Comparative Literature Commons^™

Divergence Between The Teachings And Practice Of Islam: A Civilizational Analysis Of Muslims In Indonesia, Hisanori Kato

Comparative Civilizations Review

Indonesia is a country of cultural as well as religious diversity. Even before the advent of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism were widespread in the region. Some think that Islam in Indonesia spread to the archipelago through interaction with local civilizations. Although Islam has become a majority religion in Indonesia today, long-standing local cultural traditions, ones that have existed throughout its recorded history, are often still maintained and practiced widely in Indonesia. These pre-Islamic traditions have a profound association with nature, and the people tend to appreciate animistic entities.

The Geographic Clash Of Civilizations?, Mojtaba Sadeghi

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Geographic Clash of Civilizations represents a significant geographic-civilizational reality and process, a phenomenon that has occurred and is expected to unfold increasingly in the third millennium. Understanding, analyzing, and forecasting this phenomenon relies solely on the geographic conceptualization of civilization. Through that perspective, the world is undergoing another instance of the geographic clash of civilizations, a clash more profound than the Clash of Civilizations, impacting the survival or collapse of human civilizations. The geographic clash of civilizations epitomizes an inescapable conflict between the soul (das-man) and the body (no-da-sein) of a civilization, stemming from …

Book Review: Arabia Felix: From The Time Of The Queen Of Sheba (Eighth Century B.C. To The First Century A. D.), Tseggai Isaac

Comparative Civilizations Review

Arabia Felix is a book about Sheba, “modern Yemen” with added highlights on the broader region of Arabia. The author gives an in-depth analysis on how Arabia captured the attention of ancient empires. Arabia also conducted rich trade with her contemporary civilizations such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Persians who “encountered caravans of aromatic products coming from South Arabia.”

The Dravidian And Āryan Migrations In Europe And India, Alexander Jacob

Comparative Civilizations Review

Much has been written about the relationship between the Indo-Āryans and the Dravidians. Debates have proliferated on the question of whether the Āryans invaded Dravidian India or whether they were indigenous to Dravida. If we consider the literary evidence of the ancient Indians we can inform a different view of the origins of Indian Brāhmanical religion and the historical relationship between the two major population groupings of India.

Book Review: Why War?, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Pay any attention to current events and it seems that war and conflict are everywhere: from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to the eruption of conflict in the Middle East in October 2023, to on-going geopolitical tensions in the Pacific over the status of Taiwan. It was only a decade or so ago that many were confidently predicting not only the decline but the outright end of war, as Steven Pinker boldly argued in his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of Emily Sun’S On The Horizon Of World Literature, Jing Yang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Chinese Ideas And American Politics: Confucius As A Guideline For Leadership, Alfred Hornung

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Chinese Ideas and American Politics: Confucius as a Guideline for Leadership", Alfred Hornung traces the influence of Chinese ideas on American politics with a focus on the works of Confucius. The more than 2.500-year-old impact of the Chinese philosopher on public conduct and his pursuit of virtuous perfection has served as a guideline for leadership emanating from China to Europe and America. For this trajectory of ideas, the historic and the new Silk Road play a decisive role. The exchange of goods along the land-based and maritime routes, which inform Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, also …

All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’S Translation Of Shui Hu Zhuan And Its Effects On Her Writing Career, Zhihui Sophia Geng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’s Translation of Shui Hu Zhuan and its Effects on Her Writing Career,” Zhihui Sophia Geng focuses on Pulitzer Prize winner and Noble Laureate Pearl Sydenstricker Buck’s All Men Are Brothers, her translation of the classical Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan. She examines the reception of her translation and analyzes the significance of All Men Are Brothers to Buck’s literary career. By providing the first complete translation of Shui Hu Zhuan to an English-speaking audience, Buck made a significant cultural contribution to the United States and English-speaking cultural spheres. The …

Engaging China: Beckett’S Debt To Pound, Giles, And Laloy, Lidan Lin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Engaging China: Beckett’s Debt to Pound, Giles, and Laloy," Lidan Lin examines Ezra Pound’s influence on Samuel Beckett. In their dealings with China, Pound and Beckett are both indebted to such sinologists and cultural transmitters as Ernest Fenollosa, H. A. Giles, Louis Laloy, and Laurence Binyon who introduced Chinese culture, literature, and arts to the Western world through translation and their writings about China. Lin situates the Pound-Beckett connection in the broad cultural context of the early 20^th century. She argues that while modernism’s turn to China as a cultural paradigm was collectively brought about by …

Translation As Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders In Contemporary China, Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Translation as Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders in Contemporary China,” Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang examines four groups of selected writings centered on one of Robert van Gulik’s more well-known Judge Dee novels, The Chinese Maze Murders (written first in English but not published until 1956). Different from most publications on van Gulik and his novels, Zhang examines the impact of censorship and self-censorship on the writing, rewriting, and (re)adapting, “literal” and “liberal/free” translation of the Judge Dee stories traveling between Chinese and English, between China and the West, for Chinese and non-Chinese audiences. Focus is given …

Exotic Construction Of An Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’S Creative Translation Of Li Ch’Ing-Chao’S Ci-Poems And Its Influences, Yuqun Fu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Exotic Construction of an Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’s Creative Translation of Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-Poems and its Influences,” Yuqun Fu discusses Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-poems and her identity as a woman intellect in the patriarchal and feudal Song Dynasty of China. Due to Kenneth Rexroth’s feminist perspective and Sappho complex as well as his own pursuit to excel in the hipster stylistics of the newly prospering Beat writers, Rexroth turns to the Eastern women poets to fuel his own cause, especially in his idiosyncratic way of interpreting and translating Li Ch’ing-Chao. His translation focuses on gender identity and …

Displaced Ukrainian Writers After 2014, A Postcolonial Perspective, Sophie Ivanka Shields

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This paper analyzes post-2014 Ukrainian displacement literature from a postcolonial perspective. I argue that Ukrainian writers, displaced with the 2014 invasion of Eastern Ukraine and/or 2022 full-scale invasion by Russia, transform literature into a tool of cultural resistance against Russia, forging a postcolonial Ukrainian identity in their works that unites those displaced since 2014. I particularly focus on two long-form works by displaced writers: the novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love (2019) by Volodymyr Rafeyenko, who was displaced in 2014 from Donetsk to Kyiv and again in 2022 to Pittsburgh, USA on the City of Asylum Exiled Writer and …

News Framing Of The Ukrainian-Russian War: A Comparative Analysis Of Russian And American News Media, Alina Rudakova

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted with the goal of exploring ways in which American (The New York Times) and Russian (TASS) print news media frame the Ukrainian-Russian War. Along with examining the differences and similarities in primary framing techniques used by American and Russian news, the focal point of this study was to identify who is portrayed as an aggressor and who is illustrated as a victim in this conflict. Informed by the news media framing literature and construction of the social problems perspective, this study was led by two research questions: (1) How do the American and Russian news media …

Decolonizing Neo-Liberalism, Empowering The Local: A Global South Reading Of Noir In The 2000s., Jean-Hugues Bita’A Menye

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research aims at providing a Global South reading of noir in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It relies on the premise that noir, a sub-genre of crime fiction born in France during World War II, offered new avenues of literary creation and political criticism. Based on a selection of authors from the U.S., Mexico, Algeria, and Cameroon, the dissertation explores how authors from underrepresented or formerly-colonized communities discuss the impact of neoliberal thinking in their communities. With an emphasis on race and gender dynamics, nation building and terrorism, police corruption and brutality, or the growth of organized, each …

Homemade Language, Conservative Fro-Yo, And Sci-Fi Sloths: How Speculative Migration Fiction Confronts The Ends Of Worlds By Challenging The Nation-State, Zoe R. Scheuerman

English Honors Projects

This English literature thesis project explores an emerging, genre-defying body of fiction which I call “speculative migration fiction.” Speculative migration fiction imagines how ongoing global developments like climate change, technological development, and war may shape future migrations. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s conception of national culture, Wendy Brown’s theory of the border, and Caroline Levine’s understanding of literary form, as well as close readings from Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, and 2 A.M. in Little America by Ken Kalfus, I argue that transnational migrations move toward becoming postnational migrations as migrants evade border …

Political Symbolism In Literature: Themes Of Colonialism, Corruption, And Greed, Ava E. Briglevich

FUSION

This Final Essay for World Literature Section 008 compares the texts “In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka and “Death Constant Beyond Love” by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez while analyzing themes of colonialism, corruption, and greed. Both authors are recognized for producing works rich with political and social commentary, and reading these stories allows one to gain new perspectives on these themes. In this essay, I share insight into the events that occurred during the stories' creation that contribute to the overall themes. Additionally, I connect these themes to modern events to demonstrate how the ideas put forth by Kafka and Garcia-Marquez …

Paul Celan And The Processes Of Survival In Post-Shoah Jewish Writing, Ari Savage

Theses

The following is a study of the poetry of Paul Celan as a representation of psychological and social processes present in the written works of Shoah survivors. It begins with an analysis of the place of writing in Jewish culture, then identifies three primary processes which operate in sequence: alienation, individuation, and integration. By examining Paul Celan’s highly personal and autobiographical texts in the context of his life experience as a Shoah survivor it is possible to discern the social and psychological forces at work which compel survivors to express their traumas in written form, and to gain a better …

Plath Fostered It, Women Are Nurturing It: Cycles Of Existential And Confessional Women's Writing In The Mid-20th Century And Beyond, Sophie Elisabeth Conrad

Senior Theses

During the mid-20th century, a wide-ranging yet topically focused genre of women’s writing began to emerge in earnest, currently categorized as existential and confessional. Works like Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) offer explanations of why an ineffable feeling of malaise permeated the lives of 20th-century women and led them to adopt these methods of writing and thinking. However, existential feelings akin to that of the 20th-century female malaise have returned to stake their claim on the minds of 21st-century women, evidenced in popular contemporary works such as Otessa Moshfegh’s My Year …

The Impact Of The Gut-Brain Axis On Alzheimer’S Disease, Elissa Wakim

Best Integrated Writing

Elissa’s review for the Graduate Biomedical Review focuses on the links between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain; the gut-brain axis and the development of Alzheimer’s disease. As a student in the Microbiology and Immunology Masters Program Elissa was particularly interested in the gut microbiota and their connection to neurodegenerative disease. She tidily reviewed the literature and wrote a fascinating and compelling piece of work.

Best Integrated Writing Spring 2024 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Kristie Mckiernan, Tracy Smith

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University. This is the first issue after a 5 year hiatus.

Front Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Michael Farmer. An Atlas Of The Tibetan Plateau. Volume 50 In Brill’S Tibetan Studies Library Series, Constance Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

An Atlas of the Tibetan Plateau is a masterful melding of science and art created by British architect and cartographer Michael Farmer. Based on extensive contemporary data painstakingly woven from satellite imagery, the intrepid and apparently indefatigable Farmer has, over decades, produced a unique and indispensable reference work.

Raphael Patai. The Hebrew Goddess, Third Enlarged Edition, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

According to the famous French philosopher and revolutionary, the Marquis de Condorcet, we can look back to history and discern therein a number of phases, stages through which the human mind evolves. The number of these is fixed as is the succession of them; progress and human perfectibility always dominate the movement. The progress of the human mind, Condorcet wrote in the Tableau des Progrès Historiques de l’Ésprit Humain, is reflected invariably in the successive stages of society. We move upward and onward, ineluctably.

The Heritage Of The Reincarnated Lama Of The Gobi, Mend-Ooyo Gombojav

Comparative Civilizations Review

In Mongolia’s Gobi desert, at the beginning of the 19th century, a remarkable boy was born. This boy was Danzanravjaa, the Fifth Noyon Hutagt of the Gobi. He became a man of extraordinary ability — a talented poet, a Buddhist teacher, a meditator and philosopher, the creator of a nomadic theater, a dramatist and lyricist, a composer of songs, a craftsman of religious objects, a natural scientist, and a traveler.

Table Of Contents

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Culture-Oriented Interpretations Of Corporate Responsibility, Berkay Orhaner Phd

Comparative Civilizations Review

Classical narratives of corporate responsibility reflect the cultural values of Western industrialized countries. Meanwhile, the understanding of corporate responsibility has been disseminated by globalization and this has resulted in culture-oriented interpretations of corporate responsibility from non-Western contexts.

This article aims to investigate the multidimensional relationship between corporate responsibility and globalization and outline culture-oriented corporate responsibility interpretations as a global phenomenon.

Amanda H. Podany. Weavers, Scribes, And Kings: A New History Of The Ancient Near East, Leland Conley Barrows

Comparative Civilizations Review

Professor Amanda Podany’s massive survey of ancient Near Eastern history reflects her commitment to interpreting and presenting the information revealed about the ancient history of this region by the cuneiform script etched on clay tablets and other mediums, the oldest examples dating back to 3000 BCE. She has endeavored to shed light on the details of the lives of ordinary people and day-to-day events by inserting microhistories of beer brewers, laundrymen, gardeners, slaves, as well as diviners, scribes, and priests into accounts of the rise and fall of kingdoms, empires, and their rulers. She declares that her book “…has been …

Military Comparison Of The Han Dynasty And The Roman Republic, Jack Tribolet

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Middle and Late Roman Republic (264 BCE - 27 BCE) and the Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE) characterized two concurrent military superpowers of the ancient world. Anchoring opposite ends of the Eurasian continent, the two powers shared structural similarities that enabled their longevity and resilience to ruination.

Michael Boym: The Polish Marco Polo, Agnieszka Couderq

Comparative Civilizations Review

The following is a selection drawn from Ms. Couderq’s written proposal for a television series based on the book she has published. It offers a summation of the life of this remarkable cross-civilizational traveler.