Search

The cover page of the journal "Papers on Language & Literature" is presented.

The article discusses highlights of Caliban's Mirror: The 2022 Wilde and Joyce Symposium, held at the Trinity Long Room in Dublin, Ireland on May 5-7, 2022. Topics included the literary works of authors Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, influence of non-human entities on conceptions and constructions of the human, modernism and the politics of punitive child removal, and modern Irish art.

George Sand's Indiana and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth share a guiding interest in the function of appearances that--considered within the context of literary realism's development--can be seen as contributing to the gradually dominating trope of exteriority in which fictional characters' identities and actions are ineluctably determined and defined by such external forces as society, language, aesthetics, and commerce. The failure of Sand's Raymon de Ramière and Wharton's Lily Bart to realize themselves as independently empowered individuals exemplifies literary realism's reassessment, closely tied to the rise of sociology as a discipline, of the longstanding, romantic tradition of a person's potential to be a selfdetermining entity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine how light skin, especially among Indian women, has powerful social capital, this essay exhumes the politics of colorism and female identity that is palpably present in both cultural and literary discourses of the twentieth century. It aims to uphold three goals: one, by engaging with anthropological and historical readings, establish the prevalence of colorism in colonial and postcolonial India; two, by highlighting epidermal hierarchies within popular Indian culture, address how skin color has inevitably governed women's personal and professional lives; and three, by harnessing the subversive potential in select works of twentieth century Indian writers--Santa Chatterjee, Munshi Premchand, K. Saraswathi Amma, Kamala Markandaya, and Arundhati Roy--who hail from various cultural and geographic backgrounds, demonstrate how the supremacy of light skin is a pan-Indian phenomenon that needs to be resisted. Finally, this essay argues that the hegemony of light skin, which continues to adversely affect Indian women's self-esteem, must be both confronted and quashed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Sixth International Joseph Conrad Conference organized by Professor Wiesław Krajka for scholars in Poland and Ukraine from June 20-27, 2016. Topics discussed include featuring of several papers offering critical approaches to writer Joseph Conrad's work and life, sessions on several topics including Christianity, colonialism and gender and sexuality, and establishment of Holocaust museum established in 1944 to commemorate the concentration camp.

The article presents literary criticism of the play "Love! Valour! Compassion!" by Terrence McNally. Particular focus is given the role of unconditional love in the play and in the works and personal papers of writer John Cheever. Details on McNally's teleplay adaptation of Cheever's short story "The Five-Forty-Eight" are presented. McNally's screenplay "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" is also discussed.

The article examines the initial criticism by teacher and revolutionary leader Zitkala-ša on India's education policy and how it evolves into a commitment of lobbying and advocacy for education as a survival tool for Indigenous people within white dominant society. Topics discussed include her fictional and non-fiction essays, criticism of her by scholars, her transformation from a teacher to a revolutionary leader and criticism in her autobiographical writings of boarding schools.

A literary criticism of the novels "The Legends of Khasak," by O. V. Vijayan and "Primeval and Other Times," by Olga Tokarczuk is presented. It examines the thematic parallels in both novels, the interpretation of forms of spiritual oppression in the novels, and the authors' use of the folklore of their respective cultures to construct magical realities.

The article examines the transcultural counterwitness and the role of poetry counterpublic as an alternative source of knowledge for citizens following a public crisis. Topics discussed include the video poems "Situation 3: August 29, 2005/Hurricane Katrina," by Claudia Rankine and John Lucas and "Wade in the Water," by Walidah Imarisha, and how they counterwitness the widespread stereotypes of African American people in mainstream journalism.

The article explores detective fiction as a literary genre focusing on the novel "Dragon Bones" by Lisa See. Topics include a definition of detective fiction according to "The Foreign International Crime Fiction: Transcultural Representations," how the genre was born, examples of postcolonial detective narratives that translate foreign locations to local readership such as Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" and the Chinese protagonist in See's "Dragon Bones."

The article examines queer strangers and gendered necropolitical powers in the novel "The Death of Vivek Oji" by Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi. Topics include an exploration of the violent death of one of the protagonists Vivek Oji in the novel, ways in which necropolitics works through hegemonic gender regimes that condemn its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, & Intersex (LGBTQI) citizens, and the feminist and postcolonial approaches to crime fiction.

The article examines the antiheroines as strangers in the two novels by Gillian Flynn titled "Sharp Objects" and "Gone Girl." Topics include a description of the strangeness in the characters of Camille Preaker from "Sharp Objects" and Amy Elliott Dunne from "Gone Girl," the concept of strangeness as a symptom or consequence of antiheroism, Camille's external development as an antiheroine, and an analysis of internalized misogyny and violence in "Gone Girl."

The article analyzes the forms of trespass in Colombia's first woman-authored detective novels by Verónica Villa Agudelo titled "Marina y el caso de Plata" and "Marina y un caso en el aire." Topics include views on the position of Marina, the protagonist in both novels, as the first female fictional investigator to appear in Colombia, the gendered connotations of the concept of trespass, and the key means of solving the two murders that the character of Marina investigates in the novels.

The article deals with strangers and trespassers as essential characters of a crime fiction. Topics include the potential of crime fiction to promote social criticism, some classical titles with dominant feature of strangeness such as Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on the Train" and Bill Pronzini's "Strangers," the association of the stranger with binary relationships, and the implications of the critical potential of strangeness and trespassing ingrained in women's crime fiction.

The article reports that fascination with nostalgia marked British culture, and indeed the whole of European culture, from the 1970s onwards, asserts David Lowenthal. Topics include considered that the currency of nostalgia not with standing, the phenomenon proves a paradox as the results of a random search on Google indicate the immense popularity of a concept whose categorization and terminological boundaries remain blurred.

A literary criticism of the book "The Lightning Field" by Dana Spiotta is presented. Topics include considered that the unusual careers bring matters of artistic practice to the narrative foreground, touching on the nature of audience and attention as well and many of these issues also appear in Spiotta conception of the novelist's current role in American culture.

A literary criticism of the book "Songs from the Violet Café" by Fiona Kidman is presented. Topics include considered that the fascination with China and the occasional Chinese character fill the backdrop to Songs from the Violet Café, yet the actual Asian setting the novel features is Cambodia after the fall of the Pol Pot regime.

The article discusses the highlights of the online British Association for Victorian Studies Conference titled "Women and Humour in the Long Nineteenth Century" held from June 23 to 26, 2021. The keynote speech on feminist Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler was delivered by professor Margaret Stetz. Among the themes of the panel discussions and plenary lecture were women and the press, tradition and female slapstick. Also noted is a stand-up performance by Iszi Lawrence at the conference.

The article analyzes the depiction of meaning and narrative in the book "Levels of Life" by Julian Barnes. Topics discussed include the book's portrayal of the sin of height through the mistaken conviction about the permanence of an interpretation of the world, suggestion of Barnes about avoiding a predilection to commit the sin of height, and the belief of the author that love is secondary to the need of people to tell stories about their lives and stories about their loves.

The article discusses the human-animal relations in medieval hagiographic texts. It attributes the commonness of friendly interspecies relationships in hagiographic texts to the use of topoi and goodness of saints to animals. It describes ethical literary animal studies as capable of providing tools and methods for shaping society to meet or acknowledge the needs of non-human animals. Also noted is the role of ecolinguistic methods as a significant source of inspiration for literary studies.

The article presents literary criticism to the novel "The Brontes Went to Woolworths" by Rachel Ferguson. Topics discussed include early-twentieth-century spiritualism and the occult and the novel's frank portrayal of spiritualism instead of more highbrow occult practices, underlying literary categorization and the prevalence that reflect the complex amalgam of anxieties and assertions of social authority and publishing history of the novel.

The article analyzes the relationship between Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" and Toni Morrison's "Beloved." Topics discussed include the trauma of enslavement which often analyzes its unthinkable, unspeakable qualities, relationship between trauma, sublime and enslavement, and Jacobs's immediacy to the terrible conditions of enslavement.

The article provides literary criticism to poems of Emily Dickinson and influence of poet R.W. Emerson on his writing. Topics discusses include exploration by feminist critics on social powerlessness in Dickinson's poetry, structure and distinctive language of Dickinson's poems, connection between Daoism, Chan Buddhism, and the works of both R.W. Emerson and Dickinson, Dickinson's exploration of cultivation, meditation, and spontaneous action.

The article analyzes the modes of subjectivity and affect in the depiction of planet Mars in the experimental film "Meridian Plain," by nonfictional filmmaker Laura Kraning. The artistic career of Kraning is detailed including the effect of her experience in abstract art on her filmmaking approach. The film uses images captured by Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) between 2004 and 2015. The interplay of subjectivities and intertwining between Earth and Mars in the film is explained.

The article analyzes the sense of the eerie in the forest landscape in the avant-garde films "Aspect," by Emily Richardson and "Nightfall," by James Benning, and the virtual reality (VR) nature videos "Walking in the Woods" and "Relaxing Walk in the Forest." The films are described as slow ecocinema whose eeriness is due to the eco-realism of the artists. It explains the depiction of light in "Nightfall" and "Aspect". The effect of the tracking shot used in the VR nature videos is detailed.

The article analyzes the contemporary city symphony in the avant-garde films "Side/Walk/Shuttle," by Ernie Gehr and "Time Lines," by Runa Islam from the perspective of media archeology and cinéma trouvéve or readymade cinema. The origin of the term based on the idea of panoramic perception is discussed. It compares the elevator and cable car perspectives depicted in the films. The films are described as emphasizing the logic of panoramic view in modern data collection trends.

The article analyzes the flâneuse landscapes in the interdisciplinary film installation "Feminist Bodies in a Posthuman Mountain Imaginary" developed for Oxygen Art Centre Offsite Exhibition in Nelson, British Columbia. The depiction of the flâneur or a roaming female figure in the other works of feminist artists is explored. It explains the selection of the ghost town Zincton as film location. It details the use of technology to show posthumanist performativity in the installation.

The article analyzes the depiction of travel and the tourist gaze in the found footage film "Bookstalls" made by Joseph Cornell in the late 1930s. Particular focus is given to his interest in the materiality and the conceptual qualities of film. It describes the sections of the avant-garde film which show the links between the art and the devotion of Cornell to Christian Science. The author identifies the ability of Cornell to contain the ephemeral images and objects he gathered in one place.

An introduction is presented in which the guest editor discusses the theme of the special issue, namely, the depiction of landscape, travel, and the gaze in experimental film and video in the 20th century.

A literary criticism of the book "Lucky Jim" by English novelist Kingsley Amis is presented. It explores the 1954 novel as the author's reflections as an outspoken critic of the modernists and their style of writing. It also discusses the representation of the character of the novel's anti-hero, James (Jim) Dixon, who seems to be just after is women and alcohol and who has been accused of academic dishonesty and philistinism.

A literary criticism of the book "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" by U.S. poet Audre Lorde is presented. This criticism focuses on the book's representation of the theory of the Oedipus complex created by psychologist Sigmund Freud, particularly girls' intense attachment to their mother in the preoedipal stage. The groundwork for feminist theorizations of the preoedipal state laid by Freud is discussed, as well psychoanalytic accounts of identity formation in the opposite-sex desire on women.

A literary criticism of the book "Moy Sand and Gravel" by Irish poet Paul Muldoon is presented. It analyzes the representation of oppression and brutalization by authorities in his 2002 collection of poems. The psychological impact of violence depicted in the poems "Unapproved Road" and "Hard Drive" is discussed, as well as the persecution of the Jewish people in Ireland narrated in the poem "The Grand Conversation."

The article presents the highlights of the third annual Thomas Hardy Society Study Day held at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester, Dorset, England on April 13, 2019. Topics include Hardy's novel "Far from the Madding Crowd," the book's reputation as the 10th greatest love story of all time, and the gender role issues tackled by the novel. Attendees included Professors Paul Niemeyer and Trish Ferguson, and Carolina Elices.

The article discusses the verisimilitude of automobiles in the 1934 novel "Appointment in Samarra" by John O'Hara. Topics include the views of George J. Becker on the realist novel, the sociological realism of O'Hara by focusing his narrative attention to the car in his novel, and how his fiction tested the readers' knowledge about automobiles.

The article discusses the cultural hybridity in colonized countries in the Caribbean region. Also cited are the influence of imperialism on their postcolonial lives, the history of colonialism and slavery in said countries, the diverse literary works in the region that focused on topics like class, sexuality, race, society, and identity, as well as some books like "The Caribbean Postcolonial" by Shalini Puri and "The Location of Culture" by Homi Bhabha.

The article discusses race and revivalism in the 1852 book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Topics include Stowe's representation and use of explicit emotionalism in her novel, the conditional relationship between embodied experience and moral knowledge, her use of camp meetings to cite the perceived dangers of sentimentalism, and the works on Stokes by authors like Jane Tompkins and Claudia Stokes.

The article offers information on the transnational circulation of literature, along with growing complexity of global allegiances. It discusses the works of the novelists, Caryl Phillips and J. M. Coetzee and their understanding of writing as an ethical responsibility. It mentions the relationship of the comparative literature with the ethnocentrism.

The article offers information on the role of the female contributors to the African literary canon. It discusses the Une si Longue Lettre, a semi-autobiographical epistolary novel originally written in French by the Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ. It mentions that African literatures talks about the about how women can be independent within middle-class Muslim communities, along with Eurocentrism in African context.

The article offers information on the life and work experience of the French dramatist, Antonin Artaud. It discusses the literary and philosophical approaches to Artaud's legacy theorized the performing body as the transmission point for ideas in a global age. It mentions the Artaud's playwright's travelogue 'A Voyage to the Land of the Tarahumara.'

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including distinguish between world literature and comparative literature; author's moral allegiances to their reading communities; and the author, Warwick Collective's understanding of how texts circulate.

The article offers information on "E. M. Forster: Nature, Culture, Queer!" conference by the International E. M. Forster Society in Ludwigsburg, Germany on April 13-14, 2018. Topics discussed include nature, culture and queer in novelist E. M. Forster's works and life; the pressures placed on feminism, sexuality by the social purity movement; and the intricate relationship between nature and humans in the novel to show how they co-exist, constructing a unified ecosystem.

The article offers information on the mixed Chinese images in John Steinbeck's novels such as Cannery Row (1945) and East of Eden (1952) which generate conflicting critical comments from scholars. Topics discussed include respective stances of morality, ethnicity, philosophy, politics or even personal preferences of Chinese images; the attributes of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism; and detailed comparison of ethnicity and cross-culture.

The article offers information on the use of Christian magnanimity in play of William Shakespeare "The Tempest". Topics discussed include act of Christian magnanimity under critical scrutiny; the early history of English colonialism in the Americas; and victims of European imperialism and colonization. Also mentions about dramatization of power relation in the play as the consequence of British hegemony both within and outside the country.

The article discusses the steampunk productions of George Bernard Shaw's play 'Pygmalion' allows to see the need to reconfigure language as dynamic. Topics include embracing a destabilizing counter-pressure as a key element for future conceptualizations of language in the digital realm; the importance of understanding data governance in the digital revolution; and creating the capacity of computing language to facilitate interoperability between devices and real-time analysis of big data.