Digital Commons Network^™

The Systemic Approach, Biosemiotic Theory, And Ecocide In Australia, Iris Ralph

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Systemic Approach, Biosemiotic Theory, and Ecocide in Australia" Iris Ralph summarizes an argument in defense of disciplinarity ("openness from closure") that Cary Wolfe makes in What is Posthumanism? She also comments on an implicit argument that Wendy Wheeler makes in The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture. As Ralph argues, Wheeler's implicit claim is that biosemiotic language, which humans share with other biological beings, connects human animals and nonhuman animals on moral and affective grounds. Ralph summarizes Wolfe's defense of disciplinarity that literary and cultural studies scholars who engage with the "question …

Ecological Knowledge In Community Theater, Paul Brown

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecological Knowledge in Community Theater" Paul Brown presents a practitioner's perspective on plays which celebrate and enhance community resilience while addressing complex environmental problems. Community plays can highlight environmental injustices and assist communities to find a voice. The article explores these functions by examining how nature moves center-stage in community plays, and the role of community arts, alongside scientific research, in developing and communicating shared understanding of environmental problems and their solutions. In his study Brown compares knowledge-making processes for science and community theater and explores the values expressed in eco-theater and the processes of producing and …

Ecocriticism And Persian And Greek Myths About The Origin Of Fire, Massih Zekavat

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecocriticism and Persian and Greek Myths about the Origin of Fire" Massih Zekavat argues that some contemporary ecological biases are rooted in ancient thought. Further, Zekavat argues that the study of mythology is relevant to the understanding of culture and ecology thus assisting ecocriticism. The investigation of man/woman, culture/nature, and human/nature binary oppositions conveys that Greek and Persian myths are mostly anthropocentric and androcentric. Zekavat postulates that one way to revise contemporary ecological conceptions is to study myths to shed light on the mind and context of their creators and believers, their representation of natural phenomena, and …

Dance 2014: Tell Tale Poe, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2014-2015 Season

Mystery and Macabre...Beauty and Horror...Love and Abandonment...Edgar Allen Poe has been documented as a complex genius who found both beauty and horror in the world and then described all of it in his abundance of writings. In honor of this man and his genius we have joined a group of artists and visionaries in dance, sound, lighting, costuming, and digital projections to create a portrait of sensations, sweet sound and the wild beauty of Poe's echoing and enduring dreams.

Review Of Marilyn Francus, Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth-Century Culture And The Ideology Of Domesticity, Phyllis Ann Thompson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Review of Marilyn Francus. Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Ideology of Domesticity. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2012. Xi + 297pp. Index. ISBN 978-1-4214-0737-1.

Impact Of Corporate Sustainability Behavior On Financial Performance In Aerospace Companies, Petulia Blake

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability is increasingly becoming an integral part of how organizations communicate their business operation to stakeholders. As it is common knowledge that organizations are more inclined to invest in programs that contribute to their bottom-line, this study presents an analysis of the relationship between corporate sustainability behaviors and their impact on financial performance. The sample size was 40 United States (U.S.) aerospace companies, selected from the “Top 100 Aerospace Companies” world-wide in a report produced by Candesic consulting firm in 2012. Of the 40 U.S. companies, 21 were found to provide some form of sustainability report. Quantitative and qualitative instruments …

Sweet Charity, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2014-2015 Season

Charity Hope Valentine always tries to look on the bright side of life, despite working in a rundown dance hall and contending with a seemingly endless run of bad dates. Determined to find love, Charity falls for suave actor Vittorio Vidal, but their romance is all too brief. However, when Charity finds herself stuck in an elevator with the reserved Oscar Lindquist, it turns out that she may have finally met her match.

Motherhood And Sexuality In Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Amanda Kane Rooks

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Motherhood and Sexuality in Flaubert's Madame Bovary" Amanda Kane Rooks examines the narration of relationships in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary between Emma's role as mother and her sexuality. Rooks argues that this narrative relationship provides a space where the association between the oppressions of motherhood and women's sexuality can be better understood. Further, Rooks posits that Flaubert's narrative condemns the nineteenth-century Western predilection for constructing a relationship of mutual exclusivity between motherhood and sexuality, while it exposes socially sanctioned performances of motherhood and sexuality as allied, perverse manifestations of the same repressive ideological system.

Trust-Based Learning And Its Importance In Intercultural Education, Clemens Seyfried

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Trust-Based Learning and Its Importance in Intercultural Education" Clemens Seyfried introduces the concept of "trust-based learning," an approach he developed for learning in an intercultural world and applied in primary and secondary education. The objective of the concept is the raising of opportunities students with (im)migrant background in education. Seyfried presents an overview of the educational situation of (im)migrants and ethnic minorities in the European Union with special focus on Austria, followed by a description of the said concept of trust-based learning including the results of a statistical survey conducted in Austria. The focus of the concept …

Translation As Relation And Glissant's Work, Sandra Bermann

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Translation as Relation and Glissant's Work" Sandra Bermann proposes that in today's complex world of migration, war, and globalization, translation among languages and cultures is everywhere evident. Indeed, as citizens of the twenty-first century, we inevitably think in and through translation. Yet we have only begun to explore its contemporary modes of operation, its challenges, and its promise for study. Bermann suggests ways to think about translation — its difficulties, as well as its promise. Looking first to some traditional views of translation, Bermann then turns to particular ways in which it might be recast in terms …

Love And Marriage In The Work Of Abdul-Baki, Abu-Jaber, And Al-Razzaz, Qusai A.R. Al-Debyan, Shadi S. Neimneh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Love and Marriage in the Work of Abdul-Baki, Abu-Jaber, and al-Razzaz" Qusai A.R. Al-Debyan and Shadi S. Neimneh posit that love, marriage, and sexuality represent important aspects in Mu'nis al-Razzaz's 1997 novel Alive in the Dead Sea, Kathryn K. Abdul-Baki's 2000 novel Ghost Songs: A Palestinian Love Story, and Diana Abu-Jaber's 2003 short story "Madagascar." Issues of love, marriage, and sexuality in these texts suggest a rebellious attitude on the part of women protagonists against taboos of religion, politics, and sexuality and Abdul-Baki, Abu-Jaber, and al-Razzaz employ descriptions of sexual intimacy to reflect the social …

Time, Photography, And Optical Technology In Nabokov's Speak, Memory, Tetyana Lyaskovets

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Time, Photography, and Optical Technology in Nabokov's Speak, Memory" Tetyana Lyaskovets discusses how Vladimir Nabokov narrates time in his autobiography by invoking photography and optical instruments. Photography and optical technology function in Speak, Memory as metaphors and probe the limits of chronological time. Nabokov portrays time as personal and reversible time that collapses the past and the present and allows one to glimpse the future. Because this temporal collapse is not possible physically but, as Nabokov believes, can be achieved through one's will, he engages optical technologies which provide a spatial form for his project to …

Queering Masturbation In Lorde's Life And Writing, Eric Sipyinyu Njeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Queering Masturbation in Lorde's Life and Writing" Eric Sipyinyu Njeng discusses masturbation in Audre Lorde's life and works to signal an important aspect of her oeuvre often neglected in scholarship. Lorde stands out among prominent queer queens by demonstrating theory corporeally thereby going beyond mere theory and positing her body as a space of complex sexual passions. When Judith Butler speaks of gender as performative rather than embodied, Lorde theorizes and foregrounds this in her works and self and celebrates a sexual matrix that ranges from heterosexuality to homosexuality to auto-sexuality. Lorde places masturbation between the binary …

New Work About Reading Poetry: A Book Review Article On Stafford's And Bohn's Work, Martyna Markowska

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Postmodernist Poetics And Narratology: A Review Article About Mchale's Scholarship, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Postcolonial Studies In The Twenty-First Century: A Book Review Article About New Work By Ashcroft, Mendis, Mcgonegal, Mukerjee And Carrera Suárez, Durán Almarza, Menéndez Tarrazo, Alejandra Moreno

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Article About U.S. Comparative Literature Journals Published In 2013, Miaomiao Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Guddling About: Experiments In Vital Materialism With Particular Regard To Water, Minty Donald

The Goose

With reference to Jane Bennett’s notion of "vital materialism," this photo essay documents and reflects on Guddling About: a series of experiments or actions carried out by artists Nick Millar and Minty Donald with the Bow River and its watershed in Calgary and Southern Alberta in August-September 2013. Each experiment is described as a set of instructions — a script or score for an event — which can be enacted in any location where human settlement has evolved around a river. The experiments will be repeated, and new ones developed, with the River Clyde in Glasgow and Southern Scotland in …

Between Body And Spirit: An Interview With Leszek Bzdyl, Barbara Świąder

Mime Journal

Barbara Świąder interviews Leszek Bzdyl, the artistic director of Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre, a dance theatre company that operates on the borderline of artforms. Bzdyl describes his evolution as a dancer, how he started the company with Katarzyna Chmielewska, how Dada’s plays are developed, and his artistic influences, including Jerzy Grotowski. He also assesses the contemporary Polish dance and alternative theatre scenes.

Dames At Sea, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2014 Summer Theatre

When talented young hopeful Ruby arrives in New York City with nothing but a pair of tap shoes in her suitcase, she is determined to break into show business. She stumbles into the cast of troubled show “Dames at Sea”, in which broke and pessimistic producer Hennesey is terrorized by Mona Kent, the aggressive, seductive, and surprisingly shady leading lady. Dames at Sea is a light, bright, and hilariously tuneful homage to the glamorous and hopeful movie musicals of the 1930s. https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/2374/dames-at-sea

The 39 Steps, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2014 Summer Theatre

Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have the intriguing, thrilling, riotous and unmissable comedy. The show hurtles a notorious fugitive and a spellbound blonde from a London music hall north by northwest to Scotland’s most remote highlands. Will they save Britain from a den of devious spies? A cast of four actors plays over 150 characters in this fast-paced tale of an ordinary man on an extraordinarily entertaining adventure. The 39 Steps contains every single legendary scene from the award-winning movie — including the chase on the Flying Scotsman, …

Daily Border Crossings: Negotiations Of Gender, Body And Subjectivity In The Lives Of Women Workers In Urban Malls., Rachana Johri Dr., Krishna Menon Dr.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The last two decades have seen the emergence of not just new markets but new market spaces that provide a visual experience of products and persons that closely approximates the field set up by the global media. Malls represent the concrete representations of unabashed celebration and acknowledgment of desire. Malls are one of the spaces that shape everyday lives suggesting the rightfulness of fulfilling sexual, cultural, social and gastronomic desires. One ‘category’ of persons presumably shaped by these spaces are those who work in them. Our concern is particularly with the negotiation of body and subjectivity as women travel daily, …

The Fantasticks, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2014 Summer Theatre

Whimsical, poignant, and romantic, The Fantasticks is an allegorical story that focuses on two young lovers, their meddling fathers, and the journey we all must take through adolescent thrills, the growing pains of hurt and betrayal, the highs of passion, the challenges of distance, and the agonies of heartbreak to discover how to truly love. The Fantasticks is a gem of the American musical theatre. Featuring timeless classics like “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” this simple and beautiful ensemble piece is as beloved and as timely as it was when it opened over 50 years ago. https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1377/the-fantasticks

Cologne Carnival's "Alternative" Stunksitzung: Carnivalization? Meta-Carnival? Or Bakhtinian Restoration?, Erik Abbott

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the 1820s, Carnival in Cologne, Germany, underwent a series of reforms, ostensibly to bring the festival back to the people. Among the traditions that developed was the Sitzung, a theatrical variety-show event, with music, comic speeches and sketches, dance troupes, and various additional Carnival-related entertainments. The shows, and Carnival itself were, and largely have been since that time, mostly overseen by a Festival Committee and the official Carnival Societies it recognizes.

In 1984, a group of mostly students decided to create their own version of a Sitzung, an alternative version, the Stunksitzung. From three inaugural performances, it has grown …

Humble Me: Increasing Awareness Of Ethnocentrism And Of The Need For Ethnorelativism Through A Spoken Word Performance Event, Corinne H. Sherman

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Roth's Graveyards, Narrative Desire, And "Professional Competition With Death", Debra Shostak

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Roth's Graveyards, Narrative Desire, and 'Professional Competition with Death'" Debra Shostak analyzes Philip Roth's 1954 short story "The Day It Snowed" and surveys a range of his books. Shostak offers a reading of Sabbath's Theater and Everyman to explore Roth's fictional forms and his conception of storytelling, elucidates how the traumatic knowledge of death at graveside initiates the psychoanalytic process of repression, repetition, remembering, and telling, and uncovers several motifs or formal strategies that appear when Roth deploys cemetery scenes: the linear plotting toward death is often embraced within circular narrative structures; the voice of the mother, …

Reverse Anti-Semitism In The Fiction Of Bellow And Roth, Jay L. Halio

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Reverse Anti-Semitism in the Fiction of Bellow and Roth" Jay L. Halio discusses anti-Semitism in Philip Roth's fiction that what might be called reverse anti-Semitism: the active reaction by Jews who are subjected to anti-Semitism. This aspect of Roth's work is not often discussed: it is not the same as philo-Semitism, which takes a different form entirely. Since Roth was an admirer of Saul Bellow, Halio begins by considering reverse anti-Semitism in Bellow's early novel The Victim. In the novel the protagonist, Asa Leventhal, is accused by a character named Allbee of costing him his job …

Roth’S Humorous Art Of Ghost Writing, Paule Levy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Roth's Humorous Art of Ghost Writing" Paule Lévy analyses Philip Roth's Exit Ghost, the last novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman, in which Roth reassesses his favorite alter ego's itinerary while exploring the troubled relation between writing and aging. Lévy considers Exit Ghost as an ironic sequel to The Ghost Writer and posits that in the light of Derrida's theories of writing and "hauntology" the central motifs of ghosts and "spectrality" in the novel are a means for Roth to reflect anew on the ambiguous relation between autobiography and fiction. Lévy asks whether Exit Ghost should be …

Jewish History, Us-American Fictions, And "Soul-Battering" In Roth's "Conversion Of The Jews", Sandor Goodhart

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Jewish History, US-American Fictions, and 'Soul-Battering' in Roth's 'Conversion of the Jews'" Sandor Goodhart discusses Philip Roth's story in which an innocent question raised in a Hebrew school discussion in the early 1950s gets wildly out of control. It leads the student into a screaming fight with his Rabbi, which propels the child into a confrontation with his mother, which in turn leads to a second violent confrontation with the Rabbi (who ends up slapping the child), and the episode culminates in a rooftop exchange over the synagogue where the boy’s thought of escape is suddenly converted …

European Literary Tradition In Roth's Kepesh Trilogy, Gustavo Sánchez-Canales

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

in his article "European Literary Tradition in Roth's Kepesh Trilogy" Gustavo Sánchez-Canales discusses the significance of European literature in Philip Roth's novels. Sánchez-Canales analyses the influence of Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose" and Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" on Roth's The Breast and in Roth's The Professor of Desire of Anton Chekhov's tales and Franz Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" and The Castle. Further, Sánchez-Canales elaborates on the impact of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and W.B. Yeats's poem "Sailing to Byzantium" on Roth's The Dying Animal.