Lecturers’ perception on the implementation of approaches to teaching literature in EFL classrooms

The selection of appropriate approach(es) to teaching literature in EFL classrooms becomes a necessity that they can result in good performance of the students, both in their critical thinking aspect and their language proficiency. The problem appears when the lecturer does not implement a suitable approach to literary analysis when teaching literature to the EFL students. These problems led to the student’s inability to perform as expected. The present study examines how lecturers perceive the implementation of approaches to teaching literature in EFL classrooms and their relations to improving the students’ reflective writing skills as the manifestation of the student’ responses to the literary works. Among the approaches studied were the Language-based approach, the Reader-Response approach, and the Philosophical approach. The study was carried out on six lecturers teaching the Literary Criticism course in the EFL classrooms at the university level. A questionnaire was distributed to the lecturers teaching this course at a university in Semarang, Indonesia, containing eight-question items regarding how they perceive the literary approaches and how effective they used them in improving the students’ reflective writing skills, in encouraging the students to think critically about the events in literary works and in relating the readings to some aspects of their own lives. The study revealed that each literary analysis approach in teaching literature has its benefits and characteristics. The study results also showed that each approach has its strengths and weaknesses that differ from one another.

Comparative Study of Artificial Intelligence Techniques for the Diagnosis of Chronic Nerve Diseases

Farming is essential to the long-term viability of any economy. It differs in each country, but it is essential for long-term economic success. Only a few of the agricultural industry’s issues include a lack of suitable irrigation systems, weeds, and plant monitoring concerns as a consequence of efficient management in distinct open and closed zones for crop and plant treatment. The objective of this work is to carry out a study on the use of artificial intelligence and computer vision methods for diagnosis of diseases in agro sectors in the context of agribusiness, demonstrating the feasibility of using these techniques as tools to support automation and obtain productivity gains in this sector. During the literary analysis, it was determined that technology could improve efficiency, hence decreasing these types of concerns. Given the consequences of a wrong diagnosis, diagnosis is work that requires a high level of precision. Fuzzy cognitive maps were shown to be the most efficient method of utilizing bibliographically reviewed preferences, which led to the consideration of neural networks as a second option because this technique is the most robust in terms of the qualifying criteria of the data stored in databases.

Kuwaiti Women Writers and Anglophone Choices: Charting New Territories

While there has been a plethora of work on Arab women writers, little attention has been paid to Kuwaiti women writers, especially those who write Anglophone literature. This research paper argues that the choice to write in English rather than Arabic leaves these writers in a problematic position. As a result of embracing the English language, rather than their mother tongue, they are left outside of the dominant literary circle and often marginalized. Through a literary analysis, this paper presents some of the texts written by contemporary Kuwaiti writers who have chosen to write in English, and have produced nuanced narratives of Kuwaiti women who find agency and self-expression through their fictional journeys. These journeys explore themes of agency, voice, and trauma. A significant contribution of the present paper lies in a thematic analysis of lesser-known Kuwaiti texts in order to excavate these marginalized voices. The findings suggest that by choosing to write in English, these writers face the dangers of being dismissed from the literary canon, just like their protagonists must contend with society’s discrimination and expectations.

A Literary Analysis of Teaching and Learning at Hogwarts

The Harry Potter Series has found a place in the hearts of millions of children as well as adults across the globe. Hogwarts is the traditional boarding school which is situated in the faerie green countryside that is well beyond London. Though Hogwarts is a school in the fictional world, there are many people across the globe who have a relationship with it. We have developed a close affinity with Harry Potter, his friends as well as the teachers who are associated with the school. Students at the school learn to perfect the arts of witchcraft through a fixed curriculum. The school setting plays a significant role in the stories. The Harry Potter series persistently revolve around the protagonist’s heart rending and shocking adventures and experiences in school. The cornerstone for analysis is J.K Rowling’s portrayal of the teachers at Hogwarts. This leads to an emphasis on the teaching methods of the teachers. This paper has explored the pedagogy and different approaches of certain professors at Hogwarts. This study has demonstrated that students at Hogwarts do learn but their learning can be termed as wholesome only when teachers adopt the pedagogical approach that involves the concept of active learning integrated into a pleasant environment that not only boasts of cooperative learning, continuous support, but encourages and awards analytical thinking and risk taking. Keywords: Harry Potter series, Traditional, Curriculum, Pedagogical theories

Women with Split Identity; A Literary Analysis based on the selected Female Portrayals in Literature

Female characters in Literature are portrayed through diverse dimensions such as heroic figures, objects of desire, rebellious individuals, icons of female liberation and individuals with fragmented identities. Those potrayals reflect the the feminine self which is surrounded by the awareness of her negated existence, stereotyped images of womanhood, the sense of lack of belonging, and repressed individuality. Thus the study focuses on analyzing the female literary portrayals like ‘Nora Helmer’in ‘The Dolls House’ by Henric Ibsen, ‘Adela’ in ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ by Federico Garcia Lorca and ‘Emma Bovary’ in ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert, ‘Maggie Tulliver’ in The Mill On the Floss by George Eliot and ‘Kattrin’ in Mother courage and Her children by Bertolt Brecht with the objective of bringing to the surface the socially determined fatal end and the symbolic disappearance of the feminine figure. In analyzing and elaborating the perspectives which are discussed within the research paper the theoretical perspectives of Simon de Beauvoir (‘The second sex’), Sigmund Freud, (‘Civilization and its Discontents’,)and Slavoj Zizek, (‘Looking Awry’) are referred with a thorough consideration. Consequently the woman figure whose identity is negated and given less vitality is identified as an inferior and vulnerable social figure within the existing social order and thus the literary characters like Adela, Nora, Emma, and Maggie Tulliver portray the antagonism between the social principle of ‘Repression’ and the feminine ‘ Liberation’. In contrast to the characters such as Adela, Emma and Nora who negate the social other in pursuing their determined routes towards the self-satisfaction, the feminine portrayals like Kattrin and Maggie Tulliver adopt the self-denial and renunciation of desires for the betterment of the social other. Thus the characters like Nora, Emma and Adela become capable of gratifying their intense abomination towards the social order while Kattrin and Maggie Tulliver with their self-sacrifice and altruistic motives achieve a serene satisfaction. In that sense it can be identified that their self-annihilation leaves behind a symbol of identity rather than nihilistic reality implying a more psychological vitality without being just a physical deterioration.

Singing Finnegans Wake: A Key to Samuel Barber’s “Nuvoletta”

Samuel’s Barber’s 1947 “Nuvoletta,” the only freestand-ing song of the composer’s maturity, derives its text from the most famously arcane novel in the literary canon, James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. Musicologist Pollack dissects the text in a literary analysis, but also showing how its vivid imagery and lyric resonance is treated in Barber’s musical setting, thus offering performers crucial preparation for its performance.

CHARACTERISTIC ASPECTS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL LYRICS OF ХХI CENTURY

This article examines the features of explication of modern German philosophical lyrics represented by the transnational genres of haiku and tanka. The author focuses on the problem of definition of the term “philosophical lyrics”, observes the process of formation and representation of haiku and tanka as syncretic genres in German poetry, conducts a comparative analysis of these genres. The universal features of haiku as well as features peculiar to European culture are summarized and described. The article also analyzes the concept of the connection between haiku and painting and describes the haiga genre as a symbiosis of poetry, calligraphy and painting. The research is based on the haiku and tanka of modern German authors: I Kunshke, H. Tum, M. Bagdan, M. Berner, S. Kempen, F. Ditrich. The applied methods of linguistic-stylistic and literary analysis are aimed at identifying the linguistic means of German haiku and tanka poetry, giving insight into formation of the philosophical worldview of the Western European society.

Approaches to the Contradictions in Kohelet

The contradictions in the Book of Kohelet have concerned commentators through the ages. This essay offers several approaches to understanding the contradictions in the Book of Kohelet. After a discussion of the weaknesses of each of these approaches I offer a suggestion that shows that the Book has a unified structure and inherent logic. I propose that a philological and literary analysis of the Book, demonstrated through traditional Jewish sources, supports this view. [This article makes use of the author's unpublished Master dissertation, Kohelet a Living Dialogue]

Writing by Ear, the Aural Novel, and Echopoetics: A Listening Vocabulary for Literary Analysis

Given the robust plurivocality that has characterized literature in Brazil since its colonial inception, and the eminently (and explicitly) receptive stance that many of its modern authors have adopted, I have structured my argument to follow two intersecting paths. Firstly, Clarice Lispector’s notion of “writing by ear” serves as a foundation for a renewed history of Brazilian literature, framed as a history of active listening. Secondly, the hope is to offer a Luso-Afro- Amerindian-Brazilian contribution to Latin American criticism, turning the semantic range of terms related to edges, margins, and borders into a more explicit semiotics of corporeality and performativity revolving around the ears and sound, echoes and silence, more generally.

Intertextuality in Andrea Levy's novel “Small Island”

The purpose of this article was to identify how intertextuality in the novel “Small Island” (2004) by the British writer Andrea Levy (1956–2019) contributes to the representation of postcolonial issues. To solve the research problems, we applied cultural-historical, comparative, biographical methods of literary analysis. The article considers how to appeal to the poem “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth allows the contemporary writer to criticise the anglicised system and the content of education in the colonies, which becomes the conductor of the dominant, Western discourse. The reference to “Gone with the Wind” helps Levy demonstrate how the stereotyping of images of blacks in cultural texts is pointedly acutely perceived by her dark-skinned heroine. An appeal to the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by the Lord Tennyson and, through it, to Rudyard Kipling's poem “The Last of the Light Brigade”, to the speech of Winston Churchill, serves in “Small Island” to recall the undeservedly, according to Levy, forgotten contribution of the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies to the protection of British territory in World War II and the post-war reconstruction of the country.