Comparative Literature Commons^™

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, …

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.

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 …

Bibliography For The Study Of Phillip Roth's Works, Gustavo Sánchez-Canales, Victoria Aarons

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Cathy Trask, Monstrosity, And Gender-Based Fears In John Steinbeck’S East Of Eden, Claire Warnick

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the concept of monstrosity has received renewed attention by literary critics. Much of this criticism has focused on horror texts and other texts that depict supernatural monsters. However, the way that monster theory explores the connection between specific cultures and their monsters illuminates not only our understanding of horror texts, but also our understanding of any significant cultural artwork. Applying monster theory to non-horror texts is a useful and productive way to more fully understand the cultural fears of a society. One text that is particularly fruitful to explore in this context is John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, …

Roth's Contribution To The Narrativization Of Illness, Miriam Jaffe-Foger

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Roth's Contribution to the Narrativization of Illness" Miriam Jaffe-Foger argues that Philipp Roth's fiction represents him as an empath, a writer who prescribes for modern medicine a dose of humanity in listening to the pain of others. Using Roth's The Anatomy Lesson, The Dying Animal, and Exit Ghost as primary source material in combination with theories from medical anthropology, Jaffe-Foger suggests that Roth is an inspiration for the field of narrative medicine. Jaffe-Foger examines the art in organizing narratives to tell these stories. Jaffe-Foger also argues against misogynist views of Roth as he represents woman's …

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 …

Roth's Fiction From Nemesis To Nemesis, Emily Budick

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Roth's Fiction from Nemesis to Nemesis" Emily Budick discusses Philip Roth's novel Nemesis as the culminating work of a career in which one nemesis or another has afflicted almost all of the author's protagonists. During the bulk of Roth's career, the hero's nemesis was generally, as in the ordinary, literary usage of the term, the protagonist's enemy, whether Judge Wapter in The Ghost Writer or the alter-Roth in The Counterlife. In Nemesis Roth restores the word nemesis to its classical meaning: Nemesis, as the goddess of revenge and cosmic balance. The nemesis in Roth's novel, therefore, …

The Succubus And The Suckers: The Soul-Siphoning Leeches In The Stories Of Modernist Text., Victoria Bonilla

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the various relationships found in John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire," Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night." The exploration of each demonstrates the common theme of parasitic relations and the toll this dynamic takes on the persons involved.

Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, Ambika Subramaniam

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

The following thesis examines the work of Ambika Subramaniam, in particular her thesis installation Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, for the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Washington University in St. Louis. Based within a discussion of semiotics, the thesis researches furniture signification and tracks its evolution through traditional form, ergonomic function, and consumed product. Major points include the ways in which objects are capable of collapsing and retaining the semiotic divide between a sign and referent, and how that signification relates to contemporary design-oriented products. Using the chair as the exemplifying object, the thesis installation questions how objects have …

Funny Or French: How Humor Varies Across Cultures, Audrey Mefford

Honors Theses

This paper examines the works of four cartoonists (Saul Steinberg, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Roz Chast, and Claire Bretécher) in order to determine similarities and differences between French humor and American humor. It incorporates compiled data from each of the above artist's lifetime works, as well as knowledge from the fields of cartoons and comics, sociology, and cross-cultural psychology, to answer the question "What is funny?" in each of these two disparate cultures.

Reflective Tales : Tracing Fairy Tales In Popular Culture Through The Depiction Of Maternity In Three “Snow White” Variants., Alexandra O'Keefe

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Heroes To Horrors: Metamorphosis As Combat Trauma In The Mythology Of The West, Thomas Passarelli

Honors Scholar Theses

In an attempt to show how Western mythological depictions of metamorphosis in fighting men often serve as an early discussion on the psychosocial ramifications of warfare on veterans, this research holds early Norse, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon texts in comparison with contemporary PTSD research and anecdotes from American veterans of the Vietnam War.

The Dakini Project, Kimberley Harris Idol

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation merges creative writing with scholarship using the novel, The Dakini Project, to provide the subject matter to which the criticism applies. It will focus on the source of mystery format as that codified by Edgar Allan Poe that is later taken in hand by his fellows Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (as novelists), authors of the hard-boiled American style, and it will use Chaos theory to assess to idea of catastrophe in terms of emergence rather than disintegration. Though the format comes from American beginnings, the scope of the stories discussed here are tangled around …

Sleeping Beauty Through The Ages, Sarah Semsar

Ellipsis: A Journal of Art, Ideas, and Literature

The Quarante Club Prize

Dürer’S Window: The Renaissance Problem Of Seeing The Word Through Perspective-Colored Glasses, Laura Hatch, Dr. Matt Ancell

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I organized this research project in order to better understand the philosophical implications of linear perspective in Western Renaissance art. Artists and theorists have long understood linear perspective as a specific artistic technique, but my research was an exploration of what linear perspective represents in terms of how human beings construct and represent knowledge. By performing a phenomenological reading of German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut Draughtsman Drawing a Recumbent Woman (1525),1 it was my initial hope to show how this ubiquitous image could be read as a recognition of and exposure of linear perspective’s failure to capture and truly …

Building The Unsinkable Understanding: Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown And Her Legacy Through Architecture, Adam Lloyd, Dr. Kerry Soper

Journal of Undergraduate Research

On a visit to Denver, Colorado in November 2011, my girlfriend requested that we visit the Molly Brown House Museum as she had grown up watching the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. As we toured the museum, the architecture and interior design of the house caught my attention as it reminded me of the Gilded Age cottages in New England that I had learned about in my American Humanities class. My project was originally intended to explore the Gilded Age homes of Mining Age Colorado but, as I visited Denver in the summer of 2013, I was intrigued by the …

Best Integrated Writing 2014 - Complete Edition

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University. The journal is published annually by the Wright State University Department of English Language and Literatures.

“Never In History Did Ill-Breeding Contribute So Much Towards The Dissolution Of Empire”: Cultural Attitudes In A Passage To India, Leigh Meister, Dr. Francesca Lawson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I can honestly say that this ORCA-sponsored research has turned out to be one of the most valuable aspects of my undergraduate career. While several elements of my finished project did not meet my initial expectations, this research opportunity taught me to be adaptable and observant. My ORCA research is the foundation for my Honors thesis, which will be submitted in its final form in the upcoming months for graduation with University Honors in April 2012. This completed thesis will be available in the Harold B. Lee Library for reference by future library patrons.

Crime And Punishment In Translation: Raskolnikov Redeemed, Lindsey C. Myers

Spring 2014, Dostoevsky

Until one determined, nearly blind housewife came onto the literary scene, most Westerners had never heard of Dostoevsky without having a personal background in the Russian Language. Constance Garnett provided the first comprehensive translations of Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev to the English-speaking world; but only after she taught herself the Russian language. Her translations have been continually edited and revised since the early 20^th century, and were the most widely read editions for almost 70 years. A recent surge of translations from the husband-wife team of Pevear and Volokhonsky is beginning to change the face of Western understanding …

The Plight Of Prostitution: A Study Of Sonia Marmeladov In Crime And Punishment, Clare Carroll

Spring 2014, Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky's celebrated novel Crime and Punishment (1866) exposes complex moral issues testing the urban population of nineteenth century St. Petersburg. Prostitution is one theme that complicates the novel, and Dostoevsky invites readers to consider the prostitute’s point of view. In 1843, the tsarist Ministry of Internal Affairs appointed “medical-police committees” to regulate prostitution in Russia. Registered prostitutes were typically poor urban women, and they became subject to strict rules. Sonia Marmeladov, an emblem of virtue in Crime and Punishment, endures the horrors of commercialized sex. Though her virtue and religious faith far exceed that of the average person, her …

Essay: An Observation On The Universal Significance Of Western Civilization, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge Of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts And The Battle Against Fate, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

James Demeo, Saharasia, The 4000 Bce Origins Of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare, And Social Violence In The Deserts Of The Old World, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Course Syllabus (Sp14) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "The Sublime, The Uncanny, And The Imagination", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

In a world in which what counts as knowledge is predominantly restricted to the measurable and the calculable, those elements of human experience which elude and exceed these parameters are often ignored and discounted. In this course, we will examine questions of the sublime, the uncanny, and the speculative as treated in literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy in order to think and write critically about them. Here, we will consider the possible extent to which an openness to such experiences can enrich our lives.

Urban Hermitage In Literature Of The City, Mark Ryan Mengel

Open Access Theses

Since Aristotle, theory and literature concerning the city has centered around the participant--those citizens who operate within the city system in more or less recognizable ways (i.e. politicians, police, rioters, workers, etc.). This thesis adds to that body of work by investigating the emergence and significance not of the participant, but rather of the nonparticipant who exists within the city system but is denied interaction within that system. I term this figure the hermit.

Chapter 1 focuses on establishing a theoretical framework for the hermit's emergence, using primarily Michel De Certeau's notions of city participation from his book The Practice …

Multiple Generations In Today’S Workplace, Nicole Ritter

Best Integrated Writing

Nicole Ritter explores how to manage differences between Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X’ers, and Millennials in the workplace in this essay written for MGT 3110: Business Ethics & Leadership Development, taught by Mrs. Donna Back at Wright State University.

A Review Of Anatomical Presentation And Treatment In True Hermaphroditism, Jodie Heier

Best Integrated Writing

Jodie Heier studies genetic and hormonal contributors to gender identity in hermaphroditism in this essay written for PSY 4950: Sexuality and Endocrinology Capstone, taught by Dr. Patricia Schiml at Wright State University.