historical examination of my encounter with these reconstructed garments, and consider the way in which feminine …

Wetland To Wasteland, Plantation To Plant: The Visual Legacy Of Plantations In The South Louisiana Landscape Of Environmental Justice, Ella Mcintire

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Southeast Louisiana landscape sits at the intersection of a number of environmental and humanitarian crises. Violence against man and land endemic to the Plantation Era development of the Lower Mississippi laid the foundation for modern issues of coastal land loss, habitat destruction, pollution, environmental racism, and displacement. Land-use patterns of the Plantation economy made the region optimal for petrochemical processing, turning wetland to wasteland, and plantation to plant. The exhibit Climates of Inequality: Standing Up On River Road uses photography, cinematography, 360-video, and soundscapes to explore the dialogic relationship between fragile natural spaces in southern Louisiana and the historically …

Tender Is The Night: Thirteen Propositions On The Nature Of Boredom, Allan Hepburn

Journal X

Reading for Pleasure (Essay Review)

Minority Discourses, Foodways, And Aspects Of Gender: Contemporary Writings By Asian-American Women, Wilfried Raussert

Journal X

No abstract provided.