“Still Holding the Pipa to Hide Half Her Face”: Visions of Bai Juyi’s ‘Song of the Pipa’ in Republican China

A recurring subject of manhua (comics) in Republican-era China was the pipa player, a woman whose genealogy can be traced back to the disgraced and displaced subject of Bai Juyi’s ninth-century poem Pipa xing (Song of the pipa). This paper traces this woman’s development from her conception in Pipa xing and follows her as she is re-imagined by modern poets and manhua artists into a variety of figures, from scorned politicians to modern feminine archetypes. This paper argues that these artists leverage her precarity and anachronism to portray contemporary political turmoil and national insecurity, as they look back at China’s imperial past and towards its uncertain future. And instead of reifying the distinction between the prosody of classical and New Poetry, this paper finds classical poetics not only in poems themselves, but also in tropes and images that reveal how poets and poetry reckoned with the rise of new media.

CRIATURA, MONSTRO, ANIMAL, CARNE OU CARNIÇA: A NOTÁVEL PERPETUAÇÃO DOS ARQUÉTIPOS FEMININOS DA CULTURA MISÓGINA / Creature, monster, animal, meat or carrion: the noticeable perpetuation of the feminine archetypes of misogynist culture

Nas culturas de todos os tempos e territórios, pessoas dependem de estruturas construídas para organizar suas vidas de forma a entender a si mesmos e aos outros. Essas narrativas reguladoras, termo utilizado pela teórica e crítica cultural Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2010), irão legitimar e estabelecer o que é aceitável ser ou fazer. As identidades que os indivíduos assumem e são convencidos a representar são infinitamente múltiplas e apresentam-se saturadas de relações de poder. No escopo da ampla questão da misoginia no campo das artes, este texto reflete sobre a herança residual das construções que o pensamento patriarcal fez da mulher e de sua estrutura corpórea como sujeito, a partir de representações artísticas em variadas linguagens. A exploração dos conceitos de monstro, disforme, perigosa, carne e animal é aqui utilizada como forma de investigação da dimensão sócio-histórica, frente as mais diversas perspectivas que estigmatizam negativamente a figura feminina, partindo de uma análise acerca das transformações ocorridas na transição da cultura fin-de-sécle para a moderna e, finalmente, para a contemporaneidade. Buscando compreender modos de interpretação diferenciados, outras linguagens e sujeitos pertinentes, bem como possíveis posicionamentos éticos e políticos, esse artigo objetiva sugerir novos olhares e interpretações acerca das imagens, experiências e informações a que somos expostos, a fim de documentar e ilustrar novas historiografias e conhecimentos, considerando os diferentes regimes de visibilidade e suas possíveis consequências sociais.

A Tale of Three Women: Framing as a Patriarchal Practice in the News Coverage of Women in Distress

Women in situations of distress receive a disproportionate amount of news coverage. As survivors (or perpetrators) of crime, violence, or natural disasters, they are naturally “newsworthy”—a newsroom term for the subjective lens with which truthtellers define and select their news frames. These frames, which govern the identification and coverage of what is “newsworthy,” box women into specific, patriarchal roles. Women who do not fall within the traditional feminine archetypes are labeled as dissidents or insurgents, and are excluded, dismissed, rejected, or worse persecuted, until the news recasts them into more familiar molds. This is exemplified in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s news coverage of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia and sentenced to death in 2010. An examination of the Inquirer’s coverage of the Veloso case unearthed the gender biases that are inherent in the subjective rules that govern the patterns of selection and depiction in mainstream newsrooms.

Women Figures in George Macdonald’s and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fantasy Writings

It is an undisputed fact that George MacDonald’s fantasy books were among J.R.R. Tolkien’s many sources of inspiration when writing his Middle-earth epic. Among these, “The Princess and the Goblinˮ and “The Princess and Curdieˮ attracted my attention, through the figures of some interesting women who appear in both of them. This paper endeavours to draw a comparison between Tolkien’s outstanding female characters in “The Lord of the Ringsˮ and the earlier versions of the same feminine archetypes in the two MacDonald books, noting both points of similarity and differences, as well as the strong effect these women have upon other characters in the stories.

From Barbie to the oligarch’s wife: Reading fantasy femininity and globalisation in post-Soviet Russian women’s magazines

This article demonstrates how an analysis of fantasy femininity sheds light on how norms of gender, class and national identity reflect global and local cross-cultural currents in post-Soviet Russia. Drawing on a discourse analysis of women’s magazines and in-depth interviews with readers, it shows how, in the globalised post-Soviet cultural landscape, fantasy femininity represents both change and continuity. Feminine archetypes in women’s magazines, from fairytale princesses to Barbie dolls, reflect a wider post-Soviet cultural hybridisation and are an example of how Western women’s magazines have adapted to the Russian context. Furthermore, the article highlights readers’ ambiguous attitudes towards post-Soviet cultural trends linked to perceived Westernisation or globalisation, such as individualism, conspicuous consumption and glamour.

The Primitive in Othello:

Previous Jungian criticism of Othello overlooks the primitive, treats it as an obvious premise, or does not consider it in the context of Jung’s extensive and widely varied statements on the subject. This essay deepens the archetypal approach by discussing the play in terms of the primitive mentality that ultimately thwarts Othello’s individuation. When Jung’s racist rhetoric is subjected to postcolonial critique, what emerges is the helpful concept of the psychologically archaic—areas of the psyche that are less conscious and less differentiated. A post-Jungian emphasis on the archaic then illuminates Desdemona’s attraction to the Moor; war, fetishism, and the supernatural; and the signifying process surrounding the handkerchief. In addition, Jung’s “four stages of eroticism” (feminine archetypes) enhance the significance of the sibyl, an archaic figure with civilizing influence. Shakespeare’s use of the primitive culminates in Othello’s final comparison of himself to two primitives (Indian and Turk), and he dies a broken man—aware that projection has caused his downfall.

On Calling and Character: Caring as Archetypal Act

This paper explores caring as an archetypal act. The great archetypal myth of the hero’s journey, considered in light of the great stories of feminine archetypes, provides a framework for understanding the relationship between calling, character, and caring. Excerpts from the personal narratives of contemporary female healers, as explored in a qualitative research study, reveal how caring can be understood as an enactment of an archetypal reality.