Journal articles on the topic 'Social isolation – Fiction'
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Sallehuddin, Muhammad Afnan Bin Mohd, Su-Cheng Haw, and Kok-Why Ng. "Write-Deck: An Enriched Social Reading Fan Fiction Site With Recommendation System." Applied and Computational Engineering 2, no. 1 (March 22, 2023): 685–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.54254/2755-2721/2/20220647.
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The Covid-19 pandemics have pushed individuals away from having any personal contact with each other, in a long period of isolation. Spending time on relaxing activities such as writing fan fiction help alleviate the negative effects of long isolation. Writer-Deck is a system to read fan and original fiction online which is enriched with a recommender system. Writer-Deck aims to provide users with simple ways to find the most likely fiction for leisure reading, simple navigation to access information on their favourite fiction, the ability to save to the library to read later and notification of a new chapter to be released. In addition, the review and rating functions are available for writers to gauge their writing skills. The usability test on 30 respondents indicated that on average 76.6% of respondents respond positively in terms of navigation, design and layout, features, search and recommendation.
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ABDERRAZAG, Sara, and Dr Lynda KAZI-TANI. "Social Isolation as a Cause of Incest in Latin American Fiction." Journal of English Language and Literature 11, no. 1 (February 28, 2019): 1087–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.17722/jell.v11i1.407.
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In his One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), the Latin American writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez depicts the Buendia family, whose members seem to have a great difficulty marrying and developing sexual relationships with characters outside this family. Marquez portrays these characters as such in order to represent incest and connect it with the social behavior of individuals. The present paper, then, is an attempt to prove that through depicting male as well as female characters as unable to establish healthy relationships with people outside the family, Marquez seems to show that social isolation is one of the key causes to social aberration.
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ABDERRAZAG, Sara, and Dr Lynda KAZI-TANI. "Social Isolation as a Cause of Incest in Latin American Fiction." Journal of English Language and Literature 11, no. 1 (February 19, 2019): 1087. http://dx.doi.org/10.17722/jell.v11i1.450.
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Marín Velásquez, Tomás Darío. "The recovery of nature through social isolation by Covid-19 ¿Reality or fiction?" Journal of the Selva Andina Research Society 11, no. 2 (August 1, 2020): 60–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.36610/j.jsars.2020.110200060x.
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Senekal, B. A. "Alienation in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting." Literator 31, no. 1 (July 13, 2010): 19–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/lit.v31i1.35.
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This article examines how Melvin Seeman’s theory of alienation (1959) and modern alienation research manifest in Irvine Welsh’s “Trainspotting”. This is an important novel, not only because of its commercial success, but also because it depicts a specific marginalised subculture. Postmodernism and systems theory approaches, as well as changes in the social and political spheres have motivated researchers such as Geyer (1996), Kalekin-Fishman (1998) and Neal and Collas (2000) to reinterpret Seeman’s theory. This article attempts to incorporate this new theory of alienation in the analysis of contemporary fiction. Seeman identifies five aspects of alienation, namely powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation and self-estrangement. Following Neal and Collas (2000), in particular, this article omits self-estrangement, but shows how the other four aspects of alienation have changed since Seeman’s formulation. It is argued that “Trainspotting” depicts a specific occurrence of alienation in modern western society, besides normlessness, meaninglessness, and social isolation, highlighting Seeman’s concept of powerlessness, in particular. The article further argues that applying Seeman’s theory of alienation in the study of contemporary literature provides a fresh theoretical approach that contributes to the understanding of how fiction engages with its environment.
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Schäfer, Katharina, and Tuomas Eerola. "How listening to music and engagement with other media provide a sense of belonging: An exploratory study of social surrogacy." Psychology of Music 48, no. 2 (September 7, 2018): 232–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0305735618795036.
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The social surrogacy hypothesis holds that people resort to temporary substitutes, so-called social surrogates, if direct social interaction is not possible. In this exploratory study, we investigate social motives for listening to music in comparison to watching TV and reading fiction. Thirty statements about possible social reasons for the engagement with media were compiled. After 374 participants had rated their agreement with those statements, they were reduced to seven categories: Company, Shared experiences, Understanding others, Reminiscence, Isolation, Group identity, and Culture. The results propose that music is used as temporary substitute for social interaction alongside TV programs and fiction, but that it acts differently. Music listening might act as a social surrogate by evoking memories of relationship partners or through identification processes. There are overlapping motives between the domains, but the elicitation of nostalgia appears to be unique to music listening. The results motivate further investigation into the effects of music listening on socio-emotional well-being.
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Kulikovskaya, Irina, Raisa Chumicheva, and Ivan Panov. "Robotics: development factor or social isolation of the child." SHS Web of Conferences 72 (2019): 03008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20197203008.
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In this article, dealing with robotics is defined as a factor driving the development of preschool children. What was created by science fiction writers has become a natural space for the child. Children do not know a world where there are no drones, smart phones, and computers. Robotics is becoming one of the leading activities for children, which determines the development of creativity, initiative, and independence. Joint design acts as a team work environment where children learn to agree on a project topic, discuss problems in its implementation, look for information from different sources, and use digital technologies. However, immersing a child into the world of robotics can isolate him from the society; immerse him into the virtual world. “Digital flashing” of a child‟s brain can affect its cognitive methods, affecting the neural mechanisms responsible for communicating with other people. This problem is being studied by scientists from around the world. Today the world is doubling - life in two spaces - material, objective and virtual, ideal. That is why the determination of the common ground for these worlds determines the harmonization of the children development in modern space. One of this common ground could be robotics classes. In preschool education, the development of technical creativity occurs through the designers of LegoEdu. The logic of designing cognitive-research activities of children is presented.
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Medina Cordova, Luis A. "Microcuentos." Journal of World Literature 7, no. 1 (March 22, 2022): 39–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00701005.
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Abstract This article brings attention to a form of narrative fiction that has engaged with the Covid-19 outbreak by embracing social media. Microcuentos, a form of very brief short stories usually referred to as flash fiction in English, have widely circulated across Latin America through digital platforms in pandemic times. But more than simply thriving in a context of globally spread fear, death, and isolation, I argue that – in the 2020s – microcuentos are uniquely suited for pandemic times. By combining narrative intensity condensed in a structurally limited wordcount with social media’s capacity to circulate swiftly and widely, writers of microcuentos across the region have been exceptionally capable of responding to the crisis as it is happening. The case of the Latin American microcuento in the time of Covid-19 invites us to question the hegemony of the novel while rethinking the meanings of World Literature in a pandemic and post-pandemic world.
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Jones, Douglas FitzHenry. "Reading “New” Religious Movements Historically." Nova Religio 16, no. 2 (November 1, 2012): 29–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2012.16.2.29.
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This article surveys the relationship of the Heaven's Gate movement to the cultural context of science fiction while also engaging broader issues in the retrospective account of violence in new religious movements. Against theories that see violence as the consequence of social isolation and the escalating confusion of representation and reality, I argue that members of Heaven's Gate were not only “tapped in” to the reality outside the group but were markedly self-conscious about their engagement with that reality through the medium of science fiction. Using Heaven's Gate as an example, I propose that we read the concepts espoused by new religious movements in the past not in light of their fate but rather as imbedded in the historical realities in which they originally functioned in a meaningful and deliberate fashion.
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Dai, Yan, and Benjamin Arnberg. "“We Have to Survive, First”: Speculative Ethnographies of Chinese Student Experience During COVID-19." Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 22, no. 1 (October 25, 2021): 53–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15327086211050041.
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Our speculative ethnography of Chinese student experience in the United States during COVID-19 weds the tradition of speculative fiction (exemplified by the likes of Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler) and digital autoethnography. The study is two-pronged: First, we articulate/map the methodological merits of speculative and digital autoethnography as particularly conducive to the crisis context of COVID-19 and its accompanying social isolation; second, we deploy said methodology within a population of nine Chinese students “trapped” in the United States during the COVID-19 period.
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Kendal, Evie. "Horny for COVID." Extrapolation: Volume 63, Issue 1 63, no. 1 (April 1, 2022): 55–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/extr.2022.6.
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The COVID-19 global pandemic has significantly disrupted people’s social lives and dating habits. Research has shown a substantial increase in the consumption of erotic and pornographic material during periods of isolation, including narratives focused on quarantine, illness, and even the personification of the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself as a potential sexual partner. This article considers the latter manifestation of coronavirus-related erotica, focusing on the four-part e-book series, Kissing the Coronavirus, by M. J. Edwards. This article will demonstrate that as a speculative fiction subgenre, works of erotica are worthy of scholarly examination as individual texts, avoiding the tendency to consider such works only in bulk. Kissing the Coronavirus provides an insight into the confusing realities of living during a global pandemic in which knowledge about the virus rapidly changed and fear of infection and continued isolation were constant stressors impacting health and wellbeing.
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Chawla, Prof (Dr ). Pooja A. "LIVING WITH THE GHOST: CAN WE EVER ESCAPE COVID-19’S SHADOW?" INDIAN DRUGS 61, no. 01 (January 28, 2024): 5–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.53879/id.61.01.p0005.
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Dear Reader, A strange virus flipped our world upside down, two and a half years ago, making us feel like we were living in a science-fiction film. Lockdowns, masks, and social isolation were all terms we had to learn. Uncertainty reigned supreme and terror became our constant companion. In 2024, a separate worry persists: Will we ever completely move on from COVID-19? We overcame COVID, but the next variant is JN.1. We don’t know about long-term immunity or “Long JN.1 effects,” but we must learn to live with it. More research, mental health assistance, healthcare reform and international collaborations are critical. It’s terrifying, but humans are strong. We can adapt and win again.
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Maha Hamed Issa. "Masculinity and Gender Roles in Selected Stories by Haruki Murakami." ALUSTATH JOURNAL FOR HUMAN AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 62, no. 3 (September 15, 2015): 350–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.36473/ujhss.v62i3.2167.
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Haruki Murakami (1949) is a Japanese novelist who uses fiction to portray modern man's condition. Sexual identity, loneliness, and nostalgia are common themes in his works. Men without Women (2014) is a collection of short stories in which Murakami reverses gender roles to show men's desperate seek for companionship in their lives. According to Hans Robert Jauss (1921-1997), a German literary theorist, there is no identical interpretation of any literary text. Yet, a dialogic correspondence between the text and the reader allows the reader's voice to breathe different life into the text. Therefore this study aims to illustrate the identity crisis in a conservative society such as Japan. Murakami's raw style shows the impact of social pressure and isolation of Masculinity in postmodern societies.
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Zainab, Noreen. "Repression, Isolation, and Paranoia: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Study of ‘The Nightmare’ by Rukhsana Ahmad." University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature 1, no. 1 (March 3, 2018): 83–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.33195/uochjll/1/1/05/2017.
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Generally, literature written by Pakistani women writers in English depicts women as victims of patriarchy, social and cultural oppression. Meanwhile, in recent times the short fiction is exploring new paradigms related to the psychological oppression of married women in Pakistan. The following paper selects the short story, ‘The Nightmare’ by Pakistani writer, Rukhsana Ahmad, where a housewife suffers from paranoia because of disconsolate marriage. Therefore, this research aims to study the causes of psychological disorders specifically paranoia among apparently happy housewives. Moreover, the causes and effects of repression and isolation on personality of women would be discussed from the psychoanalytic feminist perspective using the framework of Sigmund Freud (1973- 86) through the character of Fariha. Through the method of character analysis (Dobie, 2011) this paper concludes that the childhood experiences of repression are the reason for victim’s passiveness towards psychological oppression during adult life. This paper would also help in establishing the conclusion that women who suffer abuse in their childhood are more likely to face abuse in their adult lives, which becomes the cause of their psychological instability.
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Gonsalves, Kavita, Marcus Foth, and Glenda Amayo Caldwell. "Radical Placemaking: Utilizing Low-Tech AR/VR to engage in Communal Placemaking during a Pandemic." Interaction Design and Architecture(s), no. 48 (June 10, 2021): 143–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-048-007.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has made the struggles of the excluded louder and has also left them socially isolated. The article documents the implementation of one instance of Radical Placemaking, an “intangible”, community-driven and participatory placemaking process, in Kelvin Grove Urban Village (KGUV), Brisbane, Australia to tackle social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. KGUV community members were engaged in storytelling and interactive fiction online workshops to create experiential, place-based and mobile low-tech AR digital artefacts. The article expands on the methodology which involved a series of online workshops to design low-tech AR digital artefacts using digital collaboration tools (Google Classroom, Slack, Zoom) and VR environments (Mozilla Hubs). The study’s findings confirm the role of accessible AR/VR technology in enabling marginalised communities to create connectedness and community by co-creating their own authentic and diverse urban imaginaries of place and cities.
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Dhobi, Saleem. "Repercussions of Stereotyping and Cultural Bigotry in John Updike’s 9/11 Fiction." SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities 3, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 64–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/sjah.v3i1.35375.
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This article analyzes Updike’s 9/11 novel, Terrorist to explore the implications of stereotyping and cultural bigotry in US society in the aftermath. The novelist demonstrates the problematic in the cultural integration of minorities particularly Muslims and Jews as represented by Ahmad and Jack Levy. The primary motto of the article is to analyze the novel from the perspective of the protagonists Ahmad and Jack who suffer the cultural and social exclusion in American society. Ahmad is the victim of cultural bigotry and Jack Levy faces discriminatory practices at school. The isolation and marginalization of Ahmad and Jack respectively imply the ethnic crevices prevalent in the US society. The author demonstrates that the dominant cultural groups: European and African Americans do not accept the religious minorities: Muslims and Jews. Consequently, Muslims who are overtly the targets of cultural hatred and marginalization in the aftermath of the 9/11 as portrayed in the novel become hostile toward the Western culture. The efforts for integration of religious minorities are cosmetic as exemplified in the cases of Ahmad and Jack in the text. The writer makes a balance in representing both dominant and Muslim cultures to demonstrate the problems pertaining to ethnic groups at their failure in accommodating differences. The cultural separation and hatred prevalent in US society become obstacles even for those like Jack who seek to integrate. The paper eventually demonstrates the possibility of integration of religious minorities when both mainstream Americans and people of religious minorities conform to accepting the differences.
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Parui, Avishek, and Merin Simi Raj. "The COVID-19 crisis chronotope: The pandemic as matter, metaphor and memory." Memory Studies 14, no. 6 (December 2021): 1431–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17506980211054346.
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This article draws on the concept of the chronotope – spatiotemporal entanglements theorized in literary and anthropological studies – and extends the same to an engagement with and an understanding of the experiential and ontological defamiliarization, deceleration and suspension of space, time and security generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article, thus, offers a study of COVID-19 as a connective metaphor and a crisis chronotope – denoting the un-certain space–time marked and defamiliarized by changed orders and vocabularies of presence, distance, trust, tactility and memory – characterizing a world of alienation, insecurity and fear of infection. In arguing how the globality of COVID-19 has ironically informed isolation, incomplete identification and new fiction-formations, while also foregrounding the difference between human time and planetary time, the article will re-examine the crisis chronotope through a study of sudden death and the defamiliarized public space, exemplified in the city of New Delhi during the second wave of the pandemic in April–May 2021.
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Flores Quesada, María Magdalena. "Eleanor Oliphant Is not that Fine: Exploring the Transformative Potential of Vulnerability in Gail Honeyman’s Debut (2017)." Oceánide 16 (February 10, 2024): 46–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.37668/oceanide.v16i.122.
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This article explores the notion of vulnerability as a condition of potential and openness towards personal transformation and connection with others. The current approach to the notion of vulnerability focuses on challenging and re-orienting its restrictively negative connotation, as the works by Jean-Michel Ganteau and Susana Onega (2017) or Erinn Gilson (2016), among many others, have shown. The notion has also proved useful in connection with political or social action (Butler 2020), as well as in the framework of ethical philosophy (Maillard 2011, Le Blanc 2011). However, analysing vulnerability in contemporary literary works can be problematic, as sometimes the complexity of the notion hinders the representation of the character’s journey through the good and bad. In this article, my aim is to peruse Gail Honeyman’s debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017), which has received little critical attention in this area in spite of its popularity following its publication. Addressing the ideal of invulnerability, the connection between vulnerability and social isolation, its movement towards openness to the other, and its portrayal through formal choices, I argue that this text is an example of how contemporary literary works of British fiction contribute to portray the potential that can be found in experiences of vulnerability.
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Bowers, Randolph. "Shieldwolf and the Shadow: Entering the Place of Transformation." Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 34 (2005): 79–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1326011100003999.
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AbstractThis paper speaks from a poetic voice and briefly discusses the untamed nature of metaphor and narrative. Then the story is shared. The tale relates to how healing of identity, after eons of racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of social isolation and internalised sorrow, requires deep abiding patience. Situated in transpersonal or spiritual space, the story suggests how Indigenous narrative crosses thresholds between reality and fiction. These are united in an “ontopoetics” of soul, a uniquely postmodern Indigenous sensibility that is also nothing terribly new. The story of Shieldwolf and the Shadow is a contemporary Indigenous tale of the place where transformation is undertaken, without fear, and with every intention that life itself will change beyond our reckoning. It may be possible that past bloodlines can be cleansed and our future restored to justice and peace – at least in some personal and contingent way. What we see in contemporary story is a potential for transformation that has eluded us for generations, and this is an echo of the wisdom of our elders.
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Bickford III, John H., and Katherine A. Silva. "Trade Books’ Historical Representation of Anne Sullivan Macy, The Miracle Worker." Social Studies Research and Practice 11, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 56–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ssrp-01-2016-b0004.
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State and national initiatives provide teachers opportunities for interdisciplinary units with increased significance of non-fiction in English Language Arts and decreased reliance on the textbook in history and social studies. In these three disciplines, beginning in elementary school, students are expected to scrutinize multiple trade books of the same event, era, or person to construct understandings. Trade books are a logical curricular link between these three curricula. The initiatives, however, do not prescribe specific curricular materials; teachers rely on their own discretion when selecting available trade books. Historical misrepresentations have been found to emerge within trade books to varying degrees, yet only a few empirical studies have been conducted. We empirically evaluated trade books centered on the Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller’s teacher. Celebrated as the Miracle Worker, she remains a relatively obscure figure. As a child, Macy faced the desertion or death of every family member and struggled to overcome poverty and isolation. Macy’s story, thus, complements Keller’s in consequential ways. We report various historical misrepresentations within the trade books and provide ancillary primary sources for teachers interested in addressing the historical omissions.
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Leane, Elizabeth, Charne Lavery, and Meredith Nash. "“The Only Almost Germ-Free Continent Left”." Environmental Humanities 15, no. 1 (March 1, 2023): 109–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/22011919-10216184.
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Abstract This article examines the role of pandemics and viruses in cultural perceptions of Antarctica over the past century. In the popular imagination, Antarctica has often been framed as a place of purity, refuge, and isolation. In a series of fiction and screen texts from the nineteenth century to the present, viruses feature prominently. The texts fall into two categories: narratives in which Antarctica is the sole source of safety in a pandemic-ravaged world and those in which a virus (or another form of contagion) is discovered within the continent itself and needs to be contained. Viruses in these texts are not only literal but also metaphorical, taking the form of any kind of threatening infection, and as such are linked to texts in which Antarctic purity is discursively connected to racial and gendered exclusivity. Based on this comparison, the article argues that ideas of containment and contagion can have political connotations in an Antarctic context, to the extent that they are applied to particular groups of people in order to position them as “alien” to the Antarctic environment. The authors show that the recent media construction of Antarctica during COVID-19 needs to be understood against this disturbing aspect of the Antarctic imaginary, and also that narratives of Antarctic purity are imaginatively linked to both geopolitical exclusions and the melting of Antarctic ice.
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Rogers, Richard. "Do you want to go for a ride on the chunnel? The British public understandings of the Channel Tunnel meet the Eurotunnel Exhibition Centre." Public Understanding of Science 4, no. 4 (October 1995): 363–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0963-6625/4/4/003.
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As readers of British newspapers know very well, the Channel Tunnel has a long history and a potent mythology. The mere mention of the Tunnel summons associations extending from the technological and ecological to the patriotic and erotic. This paper takes up the historical and contemporary meanings of the Channel Tunnel and situates them in the context of its perceived `social threat'. Drawing on a variety of materials, including newspaper articles, cartoons, plays, fiction and museum displays, the paper deals with four types of ominous fears of the Tunnel: fear of (subterranean) invasion; fear of the end of the island race and splendid isolation; fear of the destruction of the countryside and the country life in the `Garden of England'; and fear of sudden, violent death caused by rabies, fire, flooding or terrorist attack. Laden with concerns about the Tunnel, the author (like members of the British public have done) takes a trip to the Eurotunnel Exhibition Centre in Folkestone, England, to hear Eurotunnel's arguments about the Tunnel. In all, Eurotunnel exhibitors either ignore or recast concerns about the Channel Tunnel, leaving the visitor with the impression that, while the Channel Tunnel was an engineering feat unprecedented in history, a trip through the Tunnel will be a non-event.
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Sass, Cara, Claire Surr, and Lorena Lozano-Sufrategui. "Expressions of masculine identity through sports-based reminiscence: An ethnographic study with community-dwelling men with dementia." Dementia 20, no. 6 (February 17, 2021): 2170–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1471301220987386.
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Background Despite increasing numbers of men living in isolation with dementia in the community, uptake of supportive interventions remains low. This may be because of limited availability of activities suited to men’s interests. One organisation reporting higher attendance from men is Sporting Memories, offering inclusive sports-based reminiscence and physical activities for men living with dementia. This study aimed to explore the impact of the Sporting Memories intervention on men living with dementia. Method This study was an ethnography employing techniques of participant observation, informal conversations and semi-structured interviews with group participants. Data were woven into a series of narratives using creative non-fiction, to bring life to the first-hand accounts of participants and experiences within a typical group setting. Findings The groups provided an environment for men with dementia to explore, reflect upon and reinforce their masculine identities through the subject of sport. Physical activities further facilitated this embodied demonstration for some, although this was not a feature of all sessions. Conclusions The content of Sporting Memories group sessions provides a vehicle for men to retain an important aspect of personhood. They also hold the potential to present opportunities for men to feel a sense of value by contributing to sessions in varied ways. Facilitators and volunteers require support and training to ensure this benefit is maintained.
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Muhlestein, Daniel. "Marilynne Robinson, Wallace Stevens, and Louis Althusser in the Post/Secular Wilderness: Generosity, Jérémiade, and the Aesthetic Effect." Humanities 9, no. 2 (April 7, 2020): 30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h9020030.
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In Restless Secularism (2017), Matthew Mutter points out that Wallace Stevens described three related techniques that could be used to attempt to purge secular life of its religious residue: adaptation, substitution, and elimination. Marilynne Robinson pushes back against such secularizing strategies by employing three related techniques of her own: negotiation, grafting, and invitation. She does so to attempt to bridge the gap between religious and humanistic perspectives and—in the process—mounts a spirited defense of religious faith and practice. Robinson uses a fourth technique as well: jérémiade. In its usual sacred form, jérémiade is a lamentation that denounces self-righteousness, religious hypocrisy, and social injustice. Much of what Robinson says about the Christian Right is essentially jérémiade. Robinson’s critique of parascientists is jérémiade as well, although its grounding assumptions are secular rather than sacred. While Robinson’s jérémiades against the Christian Right and against parascientists are effective in isolation, in aggregate they sometimes undercut her more generous and inclusive attempts at negotiation, grafting, and invitation. This may be because Robinson’s essays do not undergo the moderating influence of what Louis Althusser called the aesthetic effect of art, which in Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), Home (2008), and Lila (2014) helps counterbalance the flashes of anger and tendencies toward judgement that periodically surface elsewhere in Robinson’s work. Taking into account the presence—or absence—of the aesthetic effect in Robinson’s work helps explain the sometimes startling differences between Robinson’s fiction and nonfiction and helps provides a new perspective from which to rethink two of the most influential postsecular readings of Robinson’s work to date: Amy Hungerford’s Postmodern Belief (2010) and Christopher Douglas’s If God Meant to Interfere (2016).
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Üstün Kaya, Senem, and Ümmühan Bilgin Topçu. "The Abstraction of Reality in Cengiz Da?ci’s Benim Gibi Biri (Someone Like Me)." International Journal of Language and Literary Studies 4, no. 1 (March 27, 2022): 208–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v4i1.822.
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Cengiz Da?c? has been circling around certain facts since his first novels in the 50's and in his many historically unique novels, he attempted to embrace his readers with human adventures, social and individual fractures based on the alienation and isolation of minorities from their own lands and perceivable periods in the shed of clashes and wars. This study aimed at interpreting the aspects of his style in his Benim Gibi Biri (Someone like Me) and presenting the differentiation of the work from its predecessors. The main purpose was to detect the concentration in the narration of Da?c?. The novel underscores the deviations in narration, cohesion and context in general when the character, Joseph becomes the voice of the conscience of the protagonist-narrator. Throughout spatial narration, we observed the traces of Cengiz Da?c? in a silhouette revealing his own personality and experience in actual life. The author’s psychology, outbursts, rebels, traumas and feelings are reflected through the main character, Joseph Tucknell. The deviations in narration highlights the scenes that create pathos for the readers when language becomes poetic. This study involves three main parts. In the first part, the novel Benim Gibi Biri (Someone like Me) by Cengiz Da?c? is analyzed in terms of characterization, themes and setting. Secondly, the focus was on the narrative techniques and cohesion within the context of the text. Finally, it was concluded that Cengiz Da?c? applied essential techniques to abstract his ideas from his fiction in this notable novel, distinguished from his previous works. Therefore, his works still mark the literary canon in terms of unique style and themes.
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Norets, Maxim V., and Olga B. Elkan. "Artistic means of representation of sociocultural issues in the works of Thomas Bernhard." Philological Sciences. Scientific Essays of Higher Education 1, no. 6 (November 2021): 121–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.20339/phs.6-21.121.
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The article is devoted to sociocultural issues in the works of Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian writer and the playwright of the twentieth century. Born in 1931, the eyewitnesses of nazi transformations, Thomas was too young to resist them. The period of his personal formation was marked by the drams of a more personal, family character, which, nevertheless, later, the writer will always feel as closely associated with the historical destinies of the country and the world. His own childhood and adolescence, dramatic and traumatic, become for the writer permanent source of dramatic literary plots, the main characters of which will be confused, desperate people, losers and travels, unable to cope with the challenges of fate. In this case, the fiction in his works is often almost impossible to separate from the introduced autobiographical material. The numerous works of Bernhard demonstrate the Austrian mass consciousness, full of shame, guilt, disgust to yourself, escapism. Bernhard shows an acutely critical attitude towards the Austrian society and the state that did not get rid of the Nazi past. However, the writer does not declare his social views directly and unequivocally. Special inaccessibility and hints are much more characteristic of his prose. As a result of the analysis of the most striking works by Bernhard (“Frost”, “The Loser”, “Amras”, “Old masters”, “Yes”, “Correction”, “The Lime Works”, “Beton”, “Gargoyles”) some typical artistic techniques are identified — autobiographical reception, eccentricity, monologism (as a symbol of loneliness, removal, isolation from society, acute individualism and even sociophobia), emotional saturation (the spectrum of emotions is monotonous: most often it is deep disappointment, sadness and grief, anxiety and a cured fear), mosaic of narration, motivation of the reader to joint, “interactive” reflection and independent conclusions, some techniques of “musicalization” of literary text.
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Isaev, I., S. Zenin, and V. Rumyantseva. "‘Power’ and Technological Machines: Dreams Are Replaced by Goal-Setting." BRICS Law Journal 10, no. 1 (April 19, 2023): 171–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.21684/2412-2343-2023-10-1-171-185.
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Modern technologies are rapidly changing the customary forms of being and reshaping the activities of social institutions. This transformation is accompanied by a belief in a long period of sustainable progress brought about through the media, the Internet, mobile telecommunication, robotics and artificial intelligence. Previously, science fiction as a literary genre served as an impetus for science and technology, today, the exact opposite is happening, i.e., scientific and technological breakthroughs inspire a variety of fantastic plots. The problem of gaining a scientific understanding of the mechanization of civilization has become a reality. Machines and technologies influence politics by some means or another. Previously differentiated forms of “the political” also show tendencies towards convergence and interpenetration. In this process, neutral technology tends to exhibit globalism, spreading its influence and its results to the whole world. Rationalization, without which techniques and technologies are unthinkable, revolutionizes the environment by offering its own logic and language to public and individual consciousness. As a result of the pacification of the irrational, structures of power and law frequently find themselves in a situation of isolation that is characterized as “lacking spirituality” and outside the interests of society. The technical elements are increasingly replacing the human elements. Formerly held humanitarian and organic ties are being replaced by technical, ethically neutral methods. Every “power machine” wants to appear impartial and objective in its actions and decisions; yet, even though the machine has no fate, it cannot avoid accidents. The tendency to evaluate everything in terms of numbers – both infinitesimally small and infinitely large can be traced back to antiquity. Machinery needs an accurate calculation of probabilities: it focuses on foresight; therefore, it embodies a “process” and cares not about tradition, but only about the stability of the system. The machine begins to live for itself and for its future.
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Kryvorouchko, Svitlana, Larysa Rychkova, and Olena Karpenko. "TRENDS LITERATURE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY: «WORKING NOVEL», MINIMALISM, «NEW WAVE»." Fìlologìčnì traktati 13, no. 1 (2021): 32–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.21272/ftrk.2021.13(1)-4.
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In Ukrainian literary studies, the idea was formed that «Western» literaturethe second half of the 20th century inherent aesthetics of postmodernism. However, the question arises: is this process homogeneous? Branching aesthetics of literary works 2 half of the 20th century is a scientific problem that needs to be understood. This is important because it requires a theoretical basis for the study of individual personalities / writers whose individual style have common points of intersection with general world artistic landmarks. The purpose of the article is to try to form a «system» of directions and currents of the the second half of the 20th century. This is the first approximation to a scientific problem. We used comparative-historical and typological methods, a systematic approach to achieve the purpose. In the postmodern era – the second half of the 20th century, the feeling of unconscious fear of the individual before the development of scientific technologies, before the nuclear threat is reflected. The trends of the «working novel», the current of «neorealism», the current of «new wave», the group of «minimalism» were formed in the literature of the the second half of the 20th century, they are not included in the discourse of postmodernism and post-avant-garde, because in these works there is a realistic chronotope. Here a new type of hero is formed and the moral and ethical problems of the «average» ordinary person, which does not succeed, are raised. The consciousness of the characters disintegrates, they are unable to comprehend either their ideas or the statements of others. They have no strength and energy at all. Boredom sometimes pushes them to action, which reflects the trends of the time. Intellectuals are presented as psychologically dead people who are incapable of anything, empty, doomed. The individualism of the hero raises the problem of isolation and disunity of people in a narrow domestic and broad historical context. The social problems of the «workers' novel», the «new wave», minimalism and neorealism contributed to the introduction and use of the border 20th-21th centuries by writers the realistic chronotope in the trend of «critical fiction»
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Vereshchinskaya, Yu V., and E. S. Syschikova. "Punctuation as a tool of the communicative and semantic organization of the text: norm and usus (on the material of the Spanish language)." Linguistics & Polyglot Studies 9, no. 4 (December 20, 2023): 8–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.24833/2410-2423-2023-4-37-8-25.
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The article is devoted to the study of Spanish punctuation from the point of view of its role in the communicative and semantic organization of the text. The setting of certain punctuation marks or their absence always raises questions among students of the Spanish language, and therefore requires in-depth scientific research and clarification. The article studies the punctuation rules established by the Royal Spanish Academy, and deviations from them, which may be associated with the prosodic tradition of the language, the presence of secondary members, genre originality, the influence of the English language, the individual characteristics of the author’s style, the communicative task of the utterance, etc. The source material was contemporary Spanish-language fiction, periodical texts, scientific articles, blog fragments, and comments on social networks. Thus, the work reflects the compositional and semantic features of all genres. In Spanish sentences, the role of the prosodic tradition is strong, so often the punctuation marks are dictated by the presence of the pause in oral speech or the intonation of the utterance. At the same time, punctuation marks show semantic-syntactic links between text units that contribute to the understanding of the text. In the article, the authors consider in detail the features of the use of periods, commas, semicolons, colons, round and square brackets, dashes, quotation marks, question and exclamation marks, and ellipsis. The most difficult is the setting of a comma, which, in addition to its main functions of enumeration, treatment, application, isolation of introductory information, is used in elliptical constructions, in the presence of syntactic inversion, to separate definitive clauses, in order to avoid ambiguity. The clarifying function in Spanish is performed by commas, brackets and dashes. The choice of this or that sign is dictated by the degree of proximity of the explanatory information to the main sentence and the nature of the perception of this utterance by the reader. A distinctive feature of Spanish punctuation is the designation of interrogative and exclamatory intonation in writing using the double use of question and exclamation marks: at the beginning of a sentence, inverted, and at the end of a sentence, in the usual form. Despite the prescriptive nature of punctuation rules, modern Spanish texts contain many examples of unregulated use of punctuation marks, and in some cases ignoring them leads to misunderstanding of the text. The article may be of interest to philologists, teachers of Spanish as a foreign language and all those who study Spanish.
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Alonso, Mariângela. "Do alto ao baixo: o Rio de Janeiro em A estrela sobe, de Marques Rebelo / From the Upper to the Lower City: Rio de Janeiro in A estrela sobe, by Marques Rebelo." O Eixo e a Roda: Revista de Literatura Brasileira 28, no. 3 (September 3, 2019): 163. http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/2358-9787.28.3.163-182.
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Resumo: O presente artigo tem por objetivo discutir a importância do espaço no romance A estrela sobe (1939), de Marques Rebelo. A trama dedica-se a um curioso painel dos últimos anos da década de trinta, ao mesmo tempo em que elabora o singular embate entre a cidade do Rio de Janeiro e a personagem Leniza Máier, jovem aspirante à carreira de cantora de rádio. Na trajetória de Leniza, a cidade evidencia-se como espaço de descontinuidade e cisão, observação e discurso. A narrativa de A estrela sobe lança mão de múltiplas significações que vão além da simples esfera descritiva, pois mapeia sensibilidades e encarna questionamentos não só espaciais da urbe moderna, mas, sobretudo, subjetivos e sociais da referida protagonista. Ao escolher o caminho ladeira abaixo para abandonar a inocência do subúrbio onde crescera, Leniza ascende ao estrelato no centro da cidade, ao mesmo tempo em que decai moralmente experimentando conflitos e isolamentos. Os movimentos de descida e subida participam do próprio sentido da obra, oferecendo uma armação estrutural, labiríntica e poética do Rio de Janeiro. Nesse sentido, a espacialidade constitui fonte potencial e emblemática do romance como presença incessante da angústia e solidão vivenciadas pela personagem. Para empreender a análise, o estudo visa o questionamento da funcionalidade do espaço à luz dos conceitos teóricos de Michel Foucault (2001), Iuri Lotman (1978), Gaston Bachelard (2001), entre outros. Ademais, serão considerados ensaios críticos que abordem a ficção moderna de Marques Rebelo.Palavras-chave: espaço; Marques Rebelo; A estrela sobe.Abstract: We aim to discuss the importance of space in Marques Rebelo’s novel A estrela sobe (1939). The plot is centered on a curious overview of the 1930s last years, while it shows the singular shock between Rio de Janeiro city and the character Leniza Máier, a young aspirant to the radio singing career. In Leniza’s trajectory, the city is evidenced as a space of discontinuity and scission, observation and discourse. A estrela sobe narrative gives rise to multiple meanings that go beyond the simple descriptive realm, since it maps out sensitivities and embodies not only spatial matters of the modern city, but especially the subjective and social aspects of the above-mentioned protagonist. By going downhill to abandon the innocence of the suburb where she grew up, Leniza rises as a star in the downtown area, at the same time she morally decays experiencing conflicts and isolation. The movements of going up and down are part of the own story meaning, offering a structural, labyrinthine and poetic picture of Rio de Janeiro. In this sense, spatiality is the potential and emblematic source of the novel as an incessant presence of the anguish and solitude experienced by the character. In order to undertake the analysis, we aim at questioning the functionality of space in the light of the theoretical concepts of Michel Foucault (2001), Iuri Lotman (1978), Gaston Bachelard (2001), among others. In addition, critical essays that address Marques Rebelo’s modern fiction will be considered.Keywords: space; Marques Rebelo; A estrela sobe.
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Latu, Maxim. "Mass Self-Isolation and the Imaginary World of the Future: Visions and Time Spans Reflected in Memes." Balkanistic Forum 30, no. 2 (June 1, 2021): 212–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.37708/bf.swu.v30i2.13.
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The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic as well as the restrictions and measures that were taken to fight it had a great effect on the society. Thus, a lot of memes were created the authors of which frequently related their visions and ideas about mass self-isolation to a particular time span within and after this period. This paper focuses on such polycode texts and considers the ideas and visions that are expressed in them. As the results of the research demonstrate, the image of the world during and after the mass self-isolation period depicted in memes is often opposed to the familiar reality people were accustomed to. The very first days, weeks and months of social isolation, the post-mass-self-isolation months that followed, years of the near and distant future were put into context. The authors mentioned the changes that they thought occurred or would occur in relation to the behaviour, habits, appearance and psychological state of a person, social interaction, etc., expressing concerns, mentioning problems and joking about them. Some of these visions were not far from the truth, while others were far from reality. Due to the exaggeration and hyperbolization of these ideas and metaphorical and figurative perception of the observed phenomena, an image of alternative conceivable reality and imaginary world was constructed, parts of which might be distorted or merely fictional. From the early days of mass self-isolation and after it, vaccines were considered to be a means of getting the world back to normal. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic as well as the restrictions and measures that were taken to fight it had a great effect on the society. Thus, a lot of memes were created the authors of which frequently related their visions and ideas about mass self-isolation to a particular time span within and after this period. This paper focuses on such polycode texts and considers the ideas and visions that are expressed in them. As the results of the research demonstrate, the image of the world during and after the mass self-isolation period depicted in memes is often opposed to the familiar reality people were accustomed to. The very first days, weeks and months of social isolation, the post-mass-self-isolation months that followed, years of the near and distant future were put into context. The authors mentioned the changes that they thought occurred or would occur in relation to the behaviour, habits, appearance and psychological state of a person, social interaction, etc., expressing concerns, mentioning problems and joking about them. Some of these visions were not far from the truth, while others were far from reality. Due to the exaggeration and hyperbolization of these ideas and metaphorical and figurative perception of the observed phenomena, an image of alternative conceivable reality and imaginary world was constructed, parts of which might be distorted or merely fictional. From the early days of mass self-isolation and after it, vaccines were considered to be a means of getting the world back to normal.
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Van Vleet, Bryce, Emily Kinkade, Heather Fuller, and Andrea Huseth-Zosel. "LACKING FAMILY TIES DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC: OLDER ADULTS CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT." Innovation in Aging 6, Supplement_1 (November 1, 2022): 829. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igac059.2977.
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Abstract Social support from family provided benefits for coping during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, not all older adults had access to family. The present study investigates how older adults without access to traditional family ties conceptualized their social relationships throughout the first two years of the pandemic. A subsample of eight older adults without direct access to traditional family ties were identified from a larger 5-wave interview study conducted between April 2020 and June 2022. Transcripts were holistically coded and three overarching themes emerged: constraints of place, redefining family, and feelings of isolation and closeness. The first theme addressed having family members living far away and uncertainty of when they would get to see them again. However, these distance barriers could be overcome through technology. The second theme illuminated that during the pandemic, those without access to traditional family ties redefined their social relationships by developing fictive kin from neighbors, colleagues, and friends. The third theme highlighted that some older adults felt they were lacking strong social networks and were concerned they had nobody to contact if they needed help, while others felt that despite limitations, their social relationships grew closer due to connection through alternative forms of communication (e.g. texting). Results from this study clarify how traditional family ties were challenged and strengthened during physical distancing for some older adults. These findings extend the literature on how fictive kin forms in older adulthood during temporary crises and suggests potential avenues for social connection for older adults lacking traditional family support.
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Ehriander, Helene, and Michael Godhe. "Youth solving pandemics: hopeful futures in Maths Claesson’s novel Pandemic." Neohelicon 48, no. 2 (November 8, 2021): 465–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11059-021-00608-8.
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AbstractAre representations of pandemics in fiction always bleak dystopian tales understood as nature’s revenge on the modern Faustian man, or could they also express hope and expand our imagination in a time of environmental crisis? In this article, we analyse the young adult novel Pandemic (Swedish title: Pandemi, 2018) by Swedish author Maths Claesson. Pandemic is the third novel in a trilogy (2013–2018) with 15-year-old astronaut-trainee Linux as the main protagonist. During his astronaut program on a space station, a pandemic breaks out on Earth. While scientists on Earth struggle to isolate the virus and find a vaccine, Linux and his fellow astronaut-trainees are asked by the WHO to try out a simulation, a computer game aimed at isolating a pandemic outbreak and finding a vaccine. Their simulation is successful and eventually becomes decisive for the solution of the current pandemic crisis on Earth. Departing from Critical Future Studies (Goode and Godhe, Cult Unbound J Curr Cul Res 9(1):108–129, 2017), we focus on the figures of hope (cf. Moylan, Demand the impossible: Science fiction and the utopian imagination, Methuen, pp. 1–2, 1986) for a sustainable future and analyse how the novel is widening the scopes of possible futures. We show how the computer simulation and the successful solution of the crisis serves as a vehicle for a broader discussion about what kind of future we want, a future where the conquest of space offers new opportunities, e.g. for solving the environmental crisis. While normally in Y/A speculative fiction, technology is almost exclusively depicted as ostensibly serving human needs, in Pandemic it is thanks to technology, and the younger generation’s particular skills, that the disease is conquered. In this sense, the novel is hopeful since it depicts the younger generation as being capable of developing different thinking patterns from those of the adult society.
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Kucała, Bożena. "On Edge: Liminality and the COVID Pandemic in Sarah Moss’s The Fell." Studia Litteraria 18, no. 2 (2023): 103–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/20843933st.23.012.18182.
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Sarah Moss’s novel The Fell (2021) is a fictional reflection upon the second UK lockdown in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to its topicality, the novel is likely to be read as a “time capsule,” preserving the unprecedented experience of social isolation, anxiety and domestic incarceration. Starting with the assumption that living in a time of pestilence may be characterised as a borderline experience, this article argues that The Fell revolves around the paradigm of liminality. For the characters portrayed in the book the threshold is social, psychological and existential. Nevertheless, for the main protagonist the metaphorical and the literal merge when, driven to the limit of endurance, she falls off the edge of a cliff while taking a walk on the fells of the Peak District, in defiance of the quarantine restrictions. The article analyses various meanings of liminality in Moss’s novel.
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Brincker, Maria. "Disoriented and Alone in the “Experience Machine” – On Netflix, Shared World Deceptions and the Consequences of Deepening Algorithmic Personalization." SATS 22, no. 1 (July 1, 2021): 75–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sats-2021-0005.
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Abstract Most online platforms are becoming increasingly algorithmically personalized. The question is if these practices are simply satisfying users preferences or if something is lost in this process. This article focuses on how to reconcile the personalization with the importance of being able to share cultural objects – including fiction – with others. In analyzing two concrete personalization examples from the streaming giant Netflix, several tendencies are observed. One is to isolate users and sometimes entirely eliminate shared world aspects. Another tendency is to blur the boundary between shared cultural objects and personalized content, which can be misleading and disorienting. A further tendency is for personalization algorithms to be optimized to deceptively prey on desires for content that mirrors one’s own lived experience. Some specific – often minority targeting – “clickbait” practices received public blowback. These practices show disregard both for honest labeling and for our desires to have access and representation in a shared world. The article concludes that personalization tendencies are moving towards increasingly isolating and disorienting interfaces, but that platforms could be redesigned to support better social world orientation.
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Jesson, Claire. "‘We shall really have to do something about your equipment’: The Projectionist's Negotiation of Obsolescence in The Smallest Show on Earth and Coming Up Roses." Journal of British Cinema and Television 15, no. 1 (January 2018): 115–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2018.0405.
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This article analyses two British film comedies, The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) and the Welsh-language film Coming Up Roses (Rhosyn a Rhith) (1986), both of which feature projectionists as significant characters. It focuses on the implications of the projectionist as a hero within the narratives, on his portrayal and on the dramatisation of his labour. I examine the paradox of his inhabiting a central narrative role when his professional one requires his isolation and invisibility, when his own attention is funnelled towards the on-screen diegesis he is concerned to project and, moreover, when his obsolescence is mandated by cinema closure. The films' promotion of exhibition itself as object and comedic spectacle is interrogated. Within this, I attend closely to diegetic films: to how the fictive screen relates to the wider text and to how it figures or expresses its concerns and enlarges its meanings. A related area of enquiry is how institutions of cinema mirror and ‘project’ wider social issues and how cinema shapes, and is shaped by, its audiences. How does the restoration of the projectionist's libido, and his rehabilitation through marriage, relate to cinema's place within social, cultural and political life?
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Gusarova, K. O. "Fantasies of being somebody: Auto / biographic potential of posing conventions." Shagi / Steps 9, no. 4 (2023): 268–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2023-9-4-268-285.
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The article examines the tension between the individual and the collective in current mainstream photographic practice, which is considered within the long-term historical context of commercial portraiture. The individualizing tendencies of this representational tradition as well as its status as (auto)biographical fiction were astutely analyzed by the Russian avant-garde thinkers Alexander Rodchenko and Osip Brik. Criticizing the persistence of “painterly” clichés in studio photography of their time, they saw these conventional elements as something that obscures and distorts reality, substituting for it a beautiful picture. For these leftist theorists, reality was primarily defined by the interplay of social forces, and isolating the subject within the picture frame was sufficient grounds for their disapproval. Taking up their notion of cliché applied particularly to posing, this article proposes to view it, instead, as an entry point into the usually invisible collective dimension of each individual portrait. The first section of the article discusses historical precedents to current mainstream photographic portraiture in terms of class- and gender-specific pressures on the sitters which have contributed to the homogenization of the genre’s visual canon. The suggestion to view stylistically similar images of individuals as expressing a latent collectivity is developed in the second part of the article, which analyzes Jana Romanova’s photographic series W through the theoretical framework borrowed from Lauren Berlant (“intimate public”, “female complaint”) and Gayle Letherby (“auto/biography”).
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Rice, Alan J. "Jazzing It Up A Storm: The Execution and Meaning of Toni Morrison's Jazzy Prose Style." Journal of American Studies 28, no. 3 (December 1994): 423–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021875800027663.
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The publication of Toni Morrison's new novel Jazz with its insistent jazzy themes and rhythms will have concentrated the minds of critics on the relationship of her work to America's most important indigenous artistic form, jazz music. However, in their headlong rush to foreground the impact of jazz on Toni Morrison's latest novel critics should be wary of isolating this novel as her only jazz-influenced work. All of her novels have been informed by the rhythms and cadences of a black musical tradition and in this article I want to stress the centrality of jazz music stylistically to her whole corpus of work. Morrison herself has acknowledged the centrality of a musical aesthetic to her work in interview after interview long before the publication of Jazz:…a novel written a certain way can do precisely what spirituals used to do. It can do exactly what blues or jazz or gossip or stories or myths or folklore did – that stuff which was a common wellspring of ideas…Morrison is writing out of an oral tradition which foregrounds musical performances as well as other oral forms. Some critics have acknowledged the importance of jazz to her work, notably Anthony J. Berret in his article “Toni Morrison's Literary Jazz”. But, despite some provocative and illuminating comments, his is not a systematic account of the use of a jazz mode in Morrison's fiction and I wish in this paper to attempt a more rigorous analysis of her early novels, outlining her willed use of a jazz aesthetic as a pivotal structural device.
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Samoshchuk, Oksana. "FRANZ KAFKA: PSYCHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE WRITER'S OEUVRE." PSYCHOLOGICAL JOURNAL 6, no. 10 (October 30, 2020): 119–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.31108/1.2020.6.10.12.
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The article presents the results of research on Franz Kafka's personality and oeuvre. The influence of cultural and historical factors on the development of the writer's personality was examined. The period and place of Kafka's residence had signs of social instability and conflict, including such events as the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the analysis based on autobiographical facts showed that the writer had seemingly a low level of interest in global historical events, and, therefore, the latter had insignificant influence on Kafka’s writing. The factors that had a significant impact on Kafka’s personality and works were divided into several groups. The micro factors include close social environment and micro events. In these groups, the following facts played a significant role. The most important figure in Kafka's life was his authoritarian and oppressive father. Through their relationship the writer’s main personality traits were developed. Constant acts of psychological tyranny, negative reinforcement of any Kafka’s initiative, including creative writing, and the feeling of guilt regarding everything that Kafka would do, led to the development of shyness, low self-esteem, insecurity, social isolation, permanent fear of the outside world, despondency and continuous unreasonable feeling of guilt. In this relationship, the mother played a role of a buffer, and over time, the son and the father started to communicate only through her. Kafka often endowed the main characters of his works with all of the above features, and portrayed their lives as depressing, sullen and hopeless. The psychological childhood trauma inflicted by Kafka’s father had substantial consequences, the emotions of its experience were embedded in the storylines of the writer’s novels (e.g. "The Trial", "The Castle"), where the protagonist is under complete control of a higher authority that punishes and humiliates him for unknown reasons. Although writer's loyal friend, Max Brod, provided psychological support and encouraged him to write, Kafka’s disappointment in his own talent sometimes led to the destruction of manuscripts. Research also revealed that personality characteristics of certain writer’s relatives were portrayed as his characters’ features in the novels, in “The Trial”, for instance. According to the study, it was found out that although the plot of the main works of Franz Kafka and his characters have fictional decorations and names, the emotions that run through his works have entirely real grounds and the writer experienced them at certain periods of his life.
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Fokaidis, Athena. "Voice-over and sharing bodies in Alice Diop’s Vers la tendresse (2016)." Contemporary French Civilization: Volume 47, Issue 1 47, no. 1 (March 1, 2022): 109–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.6.
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Films in French have long been global in scope, and debates around the nomenclature used to describe these cinematic works have emerged as a means to acknowledge the power imbalance invoked by categorizations such as French and francophone. Cinéma-monde serves as an organizing principle to articulate the relationships between films and the French-speaking world without reinforcing spatial and linguistic boundaries by way of a center/periphery paradigm. This article addresses the implications of the cinéma-monde framework within the Hexagon to illustrate the representational modes of diffusing marginality in cinema made in France. This article offers a close reading of a scene from Alice Diop’s documentary Vers la tendresse (2016) that mobilizes what Mary Ann Doane calls a disembodied voice-over in combination with camera movement to create an open cinematic space which disjoins the internal experiences expressed by the voice-over from the outward appearances of the characters. Diop assembles a fictional mise-en-scène and recordings of male interviewees speaking at a workshop held in Seine-Saint-Denis on the subject of intimacy. As the camera pans slowly across a group of men, it is unclear which body is the visual representation of the narration. Calling upon Michel Chion’s audiovisual contract and its rupture in Vers la tendresse, this article addresses how a dissonance between image and sound permits one voice to accompany several different bodies, an effect that reveals and dismantles the building blocks of the narrator’s isolation. Viewed through the framework of cinémamonde and its decentering approaches, Vers la tendresse underscores the flexibility of the film space and, consequently, social boundaries, to shed light on how we intentionally or unintentionally constitute others in society.
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Iannarone, Antonio. "When Not Communicating. The Critical Potential of the Literary Text and the Limits of Interpretation." Journal of Literary Theory 14, no. 1 (March 1, 2020): 55–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-0004.
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AbstractToday, as announced by this special issue, the contest of interpretation against aesthetic experience appears urgent and timely. For surely a critical profession should clarify its sense of how to proceed before actually engaging to do so. But how are we to have any such sense in advance of an encounter with the literary text, ostensible object of the discipline? I argue that it is only within the limits of critique, as met with in the objectivity of the artwork, that we might be confident of our interpretations.To paraphrase Hegel, literary interpretation misses an advantage enjoyed by the natural sciences (Hegel 1959, 33). Although recourse may be made to individual works of formal writing in »evidence« of a theory, still, no literary interpretation can presume its methods to be already accepted. Moreover, purely »systematic or theoretical« discussions of interpretation ring hollow when and, indeed, because they are empty of perceptible content. For the honest reader, the literary artwork remains sensibly resilient or resistant to, not to say frustrating of, systematic discussions – and this must be taken into account. As readers (rather than philosophers) of literature we are in luck, for even (or especially) without determining the meaning of a given work, we have before us something that remains »outside« of us. In sustaining his or her attention to this external object (and in coming to regard it as an »artwork«), and thus compelled to see the qualitative distance within and structuring experience, the reader finds that the text is more than just some thing or technical device to conceal meaning. It is what Adorno calls »the objectivity« of the artwork produced by the »movement of the mind« of the subject that, I argue, critiques the apparent choice of independent meaning or independent sensuousness as alternative bases for interpretive practice (Adorno 1983, 19). The literary work, as it becomes objective for its reader, becomes too a limit upon how that reader interprets it, that is, a limit upon the merely subjective.The trouble with the question of whether to privilege the sensuousness or the meaning of art, is that it is framed as though this were still a choice to be made, as if the one could be isolated from, and be taken without concern for the other. Perhaps we cannot be reminded too often, as Claudia Brodsky reminds us, that not since the »first modern redefinition« of the »aesthetic« in Kant’s Third Critique could »specific content« be »considered in isolation from form«. No more can the critical project be put back into the bottle, than the »dynamism« of form articulated through Kant’s analysis of aesthetic judgment be reduced once more to either static form or content. The consideration of »meaning« isolated from form must remain, alas, the advantage of the natural sciences. If, as Brodsky continues with Kant’s definition, »dynamic, ›purposive‹ form causes our pleasure in the aesthetic«, then the consideration of sensory experience isolated from form »remains tied to [the] original, ancient meaning« of »aesthetic«, »that of pertaining to any sensory experience at all« (Brodsky 1997, 376). If subsequently it has come to seem as though the (external) »uncovering of meaning« and (internal) »aesthetic pleasure« are at incommunicable odds, we must recall that these two cannot be separated out from one another in the analysis of a perceptible object without the aesthetic disappearing entirely from view – for, by modern definition, the appearance of their mutual implication is what we mean when we call something an »aesthetic« object. The clean, absolute break between subject and object implicit in the ancient definition is irreparably complicated by Kant’s radical analysis of aesthetic perception and its implication that subjectivity and formal objecthood cannot be insulated, one from the other. Even when the ancient meaning of »aesthetic« is taken up in order to speak again of sensation as bracketed off from form, such considerations are not to our advantage as interpreters and critics of literature, but rather lead into other, more positive disciplines, having no purchase upon that doubling movement of the formal object and perceiving subject. The consequences of this critical redefinition for the practice of literary interpretation are still not settled, or even if theoretically settled, not yet absorbed into practice.The editors of this special issue have proposed an impasse in, or crisis between aesthetics and interpretation as our subject today. Within the tradition of aesthetics as dynamic form or double movement sketched here between Kant and Adorno, I locate another radical tradition of interpretation, that of black aesthetic critique. With the particular sensory availability of visual art in mind, this essay considers not only James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), but also a work in another medium and separated by a long century in the political arc of black subjects in the United States, an untitled etching by the artist Glenn Ligon. With reference to discussions by Darby English (2005), Marie de Brugerolle (1995) and Andrea Miller-Keller (1992), this essay analyzes the ways in which Ligon’s etching is irreducible to his political identity. For one of the most powerful effects of the visibly differentiated presence of Ligon’s work is its ability to make us »see« that the intentional structure of an artwork, i. e. the interrelating of parts internal to itself, much like the fictively »autobiographical« structure of ECM, does not so much »communicate« or teach us about race in the United States, as use patterned abstraction to critique the impulse to turn to aesthetic objects to explicate social conditions, extract recognizable meanings, or ground political decisions. These works do not allow themselves to be read unproblematically as about black lives or as representative of black situations. Their »difficulty« inhibits any reading (whether called phenomenological or ontological) in which the difference of material and representation, or the difference of the representational and the representative is collapsed in an attempt to enjoy a clearer, less troubled (less literary) view through the perspective ostensibly afforded by the (black authored) work, as though it were a transparent »window« either onto the world or »into« the (black) subject. Furthermore, because each of these works self-consciously situate themselves within the troubled socio-history of black autobiography, black literacy, and presupposing racialist ontologies, what I will describe as their objectivity upsets not only ontological accounts, but also those social fictions of race that, among other more lethal consequences, have interpreted and continue to interpret works such as these to be »representative« of black experience. Considering the canon of African American literature by closely examining selected texts containing critiques of that very category, I propose, as it were, a third way, one that heeds the artwork’s own critique of interpretation and so helps us to move beyond the impasse suggested by the editors. The potential of the art object is critical. The aim of the analytic work in this current study is to restore to our encounter with these works the capacities for aesthetic attention and judgement occasioned by all »authentic« artworks, that is, works that do not conform to their audiences’ expectations.
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Carney, Gemma M., Jane Lugea, Carolina Fernandez-Quintanilla, and Paula Devine. "‘Sometimers, Alzheimer’s? I love that! That’s definitely me’: Readers’ responses to fictional dementia narratives." Gerontologist, May 12, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnad055.
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Abstract This article presents findings from an interdisciplinary project which invited readers to experience the impact of dementia via fictional characters’ narratives. Combining methods from critical gerontology and literary linguistics - a field that examines the language of literature - we undertook an empirical reader response study of dementia fiction. We constructed a large corpus of dementia fiction; selecting twelve extracts, each containing first-hand, focalized accounts of fictional characters’ experiences of living with dementia. Readers (31) were purposively sampled for four separate reading groups – student social workers (9); general public (9); family carers (6); people with dementia (7). Over six weeks they engaged in separate, facilitated, on-line group discussions of extracts. Discussions were independently coded using Atlas.ti. While readers from all four groups reported that fictional characters drew them into the internal life of someone with dementia, some carers questioned whether fictional characters’ experiences were plausible. Readers with dementia recognized themselves in the extracts; viewing fictional characters as eloquent envoys of their lived experiences of diagnosis, social isolation, loss of language and use of humor. Fictional characters offer an entry point for understanding contrasts in caregiver and care-receiver experiences of dementia. Fictional characters are potentially useful for moving dementia narratives beyond monstrous cultural metaphors and onto a disability-based rights agenda.
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Tuna Ultav, Zeynep, and Müge Sever. "Interdisciplinary Nature of Architectural Discourse within the Triangle of Architecture, Sociology and Literary Fiction." Space and Culture, March 14, 2020, 120633122090526. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1206331220905260.
Full textAbstract:
With the supposition that architectural discourse has an interdisciplinary nature, this study aims to display the way literary fiction borrows several themes from architectural discourse in order to form its “literary spaces” as well as the way architectural discourse borrows several themes from other social sciences, especially from sociology. Thus, new wave science fiction writer J.G. Ballard’s literature provides a fruitful resource for the construction of this study. It will be demonstrated that spatial data within the five selected works of Ballard exist in a similar way within architectural discourse of the recent past that criticizes modern architectural movement via several themes. An analysis will be made parallel to the discourses of the critiques of modern architectural discourse. In this sense, intersecting both the discourse of architecture and that of Ballard, there emerge three common themes to focus on: social isolation, class discrimination as a result of social isolation, and alienation in the modern world. While displaying the mediatory role of architectural discourse between sociology and literary fiction through reading in the spatiality of the text, the study will also draw lessons to be learned from Ballard’s works emphasizing the production of design theory through the field of discourse.
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Wagner, Tamara S. "Becoming Foreign in the Victorian Novel: International Migration in Little Dorrit and Villette." Journal of Victorian Culture, October 27, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcaa034.
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Abstract This article analyses the representation of migrant workers in Victorian fiction. While exploring the seldom-discussed experience of such migrants, I argue that in the fiction of the time, migration for work outside of the empire expresses the experience of individual isolation as the result of increasing urban anonymity as well as of global exchanges. The figure of the migrant thereby literalizes modern isolation in an emergent society of strangers. In depicting migratory characters as embodiments of loneliness, while establishing it as a shared experience through parallel plots, nineteenth-century novels map out possible connections in a globalizing world. In parsing the interplay of isolation and imaginary sympathy in two texts of the 1850s, Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit and Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, I argue that the experience of feeling foreign while working abroad enables characters to seek connections that transcend boundaries of class and national identity, even as the sympathy they imagine might be flawed, warped by projection and identification. In Little Dorrit, Cavalletto’s accident in the streets of London enacts a pivotal moment of imagined sympathy for the recently returned Arthur Clennam that ultimately helps to solve the renegotiation of home and host country in the novel, while in Villette, a female migrant articulates an increasingly widespread experience not only of modern isolation, social invisibility, and cultural disorientation, but also of the power of anonymity. A critical analysis of migratory work in Victorian fiction adds an important new dimension to nineteenth-century global studies.
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"Repression, Isolation, and Paranoia: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Study of ‘The Nightmare’ by Rukhsana Ahmad." University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.33195/jll.v1ii.26.
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Generally, literature written by Pakistani women writers in English depicts women as victims of patriarchy, social and cultural oppression. Meanwhile, in recent times the short fiction is exploring new paradigms related to the psychological oppression of married women in Pakistan. The following paper selects the short story, ‘The Nightmare’ by Pakistani writer, Rukhsana Ahmad, where a housewife suffers from paranoia because of disconsolate marriage. Therefore, this research aims to study the causes of psychological disorders specifically paranoia among apparently happy housewives. Moreover, the causes and effects of repression and isolation on personality of women would be discussed from the psychoanalytic feminist perspective using the framework of Sigmund Freud (1973- 86) through the character of Fariha. Through the method of character analysis (Dobie, 2011) this paper concludes that the childhood experiences of repression are the reason for victim’s passiveness towards psychological oppression during adult life. This paper would also help in establishing the conclusion that women who suffer abuse in their childhood are more likely to face abuse in their adult lives, which becomes the cause of their psychological instability. Key Words: Short Fiction, Pakistani women, Paranoia, Housewives, isolation, unconscious, symbols, psychological abuse.
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"Repression, Isolation, and Paranoia: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Study of ‘The Nightmare’ by Rukhsana Ahmad." University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.33195/jll.v1ii.26.
Full textAbstract:
Generally, literature written by Pakistani women writers in English depicts women as victims of patriarchy, social and cultural oppression. Meanwhile, in recent times the short fiction is exploring new paradigms related to the psychological oppression of married women in Pakistan. The following paper selects the short story, ‘The Nightmare’ by Pakistani writer, Rukhsana Ahmad, where a housewife suffers from paranoia because of disconsolate marriage. Therefore, this research aims to study the causes of psychological disorders specifically paranoia among apparently happy housewives. Moreover, the causes and effects of repression and isolation on personality of women would be discussed from the psychoanalytic feminist perspective using the framework of Sigmund Freud (1973- 86) through the character of Fariha. Through the method of character analysis (Dobie, 2011) this paper concludes that the childhood experiences of repression are the reason for victim’s passiveness towards psychological oppression during adult life. This paper would also help in establishing the conclusion that women who suffer abuse in their childhood are more likely to face abuse in their adult lives, which becomes the cause of their psychological instability. Key Words: Short Fiction, Pakistani women, Paranoia, Housewives, isolation, unconscious, symbols, psychological abuse.
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Vallis, CJ. "Heaven on Earth." PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 17, no. 1-2 (January 28, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/pjmis.v17i1-2.7411.
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‘Heaven on earth’ is a creative non-fiction piece which juxtaposes life under lockdown in Sydney 2020 with my experience of curfew in Kashmir in the 1990s. The COVID-19 crisis is explored from the resonances and dissonances across place and time. In this hybrid personal essay, I reflect on how a sense of space is constructed from wealth and community, and how a white, middle-class status benefits from lockdown, juxtaposed against the ongoing political and social isolation of Kashmir.
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"Repression, Isolation and Paranoia: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Study of ‘The Nightmare’ by Rukhsana Ahmad." University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature, November 30, 2018, 47–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.33195/jll.v1ii.149.
Full textAbstract:
Generally, literature written by Pakistani women writers in English depicts women as victims of patriarchy, social and cultural oppression. Meanwhile, in recent times the short fiction is exploring new paradigms related to the psychological oppression of married women in Pakistan. The following paper selects the short story, ‘The Nightmare’ by Pakistani writer, Rukhsana Ahmad, where a housewife suffers from paranoia because of disconsolate marriage. Therefore, this research aims to study the causes of psychological disorders specifically paranoia among apparently happy housewives. Moreover, the causes and effects of repression and isolation on personality of women would be discussed from the psychoanalytic feminist perspective using the framework of Sigmund Freud (1973- 86) through the character of Fariha. Through the method of character analysis (Dobie, 2011) this paper concludes that the childhood experiences of repression are the reason for victim’s passiveness towards psychological oppression during adult life. This paper would also help in establishing the conclusion that women who suffer abuse in their childhood are more likely to face abuse in their adult lives, which becomes the cause of their psychological instability.
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Fürst, Henrik. "Arrival to a fictional total institution." Sociologisk Forskning 59, no. 3 (December 15, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.37062/sf.59.23571.
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Arrivals have an unexplored significance as a phenomenon in sociology. This article studies depictions of arrivals to art education courses at Swedish folk high schools in fiction. These arrivals are liminal transitions between two states, warranting personal change, either being the solution to a previous problem or creating a problem (to be solved). Many spaces in society have lost their status as total institutions physically and symbolically detached from the rest of society. The rarity of and desire for totalizing milieus create possibilities for self-exploration and self-development in characters, enabling authenticity and revealing truths of social life. The depiction of the folk high school as a total institution of isolation and a liminal space for change is effective in (re-)producing cultural images of the folk high school and as a literary device to contain characters and develop conflicts that arise from the milieu. At the same time, these arrival stories demonstrate the importance of liminality in arrival and suggest that arrival be studied as a general phenomenon to uncover hidden facets of institutionalized social life.
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KIRYAMAN, Erkin. "DORIS LESSING’İN THE FIFTH CHILD VE BEN, IN THE WORLD ADLI ESERLERİNDE İTAATSİZ BEDEN VE DÜZEN MEKANİZMALARI." Pamukkale University Journal of Social Sciences Institute, February 26, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.30794/pausbed.1336327.
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Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child (1988) and Ben, in the World (2000) narrate the tragic story of Ben Lovatt who is identified as the anomalous fifth child in the Lovatt family. Set in London in the 1960s, with its focalisation on Ben’s early childhood, from his mother’s pregnancy to his confinement into his cot after his birth, The Fifth Child navigates through the ideological construction of Ben’s self through power and isolation. Ben, in the World, on the other hand, maintains Ben’s story from his eighteenth year and presents his strife for survival in a social world in which he is forced to be a member of society with his social self and social body. While both works can be regarded as the adventures of Ben, who is isolated and alienated from his family and society, they also draw social environs in which Ben’s body is constructed via the discursive mechanisms of otherness and wildness. Ben’s othered self and body are foregrounded by abnormal corporeal relations and unhuman depictions throughout Lessing’s fiction. In this sense, this study focuses on the trajectories of Ben’s body in these narratives to discuss Ben’s unruly body which is forced to be regulated by the familial, social and institutional mechanisms of power.