Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.13
Elena Ancuța Ștefan
Given that in the last few decades theories of adaptation have advanced enormously, with such names as Linda Hutcheon setting the theoretical premise of these ideas, it is essential to see how certain aspects present in canonical texts have been translated into present-day literature. In this paper, I discuss how the father-daughter relationship in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, has been (re)interpreted through the carrying of similar characters and situations in the novel Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson. The novel does not only serve as a means of projecting old ideas as new, but it also provides the stage of resolution for such prominent characters as Shylock. In order to have a broader understanding of the (re)interpreted father-daughter relationship, this chapter will take into account the sociological symbolism of the contemporary text, with Erik Erikson’s descriptions of adolescence in the foreground.
{"title":"Trails of Cultural Memory: Rediscovering Shylock as a Father Figure in the 21st Century","authors":"Elena Ancuța Ștefan","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.13","url":null,"abstract":"Given that in the last few decades theories of adaptation have advanced enormously, with such names as Linda Hutcheon setting the theoretical premise of these ideas, it is essential to see how certain aspects present in canonical texts have been translated into present-day literature. In this paper, I discuss how the father-daughter relationship in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, has been (re)interpreted through the carrying of similar characters and situations in the novel Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson. The novel does not only serve as a means of projecting old ideas as new, but it also provides the stage of resolution for such prominent characters as Shylock. In order to have a broader understanding of the (re)interpreted father-daughter relationship, this chapter will take into account the sociological symbolism of the contemporary text, with Erik Erikson’s descriptions of adolescence in the foreground.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48145382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.11
Zaher Alajlani
The source of objective meaning is a controversial topic. For most of human history, religion had a monopoly on meaning, truth, and values. But from the nineteenth century onwards and with relativism gaining more popularity, this began to change, leaving most people divided into two main camps: those who believe in the existence of objective meaning and truth and those who maintain that such concepts simply do not exist. The resulting impossibility of finding shared meaning is very problematic, especially when it comes to intercultural communication. In fact, to speak of communication is to speak of common meaning. In this paper, I attempt to provide a definition for intercultural communication, explore the issue of shared meaning, and propose a culture-free approach to the latter—one that is based on reverting to an axiomatic understanding of the notion of meaning. My aim is to conclude that the failure of both dogmatism and relativism to sustain intercultural communication should not be interpreted pessimistically. Quite the opposite, it should be viewed as an opportunity to investigate other promising alternatives, mainly Sam Harris’s science of morality.
{"title":"Mission Possible: Intercultural Communication and the Quest for Finding Shared Meaning","authors":"Zaher Alajlani","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.11","url":null,"abstract":"The source of objective meaning is a controversial topic. For most of human history, religion had a monopoly on meaning, truth, and values. But from the nineteenth century onwards and with relativism gaining more popularity, this began to change, leaving most people divided into two main camps: those who believe in the existence of objective meaning and truth and those who maintain that such concepts simply do not exist. The resulting impossibility of finding shared meaning is very problematic, especially when it comes to intercultural communication. In fact, to speak of communication is to speak of common meaning. In this paper, I attempt to provide a definition for intercultural communication, explore the issue of shared meaning, and propose a culture-free approach to the latter—one that is based on reverting to an axiomatic understanding of the notion of meaning. My aim is to conclude that the failure of both dogmatism and relativism to sustain intercultural communication should not be interpreted pessimistically. Quite the opposite, it should be viewed as an opportunity to investigate other promising alternatives, mainly Sam Harris’s science of morality.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41465013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.09
C. Gheorghe
The history of film theory is full of what we might call migrating concepts. From the Russian Formalists which, in their Poetica Kino (Poetics of cinema) adapt concepts initially created as part of literary theory (fabula vs. syuzhet, film as language, cine-stylistics) to David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson and their formalist inspired approach to film studies, from André Bazin and his theory of realism, inspired by phenomenological concepts, the history of film theory can be thought of as a genealogy of crossing borders. The circulation of concepts from literary theory to film theory is also quite astonishing in the theory of adaptation. In the study of the adaptation of literary works for cinema, the travel of concepts (the crossing of borders) can be observed and analysed especially in narrative theory and adaption theory.
电影理论的历史充满了我们可以称之为迁移概念的东西。从俄罗斯形式主义者在他们的《电影诗学》(Poetica Kino)中改编了最初作为文学理论一部分的概念(fabula vs. syuzhet,电影作为语言,电影文体学),到大卫·波德威尔和克里斯汀·汤普森及其形式主义启发的电影研究方法,从安德烈·巴赞及其现实主义理论,受到现象学概念的启发,电影理论的历史可以被认为是跨越边界的谱系。在改编理论中,从文学理论到电影理论的概念流转也是相当惊人的。在文学作品的电影改编研究中,概念的旅行(边界的跨越)可以被观察和分析,特别是在叙事理论和改编理论中。
{"title":"Crossing Borders in Film Theory and Adaptation Studies","authors":"C. Gheorghe","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.09","url":null,"abstract":"The history of film theory is full of what we might call migrating concepts. From the Russian Formalists which, in their Poetica Kino (Poetics of cinema) adapt concepts initially created as part of literary theory (fabula vs. syuzhet, film as language, cine-stylistics) to David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson and their formalist inspired approach to film studies, from André Bazin and his theory of realism, inspired by phenomenological concepts, the history of film theory can be thought of as a genealogy of crossing borders. The circulation of concepts from literary theory to film theory is also quite astonishing in the theory of adaptation. In the study of the adaptation of literary works for cinema, the travel of concepts (the crossing of borders) can be observed and analysed especially in narrative theory and adaption theory.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69192598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.14
C. Constantinescu
The paper focuses on the relationships between theory and practice and the consequences of dislocating theory from practice as they are illustrated through fiction. The case study carried out here concerns an exemplary novel, Ninety Eighty-Four by George Orwell, observing how the literary discourse can display a confrontation between two linguistic models, each resulted from a different theory: “instrumentalism” (Winston Smith) and “determinism” (O’ Brien). Also, the possibility of identifying an Orwellian model as opposed to the Sapir-Whorf and the linguistic models deserves examination. Newspeak is full of problematic aspects: ideology shapes the language by means of “wooden language” (la langue de bois, in Françoise Thom’s terms). Therefore, the historical “regime of relevance” (Galin Tihanov) makes possible a peculiar (use of) theory: an instrument that translates the ideology becomes the very essence of the determinist theory on the language in a totalitarian state. In discussing the practical consequences of literary theory, Stanley Fish points out that they are inexistent, because theory can never be united with practice, as it is actually impossible to separate theory from practice – a similar observation made by Steven Knapp and Walter B. Michaels. Whether consequences are real poses a challenge: following Edward Said’s argument, Steven Mailloux observes that theory can be consequential by rhetorical means: theory does what all discursive practices do and that is that it attempts to persuade its readers (or population in a totalitarian state) to adopt its point of view, its way of seeing texts and the world.
{"title":"Fiction May Confront Theories. Locating Determinism of the Newspeak in G. Orwell’s 1984","authors":"C. Constantinescu","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.14","url":null,"abstract":"The paper focuses on the relationships between theory and practice and the consequences of dislocating theory from practice as they are illustrated through fiction. The case study carried out here concerns an exemplary novel, Ninety Eighty-Four by George Orwell, observing how the literary discourse can display a confrontation between two linguistic models, each resulted from a different theory: “instrumentalism” (Winston Smith) and “determinism” (O’ Brien). Also, the possibility of identifying an Orwellian model as opposed to the Sapir-Whorf and the linguistic models deserves examination. Newspeak is full of problematic aspects: ideology shapes the language by means of “wooden language” (la langue de bois, in Françoise Thom’s terms). Therefore, the historical “regime of relevance” (Galin Tihanov) makes possible a peculiar (use of) theory: an instrument that translates the ideology becomes the very essence of the determinist theory on the language in a totalitarian state. In discussing the practical consequences of literary theory, Stanley Fish points out that they are inexistent, because theory can never be united with practice, as it is actually impossible to separate theory from practice – a similar observation made by Steven Knapp and Walter B. Michaels. Whether consequences are real poses a challenge: following Edward Said’s argument, Steven Mailloux observes that theory can be consequential by rhetorical means: theory does what all discursive practices do and that is that it attempts to persuade its readers (or population in a totalitarian state) to adopt its point of view, its way of seeing texts and the world.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44359494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.15
O. Papuc
One perspective bound to rouse interesting ideas in relation to efforts of mapping out World Theory, especially in the interplay between ‘local cultures’ pinned against the backdrop of globalization, might just come in the form of sociolinguistics. The author argues that the code-switching practices (polylingual practices, cf. Jørgensen) observed taking place between two groups of highly creative tri-/tetra-and pentalingual Erasmus students solving Physiology-related tasks during laboratory hours, are the perfect site for studying a superdiverse micro-community. The clash and intertwinement of not only every student’s linguistic baggage, but of their various background cultures and performed social personas, in the midst of switching back-and-forth between their locally co-constructed English(es) as Lingua Franca(s), are reflective of the challenges posed by accelerated patterns of migration. This linguistic behavior is also emotionally-driven and socially fluid. Therefore, micro- and even niche-subcultures exhibit a tendency to be reduced to hypersubjectivities co-existing in ad-hoc micro-communities (Hall).
{"title":"Switching between Codes, Social Personas and Seminar Activities. A Case Study of Localized Hypersubjectivities Constructing a Laboratory-Based Superdiverse Micro-Community","authors":"O. Papuc","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.15","url":null,"abstract":"One perspective bound to rouse interesting ideas in relation to efforts of mapping out World Theory, especially in the interplay between ‘local cultures’ pinned against the backdrop of globalization, might just come in the form of sociolinguistics. The author argues that the code-switching practices (polylingual practices, cf. Jørgensen) observed taking place between two groups of highly creative tri-/tetra-and pentalingual Erasmus students solving Physiology-related tasks during laboratory hours, are the perfect site for studying a superdiverse micro-community. The clash and intertwinement of not only every student’s linguistic baggage, but of their various background cultures and performed social personas, in the midst of switching back-and-forth between their locally co-constructed English(es) as Lingua Franca(s), are reflective of the challenges posed by accelerated patterns of migration. This linguistic behavior is also emotionally-driven and socially fluid. Therefore, micro- and even niche-subcultures exhibit a tendency to be reduced to hypersubjectivities co-existing in ad-hoc micro-communities (Hall).","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46597848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.12
István Berszán
Many scholars would agree today that no theory is timeless. But they would probably mean the historicity of theoretical thinking, including the concepts and preconceptions of time propagated by theoretical literary studies. In this paper, I will investigate a usually ignored but unavoidable problem: the rhythmic dimension of theorising. How do those practices, to which different theoretical attempts are linked, influence their orientation in time(s)? Gathering positive data of the past in positivism, revealing the work of formal devices of poetic language in formalism, following a rhetorical change in postmodernism or reducing every kind of change to historical construction are not only ideological patterns but practical rhythms considered as paradigmatic for other – and sometimes for all – happenings. Based on practice-oriented physics, I propose research of time projections by which literary reading and writing are transposed to the kinetic spaces of certain theoretical practices.
{"title":"Time as the Rhythm of Theoretical Practices","authors":"István Berszán","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.12","url":null,"abstract":"Many scholars would agree today that no theory is timeless. But they would probably mean the historicity of theoretical thinking, including the concepts and preconceptions of time propagated by theoretical literary studies. In this paper, I will investigate a usually ignored but unavoidable problem: the rhythmic dimension of theorising. How do those practices, to which different theoretical attempts are linked, influence their orientation in time(s)? Gathering positive data of the past in positivism, revealing the work of formal devices of poetic language in formalism, following a rhetorical change in postmodernism or reducing every kind of change to historical construction are not only ideological patterns but practical rhythms considered as paradigmatic for other – and sometimes for all – happenings. Based on practice-oriented physics, I propose research of time projections by which literary reading and writing are transposed to the kinetic spaces of certain theoretical practices.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42832495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.10
Monica Manolachi
When Donald W. Winnicott conceived his psychoanalytical concepts and theories, initially meant to address problems associated with the relationship between a mother and her child, the British paediatrician was aware they could be meaningful for understanding cultural issues too. One of the key questions when dealing with literature as a form of culture is to what extent the representation of the self in it is true or false. Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects – items used to provide psychological comfort – can operate as a significant critical tool when trying to answer such questions. This paper firstly explores the reception of Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects and phenomena and other associated concepts in literary criticism. It moves further to demonstrate it is especially relevant when literature travels or deals with international migration. Last but not least, it presents several possible limitations for the field of literary criticism, taking into consideration contemporary theories about the location of culture.
当唐纳德·w·温尼科特(Donald W. Winnicott)构思他的精神分析概念和理论时,最初是为了解决与母亲和孩子之间关系有关的问题,这位英国儿科医生意识到,这些概念和理论对理解文化问题也有意义。当把文学作为一种文化形式来处理时,一个关键问题是,文学中自我的表现在多大程度上是真实的还是虚假的。温尼科特的过渡性物品理论——用来提供心理安慰的物品——在试图回答这些问题时可以作为一个重要的关键工具。本文首先探讨了温尼科特的过渡对象和现象理论及其相关概念在文学批评中的接受。它进一步表明,当文学传播或涉及国际移民时,它尤其相关。最后但并非最不重要的是,考虑到当代关于文化定位的理论,它为文学批评领域提出了几个可能的局限性。
{"title":"Donald W. Winnicott’s Theory, Literature, and Migration","authors":"Monica Manolachi","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.10","url":null,"abstract":"When Donald W. Winnicott conceived his psychoanalytical concepts and theories, initially meant to address problems associated with the relationship between a mother and her child, the British paediatrician was aware they could be meaningful for understanding cultural issues too. One of the key questions when dealing with literature as a form of culture is to what extent the representation of the self in it is true or false. Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects – items used to provide psychological comfort – can operate as a significant critical tool when trying to answer such questions. This paper firstly explores the reception of Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects and phenomena and other associated concepts in literary criticism. It moves further to demonstrate it is especially relevant when literature travels or deals with international migration. Last but not least, it presents several possible limitations for the field of literary criticism, taking into consideration contemporary theories about the location of culture.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48715509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.06
H. Karaman
In the preface to the English edition of The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova focuses on the existence of a literary world/universe, which maintains a relative autonomy from the world and its political disparities and restrictions. This suggested ideal of a literary space is an attempt to posit world literature as an alternative chronotope in which literary production can survive and multiply transnationally. My paper will offer a reconsideration of this global literary space, read via a philosophical perspective, shaped by the famous discussion of the common and community as conducted by Giorgio Agamben, Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, among others. Within the above theoretical frame, my attempt will be to reread Casanova’s contribution to World Literature as a desired community of literature(s), formed by the coming together of qualunque singularities which co-exist and co-belong without “any representable condition of belonging” (Agamben). Furthermore, the idea of qualunque (whatever) will constitute the starting point for the ethico-political reconsideration and reconceptualisation of the global literary space offered by Casanova, not only without borders but also without hierarchies.
{"title":"Reconsidering The World Republic of Letters: A Qualunque Community of Literatures","authors":"H. Karaman","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.06","url":null,"abstract":"In the preface to the English edition of The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova focuses on the existence of a literary world/universe, which maintains a relative autonomy from the world and its political disparities and restrictions. This suggested ideal of a literary space is an attempt to posit world literature as an alternative chronotope in which literary production can survive and multiply transnationally. My paper will offer a reconsideration of this global literary space, read via a philosophical perspective, shaped by the famous discussion of the common and community as conducted by Giorgio Agamben, Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, among others. Within the above theoretical frame, my attempt will be to reread Casanova’s contribution to World Literature as a desired community of literature(s), formed by the coming together of qualunque singularities which co-exist and co-belong without “any representable condition of belonging” (Agamben). Furthermore, the idea of qualunque (whatever) will constitute the starting point for the ethico-political reconsideration and reconceptualisation of the global literary space offered by Casanova, not only without borders but also without hierarchies.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47628254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.04
Ewa Lukaszyk
This article is an attempt at deconstructing the chronopolitics inherent to the (post)colonial way of thinking about the world. As it is argued, what should replace it is a vision of multiple, overlying temporalities and forms of time awareness, reaching deeper than a literary history reduced to the cycle of colonisation – decolonisation – postcolonial becoming, originating from just a single maritime event: the European exploration and conquest of the world. The essay brings forth a choice of interwoven examples illustrating the variability of local time depths, associated with a plurality of origins, narrations, forms of awareness and cultivation of cultural belonging. It shows the lack of coincidence between the dominant and non-dominant perceptions of the past in such places as the archipelagos of São Tomé and Príncipe, Maldives, the Gambia, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Their ways of living the global time, as well as embodying significant texts (rather than simply preserving them) stretch far beyond the frameworks created by competing colonial empires, such as the Portuguese or the British one.
{"title":"(Post)colonial Chronopolitics and Mapping the Depth of Local Time(s) in Global Literary Studies: an Itinerary to Guinea-Bissau","authors":"Ewa Lukaszyk","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.04","url":null,"abstract":"This article is an attempt at deconstructing the chronopolitics inherent to the (post)colonial way of thinking about the world. As it is argued, what should replace it is a vision of multiple, overlying temporalities and forms of time awareness, reaching deeper than a literary history reduced to the cycle of colonisation – decolonisation – postcolonial becoming, originating from just a single maritime event: the European exploration and conquest of the world. The essay brings forth a choice of interwoven examples illustrating the variability of local time depths, associated with a plurality of origins, narrations, forms of awareness and cultivation of cultural belonging. It shows the lack of coincidence between the dominant and non-dominant perceptions of the past in such places as the archipelagos of São Tomé and Príncipe, Maldives, the Gambia, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Their ways of living the global time, as well as embodying significant texts (rather than simply preserving them) stretch far beyond the frameworks created by competing colonial empires, such as the Portuguese or the British one.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44831552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.08
A. Chiorean
The present paper aims to show the two possible directions, effects, manifestations of the fictional languages in general. Thus, according to the purposes of their creation, fictional languages have, throughout history, been created in order to achieve certain political, aesthetic or playful purposes, but the most fundamental feature that divides them into two categories is one strongly linked to the purpose of their creation: whether or not they can be learned and used in day-to-day life. Thus, whether they originated in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy or in the literary Avant-Garde universes, the issue of their purpose (to hide or to reveal meaning) also raises the issue of their translatability and, most of all, the issue of their “educability”, issues that may or may not harm their aesthetic dimensions.
{"title":"The Vernaculars of No One, Really. The (Un?)Translatable Fictional Languages","authors":"A. Chiorean","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.08","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper aims to show the two possible directions, effects, manifestations of the fictional languages in general. Thus, according to the purposes of their creation, fictional languages have, throughout history, been created in order to achieve certain political, aesthetic or playful purposes, but the most fundamental feature that divides them into two categories is one strongly linked to the purpose of their creation: whether or not they can be learned and used in day-to-day life. Thus, whether they originated in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy or in the literary Avant-Garde universes, the issue of their purpose (to hide or to reveal meaning) also raises the issue of their translatability and, most of all, the issue of their “educability”, issues that may or may not harm their aesthetic dimensions.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49535221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}