Comparative Literature Commons^™

Lucie Cousturier: The Female Voice And Travel Narratives In Colonial West Africa, Ashley Gushulak

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

In this thesis, I analyze Lucie Cousturier’s two major works, Des Inconnus chez eux (1920) and Mes Inconnus chez moi (1925) in which she navigates the discourses of imperialism, viewed as masculine, and of femininity. Through strategies of intimacy, Cousturier establishes her authority as a female travel writer. In her first work, Cousturier sets up an intimate relationship with the tirailleurs sénégalais by teaching them French and becoming a mother-figure to them. At the same time, Cousturier plays a role in France’s colonial agenda by teaching the soldiers French. In her second work, she establishes intimacy by adopting the local …

Transnational Abolitionist Rhetoric To End Modern Slavery, Laura Barrio-Vilar

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In his 1998 autobiography, Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American, Jean-Robert Cadet denounces the horrors of modern child slavery as he narrates his life journey. Emotionally, physically, and sexually abused under the restavek system, Cadet migrates with his “masters” to the United States, where he pursues a formal education, joins the army, and acquires a middle-class status.

Today, Cadet has his own organization, dedicated to ending child slavery in Haiti through education and advocacy. In this presentation, I analyze how Cadet adopts conventional genre characteristics of slave narratives and U.S. migration literature in order to enter the …

Front Matter, Comparative Civilizations Review

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

The Intrigue Of Paradigmatic Similarity: Leibniz And China, Yu Liu

Comparative Civilizations Review

The cosmology of China is indeed strikingly similar to the metaphysics of Leibniz, but precisely where the two resemble each other, the former is unmistakably different from Christianity. Scholars of Leibniz have so far generally taken it for granted that he was ideologically aligned with Christianity, but his paradigmatic similarity to China should alert us of a surprisingly different story. Leibniz was indisputably “the greatest of the seventeenth century sinophiles” and key Chinese cosmological ideas were introduced to Europe long before he formulated his worldview. Together, these two facts can help us decide whether he “owes to Chinese organic naturalism …

Narrativized Ethics And Hiroshima: Harry S. Truman, Homer, And Aeschylus, Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

Discussions of the atomic bomb and Hiroshima have to be deeply troubling for anyone. The natural inclination is to turn one’s eyes away or to remain silent. Avoidance and silence, however, were not valid options immediately after the Second World War and are not valid options today. The decision – or decisions, for there were many – to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and later Nagasaki raises issues of profound importance for the human community. It compels us to ask who we are as individuals and as members of a society engaged in actions with such devastating consequences. We …

William Egginton, The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered In The Modern World. Bloomsbury, 2016., Ernest B. Hook

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Scott L. Montgomery And Daniel Chirot, The Shape Of The New: Four Big Ideas And How They Made The Modern World. Princeton University Press, 2015., Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

Daniel Chirot is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies in the University of Washington’s Henry Jackson School of International Studies. Chirot’s most recent book, co-authored with Scott Montgomery, is The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Made the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2015.) Chirot’s other books have been about genocide, ethnic conflicts, tyranny, social change, and Eastern Europe.

48th Annual Conference Of The International Society For The Comparative Study Of Civilizations, Comparative Civilizations Review

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note: A Banner Year For Iscsc And The Comparative Civilizations Review, Peter Hecht

Comparative Civilizations Review

The past year has witnessed an enhanced level of dedication, by many volunteers, to the sustainability of our parent organization, the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilization, as well as to the continuing quality of the Comparative Civilizations Review. Costs are down, membership is up, our journal is more popular than it has been in years, the new website continues to amaze, and our 2017 conference was a success.

Civilizational Analysis, Political Discourse, And The Reception Of Western Modernity In Post-Soviet Russia, Yulia Prozorova

Comparative Civilizations Review

Official political discourse retains a special importance since the communicative practices of the political elites generate interpretations and meanings, which are able to become programmatic for the design and arrangement of the main societal domains. This paper considers civilizational analysis and associated multiple modernities theory as a promising framework for understanding of the post-Soviet Russians experience of modernity in Russia. It also provides a review of how contemporary Russian political discourse receives and interprets the Western modernity project.

The Challenge To Religious Tolerance: Fundamentalist Resistance To A Non-Muslim Leader In Indonesia, Hisanori Kato

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is important to question whether a long-standing tradition of religious tolerance in Indonesia has been overturned by the 2017 gubernatorial election. Equally important is that we explore the influence of religion in relation to the socio-political behavior of people. In the following parts of this paper, we attempt to find answers to these questions and to comprehend the meaning of this political event thoroughly.

Workplace Bullying Ii: A Civilizational Shortcoming Examined In A Comparative Content Analysis, Leah P. Hollis

Comparative Civilizations Review

According to Freud, civilization is meant to protect humans from the forces of nature, to protect human frailty; but then, paradoxically, it falls short of such protection by its lack of concomitant regulation (1991). In fact, civilized service to society, delivered via organizations, creates strife and anxiety. While civilization is a structure created to protect people from nature and to support a frail humanity, its rules and power structures yield aggression, spawning the need for people to control each other (Freud & Strachey, 1991).

Such control and the power structures that arise within organizations can be considered the root of …

Comments On “Civilizational Analysis And Paths Not Taken”, Johann P. Arnason

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

A Reply To Johann Arnason, Toby Huff

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Revolutions In History, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

I saw the Iranian Revolution of 1979 up close and personally-- a revolution against a modernizing authoritarian king. I watched otherwise clever intellectuals deceive themselves that they would emerge the rulers of a democratic Iran, while the crafty theocrats waited in the wings to seize power. How could all these leftists be so naïve about how revolutions work? The trajectory of revolutions should be no mystery. Crane Brinton’s The Anatomy of Revolution” spelled it all out in 1952, and his observations have stood the test of time.

Buried On Three Continents In Three Civilizations: A Jewish Fate, Yishai Shuster

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Andrew Scull, Madness In Civilization: A Cultural History Of Insanity From The Bible To Freud From The Madhouse To Modern Medicine. Princeton University Press, 2015., Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Comparative Civilizations Review Style Sheet, Comparative Civilizations Review

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir Of A Family And Culture In Crisis. Harpercollins, 2016., Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

The growing gap in the traditional trajectory from poverty to middle class may have less to do with color than with culture. We can see during this present election process the anger and distress of poor white men, flocking to the rallies of candidate Donald Trump. These men, who were once doing well during the post-WWII era, when our country was a manufacturing giant, are now victims of a changing economy.

Johan Galtung, World Politics Of Peace And War. Hampton Press, 2015., Michael Andregg

Comparative Civilizations Review

This 2015 book published by Hampton Press, New York, NY, has 192 pages of text in 12 chapters, an appendix on trends and predictions, an index, 5 figures and 22 tables. Its author is Johan Galtung, an undoubted world leader in development of “peace studies,” an emerging field, which I have watched emerge. The book is based on a series of lectures he taught at Princeton and other universities from 1985-2000. He has reflected deeply on his geopolitical theory of peace and war since then of course, in many venues not least the Transcend, Global, on-line Peace University, which he …

Full Issue, Comparative Civilizations Review

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

End Matter, Comparative Civilizations Review

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Finding Faith In Fantasy: Exploring The Chronicles Of Narnia, Harry Potter, And His Dark Materials, Jamie Weston

Selected Honors Theses

Fantasy is often a controversial topic within the Christian community, especially when magic is involved and religious ideals are tested. This controversy is explored and questioned through the advocating of the creative, intellectual, and spiritual qualities of Fantasy that are positive and encouraging for a Christian, and by analyzing the presence and value of these qualities within three famous fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and His Dark Materials.

Foreword To D.W. Robertson, Jr., Uncollected Essays, Paul A. Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

During the late summer of 1992, I received a call from Darryl Gless, a professor of Renaissance literature at the University of North Carolina and my former student, asking me if it would be all right if he and other people looking after the literary remains of D. W. Robertson would send me a package of published and unpublished articles that Robertson had left behind upon his death in July of that year. Gless had been a friend of Dr. and Mrs. Robertson in Chapel Hill, visiting with them frequently while trying a bit to look after their well-being in …

Agency, The Uncanny, And Strangeways: An Autoethnographic Journey Through An International Wunderland., Roberto T. Ollivier

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The African diaspora and postcolonial studies author George Lamming writes in his book “The Pleasures of Exile” that the Caliban character from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” “cannot be revealed in any relation to himself-for he has no self which is not a reaction to circumstances imposed upon his life” (Lamming, 1992, p. 107). One could argue that the only hope this half-human half-monstrous creature, or for that matter, any of us have to find peace, lies in the attempt to find resolution through the metaphorical slaying of our respective pasts. Like Caliban, many of us are never …

Cultural Re-Presentation And Translation : Chinese And English Anthologies Of Tang Poetry, Chi Man, Cecilia Chan

Lingnan Theses

Due to its unique prestige, classical Chinese poetry written during the Tang dynasty is often anthologised. These anthologies serve various purposes (e.g. recreational, educational, or both), but they are generally expected to feature works high in aesthetic value, and represent the culture wherein they are produced. While the functions of anthologies are seldom contested, representations of Tang poetry in anthologies have many different manifestations.

Using China’s most famous anthology, Tangshi sanbaishou 唐詩三百首, as an opening case study, research shows that within its home culture, the anthologising of Tang poetry has a long history by itself, and anthologists negotiate between ideological …

Biopolitical Masochism In Marina Abramović’S The Artist Is Present, Jaime Brunton

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This essay analyzes The Artist Is Present, Marina Abramović’s heavily mediatized 2010 performance at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, through the lenses of Freudian and Deleuzean concepts of masochism, specifically with respect to how the masochistic tendencies of this performance may be read in the current context of biopolitics. The essay seeks answers to questions of political import that many critical analyses of Abramović’s performance, which focus on details of the performer’s personal history, have not adequately addressed. Drawing on the documentary film Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (2012) that follows Abramović through the conceptualization and enactment …

Somos Tierra Floreciendo: El Surgimiento De La Literatura Kichwa Como Herramienta Política Y Cultural, Kaia Heimer-Bumstead

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto de estudio independiente examina el papel de la literatura escrita en la resistencia cultural y política de los pueblos kichwas de la sierra ecuatoriana. Analiza la manera en que la historia de colonización influye en la expresión cultural y lingüística de los pueblos originarios, en particular la fuerte tradición de oralidad y los niveles bajos de alfabetismo en la propia lengua que caracterizan a la actual producción cultural de la sociedad kichwa. Dentro de esto contexto, discute las implicaciones de adoptar y utilizar recursos y códigos occidentales, como la escritura alfabética, para preservar, fortalecer y revitalizar la lengua …

Desire, Curiosity, And The Search For Truth In Proust, Moreno, And Bechdel, Santiago Parga Linares

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Marcel Proust’s influence on twentieth century literature is broad and has been well documented. This dissertation attempts a comparative reading of À la recherche du temps perdu that places it in contrast with Colombian writer Marvel Moreno’s 1987 novel, En diciembre llegaban las brisas, and Alison Bechdel’s 2006 comic memoir, Fun Home. Starting from a Deleuzian reading of the Recherche, this dissertation proposes the notion of the “proustian truth seeker”, a thematic and stylistic phenomenon which can be traced in all three writers. The characteristics of the truth seeker can be used to understand the ways in …

El Arte De "Lágrimas En La Lluvia", Todd K. Mack

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Uno de los elementos destacados de Lágrimas en la lluvia, la excelente novela de ciencia ficción de la madrileña Rosa Montero, es la genial inclusión de obras de arte con fines simbólicos dentro de la obra. Entre estas obras de arte se incluye el famoso cuadro de Johannes Vermeer, Una señora escribiendo una carta con su criada. En este artículo, el dr. Todd Mack muestra cómo este cuadro presagia el principal dilema de la protagonista de la novela. Bruna Husky es una replicante, y por eso sabe exactamente cuánto tiempo vivirá. El conocimiento de su inescapable fin hace …