Comparative Literature Commons^™

Blanchot's "Impossible" Kafka, Antoine J. Polgar

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Blanchot's Impossible Kafka" Antoine J. Polgar challenges Maurice Blanchot's theory of the impossibility and futility of writing as applied to Kafka's struggles with the demands of writing and life. Polgar questions Blanchot's claims on the basis of close readings of the texts of Kafka's texts and explores traces of correspondence between the life and the texts yet unmentioned in Kafka scholarship. Referring to Blanchot's focus on survival as a metaphor for writing in a meta-commentary on the writer's facticity and the contingency to which literary creation is consigned, Polgar comments on the intense bio-critical interest — which …

Sisyphus In Kertész's Fatelessness, Eric Beck Rubin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Sisyphus in Kertész's Fatelessness" Eric Beck Rubin discusses Imre Kertész's novel in relation to the philosophy of eternal recurrence, namely the notion that an individual inhabits a universe made of finite possibilities experienced and re-experienced without variation or end. Early explorations of eternal recurrence by Friedrich Nietzsche were taken up by Albert Camus, and Beck Rubin argues that certain works by both authors are fundamental to any reading of Fatelessness. Further, Beck Rubin argues that Kertész's contribution to the debate can be viewed from two perspectives: one sees Kertész as an author in conversation with …

History And Identity In Post-Totalitarian Memoir Writing In Romanian, Nicoleta D. Ifrim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "History and Identity in Post-Totalitarian Memoir Writing in Romanian" Nicoleta D. Ifrim analyzes Virgil Tănase's confessional and ego-graphic writing in his 2011 Leapșa pe murite (Playing Fetch with Death). Tănase's text is about the individual caught in history and re-writes it post-traumatically from a double perspective: that of the collective memory of totalitarianism and the personal thus functioning as a filtering mechanism for the creation of meta-historical identity. For Tănase, the experience of exile and post-exile, as well as the confrontation with the West legitimizes identity dilemmas and the construction of the individual. The book is representative …

Electronic Journals, Prestige, And The Economics Of Academic Journal Publishing, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, Joshua Jia

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Electronic Journals, Prestige, and the Economics of Academic Journal Publishing" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Joshua Jia discuss the current state of the academic journal publishing industry. The current state of the industry is an oligopoly based on a double appropriation model where academics produce work for at no cost only to have publishers earn significant profit margins by selling the work back to academics. Publishers are able to do this given the price inelasticity and weak bargaining power of its main consumer, university libraries. Publishers' ability to increase prices is also supported by what the authors …

Blood And Water: Unity In The Gospel Of John(1), Matthew G. Ancell, V. Stanley Benfell

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The stated purpose of the Gospel of John is that the reader or hearer “may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20.31) (2). Regardless of whether the Fourth Gospel is written to a community of believers or to convert the unbelieving, as is debated, this verse points to life through Jesus Christ as the focus of the book. Each of the four Gospels offers a testimony of Jesus as the Christ. Culminating in the passion and resurrection narratives, each version presents a unique …

Compilation Of Scandinavian Studies Index, Volume 37 – Volume 71, Joshua D. Jewkes, Dr. Gary R. Hooper

Journal of Undergraduate Research

With the generosity on the part of the Office of Research and Creative Design and the grant offered me, I was able to produce a significant piece of scholarly work that will contribute significantly to a major academic field: a subject-word index for the academic journal, Scandinavian Studies. The actual work for the project was completed between January and August 1999. Through my experiences, I was able to broaden my knowledge of a field of study which I consider very interesting in addition to gaining valuable skills relating to editing, formatting, and indexing in journalism.

Mistress As Metaphor: The Written Woman In Martial, Elizabeth L. Long

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Martial features women as his subjects in roughly twenty-five percent of his epigrams .I Just as his other epigrams explore a wide range of subjects and themes, these poems differ in the ways that they use women. Some are merely crude jests2; others explore mythological or historical subjects3; still others, such as l 0.35 and 1 0.38, written about Sulpicia the satirist, are encomiastic. In addition, some of the poems about women can be read as programmatic statements about Martial’s and others’ poetry. Martial employs various programmatic devices to explain his epigrams. Although these types of poems occur throughout the …

State Of The Discipline: Comparative Literature And Transdisciplinarity, Paul Jay

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

An inquiry into the practices and applications of comparative literature and transdisciplinarity.

Four Poems, Four Voices: Fragmented Authorship In Fernando Pessoa, James Peter Rasmussen, Dr. Steven P. Sondrup

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The poetry of Fernando Pessoa contributes in a highly original way to a significant twentieth-century aesthetic development: the attempt to overthrow Romantic conceptions of authorship. Through the creation of his “heteronyms”—invented poets with a large degree of independence in style, form, imagery, and thought to whom he attributes his poetry—Pessoa’s poetry fragments into many distinct voices and thus challenges the notion of coherent authorial identity. Fernando Pessoa’s heteronymic structure itself is thus a quintessentially modern voice. The heteronyms challenge, as critic Darlene J. Sadlier writes, “the notion of coherent identity” (118).1 With the fragmentation of the poetic voice, the romantic …

Economics And Education Vs. Griots: Threats To Traditional Performers In The Senegalese Arts, Joseph B. Hill, Dr. Michael D. Phillips

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In much of West Africa, the griot is the central figure in the performing arts. Traditionally, only those born into the griot caste perform publicly in any capacity, be it in music, dance, historical recitation, public speaking, or jesting. Although other castes look down on such work, griots embrace it and carefully guard their monopoly. Immune to most social sanctions, griots speak good and bad with impunity, and nobles pay dearly to ensure that griots say only good (1).

On-Line Language Learning, Peter Rich, Dr. Devon Asay

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As technology improves and its popularity increase, more and more people are turning to electronic methods of education. CALL, computer assisted language learning, is one particular field that has tried to jump on the bandwagon. However, recreating real environments and random interaction poses a constant challenge for CALL developers and administrators and very few effective CALL systems exist. That is, live interaction continues to be more effective than nearly every CALL system.

Poetry Of The River Tietê, Rex P. Nielson, Dr. George Handley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In an essay entitled “Quantity and Quality” written in 1990, Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz bespeaks the importance of poetry in our contemporary society. He contends that during classical times poetry provided an ethical code that significantly influenced the organization of society and government. Greek citizens memorized lines of Homer, Hebrew leaders quoted passages from the Torah and the Psalms, Roman Senators learned verse from the Aeneid, and Chinese emperors recited poems from the Shih Ching. “Our classics, apart from their being examples of formal perfection and sources of spiritual pleasure, were teachers of political wisdom for two millennia” (Paz 105). …

The Pompeian Building Complex Of 55 B. C. In The Campus Martius, Rebecca Allen, Dr. Roger Macfarlane

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The period of the late Roman Republic (ca. 80 B. C. to 44 B. C.) is the best documented of all the historical periods of Roman history. The age is characterized by intense struggles for political dominance among the leading politicians and generals of Rome, as well as a flowering of artistic and creative output. Cicero, the statesman and orator, provides much information about this period through his speeches and, more important, his letters to a variety of recipients. It is one of these letters where the research for this project began. In 55 B. C., Cicero wrote a letter …

The Literature Of Reconciliation: A Future For Afrikaans Publishing In South Africa, Desmond A. Eppel, Larry H. Peer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As an native English-speaking South African married to a native Afrikaans-speaking wife, this research project held special personal importance for me. My wife and I intend to raise our children in a bilingual environment, and have been concerned about the future of Afrikaans materials and products with which to teach our children. I approached my research in an effort to understand the different factors influencing the market for Afrikaans publishing in South Africa, and discovered a wealth of information which will hopefully be instructive in a comprehensive effort to predict future growth or decline in this market.

Slave Women In Euripides: Struggling For Identity And Power In A Hostile World, Iantha M. Haight, Dr. Norbert H. O. Duckwitz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Euripides’ plays continue to be very popular today because of their powerfully human themes. Because of their strong, emotional impact, however, many critics disagree on how to interpret Euripides’ views on women. Since so much knowledge about Greek society in general and women in particular has been lost, classical literature, such as poetry and plays, though difficult to interpret, are important sources of knowledge about the lives and attitudes of the ancient Greeks, especially in regards to the politically disenfranchised groups of women and slaves who feature insignificantly in political writings. Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, the other great Greek tragedians, …

In Search Of Grandeur: The Life And Times Of The Rio Grande, Todd Condie, Dr. John Bennion

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Eight years ago I moved to west Texas. In fact, I moved about as far west in the state of Texas as one can get. The housing plots adjacent to my own are bisected by the interstate border with New Mexico. Not forty yards beyond that invisible line of demarcation, the Rio Grande, itself a border-to-be, flows serenely through fields of knee-high grasses.

The “Sideward Glance”: Double-Voiced Discourse In The Tempest, Joel W. Darrington, Dr. Joseph Parry

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Mikhail Mikhailovich (M. M.) Bakhtin is increasingly becoming one of the important literary theorists of our century. Writing in Stalinist Russia in the first half of this century, Bakhtin has come out of obscurity in the last twenty or so years to a place of prominence. His literary theories are broad and diverse. One dimension to his theories stood out to me as being particularly useful to any reading of Shakespeare. Bakhtin, while writing about the novel, articulated the nature of “double-voiced discourse”&that is, discourse which anticipates, incorporates, and is penetrated by the discourse of others, words “with a sideward …

Ortega: Secrecy And The World, Stephen D. Gingerich

World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Scandalous Deception In The Castle: An Examination Of The Gender Performance Through The Bedtrick Trope In Arthurian Literature, Abby Louise Daniel

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The bedtrick – mistaken identity in a sexual encounter – is a comic motif employed by medieval, renaissance and modern storytellers. While modern readers tend to recognize this motif as (at best) a disturbing sexual escapade and (at worst) rape, the scholarship on mistaken identity in medieval literature still generally glosses over the bedtrick as a moment of comedy. My thesis examines the literary trope of the bedtrick through the critical lens of Judith Butler’s performativity theory, and the motives behind this form of deception and the modern implications. Furthermore, the bedtrick trope is explored in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur …

The Promise "I Am Coming Soon" In Revelation, Rabach Odek

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

Is Geoffrey Chaucer’S Tale Of Sir Thopas A Rape Narrative? Reading Thopas In Light Of The 1382 Statute Of Rapes, Kristin Bovaird-Abbo

Quidditas

Considering the tale’s placement between two narratives of violence—the Prioress’s Tale and the Tale of Melibee—it is surprising that the Tale of Sir Thopas has not merited more discussion of the potential for violence against feminine bodies. I argue that Chaucer the author introduces significant changes to the typical medieval romance, with the result that Thopas’s actions in the name of “love” conceal a rape narrative that engages late fourteenth-century debates as to what exactly constituted rape. As the transfer of property was a significant portion of such discussions, the 1382 Statute of Rapes prompted concerns about the ability …

The National Imagination (Spring 2014), Robert D. Tobin, Juan Pablo Rivera

Syllabi

What images make people think of the United States of America? Cowboys? The flag? And are there similar icons in other cultures that help define cultural identity? The National Imagination explores the concept of a national community as constructed and critiqued through literary and cinematic narratives, as well as other cultural texts.

Our underlying premise is that national languages and cultures promote the identity of particular communities. We are interested in examining those subjective expressions of culture—images, symbols, narratives—that lead people to feel that they are members of the communities we call nations. We are also interested in discovering points …

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Victorian Sexual Politics And The Unsettling Case Of George Eliot’S Response To Walt Whitman, Beverley Rilett

Department of English: Faculty Publications

George Eliot and Walt Whitman, two of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century, are rarely discussed in relation to one another. They did not correspond, nor did either writer ever cross the Atlantic. There may have been several degrees of separation between Eliot and Whitman personally, but even from a distance, the two writers influenced each other’s careers. There has been some misconception that Eliot disdained and discounted Whitman. This essay seeks to refute that assumption by examining the context in which Eliot appeared to reject him. Perhaps more significantly, this essay breaks new critical ground by attributing …

Allen D. Breck Award (2014)

Quidditas

Kristin Bovaird-Abbo

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Causality In La Mort Le Roi Artu: Free Will, Accident, And Moral Failure, David S. King

Quidditas

The thirteenth-century French La Mort le Roi Artu indicates forthrightly how the Arthurian world comes to an end, but the text leaves less clear what motivates the disaster. Many critics attribute the cause to an external force, God or the goddess Fortune, that obliges Arthur and others to pursue their own destruction. A few offer greater insight into the nature of causality in the romance. They see the characters as exercising some degree of free will or even complete liberty. But these critics err in alienating the notion of free choice from moral concerns. In their reading, the heroes suffer …

The Intersection Of Music Philosophy, Performance And Genre In The Middle English Breton Lay Sir Orfeo, Lisa Myers

Quidditas

The Middle English romance Sir Orfeo is a dynamic and creative retelling of the classical Orpheus myth in which the wife of the English king, Orfeo, is abducted by fairies but eventually restored to her position and husband through Orfeo’s musical prowess. While any retelling of the Orpheus myth would necessarily contain references to music and would, therefore, likely use music as an important cue within the text, the poet of Sir Orfeo displays a sophisticated understanding of musical philosophy, composition and performance, as well as the Breton lay genre. The intersection of these elements all work together not only …

On The Dimension Of Narrative: Zhang Ailing’S Self Translation Of Her Novel, Spring-Sprout Song, Xiaoqing Liu

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Zhang Ailing, in her self-translation of The Rice-Sprout Song from English to Chinese, made a special effort to adopt a Chinese narrative style. This style includes the Chinese way of depicting events, an emphasis on the narration of non-events, the addition and highlighting of the technique of irony, a strong lyrical tone, a simple and straightforward way of portraying characters, and the tailoring of narrative structure. Nevertheless, Zhang did not make her Chinese translation depart significantly from her "original" English writing, except for the last chapter, which was changed for other reasons. Rather, she made the changes in a subtle …

Autotraduction, Traduction Interculturelle Et Intersémiotique Dans La Quarta Via De Kaha Mohamed Aden, Simone Brioni

Department of English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Postcolonialismo, Subalternità E New Italian Epic: Intervista Con Wu Ming 1, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.