Psychotic Realism in (American) Psycho

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne De Boever
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
General Aspect ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Big City

Tracing psychosis in American Psycho back to both Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho and the novel Psycho (by Robert Bloch) on which it was based, the chapter shows how these fictions theorize psychosis as a general aspect of the human being’s relation to money. However, money’s psychotic effect also infects Psycho, American Psycho, and the criticism that they have received in the sense that they tend to forget about money as one of the sources of the various psychoses they describe. If Bonfire was already pretty weak on the finance, presenting itself as a big city novel and being received as a novel about race and racism in New York, American Psycho has even less finance in it. Thus, Psycho and American Psycho arguably realize the psychosis that money produces in their very cinematic and literary form. Taking its cue from the Italian literary critic and media scholar Antonio Scurati, the chapter argues that this amounts to a psychotic realism that writes money’s psychotic effect on human beings—something that is particularly important in today’s era of digitized finance.

Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism: Redefining Fundamentalism in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Quratulain Shirazi
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Immigrant Student ◽  
American System ◽  
American Nationalism ◽  
Globalized World

This article is based on a study of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), a novel by a Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid.  The novel is based on the  story of  transformation of an expat Pakistani living in New York from a true cosmopolitan to a nationalist. The article will explore the crisis of identity suffered by the protagonist in a new land where he reached as an immigrant  student and worker. However, he experienced a resurgence of nationalist and patriotic sentiments within him as 9/ 11 happened in 2001.  The force of American nationalism that was imperial in nature, resulting in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iran, triggered resentment in the protagonist who decided to leave America and went back to the country of his origin, Pakistan. During his stay in America, the protagonist redefined fundamentalism as an imperial tendency in the American system while rejecting the accusations hurled towards him of an Islamic fundamentalist. The article will explain that there is a loss of cosmopolitan virtue  in the post 9/11 era and the dream of universal peace and harmony  is shattered due to unbridled  state ambitions to invade foreign territories.   The article will conclude with the assertion that the loss of cosmopolitanism and reassertion of national identities give way to confrontation and intolerance destroying the prospects of peace and harmony in a globalized world.

Moralitas dalam Novel Negeri di Ujung Tanduk Karya Tere Liye

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-173
Author(s):  
Muhtadin Muhtadin ◽  
Sugi Murniasih
Keyword(s):  
Research Method ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Mutual Help ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Record Data ◽  
Morality Literature

The objective of this research was to describes the morality contained in the novel Affairs at the Negeri di Ujung Tanduk the works Tere Liye. The research method used content analysis. The data in this research is a sentence containing the moral values ​​contained by the novel of the State at Ujung Tanduk Karya Tere Liye. Technique of collecting data using documentation technique and record. Data analysis techniques with steps: data reduction, data tabulation and coding, interpretation, classification, and conclusion. The result of the research shows that morality in Tere Liye Negeri di Ujung Tanduk novel is: first, human relationships with other human beings in the form of self existence, self esteem, self confidence, fear, death, longing, resentment, loneliness, maintaining the sanctity of greed, developing courage, honesty, hard work, patient, resilient, cheerful, steadfast, open, visionary, independent, brave, courageous, optimistic, envy, hypocritical, reflective, responsible, principle, confident, disciplined , and voracious. Second, human relationships with other humans or social and nature in the form of cooperation, acquaintance, hypocrisy, caring, hypocrisy, caring, friendship, smile, mutual help, and betrayal. Third human relationships in the form of God's menthidising and avoiding shirk, piety and pleading with prayers, prayers performed by human beings, as an awareness that everything in this universe belongs to God. Keywords: morality, literature, novel

Restoration Theatre and the Novel

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Transition ◽  
Strong Affinity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Restoration Theatre ◽  
Restoration Comedy ◽  
London Stage

This chapter explores the broad cultural transition from drama to novel during the Restoration period, which triggered one of the most productive periods in the history of the London stage. However, when it comes to the eighteenth century proper, the novel is more likely to be identified as the century's most significant and appealing popular genre. The chapter considers why the novel has largely superseded drama as the literary form to which ambitious and imaginative literary types without a strong affinity for verse writing would by default have turned their attention and energies by the middle of the eighteenth century. Something important may have been lost in the broad cultural transition from drama to novel. This chapter, however, contends that many things were preserved: that the novel was able to absorb many of the functions and techniques not just of Restoration comedy but of the theatre more generally.

Wieland; or The Transformation, and Memoirs of Carwin, The Biloquist

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Brockden Brown
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Spontaneous Combustion ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Actual Case ◽  
Her Family ◽  
American Novels

One of the earliest American novels, Wieland (1798) is a thrilling tale of suspense and intrigue set in rural Pennyslvania in the 1760s. Based on an actual case of a New York farmer who murdered his family, the novel employs Gothic devices and sensational elements such as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and religious fanaticism. The plot turns on the charming but diabolical intruder Carwin, who exercises his power over the narrator, Clara Wieland, and her family, destroying the order and authority of the small community in which they live. Underlying the mystery and horror, however, is a profound examination of the human mind's capacity for rational judgement. The text also explores some of the most important issues vital to the survival of democracy in the new American republic. Brown further considers power and manipulation in his unfinished sequel, Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist, which traces Carwin's career as a disciple of the utopist Ludloe.

scholarly journals Critiquing Anthropocentrism in Henry Ole Kulet’s Vanishing Herds

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-55
Author(s):  
Pushpa Raj Jaishi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
East African ◽  
To Come

Vanishing Herds (2011) is Henry Ole Kulet’s novel that hovers around the ecological depletion caused by the anthropocentric attitude of the human beings. Set in the East African Savannah, the novel grapples with the critical issue of anthropogenic environmental degradation. The novel is based on the tribulations of a young Maasai couple –Kedoki and Norpisia whose epic journey through the wilderness provides a window through which the destruction of the physical environment can be viewed. Additionally, the text catalogues the challenges faced by a pastoralist community’s attempt to come to terms with the socio-economic realities of a fast-evolving contemporary society. The paper is an attempt to study this novel under the surveillance of green lens and throw light on the ecological destruction especially the clearing of the forest by human self centered endeavors and to critique the anthropocentric attitude of the human beings that render the environment at the verge of destruction.

scholarly journals Frog Metaphors in Mo Yan’s Novel 蛙 /UA55/ (Frog): A Cognitive Perspective

MANUSYA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-153
Author(s):  
Yao Siqi
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mo Yan ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
One Child Policy ◽  
Child Policy ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
Chinese Author

《蛙》/ua55/ (frog) by the Nobel Prize winning Chinese author Mo Yan describes China’s changing its highly controversial one - child policy and system of forced abortions over the past half-century. Frog metaphors are omnipresent throughout the novel. The present study aims to investigate these metaphors within the framework of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the “GREAT CHAIN OF BEING” system of George Lakoff and Mark Turner (1989) to deepen our understanding of their nature and manifestations. Zoltán Kövecses’s (2002) “HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS” and “ANIMALS ARE HUMAN BEINGS” were also considered as cognitive metaphorical models. Moreover, the viewpoint of “phonetic metaphor” initially proposed by Ivan Fónagy (1999) was also taken into account. Results were that in Mo Yan’s work, the frog plays an essential role in the conceptualizing conventional views of certain areas in China. The analysis demonstrates how a cognitive approach offers an effective way to explore the cognitive basis of the text’s view on the complex relationship between the basic human rights and the dilemmas of living in a repressive society. This paper also hopes to make a certain contribution to comprehending frog metaphors in terms of more clearly delineated concepts and ideology reflecting China’s real society of a one-child policy and its traditional counter - policy notion.

"A Dismal Swamp": Darwin, Design, and Evolution in Our Mutual Friend

1994 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard W. Fulweiler
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
Dismal Swamp ◽  
Human World ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Our Mutual Friend ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mutual Friend

Our Mutual Friend, published just six years after Darwin's The Origin of Species, is structured on a Darwinian pattern. As its title hints, the novel is an account of the mutual-though hidden-relations of its characters, a fictional world of individuals seeking their own advantage, a "dismal swamp" of "crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures." The relationship between the two works is quite direct in light of the large number of reviews on science, evolution, and The Origin from 1859 through the early 1860s in Dicken's magazine, All the Year Round. Given the laissez-faire origin of the Origin, Dicken's use of it in a book directed against laissez-faire economics is ironic. Important Darwinian themes in the novel are predation, mutual relationships, chance, and, especially, inheritance, a central issue in both Victorian fiction and in The Origin of Species. The novel asks whether predatory self-seeking or generosity should be the desired inheritance for human beings. The victory of generosity is symbolized by a dying child's "willing" his inheritance of a toy Noah's Ark, "all the Creation," to another child. Our Mutual Friend is saturated with the motifs of Darwinian biology, therefore, to display their inadequacy. Although Dickens made use of the explanatory powers of natural selection and remained sympathetic to science, the novel transcends and opposes its Darwinian structure in order to project a teleological and designed evolution in the human world toward a moral community of responsible men and women.

Sick on the Frontlines:A Cross Sectional Study on COVID-19 Infection, Symptom Severity Amongst Emergency Medicine Residents and Fellows in Urban Academic Hospital Settings (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey Frisch ◽  
Sarah Jones ◽  
James Willis ◽  
Richard Sinert
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Emergency Medicine ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Academic Hospital ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Time Period ◽  
High Infection ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Specific Symptoms

BACKGROUND COVID-19, an illness caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, affected many aspects of healthcare worldwide in 2020. From March to May of 2020, New York City (NYC) experienced a large surge of cases. OBJECTIVE The authors aimed to characterize the amount of illness experienced by residents and fellows in 2 NYC hospitals during this time period. METHODS This was a cross-sectional observational study. An IRB-exempt survey was distributed to emergency medicine housestaff in May 2020 and submissions were accepted through August 2020. RESULTS 64 residents and fellows responded to our survey (a 62% response rate). 42% of responders tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Most residents experienced symptoms that could be consistent with COVID-19 however few received PCR testing. Fevers and/or chills along with loss of smell and/or taste were the most specific symptoms for COVID-19, with p-values <0.05. All 13 housestaff who reported no symptoms during the study period tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrated that the rate of COVID-19 illness among emergency department housestaff is much higher than previously reported. Further studies are needed to characterize illness among medical staff in emergency departments across the nation. The high infection rate among emergency medicine trainees stresses the importance of supplying adequate PPE for healthcare professionals.

From Decline of the West to Dawn of Day

Janus Head ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Hub Zwart ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
The West ◽  
Smart Technologies

This paper subjects Dan Brown’s most recent novel Origin to a philosophical reading. Origin is regarded as a literary window into contemporary technoscience, inviting us to explore its transformative momentum and disruptive impact, focusing on the cultural significance of artificial intelligence and computer science: on the way in which established world-views are challenged by the incessant wave of scientific discoveries made possible by super-computation. While initially focusing on the tension between science and religion, the novel’s attention gradually shifts to the increased dependence of human beings on smart technologies and artificial (or even “synthetic”) intelligence. Origin’s message, I will argue, reverberates with Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, which aims to outline a morphology of world civilizations. Although the novel starts with a series of oppositions, most notably between religion and science, the eventual tendency is towards convergence, synthesis and sublation, exemplified by Sagrada Família as a monumental symptom of this transition. Three instances of convergence will be highlighted, namely the convergence between science and religion, between humanity and technology and between the natural sciences and the humanities.

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