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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You
Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
As an emerging literary subgenre in the twenty-first century, Children’s Gothic challenges and blends the norms of both children’s literature and Gothic literature, featuring child characters’ self-empowerment in the face of fears and dark impulses. The foreignness and strangeness that pertain to the genre haunt the border of its translatability. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999–2006), written under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, poses a chain of translational challenges due to its linguistic creativity, paratextual art, and mixed style of horror and dark humor intended for a child readership. To investigate the interplay between Children’s Gothic and its (un)translatability …
Trauma, History, And Terror In The Poetry Of Yusef Komunyakaa And Sinan Antoon, Reema Binghadeer
Trauma, History, And Terror In The Poetry Of Yusef Komunyakaa And Sinan Antoon, Reema Binghadeer
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her comparative study “Trauma, History, and Terror in the Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa and Sinan Antoon,” Reema Binghadeer considers the work of the African American poet Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1941) and the (Arab) Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon (b. 1967) through the lens of trauma theory of some notable theorists including; Freud, Cathy Caruth, Jean Laplanche, Roger Luckhurst, and Shoshana Felman—have negotiated in this field. The article explores the literary manifestations of trauma in two distinct historical periods and geographical settings to show the specificities of each prototype and how the historical-cultural significance and textual meanings of trauma have intertwined …
The Hope Of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew, Yael Dekel, Eran Tzelgov
The Hope Of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew, Yael Dekel, Eran Tzelgov
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
Israeli poetry can be depicted as a triangle composed of three elements: territory (the State of Israel); language (Hebrew); and identity (Jewish). In his Hebrew collection of poetry Eḥad Mikan (in place, 2004), Salman Masalha—a bilingual author publishing in both Arabic and Hebrew—challenges this interrelation of territory, language and identity. The debate between the literary scholars Hannan Hever and Reuven Snir explore the central expressions of this challenge. For it points, on the one hand, to the subversive potential of such work towards the Israeli canon while, on the other hand, to its connection to Arabic literature. Writing in the …
Queering Identity Politics In Shimon Adaf’S Aviva-No, Yael Segalovitz
Queering Identity Politics In Shimon Adaf’S Aviva-No, Yael Segalovitz
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
This article offers a queer reading of Shimon Adaf’s volume of poetry, Aviva-No (2009), analyzing it in conjunction with his recent collection of essays on identity formation, Ani aherim (I am others) (2018). Adaf’s oeuvre has been primarily studied through the lens of ethnicity and race. This article demonstrates that gender plays a key role in his body of work. Aviva-No, which is a lamentation for the poet’s sister, destabilizes the boundaries between the mourning brother and the absent sister. This ontological deconstruction stimulates in Aviva-No a broader undoing of gender as an embodied identity. The volume is replete …
Mo Yan’S Radish: Between The Real And The Surreal, Xiaoyue Li, Xuefang Feng
Mo Yan’S Radish: Between The Real And The Surreal, Xiaoyue Li, Xuefang Feng
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In their article “Mo Yan’s Radish: Between the Real and the Surreal” Xiaoyue Li and Xuefang Feng argue that Radish, a novella written by Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan skillfully combines realism with surrealism, the flexible swing between which is made possible by the choice of children’s perspective, and the effect is too significant to be ignored. Their analysis concludes that the transparent golden radish symbolizes humanity, the lack of which projects the protagonist’ sufferings, and that the surrealist description of the radish reveals the magic function of humanity in brightening up life in times of miseries.
The Disenchantment Of History And The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Postmodernity, Alberto Castelli
The Disenchantment Of History And The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Postmodernity, Alberto Castelli
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
Magic Realism brings fantastic events into the frame of the narration. Yet it cannot quite be defined. At the very start of the process of definition, there is a question: Magic Realism is a mode of narration, or rather a post-colonial movement rising sociological issues alternative to the logic of power? The paper parallels and juxtaposes Latin American Magic Realism and the literary experience of Chinese literary Avant-garde in the 80s, similar apocalyptic thematic, but different narrative structures. Relating to the fictional universe of Can Xue and Yu Hua, the aim is to illuminate an exclusive mode to narrate history: …
Agency And Political Engagement In Gide And Barrault's Post-War Theatrical Adaptation Of Kafka's The Trial, Yevgenya Strakovsky
Agency And Political Engagement In Gide And Barrault's Post-War Theatrical Adaptation Of Kafka's The Trial, Yevgenya Strakovsky
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article, "Agency and Political Engagement in Gide and Barrault's Post-war Theatrical Adaptation of Kafka's The Trial" Yevgenya Strakovsky considers the political themes of André Gide and Jean-Louis Barrault's Le Procès (The Trial, 1947), the first theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka's Der Prozess (The Trial, 1914). Strakovsky demonstrates that Le Procès, written and staged in the immediate aftermath of World War II, levels a critique against the passive complicity of citizens in unjust persecution in both its script and its staging. The paper also considers the elements of Kafka's prose that lend themselves to …
Metamodernism In Liksom’S Compartment No. 6, Kasimir Sandbacka
Metamodernism In Liksom’S Compartment No. 6, Kasimir Sandbacka
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his paper "Metamodernism in Liksom's Compartment no. 6" Kasimir Sandbacka examines Rosa Liksom's latest novel Compartment No. 6 (2011). Liksom is considered to be one of the most prominent Finnish postmodernists. However, Compartment No. 6 has been seen by critics as a shift or return towards modernism or even realism. Sandbacka concurs with this observation but maintains that this is an insufficient analysis of the change in Liksom's writing. He argues that the change is related to the transformation of the cultural dominant, namely postmodernism. In dialogue with Jameson's theory of postmodernism, Sandbacka discusses recent theories of post-postmodernism and …
The Impact Of Burroughs's Naked Lunch On Chester's The Exquisite Corpse, Jaap Van Der Bent
The Impact Of Burroughs's Naked Lunch On Chester's The Exquisite Corpse, Jaap Van Der Bent
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "The Impact of Burroughs's Naked Lunch on Chester's The Exquisite Corpse" Jaap van der Bent posits that although Alfred Chester was critical of most Beat writing, in Tangier in the early 1960s he associated not only with Paul Bowles, but also with William S. Burroughs. Van der Bent argues that The Exquisite Corpse, the experimental novel Chester wrote in Tangier, shows the influence of the city's geography and especially the content and form of Burroughs's Naked Lunch.
Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions In The Yage Letters, Melanie Keomany
Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions In The Yage Letters, Melanie Keomany
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters" Melanie Keomany discusses the contents of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg's The Yage Letters which could be dismissed as openly bigoted and racist. Keomany posits that the text reveals valuable connections between the colonial expansion of the eighteenth century and 1950s USA and Latin America. By re-shaping Burroughs's lived experiences in the Amazon into a text where the narrator William Lee mimics sardonically and parodically the colonial scientific explorer, The Yage Letters provides valuable insight into the complex postcolonial context of the mid-twentieth century.
Politics Of Feminist Revision In Di Prima's Loba, Polina Mackay
Politics Of Feminist Revision In Di Prima's Loba, Polina Mackay
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Politics of Feminist Revision in di Prima's Loba" Polina Mackay explores Diane di Prima's two-volume epic Loba (1998) and, through a comparison of di Prima to the work of Adrienne Rich, argues that Loba practices a politics of feminist revision. Further, Mackay examines the ways in which di Prima starts to move away from the recovery project of female voices in patriarchal culture, associated with late twentieth-century Feminism, towards a women's literature which need not be defined entirely through its resistance to patriarchal narratives of gender in men's literature. Here it focuses on di Prima's revisionist …
Burroughs As A Political Writer?, Alexander Greiffenstern
Burroughs As A Political Writer?, Alexander Greiffenstern
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Burroughs as a Political Writer?" Alexander Greiffenstern discusses political elements in William S. Burroughs's work. Greiffenstern looks at Burroughs's text "The Coming of the Purple Better One" written for Esquire about the Democratic National Convention in Chicago 1968. By writing a surprisingly personal text, Burroughs might have captured something about the significance of the convention that many later historical accounts miss. In the end, Burroughs leaves the critical reader no other choice than to attempt a historical and political analysis.
Minor Transnational Writing In Ireland, Borbála Faragó
Minor Transnational Writing In Ireland, Borbála Faragó
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Minor Transnational Writing in Ireland" Borbála Faragó investigates the poetic work of some of Ireland's migrant writers through the lens of minor transnationalism. Ireland's peculiar migration history where there are two quite distinct groups of inward migrants, requires careful rethinking of terminology. Faragó proposes to circumnavigate the binary approach of investigating center versus periphery and instead look for lateral connections between marginalized groups. Reading the works of Ireland's internal others brings to the fore issues of authenticity, ethics, and identity that can foreground some of the ambiguities inherent in transnational studies today. Interpreting the oeuvre of these …
Young People's Literature Of Algerian Immigration In France, Anne Schneider
Young People's Literature Of Algerian Immigration In France, Anne Schneider
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Young People's Literature of Algerian Immigration in France" Anne Schneider discusses questions of language, hybridity, and heritage in some works for young people published in France about Algeria and/or Algerian-French identity, by Leïla Sebbar, Jean-Paul Nozière, Azouz Begag, and Michel Piquemal. She argues for the need for an intercultural education at primary school that uses literature about immigration to highlight questions of place, belonging, exile and language. Schneider's focus is on Begag's Un train pour chez nous (2001) and Piquemal's Mon miel, ma douceur (2004). These texts use linguistic hybridity and an emphasis on common human experiences …
About The Concept Of "Gnosticism" In Fiction Studies, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski
About The Concept Of "Gnosticism" In Fiction Studies, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
I In his article "About the Concept of 'Gnosticism' in Fiction Studies" Fryderyk Kwiatkowski notices that in the twentieth-century humanities the concept of Gnosticism has become a popular term for labelling tendencies in modernity and postmodernity. Kwiatkowski argues that the majority of scholars in fiction studies base their research on outdated methodologies. In consequence, Kwiatkowski presents an overview of contemporary approaches in Gnostic studies and discusses how they can be adapted in studies of literature, film, video games, comic books, etc. By outlining advantages and disadvantages of methodological approaches, Kwiatkowski posits that in studies of fiction with Gnostic components it …
Audience Response And From Film Adaptation To Reading Literature, Klaudia H.Y. Lee
Audience Response And From Film Adaptation To Reading Literature, Klaudia H.Y. Lee
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Audience Response and from Film Adaptation to Reading Literature" Klaudia H.Y. Lee analyses results from 3000-plus interview conducted across university campuses in Hong Kong in order to investigate the roles of screen adaptations and their intertextual relationship for developing students' critical textual practice. Lee combines reader-response theory (Iser and Rosenblatt) with empirical data to explore students' actual encounters and experience with texts. While the data suggests an influence of screen adaptations on students' choice and motivation of reading, this interest can potentially be developed into a critical awareness of the various intertextual possibilities that exist in different …
Perspectives Of Ethical Identity In Ng's Steer Toward Rock And Jen's Mona In The Promised Land, Hui Su
Perspectives Of Ethical Identity In Ng's Steer Toward Rock And Jen's Mona In The Promised Land, Hui Su
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Perspectives of Ethical Identity in Ng's Steer toward Rock and Jen's Mona in the Promised Land" Hui Su examines Fae Myenne Ng's and Gish Jen's novels. In the novels, the protagonists make different decisions: in Steer Toward Rock Jack after displacement in China adopts US-American identity and in Mona in the Promised Land Mona, a second generation Chinese American, selects Jewish identity. Owing to their different situations, the two protagonists reflect challenges of identity building in the case of the "Other" in US-American culture and society. Su argues that Ng and Jen, although varying in their …
Hesse's Steppenwolf As Modern Ethical Fiction, Michał Koza
Hesse's Steppenwolf As Modern Ethical Fiction, Michał Koza
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Hesse's Steppenwolf as Modern Ethical Fiction" Michał Koza discusses the significance of "ethical fiction" in modern literature. Such fiction, according to Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, are not only milestones of ethical thinking, but more importantly offer a narrative for self-creation as an ethical subject. Harry Haller, the protagonist of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, is a man living on the border of modern subjectivity embodying a cultural and existential crisis. Koza argues that "ethical reading" enables one to see the relation between philosophy and literature that not only enter in a dialogue with each other, but also share …
Time Distortion In Bierce's "One Of The Missing" And Uroshevic's "Ракописот Од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript From Kitab-An"), Kalina Maleska
Time Distortion In Bierce's "One Of The Missing" And Uroshevic's "Ракописот Од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript From Kitab-An"), Kalina Maleska
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Time Distortion in Bierce's 'One of the Missing' and Uroshevic's 'Ракописот од Китаб-Ан' ('The Manuscript from Kitab-An')" Kalina Maleska examines the relationship between literature and astronomy in the context of time. The two stories share several common elements: they explore the possible manipulations of time in unexpected and extraordinary ways and come close to certain scientific explorations of time. For "One of the Missing," Albert Einstein's theory of relativity provides an interesting foundation for understanding Bierce's treatment of time. For The Manuscript of Kitab-An, the speculations of time travel starting from the Einstein-Rosen concept of the black …
Variation Theory And The Reception Of Chinese Literature In The English-Speaking World, Shunqing Cao
Variation Theory And The Reception Of Chinese Literature In The English-Speaking World, Shunqing Cao
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Variation Theory and Reception of Chinese Literature in the English-Speaking World" Shunqing Cao introduces "variation theory" he developed and suggests that the framework can be applied in studying the dissemination and reception of Chinese literature in the English-speaking world. Cao argues that cultural and literary differences produce variations in literary exchanges among different cultures and variation theory concentrates on these variations. With unique perspectives on variation in translation, cultural misreading, and domestication, variation theory is a useful theoretical framework and methodology for the study of the reception of Chinese literature in the English-speaking world.
Electronic Literature And The Effects Of Cyberspace On The Body, Maya Zalbidea, Xiana Sotelo
Electronic Literature And The Effects Of Cyberspace On The Body, Maya Zalbidea, Xiana Sotelo
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In their article "Electronic Literature and the Effects of Cyberspace on the Body" Maya Zalbidea and Xiana Sotelo discuss how new technologies are facilitating the emancipation of subjugated subjects aimed at transforming unequal social relations through an intersectional and performative approach. This perspective is discussed through the exploration of the so-called intersectional approach described by Berger and Guidroz, Haraway's situated knowledges, and Butler's performative agency based on transgressions. Framed within the posthuman, post-biological deconstruction of social and cultural hierarchies, Zalbidea and Sotelo argue for the value of a conjuncture between postcolonial post-modern/post-structuralist literature and the field of feminist cultural studies. …
Intermedial Strategies Of Memory In Contemporary Novels, Sara Tanderup
Intermedial Strategies Of Memory In Contemporary Novels, Sara Tanderup
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Intermedial Strategies and Memory in Contemporary Novels" Sara Tanderup discusses a tendency in contemporary literature towards combining intermedial experiments with a thematic preoccupation with memory and trauma. Analyzing selected works by Steven Hall, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Judd Morrissey and drawing on the theoretical perspectives of N. Katherine Hayles (media studies) and Andreas Huyssen (cultural memory studies), Tanderup argues that recent intermedial novels reflect a certain nostalgia celebrating and remembering the book as a visual and material object in the age of digital media while also highlighting the influence of new media on our cultural understanding and …
New Challenges For The Archiving Of Digital Writing, Heiko Zimmermann
New Challenges For The Archiving Of Digital Writing, Heiko Zimmermann
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing" Heiko Zimmermann discusses the challenges of the preservation of digital texts. In addition to the problems already at the focus of attention of digital archivists, there are elements in digital literature which need to be taken into consideration when trying to archive them. Zimmermann analyses two works of digital literature, the collaborative writing project A Million Penguins (2006-2007) and Renée Tuner's She… (2008) and shows how the ontology of these texts is bound to elements of performance, to direct social interaction of writers and readers to the uniquely subjective …
Literature And Science In Nineteenth-Century Realist Novels: A Book Review Article About Ambrière's And Bender's Work, Anne-Marie Reboul
Literature And Science In Nineteenth-Century Realist Novels: A Book Review Article About Ambrière's And Bender's Work, Anne-Marie Reboul
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Roth’S Humorous Art Of Ghost Writing, Paule Levy
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 …
Philip Roth, Henry Roth And The History Of The Jews, Timothy Parrish
Philip Roth, Henry Roth And The History Of The Jews, Timothy Parrish
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Philip Roth, Henry Roth and the History of the Jews" Timothy Parrish argues that while Roth's status as a Jewish American writer has been a pressing issue since his career began and that while in recent scholarship Roth's achievement as a US-American writer is stressed, the durability of Roth's work depends more on its implied submission to a Jewish tradition. From "The Conversion of the Jews" (1959) to Nemesis (2010), his characters challenge endlessly the ethical and moral constructs of their Jewish community to acknowledge the fact that they exist inside of it. One might choose any …