European Languages and Societies Commons^™

Peacebuilding Through Education - The Shared Education Program: The Current Key To Peacebuilding In Northern Ireland Schools And Societies, Emily Grace Vanhuis

Global Studies Student Projects

No abstract provided.

The Weight Of The Spring: "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" And The Fate Of The Prague Spring, Thea J. Toocheck

Student Publications

Two of the many watershed events Czechoslovakia experienced in the twentieth century were the 1968 Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion, which determined the course of the nation for the next twenty years. Czech author Milan Kundera experienced these events firsthand and recounted a narrative of the events in his 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Today, the novel remains an important work for its representation of the Spring and its philosophical discussion of the purpose of human life. Over the last fifty years, the Prague Spring has been represented by a variety of sources as a time …

A Comparative Analysis Of Political Climates In Lithuania, Poland, And Ireland In The Early 1900s Related To Us Immigration And Media Culture, Annelise Silkaitis

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the process and experience of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish immigrants during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as the role of media, specifically newspapers and books, in creating the representation and portrayal of these immigrant groups. These different ethnic groups left Europe for a variety of reasons, mainly economic and political, and sought a better life in the United States. Upon arrival, each group struggled with the Americanization process, learning English, building connections, and forming a new society. Although some immigrant groups formed stronger networks and communities upon arrival, each group faced poverty and discrimination. …

Miraculous Monstrosity: Birth And Female Sexuality In The Illuminated Scivias And Cloisters Apocalypse, Jenna M. Mckellips

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This paper compares the illuminations in two medieval apocalypses, the Cloisters Apocalypse and Hildegard von Bingen’s Scivias, to inspect their similar constructions of female sexuality, motherhood, and monstrosity. It first analyzes the monstrosity of female sexual organs found in Hildegard’s portrayal of the Church and the Mother of the Antichrist. The paper then goes on to consider the uncanny slippage between images of birth and death in the Cloisters’s depiction of John and the Woman of Revelation 12. Ultimately, the paper not only explores the monstrosity of female bodies in apocalyptic manuscripts, but also concludes that medieval women’s …

“Natural Ties For Patriotic Purposes": The Committee On Public Information, Americanization, And Swedish-American Transnationalism, Race L. Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

The Committee on Public Information (CPI) was the official propaganda agency of the United States during the First World War, seeking to homogenize American public opinion and spread American ideals across the globe. Through a case study of Edwin Björkman’s work among Swedish Americans, this thesis illuminates how the CPI approached its work among immigrants, engaging questions of Americanization and transnationalism. Through an analysis of the John Ericsson League of Patriotic Service and the Scandinavian Bureau—both its domestic and foreign operations—this thesis argues that Edwin Björkman and the CPI promoted cultural pluralism rather than assimilation to a dominant Anglo-American culture. …

Nationalist Allegories In The Post-Human Era, Siqi Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As China’s expansion of influence now takes up the spotlight of the world stage, Chinese science fiction, a relatively little known genre, reaches a global audience. In 2015, Liu Cixin received the Hugo Award for Best Novel for his trilogy The Three-Body Problem, as the first Asian science fiction writer to receive the Hugo Award. A year later, Hao Jingfang’s Folding Beijing was awarded the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. The recent world-wide recognition of Chinese science fiction begins with English translation, U.S. publication and promotion. The New York Times cited The Three-Body Problem as having helped popularize Chinese …

Trans-Atlantic Interrogation: Fabienne Pasquet’S La Deuxième Mort De Toussaint Louverture, Mariana F. Past

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In “Trans-Atlantic Interrogation: Fabienne Pasquet’s La deuxième mort de Toussaint Louverture,” Mariana Past situates the Haitian-Swiss novelist’s understudied narrative within the context of Caribbean letters and the Haitian literary tradition, then discusses the broader, intertextual implications of Toussaint Louverture’s “second” death for Haiti and the trans-Atlantic world. To what end does Pasquet deploy the aged ghost of a Haitian revolutionary icon being invoked by German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist in the Fort de Joux castle-cum-prison within France’s remote, mountainous Jura region? What is at stake when the diasporic writer reincarnates a legendary German poet as protagonist, placing him …

From Franz Kafka To Franz Kafka Award Winner, Yan Lianke: Biopolitics And The Human Dilemma Of Shenshizhuyi In Liven And Dream Of Ding Village, Melinda Pirazzoli

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

To date, many studies have exhaustively explained how and why Yan Lianke deals with both the intimate relationship between disease and biopolitics and the relationship between utopia and dystopia. These are certainly the most important themes in Liven (2004) and Dream of Ding Village (2006). However, biopolitical discourses cannot fully account for the complexity, depth and humanity of these novels, which in addition to exploring the complex and protean meaning of life also represent shenshizhuyi, an expression coined by Yan Lianke to describe his human dilemma in representing the complex relationship between shen 神 (soul, spirit, mind and myths) …

Hanay Geiogamah’S Body Indian And Foghorn As “Plays With A Purpose”, Danica Čerče

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Hanay Geiogamah’s Body Indian and Foghorn as ‘Plays with a Purpose,’” written against the backdrop of critical whiteness studies, Danica Čerče discusses how Geiogamah’s theatrical rhetoric intervenes in the assumptions about whiteness as a static, privilege-granting category and system of dominance. By focusing on various techniques and strategies mobilized to define and affirm Native Americans’ authentic rather than imposed identities, the article shows that humor is one of the prime textual devices in Geiogamah’s plays to renegotiate what Walter Mignolo calls “the racist structure of power.”

“No Roses, White Nor Red, Glow Here”: The Motif Of The Garden In Two Proserpine Poems By A. Swinburne And D. Greenwell, Cristina Salcedo González

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this article, I discuss Algernon Swinburne’s and Dora Greenwell’s engagement with the myth of Proserpine through an analysis of the motif of the garden, which takes central stage in both accounts. The examination will illustrate how the authors’ outlined images of the garden challenge the dominant representation of the motif within Western literary tradition, offering a re-interpretation of the myth as social commentary.

The Inappropriate/D Fantastic: A Proposal Beyond Feminism, Teresa López-Pellisa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Teresa López-Pellisa’s article “The Inappropriate/d Fantastic: A Proposal Beyond Feminism” discusses a type of narration that goes beyond the feminist fantastic. These are fantastic texts permeated not only by a feminist discourse, but by intersectionality, transfeminism, ecofeminism, cyberfeminism, post-humanism, xenofeminism and/or necropolitics as well. Borrowing the term inappropriate/d others from Donna Haraway (The Promises of Monsters), who in turn takes it from the feminist theorist Trinh Minh-ha, we can analyze those fantastic stories that call into question the categories of gender, class, race and sexuality established by Western enlightened humanism. These types of non-mimetic narrations have …

Female Fantastic In Anthologies: Gendering The Genre And Its Discourse, Anna Boccuti

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In the last decades, the fantastic literature written by women has been the subject of various studies, which, from different standpoints, have tried to investigate the characteristics of the female fantastic. In this essay, after a critical review of the most prominent theories about the so-called feminine fantastic and female writing, I will focus on the narrative strategies of the female fantastic. Through the close reading of the anthologies Tra due specchi. 18 racconti di scrittrici latinoamericane, and Insólitas. Narradoras de lo fantástico en Latinoamérica y España, I’ll try to draw a cartography of the Hispanic …

The Female Fantastic Vs. The Feminist Fantastic: Gender And The Transgression Of The Real, David Roas

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Since Ann Richter coined the term “fantastique féminin” in 1977, many works in different languages have postulated a “female” way of writing fantastic texts, depending on the selection of themes, language, characters, supernatural elements, and the portrayal of the uncanny and the monstrous. This claim on the existence of a "female fantastic" reflects central issues in Feminist Literary Theory: on the one hand, the will to identify an aesthetic mode opposed to the dominant patriarchal discourse (female writing, the use of specific themes, etc.); on the other hand, the argument that there are marginal genres, forms and styles voluntarily removed …

Introduction: New Perspectives On The Female Fantastic, David Roas, Patricia Garcia

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Black Gold, White Gold, And The Bear's Influence Over Central Asian Economies, Jennifer Leo

University Honors Theses

In examining the socioeconomic state of former Soviet republics in Central Asia, it becomes clear that the current economies of nations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan have been shaped by a history of Russian dominance, followed by turbulent developments that took place during the "perestroika" and post-independence period. These periods were marked by significant changes in governance which allowed Central Asian nations to gain inclusion in the global economy, forge partnerships with economically thriving world superpowers (US and China), and emerge from the Soviet system of mono-product economies. As a result of such developments, former republics of the Soviet …

Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’S Hermetic Reading Of Gower’S Jason And The Golden Fleece, Curtis Runstedler

Accessus

This article examines Elias Ashmole’s alchemical reading of John Gower’s tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652). I argue that this tale can be read as alchemical and connects to the Renaissance humanist tradition of reading classical stories as alchemical as well as Book IV of the Confessio Amantis, in which Gower depicts alchemy as the ideal form of human labour. Jason, representing the aspiring adept in this reading, is aided by his lover Medea, who represents a master alchemist with her supernatural powers, and through his intensive labours he is successful as …

John Gower's Magical Rhetoric, Georgiana Donavin

Accessus

In Book 6 of the Confessio Amantis, telling the “Tale of Ulysses and Telegonus,” John Gower says of the former, “He was a gret rethorien / He was a gret magicien,” thereby capturing deep connections between rhetoric and magic. The seriously flawed necromancers of Book 6 exemplify only negative connections, however. Ulysses, by embracing verbal trickery and deploying his knowledge of the liberal arts for inferior aims, fails as both hero and speaker. Worse than Ulysses is Nectanabus, whose deceitful “carectes” seem to serve as a critique against spoken enchantments. Later in Book 7, however, Gower recuperates a concept …

Magic, Religion, And Science: A Special Issue, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

Preface to a special issue of Accessus on magic, religion, and science in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period.

The 500th Anniversary Of The Swiss Reformation: How Zwingli Changed And Continues To Impact Switzerland Today, Thomas Quinn Marabello

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The year 2019 began the 500th anniversary of The Reformation in Switzerland. The man who would forever change the country we now know as Switzerland was Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli, a Catholic priest educated in humanism, who arrived in Zurich in 1519. Zwingli’s writings, sermons and alliances with Zurich’s political class allowed him to change the church in Switzerland and influence other reformers and faiths over the centuries. Often overlooked in the history of the Protestant Reformation due to the dominance of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Zwingli is getting renewed attention with the 500th anniversary of The Swiss Reformation. …

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: President's Report For 2020, Albert Winkler

Swiss American Historical Society Review

It is a pleasure to greet everyone and to wish you good fortune in all that you do. I deeply appreciate your interest in and continued support for the Swiss American Historical Society.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Sahs Review Report, Dwight Page

Swiss American Historical Society Review

This year, 2021, promises to be another productive and interesting year in the history of the Swiss American Historical Society Review. In the current February 2021 issue, we provide a brief history of the Helvetia Beneficial Society of Columbus, Ohio, prepared by Dr. Donald G. Tritt, a native of Columbus and a longtime leader in our Society. Starting in the 1980’s, Dr. Tritt agreed to serve as the volunteer historian for five clubs making up the Swiss community in Columbus, so he has first hand knowledge of this information. We also provide a most interesting report on the current …

End Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Annual Report Of The Swiss Chapter, Switzerland, Barbara Müller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Dear Members:

The Friends of the Swiss American Historical Society are able to look back on a successful year here in Switzerland. At present, we have 45 members, which shows a small increase in total membership but does not reflect that actual growth is larger, since we have lost members due to age and health issues over the years.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Membership Report, Ernie Thurston

Swiss American Historical Society Review

To: Members of the Swiss American Historical Society

From: Ernie Thurston, Membership Secretary

Subject: Annual Membership Report

IN BRIEF: We have 209 current members, a 2% decrease from the 214 reported last year at this time.

Front Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Helvetia Unterstützungs Verein (Helvetia Beneficial Society) Columbus, Ohio: Founding Documents & Membership, Donald G. Tritt

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Having grandparents, aunts, and uncles who emigrated from Switzerland in the 1860s, I treasured the many occasions hearing stories of our ancestral homeland—the “old country.” With peers of my Swiss relatives, I reveled in August 1st celebrations, picnics, club house gatherings, sängerfests, and shooting events. Captivated by these stories and events, I wanted to know more about their life and times in Switzerland and—what happened after their arrival in America. My Swiss grandparents settled in a German-speaking area of Columbus, Ohio, known today as “German Village.” The first Swiss club in Columbus, the Grütli Verein, was founded in 1870. Beneficial …

Black History Month At The Swiss Embassy February 2020, C. Naseer Ahmad

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Swiss Embassy in Washington has a unique place historically, diplomatically as well as culturally. It ties the United States with Switzerland in a way that no other diplomatic representative office can: the parcel of real estate on which the Swiss Ambassador’s residence is built on what was once considered as a possible location for the United States Congress.

Landscape Theology: Exploring The Outfields Of The Telemarkian Dream Song, Thomas Arentzen

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

The article explores the Norwegian ‘national ballad’ Draumkvæde (the Dream Song) in Maren Ramskeid’s version. This work has traditionally been interpreted as a folklore adaptation of medieval visionary literature such as the Vision of Tundale, related to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The ballad, however, lacks demons and devils and infernal torture – it is even almost completely devoid of human beings. Instead it tells of a corporeal encounter with an imagined natural landscape. This dreamscape of the song is intimately intertwined with the local terrain of the singer. Maren Ramskeid engaged her own landscape in Telemark, the …

Danish Cedar Falls, Carrie Eilderts

The Bridge

In 1855, Frederick Petersen’s family became the first Danish immigrants on record to settle in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Petersens came from the Schleswig area on the Danish/German border, and in 1860, Christian Petersen came to Cedar Falls, also from Schleswig. More Danish families moved to Cedar Falls from Pine River, Wisconsin in 1866, and the next year Danes began arriving directly from their homeland after enduring a long journey by ship and train. By the early 1870s, Danes were settling in Cedar Falls in large numbers. By 1871, three hundred Danes called the city home, making up about ten …