Vol 9 No 3 - Page 2

Defining the Japanese Gaze on India in Postwar Fiction: Analysis of Mishima Yukio’s Hojo no Umi

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Lakshmi M.V.

Jawaharlal Nehru University. Orcid: orcid.org/0000-0002-4038-207X. Email: mvlakshmi@mail.jnu.ac.in

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.15

Received July 26, 2017; Revised September 11, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

This paper attempts to bring to light the fictional portrayal of India in a work of postwar Japanese novel-H?j? no Umi (Sea of Fertility), 1970, which paved the way for other works of contemporary Japanese fiction to follow a similar model of depiction of India, such as Fukai Kawa (Deep River) by Endo Sh?saku, 1993. The images employed by the author Mishima Yukio in the novel H?j? no Umi are instrumental in painting a picture of India in not just the eyes of readers of the novel, but also in the minds of contemporary Japanese writers. The paper illustrates the significance of the novel in providing the framework of motifs that are employed to portray India in fiction, through the many images used by the author, which influenced later fictional representations of India, as described above.

Keywords: India, Image, Literature, Mishima Yukio, postwar

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The Wrongs of the Subaltern’s Rights: a Critique on Postcolonial Diasporic Authors

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Abida Younas

University of Glasgow, USA. Orcid id: orcid.org/0000-0003-0925-3461. Email: abida.younas89@gmail.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.14

Received August 09, 2017; Revised September 14, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

My article discusses propagation of the project of orientalism in the arena of contemporary postcolonial fiction written in English by diasporic authors. In the contemporary world, the project of orientalism is no longer perpetuated by the occidentals but ironically by orientals, albeit diasporic authors, through Re-orientalisation. Like orientalism, the process of Re-orientalism distorts the representation of the natives, seizes their voices and consigns them an inferior rank or in other words, the position of subalternity. Instead of giving voice to their own people, diasporic authors authenticate the project of orientalism by giving inside voices to the global world. While perpetrating the project of orientalism, they wrong the subaltern’s rights as well. It is because, these writers claim to be ambassadors for their own people and foreground their issues. But instead of accentuating the plights of their own people, these writers seem to work for global capitalism, where they are required to write according to the demands of the global market. My paper aims to present a critique on those diasporic writers, who instead of resisting the orientalist agenda in their writings by highlighting the wrongs of subaltern’s rights in the Third world countries, are more engaged in the project of Re-orientalism with special reference to Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers, Adiga’s The White Tiger and Abouzied’s Years of the Elephant. Drawing on the theories of Gayatri Spivak, Lisa Lau, Vanessa Andreotti and Ilan Kapoor, the hypocritical role played by diasporic writers is investigated in order to emphasize that how these authors write from Eurocentric perspectives to affirm the Western hegemony over the postcolonial world even after the European decline in this part of the world.

Key Words: Subaltern, Righting Wrongs, Diasporic Writers, Re-orientalism, Eurocentric.

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“The broken wall, the burning roof and tower”: W. B. Yeats’s Revision of the Leda Myth in Historico-Political Contexts

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Pawan Kumar

Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Orcid: orcid.org/0000-0002-2321-3565. Email: pawan.voice@gmail.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.13

Received June 10, 2017; Revised September 15, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

The paper critically engages with W. B. Yeats’s use of the Leda myth from ancient Greece in his works, especially focusing on his magnum opus A Vision and the poem “Leda and the Swan.” The paper, in elucidating Yeats’s employment and constant revisions of the Leda myth and its myriad symbolic meanings in his repertoire, attempts to illuminate Yeats’s commentary on the historical and political reality of the then Ireland, thereby also bringing to fore his ideas about historical progressions, change and political violence. The methodology adopted for the paper entails a close reading and critical analysis of Yeats’s aforementioned works, alongside his biographical details, aided by the critical responses to Yeats’s mythopoetic experiments by established scholars on Yeats. The paper not only sheds light on the significance of mythical, literary and artistic cross-fertilization, but also on Yeats’s ideological favouring of the necessity of violence for cultural regeneration and epistemic change.

Keywords:  Yeats, Leda myth, Yeats’s Vision, mythopoetic, ideological.

Transcending Boundaries: Kwame Dawes’ Digital Projects

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Lamia Zaibi

Lecturer, Higher School of Digital Economy, University of Manouba, Tunisia. Email:lamya.zaibi@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-2306-6881

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.12

Received August 11, 2017; Revised September 16, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

In this new digital era, marked by the proliferation of social networking and advanced media tools, writers have found themselves bound to engage with technology in order to access wider audiences. The Ghanian- born Jamaican award-winning poet and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner Kwame Dawes is representative of Caribbean artists whose digital-based collaborations have had an impact on the way his work is shaped and designed. By focusing on major online projects such as “Live Hope Love”, “Voices of Haiti” and “Ashes”, this paper seeks to show how Dawes uses the digital space as a site where the boundaries between different genres of communication are blurred opening the possibility for poems to perform off the page, thus extending the long tradition of performance poetry. My reading of digital poems in light of their performative potential is informed by performance studies theorists and critics who contend that by virtue of the medium used, both the acts of writing and reading are a performance.

Keywords: digital, performance, poetry, Dawes, multimodal.

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The Pre-Romantic, the Sentimental, and the Trivial in the Late 18th Century German Literature

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Arkadii N. Makarov, Oleg Yu. Polyakov, Olga A. Polyakova, Irina A. Tyutyunnik,
Svetlana I. Tyutyunnik

Vyatka State University, Kirov, Russia. Corresponding email: arkmakarov49@gmail.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.11

Received July 20, 2017; Revised September 01, 2017; Accepted September 11, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract:

The article deals with the manifestations of sentimentalism and triviality and with the problem of the pre-romanticism in the German literature of the late Enlightenment. Traditionally, such problems are analyzed in the literary studies apart from “high” literature. It is important to comprehend the nature of pre-romanticism as a distinct and remarkable phenomenon of the eighteenth-century literature (and not as an early stage of romanticism), the existence of which during several decades proved its vitality and uniqueness. Triviality, in its turn, existed as a part of the culture in G.E. Lessing’s time, that is, to a great extent before Goethe. It should be marked that triviality had been manifested in literature long before the Enlightenment. Traditional and repeated themes and plots may be the markers of triviality as a cultural phenomenon.

Keywords: the Enlightenment, XVIII century German Literature, triviality, high and trivial German literature, mass culture, pre-romanticism

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Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” as an Archetype: a Comparative Analysis

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Elena Luludova

Almaty Branch of Saint-Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kazakhstan. ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9642-2683. Email: eluludova@yahoo.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.10

Received July 25, 2017; Revised September 01, 2017; Accepted September 05, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

Canonical works like Shakespeare’s Hamlet are always popular and are always in demand. However, the advancements in the stage and screen art and cinematography give way to new artistic interpretations of Hamlet with significant plot differences. Therefore, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered as an archetype with its subsequent interpretations. Relevant research methods include structural-semiotic and structural-functional analysis, comparison and system analysis. In addition, research experiences of domestic and foreign scholars on this subject have been summarized. The analysis of different interpretations of this work in its text, theatrical and cinematic forms shows that the changes depend on scriptwriters (directors). Most frequent changes refer to the dialogues, time, and place. All interpretations reveal the tendency to keep the emotional content of the text intact. Thus, the interpretation of the Shakespeare’s Hamlet is influenced by time change and by the cultural environment, where a new story is created. This is confirmed by comparative analysis of films by Kozintsev and Zeffirelli.

Keywords: Interpretation of “Hamlet”, Shakespeare’s tragedy, individual perception, scene changes, typological features.

“In compliance with the Advice contained in these Letters”: Benjamin Franklin’s correspondence networks and the making of the Autobiography

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Thomas J. Haslam

College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University, China.  Email: haslam@stu.edu.cn

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.09

Received August 11, 2017; Revised September 15, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

This study offers a quantitative approach to mapping out and examining Benjamin Franklin’s writing of his memoirs. It does so by situating the memoirs in the context of Franklin’s other and indeed primary writing activities: his participation in various correspondence networks. Both drawing upon and differing from previous scholarship, this study ascribes key aspects of the memoirs less to intentional design and literary craft, and more to Franklin’s writing habits and cognitive style as manifested over his career. This study further argues for a reconsideration of how Jane Mecom and William Franklin influenced the memoirs.
Keywords: Correspondence Networks, Benjamin Franklin, Data Analysis, Autobiography.

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Spatial Images of Subjective Perception of Time in a Literary Text

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Ella Nesterik1, Fazira Kakzhanova1, Gaukhar Issina1, Tatyana Shelestova1, Yelena Tsay2, Gulzhibek Kusmanova3 and Taliya Pecherskikh4

 1Karaganda State University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan

2Almaty Management University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

3D. Serikbayev East Kazakhstan State Technical University, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

4Karaganda State Medical University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan

*Corresponding author: Ella Nesterik, Karaganda State University named after academician E.A.Buketov, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, Tel: 77778891091; E-mail: ella_nesterik@mail.ru

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.08

Received June  16, 2017; Revised July 11, 2017; Accepted July 30, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

The analysis presented in this article is based on the hypothesis that the category of subjective perception of time or psychological time expresses different concepts and it is formed by means of different textual categories in a literary text, including those of the category of fictional space. The hypothesis, in its turn, has been put forward on the basis of the results of literary investigations of time in the study of literature, psychology and textual linguistics. The urgency and novelty of the research is conditioned by the need for a more comprehensive study of conceptual categories of text and in particular their formal aspect (the plane of expression) as well as the interest of modern linguistics in the problem of conceptualization of the world by the means of language, the specificity of the reflection of such fundamental categories as time, space, consciousness, human being in everyday consciousness and naive linguistic world-image.

Keywords: Fictional space, Fictional time, Psychological time, Spatial images, Subjective perception of time.

Le Joyau Des Arts Décoratifs Européens: The Sèvres Porcelain Factory Resuscitation from 1804 to 1815

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Johannis Tsoumas

Technological Educational Institute of Athens / Hellenic Open University. Email: iannis33@hotmail.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.07

Received July 16, 2017; Revised September 11, 2017; Accepted September 15, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

 The following article is a research focusing on the Sèvres porcelain factory restart on the occasion of the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in the post-French Revolution political scene. The emergence of a new decorative style in the early 19th century, the Empire Style, which seemed to be created in order to meet the aesthetic and political needs of the new regime having as main incentive the ambitious personality of Napoleon, in conjunction with the managerial post occupation of the -until then- decadent factory by the capable scientist Alexandre Brongniart, were the two main reasons for its successful re-opening. But what were the main innovations introduced for its resuscitation and in which sectors? How was developed the production of luxury porcelain objects up to 1815, i.e. until the official cessation of the Empire Style and what were the new prospects of the factory production? What changes were made to the form and decoration of new objects? These are only some of the many issues arisen which will be examined and analyzed.

Keywords: Porcelain, Sèvres, Empire Style, Brongniart, innovation 

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Psychological-pedagogical Potential of Media Culture: Principles and Prospects for the Development of Cinema Pedagogy

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Elena Nikolaevna Likhanova1 & Oleg Denisovich Nikitin2

1,2 Institute of Art Education and Cultural Studies of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, Russia. Email: eka53.170@gmail.com

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.06

Received July 30, 2017; Revised September 02, 2017; Accepted September 05, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

The article reveals the psychological-pedagogical potential of media culture in the categories of its morphology: statics (the internal structure of media culture in the totality of the presented concepts of media education) and cultural dynamics (principles and conditions for the development of audiovisual literacy). The priority area of media education – cinema pedagogy – is considered as an institutional cultural and educational practice. The theoretical basis of research includes the content of the concepts of Ya. A. Ponomarev (comprehensive nature of creative activity), A. A. Melik-Pashayev (artistic and creative talent), S. A. Chursanov (personal anthropological model), and L. F. Shekhovtsova (integral personal development). The principles of new programs of the subject area “Art” in the sphere of cinema pedagogy and media education in general are formulated. The interdisciplinary nature of the forms, methods and means of education in the context of interaction between additional education and information technologies is substantiated. The advantages of the personality-oriented direction of cinema pedagogy are revealed. Within the framework of this approach, the potential of development of creative activity and aesthetic attitude to the world of all subjects of the educational process is indicated. The novelty of the research lies in changing the focus of the pedagogical process from professionally orienting positions (knowledge, abilities, skills) to the situation of creative interaction (pedagogy of cooperation) and a personal vector of development of all subjects of educational activity.

Keywords: cinema pedagogy, media text, audiovisual literacy, interdisciplinary approach, creative activity, culture, personal dominant.

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

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