European Languages and Societies Commons^™

Cultured, Cara L. Dochat

Student Publications

This memoir piece comprises three parts, each of which tells a humorous and perhaps slightly embarrassing story of interpersonal upsets the narrator experienced while studying abroad in Europe. Their telling exposes the narrator as a naïve American tourist, despite her conscious attempts to be culturally sensitive and respectful. The intent of this piece was neither to make a political statement about being American in Europe, nor to present yet another trite account “the best four months of [my] life.” While my primary goal was to share these stories for their entertainment value (if self-effacing), my hope was to transform the …

Infanticide And The Anxious Silence Of “Language As Such”, Kevin Godbout

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

No abstract provided.

Magistra Doctissima: Essays In Honor Of Bonnie Wheeler, Dorsey Armstrong, Ann W. Astell, Howell Chickering

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

The editors of this volume use its title to honor Bonnie Wheeler for her many scholarly achievements and to celebrate her wide-ranging contributions to medieval studies in the United States. There are sections on Old and Middle English Literature, Arthuriana Then and Now, Joan of Arc Then and Now, Nuns and Spirituality, and Royal Women. As the editors note in the introduction, the volume "confirms Bonnie's commitment to the multidisciplinary study of the Middle Ages" and affirms her conviction "that the medieval and the modern are best viewed not as 'the past' and 'the present' but as interpenetrative categories."

Recognizing A Collective Inheritance Through The History Of Women In Computing, Erika E. Smith

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Recognizing a Collective Inheritance through the History of Women in Computing" Erika E. Smith engages with the following question: how might we create the space for women in the history of computing that is deserved? Even with the proliferation of social, political, and historical engagement with feminist theory and computing technology, there remains a lack of scholarship on the topic of women in the history of computing. Given the dearth of historical accounts on the role of women in computing, the task of delving into such history becomes necessary, although difficult. Smith's objective is to examine a …

Food, Culture, And Identity In Vittorini's Conversation In Sicily And Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, Brangwen J. Stone

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Food, Culture, and Identity in Vittorini's Conversation in Sicily and Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat" Brangwen J. Stone discusses Elio Vittorini's novel about the protagonist's journey to his Sicilian hometown in fascist Italy and Sarah Kofman's memoir about her childhood memories of hiding in Paris during World War II. The prevalence of food in Conversations in Sicily and Rue Ordener is not surprising given the extreme shortage of food during wartime, but food goes beyond simply illustrating the everyday in both texts. Stone explores how food and collective identity are linked in the texts and how …

Cross-Cultural Interpretation And Chinese Literature: A Book Review Article On Owen's Work In Sinology, Qingben Li, Jinghua Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Egyptian Enlightenment And Mann, Freud, And Freund, Rebecca C. Dolgoy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Egyptian Enlightenment and Mann, Freud, and Freund" Rebecca C. Dolgoy discusses various ways in which ancient Egypt is used in three works from the 1930s: Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism, and Karl Freund's film The Mummy. By showing the similarities and differences in how these works use Egypt, Dolgoy develops the concept that memory is the way in which the past is used. Dolgoy follows the structure of a cinematic shot casting: The Mummy as the long shot which both sets up the general Egyptomania characteristic of …

Text, Textile, And The Body In Baudelaire's 'A Une Mendiante Rousse' And Devi's Indian Tango, Michelle C. Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Text, Textile, and the Body in Baudelaire's 'A une mendiante rousse' and Devi's Indian Tango," Michelle C. Lee aims to rethink the post-romantic division between aesthetics and politics through a reconsideration of the idea of complicity in Charles Baudelaire's poem and Ananda Devi's novel. Lee argues against the claim that aesthetics needs to remain autonomous in order to be able to radically critique bourgeois society. Through a reading of the trope of clothing in each of the texts, Lee re-evaluates the formation of autonomous modernist aesthetics and attempts to show that avant-garde self-reflexivity engages in the …

Frye's Thought And Its Implications For The Interpretation Of Nigerian Narratives, Ignatius Chukwumah

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Frye's Thought and Its Implications for the Interpretation of Nigerian Narratives" Ignatius Chukwumah applies Northrop Frye's theoretical work on archetypes, mythos, and modes for the analysis of Nigerian literature. Chukwumah's application in the interpretation of Nigerian literature results in the understanding that the hero as conceived by Frye is not exactly the same with Africa's or Nigeria's and requires that scholars and critics of African texts fill up the ellipses generated by Frye with an autochthonous, resistant, rewarding, African-related symbolic templates in order to make the sense of the hero in both traditional and postcolonial African/Nigerian literatures …

An Argument For Gender Equality In Africa, Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "An Argument for Gender Equality in Africa" Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji addresses the problematics of gender inequality in Black African society. Many scholars working on African Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures have had something to say about the treatment of women and the topic of gender inequality in Africa. Some suggest(ed) that the roots of women's oppression are to be sought in customs and traditions and so despite of a legal system that guarantees women rights in Africa. Olatunji's objective is to advance the current discussion on the issue using the method of simple philosophical analysis, an argument from …

Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, And Human Rights, Eric Sipyinyu Njeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, and Human Rights" Eric Sipyinyu Njeng argues that Chinua Achebe exposes failings in the fabric of African society and engages with violations of human rights. Achebe is careful not to hurt the pride of Africans who in the Zeitgeist of the nationalist ferment of the 1950s were wary of European powers. Achebe does not "write back" to the empire: he writes the empire in and he lays bare the weaknesses in African culture grounded in the father-son-grandson trajectory he narrates. Achebe presents what may be termed a cultural dialectics: the thesis (flawed African customs …

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

The Father's Power In Breitbach's Report On Bruno And Achebe's A Man Of The People, Amechi N. Akwanya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Father's Power in Breitbach's Report on Bruno and Achebe's A Man of the People" Amechi N. Akwanya analyses Joseph Breitbach's Report on Bruno and Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease in order to lay bare the underlying processes of these texts. Undoubtedly the patterns of struggle in the two texts are political, but reading them in exclusively political terms has the consequence that the works are of no further interest once the putative political agenda is identified and described. Akwanya's analysis discloses shared features in the two texts published within two years of each other. …

Sound Semiotics Of Osundare's Poetry, Christopher Chukwudi Anyokwu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Sound Semiotics of Osundare's Poetry" Christopher Anyokwu postulates that in our increasingly chirographically and typographically oriented culture and society, we often forget how tenacious and over-arching the oral continues to be. Semiotics, the science of signs, highlights among others how speech acts and speech sounds are deployed in everyday human interactions to convey meaning and communicate humanity's need for understanding and fulfillment. This meaning-signaling potential of the tonality of language is even more pronounced in most African languages which are, unlike English, syllable timed and tonal in nature. This tonal nature of African languages is appropriated by …

The Dilemma Of Western Education In Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story, Naylor's The Women Of Brewster Place, And Morrison's Beloved, Solomon Omatsola Azumurana

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Dilemma of Western Education in Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story, Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, and Morrison's Beloved" Solomon Omatsola Azumurana examines the problematics of Western education with regard to Black Africans and African Americans through the creative lens of three prose fictions written by African and African American women. While Ama Ata Aidoo is a West African writer from Ghana, Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison are African American writers. Azumurana argues that Western education poses issues whether for African Americans of Black Africans and whether educated and literate or not, there …

Ecocriticism In An Age Of Terror, Simon C. Estok

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecocriticism in an Age of Terror" Simon C. Estok argues that we cannot ignore the context of terror in and through which ecocriticism works and that the relationships between the imagining of terror on the one hand and the conceptualizing of hostile environments on the other is in very serious need of critical analysis. Changes in how we think about nature are also long overdue, as are changes in how we think about doing ecocriticism. Working toward these changes now in our scholarship will take us leaps and bounds closer to the activist intervention about which ecocriticism …

Towards A Framework Of A Semiotics Of Dance, Nikoleta Popa Blanariu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Towards a Framework of a Semiotics of Dance" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu constructs a framework of based on de Saussure's, Peirce's, and Barthes's thought. She applies Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of semiosis defined as a cultural system of conventions. In dance this occurs when choreographic signs are encoded, for example in magic, ritual, or religious expressions of movement. Further, Charles Sanders Peirce's concept of the role of "intelligent consciousness" is crucial for the engendering of signification and thus to dance. In dance, the choreographer "interprets" the world and by means of selection and interpretation, the choreographic sign …

Ambanasom's Son Of The Native Soil And The Western Concept Of The Tragic Hero, Denis Fonge Tembong

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ambanasom's Son of the Native Soil and the Western Concept of the Tragic Hero" Denis Fonge Tembong discusses the view that although African and Western literatures are fundamentally different as they exhibit or represent distinct cultural values, they nevertheless share some common notions. The concept of a tragic hero is one of those convergent loci where the two literatures meet. With this in mind, Tembong examines in Aristotle's and Shakespeare's concepts of the tragic hero and demonstrates how the ideas exploited in Macbeth are similarly used in Shadrach A. Ambanasom's Son of the Native Soil against the …

Racism And Identity In Onwueme's Riot In Heaven, Onyeka F. Iwuchukwu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Racism and Identity in Onwueme's Riot in Heaven" Onyeka Iwuchukwu explores Tess Osonye Onwueme's acclaimed play in the context of the Black diaspora in the U.S. Iwuchukwu posits that because of Onwueme's exploration of the theater of the absurd in the play, audience's attention is directed to the illogical presentation of dialogue and action. However, the technique with textual properties suggesting unmotivated and meaningless references in fact carries profound meaning. Further, the said "absurd" presentation and narration results in a strong ideological and political message akin to the practice of littérature engagée. Iwuchukwu's analysis of …

We Survived … At Last I Speak, Leon Malmed

Zea E-Books Collection

This is Leon Malmed’s true story of his and his sister Rachel’s escape from the Holocaust in Occupied France. When their father and mother were arrested in 1942, their courageous and heroic French neighbors volunteered to watch their children until they returned. Leon’s parents were taken first to Drancy, then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and they never returned. Meanwhile their downstairs neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Ribouleau, gave the children a home and family and sheltered them through subsequent roundups, threats, air raids, and the war’s privations. The courage, sympathy, and dedication of the Ribouleaus and others stand in strong contrast to the …

L'Escalade Of 1602: History, Myth, And Commemoration, Jill Fehleison

Swiss American Historical Society Review

L'Escalade, the Duke of Savoy's failed attack against Geneva in December 1602, is to the annals of this city not unlike the Fourth of July is to the popular culture of the United States. The colorful narrative of L'Escalade has all the necessary ingredients for a historical event to become mythical: heroes, villains, deception, and success. There is a universal appeal to a story about ordinary citizens triumphing over a larger invading army. The brazenness of the attack is an enduring image that has proven highly malleable for poets, preachers, and politicians, and L'Escalade 's celebration has continued through the …

Alpine Footballers In The New World: Swiss Influence On Soccer In The United States, Robert Sherwood

Swiss American Historical Society Review

When one thinks of Swiss sports, soccer is not the first to come to mind. Images of Roger Federer or Martina Hingis holding aloft a Grand Slam of tennis trophy cross the mind or perhaps Fabian Cancellara, the most dominant Time Trialist in the professional cycling peleton today. Maybe Simmon Amman, the Swiss ski jumper who was dubbed "Swiss Miss" by Bob Costas of NBC Sports during the Winter Olympics where he was so successful. It is even possible that some will say one of the notable skiers from the Alpine nation, Dider Couche, or Carlos Janka to name only …

From No Man's Land To The Mosaic Floor: An Autobiographical Sketch Of A "Secunda'', Lorena Gulino

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Biography doesn't have to follow the time line-I know that as a cultural anthropologist. And I also know that we read the past through the lens of the present and that its construction is but one version of possible realities having the imprint of personal vision. Understanding is shaped further by the moment and formed by social surroundings. An anecdote will highlight these opening thoughts.

Leaving The Alps For The Plains: A Brief Narrative Of A Swiss Family's Migration To Texas, Barbara Ozun

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Cows, cheese, Swiss Army knives, mountains, and beautiful lakes are what people think of when they think Switzerland. Others talk about the military and the fact that every man is allowed-not encouraged-to own a gun and regularly shoot it at targets ... Still others marvel that a country so small could function so well with four official languages. Currently, cocktail party talk seems to center around the prescience of Switzerland's decision not to be part of the Eurozane-that is, if the person I am talking with can distinguish .Switzerland from Sweden! I am often asked about Switzerland and how my …

Beyeler, Ernst. Ernst Beyeler: A Passion For Art, Interviews With Christopher Mory, Melissa Renn

Swiss American Historical Society Review

First published in French in 2003, Ernst Beyeler: A Passion for Art (2011) consists of a series of interviews with the Swiss art collector and dealer Ernst Beyeler (1921-2010) conducted by the journalist and novelist Christopher Mory. Through these lively conversations, Beyeler gives the reader a glimpse into the European and American art worlds from the 1950s to the present, and the book is filled with fascinating anecdotes regarding some of the most famous artists, collectors, and dealers of the twentieth century.

Greentree, David, And David Campbell, Napoleon's Swiss Troops, Jeff Washburn

Swiss American Historical Society Review

In Napoleon's Swiss Troops, authors David Greentree and David Campbell create a richly detailed monograph concerning Swiss soldiers who fought for Napoleon. The Swiss were considered elite units in Napoleon's armies and "would be often asked to save the day for the French troops alongside whom they fought" (p. 6). Utilizing exceptional artwork concerning the dress and attire of the Swiss as well as detailed graphs and explanations concerning the evolution and size of the Swiss contingency, Greentree and Campbell construct a robust fact book concerning the Swiss units within the Napoleonic military.

Benedict Von Tscharner, Soldaten. Vielf Alt Der Schicksale In Geschichte Und Gegenwart. Preface By Anselm Zufluh, Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Review

This volume, available also in French, is part of the de Penthes series Schweizer in der Welt-Suisses dans le monde-Svizzeri nel mondoThe Swiss Abroad. It offers 26 brief biographical sketches that begin with an entry about the knight, commander, imperial bailiff and minnesinger Werner von Homburg (1284-1320) and conclude with Basil Eugster (1914-1984), Lieutenant-General in the British Army and Commander of the Irish Guard. The reader gains an impressive chronologically arranged glimpse of Swiss men serving in armies abroad, among them people such as Fran~ois Le Fort (1655-1699) in the service of Russia as Admiral, Vice Roy of Novgorod, …

Forty-Ninth Sahs Annual Meeting: 2. Reports

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Minutes of the Forty-Ninth Business Meeting of the Swiss American Historical Society, New York, N.Y., October 13, 2012

Ambassador Frarn;ois Barras offered welcoming remarks. He gave a short oral presentation and history of the building where the Swiss Residence is located. The building was once rated to be one of the twenty best buildings of New York City. He mentioned that his social media staff would be on hand to poll the group on their involvement with social media.

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Mary Ann Hafen, Recollections Of A Handcart Pioneer Of 1860: A Woman's Life On The Mormon Frontier, Kurt Winkler

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The reissuing of Mary Ann Stucki [Stücki] Hafen's classic account by a Swiss-American pioneer with an introduction by Donna Toland Smart is most welcome. This is the seventh reprinting of the book, which was first published in 1938 and was initially meant only as a record for the author's family, but it has been widely praised as one of the most important accounts of the Mormon migration and early settlement.