Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Negotiations In Revisionist Mythmaking: Comparative Reading Of Bahram Beyzaei And Mary Zimmerman, Sepehr Karimi Mr., Bahee Hadaegh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

 Although more than fifty years have passed since feminist scholars pioneered revisionist mythmaking, drama remains underexplored in this field despite its unique potential for cultural and social reinterpretation. This study offers a comparative analysis of revisionist mythmaking in Iranian and American drama, specifically examining Bahram Beyzaei’s play, One Thousand and First Night alongside Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses as examples. This research aims to establish general principles for revisionist mythmaking within drama, spotlighting the complexities that emerge in transnational contexts. It explores how Beyzaei and Zimmerman negotiate cultural narratives and try to reshape traditional stories and reflect contemporary issues, emphasizing gender dynamics …

Between Revolutions: The Leftist Reception Of American Literature In Iran (1905-1979), Behnam Mirzababazadeh Fomeshi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the reception of American literature in Iran during the period between the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Divided into four distinct phases (1905–1922, 1922–1941, 1941–1953, and 1953–1979), this study explores how political and ideological dynamics shaped the interpretation and translation of American literary works. Central to this reception was its inherently political nature, driven by the dominance of leftist ideologies within Iran’s intellectual landscape. The influence of the Tūdih Party and other leftist movements profoundly impacted the ways American literature, particularly the works of Walt Whitman, was translated, interpreted, and disseminated. By …

Christian Motifs In Forough Farrokhzad’S Works: A Comparison With T.S. Eliot’S Poetry, Mona Monsefi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Forough Farrokhzad’s (1934–1967) film The House is Black (1962) is a visual poem set in a leprosarium in Iran. Farrokhzad was a prominent modernist poet who merged poetry with contemporary art forms, primarily cinema. In this film, she employed a camera to express her poetic vision, highlighting her signature style that prioritizes unique imagery. This emphasis on visual and literary images is often intertwined with themes such as religion. Notably, Farrokhzad recomposed verses from the Old Testament, infusing them with her poetic language to enrich the film’s narrative. This article explores her unique, Western-influenced interpretation of Christian motifs in …

Vision And “Sur-Vision”: Intermediality And Alterity In The Frames Of Abbas Kiarostami, Marjan Mohammadi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Abbas Kiarostami’s cinema, often compared to Italian neorealism, oscillates between documentation and fiction. Kiarostami’s worlds, replete with a complex network of incomplete and self-reflexive frames, create a new site for perception, reflection, and intervention. This paper studies the intermedial aspect of Kiarostami’s cinema in “The Koker Trilogy” (1987; 1992; 1994), Close-Up (1990), and “Taste of Cherry” (1997). It explores how these moving images are shaped by the specific context of Iranian cinema and how they turn to reshape it. First, it examines Kiarostami’s framing techniques, which expand Iranian cinema and its engagement with Western visual conventions. …

Memory And Identity: A Comparative Analysis Of “Iranian Cultural Identity” In Asghar Farhadi’S Adaptation Of Arthur Miller’S Death Of A Salesman, Raed Faridzadeh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Recent cultural studies examine the intersection of cultural identity and memory, often viewing culture as a symbolic sign system or "culture as text." Jan Assmann defines "cultural memory" as essential to shaping societal identity. Literature and film contribute to this process by transmitting and evolving cultural meanings, not only reflecting but also constructing knowledge and reality. Iranian cinema has become a powerful medium of cultural expression, particularly post-revolution. Filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Sohrab Shahid Sales, Dariush Mehrjui, and Asghar Farhadi explore the dynamic relationship between literature and film in shaping cultural memory. This article analyzes Asghar Farhadi’s adaptation of Death …

Willy Loman’S Desperate Affair Challenges The Iranian Censorship: Asghar Farhadi’S The Salesman, Adineh Khojastehpour

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This study examines resistance in cross-cultural adaptations, focusing on Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman (2016), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). This research investigates how Farhadi's rewriting of Miller's play within post-revolutionary Iran engages in a dialogue with the Islamic Republic and its dominant discourses. It explores how this adaptation addresses Iran's social, cultural, and ideological complexities by reframing Miller's narrative of 1950s societal change and the failure of the American Dream within the context of post-revolutionary Iran. This analysis uses Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope to reveal how The Salesman uses Miller's unique concept of a …

Cineture: The Trans(Inter)Mediality And Socio-Cultural Mobility Between Iran And The Us, Naghmeh Esmaeilpour

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Literature and film have proven to be influential socio-cultural mediums, facilitating interactions and counteractions between nations where politics often fail to do so. Introducing cineture as a transmedial genre, this article is situated at the intersections of glocalized culture, and Iranian-American studies by considering literature and film as the contact zone between Iranians and Americans. Cineture, the combination of cinema and literature, refers to the circulation of cultures through its specification of film-text transmediation. The application of cineture demonstrates the combination and blending of literary and cinematic works leading to cross the “center and periphery dichotomy.” To study cineture …

Cineture: Shared Narratives And Cultural Exchanges Between Iran And The Us (Introduction), Naghmeh Esmaeilpour

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Alberto Toscano’S Late Fascism, Clint Burnham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Zahi Zalloua's The Politics Of The Wretched: Race, Reason, And Ressentiment, Benjamin Davis

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Exploring Chinese Elements In J.D. Salinger’S Works: A Response To Mccarthyism In The Early Cold War Era, Yixin Lu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Since the publication of “The Laughing Man” in 1949, various ideas about “China” have emerged in J. D. Salinger’s famously obscure works. This article aims to argue that Salinger’s incorporation of elements related to China and ancient Chinese philosophy in his works illustrates an artistic response to American anxieties during the McCarthy Era. The article uses “The Laughing Man” and “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” as case studies to demonstrate how Salinger’s engagement with “China,” including the concept of indiscrimination from Zen Buddhist ideas, as well as notions of naturalness and non-action from Taoist ideas, develops not only a mystical writing …

Ginsberg’S China Experience And Its Influence On His Series Of Poems On China, Xiankai Ren

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As a renowned poet and representative of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg was invited to be a member of the US Writers’ Delegation to visit China in 1984. His China trip as well as his reading of traditional Chinese literature constitute his China experience, which is represented in Ginsberg’s poetry. This essay examines Ginsberg’s series of poems on China. It first shows that Ginsberg’s introduction to the Beat Generation poets and their poetics provided the inspiration for his poetry writing. Then it discusses Ginsberg’s observation of Chinese society during his visit and his reading of the Chinese poet Bai Juyi. …

Science Fiction Cinema And The Technological Sublime: Spectacle And The Infinite From Early Cinema To Digital, David Jackson Dr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines how science fiction cinema constructs and reimagines the technological sublime in the twentieth century: the experience of awe, terror, and admiration provoked by human-made power and scale. Drawing on the philosophical foundations of the sublime in Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant and extending through Leo Marx’s and David E. Nye’s theorization of the technological sublime, I propose an aesthetic mode in which representation inflected with affect translates technological spectacle into examinations of humanity’s role and agency in the face of overwhelming technologized worlds and in some cases, even the universe itself.

Through three distinct historical periods …

Pedagogical Escapism And Western Performativity: A Psycho-Aesthetic Critique Of Belly-Dance Adaption Symbolics, Maryam Farahani

Comparative Woman

This paper addresses positionality misreading in Western pedagogical adaptions of belly dancing. Raqs Sharqi, known in the West as belly dancing, is a predominantly West Asian and North African discipline and performance art with multimodal varieties, globally taught and practiced while crossing sport, narratology, and story-telling boundaries. As a unique performance activity, it portrays a dynamic entertainment space to connect one’s multiple identities. I argue that Raqs Sharqi, not only as an aesthetic-educational art form but also, perhaps unwittingly, reiterated as an Orientalist communication trope in belly dancing, has forged East-West performativity models. However, the historical education-literature for Western women …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Pawns In The Power Struggle: Navigating Creative Labor Precarity Across Mcns, Platforms, And State Regulation In China, Qingyue Sun

Interdisciplinary Studies

This study examines how digital creators navigate the precarious Chinese digital creative industries (DCCIs), shaped by multi-channel networks (MCNs), platform logic, and intensifying state intervention. Drawing on interviews with 34 creators, I identified three challenges facing Chinese creators: (1) dual exploitation by volatile platforms and capricious MCN management; (2) erosion of creative autonomy under MCN gatekeeping and state oversight; (3) involuntarily being enlisted as propaganda artisans. Creators, especially those affiliated with MCNs, are increasingly positioned as state labor with governed creativity: cultural workers whose output is shaped, constrained, and redirected by the layered imperatives of state mandates, platform governance, and …

A Game Of Chicken: Exploring Religiosity, Gambling, And Acts Of Worship In Ren Galeno's Graphic Novel Sa Wala (Nothing To Lose), Elisha Camille Catimpo

Literary and Cultural Studies Program Faculty Publications

There are few more devout than a gambler. By his nature, he believes in something bigger than himself—be it faith, chance, luck, fortune, or some other greater power. The Philippine tradition of cockfighting, or sabong, is known for its established position in Philippine culture and the superstitious nature of the sabungero. In his 1977 book In Defense of Cockfighting, Nid Anima even goes as far as to claim that the Philippines is the cockfight Mecca of the world. In spite of the contradictory implications, there is a deep religiosity at work here, which makes the sabong unique in the Southeast …