Television Commons^™

Teaching Literature Through Online Discussion In Theory And Practice, Monica Manzolillo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Teaching Literature through Online Discussion in Theory and Practice" Monica Manzolillo focuses on the teaching of literature at the university through on-line discussion. Integrating discussion-based techniques with the predominant lecture mode is necessary because we need to modify students' merely receptive attitude, and help them develop the fundamental skills of reading, interpreting, and criticizing literary texts. Compared to live discussions, electronic communication has the advantage of providing a more relaxed atmosphere where social conventions are less important and this encourages positive interaction among students. Manzolillo illustrates the experimental use of the website Learning Literature http://www.learningliterature.it/ as support …

Paratexts In Travel Blogs, Travel Books' Hypertextuality, And Medial Format Usage, Stefano Calzati

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Paratexts in Travel Blogs, Travel Books' Hypertextuality, and Medial Format Usage" Stefano Calzati compares a number of contemporary travel books and travel blogs. Calzati's objective is to promote a bridging approach between the digital and the analogue that goes beyond their differences. He posits a critique socio-linguistics where online multimodal texts are analyzed by identifying layers of analysis. Against these compositional models, Calzati suggests a double move: on the one hand, he applies Gérard Genette's notion of "paratext" to travel blogs and on the other he extends the concept of "hypertextuality" to travel books. From his analyzis …

Apocalypse & Affect: Political Passivity In Film And Television Representations Of Nuclear Holocaust, W W. Rooks

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Within the expanding canon of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic film and television, this project studies the subgenre that makes use of nuclear holocaust as a narrative device or setting in order to understand how, rather than engaging audiences with the dire off-screen politics that inform such films, it imposes a sense of political passivity on its characters. Similarly imparted is an assumption of that same sense for the audience. In this way, the framing of modern apocalyptic narratives meet an “affective limitation,” which is a concept steeped in the examination of media as a potential tool to motivate political action (Massumi …

Digital Humanities And Publishing A Learned Journal, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Digital Humanities and Publishing a Learned Journal" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses digital humanities and the publishing scholarship online in the context of the politics of publishing scholarship specifically as it pertains to humanities. Funding for the publishing of humanities scholarship remains constricted worldwide whether in print or digital and the standard remains to publish journals by subscription fees. Based on his argumentation against the "colonialism of knowledge," Tötösy de Zepetnek argues for the publishing of humanities scholarship against subscription-based or author-pay models. Further, he presents suggestions as to the how-s of the founding of a digital …

Postcolonial Studies In The Twenty-First Century: A Book Review Article Of Literature For Our Times & Reading Transcultural Cities, Alejandra Moreno Álvarez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, And Cinematic Narration In The Digital Age, Jordan Lavender-Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“The New Reflexivity” tracks two narrative styles of contemporary Hollywood production that have yet to be studied in tandem: the puzzle film and the found footage horror film. In early August 1999, near the end of what D.N. Rodowick refers to as “the summer of digital paranoia,” two films entered the wide-release U.S. theatrical marketplace and enjoyed surprisingly massive financial success, just as news of the “death of film” circulated widely. Though each might typically be classified as belonging to the horror genre, both the unreliable “puzzle film” The Sixth Sense and the fake-documentary “found footage film” The Blair Witch …

Female Anti-Heroes In Contemporary Literature, Film, And Television, Sara A. Amato

Masters Theses

The anti-hero character has steadily become more popular in contemporary literature, film, and television. Part of this popularity is due to the character's appeal to the audience. This character type often commits acts that challenge the regulations of society. These acts, however, can become wish fulfillment for some audience members, making the acts of the character a vicarious experience as well as making the character more relatable because of the character's flawed nature.

This study will trace some of the evolution of the female anti-hero by discussing an ancestral character of the female anti-hero—Hester Prynne the protagonist of Nathanial Hawthorne's …

No More Mind Games: Content Analysis Of In-Game Commentary Of The National Football League’S Concussion Problem, Jeffrey Parker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

American (gridiron) football played at the professional level in the National Football League (NFL) is an inherently physical spectator sport, in which players frequently engage in significant contact to the head and upper body. Until recently, the long-term health consequences associated with on the field head trauma were not fully disclosed to players or the public, potentially misrepresenting the dangers involved in gameplay. Crucial to the dissemination of this information to the public are in-game televised commentators of NFL games, regarded as the primary conduits for mediating in-game narratives to the viewing audience. Using a social constructionist theoretical lens, this …

Perspectives Of Ethical Identity In Ng's Steer Toward Rock And Jen's Mona In The Promised Land, Hui Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Perspectives of Ethical Identity in Ng's Steer toward Rock and Jen's Mona in the Promised Land" Hui Su examines Fae Myenne Ng's and Gish Jen's novels. In the novels, the protagonists make different decisions: in Steer Toward Rock Jack after displacement in China adopts US-American identity and in Mona in the Promised Land Mona, a second generation Chinese American, selects Jewish identity. Owing to their different situations, the two protagonists reflect challenges of identity building in the case of the "Other" in US-American culture and society. Su argues that Ng and Jen, although varying in their …

Luo’S Ethical Experience Of Growth In Mo Yan's Pow!, Zhenzhao Nie

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Luo's Ethical Experience of Growth in Mo Yan's Pow!" Zhenzhao Nie examines the protagonist's experience of self-discovery in the process of natural to ethical choice. Nie's analysis of the novel rests on the theoretical framework "ethical literary criticism" he developed. In the novel Luo's life is narrated in retrospect when he is attempting to become the disciple of a monk and al-though Luo does not find what he is searching for in religion, he arrives at a new stage in his life which is based on ethical principles. The young Luo is unable to make …

Ethical Discourse And Narrative Strategies In Yan's老师，好美 (To My Teacher, With Love), Zhuo Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Ethical Discourse and Narrative Strategies in Yan's老师，好美 (To My Teacher, with Love)" Zhuo Wang discusses the way in which narrative converges with ethics at the site of a radical "ethical environment" in Geling Yan's novel. Wang focuses on how the novel's first-person confessional narration, third-person reflective narration, and online narration dialogue with and interrogate one another working together to bring forth Yan's reconsideration of the ethical dimensions of her text. Wang argues that the novel's personal and social ethics are embodied multiple narrative voices which altogether reflect on the close relationship between novels and ethical discourse …

Introduction To Fiction And Ethics In The Twenty-First Century, Zhenzhao Nie, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Ethical Dilemma And Ethical Epiphany In Mcewan’S The Children Act, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethical Dilemma and Ethical Epiphany in McEwan's The Children Act" Biwu Shang attempts to explore the ethical nature of the child's welfare in Ian McEwan's novel. Shang examines the various legal cases processed by the British High Court judge Fiona Maye and the blood transfusion case of Adam Henry in particular. Shang argues that Maye adopts ethical criteria throughout the cases she deals with. More significantly, Adam's blood transfusion case and his consequential death lead Maye to her ethical epiphany related to the child's welfare: life is the fundamental welfare of the child and to protect …

Human Cloning As The Other In Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Wen Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Human Cloning as the Other in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go" Wen Guo analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's novel with focus on Ishiguro's analogy between human cloning and people of marginality in contemporary society. Guo discusses the novel's ambience of doubt and suspense and elaborates on how the theme of otherness is addressed by Ishiguro's mock-realism in a landscape of science fiction. Further, Guo analyses the "unhomely" Hailsham of the novel, the clones' self-pursuit, and their ethical attitudes. Guo argues that in Ishiguro's novel a person's ethical choices are determined by his/her situation which confirms Ishiguro's beliefs with …

Narrative Ethics And Alterity In Adichie's Novel Americanah, Nora Berning

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Narrative Ethics and Alterity in Adichie's Novel Americanah" Nora Berning analyses Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel through the lens of a narrative ethics of alterity. Focusing on the notion of alterity, Berning argues that a specific turn-of-the-century ethics emerges in contemporary fictions of migration in general and in intercultural novels in particular. An ethical genre in its own right, such twenty-first century fictions as Americanah generate a particular kind of ethical knowledge that revolves around questions of identity and alterity and around individual and collective perceptions of self and other. By addressing the interplay of "the ethics …

Ethics Of Counter Narrative In Delillo’S Falling Man, Qingji He

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethics of Counter-Narrative in DeLillo's Falling Man" Qingji He analyzes Don DeLillo's counter-narrative in his post-9/11 novel Falling Man. The objective is to show how ethical dimensions function fundamentally in formulating an appropriate counter-narrative and why DeLillo's counter-narrative echoes views expressed in his "In the Ruins of the Future." He argues that DeLillo's counter-narrative entails the necessity of ethical consciousness and responsibility. It is Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings instead of media representation that become pivotal in Lianne's transformative and redemptive process after the terrorist attack. Similarly, David Janiak's performance art and Richard Drew's picture …

Ethics Of Father And Son In Ri's 流域へ (Watershed Above) And Kaneshiro's Go, Inseop Shin, Jooyoung Kim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Ethics of Father and Son in Ri's 流域へ (Watershed Above) and Kaneshiro's GO" Inseop Shin and Jooyoung Kim discuss the ethics of father and son as they appear in the two novels by Kaisei Ri and Kazuki Kaneshiro. In both narratives the protagonists suffer from ethical conflicts with their fathers during their struggle to find their identities. The father is port-rayed as a figure who determines the ethical choices the protagonists face when they pursue their own lives. Shin and Kim argue that Korean Japanese fiction is a narrative that folds these choices back on oneself. …

Overt And Covert Shandyism Of Nabokov's Nikolai Gogol, Margarit Ordukhanyan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Overt and Covert Shandyism of Nabokov's Nikolai Gogol" Margarit Ordukhanyan examines Vladimir Nabokov's 1942 novel, an unusual biography of the nineteenth-century Russian author. Ordukhanyan discusses parallels between Nabokov's biography of Gogol and Laurence Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. She highlights the direct allusions and textual references Nabokov makes to Sterne's novel and argues that Nabokov uses Tristram Shandy as the model for creating and interpreting his biography of Gogol by fictionalizing Gogol and portraying him as a Shandean character. Further, Ordukhanyan discusses how Nabokov uses Sterne's novel to undermine the genre of literary …

Leisure And Posthumanism In Houellebecq's Platform And Lanzarote, Nurit Buchweitz, Elie Cohen-Gewerc

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Leisure and Posthumanism in Houellebecq's Platform and Lanzarote" Nuriot Buchweitz and Elie Cohen-Gewerc analyze Michel Houellebecq's novels in the context of leisure studies. They posit that in particular in Platform and Lanzarote Houellebecq explores leisure practices available in industrial societies marked by consumer culture. Further, Buchweitz and Cohen-Gewerc argue that the abundant depictions of leisure in Houellbecq's texts is not unintentional because he introduces the concept of the posthuman condition and rethinks agency and human selfhood as a consequence of the collapse of subjectivity. Employing postmodern indeterminacy, Houellebecq explores contemporary mores and debates the extinction of …

Cultural Influence Of Storytelling: An Examination Of The Use Of Narratives In Political Campaigns, Charla Bansley

Masters Theses

Television has changed political discourse. The thirty second commercial has replaced typography and rhetoric. After losing the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections, the Republican National Committee concluded that the GOP has lost the ability to persuade. Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm states that meaningful communication is in the form of storytelling, which enables public discourse to observe not only differences, but commonalities. In a postmodern culture that does not believe in absolute truth, this study asked the following question: Are conservatives still using statistics and facts to communicate conservative principles? The rhetorical research conducted here examined …

Introduction To And Bibliography For The Study Of Alimentary Life Writing And Recipe Writing As War Literature, Louise O. Vasvari

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Introduction to and Bibliography for the Study of Alimentary Life Writing and Recipe Writing as War Literature" Louise O. Vasvári defines the concept of "alimentary life writing" and locates it in the broader multidisciplinary context of alimentary history, the history of everyday life, gender studies, trauma, and war and holocaust studies. She also underlines and exemplifies the cultural and gendered significance of alimentary life writing in particular in grounding personal and collective identity formation in the female immigrant and ethnic and multicultural writing. Vasvári also compares and contrasts such life writing to wartime food memoirs, as well …

Genocidal Rape, Enforced Impregnation, And The Discourse Of Serbian National Identity, Tatjana Takševa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Genocidal Rape, Enforced Impregnation, and the Discourse of Serbian National Identity" Tatjana Takševa analyzes two main processes which contributed to the systematic rape and enforced impregnation of Bosniak women during the Balkan conflict: the discourse of Serbian nationalism articulated in response to the sexual violence that took place in Kosovo preceding the war and the simultaneous diminishing and downgrading of women's political and social autonomy on all territories of the former Yugoslavia. Based on statements in narratives of Bosniak women rape survivors, Takševa argues that these ideologically motivated processes combined to revive, inflame, and militarize long-standing Serbian …

Kaffka's (1880-1918) Life Writing And Objection To The War, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Kaffka's (1880-1918) Life Writing and Objection to the War" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses the Hungarian author's poems, diary entries, and fictional texts. While Kaffka's importance as one of the most influential writers in modern Hungarian literature is recognized, her oeuvre as proto-feminist writing has only been studied only since the 1990s. Further, Kaffka's anti-war writing has not been explored except in a few isolated instances. Tötösy de Zepetnek elaborates Kaffka's objection to the war as seen in her poetry published in 1914 and in her diaries and correspondence and argues that Kaffka's objection to the war …

The War Memoirs Of Rachel Maccabi, Ilana Rosen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The War Memoirs of Rachel Maccabi" Ilana Rosen analyzes the memoirs of Rachel Maccabi (1915-2003) about her sacrifices to fulfill the Zionist creed. Raised in a well-off Zionist family, Maccabi moved to Israel/Palestine in the mid-1930s, served in the Haganah pre-State military organization, and later became an army officer. Her first husband fell in the 1948 War of Independence and her son in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Between 1964 and 1992 Maccabi published five memoirs. Rosen focuses on Maccabi's last three memoirs, in which she responds to the deaths of her husband and son in Israel's …

Post 9/11 And Narratives Of Life Writing, Conflict, And Environmental Crisis, Simon C. Estok

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Post 9/11 and Narratives of Life Writing, Conflict, and Environmental Crisis" Simon C. Estok argues that there are four seemingly disparate and disconnected topics — war, migration, ecophobia, and life writing — which need to be discussed in tandem in order to produce deeper understandings of both the production and effects of post 9/11 narratives. Estok argues that narrative landscapes changed radically since the beginning of the twenty-first century and that this results in a combined effect both of terror reportage and of environmental crisis narratives. The pace and character of reportage blurred, erased, and expanded various …

Women's Wartime Life Writing In Early Twentieth-Century China, Li Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Women's Wartime Life Writing in Early Twentieth-Century China" Li Guo discusses military diaries, prison memoirs, and autobiographical reportages. These documents offer rich insights into the political endeavors and military mobility of women. Guo analyzes Bingying Xie's 1928 war diary about the Chinese nationalists' northern expedition, Langi Hu's 1937 book about anti-Japanese activism, and Lang Bai's 1939 reportage about the Sino-Japanese War and argues that these texts allow women to reconfigure the discourse of nation through experimental life writing in order to develop the genre with tales of valor, hope, struggle, and heroism. Guo argues that contrary to …

"Being Singular Plural" In Chi's 巨流河 (The Great-Flowing River), Tsu-Chung Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "'Being Singular Plural' in Chi's巨流河 (The Great-Flowing River)" Tsu-Chung Su explores the way Pang-yuan Chi organizes her life stories in her 2009 autobiography. Born in Mainland China, Chi is a renowned Taiwanese editor, scholar, and writer who started her autobiographical novel at age 81. In her text Chi describes life stories in a war-torn era, features her migration from the north to the south (1930 to 1950), her experiences in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War (1927-1950) culminating in her successful academic career in Taiwan (1950-). Chi's life stories are infiltrated with …

En-Gendering Memory Through Holocaust Alimentary Life Writing, Louise O. Vasvári

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "En-gendering Memory through Holocaust Alimentary Life Writing" Louise O. Vasvári aims to underline the cultural and gendered significance of the sharing of recipes as a survival tool by starving women in concentration camps during the Holocaust and the continuing role of food memories in the writing of Holocaust survivor women she considers a genealogy of intergenerational remembrance and transmission into the postmemory writing of their second generation daughters and occasionally their sons. Vasvári argues that the study of multigenerational Holocaust alimentary life writing becomes important today because as direct survivors of the Holocaust disappear there is a …

Introduction To Life Writing And The Trauma Of War, Louise O. Vasvári, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

African American Masculinity In The Wartime Diaries Of Two Vietnam Soldiers, Sharon D. Raynor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "African American Masculinity in the Wartime Diaries of Two Vietnam Soldiers" Sharon D. Raynor discusses an unpublished diary (1967-68) written by her father, Louis Raynor with the diary (1965-66) of David Parks that was revised and published as a memoir. By contextualizing the traditions of African American autographical writing and wartime diaries, Raynor analyzes how African American masculinity permeates the autobiographical structure in the Raynor and Parks diaries as each soldier interweaves a collective experience with a unique personal experience in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam experience challenged their ideologies about racial politics, but affirmed their masculine …