Pub Date : 2022-05-02DOI: 10.3390/literature2020007
Anne McConnell
Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Great Silence”, takes the perspective of a parrot living in the Rio Abajo forest in Puerto Rico, sharing its habitat with the Arecibo Observatory. The story first appeared as the textual component of a video installation by Allora & Calzadilla, a piece that emphasizes the entanglement of the forest habitat and the massive structure of the telescope). Chiang’s parrot-narrator wonders why humans demonstrate such a commitment to the possibility of interstellar communication while often ignoring the voices and interests of our terrestrial cohabitants. The parrot’s critically endangered species, the Puerto Rican parrot, once filled the forests of the island, and the narrator presents his/her narrative as a sort of final plea to humans, asking us to consider the speech of the nonhumans with whom we live. Bruno Latour’s notion of “the terrestrial” provides a useful framework for approaching the parrot’s narrative, specifically in terms of the demand to come “down to earth”, engaging in the politics of human and nonhuman agents who all have something at stake. The parrot asks that we turn more attention to terrestrial concerns, in order to communicate with those who are already speaking to us.
{"title":"Listening to Terrestrial Voices in Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence”","authors":"Anne McConnell","doi":"10.3390/literature2020007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020007","url":null,"abstract":"Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Great Silence”, takes the perspective of a parrot living in the Rio Abajo forest in Puerto Rico, sharing its habitat with the Arecibo Observatory. The story first appeared as the textual component of a video installation by Allora & Calzadilla, a piece that emphasizes the entanglement of the forest habitat and the massive structure of the telescope). Chiang’s parrot-narrator wonders why humans demonstrate such a commitment to the possibility of interstellar communication while often ignoring the voices and interests of our terrestrial cohabitants. The parrot’s critically endangered species, the Puerto Rican parrot, once filled the forests of the island, and the narrator presents his/her narrative as a sort of final plea to humans, asking us to consider the speech of the nonhumans with whom we live. Bruno Latour’s notion of “the terrestrial” provides a useful framework for approaching the parrot’s narrative, specifically in terms of the demand to come “down to earth”, engaging in the politics of human and nonhuman agents who all have something at stake. The parrot asks that we turn more attention to terrestrial concerns, in order to communicate with those who are already speaking to us.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81589253","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 : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.3390/literature2020006
K. Nash, Emma Carlson
In this article, an English professor and a sophomore-level English major explicate the singular difficulties of teaching and learning Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway mid-pandemic. These difficulties arise despite the fact that Mrs Dalloway would seem an ideal novel for our historical moment in the US. Woolf offers her readers searing insights into pandemic casualties, trauma, ruinous disillusionment with political systems, and radical isolation in a fragmented society. Working together, professor and student identify potent reasons why teaching and learning from this novel can be so difficult. We unpack a serious yet widely misunderstood gap between students’ and educators’ perspectives: a gap widened since 2020 by a combination of remote learning and social media consumption. We then recommend intellectual and pedagogical strategies that illuminate Woolf in ways not required before the pandemic, while also bridging perceptual gaps in the classroom between professors and students. Studying and interpreting Mrs Dalloway, a novel invested in illuminating myriad perspectives on PTSD, pandemic casualties, and political ruination, is difficult yet uniquely vital in this historical moment—though not for the reasons this professor expected.
{"title":"Mid-Pandemic Pedagogy: A Candid Dialogue between Student and Literature Professor","authors":"K. Nash, Emma Carlson","doi":"10.3390/literature2020006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020006","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, an English professor and a sophomore-level English major explicate the singular difficulties of teaching and learning Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway mid-pandemic. These difficulties arise despite the fact that Mrs Dalloway would seem an ideal novel for our historical moment in the US. Woolf offers her readers searing insights into pandemic casualties, trauma, ruinous disillusionment with political systems, and radical isolation in a fragmented society. Working together, professor and student identify potent reasons why teaching and learning from this novel can be so difficult. We unpack a serious yet widely misunderstood gap between students’ and educators’ perspectives: a gap widened since 2020 by a combination of remote learning and social media consumption. We then recommend intellectual and pedagogical strategies that illuminate Woolf in ways not required before the pandemic, while also bridging perceptual gaps in the classroom between professors and students. Studying and interpreting Mrs Dalloway, a novel invested in illuminating myriad perspectives on PTSD, pandemic casualties, and political ruination, is difficult yet uniquely vital in this historical moment—though not for the reasons this professor expected.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85855676","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 : 2022-03-29DOI: 10.3390/literature2020005
S. S. Kumar
What does it mean to mourn for the loss of lives that are rendered ungrievable by history? More importantly, with what language does one grieve the loss or despoliation of lives that are rendered ungrievable through disremembrance? This study reads such concerns as represented in two novels by Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Drawing on theorizations of the Other and the Abject in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Julia Kristeva, respectively, the readings of Morrison’s novels presented here seek to conceptualize the impacts of racial and racist oppression as the fallout from experiences of othering in the extreme. Confronting the desecration of human life and dignity engendered through racism, the study argues, is a descent into abjection. Through exploring Morrison’s narrative project, as explained in her non-fiction, this study seeks to conceptualize a possible lexicon for grieving the Abject without appropriating it or in any way diminishing its specific and radical alterity as a despoiled being.
{"title":"Call Her Beloved: A Lexicon for Abjection in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved","authors":"S. S. Kumar","doi":"10.3390/literature2020005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020005","url":null,"abstract":"What does it mean to mourn for the loss of lives that are rendered ungrievable by history? More importantly, with what language does one grieve the loss or despoliation of lives that are rendered ungrievable through disremembrance? This study reads such concerns as represented in two novels by Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Drawing on theorizations of the Other and the Abject in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Julia Kristeva, respectively, the readings of Morrison’s novels presented here seek to conceptualize the impacts of racial and racist oppression as the fallout from experiences of othering in the extreme. Confronting the desecration of human life and dignity engendered through racism, the study argues, is a descent into abjection. Through exploring Morrison’s narrative project, as explained in her non-fiction, this study seeks to conceptualize a possible lexicon for grieving the Abject without appropriating it or in any way diminishing its specific and radical alterity as a despoiled being.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87039781","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 : 2022-03-23DOI: 10.3390/literature2020004
Helen E. Mundler
Liz Jensen has become a significant voice in British literary fiction in recent years, so reading Our Silver City 2094 comes with the pleasure of rediscovery [...]
{"title":"Book Review: Jensen (2021). Our Silver City 2094, e-Book. Nottingham: Nottingham Contemporary. ISBN: 978-1399908481","authors":"Helen E. Mundler","doi":"10.3390/literature2020004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020004","url":null,"abstract":"Liz Jensen has become a significant voice in British literary fiction in recent years, so reading Our Silver City 2094 comes with the pleasure of rediscovery [...]","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84572520","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 : 2022-02-18DOI: 10.3390/literature2010003
Ahmad A. Ghashmari
The article discusses Ghassan Chebaro’s novel 2022 and the importance of grassroots action in battling the impending climate disaster in the Middle East. The article contrasts the novel’s optimism with the disappointing reality of inaction that is exacerbating the climate crisis. It also addresses the interconnectedness of capitalism, the military industrial complex, and the climate crisis.
{"title":"Ghassan Chebaro’s 2022 and the Forgotten Climate Crisis in the Middle East. Book Review: Chebaro (2009). 2022. Beirut: Arab Scientific Publishers. ISBN: 978-9953875118","authors":"Ahmad A. Ghashmari","doi":"10.3390/literature2010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2010003","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses Ghassan Chebaro’s novel 2022 and the importance of grassroots action in battling the impending climate disaster in the Middle East. The article contrasts the novel’s optimism with the disappointing reality of inaction that is exacerbating the climate crisis. It also addresses the interconnectedness of capitalism, the military industrial complex, and the climate crisis.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81548628","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 : 2022-02-08DOI: 10.3390/literature2010002
Geoff M. Boucher, Charlotte Devonport-Ralph
The polarized initial reception of Philip Pullman as a “new atheist” has gradually yielded to more nuanced scholarly positionings of his work as inspired by a heterodox, even “heretical,” Christianity. But in his new series, Pullman responds decisively to both “new atheist” and “heterodox Christian” interpretations, while widening the scope of his critical representations beyond Christian—indeed, beyond Abrahamic—religion. What emerges in the completed books of the incomplete new series, The Book of Dust, is a “secret commonwealth” of supernatural beings inhabiting multiple universes. These are all manifestations of Dust, the spiritual sentience of matter itself, which provides the basis for mystical visions and shamanistic beliefs, as well as religious orthodoxies. Rejecting the latter for the former, the second book in particular, The Secret Commonwealth, suggests an endorsement of spiritual quest. To motivate acceptance of this interpretation, we begin by reviewing the critical reception of His Dark Materials, especially in relation to its theological implications. After that, we turn to the representation of reductionist positions in The Book of Dust, especially the authors presented in The Secret Commonwealth, Gottfried Brande and Simon Talbot. Then, we investigate the representation of the Abrahamic religions in that work, intrigued less by the obvious parallels between Pullman’s imaginary religions and Christianity and Islam, than by his positive representation of mysticism. Finally, we examine his representations of shamanism and animism, soul belief and hermetic doctrines, and his allusions to Zoroastrianism, before summing up. Pullman is an a-theist in the sense of being without a god, not in the post-Enlightenment sense of a rejection of the supernatural/spiritual. His imaginary universe celebrates spiritual quest and ontological multiplicity, against all forms of speculative closure.
Philip Pullman最初被视为“新无神论者”，这种两极分化的接受逐渐让位于对他的作品更为细致入微的学术定位，认为他的作品受到了非正统，甚至是“异端”基督教的启发。但在他的新系列中，普尔曼果断地回应了“新无神论者”和“非正统基督教”的解释，同时扩大了他的批判表现的范围，超越了基督教——实际上，超越了亚伯拉罕宗教。在未完成的新系列《尘之书》(the Book of Dust)的完整系列中，出现了一个由居住在多个宇宙的超自然生物组成的“秘密共同体”。这些都是尘埃的表现，物质本身的精神感知，它为神秘的愿景和萨满教信仰以及宗教正统提供了基础。拒绝后者而选择前者，尤其是第二本书《秘密联邦》，暗示了对精神追求的认可。为了促使人们接受这种解释，我们首先回顾对他的黑暗材料的批评，特别是与它的神学含义有关。在此之后，我们转向《尘土之书》中还原论立场的表现，特别是在《秘密联邦》中所呈现的作者，戈特弗里德·布兰德和西蒙·塔尔博特。然后，我们研究了这部作品中亚伯拉罕宗教的表现，对普尔曼想象中的宗教与基督教和伊斯兰教之间明显的相似之处感兴趣的不是，而是他对神秘主义的积极表现。最后，在总结之前，我们考察了他对萨满教和万物有灵论、灵魂信仰和赫尔墨斯学说的表述，以及他对琐罗亚斯德教的暗示。普尔曼是一个无神论者，因为他认为自己没有神，而不是启蒙运动后那种拒绝超自然/精神的人。他想象的宇宙颂扬精神追求和本体论的多样性，反对一切形式的思辨封闭。
{"title":"Philip Pullman and Spiritual Quest","authors":"Geoff M. Boucher, Charlotte Devonport-Ralph","doi":"10.3390/literature2010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2010002","url":null,"abstract":"The polarized initial reception of Philip Pullman as a “new atheist” has gradually yielded to more nuanced scholarly positionings of his work as inspired by a heterodox, even “heretical,” Christianity. But in his new series, Pullman responds decisively to both “new atheist” and “heterodox Christian” interpretations, while widening the scope of his critical representations beyond Christian—indeed, beyond Abrahamic—religion. What emerges in the completed books of the incomplete new series, The Book of Dust, is a “secret commonwealth” of supernatural beings inhabiting multiple universes. These are all manifestations of Dust, the spiritual sentience of matter itself, which provides the basis for mystical visions and shamanistic beliefs, as well as religious orthodoxies. Rejecting the latter for the former, the second book in particular, The Secret Commonwealth, suggests an endorsement of spiritual quest. To motivate acceptance of this interpretation, we begin by reviewing the critical reception of His Dark Materials, especially in relation to its theological implications. After that, we turn to the representation of reductionist positions in The Book of Dust, especially the authors presented in The Secret Commonwealth, Gottfried Brande and Simon Talbot. Then, we investigate the representation of the Abrahamic religions in that work, intrigued less by the obvious parallels between Pullman’s imaginary religions and Christianity and Islam, than by his positive representation of mysticism. Finally, we examine his representations of shamanism and animism, soul belief and hermetic doctrines, and his allusions to Zoroastrianism, before summing up. Pullman is an a-theist in the sense of being without a god, not in the post-Enlightenment sense of a rejection of the supernatural/spiritual. His imaginary universe celebrates spiritual quest and ontological multiplicity, against all forms of speculative closure.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74020849","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 : 2022-01-27DOI: 10.3390/literature2010001
Jerome F. A. Bump
While reports of the death of literature are greatly exaggerated, reports of the decline of Aestheticism, New Criticism, and the printed word are not. Literature as a critique of society is alive today, but to survive tomorrow in any form it will need to engage environmental, climate, and pandemic public health issues. Without such engagement, there will be no civilization, and, thus, no literature. Literature can survive now, but to thrive, essays in literary criticism may have to not only (i) continue to discuss canonical and (ii) minority writing but also (iii) partner with cultural studies and/or (iv) expand the definition of literature to include “the best stories”, (v) especially multimedia stories. Critics would also be well advised to (vi) balance abstraction and theory with close, detailed readings of literature. Editors might encourage new essays demonstrating that (vii) unity in literature is compatible with the celebration of diversity, that explore (viii) the relationship of literature and science in general, and (ix) the integration of unity in literature with the search for unified theory in science. Finally, editors might encourage new essays on less trendy topics such as (x) literature focused on feelings and/or (xi) how literature helps individual readers make radical changes in their lives.
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Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1163/9789047427070_054
Mahnoush H. Arsanjani, Jacob Katz Cogan, R. Sloane, Siegfried Wiessner
{"title":"Contributors and Editors","authors":"Mahnoush H. Arsanjani, Jacob Katz Cogan, R. Sloane, Siegfried Wiessner","doi":"10.1163/9789047427070_054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047427070_054","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64567659","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 : 2021-12-15DOI: 10.3390/literature1020008
L. Cortesi
In the Soviet era, Russian involvement in WWI long represented an ostracised and even forgotten event. This very attitude is reflected by Soviet literary criticism of WWI war literature. Taking into account both the studies which re-examined this part of Russian literature in a less ideologically biased manner and the stances that major writers of that period took towards the war, the aim of this paper is to investigate Russian Soldier-literature as presented in anthologies published in the wake of the First World War. The publishing of short stories, journalistic reporting and poems actually (or allegedly) composed by soldiers themselves can be interpreted as a symptomatic expression of a broader cultural discourse that was common at that time, and of which state propaganda publications often availed themselves.
{"title":"Russian First World War Propaganda Literature through Its Anthologies. Some Observations on Russian Soldier-Literature and Journalistic Reporting","authors":"L. Cortesi","doi":"10.3390/literature1020008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature1020008","url":null,"abstract":"In the Soviet era, Russian involvement in WWI long represented an ostracised and even forgotten event. This very attitude is reflected by Soviet literary criticism of WWI war literature. Taking into account both the studies which re-examined this part of Russian literature in a less ideologically biased manner and the stances that major writers of that period took towards the war, the aim of this paper is to investigate Russian Soldier-literature as presented in anthologies published in the wake of the First World War. The publishing of short stories, journalistic reporting and poems actually (or allegedly) composed by soldiers themselves can be interpreted as a symptomatic expression of a broader cultural discourse that was common at that time, and of which state propaganda publications often availed themselves.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84301178","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 : 2021-11-24DOI: 10.3390/literature1020007
Geoff M. Boucher
Jeanette Winterson’s magical realist love stories, such as The Passion, have been read by some critics in terms of a tendency to idealise romance as a transformative passion that transcends social structures. In this article, I propose that Winterson’s recent gothic novel, The Daylight Gate, critically revises a set of Romantic themes first broached in The Passion, exposing and interrogating the fantasy scenario at the centre of romantic love. This narrative about magic and the devil explores the ambivalence of passion as possession—diabolical and contractual—before using this to critique the desire for transcendence implied by “undying love”. Metaphysics becomes a metaphor for metapsychology, where the Romantic motif of undying love as connected to fatal desire is complicated by a traversal of the fantasy of the union of two immortal souls. These revisions have the effect of reversing the implications of Winterson’s earlier treatment of romantic love, turning it back from the personal towards engagement with the political.
{"title":"Rethinking Love as Passion: Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate","authors":"Geoff M. Boucher","doi":"10.3390/literature1020007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/literature1020007","url":null,"abstract":"Jeanette Winterson’s magical realist love stories, such as The Passion, have been read by some critics in terms of a tendency to idealise romance as a transformative passion that transcends social structures. In this article, I propose that Winterson’s recent gothic novel, The Daylight Gate, critically revises a set of Romantic themes first broached in The Passion, exposing and interrogating the fantasy scenario at the centre of romantic love. This narrative about magic and the devil explores the ambivalence of passion as possession—diabolical and contractual—before using this to critique the desire for transcendence implied by “undying love”. Metaphysics becomes a metaphor for metapsychology, where the Romantic motif of undying love as connected to fatal desire is complicated by a traversal of the fantasy of the union of two immortal souls. These revisions have the effect of reversing the implications of Winterson’s earlier treatment of romantic love, turning it back from the personal towards engagement with the political.","PeriodicalId":40504,"journal":{"name":"Childrens Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90706822","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}
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