Modern Literature Commons^™

Taking Refuge In “How:” Dissecting The Motives Behind Cholly’S Rape In The Bluest Eye, Rebecca Andrews

Undergraduate Review

Most parents see parts of themselves in their children. They see their own familiar eyes, their sense of humor, and their long legs. Parents desire to nurture their child’s every hope and dream, and also want to raise their children in a safe and secure environment. However, what if a father saw in his daughter everything that he hated in himself? What if this same father never learned to love in a nurturing way from his own parents? The effects would be devastating. Toni Morrison examines such a scenario in her 1970 novel The Bluest Eye through the rape Pecola …

Gina Bonakdar Nahai: Fantasies Of Escape And Inclusion, Mojgan Behmand

Collected Faculty Scholarship

Cry of the Peacock, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, and Caspian Rain are the enticing titles of Gina Bonakdar Nahai’s Iran-focused novels, published in 1991, 1999, and 2008 respectively. And the titles hold true: the narratives reflect the pain, melancholy and dream-like beauty conveyed in the titles as they divulge characters who strive to escape the restrictions of their community, religion, government, and gender. In the meantime, as the author depicts these fantasies of escape and attempts at flight –and frequently harshly punishes them–, the characters achieve a hitherto unknown feat, namely the depiction of Jewish Iranian main characters …

The Mother Tongues Of Modernity: Modernism, Transnationalism, Translation, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The relation of modernism to immigrant literatures should not be conceived in terms of an opposition between universalistic and particularistic discourses. Rather, we should explore what can be called a modernist transnationalism based on a general universalist argument. Two examples of this transnationalism are explored side by side: Ezra Pound’s and Anzia Yezierska’s definitions of the aesthetic act in terms of translation. The readings show that the critical discourses of these two authors are structured by a belief in universalism while showing opposite possibilities, both generated by modernist transnationalism. The essay concludes that we now need to interpret the cultures …

U.S. Latinos’ Use Of Written Spanish: Realities And Aspirations, Laura Callahan

Modern Languages & Literature

This paper reports on an investigation of writing in Spanish in the lives of U.S. Latinos. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with informants recruited from among students and former students of high school and college Spanish courses. The interviews were transcribed and coded for concepts and emergent themes (Rubin & Rubin, 2005; Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). Some themes that emerged relate to what U.S. Latinos do with written Spanish and what they would like to be able to do; other themes include classroom experiences, extra-academic avenues of acquisition, the social position of varieties of Spanish, language maintenance, and intergenerational loss. …

Photograph: Poet On Dust Jacket, Richmond, Virginia 1996, Alexander Long

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Beyond "Infinite Jest": Post-Postmodern Solidarity In 9/11 Narratives, Najwa Heather Al-Tabaa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My thesis interrogates the postmodern view of popular culture as being banal and questions Theodore Adorno's view of postmodern consumer culture as ultimately anti- human(istic). My re-reading of postmodern popular culture finds that there is potential for meaningful human interaction through popular culture. My re-reading asserts that popular culture is capable of being a vehicle for solidarity. In my analysis I locate a postmodern paradigm shift in which human solidarity becomes a necessary consideration and focus of postmodern narratives and art forms. I term this shift "post-postmodernism" which is marked by a focus on solidarity.1 While the shift to the …

La Voz 2010, Loyola Marymount University, Modern Languages & Literatures Department

La Voz Student Journal

LA VOZ is published by the Modern Languages & Literatures Department, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA.

Pathos, Winter 2010, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editors: Joel Eisenhower and Richard Hernandez

Issue 11

Rotrou’S Bélisaire: Hierarchy And Meaning, Nina Ekstein

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

Bélisaire (1643) differs significantly from the bulk of Rotrou’s theater, perhaps above all in its array of profoundly disparate features. The notion of hierarchy offers a means of organizing the dissimilar elements and understanding the play as a whole. Like so many of Rotrou’s plays, the subject is not original. Its source is Mira de Amescua’s El ejemplo mayor de la Desdicha.

Ecocriticism, The Elements, And The Ascent/Descent Into Weather In Goethe’S Faust, Heather I. Sullivan

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

The ostensibly religious and ethical significance of Faust's final ascension after his death tends to distract, if not blind, readers to other possible implications of that upwards movement and to the idea that he may continue and return "back to earth." The assumption that heavenly powers reward Faust leads to the claim that Goethe's tragedy validates the quest of "land developers" or those who would strive regardless of the consequences. I propose, in contrast, that we read Faust's "final" ascension alongside Goethe's weather essay, "Witterungslehre 1825," and thereby note that this upward motion is not necessarily "final" at all but …

Konsep Malu Orang Melayu Dalam Novel Saga : Satu Kajian Sosiolinguistik., Norazlina Mohd. Kiram

Student Works (2010-2019)

The concept of shyness is an important concept as it encompasses the principles, behaviors, beliefs and rules that should be observed by its society. In relation to this, the concept of shyness among Malays is regarded as peculiar and unique as it is based on the Holy Quran and as-Sunnah. Basically, it is considered as a character awareness concept for the Malays which is very much related to self  worth, dignity and maintenance of one’s face. This being the starting point, the research  tries to put forward an analysis of the concept of shyness among Malays which is  explored in …

[Introduction To] Mother Tongues And Nations: The Invention Of The Native Speaker, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Bookshelf

This monograph examines the ideological legacy of the the apparently innocent kinship metaphors of “mother tongue” and “native speaker” by historicizing their linguistic development. It shows how the early nation states constructed the ideology of ethnolinguistic nationalism, a composite of national language, identity, geography, and race. This ideology invented myths of congenital communities that configured the national language in a symbiotic matrix between body and physical environment and as the ethnic and corporeal ownership of national identity and local organic nature. These ethno-nationalist gestures informed the philology of the early modern era and generated arboreal and genealogical models of language, …

Venezuelan Avant-Garde: María Calcaño's Erotic Poetry, Giovanna Montenegro

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Abstract: This essay treats the Venezuelan avant-garde and its historical development through the poet María Calcaño (1906-1956). An analysis of Calcaño’s work reveals how her erotic avant-gardism was excluded from male-dominated avant-garde literary circles in Venezuela in the 1920s and the 1930s. Rather than analyzing the Latin- American avant-garde as a product of European vanguardisms, I show how Calcaño’s poetry draws upon women’s physical and erotic experience to generate a new female- authored avant-garde poetic corpus. Calcaño therefore produces work that illustrates the poetic expression of women’s identity in Venezuela. She is the first poet who breaks with poetic forms …

Kurt Vonnegut, Authorship And The Purpose Of Literature: A Study Of Kilgore Trout, Danielle M. Benesh

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The works of Kurt Vonnegut demonstrate the author's lifelong interest in the purpose of literature and the role of the author in a postmodern society. Through the use of his most frequently recurring character, the science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut questions the ways in which an author's works influence readers and ponders the relationship between society and art. These themes are explored in detail in the four novels which feature Kilgore Trout most prominently: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions and Timequake. A study of these novels reveals a progressive personification of the Trout figure, as …

Editor's Note, George Hart

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Solitary Hero Verus Social Man In Jeffers's Dear Judas And Yeats's Calvary, Deborah Fleming

Jeffers Studies

W. B. Yeats’s play Calvary (1920) may have inspired or influenced Jeffers’s Dear Judas (1928). Both use the Easter story to explore not only with betrayal and redemption, but also archetypes of betrayer and savior, solitary hero and communal man. Both examine the psychology of the participants in order to evoke the meaning of the events and their importance in western culture. Yeats conceived of his play as an illustration of the distinction in his visionary psychology between objective men who exist in relation to others and subjective men who exist for themselves. For Jeffers, conversely, communal man, absorbed in …

La Libertad De Conciencia En Miguel De Unamuno, Kevin Fagan

World Languages and Cultures

“Winning is not convincing” was the response of the Rector of the University of Salamanca, Miguel de Unamuno, when faced with the military arrogance of General Millán-Astray during the Spanish Civil War. Speaking truth to power, these last public words uttered by Unamuno rise up as the capstone of the courageous defense of freedom of conscience by an academic against despotism. Here we analyze his literary and philosophical thought throughout a life of writings consistent with his personal sufferings on behalf of conscience. His multiple witnesses in defense of freedom of thought, expression and action are based on deep meditation …

Designing Instruction For The Ap French Language And Culture Course, Brian G. Kennelly, Davara Potel, James Monk

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

“Conveyance Of History”: Narrative, Chronicle, History, And The Elizabethan Memory Of The Henrician Golden Age, Andrew Fleck

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Femina: Festival Internacional De Cinema Femenino [International Festival Of Women’S Film], (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, June 1-7, 2009), Traci Roberts-Camps

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Pathos, Fall 2009, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editors: Richard Hernandez

Issue 10

The Dilemma Of The Italian American Male, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

“The Dilemma of the Italian American Male.”

Originally published in Pimps, Wimps, Studs, Thugs and Gentlemen: Essays on Media Images of Masculinity. Ed: Elwood Watson. McFarland, 2009

To see more or purchase works by Marc DiPaolo, visit his Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/Marc-DiPaolo/e/B004LV7W6Y%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Baladodiffusion And Beyond: Using Radio France Inside And Outside The Classroom, Brian G. Kennelly

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

序 = Foreword, Mingwei Song, Shengqing Wu

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Notes On Contributors = 作者簡介

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Home And The Land : The "Native" Fiction Of Zhong Lihe = 原鄉與故鄉 : 鍾理和小說中的鄉土情結, T. M. Mcclellan

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

The Provocation Of Dim Sum; Or, Making Diaspora Visible On Film = 如何在電影中呈現"離散" :《點心》的啟示, Rey Chow

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Agresividad Verbal En La Posesía De Los Años 60: De Sardio A Techo De Ballena, William Martínez

World Languages and Cultures

El siguiente artículo resume la actividad poética de Venezuela en la década de los años 60. Traza la evolución de códigos poéticos a través de dos grupos Sardio y El Techo de la Ballena y analiza a dos poetas de este último grupo, Juan Calzadilla y Caupolicán Ovallles. Se examina en el artículo la importancia de la ciudad como plano poético de los grupos y los poetas.

The following article summarizes the poetic activity in Venezuela in the 1960s. It traces the evolution of poetic codes by examining two groups, Sardio and “El Techo de la Ballena,” and focuses on …

The Taming Of The Youth : Discourse, Politics, And Fictional Representation In The Early Prc = 規訓與狂歡的敘事 : 五〇年代大陸文學中的青春論述、政治及小說再現, Mingwei Song

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

This essay is a study of the cultural manifestation of youth in the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It does not aim to examine the focus on youth merely as a social phenomenon, but instead considers youth as a symbolic figure that had a profound influence on the conceptions of nationhood and modernity. Focusing on Mao's discourse on youth and its effects on literature and politics, I argue that youth is a discursive constellation that is constructed through endless choices, creations, and readjusting of symbols, images, and representational modes. Its manifestation in literary imagination encodes and …

Cultural Untranslatability, Kanji Kitamura

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper proposes a possible concept of 'cultural untranslatability' in translation, focusing on what it is, how important it is, and when it occurs. The paper first explores cultural concepts for understanding of culture. The second part examines Hofstede's cultural dimensions and establishes an experimental definition of cultural difference. Drawing on actual translations between English and Japanese, the third part discusses the importance of the concept. Finally, it considers under what circumstances such untranslatable items are de facto culturally untranslatable, borrowing the concept of translation norms. The paper concludes that cultural untranslatability is an important, useful concept for translation between …