Comparative Literature Commons^™

Derrida In Mesopotamia: On The Import Of The Cuneiform Inscriptions In Of Grammatology, Will Greenshields

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Cuneiform writing has a small but privileged position in Derrida’s Of Grammatology – providing the text with its first two epigraphs. By elucidating the source and import of these inscriptions and evaluating Derrida’s understanding of the cuneiform writing system in reference to more recent grammatological studies, this paper explains the significance of these references to the ancient Near East for Derrida’s arguments regarding the origins of Western metaphysics and logocentrism. In the first part, I analyze Derrida’s brief paragraph on cuneiform writing in Of Grammatology as evincing a “fundamental synaesthesia” of phonetic and non-phonetic elements that problematizes the phonocentric definition …

Race And Nation In Three Canonic Texts Of Puerto Rican Literature: Luis Palés Matos’S Tom-Tom Of Kinky Hair And Black Things, José Luis González’S La Llegada, And Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’S Cortijo’S Wake, Luis R. Galanes

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this essay we propose a critical reading of three politically-charged canonic texts of Puerto Rican literature that uphold and vindicate an African heritage for Puerto Rican culture, highlighting their role in moving discussions about blackness at the center stage of debates about national identity and culture, and assessing their contribution to the emergence and development of an Afro-Puerto Rican identity and literature. These texts are: Luis Palés Matos’s Tom-Tom of Kinky Hair and Black Things, José Luis González’s La llegada; and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’s Cortijo’s Wake. Moreover, a debate about the racial background of the authors …

Haunting Pasts, Cancelled Futures: Polish And Argentinian Experiences Of Postdependency, Ewa Kobyłecka-Piwońska

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The aim of this article is to compare Polish and Argentinian experience of democratic transitions of the 1980s and 1990s. Establishing new political and economic orders in both countries did not entail a change in their citizens’ post-dependent mentality. In the first part of the paper, a connection is drawn between Polish and Argentinian collective memories in line with the methodology of transcultural memory studies (Erll, Rothberg). The post-dependent condition is articulated twofold: through the remembrance of the disappearance (of the Jews, the victims of the Argentina’s state terrorism, the indigenous peoples), and through the confusion in grasping the sense …

The Extraction Unconscious: Solar-Powered Utopias In Catching The Sun (2015) And In The Name Of Lithium (2021), Isidora Cortés-Monroy

Critical Humanities

By comparing the depictions of future energy regimes in the two ecodocumentaries, Catching the Sun (2015) and In the Name of Lithium (2021), this article explores representations of post-carbon futures from the US and Argentina. Read closely alongside Frederic Jameson’s notions of utopias, the article delineates the extent to which a solar powered future challenges and reiterates current neocolonial extractivist structures. Basing myself on Patricia Yaeger’s concept of an “energy unconscious,” I argue that these solar utopias maintain an “extraction unconscious” that continues to produce sacrifice zones where primary commodities needed for the energy transition can be found. By analysing …

Paradise Lost Thrice: Exile And The Abrahamic Religions In Aciman, Werfel, And Ashour, Malak K. Hosny

Theses and Dissertations

Exile is an integral part of the history of all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This thesis compares between literary narratives of the exile of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It explores the notion that having been exiled from Eden with the fall of Adam and Eve, and having each religion’s prophet’s story intrinsically tied with exile, the believers’ exile is then the third in a layered cycle of exile. Having lost the paradise, believers tend to search for earthly paradises that they attach themselves to, and then tragically lose those as well. The thesis’ three primary literary texts …

Narrativas Y Convergencias Transdisciplinarias: Contribuciones Académicas Relevantes, Desafíos Y Horizonte Editorial, Cristo Leon Ph.D.

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

La Revista de Estudios sobre Juegos de Rol y STEAM (JRPSSTEAM) se ha consolidado como un espacio transdisciplinario, multilingüe y de acceso abierto que articula investigación, práctica y comunidad en torno a los juegos de rol. En esta editorial, se reflexiona sobre los aprendizajes y patrones emergentes de los tres volúmenes y cinco números publicados hasta la fecha, abordando tanto aciertos como áreas de mejora. Se ofrecen lineamientos prácticos para autores potenciales, destacando errores comunes, criterios de relevancia temática y aspectos que enriquecen la comunicación entre disciplinas. Además, se revaloriza el carácter abierto e inclusivo del JRPSSTEAM, que acoge desde …

Interaction Entre Le Langage Et La Narration Dans Les Égarements Du Cœur Et De L’Esprit De Crébillon Fils, Manel Rebhi

Dirassat

The interaction between literature and linguistics must be thought of as permanent round trips: on the one hand linguistics can be useful for the study of literary texts; on the other hand, literature is itself likely to give a subject, a very rich field of investigation to linguistics. We will focus on analyzing some theories of linguistic enunciation applied to the Misguidances of the heart and mind of Crébillonfils, a memoir-novel published in 1736. Our goal was only to highlight the literarity or the poetics of the Crebillonian text through certain constants of the speech act common to the characters …

“Re-Storying” Anne Shirley And The Adhd Child: A Crip Genealogy Of Anne Of Green Gables, Darian Aleyna Wilson

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the contested nature of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), focusing on its cultural and historical constructions. While ADHD has been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders since 1980, its legitimacy remains a subject of debate across medical, disability studies, and historical scholarship. Using Eli Clare’s critique of diagnosis as a tool rather than a fact, this project examines how ADHD is both pathologized and re-storied within societal and medical discourses. It highlights the tension between medical classifications and lived experiences of those diagnosed with ADHD, particularly in the context of girlhood.

The central …

Earth As Archive: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Possibility And Understanding, Alissa Petrizzo

Honors College Theses

This thesis takes the reader on a journey through the process of literary analysis to uncover new considerations of our past, present, and future. Living in the climate crisis, we are in dire need of the humanistic presence within solution-making conversations. I introduce scholarly voices from anthropologists, environmental scientists, and novelists before diving into Pitchaya Sudbanthad's novel Bangkok Wakes to Rain. While you hear my voice throughout the journey, I exist more so as a tour guide, helping you along the way to new possibilities of understanding. We dig up and analyze evidence of the Earth as an archive …

Translation And Migration, Utopia And Dystopia: Representations Of The Labor Of Cultural Mediation In Fictional Eastern Europe And The Real Us-Mexico Border, James L. Richie Iv

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

With the publication of Moira Inghilleri’s book, Translation and Migration (2017), the linguistic act of translation and the social phenomenon of migration have been linked in the world of interdisciplinary studies, yet this linkage may obscure the relevance of works in which only one phenomenon (translation or migration) is presented. A case study in which a work exploring migration can be contrasted with a work exploring the function of translation may reveal in one another the social forces that condition both practices. In Lucas Pope’s independently created video game Papers Please (2014), the player embodies a border patrol agent in …

Etude De La Bruyère Et De Youssouf Amine Elalamy : Peindre Les Mœurs D’Une Société, Fatima_Zahrae El Moatacime

Dirassat

Writer of several works of short form, Youssouf Amine Elalamy has a work written in Moroccan Arabic تقرقيب الناب which literally means chatter. This work depicts individuals in portraits inspired by Moroccan society. Like the famous classical philosopher La Bruyère, Elalamy depicts society in various fragments, devoted to different human types. تقرقيب الناب has countless points in common with The Characters. In Elalamy work, like La Bruyère, each portrait is introduced by the first name of the character described. Except that with Elalamy we are dealing with double portraits, he builds them in diptychs. The writer adds to the …

Casar Student Discussion Series #7: Censored Classrooms - Should Parents And Community Members Have A Say In Restricting Certain Books In Schools, Based On Factors Such As Religion, Age Appropriateness, And More?, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

Every semester, CASAR AUC holds miscellaneous student debates discussing the hot controversial topics in the US, Egypt and from around the world in hopes of raising awareness about these topics & broadening the perspectives of our students as they learn to engage in fruitful discussions as they share different opinion on the topic being deliberated.

On April 10th 2025, at this CASAR Student Discussion event #7 in light of the current book bans in the US happening from Trump's administration, we debated this question: 'Censored classrooms: Should parents and community members have a say in restricting certain books in schools …

Analyzing The Impact Of Societal Perceptions Of Honor On Women's Involvement In The 1919 Revolution And The 2011 Revolution: A Comparative Study, Haya Shalaby

The Undergraduate Research Journal

Women have always been a part of the political sphere, visibly so or not. It was when they started getting more seen in the streets and protests that issues began to rise. The main factor behind that is honor, a complicated and multilayered subject, especially in the Middle East. The way it has been defined, at every point in time, relies on political and religious motives, with the ultimate goal of restricting and controlling the lives of women and their involvement in powerful, fundamental changes. Society perceives honor through its relation to biased religious perceptions, therefore, we find that public …

Laina Farhat-Holzman: Distinguished Iscsc Author, Incisive Thinker, Fearless Commentator, Innovative Leader, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is a sad duty to report that a luminary who was long associated with this journal and with the leadership of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, has died.

Literary Executor Of The Estate Of Christopher Dawson, Julian Scott

Comparative Civilizations Review

Christopher Dawson was a historian of religion and culture who wrote and lectured in England and America between the 1920s and his death in 1970. The author of this review, Dawson’s grandson and literary executor, argues not only that Dawson is very interesting to read as a historian, but also that many of his insights and proposals — such as his writing on European unity, nationalism, the consequences of a secularized culture and the conflict between humane individualism and state totalitarianism — remain highly relevant today. This article highlights some of Dawson’s most interesting and insightful ideas and aims to …

Ccr Style Guide For Submitted Manuscripts, Carolyn Carpentieri Potter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.