Condemned to victory. The novel Star Man by Aleksander Prokhanov

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Syska
Keyword(s):  
Constant Component ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Significant Figures

Alexander Prokhanov is one of the most significant figures in the patriotic-conservative circles in Russia. What makes him extraordinary is his versatility – he is a political activist, journalist, media personality and a writer. The idea of special historical destiny of Russia is a constant component of his political views which have a strong mystical background. The novel Star Man is a typical example of the literary expansion of his political concepts by referring to the poetics of myth.

Responses of Arab teachers of Hebrew in Israel to an Israeli novel on Jewish-Arab relations

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Shai Rudin
Keyword(s):  
Boarding School ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Reading Experience ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Arab Students ◽  
Complex Integration ◽  
Education College ◽  
Arab Sector

Purpose This study aims to examine the responses and perceptions of Israeli Arab teachers toward multicultural and educational issues concerning Jewish–Arab relations. Design/methodology/approach This study is a qualitative research. The study included 44 novice Arab teachers, who teach Hebrew in the Arab sector and are currently studying toward their masters’ degree at a teacher education college in northern Israel. The teachers were asked to read the novel Nadia by Galila Ron Feder–Amit. Published in 1985, the novel describes the complex integration of Nadia, an Arab village girl, into a Jewish boarding school, and it is narrated in first person. After having read the novel, the teachers were requested to answer the writing task, which addressed the character of the protagonist, the issue of teaching the novel in the Jewish and Arabic educational systems and the anticipated responses of Jewish and Arab students to the novel. Findings Phenomenological analysis of the teachers’ responses found that the reading experience was complex and resulted in a variety of responses toward the protagonist. Some were based on identification and appreciation, while others on criticism and judgment of the heroine’s restraint vis-a-vis the racism that she was experiencing. However, most of the teachers demonstrated moral courage and thought that the novel should be taught, as they viewed it as a bridge leading to understanding between the two nations. The teachers anticipated conflicting responses of Jewish and Arab students to the novel, according to the students’ political views and values. Practical implications These findings indicate that the educational system should include political texts relating to the Jewish–Arab schism, especially texts that voice the Palestinian narrative. This view differs from the current situation in both sectors, whereby the tendency is to avoid political texts while ignoring the Palestinian narrative. Originality/value The study shows that the reading experience of a political novel affords various and often contrasting responses with the teachers facing the didactic challenges. The teachers who participated in the study anticipated complexity of the reading and teaching process, yet were not deterred by it, particularly in view of the novel’s messages – striving to understand the “other” and to bridge a discourse between the nations.

scholarly journals HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF THE COSSACK CHRONICLES IN THE NOVEL “HETMAN IVAN VYHOVSKY” BY I. NECHUY-LEVYTSKY

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-160
Author(s):  
Оksana Slipushko ◽  
Anastasiya Katyuzhynska
Keyword(s):  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Active Subject ◽  
Comparative Aspect ◽  
Artistic Interpretation ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Personal Understanding

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the artistic interpretation of historical events and figures in the novel “Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky” by I. Nechuy-Levytsky. Particular attention is paid to the implementation of the specifics of Baroque historiography in the novel. The characteristic features of the author’s historical conception and influence of the cossack chronicles on its formation are determined. The historical fiction of I. Nechuy-Levytsky is represented by author’s historiosophical and ideological-aesthetic views, based on personal understanding of the Ukrainian history. I. Nechuy-Levytsky presents his own historical conception of the period of I. Vyhovsky’s activity, which is connected with certain features and characteristics of the provisions of Baroque historiography. An artistic rethinking of the role and place of personality in history and history in the life of humanity in the worldview of I. Nechuy-Levytsky is analyzed. The peculiarities of the interpretation of hetman Ivan Vyhovsky’s character in the cossack chronicles and the novel by I. Nechuy-Levytsky in the comparative aspect are substantiated. It is determined, that the estimation of hetman’s activity differs from that set out in the cossack chronicles. Therefore, unlike the chroniclers, who negatively characterize the political activity of I. Vyhovsky, the writer represents the human personality as a state creator, active subject in history. In addition, much attention is paid to the individualization of the image of the ruler, in particular the disclosure of the psychology of his actions. In conclusion, in the artistic interpretation of I. Nechuy-Levytsky hetman I. Vyhovsky is represented as the bearer of political views and ideological positions, that played a significant role in the formation and development of the idea of Ukrainian statehood and became a continuation of the historical conception and ideological dominants of the cossack chronicles.

Nigeria – państwo kruche czy upadłe? Dyskurs katastroficzny w Rybakach Chigozie Obiomy

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Błażej Popławski
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Views

The article aims to characterize the multidimensional crisis of Nigeria on the basis of the novel Fishermen written by Chigozie Obioma. Obioma, a representative of the third generation of Nigerian writers, constructs a narrative around a self-fulfilling prophecy about the annihilation of interpersonal relations, as well as the macrosocial, the political, and ecological crisis in West Africa. Finally, the ethnic and political views of Obioma in the context of the collapse of statehood in Africa are characterized.

Writing the Novel of Ideas: The Philosopher and Public Intellectual

Iris Murdoch ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Anne Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Many

Murdoch’s place as a writer in the tradition of ‘the novel of ideas’, is explored in this chapter, as are the ways in which her political views and her standing as a public intellectual impact on novels that she denied were intentionally informed by either. The reasons why Murdoch’s moral philosophy was not well received on its publication are explained as is its current significance in the field of Virtue Ethics. The chapter moves on to illustrate the ways that her philosophy covertly infiltrates her novels without any trace of didacticism, and the difficult moral paradoxes it raises. It looks at the function of the many amateur and professional philosophers who feature in the novels before it moves on to explore how Murdoch’s robust opinions on political and social issues covertly inform novels in ways which have never been fully acknowledged by literary critics.

Woolf, Leonard (1880–1969)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryony Randall
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Advisory Committees ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Leonard Woolf ◽  
Hogarth Press ◽  
Fabian Society

Leonard Woolf was an essayist, author, political activist, and publisher. He joined the civil service in 1904 and spent seven years in Ceylon, which experience deeply influenced not only his political views but also his fictional writing. With his wife, the novelist Virginia Woolf, he ran the Hogarth Press, a vanguard publishing house of the period. The press’s first publication, entitled Two Stories, comprised his ‘Three Jews’ and Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’. He was a committed socialist and member of the Fabian Society and Labour Party; he served as honorary secretary for the Labour Party’s advisory committees on international and imperial affairs and stood (unsuccessfully) as a member of parliament for the Combined Universities in 1922. An expert on international affairs, he wrote numerous volumes of political analysis. He was a founding member of the League of Nations Society; the two reports included in his book International Government were key documents in the formation of the League itself. He was also joint or literary editor of a number of political periodicals, including the International Review, The Political Quarterly, and the Nation (later The New Statesman). He wrote five volumes of autobiography, the last published in the year of his death.

scholarly journals Jerzy Giedroyc and Marian Pankowski’s Letters about the Novel Matuga: A Note on Pankowski’s Relationship with the Paris Kultura Magazine

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-216
Author(s):  
Jan Burnatowski
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
National Library ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Culture ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

Summary The aim of this article, an appendix to a selection of letters between Jerzy Giedroyc and Marian Pankowski, is to verify some of the myths accompanying the biography of the latter. Having researched the relevant materials in the archives of the Instytut Literacki in Paris and in the National Library in Warsaw the author of the article came to the conclusion that the reasons of Pankowski’s break with Kultura, the leading émigré political and cultural magazine, at the end of the 1950s had to with his art rather than his political views. This research project, in conjunction with the already published correspondence of Jerzy Giedroyc with the notable representatives of the post-war emigration, has brought to light hitherto little known documents that reveal the impact of non-political factors on the creation of the Polish modern literary canon. The material collected in the course of this study offers fresh insights into 20th-century Polish culture and can also be of use for further research into the influence of European culture on Polish writers.

scholarly journals Politics, Porn and Parody in Koi suru genpatsu (2011) by Takahashi Gen’ichirō

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caterina Mazza
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Critical Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The Web

This paper seeks to show how Takahashi Gen’ichirō exploits parody to show the critical function of self-reflexive literature in the novel Koisuru genpatsu. Coherently with his experience as a political activist in the sixties, Takahashi interprets literature as a revolutionary act of resistance; it can be argued that he broadly embraces the conception of art – ideally inherited by Marcuse’s aesthetic – as a space for thought and action that makes resistance to the social status quo possible. Through the analysis of significant elements of the novel’s peritexts and epitexts, this article tries to reconstruct the web of signifiers that constructs the novel, in order to show how – in Takahashi’s concept of literature - every act of speech needs to be placed in a social structure, where the agency of discursive subjects always modifies the signifying process.

The Two Mrs. Cheneys

2006 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-147
Author(s):  
BLAKE ALLMENDINGER
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
Positive Light

This commentary reviews Sisters, Lynne Cheney's Western historical novel. The novel seems to be at odds with Cheney's conservative political views. It considers feminism,lesbianism, and Native Americans in a positive light and is critical of U.S. empire and capitalism as practiced on the early Wyoming frontier. The author considers why Cheney may have felt freer to explore such topics in literature, even though she has not embraced these liberal positions in her political speeches and writings over the years. There seem to be two Mrs. Cheneys, the creative writer and free-thinker, and the conservative wife of the Republican Vice President.

Harford, Lesbia (1891–1927)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Pottroff
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Class Woman ◽  
The University ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Socialist Politics ◽  
Urban Working

Lesbia Harford was an Australian writer and political activist. Despite these seemingly complementary roles, she did not view her writing as an instrument for social change, and very few of her poems are overtly political. Harford’s poetry is both social and romantic, addressing themes of love, work, and domesticity. Her writing negotiates the world of imperfections through a minimalist style. Harford attended the University of Melbourne and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1916. During her undergraduate years, Harford, already committed to social justice, became embroiled in anti-war and anti-conscription activism. Rather than pursuing a legal career, she embodied her socialist politics and worked at a clothing factory. She later joined the Industrial Workers of the World. Only a few of Harford’s poems were published during her lifetime. New interest in reclaiming marginalized writing led to the discovery of Harford’s lost novel, The Invaluable Mystery, in the Australian Archives. Published in 1987, the novel concerns an urban working-class woman and her struggle to survive independently during the Great War.

A “fucked up” novel, narratology, and the Difference approach to literary fiction

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-272
Author(s):  
Tommy Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Literary Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Experimental Novel ◽  
Literary Narrative

AbstractDrömfakulteten (2006) is an experimental novel by the Swedish writer Sara Stridsberg portraying the life of political activist and writer Valerie Solanas. I read Drömfakulteten as a “literary fantasy” where the forms, the themes, and the atmosphere are foregrounded rather than the biography of Solanas, and suggest that it can be viewed as a deliberate work of art filled with affordances for the reader. Central to my analysis is the recurring idea of “fucking up” as a way of disobeying social, political, and literary (narrative) norms. In relation to narratology, I take on the novel with a Difference approach to fiction, guided by notions from Sylvie Patron, Lars-Åke Skalin, and Richard Walsh. In this approach, fiction is seen as functioning differently in a qualitative sense compared to natural narrative. The Difference approach leads to a reading that lies close to the intuitions of reviewers and highlights the strong literary potential of the novel.

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