Demystifying Magical Realism: A Close Reading of Quichotte

Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-173
Author(s):  
Muthunagai P. ◽  
◽  
Marie Josephine Aruna ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Salman Rushdie ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Indian Diaspora ◽  
Midnight's Children ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Innovative Techniques

Magical Realism is a genre that brings in together two completely different dimensions of study, namely realism and fantastic imagination (magic). There is always an air of eerie complexity around the genre due to the confluence of such contradictions. Salman Rushdie is one of the most important Indian Diaspora writers prominently known for the triumphant utilization of this genre through innovative techniques in his work. Some of his most famous literary productions of this genre are The Midnight’s children, Shame, etc., This present paper takes Rushdie’s (2019) recent blockbuster publication Quichotte under study, and scrutinizes it from a hermeneutical point of view. It uses the principles theorized by W. B. Frais (2004) in her book Ordinary Enchantments and attempts to analyse the book under the derived perspective. This brief analysis underscores the hidden elements that are unanimously typical of all Magical Realist texts with reference to Quichottein and endeavours to demystify it.

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.

scholarly journals The Recovery of the Historic Centres in the Metropolitan Area of Reggio Calabria through the Use of Bergamot

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 514-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Campolo
Keyword(s):  
Vernacular Architecture ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Waste Materials ◽  
Historic Buildings ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Environmental Disasters ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Inadequate Care ◽  
Innovative Techniques ◽  
Soil Consumption

The abuse of land is devastating our country: environmental disasters (landslides, floods, mudslides, etc.) are becoming more frequent because of the abandonment of agricultural lands and an inadequate care of the land, particularly in the inland areas. But Calabria, and the province of Reggio Calabria, in particular, has agricultural vocations that makes it unique in the Italian panorama and there could be development opportunities for the region, not only in the agriculture sector but also in the recovery of the historic centers with an innovative use of waste materials coming from the production of bergamot, or citrus, for the restoration of historic buildings and vernacular architecture. From a metropolitan city point of view, we must put an end to the soil consumption in favor of the recovery and the enhancement of endogenous resources, utilizing innovative techniques and innovative methods we can diversify the use of existing resources to make them more productive.

Research Methodology

2013 ◽  
pp. 100-115
Author(s):  
Stéphane Ganassali ◽  
Jean Moscarola ◽  
Francesco Casarin
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Response Process ◽  
Collection Method ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Different Dimensions

Considering the large number of participants and the heterogeneity of the group, the research methodology of COBEREN has been defined in a very specific way. The authors implemented a mixed methodological approach, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, and they used a various range of numerical, verbal, and even pictorial measurements. The scope for covering different dimensions of the consumer culture was made as open as possible but had to remain acceptable from the point of view of the survey response process. Finally, they successfully combined some a priori instructions/guidelines and some a posteriori adjustments/adaptations. This chapter introduces the data collection method, the sampling aspects, the questionnaire design and translation, implemented according to the general principles of the COBEREN methodology.

scholarly journals Magical Realism as Feminist Discourse in Raja Alem’s Fatma: A Novel of Arabia

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laila Al-Sharqi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Female Character ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
The Real ◽  
Feminist Discourse

<p>This article investigates Raja Alem’s <em>Fatma: A Novel of Arabia</em> (2002) as a narrative that appropriates magical realist techniques in the service of the feminist project of critiquing patriarchal notions and practices in contemporary Saudi society. Although Alem is credited by Arab and international critics as a major Saudi writer of the fantastical, it is <em>Fatma </em>that largely establishes her specific reputation as a magical realist. This article provides a close reading and critical analysis substantiating Alem’s extensive use of magical realist techniques. The fabulous and the real converge to create a mysterious universe wherein various times and spaces are merged together to question contemporary society’s assumptions around gender, gender ideology, and feminist issues—a central theme in contemporary Saudi fiction—thereby giving voice to the marginalized female character depicted in <em>Fatma.</em></p>

scholarly journals Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?

Semiotica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (230) ◽  
pp. 121-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Giulia Dondero
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Visual Semiotics ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Peircean Semiotics

AbstractIn this article we explore the relationship between semiotic analysis of images and quantitative analysis of vast image corpora, in particular the work produced by Lev Manovich and the Cultural Analytics Lab, called “Media Visualization.” Media Visualization has been chosen as corpus because of its metavisual operation (images are visualized and analyzed by images) and its innovating way of conceiving analysis: by visual instruments. In this paper semiotics is used as an approach to Media Visualization and taken as an object of study as well, especially visual semiotics. In this sense, a comparison between visual semiotics (close reading of small corpora) and quantitative analyses of images (distant reading of vast collections) are conducted from a semiotic point of view. Post-Greimassian semiotics guides this study with respect to the issue of the image-within-an-image and metavisual visualization; Peircean semiotics is employed to explain and develop the notion of diagram.

Courtesan Editor

T oung Pao ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 99 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 173-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Berg
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
Comme Agent

This article focuses on female editorship and sexual politics in late Ming and early Qing China, using Hua suo shi, an anthology edited by the courtesan poet Xue Susu, as a case study. It traces textual production and transmission, and reconstructs the literary and cultural contexts of this work to explore the courtesan’s editorial gaze and representation of gender through a close reading of it. The analysis of its two main themes—women as commodities, and women as agents—shows how the courtesan editor re-imagined China’s cultural landscape from her point of view. New examples of female agency are discovered in analyzing the cultural process of editing as a “web of discourses,” providing a window on the emergence of a new female editorial voice in early modern China’s cultural discourse.
Cet article se concentre sur le rôle éditorial des femmes et sur les politiques sexuelles en Chine à la fin des Ming et au début des Qing. Une anthologie éditée par la courtisane et poétesse Xue Susu, le Hua suo shi, sert d’étude de cas. Le processus de production et de transmission textuelle est examiné et le contexte littéraire et culturel de l’ouvrage restitué, permettant d’explorer le regard éditorial et le jeu de genre de la courtisane à travers une lecture serrée du texte. L’analyse des deux thèmes dominants — la femme comme marchandise, la femme comme agent — démontre la façon dont la courtisane éditrice ré-imagine le paysage culturel chinois de son propre point de vue. D’autres exemples d’intervention féminine se révèlent lorsqu’on analyse le processus culturel d’édition en tant que “réseau de discours”. Ainsi s’ouvre une fenêtre sur l’émergence d’une nouvelle voix éditoriale féminine au sein du discours culturel chinois au début des temps modernes.


Crossing Borders in the Summer of 1935: Fritz Fürstenberg’s Photographs of Persecution in National Socialist Germany

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
Christoph Kreutzmüller ◽  
Theresia Ziehe
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Holocaust

Abstract While there are hundreds of written accounts of the Holocaust, there are only a few photographs known to document the fate of the persecuted from their own point of view. This article presents the case study of a photographic series taken inside Germany by Jewish businessman Fritz Fürstenberg in order to provide evidence of National Socialist persecution beyond its borders. After a close reading that reveals where and under which circumstances Fürstenberg took his photographs, the article broadens its scope to discuss how the images were eventually used in the Netherlands as a means of documenting National Socialist persecution. In the process, the article’s authors add another layer to the ‘integrated history’ famously advocated by Saul Friedländer, and call attention to the astonishing fact that research into such private photographs is still a desideratum—and as such a promising field for future research.

Recovering Georg Lukács

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Georg Lukács

I reviewGeorg Lukács ReconsideredandGeorg Lukács: The Fundamental Dissonance of Existencefrom a Lukácsian point of view, informed by a close reading of his works from the 1920s. The essays in these books, despite their heterogeneity, contribute towards revivifying Lukácsian Marxism, both philosophically and literarily. Specifically, many of the contributors criticise Honneth’s appropriation of the theory of reification, rejecting readings of Lukács that hypostatise or reify aspects of his theory. They begin to explore Lukács’s labour-centred ontology and the resultant philosophy of praxis, most importantly, returning the emphasis to the mediations whereby reification is overcome as a process, in contrast to those who see him as a voluntarist or messianic thinker. This allows a deeper engagement with Lukács’s theory of politics. While I contend that the authors explore this insufficiently, I conclude that these two books signify an important rediscovery of Lukács.

The Principle of "Effectiveness" in the Recent Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights: Its Different Dimensions and Its Consistency with Public International Law – No Need for the Concept of Treaty Sui Generis

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Rietiker
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
European Court ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
International Legal System ◽  
Teleological Interpretation

AbstractThe recent past has shown an ever-growing fragmentation of the international legal system where lawyers and judges are facing more and more the phenomenon of the same legal question being discussed in different fora. This is particularly the case in the field of human rights that entails the dispersal of responsibilities for interpretation of numerous instruments among various different judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, of both universal and regional nature. In order to secure coherence and legal certainty in the system, it is important to respect a set of principles and rules of general international law, in particular Articles 31–33 of the 1969 Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties (VCLT). The first goal of this article is to analyse whether the Court applies the rules of the VCLT to the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Secondly, assuming that the VCLT fully applies, it will be analysed whether Article 31(1) VCLT is flexible enough to allow nevertheless some leeway for the development of specificities, especially as a result of the particular nature of the ECHR. Thirdly, it will be shown that the Court has indeed developed a set of specific methods of interpretation, aiming to render the rights enshrined in the ECHR effective. From the author's point of view, they can all be regarded as sub-forms (or partial aspects) of the teleological interpretation. He distinguishes between four dimensions of the principle of "effectiveness".

scholarly journals PENGARUH KOLONIALISME TERHADAP PERUBAHAN PSIKOLOGIS WANITA PRIBUMI DALAM CERPEN “PEREMPUAN DALAM PERANG” KARYA CHINUA ACHEBE

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Karyono Karyono
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
African Society ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Native Women ◽  
Psychological Suffering ◽  
Inferior Class

Cerpen “Perempuan dalam Perang” merupakan salah satu cerpen yang terdapat dalam Kumpulan Cerpen Afrika: Kenapa Tidak Kau Pahat Binatang Lain. Kumpulan cerpen terbit tahun 2005 dan diterjemahkan oleh Sapardi Djoko Damono. Cerpen ini menceritakan  masa keterpurukan Negara Afrika yang  menjadi sorotan para kolonialis untuk menjajahnya. Masyarakat Afrika diperlakukan sebagai golongan inferior di tanah mereka oleh pihak Barat, akibat  konflik yang terjadi berkenaan dengan sosiologis dan psikologis penderitaan wanita pribumi dalam kolonialisme. Salah satu penderitaan psikologis yang dialami oleh masyarakat pribumi, yaitu perubahan ideologi yang menuju kemerosotan moral. Banyak dari mereka yang berpindah tempat, berpindah pola pikir, dan berubah dalam tindakan.  Metode yang digunakan adalah close reading, dengan menggunakan pendekatan teori poskolonialisme yang akan dihubungkan dengan prespektif feminisme  karena dalam cerita ini terkandung isu gender yang cukup kental.  Yang terjadi dalam cerpen “Perempuan dalam Perang” adalah perubahan pola pikir seorang wanita yang berjuang melawan penjajah, berubah menjadi seorang yang berjuang untuk dirinya. Wanita itu berusaha memertahankan hidupnya dengan menjual harga dirinya. Isu gender juga melekat dalam cerpen ini. Dilihat dari sudut pandang feminisme, ada hal-hal yang dibenarkan dalam pola pikir feminis dan ada  penyimpangan-penyimpangan yang mengakibatkan perspektif feminis tidak dihargai.Abstract:The short story of “Perempuan dalam Perang” is one of the short stories in Kumpulan Cerpen Afrika (A collection of African short stories) entitled Kenapa Tidak  Kau Pahat Binatang Lain. The collection of the short stories published in 2005 and translated by Sapardi Djoko Damono. The story told us about the downturn of African countries that became the attraction of imperialism to colonize them. African society is treated as an inferior class of their own land by the West, due to the conflict regarding the sociological and psychological suffering of native women in colonialism. One of the psychological suffering experienced by the native  is the change in ideology leading  to moral degradation. Many of them  change  their mindset and action.The applied method is close reading, using a theoretical approach post-colonialism linked to the perspective of feminism because  this story contained the strong gender issue. What happened in the story was a change in a woman mindset who fought against the colonialist, turned into a struggle for herself. She was trying to survive by selling her own esteem. The gender issues are also inherent in this short story. From feminism point of view, there are things justified in feminist mindset and there are deviations resulting in a feminist perspective that is not appreciated.

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