Academic literature on the topic 'Despotism in literature'

Abstract The Mengjiang 蒙疆 puppet regime was established in Inner Mongolia by Japanese colonizers, in collaboration with the Mongolian Prince Demchugdongrub, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Mengjiang regime tried to revive Mongolian culture in the name of resisting Chinese despotism. However, the Japanese supported the Mongols' desire for “self-determination” merely to use it as a vehicle for their colonial designs. Through a close reading of several texts that appeared in Sinophone magazines published in Japanese-occupied Inner Mongolia during the war, this article explicates the distinctions between Han writers' and Mongol intellectuals' nationalist writings, in order to theorize the dual oppression of the Mongol minority culture under Japanese colonialism and Chinese despotism. Despite the mission of this so-called Mongolian nation-state to write in a Mongolian style, the Han writers in Mengjiang expressed their ethnic identity through Sinophone literature; at the same time, Sinicized Mongol intellectuals failed to revive Mongolian culture through the same vehicle. In the end, both the former Han despots and the new Japanese colonizers tried to instrumentalize Mongol minority culture to establish their own cultural hegemony. Under this dual oppression of foreign colonialism and native despotism, the Sinophone nationalist writings of the Han majority and the Mongol minority problematize any simple binarism of colonizer and colonized.

AbstractThe paper addresses the narrative that qualifies micro and remote islands as lands of freedom, suggesting that they can also be lands of despotism. Philosophers from Plato to Aristotle, to Thomas More, to Montesquieu and Rousseau have claimed that micro polities, preferably insular, represent the ideal society, where everyone is actively engaged in public affairs and pursues common good. Literature has represented islands as lands of freedom, opportunity, challenge, success, adventure, redemption, away from the corruption of Europe. However, in the nineteenth century a new narrative has emerged in fiction, which abandons this idyllic approach: islands as lands of despotism. Islands are interpreted as lawless lands, characterised by rivalries between individuals. Moving from these contrasting suggestions from literature and philosophy, the paper discusses the constitutional arrangements of Commonwealth Caribbean and Pacific micro states, in order to investigate where they stand with respect to the dialectic freedom/despotism.

Although religious bigotry and military tyranny have been overtly delineated by the first and second generation novelists, especially the ones who witnessed the military maladministration in Nigeria, the contemporary Nigerian novelist also attempts to contribute and provide with more resources on the rights of the people and the liberty to be free from the imposition of religious and/or political doctrines that are socially constructed upon the people. In the Nigerian context, religious and political/military despotism are considered to go hand in hand since their ideologies formulate part of the hegemonic, determinist superstructures that push the masses to be at the corner of receiving end. Within Nigeria’s copious output of literature written in English, this paper, using Yishau’s debut novel In the Name of Our Father as a case study, attempts to develop a bird’s eye view of the religious and military issues in Nigerian society. Adopting the praxis of Marxist critical thinking, this paper acknowledges how the author, Yishau, allows his intellectual capacity in the form of a novel to direct his writing in relation to the religious bigotry and military despotism that spearheaded Nigerian society, most significantly in the military regime between 1966 and 1999. The outcome of this paper is that Yishau has accorded a pedigree for himself on the shore of Nigerian novels by leveraging critical attention to unfold the thematic precepts of religious bigotry and military despotism in his first literary, textual appearance. Keywords: Religious bigotry, military despotism, Nigerian novel.

This article re-examines Herder's status as one of the founders of nationalism in the light of both older and more recent literature. The article focuses specifically on Herder's position with regard to the classical nationalist thesis that state and nationality should be coterminous. It argues that a close reading of Herder's oft cited and most explicit statement apparently lending support to this thesis has been misunderstood. The existing literature underestimates Herder's concern regarding the question of governance. For Herder there can be no case for statehood without just governance. As earlier drafts of his work confirm, Herder was deeply critical of the states he knew and denounced their overly bureaucratic and despotic character. He thought that nations could and should exist without being states. Depending on the circumstances, however, states might fulfil temporary functions to strengthen and preserve the national character, that most essential attribute of every nation. For Herder the diversity of nations is an insurance against despotism. It is not a licence for the creation of states.

China’s export-led manufacturing model has been built on extensive exploitation of its migrant workforce under a despotic labor regime, but the methods of control have shifted considerably during the past decade and a half. This article examines new modes of domination over Chinese factory workers, based on fieldwork conducted while the author was living with workers at a foreign-invested garment factory in southern China. The article shows how mechanisms to control the workers are embedded today not only in directly coercive practices but also in a new shop floor culture with affective personal ties and implicit bargaining in wage systems. Against the scholarly literature of management controls that emphasizes rupture and discontinuity between labor regimes, this article argues that China’s emerging labor regime, here referred to as “conciliatory despotism,” inherits despotic features of the labor regime exercised in the 1990s but adds new normative measures of soft control that seek to conciliate worker resentments. This hybrid form of management control represents a stage in China’s evolving labor-management relations in which workers possess more implicit power and can push management into greater concessions than previously.

In modern domestic and foreign literature, quite intensive research is being carried out in the field of features and differences in the development of East and West. Especially the East. This is because for a long time the majority of Europeans have knowledge of the East for a number of reasons limited by rather superficial ideas. If in the days of antiquity, they just started talking about the fact that “despotism and barbarism” is inherent in the East, and then in the 14th century in European thought this idea was already formulated in the form of the concept of “Asian despotism”, which was closely associated with the lack of private property and legal guarantees of the person. This kind of general interest is far from accidental: the end of the 20th century. With its gloomy apocalyptic clouds hanging over the planet, it prompts many to seriously become interested in both existential problems (which arouse active attention to mysticism, and here the indisputable priority is given to ancient cultures and religions of the East), and the search for roots, primary sources. According to these initial data, society naturally developed.

In modern domestic and foreign literature, quite intensive research is being carried out in the field of features and differences in the development of East and West. Especially the East. This is because for a long time the majority of Europeans have knowledge of the East for a number of reasons limited by rather superficial ideas. If in the days of antiquity, they just started talking about the fact that “despotism and barbarism” is inherent in the East, and then in the 14th century in European thought this idea was already formulated in the form of the concept of “Asian despotism”, which was closely associated with the lack of private property and legal guarantees of the person. This kind of general interest is far from accidental: the end of the 20th century. With its gloomy apocalyptic clouds hanging over the planet, it prompts many to seriously become interested in both existential problems (which arouse active attention to mysticism, and here the indisputable priority is given to ancient cultures and religions of the East), and the search for roots, primary sources. According to these initial data, society naturally developed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 22, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Nabokov is well known for writing numerous indictments of totalitarian tyranny, most notably Invitation to a Beheading (1935) and Bend Sinister (1947). However, my contention in this thesis is that Nabokov�s most sustained and most significant assault on totalitarian tyranny occurred in 1938. The extent of Nabokov�s response to tyranny in 1938 is not immediately obvious. Some of Nabokov�s work of the year engages in an explicit assault on tyranny; however, in other cases the assault is oblique and in one instance cryptically concealed. In my thesis I examine each of the works of 1938, and set these against the political circumstances of the year, the tense atmosphere on the threshold of World War II. I find that all of the works of 1938, in one manner or another, respond to the political climate of the day; that Nabokov in 1938 made an unparalleled artistic response to tyranny in a uniquely ominous year. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains studies of each of the lesser works of 1938: chapter 5 of The Gift, "Tyrants Destroyed," The Waltz Invention, "The Visit to the Museum," and "Lik." These studies are inset into a chronological survey of the personal and political circumstances of Nabokov�s life in 1938. Part 2 constitutes the most significant aspect of my thesis, an in-depth study of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov�s main work of 1938. The novel has been regarded as detached from the pre-war climate of the day; however, in an extensive new reading I find that the bright appearance of the novel is only a facade. My reading reveals a triadic, chess-problem-like structure to the novel, where the innocuous surface (the thesis) gives way to a cryptically concealed level of totalitarian themes (the antithesis), before the novel finally emerges onto a notional third level (the synthesis), the novel�s "solution." The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I contend, represents the heart of Nabokov�s artistic response to tyranny in 1938. Through the triadic unfolding of the novel and the reader�s creative engagement with the text, Nabokov demonstrates that art itself triumphs over tyranny.

Since its earliest appearance, the word $ tau upsilon rho alpha nu nu acute iota varsigma$ referred to absolute rule obtained in defiance of any constitution that existed previously. In early Greek lyric poetry, tyranny is represented as a divine blessing, but one that meets with opposition against the tyrant and puzzlement at the behaviour of the gods. In Archilochus and elsewhere tyrannical ambition is termed eros. The common property that makes both tyranny and beauty objects of eros is luminosity: As the 'radiance' $ rm( lambda alpha mu pi rho acute o tau eta varsigma)$ of beauty is to the lover, so the 'splendour' $ rm( lambda alpha mu pi rho acute o tau eta varsigma)$ of tyranny is to the tyrannical "lover". The major symbol of tyrannical luminosity is gold. Conspicuous use of wealth and women contributed to the visibility of tyrannical splendour.

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Departamento de História, 2008.
Submitted by Jaqueline Ferreira de Souza (jaquefs.braz@gmail.com) on 2009-09-15T17:33:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_MarceladeACosta.pdf: 549075 bytes, checksum: 6b87bdfbe6e3ae9ade0051d50f214ad7 (MD5)
Approved for entry into archive by Guimaraes Jacqueline(jacqueline.guimaraes@bce.unb.br) on 2010-05-13T14:59:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_MarceladeACosta.pdf: 549075 bytes, checksum: 6b87bdfbe6e3ae9ade0051d50f214ad7 (MD5)
Made available in DSpace on 2010-05-13T14:59:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_MarceladeACosta.pdf: 549075 bytes, checksum: 6b87bdfbe6e3ae9ade0051d50f214ad7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008
O marquês de Sade é um desses autores que pouca gente leu, mas quase todos têm uma opinião a respeito. Escritor polêmico e controverso, seu nome é associado à libertinagem cruel, na qual o prazer sexual é obtido à custa do sofrimento e humilhação dos outros. Porém, a obra sádica não se resume a mera apologia dessa sexualidade primitiva e visceral. Em seus textos, Sade dialogava com a produção intelectual de seu tempo, tratando de questões que ocupavam também outros escritores, tais como ordem social, natureza humana, liberdade e despotismo. E sobre cada uma dessas questões o marquês mantinha um posicionamento filosoficamente justificado. O objeto principal dessa dissertação é a reconfiguração sádica dos espaços público e privado, ou seja, como essas esferas foram redefinidas em sua obra e quais os papéis que podem, e devem, ser desempenhados em cada uma delas. Para isso, foi analisado o discurso sádico sobre três dualidades que considerei basilares para essa redefinição: natureza e civilização, vício e virtude e liberdade e despotismo. Ao entender como Sade reconfigurou essas esferas e a importância que conferiu a cada uma delas, busca-se ampliar a compreensão sobre a conformação social que estava sendo delineada no período revolucionário. E da qual os Estados ocidentais herdaram a permanente tensão entre os seus interesses e direitos e as garantias individuais de seus cidadãos. __________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT
The marquis of Sade is one of these authors whom few people read, but almost everyone has an opinion about. Controversial writer, his name is associated with the cruel licentiousness, in which the sexual pleasure is obtained at the expense of the suffering and humiliation of others. However, the sadistic work does not consist only of the mere eulogy of this primitive and visceral sexuality. Through his texts, Sade maintained a dialogue with the intellectual production of his time, dealing with subjects that were also approached by other writers, such as social order, human nature, freedom and despotism. And on each one of these issues the marquis has a philosophically justified position. The main object of this dissertation is the sadistic reconfiguration of the public and private spaces, in other words, how these spaces were re-defined in his work and which roles one can or must play in each one of them. In order to accomplish that, the sadistic speech was analyzed along three axis that were taken as the basis for that redefinition: nature and civilization, vice and virtue, and freedom and despotism. Understanding how Sade has re-shaped the public and private spaces and the importance that he tallied to each one of them might help to understand the social configuration that was outlined in the French revolutionary period, one of the roots of the constant tension between interests of the State and individual rights in the Western World.

Cette analyse littéraire examine les parallèles entre les deux romans Lettres persanes de Montesquieu (1721) et Lettres d'une Péruvienne de Françoise de Graffigny (1747) en se concentrant sur le sort des femmes et leur rébellion contre la claustration. Leurs révoltes transformatrices révèlent une volonté qui refuse et puis transcende les barreaux de leur captivité pour vivre librement. La philosophie de Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) personnifie leurs luttes pour devenir et exister, ce qui se traduit par leur capacité de dévoiler leur vraie nature. Elles se battent contre le néant de leurs existences où elles ne peuvent que succomber aux contraintes imposées. Elles se battent pour se définir et pour devenir. Cependant, c'est Graffigny qui nous offre une réponse plus proto-féministe dépassant les paramètres masculins de la société. Son livre répond directement aux Lettres persanes pour créer une nouvelle femme iconoclaste qui transcende les barrières de la société pour se réinventer.

Mervyn Peake's most famous work, The Titus Books (also called The Gormenghast Series), has traditionally been read as a coming-of-age gothic fantasy story, laden with excentricities for decoration's sake alone. This thesis aims to argue that the author's refusal to "explain" his work should not stop the reader from looking for the meaningful patterns which make up the overarching theme of the series: tyranny. Centered around the topic of tyranny in its many forms — political, religious, familial, romantic — the story of Gormenghast and its heir Titus shows us how this authoritarian structure comes to be, what it does to those it subjugates, and what will happen to the few who attempt escape.
A série de livros The Titus Books (também intitulada The Gormenghast Series), do autor inglês Mervyn Peake (1911-1968), que consiste em três romances (Titus Groan, Gormenghast e Titus Alone) e uma novela (Boy in Darkness), tem sido por norma interpretada como ficção gótica juvenil, cujas excentricidades não servem outro propósito que não o da criação de uma estética tanto original quanto absurda, escapando a qualquer interpretação que consiga ser simultaneamente abrangente e coerente. Pretendo, com esta tese, argumentar que a recusa, por parte do autor, de "explicar" o significado da sua obra não deve impedir o leitor de procurar os padrões que compõem o tema geral desta narrativa — a tirania. Argumento também que um escritor filho de missionários congregacionalistas, que testemunhou ambas Guerras Mundiais e o surgimento de regimes totalitários na Europa teria mais do que razão suficiente para escrever uma história sobre a tirania. E de facto, no castelo de Gormenghast, ninguém vive livremente. A hierarquia rígida do castelo e o calendário de rituais escrupulosamente cumprido fazem dos habitantes de Gormenghast meros fantoches, condenados a repetir dia após dia a mesma dança, dançada pelos seus pais antes deles. É para enfatizar esta terrível condição que Peake faz uso da "interpenetração da pessoa e lugar" (termo de Peter Winnington), mostrando através de descrições antropomorfizantes do castelo e de descrições arquitectónicas de pessoas que não existem demarcações distintas entre as pedras de Gormenghast e a carne dos seus habitantes. Os dois formam um monstruoso colectivo orgânico, que para além do mais se afirma o único reino conhecido (senão mesmo o único existente), e um reino que deverá durar eternamente. O direito à individualidade é, em geral, negado a todos, ainda que em diferentes graus, dependendo da posição hierárquica: enquanto os plebeus têm dificuldade em recordar o seu próprio passado individual, a família "real" de Gormenghast vive debatendo-se com o facto de nunca poderem ser "apenas eles próprios." Recorrendo à metáfora Hobbesiana de body politic, o leitor poderá compreender melhor a razão pela qual o herdeiro Titus e o seu pai Sepulchrave encaram o castelo como quem encara um dos membros do seu corpo; poderá entender a razão pela qual Titus, ao abandonar o castelo, se sente simultaneamente "desenraizado" e como que arcando com Gormenghast às costas, e a razão pela qual o mordomo Flay, ao ser ostracizado pelo castelo, sente tanto que há um vazio dentro de si como que há um vazio no castelo provocado pela sua ausência; poderá entender, por fim, o efeito que Steerpike, o alpinista social que vem destabilizar o funcionamento milenar de Gormenghast, tem sobre o castelo e sobre a natureza circundante — Steerpike é o agente patológico que ao perverter a hierarquia do castelo e blasfemar contra a sua Lei e Ritual acelera a desintegração do seu "corpo." Ao comparar as prescrições de Hobbes para uma Commonwealth ideal com a fisionomia de Gormenghast, o leitor poderá também reconhecer as falhas que fizeram deste castelo um "corpo" condenado à "mortalidade" à partida. Argumentarei também que a novela que pertence a esta série de livros, Boy in Darkness, oferece um conjunto de pistas que nos permitem compreender melhor não só a formação de Gormenghast como também os efeitos desumanizantes do poder tirânico sobre os seus súbtidos. Estabelecerei paralelos tanto entre o mundo de Boy in Darkness e o mundo de Gormenghast, como entre o tirano desta novela, o Cordeiro, e os tiranos de Gormenghast, Barquentine e Steerpike. Falarei também de um outro curto romance de Peake, intitulado Mr Pye, e das semelhanças que tanto a sua narrativa como as suas personagens partilham com as da Gormenghast Series. Analisarei os vários tipos de deformação corpórea e psicológica que resultam da subjugação ao poder tirânico, e discorrerei sobre as várias faces que Peake via na tirania, especialmente a face política e a face religiosa; recorrerei à poesia deste autor para compreender melhor a sua posição quanto à fé e à religião. Farei uso d'A Genealogia da Moral, de Friedrich Nietzsche, para compreender como a religião é transportada para o mundo de Gormenghast, substituindo-se o culto monoteísta de uma entidade sobrenatural com o culto ritualístico e politeísta dos antepassados — será aqui feita a distinção entre a sacralidade dos antepassados da família Groan e a subjugação (ainda que em condições comparativamente privilegiadas) dos Groans viventes. Considerarei também os efeitos da tirania no próprio tirano, nomeadamente a perda de uma certa equipoise, quer no Cordeiro, quer em Steerpike, quer em Mr Pye, quer em Cheeta, a tirana em ponto pequeno do terceiro romance desta série de livros, Titus Alone. Contrastarei este tipo de equipoise com o seu homólogo mais corriqueiro, e será também enfatizada a diferença entre a criação "artística" do tirano e a criação artística strictu sensu. Analisarei em seguida os vários possíveis efeitos de se abandonar esta tirania, todos eles relacionados com a perda da identidade, de uma história pessoal — se escapamos a uma tirania, deixando necessariamente para trás todas as partes da nossa identidade que a tirania tinha reclamado para si, como é que construímos de novo as partes da nossa identidade que agoram nos faltam? E como é que nos certificamos de que o edíficio da nossa identidade não rui antes de a reconstrução terminar? Levando, como era seu hábito, cada ponto ao absurdo, Peake transforma esta crise de identidade numa crise existencial Cartesiana; começando por pôr em causa os diferentes aspectos da sua personalidade, Titus acaba por pôr em causa a sua própria existência. Isto, por sua vez, permite ao leitor refletir acerca da natureza fantasmagórica de Gormenghast, assim como acerca da natureza fantasmagórica de uma tirania — elucidando, talvez, a ambiance gótica deste mundo. Tentarei compreender como Titus consegue vencer a sua "crise Cartesiana" e ganhar de uma vez por todas independência em relação ao seu passado — cultivando a descrença, rejeitando corajosamente a possibilidade de "pertencer a algo maior," e praticando uma desconfiança Foucauldiana para com toda a espécie de constrangimento, compromisso ou estabilidade. Tentarei também explicar o sucesso desta série de livros, postulando que foi a lucidez particularmente aguda de Peake que lhe permitiu diagnosticar de forma acutilante o dilema com que um certo tipo de indivíduo certamente se confrontará, ao longo da sua vida: a ideia de que a existência humana é um jogo que não se pauta por regras justas, mas que exige ser jogado. Tentarei igualmente argumentar que a literatura, por oposição à sociologia ou psicologia, é (ainda que insuficiente) a melhor forma possível de se explicar este ou qualquer outro problema da vida humana. Por fim, refletirei sobre o percurso do herói Titus, muitas vezes encarado pelos críticos como um alter-ego do autor, e sobre como o ideal de eremita errante deste protagonista se repete em outras obras de Peake, tal como se repetem os avisos quanto a influências tirânicas. Ponderarei a concretização, quer política quer pessoal, destes ideais na vida de Peake, e considerarei, quer no que diz respeito ao autor quer aos seus leitores, outros tipos de errância e de liberdade que talvez nos possam mostrar qual era, para Peake, o grande propósito da ficção.

Attention to the violence of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 usually focuses on that of the soldiers who attacked the peaceful protesters gathered to demand equal representation and workers' rights. However, this chapter demonstrates that the event and its aftermath brought into sharp focus the intense concern with, and conflicting attitudes towards, self-directed violence and its ultimate expression, suicide, in Romantic-era Britain. Self-directed violence met with a variety of legal and cultural responses in the long eighteenth-century, but it was often presented sympathetically as a courageous political act that asserted individual autonomy in the face of implacable tyranny in Romantic literature. This theme was threatened, however, when Viscount Castlereagh - Conservative defender in the House of Commons of the government's attack at Peterloo, and the very figure of despotism in the period - slit his own throat with a pen knife in 1822.

The economy of the Modern Work Platform is becoming increasingly relevant due to the spread of information and communication technology. As a result, digital work has gained popularity as a source of employment, especially in an economy where finding decent work is becoming increasingly difficult. Computer algorithms are now being used to alter and change the way people operate in increasing job specialization, handling large-scale human labour in a distributed manner. In these structures, human works are delegated, supplemented, and analyzed using tracked data and algorithms. Building on emerging algorithmic literature and qualitative examination, this article assesses the mechanisms by which the digital network manages staff in the sense of Uber, Bolt (formerly Taxify). It describes the difference in the degree to which such platforms limit freedoms over schedules and activities relevant to gig work. Based on in-depth interviews with 41 respondents working on different digital media and a survey of 105 staff on the same platform, the study finds that while all digital work platforms use algorithm management to delegate and assess work, substantial cross-platform variation. Uber, the largest network for ride-sharing, exercises a type of control called “algorithmic despotism” that controls the time and activities of staff more strictly than other network distribution firms. We end with a debate on the implications for the future of work of the spectrum of algorithmic power. It also addresses how algorithmic management and data-driven systems can be developed to build an improved workplace with intelligent machines, with implications for future work.