Figuring Culture and Literacy in Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
Janet Carey Eldred
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
Dialogic Approach ◽  
Autobiographical Accounts ◽  
Biographical Criticism

Abstract Literacy, both as a theme and as a narrative structuring device, marks much literature and takes on specific shapes and forms, depending on its relationship to its generic and historical contexts. Set in Pittsburgh, Willa Cather's "Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament" (1905/1983) features the steel world of indus-trialists and laborers, the world of monied capitalists (Carnegie, Mellon, West-inghouse, and Heinz) and of workers aspiring to middle-class safety or, in their daydreams, to the wealth of an employer like Carnegie, who began as one of them and who advanced, as he claims in his autobiographical accounts, in part through literacy. By studying Cather's short story, we can learn how literacy shapes construction of character in fiction and biography as well as construc-tion of persona in autobiographical material. That is, we can learn the integral role that figurations of literacy play in literary narratives. (Literary criticism, dialogic approach and biographical criticism; composition and literacy studies) Dreams are neither ideologically neutral nor politically innocent. (Giroux, 1990)

The Demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s Long Short Story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”)

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (27) ◽  
pp. 53-60
Author(s):  
Nina Bosak
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Semantic Group ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
The World

The demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s long short story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”) has been analyzed in the article. In the course of the research there have been outlined the following lexical-semantic groups of demonomens: toponymic and onomastic names, modified lexemes, names of the rituals, genuine Ukrainian demonomens, obscene words and expressions, demonomens of Biblical origin, names from the world mythology and general demonolexis. The special lexical-semantic group has been formed by non personificated demonomens, which serve to convey the peculiarities of the contemporary Ukrainian writers’ mentality, their habits through speech. Such nomens help to reveal the protagonist’s soul, show the positive and negative sides of his personal ego, demonstrate the duality of the human perception of the world, indicate the causes of phobias, emotions, sensations. Key words: demonolexis, demonomen, lexical-semantic group, non personificated demonomen.

What If It Wasn’t Kato Who Raped Diana? Representing the Yearning for Justice in As I Stood Dead Before the World: Creative Writing from Luzira Prison (2018)

Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danson Sylvester Kahyana
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Innocent People ◽  
Creative Writers ◽  
The World

The article examines how selected works in Uganda’s first anthology of prison-authored work, As I Stood Dead before the World: Creative Writing from Luzira Prison (2018), handle one of the issues of paramount importance to inmates and their families: the possibility that convictions in courts of law are not foolproof since judicial officers are human beings and therefore susceptible to error. Drawing from four examples: two poems (Jackson O’s “Letter to Aber” and Sebuuma Gadafi’s “Twenty-Years”), one short story (Rachael Pearl Orishaba’s “A Secret”), and one short play (Jennifer Janette’s “What If It Wasn’t Kato?”), I show how different inmates imagine situations where judicial officers (prosecutors and magistrates/judges) make errors of judgement that see innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. The article closely reads the four selected pieces with the objective of investigating how creative writers can help judicial officers realise how important it is to turn every proverbial stone before a conviction is made.

History Turmoil And Politico-Cultural Conditions of the Sub-Continental Men In Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
Gunasekaran N ◽  
Bhuvaneshwari S
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Salman Rushdie ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Midnight's Children ◽  
First Time

Salman Rushdie remains a major Indian writer in English. His birth coincides with the birth of a new modern nation on August 15, 1947. He has been justly labelled by the critics as a post-colonial writer who knows his trade well. His second novel Midnight’s Children was published in 1981 and it raised a storm in the hitherto middle class world of fiction writing both in English and in vernaculars. Rushdie for the first time burst into the world of fiction with subversive themes like impurity, illegitimacy, plurality and hybridity. He understands that a civilization called India may be profitably understood as a dream, a collage of many colours, a blending of cultures and nationalities, a pluralistic society and in no way unitary.

Religiusitas Tokoh-Tokoh Dalam Novel Bumi Cinta Karya Habiburrahman El-Shirazy

AKADEMIKA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-221
Author(s):  
Minahul Mubin
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Religious Elements

A novel titled BumiCinta written by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy takes place in the Russian setting, in which Russia is a country that adopts freedom. Russia with various religions embraced by its people has called for the importance of human freedom. Free sex in Russia is commonplace among its young people. Russia is a country that is free with no rules, no wonder if there have been many not embracing certain religion. In fact, according to data Russia is a country accessing the largest porn sites in the world. Habiburrahman in his Bumi Cinta reveals some religious aspects. He incorporates the concept of religion with social conflicts in Russia. Therefore, the writer reveals two fundamental issues, namely: 1. What is the characters' religiosity in the Habiburrahman El-Shirazy'sBumiCinta? 2. What is the characters' religiosity in the BumiCinta in their relationship with God, fellow human beings, and nature ?. To achieve the objectives, the writer uses the religious literary criticism based on the Qur'an and Hadith. It emphasizes religious values in literature. The writer also uses the arguments of scholars and schools of thought to strengthen this paper. This theory is then used to seek the elements of religiousity in the Habiburrahman El-Shirazy'sBumiCinta. In this novel, the writer explains there are strong religious elements and religious effects of its characters, especially the belief in God, faith and piety

MYTH IN SAM SHEPARD’S “THE GOD OF HELL” AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATION

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-38
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Political Implication ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Sam Shepard ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Political Myth ◽  
The World

The article introduces the creative work of the famous American playwright Sam Shepard, whose works are almost unknown to our Uzbek reader. His plays are well known throughout the world; they influenced the formation of the worldview of readers of different nations and show the peculiarities of American culture. Despite the worldwide fame of Sam Shepard’s works, they are not studied well by literary critics. In America and Europe his works have been studied in details for a long period, and even several monographs in English have been written. However, neither in the Russian speaking, nor in the domestic literary criticism there is yet no major work on Shepard's works. The article also deals with the artistic features of the political myth of the “American dream” in one of the most scandalous plays, “The God of Hell,” dedicated to the protest against the war in Iraq. Thus, this study, which touches upon some issues of Shepard's creative work in connection with his innovative artistic originality, to a certain extent, seeks to fill this gap.

“Jumble Sales Are the Same the World Over”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
West African ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Lesbian Relationships ◽  
Female Friendship ◽  
The World ◽  
Female Headed Households

This chapter analyzes the novels of the British writer Barbara Pym, which are often read as cozy tales of English middle-class postwar life but which, I argue, are profoundly influenced by the work Pym carried out as an editor of the journal Africa at the International African Institute in London, where she worked for decades. She used ethnographic techniques to represent social change in a postwar, decolonizing, non-normative Britain of female-headed households, gay and lesbian relationships, and networks of female friendship and civic engagement. Pym’s novels of the 1950s implicitly criticize the synchronic, functionalist anthropology of kinship tables that dominated the discipline in Britain, substituting an interest in a new anthropology that could investigate social change. Specific anthropological work on West African social changes underpins Pym’s English fiction, including several journal articles that Pym was editing while she worked on her novels.

Philosophy and Education

1998 ◽  
pp. 32-36
Author(s):  
Luciana Bellatalla
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Dialogic Approach ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Ideal

From its first appearance in western culture, philosophy has been considered able to build up reality, to educate people, and to disclose truth. Plato proposed philosophers as governors in life-long pursuit of philosophical learning. Socrates was the ideal paradigm of an educating philosopher: he tried to wake up human minds so that they could be aware of themselves and of the world, criticizing tradition and prejudices in a logically consistent perspective. A critical and dialogic approach—not by mere chance defined as "Socratic"—to problems has been considered until now the most profitable method of teaching. Socrates is a pioneer in discussing the question of a philosophical (paideia), as he defined his method "maieutic." He was not an authoritarian teacher, but a sparring partner in the process of self-education. Moreover, he considered himself as the most learned and, at the same time, the wisest in Greece, just because he was conscious of his ignorance. Therefore, he understood for the first time in our cultural tradition that knowledge is an endless process rather than a product, within marked bounds.

scholarly journals Rat Cities and Beehive Worlds: Density and Design in the Modern City

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 722-756
Author(s):  
Jon Adams ◽  
Edmund Ramsden
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social System ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Efficient Operation ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Nestled among E. M. Forster's careful studies of Edwardian social mores is a short story called “The Machine Stops.” Set many years in the future, it is a work of science fiction that imagines all humanity housed in giant high-density cities buried deep below a lifeless surface. With each citizen cocooned in an identical private chamber, all interaction is mediated through the workings of “the Machine,” a totalizing social system that controls every aspect of human life. Cultural variety has ceded to rigorous organization: everywhere is the same, everyone lives the same life. So hopelessly reliant is humanity upon the efficient operation of the Machine, that when the system begins to fail there is little the people can do, and so tightly ordered is the system that the failure spreads. At the story's conclusion, the collapse is total, and Forster's closing image offers a condemnation of the world they had built, and a hopeful glimpse of the world that might, in their absence, return: “The whole city was broken like a honeycomb. […] For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky” (2001: 123). In physically breaking apart the city, there is an extent to which Forster is literalizing the device of the broken society, but it is also the case that the infrastructure of the Machine is so inseparable from its social structure that the failure of one causes the failure of the other. The city has—in the vocabulary of present-day engineers—“failed badly.”

The lords of humankind re-visited

2003 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHERINE HALL
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Black Men ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
The Way

This article uses the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840, and the way in which it was represented in Benjamin Robert Haydon's painting of it, to reflect on the ways in which Britons thought of themselves as an ’imperial people’, ’lords of humankind’, fit to rule over others. The Whig reforms of the 1830s had brought the enfranchisement of large numbers of middle-class men, and the emancipation of the enslaved across the British Empire. Excavating the assumptions of the abolitionists who gathered at the Convention allows us to see how new hierarchies of difference were encoded by 1840, placing freed black men, middle-class women and Irish Catholics on the margins of the new body politic.

Beyond studentification in United States College Towns: Neighborhood change in the knowledge nodes, 1980–2010

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1341-1360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan S Foote
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Neighborhood Change ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
College Towns ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Geographies

With the rise of the cognitive-cultural (or knowledge) economy, urban areas around the world have experienced significant changes in their social geographies. Studentification is one such change that has occurred in cities hosting major universities around the world. This study extends the analysis of social change to vital knowledge nodes in the networked global economy: United States college towns. K-means cluster analysis is used to identify neighborhood types in ten cities with major research universities across four Census years: 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Temporal and spatial analyses are then conducted to determine how these knowledge nodes have changed with the decline of the industrial economy and the rise of the knowledge economy. The analysis indicates the presence of six neighborhood types in these college towns: Middle Class, Minority-Concentrated, Stability, Elite, Mix/Renter, and Student. Over the course of the study period, the number of Elite neighborhoods increased considerably, while the number of Middle Class neighborhoods plummeted. The number of Mix/Renter neighborhoods also increased. Spatially, Student and Minority-Concentrated neighborhoods generally remained fairly clustered in the same areas across the study period. Elite neighborhoods spread across wider geographical areas over the course of the study period. These results are compared to previous studies on neighborhood change. The comparisons reveal that the knowledge nodes show some similar patterns to studentifying cities and to rapidly growing nodes in areas with ties to the global knowledge economy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document