Category: Literature, Literary Studies and Theory
The Confirmation of Individual Existence Through Physical Sensations: The Representation of Heterosexuality in the Works of Amy Yamada
From the late 1980s to the 1990s, feminist criticism peaked in Japanese literature. In response to this trend, some female authors depicted independent women who were not dominated by men in their works. However, the works of Amy Yamada differ from this trend. In her works, she depicts women indulging in sexual love with men. …
The Ocean as ‘Splendor’ in James Prudenciado’s Made of Saltwater
When it comes to the ocean in literature, as it is generally used, multiple authors have utilized this body of water to discuss or imply powerful and sometimes incomprehensible messages and meanings that may often contain sublime implications. This paper aims to discuss the vast, inevitable terror and pleasure present in the sublimity of the …
Disaster and Blessing: Alternative Writings on Yellow Peril Narratives in Late Qing China
The Yellow Peril, with anti-Asian racism, has long been criticized. Some scholars noticed the Chinese reproduction of this discourse, but they tend to agree that Chinese intellectuals in the late Qing only emphasized China would threaten the West, thus ignoring the role of Chinese in the cultural translation. As Lydia H. Liu suggests, when a …
Historical, Cultural and Religious Aspects of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Novels
Investigating literature and its interconnection with culture, history and religion is a crucial part of the discussion in contemporary world literature studies. The present research focuses on historical, religious and cultural specificity in “Paradise” (1994) by Nobel prize winner Tanzanian-born English writer Abdulrazak Gurnah. The main focus of the novels concentrates on searching for an …
Literature and Cognition: Edgework and Epiphanies in James Joyces’s Finnegans Wake
Epiphanies can be considered isolation processes which allow the main characters to explore new dimensions, occasionally awaking their desire to change their condition. Thus, metaphorically speaking, they can be considered as a bridge between the inner selves and the external world, often provoking a reciprocal change. Such phenomenon of isolation is strictly bound to edgework, …
Critical Race Discourse in Contemporary German Fiction
This paper aims to investigate literary contribution to critical race discourse in Germany and its relevance, focusing on Olivia Wenzel’s 1000 Serpentinen Angst (1000 Coils of Fear) and Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Adas Raum (Ada’s Realm). Playing with narrative conventions, both novels reflect on discrimination and have introduced new points of view on racism and racialization …
Lyricism and Voiced Spaces in Tennyson’s ‘Maud’
Tennyson’s ‘monodrama’ has often been approached by critics as a choral text: one which is usually seen as a synergistic challenge to the Victorian singular self. What is less explored are its other conversations with the ideas of place, and its use of setting and location for its fractured conceptualization of selfhood. It is an …
A Paradise Regained. The Prophetic Vision of a New Genealogy of Monarchs in Richard II
In the complex texture of Richard II, the role played by Queen Isabel is only apparently marginal. The play offers a wide-ranging reflection on sovereignty, the ethics of power, and on the State and its government. Queen Isabel’s words and actions institute a bridge between past and future, announcing a new beginning for English history. …
“As the President of My Kingdom”: The Practice of Power in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
The plays composed by Shakespeare after 1603 notably incorporate the principles of the new Stuart ideology, which celebrated James I as an enlightened ruler invested directly by God of the mission to reunify the ancient kingdoms of Britain. In this respect, it is possible to read Antony and Cleopatra as a metaphor of contemporaneity: a …
Tamura Toshiko’s Narratives of Resilience
Tamura Toshiko (1884-1945) is recognized as a leading feminist author of early twentieth-century Japan. She defied established gender norms and moral codes to express unconventional desires in her lifestyle and to inscribe her liberal ideas and rebellious spirit into her literature. However, many feminists, past and present, have observed that Toshiko’s pioneering efforts at liberating …
Literary Reception and Translation of Cantonese Opera From the Pedagogical Perspective
Cantonese opera has been a treasurable art in Hong Kong. Several attempts were made to translate the opera scripts into English, but despite this exercise to make the genre globalized, the effect of Cantonese opera has been gradually fading away as young audience nowadays are psychologically fended off by the way of presenting ideas in …
Retranslating Shakespeare in Romeo X Juliet
The reproduction of renowned western literary works in the artistic forms typical of Eastern cultures has always provided a basis for mutual enrichment of both cultures. This paper will focus on the peculiar relationship between William Shakespeare and Japanese animation, aiming to show that the retranslation of the canon in the quintessentially Japanese form of …
Analyzing the Source of Wealth of Mr. Suckling and Mrs. Elton in Jane Austen’s Emma
In this paper, I discuss the source of wealth of Mr. Suckling and Mrs. Elton in Emma (1815) by focusing on the campaign against the slave trade in Britain and the implications of their origin, family name, and estate. Mr. Suckling is a shadowy minor character whose history is hardly mentioned. However, his origin, family …
E-poetry, Performance, and Identity: Perspectives From Latinx Canadian Poets
This project studies e-poetic expressions—e-text, hypertext, video and recorded live performances and audio files, and other electronic or expanded forms of poetry—of Latin writers in Canada. The relation to space, identity and culture in-terweave with imagined and embodied awareness that is expressed creatively though web presence, word, sound and image. How poetry is coded, encoded …
An East-west Contemplation: Adapting Shakespearean Plays to Cantonese Opera
Several attempts of having some well-known Shakespearean plays being adapted into Cantonese opera performances were seen over the last decade. The reason of this lies in the development of purely traditional Chinese art forms into an East-meets-West component for aesthetic sublimation. There are various aspects in common or in diversity pertaining to the form of …
Visibility and Reciprocity in Stefan Zweig’s “Letter From an Unknown Woman” and Its Film Adaptation by Max Ophüls
Stefan Zweig’s story “Letter from an Unknown Woman” (1922) portrays a male writer who receives a mysterious letter from a dying woman. This story was first adapted into a film version by Max Ophüls in 1948. Though the identity of the woman is somehow “unknown” to the writer, she has been his admirer since her …
Translating Hemingway: A Case of Cultural Politics
My presentation will start with a brief translation history of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, showing that, due to the novel’s anti-war and anti-Fascist nature, in many cases its translations were shaped not only by cultural and literary factors, but also by socio-political and even economic factors. Following the …
Bapsi Sidhwa’s Water: A Novel: The Widows in Subjugation, Revolt, and Jouissance
Indian writers give various voices to battered “husbandless” women living on “the margin of society” This “husbandlessness” is the key term, indicating how a woman is marginalized and becomes the victim of cruel violence. And among “husbandless” women, widows are the most marginalized beings, as seen in the tradition of forced suttee. However, just a …
Improving Social Skills Through Literature: Mindful Reading, Diversity, and Emotional Intelligence
Many believe that reading fiction can improve social skills (i.e., empathy; e.g., Spruce, 2019; Willard & Buddie, 2019), yet this is an exploratory area of research with limited empirical studies. This presentation will discuss psychological (e.g., social cognitive theory and reading; Johnson, Cushman, Borden, & McCune, 2013) and literary theories, and interventions supporting how reading …