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China Question Of Us-American Imagism, Qingben Li Dec 2020

China Question Of Us-American Imagism, Qingben Li

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper investigates first the influences of ancient Chinese culture on Ezra Pound, and then Pound’s influence on the New Culture Movement of modern China (1917). It is a kind of circular journey of literary texts and theories from ancient China to the West and then back to China. This journey, or “circle model,” involves textual appropriation, variation, transformation and misunderstanding in every stage.


China Question Of Western Postcolonial Translation Theory, Zhijie Wu, Yuping Wang Dec 2020

China Question Of Western Postcolonial Translation Theory, Zhijie Wu, Yuping Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

“China Question of Western Postcolonial Translation Theory” deals with how western postcolonial translation theory is read, interpreted and applied in China, as well as how the reception in China influences revision and development of the theory. Western postcolonial translation theory, though frequently quoted and highly influential in China, is sometimes incapable of effectively explaining Chinese translation practice and convincing Chinese readers. Based on the analysis of the encounter between postcolonial translation theory and China, three suggestions are proposed to revise translation theory so as to build a “greener,” healthier hetero-generative ecology of languages and cultures.


The Question Of Nation And Nationalism In Chinese Postcolonialism, Yuyu Wu Dec 2020

The Question Of Nation And Nationalism In Chinese Postcolonialism, Yuyu Wu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the impact of postcolonial theory in China on the question of the nation from historical and genealogical perspectives. China first encountered Jameson’s third-world national allegory and Edward Said’s Orientalism, which were quickly assimilated into the framework of the China/West dichotomy. Then Homi Bhabha’s ideas of national identity and cultural hybridity were utilized in studying Chinese ethnic minorities and identity construction. From the earlier views of postcolonialism as cultural resistance to cultural production now, Chinese postcolonial studies have acquired new energy for growth.


Why I Write In Yiddish, Karen Alkalay-Gut Apr 2020

Why I Write In Yiddish, Karen Alkalay-Gut

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.


A Hebrew Poet Writes In English About The Holocaust, Avraham Balaban Apr 2020

A Hebrew Poet Writes In English About The Holocaust, Avraham Balaban

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.


The Hope Of Salman Masalha: Re-Territorializing Hebrew, Yael Dekel, Eran Tzelgov Apr 2020

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 …


“The Poem Is What Lies Between A Between”: Mahmoud Darwish And The Prosody Of Displacement, Ayelet Even-Nur Apr 2020

“The Poem Is What Lies Between A Between”: Mahmoud Darwish And The Prosody Of Displacement, Ayelet Even-Nur

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish grew up in Israel as an internal refugee living under Israeli military rule, legally classified as a “present-absentee alien.” This article focuses on his 1995 volume of poetry, Limādhā tarakta al-ḥiṣān waḥīdan? (Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?), to study the manner in which Darwish’s cultivation of the musical and aural aspects of poetry serves as a means of poetically attending to the effects of dispossession and displacement. Through a discussion of the poems in the collection’s fourth section, Ghurfa l’il kalām maʿ al-nafs (A Room to Talk to Oneself …


Queering Identity Politics In Shimon Adaf’S Aviva-No, Yael Segalovitz Apr 2020

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 …


Life Is A Story: Narrative And Identity In The War Poetry Of Dan Pagis And Charles Simic, Chanita Goodblatt Apr 2020

Life Is A Story: Narrative And Identity In The War Poetry Of Dan Pagis And Charles Simic, Chanita Goodblatt

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The use of the conceptual metaphor of “life is a story” can be conceived as reciprocally or bidirectionally transforming both life and story. Thus this metaphor structures life into a coherent narrative—with a linear, and causally-related, progression of events and relationships—while also realizing the varied interpretive potentials of “a story as life.” Such aspects of this metaphor are essential to understanding how the two poets, the Israeli Dan Pagis and the American Charles Simic, shape their identities not only as the poetic speaker or the “I” of poetry but also as that of a storyteller. The lives of both these …


"A Generation Of Wonderful Jews Will Grow From The Land": The Desire For Nativeness In Hebrew Israeli Poetry, Hamutal Tsamir Apr 2020

"A Generation Of Wonderful Jews Will Grow From The Land": The Desire For Nativeness In Hebrew Israeli Poetry, Hamutal Tsamir

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article examines the ways in which the desire for nativeness is constructed in Israeli Hebrew poetry through several historical episodes: H. N. Bialik’s poem 1896 poem “In the Field”; the poets as pioneers/immigrants in the 1920s, in contrast to the “nativist” poet Esther Raab; and the “nativist” poets of the 1950s (Statehood Generation), focusing on Moshe Dor. The desire to be native—to belong to the land in a way that is natural, self-evident, and therefore absolute and unquestionable— is one of the constitutive desires of nationalism in general, and of Zionism in particular. In Bialik’s poem, written during the …


Introduction: Poetry In Israel: Forging Identity, Chanita Goodblatt Apr 2020

Introduction: Poetry In Israel: Forging Identity, Chanita Goodblatt

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The focus of this special issue is poetry—written in Israel during (and somewhat preceding) its Statehood—perceived as reflecting the worlds of poets in their personal, communal, ideological and poetic dimensions. This issue will focus on the ways in which poetry in Israel relates the stories, and expresses the positions, of individuals and groups who arrived from different countries (Europe, North Africa, Asia), lived through different experiences (the Holocaust, war, resettlement), and who express different cultures and religions (Jewish, Muslim).


Sewing Lives: Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein And The Global Garment Industry, Sarah Garland Feb 2020

Sewing Lives: Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein And The Global Garment Industry, Sarah Garland

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper takes Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and uses it as an extended metaphor to investigate the points of destructive alienation and disassociation within the globalized consumption of clothing. The promise of new clothing is a set of garments that function like Victor’s dream of creation; materials are stitched together to give objects that match our closest-held ideals. And yet, because of our quick Victor-Frankenstein-like alienation from these ‘fast fashion’ objects when they no longer please us, clothing becomes, like the monster, an abjected figure for waste and shame, moving around the globe destructively, created from the bodies of the poor …


Rethinking The Monstrous: Gender, Otherness, And Space In The Cinematic Storytelling Of Arrival And The Shape Of Water, Edward Chamberlain Feb 2020

Rethinking The Monstrous: Gender, Otherness, And Space In The Cinematic Storytelling Of Arrival And The Shape Of Water, Edward Chamberlain

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Through comparing the Hollywood films Arrival and The Shape of Water, this article explicates the films’ similar portrayals of gender, social collaboration, and monstrosity. Although the mainstream media in the United States has linked the idea of the monstrous to larger global forces, the two films suggest that “the monster” exists much closer to home. Hence, this article makes the case that monstrosity occurs in a variety of formulations such as the actions of national authorities like governmental officials that oppress and endanger a myriad of American citizens as well as newcomers. Further, this article makes the case that …


Making The Global Visible: Charting The Uneven Development Of Global Monsters In Bong Joon-Ho’S Okja And Nacho Vigalondo’S Colossal, Ju Young Jin Feb 2020

Making The Global Visible: Charting The Uneven Development Of Global Monsters In Bong Joon-Ho’S Okja And Nacho Vigalondo’S Colossal, Ju Young Jin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her essay, “Making the Global Visible: Charting the Uneven Development of Global Monsters in Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja and Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal,” Ju Young Jin examines the entanglement of the global and the monstrous in two recent films that position Korea on the cusp between Cold War politics and global capitalism: Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja and Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal. The Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho and Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo offer viewers films that challenge conventional notions of monster by fusing it with a coming-of-age plot of the female protagonist that takes place on a global scale, which contests the …


Monstrous Accumulation: Topographies Of Fear In An Era Of Globalization, Robert T. Tally Jr. Feb 2020

Monstrous Accumulation: Topographies Of Fear In An Era Of Globalization, Robert T. Tally Jr.

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The predominance of the horror genre, broadly conceived, in recent years attests to the profound sense of anxiety and dread permeating late capitalist societies. As the processes and effects of globalization become more viscerally experienced, they are also often rendered invisible or unknowable, and individuals and groups find themselves subject to an immense array of forces beyond their control. The contemporary scene is crowded with monsters, from alien invaders to the zombie apocalypse, set against the backdrop of darkly fantastic landscapes and dystopian visions. Drawing upon a variety of Marxist cultural theory, Robert T. Tally Jr. explores the topographies of …


Introduction To The Monstrous Global: The Effects Of Globalization On Cultures, Ju Young Jin, Jae Roe Feb 2020

Introduction To The Monstrous Global: The Effects Of Globalization On Cultures, Ju Young Jin, Jae Roe

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This special issue on “The Monstrous Global: The Effects of Globalization on Cultures” explores representations of the monstrous effects and products of globalization. The monstrous (as in The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed) in this sense alludes to the ways in which local or national displays of fear and anxiety about the Other are embedded in struggles and tensions of global scale; the inability to cognitively map the effect of such global forces on local/national problems produces monstrous representations of the global. Global forces such as neoliberalism and reactionary nationalism, technology, climate change, migration and displacement lead to accelerating instability …


A Deconstructive Reading Of Taoist Influenced Chinese And American Poetry, Hong Zeng Feb 2020

A Deconstructive Reading Of Taoist Influenced Chinese And American Poetry, Hong Zeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “A Deconstructive Reading of Taoist Influenced Chinese and American Poetry” Hong Zeng attempts to deconstruct the logos status of "Nature" in Chinese natural philosophy and explore the tragic potentiality of such philosophy and poetry under its influence. It also analyzes its aesthetic strategies used to overcome historical tragedy, and how such tragic potentiality in classical Chinese philosophy and poetry break out into the imagery of death and fragmentation in modern Chinese and American poetry under its influence, including poetry by such poets as Hai Zi, Gu Cheng, Robert Bly and Wallace Stevens, and how it sometimes leads …


Writing, Rewriting, And Miswriting: Eileen Chang’S Late Style Against The Grain, Lina Qu Feb 2020

Writing, Rewriting, And Miswriting: Eileen Chang’S Late Style Against The Grain, Lina Qu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Writing, Rewriting, and Miswriting: Eileen Chang’s Late Style Against the Grain,” Lina Qu reconstructs Eileen Chang as a Saidian late figure and formulates the poetics and politics of lateness immanent in her late self-writing. Drawing from Said’s theorization, Qu argues that Chang’s late style emerges and matures in rewriting her memories into numerous autobiographical accounts. The exposé of her dysfunctional family and turbulent life metonymically constitutes a counter narrative that disenchants Chinese modernity. In contrast to the dominant modalities of evolution and revolution, her involutionary discourse embodies a Deleuzian paradigm of artistic creativity and historical development. Qu …


Mo Yan’S Radish: Between The Real And The Surreal, Xiaoyue Li, Xuefang Feng Feb 2020

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.


Migrant Necropolitics At The Table: "Civilized Cannibalism" In Mahi Binebine's Cannibales, Taïeb Berrada Feb 2020

Migrant Necropolitics At The Table: "Civilized Cannibalism" In Mahi Binebine's Cannibales, Taïeb Berrada

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In Cannibales, the Maghrebi Francophone author Mahi Binebine revisits the encounter between the so-called “cannibals” and the European colonizer in the context of illegal immigration where bodies become commodities exchangeable for social improvements creating a different form of cannibalism. It is no longer the usual dichotomy between the civilized and the savage that is at work but rather a “civilized” European imperialist who feeds himself on a migrant’s flesh. This article argues that this representation works as a “colonial fragment” from the past but contextualized in today’s globalization. Binebine’s morbid depiction of an ambivalent postcolonial cannibalistic encounter translates as …


The Others (2001) By Alejandro Amenábar In The Light Of Valentinian Thought, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski Feb 2020

The Others (2001) By Alejandro Amenábar In The Light Of Valentinian Thought, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article offers a Valentinian interpretation of the Hollywood film The Others (2001). A particular attention is paid to the ways in which cinematic motifs and narrative elements of the film draw on myths, ideas and symbolic imagery present in Valentinian works, especially in the Gospel of Truth (NHC I, 3) and the Gospel of Philip (NHC II, 3). In the course of the heuristic analysis, the paper argues that although the film employs Valentinian ideas, it depicts different understanding of the world. This issue is addressed in the last part of the article by situating the film within broader …


Farmer, Priest, And Poet: Knowledge Transmission And Wisdom In Works And Days And Gelimu, Duoduo Xu Feb 2020

Farmer, Priest, And Poet: Knowledge Transmission And Wisdom In Works And Days And Gelimu, Duoduo Xu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper aims at a comparison between a classic poem from ancient Greek literature, the Works and Days by Hesiod, and ancestral records of hemerology from Daba Culture, entitled Gelimu, collected during my fieldwork in South-West China. Both traditions use constellations to mark important dates throughout the year, providing similar instructions on how to deal with daily work in the fields. Moreover, their mnemonic strategies and formulaic verses reflect their origins from oral traditions passed down from generation to generation. Starting from these basic similarities, the author analyzed the roles of Daba priests, the calendars authors, and Hesiod, the …


Revisiting "Home" In Ghanaian Poetry: Awoonor, Anyidoho And Adzei, Gabriel Edzordzi Agbozo Feb 2020

Revisiting "Home" In Ghanaian Poetry: Awoonor, Anyidoho And Adzei, Gabriel Edzordzi Agbozo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The idea of “home” is a significant occurrence in postcolonial literature, as it connects to other ideas as identity, nationhood, and culture. This paper discusses “home” in Ghanaian poetry focusing on three well-regarded poets: Kofi Awoonor, Kofi Anyidoho, and Mawuli Adzei. These poets come from the Ewe ethnic group, and engage with the Pan-African project in both their scholarly and creative expressions. Drawing on John Berger, Sara Dessen, and Ewe thought on the afterlife, this paper suggests two major types of “home” in the works of these three poets: the physical, and the metaphysical. Physical “home” refer to the Wheta …