Comparative Literature Commons^™

Misreading The River: Heraclitean Hope In Postmodern Texts, Nancy Lee Roane

Honors Papers

Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, known for his theory of "constant flux," may be one of the most misunderstood and misquoted thinkers of Western philosophy. The way that the protagonist of Julio Cortazar’s Rayuela misreads Heraclitus serves as one example of this phenomenon wherein poorly-conceived postmodern inquiries that seek to weaken the idea of a Truth lead to a nihilistic apathy. Horacio Oliveira misunderstands Heraclitus’ doctrine of constant flux and uses this misreading to “logically” justify his sexist and elitist behavior towards others. This phenomenon crops up again in Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Fin de Partie through Hamm, a patriarch that …

Reconstructing Seville: Translating Eduardo Del Campo’S Capital Sur, Hannah Lynn Varadi

Honors Papers

In the semi-biographical Capital Sur (2011), Spanish journalist Eduardo del Campo draws on experimental narrative techniques to portray his home city of Seville as he saw it in the 1990’s: a barometer of Spain’s social and economic crises. Here I compare modern translation theories to my own partial translation of this novel into English, which I place in the context of the U.S. translation publishing industry. I also show how the historical and cultural context of Seville influence the text’s themes—including del Campo’s critique of the hegemonic ways that countries such as the United States tend to exoticize Spain’s culture.

Resurrectio Mortuorum: Plato’S Use Of Ἀνάγκη In The Dialogues, Joshua B. Gehling

Theses and Dissertations

This Master’s Thesis, entitled “Resurrectio Mortuorum: Plato’s Use of Ἀνάγκη in the Dialogues,” features an extended consideration of Plato’s usage of the word ἀνάγκη as a dialogical response in the writings of Plato. Hopefully, it will highlight the uniqueness of this particular response in the context of many other affirmative responses used in the dialogues. The first section of the thesis (I) will lay out what I take to be Plato’s conception of his philosophical project and where ἀνάγκη fits into this picture. The texts there considered will be mainly “The Seventh Letter” and the Phaedrus. With this interpretive …

The Life Aquatic: Liquid Poetics And The Discourse Of Friendship In The Faerie Queene, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

From Michel de Montainge’s essay “Of Friendship” to Jacques Derrida’s rearticulation of the former in The Politics of Friendship, scholars both early modern and modern have sought ways to address the fluid co-mixture of bodies from which the discourse of friendship can and does emerge. More recently still, new materialist thinkers of ontology have begun to shift our attention to the ways both human and nonhuman bodies inter-animate in the making of political, interpersonal, and artistic life worlds. Together with these investigations, I argue that an aquacentric account of relation is necessary to think the subject of friendship …

Philosophy's Rarified Air: On Peden's Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Marianne Dashwood: A Categorization Of Language Into Principles Of Sense And Sensibility, Ashley Bonin

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Woman Warrior: The Silent Creation Of A Third Space, Hayley Struzik

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Trauma: A Look At Sherman Alexie's Child Characters, Kiersten Sargent

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Git Vs Ge: The Importance Of The Dual Pronoun In Beowulf, Kenneth R. Sikora Iii

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Feminism And The Force Of Institutions In Twenty-First Century Dystopian Novels, Stephanie Roman

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 17 Fall 2015

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

I, Stereotype: Detained In The Uncanny Valley, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In "I, Stereotype," Seo-Young Chu applies Mori's theory of the uncanny valley not to robots but to a different species of humanoid artifact: stereotypes of the "yellow peril." Through analyses of stories by Sax Rohmer, World War Two propaganda, and films from the Bond franchise, Chu investigates ways in which the logic of the uncanny valley has interacted with and shaped Orientalist and techno-Orientalist stereotypes (as well as the stereotype-as-a-perceived-type-of-person more generally). In the process, Chu explores what it means to find one's ethnic group detained in the uncanny valley, what it means to use stereotyping as a time-saving technology …

Cumulative Index Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture (1999-), Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

H.P. Lovecraft & The French Connection: Translation, Pulps And Literary History, Todd David Spaulding

Theses and Dissertations

Weird fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft captured the zeitgeist of the modernist movement, despite his association with popular fiction. Lovecraft’s post-mortem climb from the margins of the American literary system to its center is indicative of his influence on “mass” and “elite” cultures alike in the second half of the twentieth century and onward. Lovecraft’s influence is not restricted to American culture, but it spread like an airborne virus to other cultures, and to France in particular. His imaginative weird fiction, a unique combination of horror and science fiction, has been translated into more than 25 languages from Bengali to …

Making The Irrational Rational: Nietzsche And The Problem Of Knowledge In Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master And Margarita, Brendan Mooney

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is twofold: first, to explore the influence of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, and second, to use Nietzsche’s unpublished essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” (written 1873) to examine the problem of knowledge in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (written 1928-1940).

In existing scholarship on Bulgakov’s masterpiece The Master and Margarita, the novel’s epistemological underpinnings are a topic that remains relatively unacknowledged. The “supernatural” element presents an opportunity to examine the manner in which man interacts with unprecedented phenomena, that is, phenomena that do not …

Mercy For Anne And A Rose For Lucrezia, Amanda Iacampo

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

As two of Renaissance Europe's most controversial women, Anne Boleyn and Lucrezia Borgia have been the targets of much conjecture in the world of historical fiction. Sarah Dunant, author of the New York Times bestseller Blood and Beauty poses the question: Why bother with the slander when the truth is more unexpected? Dunant's professional research on Lucrezia draws the fine line between historical fact and popular myth. Unlike Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall-which greatly exaggerates the "monster legend" surrounding Anne Boleyn-Blood and Beauty succeeds in being the more compellingly accurate novel, and leading work of historical fiction.

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …

Why Are Grimms' Fairy Tales So Mysteriously Enchanting?, Ana Neophytou

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Paradoxes Of Female Authorship In Samuel Richardson‘S Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded, Jane Austen's Emma And Henry James' The Portrait Of A Lady, Ewa Barnes

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Colonialism In Moll Flanders And The Belle’S Stratagem, Tamara Kathwari

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Inventions Of Truth, Deidre Bird

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Variations On A Theme: Contemporary Memorials To Harriet Tubman, Elise Anne Geltzer

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

"Alienation In The Egyptian Novel Under Nasser: A Study Of Naguib Mahfouz’S The Beggar And Son’Allah Ibrahim’S That Smell.", Zeina Sabry

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Obstacles To And Solutions Of Female Characters' Speech: Beatrice In Dante's Vita Nuova And Purgatorio And Susan In J. M. Coetzee's Foe, Tamara Savage

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the speaking and silencing of two female characters, Beatrice from Dante’s Vita Nuova and Purgatorio and Susan from J. M. Coetzee’s Foe. The texts are viewed through postcolonial and feminist lenses to show the problems with male characters speaking for female characters and the obstacles the female characters face when attempting to speak. Dante’s solution to this problem is to transform Beatrice from a silent and demure woman into a character who issues commands with a powerful voice. Coetzee’s solution is instead to refuse to provide a solution, since no one but Susan can speak for …

The Sin Eater: Confession And Ingestion In The Romance Of Renard, Elizabeth Dolly Weber

Quidditas

The “Confession of Renard,” Branch XIV of the twelfth-century animal epic Roman de Renart (Romance of Reynard the Fox) explores the potential risks of the rite of confession, including the danger of whetting the appetite of the sinner by having him recount and re-live his delicious past sins. The fact that Renard, the “repentant” sinner, actually eats his confessor, suggests not only that merely talking about sin, particularly sexual sin, is a perilous business, but also that confession, like digestion, is a transformational process for both the penitent and the confessor.

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Literary Docudrama In The Classroom: Teaching With John Hatcher’S The Black Death: A Personal History, Ginger Smoak, Jennifer Mcnabb

Quidditas

John Hatcher’s The Black Death: A Personal History is an unconventional text. It recounts the experience of plague by a single, extraordinarily well-documented village in Suffolk, England: Walsham le Willows. While such a focus perhaps seems fairly standard of case studies or microhistory, Hatcher’s book is more than a narrow treatment of a corner of England. In a preface entitled “The Nature of This Book,” he opens with a discussion of both his journey toward the realization that he wanted to write a markedly different sort of treatment of the Black Death than present in extant scholarship and a rather …