Wonder, Horror, Mystery: Letters on Cinema and Religion in Malick, Von Trier, and Kieślowski

Wonder, Horror, Mystery is a dialogue between two friends, both notable arts critics, that takes the form of a series of letters about movies and religion. One of the friends, J.M. Tyree, is a film critic, creative writer, and agnostic, while the other, Morgan Meis, is a philosophy PhD, art critic, and practicing Catholic. The question of cinema is raised here in a spirit of friendly friction that binds the personal with the critical and the spiritual. What is film? What’s it for? What does it do? Why do we so intensely love or hate films that dare to broach the subjects of the divine and the diabolical? These questions stimulate further thoughts about life, meaning, philosophy, absurdity, friendship, tragedy, humor, death, and God. The letters focus on three filmmakers who challenged secular assumptions in the late 20th century and early 21st century through various modes of cinematic re-enchantment: Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. The book works backwards in time, giving intensive analysis to Malick’s To The Wonder (2012), Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), and Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1988), respectively, in each of the book’s three sections. Meis and Tyree discuss the filmmakers and films as well as related ideas about philosophy, theology, and film theory in an accessible but illuminating way. The discussion ranges from the shamelessly intellectual to the embarrassingly personal. Spoiler alert: No conclusions are reached either about God or the movies. Nonetheless, it is a fun ride.

Alàgbà Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí as a Yorùbá Novelist

In their introduction to a book entitled: Yorùbá creativity, fiction, language, life, and songs, Falola and Genova (2005) assert that creativity among the ̣ Yorùbá has a long history and the traditions of oral histories, storytelling, performances and dramas are parts of fundamental habit of their civilization. In the pre-colonial era, the authorship of the stories in the folktales and in some poetic genres could not be claimed by any particular artist/artiste, but due to the influence of colonial rule, western literary traditions, among others, storytellers can claim authorship of their works today. The Yorùbá make no distinction between myth, legend and history. They all come under ìtàn (Ogunsina, 1992). One Yorùbá novelist that has distinguished himself in the effective use of ìtàn (story) in novel writing is Adébáyò ̣ Fálétí. He is not only a storyteller, he is a literary historian. Every creative writer in Yorùbá society is admired and judged as competent or otherwise not only by writing in the medium of the language but by having captivating story line and on the basis of his/her use of ‘quality’ Yorùbá language (i.e. language full of proverbs and other rhetoric devices). An average Yorùbá reader of Fálétí’s novels, poetry, plays and viewer of his films usually responds with delight because of his powerful use of Yorùbá language and captivating story lines, plot construct, narrative techniques and thematic contents. Isọ la (1998) classifies all other Yorùbá major novelists apart from Fágúnwà ̣ into three groups on their use of language and creative pedigree (190). According to him, “some are mere story tellers” who use mainly casual language; 154 Lere Adeyemi there are others with mixed styles and there are a few of them who creatively exploit the genius of the language. He identifies Adébáyò ̣ Fálétí among few others as belonging to the genius category. Ogunsina (1992) groups Fálétí as a prominent historical novelist who incorporates historical materials into novel writing. I agree with Ogunsina that Fálétí’s effective transfer of histori ̣ - cal materials into fiction is a revelation of the novel’s eclectic quality and also a manifestation of Fálétí’s creative genius. Fálétí’s love of ìtàn (story) is reflected in all his literary works, be it poetry, play or novel. However, our focus in this study is to examine Adébáyọ̀ ̣ Fálétí as a Yorùbá novelist through his literary lens.

Self-Translation in Transcultural Mode: Francesca Duranti on how to Put ‘a Scent of Basil’ into One’s Translations

“Who but he... had ever felt what these words expressed?–these words that thundered and howled through his mind translating himself to himself, with such appalling fitness” (Amélie Louise Rives) Francesca Duranti is a creative writer who grew up with several languages and spent much time abroad. Her mother tongue is German but she writes mainly in Italian and translates mostly from French and English. Her particular transcultural sensibility runs through her body of work but is mostly manifest in her novel Sogni mancini (1996), the story of an Italian academic woman living in New York obsessed with the idea of finding a way to get rid of fixed identities and monological perspectives. Subsequently, Duranti decided to self-translate this novel into English, publishing it with the title Left-handed Dreams (2000). What were her reasons for self- translating this book, what self-translation strategies did she adopt, what did she gain and what did she lose in the process of mediating between two cultures and how did readers receive her target text? In this in-depth interview with Arianna Dagnino, Duranti reveals to what extent her acquired transcultural identity affected not only her way of writing but also of self-translating. As a coda to the interview and in light of what emerges from the writer’s answers, Dagnino analyzes Duranti’s self-translation, looking for those elements that mostly reveal the transcultural identity of a writer who decided to translate herself to herself. The article includes introductory paragraphs on the theory of the transcultural and transcultural identities (Dagnino 2015, Epstein 2009, Welsch 2009) as well as on the most recent studies in the field of literary self-translation (Grosjean 2010, Grutman 2016, Saidero 2011).

Concept of ‘New Woman’ and Indian Women Fiction Writers

Literature is one of human creativity that has universal meaning as one of the way to communicate each other about the emotional , spiritual and intellectual experiences that needed to build up intellectual and moral knowledge of mankind . A creative writer has the perception and the analytical mind of a sociologist who provides an exact record of human life, society, and social system. Fiction , being the most powerful form of literary expression today, has acquired a prestigious position in Indian literature. Indian women novelists in English and in other vernaculars try their best to deal with , apart from many other things , the pathetic plight of forsaken women who are fated to suffer from birth to death.

Chave Chemutengure Vhiri Rengoro : Husarungano Nerwendo Rwengano Dzevashona

This research is my story as a Shona folklorist and creative writer, but it is also the story of the Shona people. It is a story of how I am “a child” of storytelling, and how the stories that raised me got appropriated and incorporated into the colonial school system where they converged and mixed with western forms of storytelling to create hybrids. As a storyteller I use autoethnography – which offers an insider’s perspective - to interpret and explain, to reflect and analyse the art of storytelling in my culture. The alienation of indigenous knowledge and cultural practices – specifically storytelling, is what necessitates the use of autoethnography for this study. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method of writing and storytelling where the researcher is the subject and the researcher's experiences are the data. I, being a Shona storyteller and creative writer, will systematically journey back and analyse personal experiences in order to make sense of the Shona people’s cultural experiences. The research process will see me running away from depending on other people’s records about my people’s cultural history. Instead, I traverse back in time to consult and extract a theory from the Shona song called Chemutengure from around 1890 that tells the story of British colonisation from the perspective of the colonised. I theorise and explain Chemutengure’s pedagogical and epistemological significance in critiquing the plight of Africans suffering contact-induced change. I apply the Chemutengure theory to folktales, books, songs, paradigms and other agents that played an active role in producing new forms of storytelling and worldviews. Autoethnography is a type of research method that blends engaging creative writing and analysis of cultural experiences. It opens doors of research to the subalterns who are usually shut out by research that is done in universities. “Rather than producing esoteric, jargon-laden texts, many auto-ethnographers recognize a need to speak also to nonacademic audiences,” (Adams et al, 2015: 42) employing narrative and story-telling to give meaning to identities, relationships, and experiences, and to create relationships between past and present, researchers and participants, writers and readers, tellers and audiences, (Adams et al, 2015:23). This research will not exhaust all that needs to be explored and said about Shona folktales, creativity and culture, or its literature and the many cultural aspects it looks at. Rather, it seeks to highlight, decolonize and deconstruct colonial mentalities, while emancipating the Shona worldview that has been put on leash by colonialism and western capitalistic tendencies. The study also looks at positive change that occurs when cultures inform one another, but without turning a blind eye to the lack of mutuality and how the logic of capitalism has left Africa hemorrhaging ideologically. Drawing from personal experiences when I listened to my grandmother’s stories, the study looks at the influence of folktales on my creative writing career. I reflect on my experiences as a Fulbright Scholar, as well as my Canadian experiences as storyteller and writer-in-residence at the University of Manitoba. Besides analysing stories written by missionaries in early Shona school readers, I also discuss folktales published in the Native Affairs Department Annual (NADA); the folktales performed as songs; the comic tales published by the Literature Bureau; tales developed for private institutions, government and non-governmental organisations; stories on radio, Twitter and many other forms. Besides giving the subaltern a voice, this research attempts to artistically demonstrate the power and versatility of the Shona folktale, as well as the genre’s potential for growth and development. Chapter 1 introduces the autoethngraphy method as well as what I hope to achieve through the methodology and style of writing. Chapter 2 is a conversation between a representative of the colonised and Cecil John Rhodes the imperialist. Besides pointing out imperialism’s damage to indigenous identities, the chapter discusses how Africa and Europe’s paradigms are diametrically conflicting. Chapter 3 introduces, explains and analyses the song/theory Chemutengure, and how it applies to the condition of the native in postcolonial Africa today. Chapter 4 tracks the trajectory of foreign tales in Zimbabwe, and how they influenced native folktales. The response of local tales is also critiqued. Chapter 5 looks at the milestones in the structural transformation of indigenous folktales, and how they were appropriated and hitched a ride in the wagon of change. Chapter 6 is a reflection on the impact of westernisation and globalisation in the lives of Africans, and how confused the native has become without his cultural anchor. Chapter 7 concludes by acknowledging the inevitability of change, and suggests how cultural practices and perspectives must respond to social change so as to remain relevant.

Subjection and Resistance: Landscapes, Gardens, Myths and Vestigial Presences in Olive Senior's Gardening in the Tropics

This paper argues that a selection of Caribbean writers has engaged an aesthetic that spotlights the idea of a living or divine landscape through a deployment of folkloric, mythological, magical or spiritual epistemological frames. This aesthetic foregrounds the expansive possibilities of nature and other life forms in the wake of empire and global modernity. By an engagement with these tools, the creative writer deconstructs the limits of colonial ecological damage and modern-day agricultural devastation, while simultaneously affirming the Caribbean landscape as an active and creative agent within articulations of community and belonging. Through a blend of eco-criticism as examined by Elizabeth DeLoughrey and Wilson Harris's formulations of the "living landscapes" and Caribbean mythologies, this essay seeks to interrogate the manner in which Caribbean poet, Olive Senior, consciously deploys the literary imagination as a platform to plant seeds of reform and activism in the trail of environmental destruction. Senior accomplishes this through notions of mythic time and space that are unfettered by monolithic ideologies and linearity. This signposts an effort to posit a reliance on a spirit-infused universe—a deeply felt ideology which is pivotal to acts of environmental healing and societal recuperation.

TEXTUAL PATTERNS AND SIGNIFICANCE IN JOE USHIE’S POETRY: A SEMIOSTYLISTIC STUDY

<p>Ushie’s poetry has been much studied for its message on topical issues like social injustice, political malfeasance, the environment, among others, and perhaps much more for its use of language. Yet several aspects of the use of language in Ushie’s poetry are yet to receive attention, and a major one among these is what this study has attempted to demonstrate. Against the background of Daiches’ (1948) exposition on creative writing as an art, and the creative writer as an artist in words, this study analyses a few of Joe Ushie’s poems with thetool of semiostylistics, and shows how Ushie communicates his messages through patterns created with language units in the text of his poems. This study concludes that this is a technique Ushie has consciously wrought, being himself a stylistic critic of the works of great literary artists, and thus very conversant with the workings of creative writing as verbal art with a semiotic dimension, as every good work of art in general.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0628/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Atwood’s Reinventions: So Many Atwoods

In The Malahat Review (1977), Canadian critic Robert Fulford described Margaret Atwood as “endlessly Protean,” predicting “There are many more Atwoods to come.” Now at eighty, over forty years later, Atwood is an international literary celebrity with more than fifty books to her credit and translated into more than forty languages. This essay focuses on the later Atwood and her apparent reinvention since 2000, where we have seen a marked shift away from realistic fiction towards popular fiction genres, especially dystopias and graphic novels. Atwood has also become increasingly engaged with digital technology as creative writer and cultural critic. As this reading of her post-2000 fiction through her extensive back catalogue across five decades will show, these developments represent a new synthesis of her perennial social, ethical and environmental concerns, refigured through new narrative possibilities as she reaches out to an ever-widening readership, astutely recognising “the need for literary culture to keep up with the times.”

Creative and Critical Writing: The Hybridised Nature of a Networked Theory

Creative and Critical Writing is a degree available at the University of Sussex. It encourages students to adopt a writerly posture in regards to the originary thinkers that are responsible for the contemporary manifestations of theory today. At the core of this degree are thinkers such as Freud, Derrida and Marx, as well as broader theoretical concepts such as Postcolonialism, Utopia and New Historicism. All the while, the student is encouraged to engage in the wealth of theoretical content as a creative writer. Armed with a framework with an unfettered speculative gaze, the conceptual space in which these works are formulated mark the potential trajectory of the future of theoretical inquiry. This paper will make the case for the emergence of Creative and Critical Writing as a hybrid praxis. For the purpose of this article I will concentrate on the reinvigoration of Marx’s works via the poetry and academic writings of Keston Sutherland – Professor of poetics at the University of Sussex. The landscape of theory and literature today suggests that Creative Writing is increasingly looking like the readily available and profitable alternative to these courses. Creative and Critical Writing is somewhat resistant to this and is also respondent to a wider transatlantic reaction to contemporary market and ideological forces. Hence the title of this paper, Creative and Critical Writing as a ‘networked’ theory as it is an example of the intersections and convergences that constitutes the hybrid theory and praxis contained within one unique conceptual space.

THE WRITER AS THE CONSCIENCE OF HIS SOCIETY: A STUDY OF FESTUS IYAYI’S HEROES

This article discusses the role of the creative writer as the conscience of his society using Festus Iyayi as an exam-ple. The study focuses on the themes and narrative technique of Iyayi's Heroes to present the author as a literary artist who exposes the corruption and other forms of social evil perpetrated against the common man and the soci-ety generally. Studies show that Iyayi’s Heroes is one of the literary works written on the Nigerian civil war fought between 1967 and 1970. Iyayi’s novel, however, is said to be different from other literary works on the war on account of its neutral perspective on the crisis. This is what informs the choice of the novel for this study. In the novel, Iyayi projects himself as the conscience of society highlighting the deceit, corruption, class-consciousness, insensitivity and avarice to which the common man and the society are subjected by the ruling class using the façade of fighting a civil war. The outcome of this study establishes Iyayi as a conscientious patriot who uses the genre of the novel to highlight the wrongs of Nigerian society with a prescription for social reform.