scholarly journals Postmodern Angst and Zen Buddhism in Ruth Ozeki‘s A Tale for the Time Being

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Mojca Kervel
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fractal Nature ◽  
The Status ◽  
American Author ◽  
Systemic Violence ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Zen Buddhist

The article addresses issues concerning objective, or systemic, violence which legitimizes and conditions other forms of violence – psychological, economic, sexual, physical, etc. These issues are approached from the perspective of frustrations and traumas experienced by individuals as a consequence of the shift of the sociohistorical paradigm, which has so far been principally governed by the mechanisms and interests of global postindustrial capitalism. Through the analysis of the status of reality and subject in A Tale for the Time Being, a 2013 novel by Japanese-American author Ruth Ozeki, I first identify the violent and traumatic aspects of contemporary conditions as experienced by the protagonists in the novel. Then, Ozeki’s literary scenario for improving quotidian existence of individuals via internalization of Dogen’s Zen Buddhist principles is assessed from the perspective of the philosophical definitions of the categories of subject and reality in postmodernity, as well as in relation to the actual conditions in the global consumerist societies of the digital age. The article maintains that Ozeki’s solution of the protagonists’ existential crises is rather significant since the fundamental premises of Zen Buddhism correspond to the metaphysical structuring of postmodernity. The novel hence illuminates the productive facets of the fractal nature of postmodern individuals, as well as the role literature can play in their concretisation.

scholarly journals Postmodern Angst and Zen Buddhism in Ruth Ozeki‘s A Tale for the Time Being

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Mojca Krevel
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fractal Nature ◽  
The Status ◽  
American Author ◽  
Systemic Violence ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Zen Buddhist

The article addresses issues concerning objective, or systemic, violence which legitimizes and conditions other forms of violence – psychological, economic, sexual, physical, etc. These issues are approached from the perspective of frustrations and traumas experienced by individuals as a consequence of the shift of the sociohistorical paradigm, which has so far been principally governed by the mechanisms and interests of global postindustrial capitalism. Through the analysis of the status of reality and subject in A Tale for the Time Being, a 2013 novel by Japanese-American author Ruth Ozeki, I first identify the violent and traumatic aspects of contemporary conditions as experienced by the protagonists in the novel. Then, Ozeki’s literary scenario for improving quotidian existence of individuals via internalization of Dogen’s Zen Buddhist principles is assessed from the perspective of the philosophical definitions of the categories of subject and reality in postmodernity, as well as in relation to the actual conditions in the global consumerist societies of the digital age. The article maintains that Ozeki’s solution of the protagonists’ existential crises is rather significant since the fundamental premises of Zen Buddhism correspond to the metaphysical structuring of postmodernity. The novel hence illuminates the productive facets of the fractal nature of postmodern individuals, as well as the role literature can play in their concretisation.

scholarly journals Violencia de género en Temporada de huracanes, de Fernanda Melchor: de la violencia subjetiva a la violencia sistémica.

Sincronía ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol XXV (79) ◽  
pp. 261-281
Author(s):  
Marco Antonio Islas Arévalo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Female Gender ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Critical Comparison ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Systemic Violence ◽  
Forms Of Violence

This essay approaches gender violence from a systemic violence study in Fernanda Melchor’s novel Temporada de huracanes (2017). It analyses the violence exerted towards three female characters form their point of view. The purpose is to identify the elements of Systematic violence that allow physical, psychological, and sexual abuse in the three main stories that represent gender violence within the novel. The method employed was a critical comparison between the different types of violence and its’ perpetrator’s’ motivations, framed in the systemic violence approach. Finally, it was concluded that these forms of violence are allowed within the setting of a patriarchal-colonial structure that reproduces dominance from the male gender towards the female gender. Which, ultimately, allows a normalized reproduction of violence towards women in various degrees: from psychologicalverbal aggressions, to systematic rape and femicide.

scholarly journals A Japanese-American Sam Spade: The Metaphysical Detective in Death in Little Tokyo, by Dale Furutani

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Portilho
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Roman Noir ◽  
Limits Of Knowledge ◽  
Little Tokyo ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Narrative Interpretation ◽  
American Author

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to discuss the legacy of the roman noir in contemporary detective fiction produced outside the hegemonic center of power, here represented by the novel Death in Little Tokyo (1996), written by Japanese-American author Dale Furutani. Starting from the concept of the metaphysical detective (Haycraft 76; Holquist 153-156), characterized by deep questioning about narrative, interpretation, subjectivity, the nature of reality and the limits of knowledge, this article proposes a discussion about how these literary works, which at first sight represent a traditionally Anglo-American genre, constitute narratives that aim to rescue the memory, history and culture of marginalized communities. Typical of late modernity detective fiction, the metaphysical detective has none of the positivistic detective’s certainties, as he does not share in his Cartesian notion of totality, being presented instead as a successor of the hardboiled detective of the roman noir. In this article I intend to analyze the paths chosen by the author and discuss how his re-reading of the roman noir dialogues with the texts of hegemonic noire detective fiction, inscribing them in literary tradition and subverting them at the same time.

PERUBAHAN NILAI BUDAYA MINANGKABAU DALAM NOVEL TENGGELAMNYA KAPAL VAN DER WIJCK KARYA HAMKA DAN NOVEL BULAN SUSUT KARYA ISMET FANANY (KAJIAN PERBANDINGAN)

Jurnal KATA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 336
Author(s):  
Yulia Pebriani
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Local Culture ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
The Status ◽  
Symbolic Leadership ◽  
Cultural Shifts ◽  
Time Lead

<em>Local culture is very diverse Indonesia became an honor and challenge to maintain and inherited to the next generation. Local Indonesian culture is very proud because it has a very varied diversity and unique. As time, lead to changes in lifestyle a more modern society. As a result, people will prefer the new culture that may be considered more practical than the local culture. Views on kinship, treasures, and wander in the novel Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck Hamka works and novels Bulan Susut works Ismet Fanany changes and cultural shifts. Kinship, treasures, and wander in the novel Sinking Ship Van Der Wijck Hamka's work is described explicitly, whereas kinship, treasures, and wander in the novel Month Losses Ismet work Fanany described implicitly. Changes in people's lives has implications for social Minangkabau culture in Minangkabau society. A leadership that is both functional mamak transformed into symbolic leadership. Mamak originally as straps tribesmen, has changed the status and intrinsic meaning.</em>

Knowing as being: Psychology, limits to knowledge, and an ethics of solidarity

2020 ◽  
pp. 095935432097870
Author(s):  
Peiwei Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Moral Relevance ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Science Building ◽  
Critical Science ◽  
Zen Buddhist

Critical epistemological reflection facilitates disciplinary self-reflection, and yet the limitation of this practice needs to examined. This article explores the possibility of a praxis-oriented philosophical foundation for psychology through investigating the limits to knowledge. Integrating insights from critical communicative pragmatist perspectives and Zen Buddhism, this paper outlines what constitutes limits to knowledge and contests the boundary of epistemology, in relation to psychology as a natural science, social science, and critical science. Building upon this deconstruction/reconstruction, Zen Buddhist practice is drawn upon to further illuminate the potential to center psychology through the praxis of knowing as being, which is nontotalizing and always open to uncertainty and fallibility. My key argument is that any notion of epistemology is inadequate when divorced from its intra-connection to being and practice that have inherent ethical and moral relevance. This necessitates deferring philosophizing to a constant and endless practice that upholds an ethics of solidarity.

Obsolescence

PMLA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 718-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
American Novel ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Status ◽  
Material State ◽  
Different Response

I was invited by the MLA committee on the status of graduate students in the profession to speak at a convention workshop entitled “Keywords for a Digital Profession.” My keyword was obsolescence, a catchall term for a multiplicity of conditions; there are material obsolescences, institutional obsolescences, and purely theoretical obsolescences, each type demanding a different response. I spent years pondering theoretical obsolescence while writing The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television. The book argues, in part, that claims about the obsolescence of cultural forms often say more about those doing the claiming than they do about the objects of the claims. Neither the novel in particular nor the book more broadly nor print in general is dead, and agonized announcements of the death of such technologies and genres often serve to re-create an elite cadre of cultural producers and consumers, ostensibly operating on the margins of contemporary culture and profiting from their claims of marginality by creating a sense that their own values, once mainstream and now decaying, must be protected. Two oft-cited reports of the National Endowment for the Arts, Reading at Risk (2004) and To Read or Not to Read (2007), come to mind; like numerous other expressions of anxiety about the supposed decline of reading, each rhetorically creates a cultural wildlife preserve in which the apparently obsolete can flourish (United States). These texts suggest that obsolescence is, in this case at least, less a material state than a political project.

scholarly journals Global holiday as a cultural phenomenon of the Digital Age

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Ivan Dmitrievich Tuzovskii
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Methodological Foundation ◽  
Day Of The Dead ◽  
The Status ◽  
Global Status ◽  
The Subject

The subject of this research is modern celebratory culture in the context of impact of globalization processes upon festivities. The author explores a new phenomenon that emerged in the early XXI century &ndash; a &ldquo;global holiday&rdquo; within the framework of sociocultural transformations related to transition of humanity towards the Digital Age, and formation of the global information space. Special attention is given to the following aspects: creation of media and post-mythological global holidays of the Digital Age, and transformation of the traditional holiday into new metanational forms. The methodological foundation for studying the holidays that received the status of "global" in modern culture became the adaptation of &ldquo;head page method&rdquo; applied in sociological, cultural and futurological research and sociocultural monitoring, including overt observation. The conclusion is made that modern culture marks the formation of several types of global holidays that carry metanational character: the first group includes media-produced holidays associated with post-folklore and post-mythology of modern society, or represent celebratory events as award ceremonies in the field of politics, art and science; the second group includes ethnic traditional holidays that received the global status (Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Mexican Day of the Dead, Holi &ldquo;Festival of Spring&rdquo;, etc.). The phenomenon of global holidays should be taken into account in creation of the national strategies of cultural policy, and the global holiday itself may become one of the "soft power" tools in the Digital Age.

scholarly journals Hope and equilibrium in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games

2021 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 227-244
Author(s):  
María Sandra Peña-Cervel ◽  
Andreea Rosca
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
Accurate Picture ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
The Status ◽  
Selection Of

This paper provides evidence of the fruitfulness of combining analytical categories from Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis for the analysis of complex literary characterizations. It does so through a detailed study of the “tributes”, i.e. the randomly selected children who have to fight to death in a nationally televised show, in The Hunger Games. The study proves the effectiveness of such categories to provide an analytically accurate picture of the dystopian world depicted in the novel, which is revealed to include a paradoxical element of hope. The type of dehumanization that characterizes the dystopian society of Panem is portrayed through an internally consistent set of ontological metaphors which project negative aspects of lower forms of existence onto people. This selection of metaphors promotes a biased perspective on the poor inhabitants of Panem, while legitimizing the social inequalities the wealthy Capitol works hard to immortalize. However, Katniss undergoes a metamorphosis through her discovery of her own identity, which hints at an emerging female empowerment. This transformation, together with her identification with the Mockingjay, a supernatural being that voices her beliefs and emotions, contributes to disrupting the status quo imposed by the almighty Gamemakers and to purveying a message of optimism.

scholarly journals Tradition Versus and Modernity in Laila al-Juhani’s The Waste Paradise: An Intertextual Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1197-1202
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdullah Abduldaim Hizabr Alhusami
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Short Story ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Saudi Women ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Story Writer

The aim of this paper is to investigate the issue of intertextuality in the novel Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) by the female Saudi novelist and short story writer Laila al-Juhani. Intertextuality is a rhetoric and literary technique defined as a textual reference deliberate or subtle to some other texts with a view of drawing more significance to the core text; and hence it is employed by an author to communicate and discuss ideas in a critical style. The narrative structure of Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) showcases references of religious, literary, historical, and folkloric intertextuality. In analyzing these references, the study follows the intertextual approach. In her novel The Waste Paradise, Laila al-Juhani portrays the suffering of Saudi women who are less tormented by social marginalization than by an inner conflict between openness to Western culture and conformity to cultural heritage. Intertextuality relates to words, texts, or discourses among each other. Moreover, the intertextual relations are subject to reader’s response to the text. The relation of one text with other texts or contexts never reduces the prestige of writing. Therefore, this study, does not diminish the status of the writer or the text; rather, it is in itself a kind of literary creativity. Finally, this paper aims to introduce Saudi writers in general and the female writers in particular to the world literature.

scholarly journals Baleia, de Graciliano Ramos: uma meditação sobre a vida sensível do animal

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Coutinho
Keyword(s):  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

In this essay, I examine the status of Baleia, the family dog in Graciliano Ramos’s Vidas secas (1938). My principal interest is to analyse the attenuation of distances and the differentiation of sensibility between humans and animals in the novel. I argue that Baleia allows Ramos to leave aside an absolute belief in human reasoning and think of the nonhuman animal as a being endowed with complexity. In this, Ramos deviates from a speciesist appreciation of history and sharpens the gaze of his readers with respect to the limitations of our understanding of the world and its beings.

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