scholarly journals Images of the East in the Short Fiction of Ivan Bunin

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kata Juracsek
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Postcolonial Criticism ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World

The article examines the images of the East in the short fiction of Ivan Bunin. With the help of the narrative model of Jan van der Eng, consisting of three basic thematic levels (action, characterization, geographical and social setting) we read and arrange the works of Bunin through the prism of postcolonial criticism. On the one hand, we will consider the arguments of traditional postcolonial studies; on the other hand, we will also take into account the postcolonial theory regarding the “second world” (Russia, Eastern and Central Europe).We start our analysis with the texts in which images of the East are only featured on one thematic level, gradually directing our attention towards the short stories in which these images determine the whole semantic structure.

‘Forlorn on the Fringe of Life’: Exploring Working-Class Childhood in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Argha Kumar Banerjee
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Verbal Abuse ◽  
The Other ◽  
Parental Rejection ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
The One

Abstract In Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘Life of Ma Parker’, the old, widowed charwoman is plagued by ‘unbearable’ thoughts of her deceased grandson Lennie: ‘Why did he have to suffer so?’ Lennie’s unfortunate death in the story is not a solitary instance of tragic portrayal of working-class childhood in Mansfield’s short fiction. In several of her tales she empathetically explores the marginalized existence of such children, occasionally juxtaposing their deplorable existence with their elite counterparts’. From social exclusion, child labour, parental rejection, infant and child mortality on the one hand to physical and verbal abuse, bullying in the school and appalling living conditions on the other; Mansfield's exploration of the working-class childhood in her short fiction is not only psychologically complex but sociologically significant. Focusing on the relevant short stories in her oeuvre, this brief analysis intends to closely examine such depictions of marginalized childhood experiences, particularly in light of the oppressive societal conditions that validate their repressive alienation and sufferings. Tracing various biographical circumstances that may have fostered Mansfield’s deep empathy with the children’s’ predicament, this analysis also draws attention to her subtle oblique narrative strategies that effectively represent the plight of working-class children in a convincing and an ingeniously nuanced manner.

Thinking the Postcolonial Contemporary

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Jini Kim Watson ◽  
Gary Wilder
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Postcolonial Criticism ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
The One

To invoke the “postcolonial contemporary” is simultaneously to offer a proposition and to raise a question. It is an invitation to recognize and reflect upon the emphatically postcolonial character of the contemporary conjuncture as well as to inquire into whether postcolonial criticism can adequately grasp it. This introductory essay explores, on the one hand, how new historical situations require different analytic frameworks and, on the other, that grasping the political present requires close attention to historical continuities, repetitions, and reactivations. Neither simply for nor against postcolonialism, the volume seeks to cut across this false alternative. Our aim is to think with postcolonial theory about political contemporaneity.

scholarly journals Heirs of Ambivalence: The Study of the Identity Crisis of the Second-Generation Indian Americans in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Hossein Aliakbari Harehdasht ◽  
Muhammad Ataee ◽  
Leila Hajjari
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
Indian Americans ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
The One

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories which, for the most part, deals with the identity crisis of the Indian Americans who are trapped in-between their Indian heritage and the American culture. The crisis is manifest in their unremitting struggle to preserve, to integrate, and to adjust. The collection, due to its dealing with the in-between-ness, ambivalence, hybridity, and marginality of the displaced Indian Americans, is receptive to the postcolonial studies. This essay draws on the relevant ideas and concepts in the field of the diaspora identity to examine Lahiri's “A Temporary Matter,” “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” “Sexy,” and “This Blessed House” which portray identity crisis of the second-generation Bengali migrants. The ultimate objective is to investigate into the nature of the internal ambivalence of Lahiri's second-generation characters caused by the reciprocal influence of Host/Guest relationships. The significance of the present study is twofold; on the one hand, it accentuates the intellectual attention to the crisis of identity felt by the exponentially increasing second-generation diaspora; on the other hand, it attempts to attract concentrated scholarly interest in diaspora ambivalence which is one of Lahiri scholars’ less addressed concerns.

Interactional means of teaming up: enacting the features of contemporary working life in a theater performance

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riikka Nissi ◽  
Melisa Stevanovic
Keyword(s):  
Working Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Workplace Organization ◽  
The One

Abstract The article examines how the aspects of the social world are enacted in a theater play. The data come from a videotaped performance of a professional theater, portraying a story about a workplace organization going through a personnel training program. The aim of the study is to show how the core theme of the play – the teaming up of the personnel – is constructed in the live performance through a range of interactional means. By focusing on four core episodes of the play, the study on the one hand points out to the multiple changes taking place both within and between the different episodes of the play. On the other hand, the episodes of collective action involving the semiotic resources of singing and dancing are shown to represent the ideals of teamwork in distinct ways. The study contributes to the understanding of socially and politically oriented theater as a distinct, pre-rehearsed social setting and the means and practices that it deploys when enacting the aspects of the contemporary societal issues.

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL CHARACTERISTICS IN A DIVERSE SOCIAL SETTING-EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIAN AND SINGAPOREAN MANAGERS

2001 ◽  
Vol 09 (03) ◽  
pp. 273-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
CECIL A. L. PEARSON ◽  
SAMIR R. CHATTERJEE
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
International Entrepreneurship ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Attributes ◽  
Work Setting ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Geographic Boundaries ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The One

Despite the growing acceptance that entrepreneurship facilitates national economic growth there has been a lack of research in diverse international contexts. This paper assesses relationships between contextual work setting properties and three personality characteristics that have been identified in the Western literature as being associated with entrepreneurial motivation. Responses from 410 Australian and Singaporean entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs demonstrate on the one hand there was systematic entrepreneurial variation between the two countries, but on the other hand, the influence of personal attributes on entrepreneurship were not hampered by geographic boundaries. The findings are discussed in terms of challenges for international entrepreneurship.

Philosophical Ideas of Yanaihara Tadao:Nationalism, Pacifism and the Concept of the “Just War”

2021 ◽  
pp. 187-197
Author(s):  
Anna D. Bertova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World

Prominent Japanese economist, specialist in colonial politics, a professor of Im­perial Tokyo University, Yanaihara Tadao (1893‒1961) was one of a few people who dared to oppose the aggressive policy of Japanese government before and during the Second World War. He developed his own view of patriotism and na­tionalism, regarding as a true patriot a person who wished for the moral develop­ment of his or her country and fought the injustice. In the years leading up to the war he stated the necessity of pacifism, calling every war evil in the ultimate, divine sense, developing at the same time the concept of the «just war» (gisen­ron), which can be considered good seen from the point of view of this, imper­fect life. Yanaihara’s theory of pacifism is, on one hand, the continuation of the one proposed by his spiritual teacher, the founder of the Non-Church movement, Uchimura Kanzo (1861‒1930); one the other hand, being a person of different historical period, directly witnessing the boundless spread of Japanese militarism and enormous hardships brought by the war, Yanaihara introduced a number of corrections to the idealistic theory of his teacher and proposed quite a specific explanation of the international situation and the state of affairs in Japan. Yanai­hara’s philosophical concepts influenced greatly both his contemporaries and successors of the pacifist ideas in postwar Japan, and contributed to the dis­cussion about interrelations of pacifism and patriotism, and also patriotism and religion.

scholarly journals Grammaticalization of syntactic conflict resolution: Asymmetric constructions

2013 ◽  
pp. 115-135
Author(s):  
I.M. Boguslavskij
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Principal Property ◽  
The One

We consider Russian coordinative constructions with paired conjunctions, such as i?i ?both?and?, ili?ili ?either?or?, ni?ni ?neither?nor?, ne tol'ko?no i ?not only?but also?, ne?a ?not?but?, etc. The paper presents a class of syntactic constructions, so-called asymmetric constructions, which are interesting in several respects. They are closely related to coordinative constructions, although they do not share their principal property - the identity of syntactic functions of coordinated elements. They take up an intermediate position between standard syntax and ungrammaticality. On the one hand, the sentence is within the grammatical norm. On the other hand, its structure underwent a deformation that left a trace. We propose a description that accounts for their closeness to and difference from standard - symmetric - constructions. Symmetric constructions with paired conjunctions are convenient to describe as a result of two transformations occurring in the semantic structure: Deletion and Transfer. Asymmetric constructions are obtained when only one of these transformations is applied. Accordingly, two subclasses of asymmetric constructions can be distinguished - ?Deletion-Without-Transfer? constructions and ?Transfer-Without-Deletion? constructions. The latter class has a strong pragmatic marking. The core of this class are ?failed? symmetric constructions. The speaker begins to build a symmetric construction but faces an obstacle of syntactic nature, which prevents him from completing this plan. ?Transfer-Without-Deletion? constructions constitute a legalized way of overcoming syntactic conflicts.

scholarly journals Clausewitz and la pensée 681*

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Éric Alliez ◽  
Maurizio Lazzarato
Keyword(s):  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
Felix Guattari ◽  
World War ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World

Abstract In the aftermath of the Second World War, revolutionary movements remained dependent on Leninist theories and practices in their attempts to grasp the new relationship between war and capital. Yet these theories and practices failed to address the global “cold civil war” represented by the events of 1968. This article will show that in the 1970s this task was not undertaken by “professional revolutionaries” or in their Maoist discourse of “protracted war” and its “generalized Clauzewitzian strategy.” Rather, the problem was addressed by Michel Foucault, on the one hand, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, on the other. Each produced a radical break in the conception of war and of its constitutive relationship with capitalism, taking up the confrontation with Clausewitz to reverse the famous formula such that war was not to be understood as the continuation of politics (which determines its ends). Politics was, on the contrary, to be understood as an element and strategic modality of the whole constituted by war. The ambition of la pensée 68, as represented by Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari, was not to make this reversal into a simple permutation of the formula's terms, but rather to develop a radical critique of the concepts of “war” and “politics” presupposed by Clausewitz's formula.

The Belgian national past: Between commemoration and silence

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Rosoux ◽  
Laurence van Ypersele
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Memory Conflicts ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This article examines the gradual deconstruction of the Belgian national identity. Is it possible to speak of a de facto differentiation or even ‘federalization’ of the so-called ‘national past’ in Belgium? How do Belgians choose to remember and forget this past? To contribute to an understanding of these issues, the article considers two very different episodes of Belgian history, namely the First World War and the colonization of the Congo. On the one hand, the memory of the First World War appears to provide the template for memory conflicts in Belgium, and thus informs the memories of other tragedies such as the Second World War. On the other hand, the memory of the colonial past remains much more consensual – providing a more nuanced picture of competing views on the past. Beyond the differences between the ways in which these episodes are officially portrayed, the same fundamental trend may be observed: the gradual fragmentation of a supposedly smooth and reliable national version of history.

On Global English and the Transmutation of Postcolonial Studies into “Literature in English”

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-80
Author(s):  
Rita Raley
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Diaspora Studies ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Global English ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Question

What does it signify to speak of a World Literature in English? In what ways might diaspora studies and transnationalism be linked to the contemporary phenomenon of global English, with a mode of comprehending the world that holds English at its center? What can diaspora studies and transnationalism learn from the “language question” frequently raised in discussions of both cultural imperialism and postcolonial writing? What can they learn from the question of globalism now so ubiquitous in contemporary criticism? How does the Literature in English concept relate, on the one hand, to Edouard Glissant's outline of the “liberation” that results from compromising major languages with Creoles (250), and, on the other, to Fredric Jameson's implicit yearning for a philosophical universal linguistic standard not circumvented by linguistic heteroglossia (16-7)? These questions outline the conceptual terrain of this article, in which I read the discursive transmutation of the discipline of Postcolonial Studies into “Literature in English” as both symptom and cause of the emerging visibility of global English as a recognizable disciplinary configuration situated on the line between contemporary culture and the academy. Over the course of this article, I chart this discursive transmutation and its necessary preconditions—the critical investiture in the “global,” the renewed attention to dialects, the abstraction of the “postcolonial”—as a way of articulating profound reservations about the “new universalisms,” of which Literature in English is a primary instance.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document