scholarly journals Failures of Domesticity in Contemporary Russian-American Literature: Vapnyar, Krasikov, Ulinich, and Reyn

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
American Literature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Female Writers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Women's Gender Roles

Hybrid literature has flourished in the Russian diaspora in the last decade and much of it is semi-autobiographical, concerned with the reconfiguration of identity in emigration. It dwells productively on the translation of the self and (more broadly) on the relationship between center and margin in the post-Soviet, transnational world. Gender roles are subject to contestation, as writers interrogate and reconsider expectations inherited from traditional Russian culture. This article situates Russian hybrid literature vis-à-vis Western feminism, taking into account Russian women’s particular experience of feminism. Four female writers of contemporary Russian-American literature – Lara Vapnyar, Sana Krasikov, Anya Ulinich, and Irina Reyn – inscribe failures of domesticity into their prose. Their female characters who cannot or do not cook or clean problematize woman’s role as nurturer. Home (geographic or imaginary) carries a semantic load of limitation and restriction, so failure as a homemaker may be paradoxically liberating. For female characters working in the West to support their families in Russia, domesticity is sometimes even more darkly cast as servitude. Rejection of traditional Russian definitions of women’s gender roles may signal successful renogotiation of identity in the diaspora. Although these writers may express nostalgia for the Russian culture of their early childhood, their critique of the tyranny of home is a powerful narrative gesture. Failures of domesticity represent successful steps in the redefinition of the self and they support these writers’ claim to transnational status.

scholarly journals “I Am Not Good at Any of This.” Playing with Homoeroticism in The Arabian Nights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 480
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Self ◽  
French Translation ◽  
The West ◽  
Arabian Nights ◽  
Safe Environment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cross Dressing ◽  
And Gender

The story collection known in the West as The Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights, is famous, among other things, for its erotic playfulness. This eroticism was (and is) one of the key reasons for its continuous popularity after Antoine Galland’s French translation in 1704. The Arabian Nights includes, besides traditional, heterosexual acts, play, and desires, examples of homoerotic playfulness—even though we must tread lightly when using such Western concepts with an oriental text body such as this one. The homoerotic playfulness of The Arabian Nights is the subject of this article. By making use of a text-immanent analysis of two of the Nights’ stories—of Qamar and Budûr and of Alî Shâr and Zumurrud—the author of this article focuses on the reversal of common gender roles, acts of cross-dressing, and, of course, homoerotic play. He will argue that these stories provide a narrative safe environment in which the reader is encouraged to “experiment” with non-normative sexual and gender orientations, leaving the dominant status quo effectively and ultimately unchallenged, thus preventing the (self-proclaimed) defenders of that status quo from feeling threatened enough to actively counter-act the experiment.

scholarly journals Lifelogging: Digital technologies of the self as the practices of contemporary biopolitics

Sociologija ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-549
Author(s):  
Dusan Ristic ◽  
Dusan Marinkovic
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
The West ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Power And Resistance ◽  
The Relationship

In the paper we apply a theoretical concept of technologies of the self developed by Michel Foucault to the field of lifelogging practices. Lifelogging is a global social phenomenon, a part of contemporary experience of everyday, especially in the developed societies of the West. Our hypothesis is that, despite different ways of quantifying self, lifelogging practices have some characteristics in common: they all belong to the field of biopolitics. This is demonstrated on the levels of the body, identity and subjectivity, since they are influenced and changed by lifelogging. At the same time, lifelogging practices blur the relationship between coercion and consent, power and resistance. The theoretical framework for addressing lifelogging is the concept of biopolitics, also developed by, since it refers to the mechanisms, techniques and technologies, as well as the forms of rationality that regulate life and its various manifestations. In conclusion, we claim that it is still not possible to explain lifelogging exclusively in the terms of biopower, since it has a potential for the ?counter-conduct? and resistance. This also makes lifelogging practices open for development of new forms of subjectivity.

scholarly journals Hunting in Seneca’s Phaedra

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alin Mocanu
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Love Elegy ◽  
Spatial Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Erotic

Seneca, in his tragedy Phaedra, created an elegiac character using, among other elegiac conventions, the amorous hunting. His Phaedra turns into an aggressive erotic predator who wants to “hunt” Hippolytus whom she is in love with. The prologue of Phaedra connects the play with elegiac poetry through the extensive use of venery description, because it highlights Hippolytus’ attitude to love: the young man sees the forest as a place of reclusive solitude where he can hide from frenetic passion. The prologue to Phaedra is also important from a spatial point of view, for Seneca associates his two main characters with a fundamental difference in locale that recalls the roman elegiac paraclausithyron, where the lover tries, without success, to penetrate into his beloved’s intimate space, the house. Furthermore, Seneca reverses the relationship between the lovers: Hippolytus becomes the beloved, Phaedra, the lover, thus inverting the gender roles of normal erotic elegy. At the same time, he amplifies this convention, making it the main theme of his tragedy, for Phaedra has a fundamental impact on the play’s action through her desperate attempts to conquer her stepson. Roman love elegy often associates the lover, the feeble man, with the hunter, while representing the beloved, the dominant woman, as his prey. Seneca goes further, because Hippolytus, the true hunter, becomes the erotic prey, while the female character takes on the role of the erotic predator. In this way, Seneca justifies the reversal of the male and the female characters’ roles in his use of the elegiac theme of hunting.

HUBUNGAN TINGKAT KEMAMPUAN PERAWATAN DIRI DENGAN PERUBAHAN KONSEP DIRI PADA LANSIA DI UPT PELAYANAN SOSIAL LANJUT USIA DAN ANAK BALITA WILAYAH BINJAI MEDAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Dedi Dedi
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Self Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
The Relationship

Background; Elderly age is the biological systems that undergo changes in the structure and function due to old age. One of service unit that serves the safety of the elderly is UPT of Social Service of Elderly and Early Childhood in Binjai and Medan Regional. Based on the preliminary research of this study was found some old people who experienced changes of the self-care ability with self concept change by 7 men and 28 women. Objectives; This study purpose is to determine the relationship between the level of self-care ability of elderly with changes in self-concept of the elderly in UPT of social Services Elderly Social and Early Children in Binjai and Medan. Material and Method; This study used analytical (explanatory research) with cross sectional approach. The population of this study amounted to 72 people and sample in this study were taken from the population amounted 63 respondents by using purposive sampling techniques. The data used primary data, secondary data, the data tertiary, and the analysis of data was done with univariate and bivariate analysis by using chi-square test. Results;of this study with a statistical test of chi-square that the relationship between the level of self-care ability to change the self-concept of the elderly in UPT. Elderly Care and Early Children in Binjai and Medan p = 0.025 < α = 0.05 is found. Conclusion; of this research is that there is a relationship between the level of self-care ability of elderly with changes in self-concept of the elderly in UPT of Elderly Social Services and Early Childhood area Binjai and Medan. It is suggested to further researchers to do deep research about the treatments themselves with self-concept changes in Social UPT of social service of elderly and Early Childhood in Binjai and Medan regional with another methods.

scholarly journals Orara as a symbol of feminine beauty and meekness in select novels of Igbo female writers

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Perp’ st. Remy Asiegbu
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Feminine Beauty ◽  
Significant Symbol ◽  
Female Writers ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Bride Price ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Possible Cause

The similitude that exists in the depiction of the major characters of pioneer Nigerian female writers (who are, incidentally, Igbo) tasks the mind as it reflects on a possible cause of this semblance. This paper located a double pronged characteristic that is shared by all the major characters in the works under study – one of beauty and gentle spirit. These features have a symbolic significance (Ọrara) in an Igbo sub-culture (Mbaise). Ọrara, a snake, is one of the symbols in Mbari representing feminine beauty and meekness in repressed strength – traits that womanism upholds. Text analysis, oral tradition and interviews provide points that aid the study of the relationship between these concepts – female characters, Ọrara and womanism. It is deduced that the identical characterization in the works of Igbo female writers - Nwapa’s Efuru and Idu; Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and The Bride Price; and Okoye’s Behind the Clouds and Chimere - has its root in the writers’ re-creation of the real experiences of the ordinary woman in the Igbo society whose natural reactions to her plight gravitates more to the womanist than the feminist angle, producing traits that are similar to those of Ọrara. And while womanism is not new in relation to the study of the works of Igbo female writers, it has not been studied against a significant symbol in the Igbo tradition. Ọrara is, thus, seen as the ideological locus for womanism and may be put under further scrutiny to establish it as the muse of Igbo female writers. Key Words: Womanism, Characters, Beauty, Meekness, Symbol, Ọrara, Igbo.

scholarly journals THE AUTHORITY OF OTHER IN THE NARRATION OF SLAVERY TO: « SALAH BOJAH »

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-320
Author(s):  
Asma Aldjia BOUCHAIB ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
New Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
System Today ◽  
Hostile Attitude

The world has pictured in his vision, a very important,much discussed and researched topic under the names and concepts of the relationship between "the self" and "The other” or “the image of the other” which is one of the topics taken from the overall vision of the world ; since the topic of "the other" has become part of the global cultural system today, it is not possible to conceive of the self without conceiving the "other" in light of the relations established by globalization. Perhaps the most important literary genre that dealt with this problem is the novel, as it dominated the literary scene within the so-called new novel, so I saw the work on it, so my choice fell on the Moroccan novel, specifically the novel of "El Nekhas" by Salah El-Din Bouajah, as a Moroccan novelist with a modernist vision, and the aim of this study is to uncover the mystery that follow sit through a number of questions, which we formulate as follows: What is meant by the other? Can a Maghreb novelist ignore the other / the West in the exhibition of his speech and his identity? Why does his position on this other become tragic? Why does this other west take a hostile attitude towards the Arab ego? What is the vision or image that the Moroccan narration of this other and his authority presented to us? We have relied in our research on the psychological approach because it is concerned with studying the human being internally, mixed with description mechanisms in narrating the actions of "the I" and "the other".

Ambiguous Speech and Eloquent Silence: The Queerness of Tchaikovsky's Songs

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ross Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The West ◽  
Realist Novel ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Creative Identity ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article considers a number of Tchaikovsky's songs——specifically those with texts by Apukhtin, Romanov, Heine, Goethe, and Tchaikovsky himself——to explore how silence constitutes a powerful yet elusive form of expression. It argues that Tchaikovsky's songs, an underappreciated and underexplored aspect of his output (at least in the West), are characterized by a degree of literary and musical sophistication seldom attributed to the composer. Their self-consciousness is held to be the product of a combination of three main social and aesthetic forces characteristic of Russian culture in the second half of the nineteenth century. Drawing first on the work of Bakhtin, the article argues that the nature of Tchaikovsky's songs as lyric forms in an age dominated by the realist novel invests them with a creative tension between the need to conceal (an imperative inherited from the lyric poetry of the 1820s and 1830s) and the need to reveal (a feature of the novel's tendency to intimacy and confession). Then, turning to the work of Foucault, it traces how a coherent discourse of homosexual identity (as opposed to an otherwise unrelated series of individual homosexual acts) arose in the later nineteenth century, forcing queer artists to address (whether consciously or otherwise) the question of how best to relate this identity to their creativity. Finally, it looks at the evolving status of the artist in late Imperial Russia and suggests that an uneasy relationship between revealing and concealing was imposed upon personalities in the public eye by an audience that wished to feel close to the artist, yet also required discretion and the avoidance of scandal. At the heart of the article lies a study of silence as a particularly expressive form of apparent non-expression, dealing with frequent instances in Tchaikovsky's songs of silence as a poetic trope, as well as with equivocation on matters of gender and identity in lyric forms as indicative of a potentially queer sensibility. Also, the article refuses to reimpose a categorically and reductively homosexual reading, posited on some presumed opposed heterosexual norm. Rather, it argues that Tchaikovsky was able to discern the peculiar appeal of lyric forms as referentially incomplete yet aesthetically self-sufficient fragments, and that he approached such lyrics in a way that emphasized qualities of ambiguity, allusion, and the uncanny. Although drawing extensively on literary models, the article also considers how music is paradoxically well placed to enact poetic silence. The relationship between words and music, and between composition, performance, and reception, is a further instance of how song became an apt medium in which the thoughtful composer could explore issues of personal and creative identity in an age of profound artistic and social transformation.

The representation of women in Ghanaian radio commercials: Sustaining or challenging gender stereotypes?

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Diabah
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
African Women ◽  
The West ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe relationship between gender and advertising has been discussed extensively. Scholarly works have often emanated from the West and have principally centred on visual advertisements, rather than radio (which plays a critical role in the lives of many Africans). Most of these studies have centred on how women are represented in traditionally stereotyped ways. However, recent studies have shown decreases in these stereotypes as ways of responding to changes in gender roles. But do gender-related adverts from Africa reflect the changing statuses and roles of African women (some of which challenge traditional gender stereotypes)? This article investigates how women are represented in Ghanaian radio commercials and indicates whether such representations reproduce, reinforce, or challenge feminine practices. An analysis of thirty-seven gender-related adverts reveals that, although women are rarely represented as challenging gender stereotypes, they are sometimes represented as using certain traditionally stereotyped roles as sources of ‘power’ to challenge other stereotypes. (Advertising, gender stereotypes, women, radio, Ghana, ideals of femininity)*

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