Comparative Literature Commons^™

Le Québec Entre Le « Past-Self » Et Le « Possible-Self » Dans La Face Cachée De La Lune, Andisheh Ghaderi

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

Tumultuous Devotions: Female Entrapment & Empowerment In The Lais Of Marie De France, Trent Dunkin

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

Entre Ombre Et Lumière : L’Artifice Et La Réflexion Sociétale Dans La Princesse Maleine De Maeterlinck, Anoosheh Ghaderi

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

On Gary Snyder’S Tradaptation Of Cold Mountain Poems And Its Spiritual Salvation And Literary Enlightenment In Postwar America, Hu Anjiang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Cold Mountain Poems (CMPs), which have been neglected in the history of Chinese literature for ages, captured the attention of most Americans immediately after its being translated into America by the American poet Gary Snyder in 1950s, however. It is Snyder that reconfigured and recreated a sagacious Chinese Chan Buddhist poet Han-shan (literally, Cold Mountain), the acknowledged author of Cold Mountain Poems, in his translation for the postwar Americans in the midst of varied social problems and cultural identity crisis after World War II. Snyder eventually found in his translation of Cold Mountain Poems a back-to-nature remedy of …

Topological Tropology Of V.S. Naipaul’S Islamic Travelogues And Daniel Pipes’ Islamic History: Ahistorical Historicism, Md. Habibullah

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s (1932-2018) first Islamic travelogue Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981) contains his experience of a visit from August 1979 to February 1980 to the four non-Arab Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Similarly, his last Islamic travelogue Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1998) has a description of another visit to the same countries for five-month in 1995. Concurrently, Daniel Pipes (1949-), an American historian, published his doctoral dissertation, Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (1981), which represents Islamic culture as the first instigator of …

Westernization Or Localization? The (Mis)Reading Of “The Tragic” In Modern Chinese Literary Discourse, Tian Gu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the features and causal factors in constructing an idea of the tragic in modern Chinese literary discourse. It attempts at revisiting and reproducing the realities of misreading and variation upon modern Chinese introduction of the term “tragedy” (beiju) at different socio-historical periods, and has observed the interplay between two trends, namely, Westernization and localization, through the negotiation of “the tragic” into modern Chinese literary practice. These two trends have been integrated by a political and pragmatic perspective, which dominates the formation of a modern Chinese literary discourse on “the tragic”. This perspective offers both possibility …

Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As an emerging literary subgenre in the twenty-first century, Children’s Gothic challenges and blends the norms of both children’s literature and Gothic literature, featuring child characters’ self-empowerment in the face of fears and dark impulses. The foreignness and strangeness that pertain to the genre haunt the border of its translatability. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999­–2006), written under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, poses a chain of translational challenges due to its linguistic creativity, paratextual art, and mixed style of horror and dark humor intended for a child readership. To investigate the interplay between Children’s Gothic and its (un)translatability …

Translating Literary Ideology From Ancient Chinese Into Modern French: François Cheng’S Francophone Poetry In Double Chant (2000), Gabriel F. Y. Tsang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

François Cheng (1929- ), elected to the Académie Française in 2002, structurally introduced the lexicological, syntactic, and semiotic form of Tang poetry to the French academia via his academic works. In the late 1980s, François Cheng shifted his focus from academic writing to creative writing, both in French, winning the 1998 Prix Femina for his novel Le Dit de Tianyi (1998) and Prix Roger Caillois for his collection of poems Double chant (2000). Focusing on his less-discussed poetry, which reveals higher congruity of his understanding of Chinese literary classics with creative representation, this paper argues that, as an analyst of …

Storytelling As A Way Of Translation: The Rendition Of Taoism In Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe Of Heaven, Xiulu Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) is an immensely popular author of numerous science fictions and fantasy classics. A number of critics have noticed the influence of Taoism on Le Guin’s writing.critical insights offered by Translation Studies and Walter Benjamin’s comments on storytelling and translation, this paper argues that storytelling and translation are similar discursive practices that aim at the exchange of experiences, creating knowledge, and shaping culture. Taking Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven (1971) as a case study, this paper delves into how her storytelling serves as a unique form of translation, bridging the thought of ancient Chinese Taoist …

Ecopoetry As Method: Reading Gary Snyder As A Cultural Mediator Between China And The World, Winnie L M Yee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ecocriticism is a field that is inherently cross-cultural, and poetry is an art form that creates bonds across cultural communities. This paper focuses on Gary Snyder, a prominent poet in his own right, who is famous for his translation of the works by Chinese poet Han Shan. His attraction to Chinese classical poetry and Eastern civilization offers an alternative to the Western developmental paradigm, and the ecopoetry he espouses is pertinent to today’s environmental debates. His references to nature do not function merely as reminders that nature should be respected but as an impetus to reflect on the coexistence of …

Playing With Time: Writing History In Neo-Zionist Hebrew Literature, Huiruo Li

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The term neo-Zionism can be used to group ideologically much of contemporary Hebrew literature. However, since neo-Zionism shares similar critical tools with post-Zionism, while also sharing a common political vision with Zionism, it has been difficult to find the definitive signifiers of neo-Zionist writing. This paper offers a way to determine the nuanced ideological inclination of Hebrew literature: the presentation of time. First, this paper recognizes the metamorphosis of time in Israeli literary history that reflects the writers’ historical view of the Zionist agenda. Zionist Hebrew literature was engaged in re-establishing Jewish historical time by emphasizing the relationship between time …

The Animal In The Wild In Hwang Sun-Mi’S The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, Sarah Yoon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Hwang Sun-mi’s The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly has become a contemporary classic children’s story in Korea since its original publication in 2000. Since then, the story has been translated and redesigned with new illustrations in almost thirty different countries (Y. Kim). The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly centers on a hen that raises a duckling as her “baby,” with the story drawing upon a rich reservoir of cultural associations between humans and nature in East Asian traditions. In this story, the hen leaves the human-dominated barnyard, based on profit, exploitation, and competition, for a reconnection with moral …

Translating Diversity From Ralph Ellison To Kenzaburō Ōe, Raphaël Lambert

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, it endeavors to understand the vagaries of the notion of diversity as it travels from one national and political context to the next; and second, it shows how two major fiction writers and essayists have used that notion in their work and to what ends. The first part focuses on the work of Ralph Ellison, who put diversity at the heart of his reflection on what a truly democratic American society should be. Kenzaburō Ōe initially borrowed the notion of diversity from Ellison himself, but as the second part demonstrates, Ōe did …

Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane

The Coastal Review

This article explores the innovative language strategies employed by Senegalese writer Ken Bugul in her novel Aller et retour to construct a dynamic and interconnected linguistic landscape that challenges fixed language boundaries. Ken Bugul's "langue fabriquée" combines elements of French, Wolof, and English, reflecting a transglocal dimension that embodies the essence of afrophonics—a poetics of resistance that empowers local cultures in a globalized context. Through a detailed analysis of Ken Bugul's linguistic choices, including the use of quotation marks, footnotes, and arbitrary transcription, the study reveals how she creates a language that defies categorization and decolonizes French without resorting to …

Figures Of Radical Absence: Blanks And Voids In Theory, Literature, And The Arts, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Although post-structuralism highlighted the importance of what is offstage, lost, forgotten, hidden or discarded, silent or silenced, the poetics and politics of absence (much like its ethics and aesthetics) have rarely been discussed across media and disciplines. This book proposes the concept of ‘radical absence’ to describe a certain tradition of resistance to ontology, predication, and representation, contesting their reliance on a metaphysics of presence. Apophatic speech, empty signifiers, and figural voids are some of the figures through which radical absence becomes apparent with unprecedented intensity in twentieth-century theory, literature, film, and the arts. Phantasmatic and outrageous, such figures play …

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination Of The Eternal Now” 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月） (July 1931) §1 Of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft Of 2 Jan 19); Translated By Christopher Southward; Revision And Expansion Underway, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination of the Eternal Now” (July 1931) 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月）

§1 of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft of 2 Jan 2019)

Translated from the Japanese by Christopher Southward; Revision and Expansion Underway, October 2023

Tando-Huni Ug Uban Pang Balak | Treading Softly: Review Of Marjorie Evasco’S It Is Time To Come Home, Ester Tapia

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

No abstract provided.

Cuento De Todas Las Cosas, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Publications and Research

"Este cuento breve tal vez cae en el antiguo género de lo real maravilloso o, lo que se conoce en inglés como especulativo. Explora los efectos de la homofobia, el exilio, la enajenación, a través de personajes en un parque encantado, que puede ser el Parque Central en la ciudad de Nueva York." from the editor, Bilingual Review

This short story was translated into English and published in Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Vol. 57, No. 2, Dec. 2024, issue 109

Excerpts From An Anti-Standardized “수능”: A Design-Fictional Approach To Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

"Excerpts from an Anti-Standardized '수능'” experiments with design fiction to disrupt overly rehearsed ways of thinking about Korea’s past(s), present(s), and future(s).

Truth And Knowledge In A Literary Text And Beyond: Lydia Chukovskaya’S Sofia Petrovna At The Intersections Between Selves, Culture, And Paratext, Angelina Rubina

Theses and Dissertations

Although Lydia Chukovskaya’s novella Sofia Petrovna (1965) is not considered to be an autobiographical work, the life story of its protagonist, Sofia Petrovna, and the life of Lydia Chukovskaya herself have certain parallels. Chukovskaya’s very own fate, which she described in the foreword to the novella and in her other biographical works, is often viewed inseparably from the novella. However, among the many connections between the fictional fate of Sofia Petrovna and the real fate of Lydia Chukovskaya, one aspect that has not been properly explored by the critics is the “dialogue” between the author and the protagonist with respect …

Eugene O’Neill Returns: Theatrical Modernization And O’Neill Adaptations In 1980s China, Shuying Chen

Theses and Dissertations

After nearly vanishing from the Chinese literary world map for thirty years from 1949 to 1979, Eugene O’Neill’s works underwent a reevaluation and resurgence in the reform era of the 1980s. This decade witnessed a wide range of introductions to, research on, translations, and productions of O’Neill’s play in the Chinese theatrical and cultural landscape. Chinese theater practitioners staged some thirty adaptations of O’Neill’s works in both domains of spoken drama and traditional opera, including productions by colleges, state-owned troupes, and independent theater groups. This dissertation contextualizes some of O’Neill adaptations in the socio-cultural context of the transitional period and …

Everything I Ever Needed To Know About The North Pole I Learned From Father Christmas (And Karhu The Polar Bear [And Ilbereth The Elf])., Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

Based on a portion of a keynote address delivered at the 50th Tolkien Society Oxonmoot, this paper investigates the Father Christmas Letters through a world-building lens, and suggests areas of analysis concerning the letters where scholars may make significant additional contributions to Tolkien Studies.

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking With Master Nishida (First Published In Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, And Revised By Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023 「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking with Master Nishida (First Published in Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, and Revised by Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）

Source text transcribed and published by Aozora Bunko–a compendium of public-domain Japanese literature, philosophy, and criticism

General website: https://www.aozora.gr.jp

Current text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000218/files/50538_37481.html

Satire In Swift And Voltaire: Towards A Humanist Dialectic, Ola Kittaneh, Fuad Abdul Muttaleb

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

This article examines how the Enlightenment writers Jonathan Swift and Voltaire’s attitudes and works resonate with our modern writers’ concepts on the role of the humanist intellectual. Informed by Edward Said’s recent theoretical concepts on the humanist intellectual, the article compares the way the two writers use the power of satire to achieve a humanist end that focuses on the pitfalls of identitarian thinking which often leads to national or religious fanaticism. There is certainly a need for Swift and Voltaire to be repositioned in relation with the broad contours of modern writers’ notions of the intellectual. By reading the …

Narrating Egyptian Women’S Prison Experiences - El Saadawi And Bakr, Nour El Captan

The Undergraduate Research Journal

The research attempts to discover what Egyptian women prisoners’ experience was like in the 1980s and 90s through studying two major texts which fall under the genre of prison literature: Twelve Women in a Cell by Nawal El Saadawi and The Golden Chariot by Salwa Bakr. Through a thorough reading and analysis of the works, similar tropes and different attitudes can be found in the texts. Both works discussed class, comradery, and the patriarchy but differences exist when it comes to their different portrayals of prison.

“‘Normal Is What We Make It, Right?’ Ordinary Aesthetics And Uncanny Twists In Contemporary Tv Series.", Jeroen Gerrits

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Contemporary TV shows, characterized by their complex narrative form, are designed to reveal the simple. They enable characters and viewers alike to discover the ordinary by coupling the everyday to an underworld populated by criminals, demons, vampires, and other kinds of “lowlifes.” I will argue here that the structure of the Möbius strip, or Escher twist, draws a particular aesthetic appeal at the intersection of these worlds. I call these twists uncanny in the Cavellian sense that the underworld, looking strangely familiar, has the capacity of making the ordinary look unfamiliar, inherently strange, and unstable. Rather than allowing us to …

Leyla Erbil’S A Strange Woman As The Undoing Of Shame And The Discovery Of Self, Gönül Kığılcım

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Shame plays a major role in the formation of femininity, and as Ruth Leys argues, shame has surpassed guilt as the dominant emotional reference in the Western world. If shame is a lived social experience rather than an interior trait, how does this new understanding of shame influence our readings of literature, particularly that of women writers? Analyzing Leyla Erbil's recently translated novel, A Strange Woman (1971), and interacting with theories of emotion and affect theory, I explore whether viewing women's writing from this new perspective can offer new insight into literature by women and particularly the literature by women …

Liberation’S Love-Language: The Politics And Poetics Of Queer Translation After Stonewall, Eric Keenaghan

English Faculty Scholarship

Poetry served gay and lesbian liberationists in the years following Stonewall as a mechanism for translating queer experience into a language shared amongst the members of emergent sociopolitical LGBTQ+ communities. Poetry figured prominently in the historical period's activist little magazines, newsletters, and other periodicals as means of doing this work of self-construction and world-building, a simple fact largely unappreciated by both queer studies (which overlooks non-narrative forms) and contemporary American poetry studies (which dismisses much activist poetry as identitarian agitprop). But poetry, due to its formal differences from narrativity, has been a site for queer revolutionary action and imaginaries because …

Chatgpt Transcript For Read The World, Michelle Warren

Dartmouth Scholarship

This document records experiments with ChatGPT answering a common colloquial question, recording multiple answers to the prompt "What in the world is reading?"

Genres Of Labor: Wageless Work And The Aesthetics Of Stagnation, Martin A. Jensen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Genres of Labor identifies and explores a little-acknowledged fact about labor—that it appears to us in highly conventionalized forms that are subject to evaluation, appraisal, and interpretation. I call this appearance the “aesthetic” dimension of labor, and I show how it increasingly comes into view in the period since 1973, as a contracting economy pushes off work onto unwaged realms of human activity. In chapters on Andy Warhol’s The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993), and Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days (2001), I demonstrate that literary texts participate in …