Translation is mostly understood as a lonely activity and calls for discussions on the subjectivity of the translator, her language proficiency, her close reading of the text and the resultant understanding reflecting in the act of translation. However, Anthony Cordingley and Celine Frigau Manning (2017) raise a series of very pertinent questions that challenges the popular image of the translator as a lonely individual at work since the reality of the profession is strikingly different and requires a collaboration of many with different roles. Belen Bistué (2013), traces the practice of collaborative translation to the Renaissance time. She calls the translation of those time the work of “translation teams” where “two or more translators, each an expert in one of the languages involved, collaborated to produce a translation”. This act of distributing responsibilities among multiple agents involved in the practice helped in the inclusion of skills they brought from different linguistic and cultural traditions. This paper would, however, want to look at collaborative translation as an alternate method of translating and preserving indigenous oral literature. This paper will question how collaboration that brings together native speakers can help in eradicating epistemological violence and misrepresentation in translation of indigenous texts? Can this inclusive method of translation become a tool of academic social responsibility of informed translators? How can digitization of translations of oral narratives can help in the preservation and circulation of indigenous literature?

This paper aims at mediating into networks of AI as sites of creativity, and that of cultural translation, which is facilitated through the shared socialites of language use in speech-acts as well as creative writing. With generative AI and LLMs intervening into this site, questions regarding the creation, production, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge become inevitable. While the contribution of AI and LLMs in creative practices is undeniably important, this paper rethinks the manner in which these models acquire existing knowledge and generate responses, thus engaging with the technicalities of prompt engineering and AI training along with concerns of ethics and representation. One of the contributions of text generative AI and LLMs in language use is the act of facilitating a decolonial approach to translation. For researchers working on areas emerging from a decolonial context, the use of such language models becomes challenging and limiting. While projects involving the use of English or other European languages might benefit from these models and incorporate the practice of translation and transcription and data sampling among other practices, those engaging with alternate, marginalized languages and peripheral contexts draw our attention to the limitations inherent in the current LLMs and generative AI models. Even with advanced LLMs, problems such as context window paradox or AI hallucination pose limitations for creative translations. Highlighting the limitations of LLMs in understanding the creative aspect of language, this paper further draws our attention to the manner in which poetic language renders itself inaccessible to computation for AI and hence the aberrations and absurdities. Consequently it mandates a human intervention in the process to ensure ethical considerations and prevent misrepresentation especially for marginal and oral language-cultures. Finally, this study aims to forge newer ways of Human-AI engagement which is underscored by the concerns of plurality and untranslatability emanating from a decolonial context, thus aid in the destandardization or undo standardisation of marginalized languages.

This paper explores a reading mode for now by experimenting with machine/human translation and re-visiting reading theories. It aims to address a series of interlinking literate changes in this digital era and seeks to answer the following questions: how we attune our reading to an AI-assisted/enhanced one, as N. Katherine Hayles says; how AI production suggests different interpretations of a text; and how we navigate them through reading skills and philosophy offered by Stephen Best, Sharon Marcus, and Jonathan Culler. These cares evoke an investigation at a conjuncture between classic language, translation, and reading.

My writing departs by comparatively reading Han-shan the Tang poet’s poem in classical Chinese and its two English renditions by Gary Snyder and ChatGPT, respectively. Surface reading denotes their discrepancies in verbal structure and poetic philosophy while close reading highlights a potential to better the understanding of Han-shan’s original. To gain a wider valence, I recruit around 30 participants with a good command of both languages to evaluate the two translations and identify which comes from AI. Concluding with reflection on survey results and re-examination of key notions, this paper emphasizes that what we are reading now is a co-shaped, filtered Text in Barthes’s term and meaningful exchanges rise from testing these filters and re-painting their contours.

This project examines the many points of overlap in conversations about information literacy and translation literacy in the university classroom and muses on how new digital tools and archives incite urgency toward these intersecting competencies or modes of reading and interpreting. As Brian Baer argues, “given that so many of the texts students encounter both inside and outside the classroom are translations, and that machine translation tools are so readily available, it is time for translation literacy to be a key component of both information and global literacy” (4). By translation literacy, I mean the general ability to recognize the mediated experience of reading a translated text and to think critically about the form and socially-situated practice of translation, a mode of literacy that Anthony Pym describes as “the ability to make informed decisions about when to turn to translations, how to read them, how to compare them, when to trust them, when to intervene in them, and [. . .] how to produce them.” In particular, I evaluate the gains of involving students in disparate English translations of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación and the ready transferability of information literacy concepts like “reading laterally,” “going upstream,” and looking for bias, sensationalism, and marking the ideological underpinnings of any given source and its subsequent versions or iterations. Through my case study of using digital tools to bring translation literacy into the classroom, I aim to put the metalanguage of information literacy in conversation with recurrent questions and concepts of translation literacy and translation theory.

Sources:

Baer, Brian James. “Is there a Translation in this Class?: A Crash Course in Translation Literacy.” In Teaching Literature in Translation: Pedagogical Contexts and Reading Practices. Edited by Brian James Baer and Michelle Woods. Routledge, 2023. 3-12.

Pym, Anthony. “Active Translation Literacy in the Literature Class.” PMLA 138, 3, May 2023: 819-823. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/active-translation-literacy-in-the-literature-class/AA9D71A6C29677BF1D784FC0379786E5

This seminar problematizes the continual domination of Eurocentrism over the canonized idea of world literature and the resultant exclusivist approach of conducting literary studies. As we engage with this problematic and attempt to decolonize world literature from the methodological premise of Comparative Literature, we must first acknowledge that the emergence of the decolonial method with regards to literary studies is only possible through the adoption of a framework of “interconnectedness”. The domain of literature and culture in South Asia has been accommodative of this framework from its initiation. We have seen how the mode of “telling” has not been divorced from the scribal culture in South Asia. This framework of inclusivity leads us to the development of a renewed approach towards perceiving literatures of the world which is bereft of the Eurocentric exclusivist reading of cultural articulations. I would elucidate on the development of this method by concentrating on the domain of Indian theatre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Through a reading of Kalakshetra Manipur's theatre production Pebet (1975), I would locate how theatre in the Indian “bhashas” receives oral traditions like the phūṅgā wārī and contests the hierarchized division between aesthetic traditions. By citing instances of embodying “restored behaviour” in Pebet, I would show how the production of modern performance spaces in post-independence India is interrupted with the agential presence of the human and the non-human residue of the pre-modern/ritual performances. By reading the gestures of Kanhailal’s theatre as the “unverifiable” , I would move towards the assertion of “untranslatability” as a method of decolonizing South Asian space of cultural articulations. Moreover, by contextualizing the paradigmatic shifts within the imagination of the “rangamancha” with reference to liminality both in the context of the stage in India and Indian modernity, I would argue how twentieth century Indian theatre has engendered a practice of decolonization informed by the contemporary politics of the Global South.

Comparative Literature, as a method of studying literature in comparison across national and cultural boundaries, has evolved in the 19th century. In India, Scholars like Brojendranath Seal (1864-1938) and Sasankamohan Sen (1872-1928) initially contributed to this field. In 1907, after the Swadeshi Movement, Rabindranath Tagore delivered a lecture on comparative literature that was later published as ‘Vishyasahitya’ in his essay collection ‘Sahitya’. Tagore proposed a vision of Comparative Literature that transcends national boundaries on literature and cultural identities, promoting a universal expression of humanity by making temple of aesthetic. However, traditional interpretations have limited his concept to ‘world literature’ framework, neglecting the potentials to challenge with stereotypical comparative literary practices and also the history of disciplinary practices in India. This paper revisits the historical development of Comparative Literature in India, situating Tagore's Vishyasahitya within the broader contexts of transnationalism and decolonization. It examines the contemporary relevance of Tagore’s ideas, particularly in relation to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘Planetarity,’ which echoes Tagore’s vision of a unified literary spaces that transcends political and cultural borders. By comparing contemporary pedagogical approaches in Comparative Literature of the sub-continent with Tagore’s insights, this study highlights the potential of his approach to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of world literature. The research employs qualitative textual analysis to critically engage with primary texts and secondary literature, underscoring the lasting impact of Tagore’s ideas on comparative literature.

Comparative Literature emerged as an academic discipline in India in 1956 with the establishment of the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, shortly after Independence. This paper explores how the adoption of comparison as a literary method was not a mere European import but was instead rooted in an ideological effort to challenge colonial educational frameworks. It becomes crucial to understand the creation of the first department of comparative literature within a broader historical and intellectual context. This includes the contemporary trends in literary discourse, the national education movement, and the history of the National Council of Education, Bengal, which sought to construct a decolonial educational structure. These developments collectively influenced the establishment of comparative literature as an academic discipline in post-Independence India.

The paper draws on archival materials related to the National Council of Education, Bengal, as well as contemporary writings on nationalism and its impact on intellectual spheres, particularly literature, as found in periodicals and journals. It also investigates the evolving discourses surrounding the notion of ‘Indian literature’ and how comparative literature in India, with its inherent decolonizing tendencies, emerged in the twentieth century. In addition, the study examines how the search for alternative, pluralistic understandings of ‘Indian literature’ shaped the trajectory of the discipline. By tracing these intellectual currents, the paper seeks to demonstrate how comparative literature in India became a key site for questioning colonial legacies and developing new frameworks for literary scholarship.

After Goethe’s coinage of the term Weltliteratur, the idea has had much iteration. Meltzl, Brandes, Durisin, Guillen, Casanova, Moretti, Apter and several others have explained ‘World Literature’ from respective contexts. In an Indian context, Rabindranath Tagore's idea of Vishwa Sahitya seems to have the most currency. Such a concept cannot be thought of as simply a Bangla equivalent for an idea of World Literature.

Tagores's idea of Visva is conceptualized through his own beliefs of liberal humanism and an understanding of desh/swadesh. More recently, a discussion of World Literature has come to focus on categories such as ‘major-minor’, ‘center-periphery’, and methodologies such as “distant reading” or “literature as system”. However, upon closer examination most practices of World Literature are grounded in explorations of cross cultural and inter-literary relationships. Such practices pose unique methodological challenges in the context of Indian literatures. Any history of modern Indian language literatures demonstrates an interplay between heterogeneity and interconnectedness across such a plurilingual landscape.

In this paper, I will use literary texts by women authors such as Ashapurna Devi, Mahasweta Devi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Rashid Jahan and Ismat Chughtai to illustrate how their writing foregrounds the complexity of categories such as gender, caste, class and language in India. More importantly, my analysis of their works problematises categories such as ‘major-minor’ or ‘center-periphery’ through contrasting views of their locations within a canon on "World Literature" and their contextualizations with modern Indian language literatures.

M’quidech est un personnage mythique du patrimoine culturel algérien, plus précisément berbère. Il s’agit d’un petit garçon courageux qui lutte contre les dangers qui s’infligent sur les gens de sa petite communauté. Â partir de 1969, ce personnage fut exploité dans le cadre du roman graphique algérien, en bande dessinée, par Ahmed Haroun (considéré comme l’un des premiers illustrateurs algériens) . Cette bande dessinée illustre les aventures de m’quidech dans un cadre oscillant entre l’héroïsme mythique, le folklore oral et la culture algérienne. Dans notre présentation, nous allons plonger dans le paysage culturel et mythologique algérien tout en analysant le roman graphique en question selon, premièrement, une perspective sémio-narrative, ensuite transculturelle. Tout en mettant au centre le caractère d’héroïsme comme caractéristique principale de la construction narrative du personnage principal, notre étude se focalisera également sur les représentations socioculturelles de la notion d'héroisme dans les communautés nord africaines en général, et algérienne en particulier; le tout selon une perspective plus large avec les grandes formes graphique mondiales. Cette recherche se basera sur une comparaison littéraire et transculturelle de la notion d'héroisme dans la littérature graphique dans ces différentes traditions: européenne, nord américaine et asiatique ainsi que leurs dimensions éthniques et culturelles.

Graphic narratives have long been expert at portraying differing feats of heroism: this includes narratives of cape-wearing superheroes, but also, arguably, more recent medical memoirs about people living with illness. In my talk, I want to focus on a different kind of “heroism”: the heroism inherent in living a lesbian adolescence. In the past decade, there has been a plethora of lesbian coming-of-age narratives in comic form, including Maggie Thrash’s Honor Girl (2015) and Lost Soul, Be at Peace (2018), Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me (2019), Eleanor Crewes’ The Times I Knew I was Gay (2020), Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Girl from the Sea (2021), Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s Roaming (2023), and much of Tillie Walden’s oeuvre. I am interested in how within comics, which as an art form has long been linked to adolescence, creators have now carved out a space for a particular kind of adolescence – a lesbian one – to be put on the page. (Although arguably, there is a lesbian/bisexual precursor as far back as Wonder Woman.) In my analysis, I want to particularly focus on Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me and The Girl from the Sea, two texts which at first glance seem vastly different: while Laura Dean is set in a high school and features only human characters, The Girl from the Sea is about a human girl falling in love with a female selkie, a Celtic mythological creature living in the sea. Both graphic narratives have a strong sense of place. In my talk, I want to explore how these texts depict lesbian desire, and a lesbian adolescence, both as something ordinary—something very much of a piece with the rest of the characters’ lives—and as something otherworldly and transporting, with the high school rendered just as strange as the sea’s edge.

In Tessa Hulls' graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts (2024), the convergence of visual and textual storytelling creates a uniquely powerful medium for exploring intergenerational trauma within Chinese American experience. This paper examines how the distinctive properties of graphic narrative enable the representation of trauma, postmemory, and cultural healing in ways that conventional narrative forms cannot achieve. Through close analysis of Hulls' visual-verbal strategies, this study reveals how the comics medium provides sophisticated tools for articulating experiences that often resist traditional narrative representation.

Drawing on Marianne Hirsch's theoretical framework of postmemory and Hillary Chute's groundbreaking work on graphic narratives as trauma texts, this analysis demonstrates how the formal elements of comics—including panel structure, page layout, visual metaphor, and text-image interaction—create a dynamic framework for processing inherited trauma and facilitating intergenerational healing. The study focuses on three crucial aspects of Hulls' work: the spatial architecture of comics as a mirror for traumatic memory, the visual-verbal representation of postmemory, and the transformative power of artistic creation in cultural healing.

First, the research examines how the structural elements of comics, particularly gutters and panel transitions, parallel the fragmentary nature of traumatic memory and its transmission across generations. Second, it analyzes how the synthesis of visual and verbal elements enables the complex representation of postmemory through techniques such as nested narratives, visual echoes, and temporal layering. Finally, it explores how the act of drawing itself becomes a method of cultural healing, enabling the reconstruction of fractured family narratives and the integration of disparate cultural identities.

This research makes a significant contribution to both trauma studies and comics studies by illuminating the unique capabilities of graphic narratives in representing and transforming inherited trauma. Through its examination of Feeding Ghosts, this paper demonstrates how the graphic memoir format serves not only as a witness to traumatic histories but also as a powerful vehicle for processing and transforming intergenerational trauma through artistic creation. The findings have implications for understanding both the theoretical foundations of trauma representation and the practical applications of graphic narrative in therapeutic and cultural contexts.

Cha Cha on the Bridge, written by Yoon Pil and illustrated by Jaeso, is a 60-episode webtoon that was first published in weekly installments in 2018 and later published as a two-volume graphic novel. It was the Grand Prize winner of the 2019 Science Fiction Awards in Korea. The soft-toned black and white pencil sketch illustrations provide a sharp contrast to the futuristic setting where human labor have been replaced by AI robots and massive data centers accessible to only a tiny handful of the elite can store and manipulate information to achieve desired outcomes.

In this webtoon, the two main protagonists are AI robots. “Cha Cha” is a humanoid robot that was introduced in the year 2030 to prevent humans from killing themselves on Mapo Bridge, a site notorious for its alarming suicide rate. “Ai,” who owns and operates a nursing home for the elderly, eventually learns about Cha Cha from the numerous residents who reminisce about “the Bridge” where they had almost ended their lives. Cha and Ai heroically save lives in a postmodern, posthuman society where robots have been programmed to be kind and perform tedious tasks, while humans have become cold and calculating machines that act upon their selfish impulses, heartlessly abusing and discriminate against children, women, and migrant workers.

“Cha Cha on the Bridge” explores what it means to be human, and how behaving like a warm, friendly human is so rare in contemporary society that the simple act of sharing a meal together, or making time to chat about personal matters with a colleague, seems to be a heroic feat. It also uncovers the arbitrariness of human values, such as when a War Robot’s killing of a human can make you a murderer or war hero, depending on circumstances. A few exceptional robots begin to think on their own, act and think as if they have free will, and desire to become human.

This comic can also be analyzed through the framework of Groensteen’s “postmodern turn.” The work is characterized by narrative disruption. Flashbacks from past and present are made confusing because the robots do not age and retain the identical appearance even after decades have passed, whereas the human characters show signs of wear.

It is well known that the Jewish people, as God's chosen ones, are a nation that lives according to the "mitzvot (commandments)." The Torah, the first Jewish sacred text, was canonized around 440 BCE and has always been regarded as the source of all (Jewish) "mitzvot." However, these "mitzvot" are often brief, and how to live by them in daily life has always been a difficult problem. To solve this problem, exegesis was born, and it quickly became a tradition that guided Jews on how to live a "sanctified" life，or holly life. The Jewish exegetical tradition is the key for people to understand Jewish civilization and Jewish way of life. This paper will provide a brief and concise overview of the formation, content, methods, characteristics, and impact of the Jewish exegetical tradition, in order to arouse people's interest and attention.

In the paper “The Career of the Logos: A Brief Biography,” Daniel Williams delves into the “polysemic notion” of concepts such as speech, discourse, reason, and divine will, tracing their origins back to the term “Logos.” Interestingly, when this article was translated and published in Chinese in Journal for the Study of Christianity, it found its place under the section titled “Dao Wu Chang Ming道无常名” (The Dao Has No Fixed Name). It can be argued that the “polysemic notion” and “Dao Wu Chang Ming道无常名” have indeed become shared metaphors between the East and the West, inspiring an ongoing dialogue between the “Dao道” and the “Logos.” In his concluding remarks, Williams revisits the question: If the “Dao道” also encompasses notions of “natural law or nomos法则” and “principle理,” then can we consider the “Dao道” and the “Logos” to be similar? My proposed presentation is to join him to trace back the polysemic word Dao in Chinese and the encounter between Chinese intellectuals and Christian missionaries in the translation and interpretation of the related concepts like Logos, Verbum, Way and Word.

As globalization deepens and new technologies rapidly evolve, the world is experiencing unprecedented cultural exchanges, the dissemination of ideas, and the movement of people and goods. In this context, literature plays an increasingly prominent role as an important medium for recording, representing, mediating, and reshaping these dynamics. This forum, themed "Cosmopolitanism and Localism: Comparative Literature in Global Flows in the Digital Age," aims to explore how to understand and address the tensions between cosmopolitanism and localism in literature, particularly against the backdrop of accelerated global flows driven by new technologies.

We welcome discussions around the following possible topics:

1. How the development of digital technologies challenges the formation of comparative literature theories and methodologies;

2. The diverse representations of cosmopolitanism and localism in literary works within a globalized context;

3. How the digital economy reshapes contemporary literary genres and forms;

4. The role of digital platforms in transforming literary creation, dissemination, and reception, and how these changes impact the relationship between global and local cultural narratives;

5. How literary works navigate the tension between group identity and individual autonomy in a technology-driven globalized world.

Some scriptures are supposed to have a divine origin, for example the often conflicting Abrahamic religions, but with consequences for secular law and view of humanity. Others are texts on spirituality, ethics and social behavior written by sages and philosophers like the texts of Daoism, Buddhism, Shinto and Confucianism, and also with effects on local laws and anthropologies. Yet another group of religious and spiritual belief systems, for example across the African continent, are working through oral communication and entirely embedded in traditional social practices and norms. In today’s globalized social reality, a variety of such belief systems often share the same multicultural social space, where they blend or confront each other in conflict of mutual misunderstanding and enmity. To articulate this complex cultural reality, the various belief systems may reach a dead end, continuing to view the world from their own particular perspective. Here, the imaginative and creative language of literature opens a space for human understanding of the full complexity of the multicultural zones of conflict. Literature rarely focuses on the preaching of the scriptures themselves, but on how their norms and behavioral patterns guide human interaction, often focusing on limits of humanity, ethical issues like honor and shame, retaliation and reconciliation. My cases are two examples from different periods and cultures—the breakdown of the Medieval saga-world of Iceland with the arrival of Christianity, and the transition of post-Apartheid South Africa.

As Homi Bhabha wrote in the late 1990s, the nation is a problem of narration. Considering the narration of national identities partly tied to their flags, this essay aims to analyze the character of permanent updating of the Brazilian national flag, in order to understand to what extent the appropriation of its forms contributes to the release of signs and operators that, supposedly, are able to narrate the imagined communities beyond their official iconography.

Beatriz Sarlo (1942-2024) and Leyla Perrone-Moisés (1934), in Argentina and Brazil, occupied the most prominent roles in the literary criticism of their countries for more than 50 years. Both intellectuals had similar trajectories, initially standing out in cultural journalism before later taking up positions as professors at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of São Paulo.

They also shared the same intellectual mentor: Roland Barthes. Not only did both write books dedicated to Barthes (Writings on Roland Barthes by Beatriz Sarlo and With Roland Barthes by Leyla Perrone-Moisés), but they also helped edit his works and contributed to his critical reception in both countries.

Through this relationship with their mentor, I aim to show how their trajectories intersect and diverge, highlighting the particularities of the "Argentine Barthes" and the "Brazilian Barthes," as well as the literary criticism produced in both countries.

In the introduction to the volume Crossings and Contaminations: Studies in Comparative Litterature (2009), Eduardo Coutinho talks about the significant changes and shifts in the perspective that had guided traditional comparativism until then. According to the critic, the aura that surrounded the literary object was questioned and other types of literary and aesthetic expressions that had previously been excluded from comparative studies began to be taken into account. The result is a re-evaluation of the prevailing binary scheme in order to consider the inclusion of "alternative forms of expression and recognise their differences".

The discussion of literature and other forms of aesthetic expression is one of those fields where "crossings and contaminations" can be observed from the angle of comparativism. The institutional manifestation of this discussion on the interrelationships between the arts, initially dealt with in the so-called Interart Studies, has led to the formation of transdisciplinary discourses whose developments can be identified in reflections on intermediality, its definition and foundations, its theoretical scope and its practices, which are as varied as the creative power of artists is infinite. These approaches open up perspectives for investigating heterogeneous products marked by the confluence of media, materials, languages and signs, by the interaction between them and, above all, investigate how they produce meaning.

These objects are often beyond what is conventionally called Literature, or rather, they emphasise the proteiform nature of Literature itself. It's no surprise, then, that contemporary criticism, especially from the Global South, has increasingly turned its attention to these aesthetic and literary practices, henceforth referred to as "writings of the present" or "post-autonomous", in the terms of Josefina Ludmer (2007); productions that belong to the "expanded field" of Literature, an expression that takes up the one used by Rosalind Krauss to deal with sculpture (1979); or that are characterised by non-specificity and non-belonging, in the terms of Florencia Garramuño (2014). Therefore, the aim of this communication is to assess the contribution of theories from the so-called Global South, such as those mentioned above, to the critical discussion of literature in its relationship with the arts and the media.

Le travail a pour but d’analyser, dans une perspective comparatiste, quatre œuvres littéraires dont le leitmotiv est les manifestations multitudinaires qui ont récemment émergé comme une forme de résistance aux processus d’exclusion sociale en cours dans le monde globalisé.

Nous considérons que toutes les insurrections abordées dans les récits sélectionnés – le Printemps arabe (Tunisie), les Journées de juin 2013 (Brésil), le Mouvement des Gilets Jaunes (France) et l’Estallido Social (Chili) – s’inscrivent dans les luttes anti-hégémoniques menées par le Sud global, une catégorie comprise ici non pas comme une opposition au Nord global, puisque, comme le souligne le sociologue Boaventura de Souza Santos, elle relève davantage d’un territoire épistémique que d’un territoire géographique.

Le corpus est composé des titres suivants : Par le feu, de Tahar Ben Jelloun ; Meia-noite e vinte, de Daniel Galera ; Leurs Enfants après eux, de Nicolas Mathieu ; et Despachos del fin del mundo, d'Alberto Fuguet.

Cette proposition vise à mettre en évidence le potentiel de la littérature pour favoriser, grâce à sa dimension affectivo-cognitive, un élargissement de nos connaissances sur les problèmes contemporains, contribuant ainsi à ouvrir des voies pour les affronter.

The work of Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie is marked by the permeability of the boundary between humanity and animality, a technique clearly adapted from the Hindu pantheon, which consists of gods who share physical characteristics between humans and animals. The pages of the controversial The Satanic Verses, a novel published in 1988 that led to the author's condemnation by the Iranian administration of Ayatollah Khomeini, are populated by characters derived from this ancient narrative practice. In this novel, two ordinary men are suddenly transformed—one into an angel, the other into a demonic goat who finds himself in a hospital where all the patients have undergone some transformation positioning them at the crossroads between the animal and the human. Meanwhile, the most recent novel by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man, published in 2022, revolves around a different kind of transformation: the sudden change in the skin color of white citizens in the United States, leaving only one remaining individual with their original white skin. In both novels, we witness the nightmare of European colonial discourse materializing into a reality that even escapes the discursive-psychic negotiation of colonial stereotypes, which Homi Bhabha associates with the Freudian fetishistic scene. By presenting how Western metropolises find themselves invaded by animalized and racialized bodies, we seek to briefly reflect on the unsettling presence of the Global South in the streets of the All-Powerful North and how the transposition of this presence into contemporary global literature contributes to the consolidation of a World Republic of Global-South Letters. Furthermore, we will explore how this "Literature Without Borders" can be understood from a comparativist perspective.

Unlike the assumption that associates the ‘birth’ of al-Nahḍa (erroneously rendered into English as the “Arab Renaissance/Awakening”) with the 1798 French expedition to Egypt, a counter-assumption stipulates that there existed an indigenous/local form of modernity in Egypt during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This study focuses on the contributions of Shaykh Ḥasan al-‘Aṭṭār (1766-1835), a polymath scholar, writer, and Grand Imam who published in Arabic grammar and composition, logic, science, medicine, astronomy, and history, in addition to literary endeavors. Al-‘Aṭṭār’s peculiar position in Egypt’s modern history, attested by both his entrenchment in an indigenous, Islamic worldview and a first-hand encounter with the French colonizer/enlightener?, makes him qualified, more than any of his contemporaries, to be labeled as the first nahḍawī. By investigating al-‘Aṭṭār’s scholarly and literary contributions, this study shall explore how such contributions qualify him as a beacon or a genuine predecessor of an indigenous, Islamic modernity that adds another layer of signification to the existing term al-Nahḍa.

This presentation begins by examining the contrast between the European Renaissance—a periodization scheme that emerged in the post-Enlightenment era—and various self-proclaimed Renaissances across Europe, which were cultural movements rooted in their unique contexts. Notable examples include the Irish Renaissance, the Scots Renaissance, the Catalan Renaixença, the Czech Renaissance, and the Hebrew Renaissance, among others.

Beyond Europe, many regions have also claimed their own Renaissances, such as the Arabic Nahda, the Chinese Renaissances, the Indian Renaissances, and the Harlem Renaissance as well as the Mexican Renaissance, among others. It is particularly intriguing to note that these Global Renaissances often emerged from societies with long-standing traditions and cultural legacies, or from young nations eager to forge a distinct identity.

While acknowledging the significant impact of the European Renaissance on world history, this paper argues that various Global Renaissances equally merit critical inquiry and comparative analysis. It argues that Renaissances are dynamic and interconnected global phenomena with diverse manifestations. At their core, the concept of Renaissance revolves around the pursuit of identity, self-definition, and cultural transformation.

Moderator

While the term "renaissance" traditionally evokes a specific Western time period and cultural movement, this panel challenges that narrow interpretation by expanding the concept to include diverse cultural rebirths across the globe. It critiques Eurocentric narratives in renaissance studies, advocating for a more inclusive understanding that recognizes the vibrancy of cultural revitalization in contexts such as the Arab Nahda, the Chinese Renaissance, the Hebrew Renaissance, the Persian Renaissance, the Catalan Renaixença, the Harlem Renaissance, the renaissances in India, and the Maori Renaissance, among others.

By exploring these varied movements, the panel highlights the unique historical trajectories and social dynamics that shape each renaissance, emphasizing the intrinsic cultural forces at play. Moreover, it proposes the establishment of a new field of "global renaissances," spotlighting often-overlooked cultural phenomena and their significance. Ultimately, this panel aims to illuminate the rich tapestry of these movements, encouraging readers to reconsider what a renaissance can signify in our interconnected world.

Han Kang’s literary works use the body as a prism to reflect the systemic violence imposed by East Asian patriarchy and authoritarian regimes. Centering on texts such as The Vegetarian, Human Acts, Greek Lessons, The Fruit of My Woman, and The Boy Is Coming, this paper draws on Jeffrey C. Alexander’s theory of “cultural trauma” to explore how Han employs bodily narratives and ghostly presences to interrogate patriarchal structures and state violence. In The Vegetarian, “meat” functions as a metaphor for sexuality, and sex becomes a tool of patriarchal control over the female body. The father, a Vietnam War veteran, symbolizes the oppressive state other, while the sister's complicity underscores the tragic impossibility of solidarity among women. Han’s turn to nature, plants, and animals reflects a cultural feminist impulse to summon a primal feminine resistance, though it often ends in the self-destruction of the “mad woman.”In contrast, Human Acts and Greek Lessons commemorate the “unspeakable” traumas of the Gwangju Uprising and the Jeju April 3 Incident through poetic language and transcendent structure. Ghosts in her narratives are not mere symbols but vessels of collective trauma, allowing history to be reactivated through embodied, sensory experience. Her use of stream-of-consciousness and near-death states produces an eerie power, giving voice to the silenced and forgotten in the fissures of history. This preoccupation with “refusing farewell” forms an intertextual dialogue with Lee Chang-dong’s film Burning, where spectral gazes and silent dances evoke suppressed class pain and collective rage, together revealing the obscured strata of trauma beneath East Asia’s modernization myth.Han Kang subverts Alexander’s discursive model of cultural trauma by inscribing trauma into nerve endings and muscle memory, making the body itself a battleground of memory politics. While the protagonist in Burning sinks into existential nihilism amid class immobility, Han’s female characters carve out subterranean paths of feminine resistance—through womb (The Vegetarian), vegetative consciousness (The Fruit of My Woman), and silence (Greek Lessons). Elevating bodily experience to an ontological level, Han re-maps the emotional landscape of Korea’s democratization and crafts a cultural poetics of trauma unique to the East Asian context—where unspoken historical violence continues to burn within flesh and blood.

In contemporary science fiction, the digital self born through mind uploading frequently appears as a distinct type of disembodied posthuman. These entities retain consciousness while being severed from their biological bodies, leaving their status as “life” ambiguous. This paper focuses on such uploaded individuals and examines their life potential and paradoxes from a posthumanist perspective. It argues that the continuity of memory, emotional responsiveness, and social functionality grants these uploaded beings a semblance of life. However, due to their radical state of disembodiment, they lack embodied perception, self-sustaining capacity, and the potential for growth—traits typically essential to living beings. This tension reveals a shifting ontological boundary of life under technological transformation and challenges the embodied premise embedded in classical life definitions. Drawing on posthumanist discourse and embodied cognition theory, the paper conceptualizes these uploaded minds as a form of “simulated life”: neither fully organic nor entirely artificial, but a novel mode of existence that urges us to rethink the boundaries of both life and humanity in the posthuman era.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, space-themed science fiction(SF) flourished amid the US-Soviet space race and technological advancement, with pioneers like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein exploring themes of human space exploration and contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. These narratives not only shaped the genre but also inspired future Chinese SF writers. In recent decades, as China’s space technology and global influence grow, those writers such as Liu Cixin, Wang Jinkang, and He Xi have gained increasing international recognition. This paper examines how these Chinese authors build on the legacy of their predecessors, incorporating features such as scientific imagination, menacing others, and ephemeral humans in their creation. Furthermore, it explores how they infuse their works with unique Chinese cultural elements, including mythological tales, philosophical doctrines, and lyrical verses. In a word, Chinese space-themed SF is poised to delve into deeper existential themes, fostering global cultural exchange and expanding the scope of future environmental humanity studies and the imaginative possibilities for humanity’s future in space.

Since the publication of Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, storytelling has become a major narrative device in Chinese American literature. While some critics emphasize the importance of storytelling in the articulation of identity and in the examination of acculturation and cultural dislocation, others question its limitations and unreliability which seem to be recognized by some Chinese American women writers, such as Amy Tan and Lisa See. To supplement the limited knowledge of first-person narrators, Tan employs bones as narrative devices in The Bonesetter’s Daughter and See chooses tea in The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. In addition, these novels include written texts that supplement first person narration. A new-materialist perspective reveals that non-human things narrate or act. When both Amy Tan and Lisa See endow non-human things with narrative power, they are no longer inert objects but storied matter. Drawing on new materialism, this paper will address how non-human narratives and written texts can compensate for the limits of human narrators and play active roles in shaping the text’s narrative and aesthetic expressions.

This article argues that The Lives of Animals approaches the human and non-human relationship through narrative form, which is different from most of the narratives dealing with non-human issues by means of thematic engagements. Coetzee’s rhetorical experience in this fiction pushes novelist form to its limit, opening new possibilities for ways of discussing animality. For Coetzee, fictional narrative form possesses unique and irreplaceable advantage in representing the living conditions of the non-human entities, thereby helping readers to get into the interiority of them. Specifically, by free imagination and textual dialogism, fictional discourse presents animals as free individuals with subjectivity and constructs a kind of “ethics of otherness”, which in turn facilitates readers’ understanding of the non-human world and multiplies the chance for them to empathize. Novelistic writing then becomes an ethical action, through which the novelists are expected to fully exploit novel’s formal resources to promote the discussions of social issues.

Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem (2008) not only impressively addresses the Fermi Paradox about where alien civilizations are, but also delves deeper into a more profound inquiry: How are they? Through shaping alien images, Liu offers unique nonhuman viewpoints to expose and critique the limits of human perceptions. This article examines Liu’s exploration of three fundamental questions within his science fiction: How do aliens comprehend the existence of humans? How do aliens perceive human material civilization? And how do aliens regard human spiritual civilization? By analyzing Death’s End (2010), “The Micro-Era” (2001), and “Cloud of Poems” (2003), this article contends that Liu critically reflects upon Chinese epistemology with particular features of moral epistemology, relational epistemology and onto-epistemology to grapple with human cognitive limitations from alien perspectives. Liu challenges the validity of moral epistemology in the context of unfathomable “dark forest,” yet draws insights from relational and onto-epistemology to envision pathways for advancing human civilization. This article situates Liu’s science fiction within a broader discussion of alien narratives and Chinese epistemology, highlighting his distinctive contribution to world science fiction beyond conventional discussions about his responses to the Fermi Paradox.

David Foster Wallace’s famous essay Consider the Lobster makes a meticulous analysis of the ethics of boiling a lobster alive, which also emphasizes the irresolvable dilemma between satisfying human needs and reducing animal cruelty. To be more general, it represents the dilemma about whether human should sacrifice more in exchange for the benefit of the nonhuman animal, which is also an innate dilemma that almost all animal narratives are faced with. Based on three major items of zoocriticism initiated by Anna Barcz, this article investigates three innate dilemmas between human and the nonhuman animal within animal narratives, namely (1) anthropocentric nature of narrative versus animal autonomy of the animal agent, (2) anthropomorphizing the animal agent versus restoration of its animality, and (3) the understanding versus misunderstanding of animals as the effect of reading animal narratives. The article claims that even though the above dilemmas will exist for now and future works, we can see through these dilemmas and focus on the special characteristics of animal narratives. Meanwhile, such dilemmatic traits are also the carriers of the distinctive aesthetic values of animal narratives.

As artificial intelligence(AI) continues to advance, the boundaries between human and AI are becoming increasingly blurred, raising profound questions about the nature of consciousness, emotion, and identity. Against this backdrop, Shang Biwu (2021) proposed that the narrative of artificial humans belonged to a type of nonhuman narrative, including narratives with robots, clones, and AI as protagonists, which is particularly prominent in the science fiction. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) unfolds a story about love, loneliness, sacrifice, and the radiance of humanity through the perspective of an artificial intelligence girl named Klara.This study aims to elucidate the affect embodiment of Klara, an Artificial Friend ( AF) and to analyze their implications for our understanding of consciousness, empathy, and ethical considerations in a world prevalent with AI.

To be specific, this study focuses on the emotional development of the protagonist designed for human companionship.We find that Klara exhibits a profound capacity for love, loyalty, and self-sacrifice, challenging the boundaries between artificial intelligence and human emotional experiences. Furthermore, Klara demonstrates empathy and compassion, not only towards her human charge, Josie, but also towards other humans and even inanimate objects, suggesting a unique form of emotional intelligence that transcends traditional human limitations. This nuanced portrayal of posthuman emotions raises critical questions about the nature of consciousness, the potential for artificial beings to experience genuine feelings, and the ethical implications of creating emotionally capable AI.

The findings above poses challenging questions for humans to redefine the boundaries between humans and AI. These also encourage humans to reconsider questions about the rights and moral status of emotionally capable artificial beings, the potential exploitation of AI in care-giving roles.

By examining themes of love, identity, and self-awareness in posthuman contexts, this study demonstrates how Ishiguro's work contributes to broader discussions on the future of human-AI relationships and the evolving definition of humanity in a world with high speed development of AI. In this sense, our research provides new insights into the literary representation of posthuman emotions and offers a novel framework for analyzing emotional narratives in science fiction of posthumans, ultimately challenging us to expand our understanding of what it means to feel and to be human.

This paper explores how the creatures in Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海經) collapse the logic of human-nonhuman binaries by transgressing body boundaries, discussing to what extent Classic of Mountains and Seas reunifies the dichotomy and revivifies the archaic by magnifying ecophobia. This research also examines the creature in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for comparison. Despite their distinct historical and national backgrounds, both texts employ similar descriptive methods in the nonhuman narrative, representing the nature of body queerness, a celebration of heterogeneity and diversity, and the rejection of human-constructed uniformity and collectivism. However, compared to Frankenstein, Classic of Mountains and Seas goes further in terms of the temporal sense of narrative, highlighting the vital difference between Gothic and ecogothic. In Classic of Mountains and Seas, the temporal sense is constructed as evolutionary rather than biographical. Overall, the research employs a comparative approach, drawing on the theories of Simon C. Estok’s ecophobia (2009) and Sigmund Freud's “uncanny.” It argues that although the creatures in Classic of Mountains and Seas follow the Gothic tradition regarding Freud’s “uncanny” effect and share some similarities in body appearance, such as “patchwork” with the creature in Frankenstein, Classic of Mountains and Seas further questions the human-knowledge-constructed logic of ecological binaries and collapses anthropocentric speciesism by evoking a deeper ecophobia. This study contributes to the ongoing questioning of human-nonhuman dualism under the anthropocentric gaze and offers new insights into how to recognize another Chinese map of cultural consciousness. In this renewed but ancient map, the “metanarratives” of the absolute dichotomy between human and nonhuman, such as the myth of Kua Fu Chases the Sun (夸父追日) and The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountain (愚公移山), are refreshed by a healthier interaction of more openness and possibilities. From this perspective, the interpretation of Classic of Mountains and Seas could be a good starting point for reviving the archaic in modern times.

Robots and their existential space provide a platform for in-depth reflection on the relationship between humans and technology in science fiction literature. In literary works, robots are often portrayed as entities possessing human intelligence and emotions, thus triggering a series of moral and ethical challenges. Klara and the Sun is Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel published after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel explores the proposition of “human heart” under the shell of science fiction, and the author skillfully utilizes delicate descriptions, complex narrative techniques, and surreal interpretations of daily life to construct a world of robots and human beings that is full of philosophical depth and emotional tension. The novel depicts the emotional connection between Artificial Friend Klara and Josie's family, as well as how this emotional connection reflects humanity's longing for technology and the reality of loneliness. Through the non-human character of Klara, the novel presents an objective and dispassionate perspective, making it easier for readers to glimpse and contemplate the vulnerability of the human heart. This revelation not only reveals the social phenomena brought about by technological progress, but also delves deeper into the possible mutation and struggle of human nature in the torrent of technology.

This paper explores the profound impact of technological progress on human society and its individual life from three dimensions: the redrawing of the boundary between robots and humans inside and outside the window, the substitution and continuation of human roles by robots, and the mirror of the future of human group loneliness in the age of technology. First, it analyzes the window as a symbolic boundary to explore the emerging relationship dynamics between robots and humans, revealing the essence of their interaction and the evolution of the boundary. Second, it delves into how technology gradually replaces traditional human roles and reshapes our lives and social structures in the process, while provoking profound reflections on ethics and human nature. Finally, it focuses on the growing sense of personal loneliness and social isolation in the context of technological advancement, reflecting the lack of authentic emotional connection in modern society. By systematically exploring key topics such as the symbiotic evolution of humans and technology, the expansion of the ethical boundaries of artificial intelligence, and the ethical paradoxes brought about by life sciences, Kazuo Ishiguro successfully guides readers to reflect deeply on the possible subtle impact of technological progress on human behavior patterns and values. Thus, in the framework of science fiction literature, the deep integration and dialectical dialogue between technological and humanistic concerns are realized.

David Foster Wallace’s famous essay Consider the Lobster makes a meticulous analysis of the ethics of boiling a lobster alive, which also emphasizes the irresolvable dilemma between satisfying human needs and reducing animal cruelty. To be more general, it represents the dilemma about whether human should sacrifice more in exchange for the benefit of the nonhuman animal, which is also an innate dilemma that almost all animal narratives are faced with. Based on three major items of zoocriticism initiated by Anna Barcz, this article investigates three innate dilemmas between human and the nonhuman animal within animal narratives, namely (1) anthropocentric nature of narrative versus animal autonomy of the animal agent, (2) anthropomorphizing the animal agent versus restoration of its animality, and (3) the understanding versus misunderstanding of animals as the effect of reading animal narratives. The article claims that even though the above dilemmas will exist for now and future works, we can see through these dilemmas and focus on the special characteristics of animal narratives. Meanwhile, such dilemmatic traits are also the carriers of the distinctive aesthetic values of animal narratives.

This presentation traces the transpacific journey of Limin Chu, who would later be credited as the pioneer of American literature studies in Taiwan. Chu’s academic career started in the early Cold War. In 1958, he received his master’s degree in American literature from Duke University; in 1965, he obtained his doctorate in American literature from the same university. At Duke, Chu studied with Clarence Louis Frank Gohdes, a prominent scholar of American literature not only at Duke but also nationwide. After Chu completed his studies, he returned to Taiwan and assumed the chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University in 1966. Before long, in a series of curriculum reforms, Chu made “American Literature” into a required course. The changes brought by the reforms laid the foundation of Taiwan’s English studies for decades to come.

Notably, Chu’s studies at Duke were sponsored by the United States Information Service (USIS) and the Asia Foundation (TAF). This presentation highlights this aspect of the cultural Cold War while revealing other factors that might have affected Chu’s academic career and his devotion to the studies of American literature. These factors include the following: the cross-Taiwan Strait tension that prompted Chu to study abroad in the U.S., the U.S.-led cultural Cold War networks in East Asia that brought Chu to Duke, the racial segregation in the U.S. that might have influenced Chu’s research interests, and the ways in which Chu’s advisor, Gohdes, aspired to establish the status of American literature in the U.S. This presentation looks at these factors, illustrating the transpacific currents that allowed American literature to find a significant place in Taiwan.

In his introduction to Love, Hate, and Fear in Canada’s Cold War, Richard Cavell notes that “Considerable reticence prevails to this day in Canada about political aspects of cultural production generally, let alone with reference to an ‘event’ – the Cold War – which was fundamentally concerned with the politicization of the cultural life of the nation” (8). This apolitical conception of culture resonates in the way culture was used by Canadian authorities and elites during the Cold War as a way of controlling “national self-representation” (Cavell 7) with the overriding, if concealed, purpose of consolidating regulation of national security through social and creative control.

Consequently, Cold War Canadian culture became a statist project that sought to create narrowly proscribed discursive conditions for self-expression and self-monitoring that would allow English Canadians to see themselves as not-American, while at the same time as part of the broader anti-Communist Western security structure. The creation and consumption of national culture – or at least a narrow, Eurocentric menu of ‘high’ cultural forms – would allow the English Canadian subject to emerge as a part of a national whole, more easily controllable because grateful and proud of the culture produced by the ‘home team’, while also not feeling ‘colonized’ by American culture. Culture was thus aestheticized – an affair of affect, style, emotion, creativity, and entertainment, with the political sub-text repressed. In fact, the only culture for which the political was acknowledged was Soviet propaganda.

One effect of this insular, conservative statist cultural project was to render Canadian literature in East Asian contexts a niche subject. The Eurocentric, high culture biases of Canada’s Cold War cultural diplomacy meant that East Asia was not a priority, as such it was left largely to private or small-scale efforts by individuals with strong personal links to Asia. While the Canadian government did contribute to the establishment of a handful of Canadian literature scholarships and programs, ironically many of them were merged into North American or American-Canadian studies. Ultimately, Canada’s cultural development would be determined by Cold War geopolitical dynamics, a condition that has echoes in the present historical moment.

In Saito (2023), I focused on Stephen Spender and his criticism on Japanese atomic war poems during 1950's. A famous British poet and critic, Spender was editor-in-chief of Encounter, a magazine that was part of the Western Cold War cultural machinery. He read English translations of a few Japanese poems selected from Shinohai Shishu [The Ashes of Death Poems] (1954), a collection of poems edited and published to protest the American hydrogen bomb test in the Bikini Atoll. In 1957, Spender made a public lecture in Hiroshima city in which he criticized the journalistic tone of the occasional poems in Shinohai Shishu and he instead praised T. S. Eliot’s traditionalism in the third chapter of The Wasteland (1922) in which Eliot put together Edmund Spenser's gorgeous depiction of an Elizabethan wedding on the Thames side and his own depiction of the destituted intercourses between men and women on the bank of the same river in the early 20th century. Importantly, there have been some Japanese writers who tried to write back to Spender’s provocation. In this presentation, I would like to focus on Hiroko Takenishi’s novel, Kangen-sai [The Festival of Classical Court Music ] (1978). This novel depicts the changes in people and landscapes before and after the atomic bombing on Hiroshima from several different perspectives, but at the core of the work is a description of the Kangensai, the most elaborate festival held on the sacred island of Miyajima, commonly known as Itsukushima Shrine, located in far western side of Hiroshima prefecture; the ceremony was introduced by Heike warlord Taira-no-kiyomori in the 12th century. This work could be interpreted as a 20-year delayed response to Spender's traditionalism.

It is not by chance that the literary studies curriculum was one of the most visible trenches of decolonial activism in the UK, especially in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Student-led demand for change has not gone unheard and, in the name of inclusion, changes were made without the adequate level of reflection that the degree of transformation required demanded. Is the diversification of ethnic background and nationality of authors in a syllabus the kind of change to be brought by an approach that calls itself decolonial?

Departing from the pitfalls of curricular inclusion as a decolonial gesture in literary studies curricula, and building on the lessons on epistemic diversification learnt through the success of postcolonial studies, this paper explores the potential of a decolonial praxis as a way forward to deliver the kind of transformation that the approach has the capacity to inspire and deliver. Building on the definition of praxis by the Brazilian scholar Paulo Freire (1985), this paper will argue that to live up to the liberating promise of the decolonial approach, literary studies must develop a conscious approach to process – which I conceive as the field’s structure and method – as a basis for action that is transformative and capable of unlocking more of literary studies’ untapped potential as worldly episteme.

Through an analysis of the rise of vernacular literary studies in the back of the institutionalisation of the discipline of English in the UK and the development of the literary research method in this context, I argue that the regard for a decolonial praxis is the most fruitful and least co-optable way forward to deliver some of the decolonial promises in a discipline embedded in a history of privilege and exclusion.

The importance artificial intelligence has gained today inevitably leads to the question of whether it can be useful in poetry. There are poets who refuse to use the PC or even the typewriter. Others welcome technological help. They benefit from artificial intelligence not to write but to experiment with language and forms in new ways.

Experimenting with language, not writing – what is the difference? The persons who experiment use language, the person who writes, especially the poet, is searching for language. He does not possess it, he has to find it, including things. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the Spanish post-romantic poet aptly describes this kind of poetry as a natural poetry that comes from the imagination itself like an electric spark, following its own rules in a free form and using simple words. It is creative by nature. “It may be called the poetry of the poets.”

The question is whether this creative poetry is in any way compatible with the aid of artificial intelligence. In order to answer this question, it is the intention of the paper at hand to examine the two distinguishable subjects of poetry, i.e. the poet, and the addressee of the poem, the reader. Can they be artificially promoted?

Rimbaud’s famous statement points to what happens to the poet in creative poetry: “I is another”. A verse by Paul Celan echoes this with the important difference however that this event implies the connotation of a personal dialogue: “I am you when I am I”. The unity of the poetic subject is dissolved. By comparing the poetics and poetry of Jacques Dupin, Paul Celan, and André du Bouchet, the paper at hand will attempt to show that the text draws the reader into a vertiginous maelstrom of meanings and differences of the I and the others. It is a texture that Derrida calls by the neologism “différance” (differance”). Once one is immersed in the movement of the text and its radiation in all directions, meanings emerge, words and Others and things appear and enter into dialogue. The poem turns out to be a network that produces a coherent meaning beyond the uncertainty of any I and Others and things in transformation, giving evidence of the body, the mind, the language, and poetry. The reader as an implicit addressee is obviously a part of this movement of shifts and dissolutions. The question of the possible place of artificial intelligence in the poetic act of creation will be answered against the background of this poetic event. The paper concludes with the question of the possible role of artificial intelligence in relation to the explicit reader.

Choice of references:

Blanchot, Maurice : L’Entretien infini. Paris, Gallimard, 1969

Derrida, Jacques : La Dissémination. Paris, Seuil, 1972

Heidegger, Martin : Sein und Zeit. Tübingen, Max Niemeyer, 1984

We cannot escape categorisation. Not only because it gives agency but also because it is an important component of cognition. In turn, the defining traits of an object/ concept tend to become associated with its essence. However, essentialization becomes difficult as the concepts grow more complex and abstract. For example, it's way more challenging to define the essence of literature, Indian or Korean as compared to a bottle or a horse.

But then, every experience, every voice, every reader and every reading comes from/ with a unique position and the act of categorisation seems to hinder this sense of uniqueness and plurality. However, what we can change is how we conceive of categories. This paper proposes that what we need is a shift in paradigm, a shift in our way of thought and life. A shift from the binary mode of thought-perception to a plural mode of thought-perception. It is impossible to appreciate multiplicity and plurality of experience as long as the Aristotelian binary remains our functional mode of (intellectual) thought and perception. In a non binary mode of thoughts, categories would still exist, but they would have softer boundaries and it would be easier for things to spill outside of those boundaries (as they already do). In this way, it might become easier for us to accept that things just “are”, they do not have to specifically “be something” or “not be something”.

This paper means to justify its theoretical position with a case study of the concept “India” through the poets’ eyes in order to make explicit the multitudes that the idea/ category of India contains. Poets across time and space have conceived differently of India/ Bharata/ Hind based on what they received from their structure of feeling. Through this case, the paper aims to bring attention to the fact that so many categories are living categories. They are ever changing and ever evolving. They contain multitudes and therefore, have multiple combinations of essences. And this multiplicity can be best understood only through a framework that allows for diversity not only “among perceptions” but diversity/plurality as the default ethic “within a perception”.

The North-east region of India, made up of eight states, despite how culturally diverse it is, has often been subject to a reductionist gaze by means of publication, syllabi and new media representation. The colonial past, conversion to Christianity and the violence in the region that marks both pre and post-independent India is very often one of the two binaries in which the people are represented in literature and in academic syllabi often at the cost of their contemporary realities. This paper critically examines the persistence of the "Indic gaze" in the representation of these states within English literature syllabi over the last decade and the politics of publication with specific focus on Mizoram and Nagaland in this era of print capitalism.

Through a diachronic study of academic syllabi, this research explores whether the portrayal of these states and their people prioritise their current social and everyday culture. The question of whether the ordinary part of culture is an affordance or whether the extraordinary - that which exoticises, historicises and binarises is interrogated. The analysis highlights how north-eastern states are frequently reduced into the binary as either exotic idylls of the present or conflict-ridden regions of the past, from old media to new media.

The study further addresses the disparity between the lived experiences of the people and their representation in literature and academic scholarship, raising critical concerns that problematise the formation of literary canons of the region. By revisiting and challenging entrenched perspectives, this paper advocates for a more comprehensive approach to integrating contemporary narratives from the north-eastern states into academic curricula.

This paper offers readings of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss as entry points into the formation of a critique of the category called ‘postcolonial’.

It traces some of the definitions and understandings of what is known as ‘colonial’, ‘anti-colonial’, and ‘decolonial’ in an effort to understand what is ‘postcolonial’. To this end, this paper will include some interpretations of the works of Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Yogita Goyal, Leela Gandhi, Anne McClintock, Homi Bhaba, and Gayatri Spivak.

Drawing from structuralists and post-structuralists, this paper investigates if there is a ‘centre’ to the concept-structure known as ‘postcolonial’ and asks if the centre holds. Is there a referent to this word or is it a metaphor for something else?

Historically, in the field of literary studies, there has always been the emergence of new categorisations (in our case, ‘postcolonial literature’) – for the better or for worse. There have also been efforts to reconcile these categories with other categories and formations. This paper is an attempt to offer instead not another structure of concepts, but a framework of concepts rooted in a politics of relationality.

A dialogic encounter with literature “expands us, like water expands a river” (Falke 2017). Categorization, as an individuating, algorithmizing process of imposing parameters, is challenged by an aesthetic of transgression predicated upon a desire for plurality. This paper explores how literary encounters with transgressive, queer desires necessitate the formation of a dialogic aesthetics. Centring ‘desire’ rather than ‘identity’ as the point of transgression, I characterize the ‘reaching out’ of categories as integral to the reading and writing of queer desire in contemporary Indian fiction. Taking from Mikhail Bakhtin’s explorations of both dialogics and aesthetics, I suggest that the reading and writing of queer desire as the creation of a contingent, heteroglossic wholeness that challenges the hegemony of pure categories. Positing dialogue as the event of an encounter between constructed “borders”, of the self, the identity, and the text itself, I suggest that explorations of queer desire within the novel involve the desire to transgress boundaries of the self, identity and the text. To this end, I undertake a reading of Ruth Vanita’s Memory of Light (2020), as well as Aalohari Aanandham (2013) by Sarah Joseph. In the former, I demonstrate transgressive potentials expressed in Vanita’s generic border-crossings between the novel, historiography, and the ghazal. In the latter, I undertake queer reading as transgressive dialogue, examining how queer desire “reorients” the centre/periphery binary in its refusal to “centre” singular narrative voices. The presence and force of queer desire further destabilizes and oversteps the category of “women’s writing” by complicating given notions of both ‘woman’ and ‘writing’. It interrogates the aforementioned ‘categories’ of ‘contemporary’, ‘Indian,’ and ‘the novel’, by overstepping categories of identity, sexuality and textuality. In staging textual encounters as the site of transgressive desires and the desire to transgress, I place ‘surplus’ as the mode by which queerness may be comprehended textually. Whereas the constructions of categories display a pervasiveness of centre and margins, I suggest that the reading and writing of queerness and surplus understands contingent excesses from categorization as the rule, rather than the exception to textual ‘understanding’. Multiplicity is configured as the precondition of narration rather than its escapable ‘other.’ As such, this paper does not attempt a reading of mimetic ‘representation’. Both the novels investigated in this paper proposes queer readings and writings as an engagement with a multiplicity of assigned and unassigned meanings, as mode and method, rather than ‘queerness’ as “category.” Therefore, I locate queerness as an aesthetic method of surplus where the texts affiliate with each other and create such a dialogue in complementary ways.

Carson McCullers is one of the most important southern American writers in the 20th century. In the sixty years since her passing, numerous outstanding works have emerged. Jen Shapland's “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers” delves into McCullers' hitherto unacknowledged queer identity from the perspective of biographical research, and brings a new image-shaping to the biographical research on Carson McCullers, revealing the identity dilemma faced by queer women in mid-20th-century America.

Jen Shapland attempts to answer these questions: If a person did not personally admit to being queer during their lifetime, how should we interpret them today? If there are no material records left behind, how can we prove the existence of same-sex romantic feelings?

Firstly, "My Autobiography of Carson McCullers" exhibits experimental qualities with a postmodernist structure. Its chapter layout disrupts traditional linear logic and adopts a fragmented and discontinuous arrangement, deconstructing the authority of the subject in traditional biographical narratives. Jen Shapland 's writing approach was inspired by the autobiographical literary criticism. With its unique genre form, it breaks away from the detached and coherent textual structure traditionally associated with "male" rhetoric, integrating narrative into discourse and intertwining objective research with subjective lyricism.

Meanwhile, Shapland decodes Carson McCullers' intimate relationships through a close reading of the audio recordings and private letters, and dissects the women who were obscured in other biographies.Jenn Shapland also delves deep into the symbolic connotations of the silent clothing. Clothing can reveal how we perceive ourselves. For Carson, Clothing externalizes inner emotions, and the diverse clothing provides with a means to express her fluid identity.

The Ontology discussed in this paper is based on the theory of Chinese philosopher Mr. Zhao Tingyang. The Ontology of human explores the essence, meaning, methods, and particularly how to better survive human existence.

The name and definition of robot are constantly changing along with the development of technology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the author finds that terms such as Automaton, Android, Robot, Cyborg have been used to name robot in literature. Among them, "Robot" is the most popular word.

Based on current technology and human cognitive ability, this article defines robot as one of the "artificial man", which is humanoid intelligent beings accomplished by mechanical means except pure organisms that involve methods such as cloning. In science fiction, the hierarchy of robot can be divided into two main categories, based on difference of Turing machines and super-Turing machines: the former are caught up in the mechanical algorithms of mathematics and are not yet self-aware; the latter have reached Descartes' criterion of I-thought, possessing the ability of self-awareness and reflectivity.

The robot ethics in science fiction is prospective. It is closely related to the evolution of personal views on technology, theology and philosophy. This paper identifies four ethical paradigms (theologism, anthropocentrism, non- anthropocentrism, post-humanism) in science fiction, and explores the ethical relationships between human and transcendent being, nature (objects), other (new "human"), the self (post-humanism).

In order to exist better, human beings need to properly handle four possible ethical relationships: human and new "god", human and new "thing", human and new "human", human and new "self". The luck of human Ontology theory is about to run out, and only by constantly solving new ethical issues can human beings realize the "becoming" and "bene-existence" in the future.

In Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist (1999), human beings’ utter trust for “the perfect machine” leads not only to the disasters which almost end the protagonists’ life or profession, but also to their subsequent exploration for future human-machine relationship in highly-developed technological society. Though respectively being located in the spaceship aiming to Saturn and the neighborhoods like those in New York and thus seemingly representing two different literary genres, these two novels express their common doubt about the possibility for the so-called perfect machine’s existence. Being made by human beings who are confident about the rational power in technological production and blind to their own class, gender, race bias in the process of making, these so-called faultless machines like the digital computer and the skyscraper’s elevator are doomed to fail and once again reveal their human makers’ inability to overcome human weakness. According to this paper, the bankruptcy of the plan of making “the perfect machine” results from the frustration in interpersonal relation, rather than from the machine’s imperfection. In consequence, the future of the so-called ideal human-machine relation in essence is still reliant on human beings’ capability to solve existent problems in human society.

To handle this topic, both novels revolve around René Descartes’ mind-body dualism for human beings and the designing concept for “the perfect machine” according to this binary. If the focus of Clarke’s scientific fiction is to criticize human mind’s overconfidence in the domineering rule over human body, Whitehead’s semi-scientific fiction’s criticism for humanity is more thorough when it presents the vulnerability for both human mind and body. And the two novelists’ answers for their questioning concerning the existence of “the perfect machine” are both negative. After all, being the product of humanity, the machine itself is more a mirror-image for humanity than an independent organism itself. Without the improvement for human nature and interhuman relation, the future for “the perfect machine” is unpredictable and may be doomed from the very start.

As a representative work of New Space Opera of the late 20th century, Dan Simmons’ science fiction Hyperion constructs a complex future universe of collision and conflict between technology and emotion: after the death of Earth, some humans began interstellar colonization movements, while others roamed in space. Artificial intelligence has evolved and parasitized in human society, seemingly a servant to humans while controlling them. The prediction of the ultimate war led the Church of Shrike to select seven pilgrims to return to Hyperion. Six pilgrims tell their own stories, picturing a world entangled with reason and irrationality.

The name Hyperion comes from Keats’ poetry, which originates from Greek mythology. Hyperion is the name of the Titan who is the personification of the sun, thus becoming the name of the planet. As the story progresses, characters and stories such as the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, “The Burnt Offering of Issaac” emerge and become the mythological materials. Meanwhile, Simmons’ creation of the “Shrike”, which is a semi mechanical/semi divine image in the near-future, is full of postmodern mythological state, reflecting the anxiety of the era.

Mythology often exists as the material of epic poetry, and it is precisely Simmons’ mythological writing that some critics believe that Simmons’ writing is epic. Essentially, mythological writing indicates that when coming to the imaginative construction of the world, humans find it difficult to surpass the reality and existing spiritual heritage.

As a new space opera, Hyperion is not strictly following scientific logic to unfold fantasies. In the text, absurd writing may seem to blur the boundary between science fiction and fantasy, but it is actually writing about human fear of the undigested unknown, aiming to reflect the true spiritual world of humanity and emphasize attention to the irrational world beyond reason.

Both myth and the absurd are ways created by humans over history to balance the rational and irrational worlds. Since ancient Greece, people have been advocating the use of reason. Through the Enlightenment movement, humans gradually regarded reason as the criterion for social life. However, humans still created spiritual products such as religious beliefs, Romanticism, and Absurdism. These are the means by which people face the expanding rational world and preserve the irrational world to prevent falling into meaninglessness.

In Simmons’ writing, it is precisely the use of the two spiritual products from myth to the absurd, that attempts to elevate the height of the irrational world in SF novels that usually emphasize the physical world. Mythology and absurdity are not only symbols, but also methods for characters to seek help when facing specific conflicts. Hyperion invents a comprehensive path of emotional comfort in the technology-led SF world, promoting the suspension of reason and the return of irrationality.

Ian McEwan depicts a highly developed world of artificial intelligence in Machines Like Me (2019). The intelligent robot Adam not only possesses complex human emotions, but also has a high degree of moral consciousness. Intelligent robots are depicted as creatures with empathy and cognition. McEwan further expands the concepts of self, soul, and human consciousness through this novel, and contemplates ethical issues such as what traits make human become human and whether it is possible to incorporate these traits into intelligent robots. In contrast, the intelligent robots in Xiao Jianheng’s Professor Shalom’s Confusion (1980) are still in their early stages. Although the functions of intelligent robots are not yet complete, professor Shalom can no longer distinguish between intelligent robots and humans based on their appearance. Intelligent robots can play the role of personal mentors, nurses, housekeepers, or secretaries in households. Professor Shalom questions whether entrusting so many household and work tasks to intelligent robots was a wise behavior. Professor Shalom is concerned that artificial intelligence may to some extent jeopardize or even replace human dominance in society. Both novels discuss the serious topic of intelligent robots intervening in human moral life. Previous research has mostly been based on the plot development of novels, emphasizing the antagonistic relationship between robots and humans. This article aims to break through the analysis mode of the binary opposition between humans and intelligent robots, turn its attention to the details and contradictions of the novel narrative, examine the individualization process of intelligence robots, and explore the mutual influence relationship between individual emotions and social structural rigidity hidden behind the ethical selections of intelligent robots. Therefore, on the one hand, this article analyzes the ethical differences between the intelligent robots in these two novels from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, and the underlying reasons for these differences. On the other hand, this article calls for humanity to construct the ethical community between humans and intelligent robots from the perspective of postmodern Western ethics in the face of the arrival of the artificial intelligence era.

Mars, Earth's nearest solar neighbor, has long been a central destination in science fiction imagination. Our visions of Mars extend beyond literature, engaging in a complex interplay with technological advancements, socio-cultural dynamics, and historical contexts to form a cultural discourse on science and imagination. A unique case in China's Mars narrative emerged around the second decade of the 21st century with the development of Lenghu Mars Town in Qinghai's Mangya. Originally a barren Gobi desert area within the Qaidam Basin, Lenghu briefly flourished in the 1950s due to petroleum discoveries but was later abandoned as resources depleted. In August 2017, the "Lenghu Mars Town" project was launched, leveraging the area's resemblance to Mars to integrate science fiction culture and Martian themes into its cultural and tourism development. In 2018, the Lenghu Science Fiction Literature Award was established, becoming a significant force in contemporary science fiction creation and intellectual property development.

From a science fiction anthropology perspective, Lenghu's Mars imagination and discourse exhibit several creative characteristics. Firstly, the town relies on unique resources—China's largest Yardang landform cluster, optimal dark skies for stargazing in the Eastern Hemisphere, and petroleum industrial relics—to construct a Mars narrative with a strong "Chinese dreamcore" aesthetic. This localized narrative offers visitors and students an embodied science fiction experience, simulating a journey from a resource-depleted Earth to a new Martian home.

Secondly, the Lenghu Science Fiction Literature Award incorporates local landmarks and place names into writing contests and invites renowned authors to draw inspiration from the region. The interplay of awe-inspiring landscapes, abandoned petroleum towns, and humanity's uncertain future endows award-winning works with depth and richness. These novels continue the construction theme of classic Chinese science fiction while introducing new creative features, using science fiction as "fictional ethnography" to reflect on humanity.

Thirdly, Lenghu leverages science fiction narratives to brand itself as the "Mars Town" and develop its industry through "technology + science popularization + science fiction." This process highlights the potential of imagination as a practice across time, creating a cyclical relationship between real-world technological practices and fictional discourses. Imagination thus emerges as a driving force and discursive resource for constructing reality.

The establishment of Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (ACLU, 1877–1888) in Kolozsvár/Klausenburg/Cluj marked a pivotal moment in the history of comparative literature, coinciding with two transformative 19th-century developments: the technological advancements that revolutionized travel and communication, and the inter-imperial negotiations that politically deflated the emancipatory nationalist movements of 1848 in Europe. These infrastructural and political shifts deeply influenced the journal’s theoretical and philological foundations. ACLU embodied the cosmopolitan ideals of Goethe’s Weltliteratur while envisioning a “science of the future” (Zukunftswissenschaft) grounded in polyglotism. This study explores the formative years of comparative literature through the lens of transnational mobility, focusing on the journal’s main editor, Hugo Meltzl de Lomnitz (1846–1908), and one of its key contributors, Dora d’Istria (1828–1888), both born on the territory of modern-day Romania.

It has been shown that exile, migration, or mobility more broadly are decisive in shaping comparative thought in the 20th century (Said 1983, Apter 2003). Meltzl and d’Istria’s cases are symptomatic of this trend, but their mobilities were distinct in their academic and upper-class nature. By situating their work within the broader materialist contexts of the 19th century, this study examines how their movements shaped the comparative methods and ideological stances of the proto-comparatist discipline. This research contributes to recent historiography (López 2009, Parvulescu and Boatca 2020, Nicholls 2024) that has highlighted the tension between ACLU’s internationalist ethos and the practical solutions proposed by its authors.

The presentation is divided into two parts. The first examines the mobilities of Meltzl and d’Istria within a Europe reshaped by the failure of the 1848 nationalist movements and the political reconciliations that followed. Meltzl’s academic peregrinations to Leipzig and Heidelberg (Horst 2005, 2006), alongside his travels across Europe and North Africa, shaped his vision of a post-imperial, Goethean Weltliteratur. D’Istria’s aristocratic background and movements between Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece informed her efforts to “deprovincialize” Eastern Europe. The second part connects the timeline of their mobilities to the evolution of their thought. Meltzl’s project evolved from radical anti-nationalism to a more pragmatic, contextually nationalist stance, reflecting his position between the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Medved 2018) and the German academic centers. Similarly, d’Istria’s writings reveal a dual commitment to Western modernization and the preservation of Balkan nationalisms (d’Alessandri 2011). This presentation shows that, while their efforts reflected ACLU’s program of protecting linguistic identities, their projects were paradoxically embedded within imperialist frameworks.

The literary historiography of Romanian diaspora writers has largely been shaped by qualitative approaches that emphasize exceptional figures—dissidents, canonical intellectuals, and internationally renowned authors such as E. M. Cioran, Mircea Eliade, and Eugène Ionesco. While studies such as those by Iovănel (2017) have analyzed the mechanisms of world literary consecration through case studies, there is little to no research into broader patterns of literary migration, particularly regarding the ideological networks of Romanian writers abroad. This article seeks to address this gap by identifying and analyzing the ideological structures of the Romanian literary diaspora using raw biographical data from “The General Dictionary of Romanian Literature.”

Employing a quantitative approach, this study aims to map the ideological affiliations of Romanian diaspora writers based on their publication networks, institutional connections, and patterns of reception. Following recent debates on the political and material conditions of literary border-crossing (Tihanov, 2012; 2021; Lachenicht & Heinsohn, 2009), we move away from the romanticized view of diaspora as inherently cosmopolitan and examine the ways in which migration reinforced distinct ideological positions. Our analysis also advances the hypothesis that the Romanian literary diaspora of the 20th century formed three major ideological networks: (1) left-wing avant-garde networks, (2) right-wing fascist networks, and (3) anti-communist “intellectual” networks (Cornis-Pope & Neubauer, 2006). These ideological formations intersect with broader trends in transnational literary and political history, including the interplay between Romanian fascist intellectuals and the European radical right (Bejan, 2019), as well as post-communist attempts to rehabilitate nationalist and right-wing figures (Neubauer, 2009).

By quantitatively assessing patterns of emigration, publication, affiliation, and circulation of Romanian diasporic writers and their works, this article contributes to the study of world literature as an interconnected system of power relations rather than an assemblage of singular, exceptional authors. To this end, we also draw on recent scholarship on the transnational dimensions of political ideologies (Bauerkämper & Rossoliński-Liebe, 2017; Stone & Chamedes, 2018; van Dongen, Roulin & Scott-Smith, 2014) and artistic movements (Harding & Rouse, 2010).

Ultimately, this research seeks to identify the underlying macro structures of Romanian diasporic literature—those systemic relationships that have been overlooked due to prevailing narratives of dissidence and cultural exceptionalism. In doing so, it offers a new perspective on the ideological complexities of Romanian literary migration and its place within world literature.

In the landmark study The World Republic of Letters (1999, translated into English in 2004), Pascale Casanova claims that for writers coming from small literatures, the only way to gain international visibility is to move to Paris and adopt a “de-nationalized” form of writing. Nearly a decade later, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen sheds new light on transnational literature by exploring its politics and proposing a taxonomy. According to Thomsen (2008), transnational literature encompasses both migrant modernists and contemporary writers, the latter of whom can be divided into three sub-categories: postcolonials, political exiles and voluntary migrants. However, neither of these accounts fully captures Romanian transnational literature from the last century. As I will argue, the more globalized the world becomes, the less transnational Romanian literature appears to be. Broadly, four waves of mobility define Romanian transnational literature (Terian 2015). According to Terian, the first wave is represented by the avant-gardists, among whom the Romanian-born Jewish writers Tristan Tzara and Gherasim Luca. The second wave includes the members of the Young Generation of 1920s–1930s: the right-wingers Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, and the anti-fascist Eugène Ionesco. The third wave is trauma literature, represented by the works of the Holocaust survivors and communist dissidents, such as Paul Celan, Norman Manea, and Herta Müller. However, whereas Terian identifies the literary comparatists as the fourth wave, my taxonomy includes instead the economic migrants. After 2000, several writers—including Radu Pavel Gheo and Adrian Schiop—moved abroad in search of work and documented their experience in literary works. As I will show, all four waves generate a transnational literature, but there is a striking difference between them. Whereas the first three waves presupposed the international recognition of the writers and their works, the writers from the fourth wave have gained mostly national recognition. This pattern suggests the existence of two forms of transnationalism: an outward transnationalism in the interwar and Cold War period and—quite paradoxically—an inward transnationalism in the era of globalization. Outward transnationalism may or may not be based on the fictional representation of displacement, mobility, exile. Yet, the outcome is that regardless of the topics they tackled, these authors—who not only lived in the West but wrote in a major language—achieved international recognition. On the opposite side, by documenting their working experience in the West, economic migrants did not write from the standpoint of the elite and not in a major language. This is why, despite their mobility, which makes them, in fact, transnational writers, their works have remained confined within the limits of Romanian literature.

My paper focuses on the relations between the Romanian and Moldovan literary systems, by giving particular attention to traveling writers. By traveling writers, I have in mind contemporary Moldovan authors who choose to (and succeed in) publishing their works in Romania. Most often than not, they also opt for residing in Romania, while maintaining close relations with their homeland and insistently revisiting it in their (auto)fictional work. To characterize this type of in-betweenness I find appropriate the concept of double diaspora, which in fact describes a situation common to Moldovan people at large. In the wake of USSR’s disintegration, Moldova switched from its colonial status as part of the Soviet Union to a national path, while strengthening relations with Romania. The Moldovan’s migration to Romania, started in the 1990s, took a new form in 2009, two years after Romania’s accession to EU, when the Romanian government boosted the process of according citizenship to Moldovan people, whether they continued to live in Moldova or migrated to the EU. Migrants often reinforce their national identity in the host country, and this is exactly what traveling writers I refer to did in their literature. While Moldova’s post-1991 national path is a dominant theme in contemporary local literature, my argument is that authors publishing in Romania treat the national element differently to their peers residing in Moldova. Building on (auto)fictional novels by Alexandru Vakulovski, Tatiana Țîbuleac, Dinu Guțu and, particularly, Sașa Zare, a queer-feminist author, I maintain that these male and female writers display intersectional characters, marked by their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social position, as well as by Moldova’s subordinate geopolitical position, when discussing new Moldovan national identities. National identity is thus integrated in this intersectional process of building a fictional self, while gender and sexual identity, as well as gendered and sexualized language, are used to describe regional uneven power relations. Drawing on Zare’s queer positioning, I conclude that queering the national is a two-end strategy: on the one hand, it draws attention to subalternity and violence; on the other, it functions as a ‘worlding’ device, since it furthers self-affirmative and inclusive literary works, which go beyond the national theme and invite in diverse characters and readers.

论文考察民国时期东南亚华文报刊中的新诗，指出东南亚新诗不仅丰富了汉诗内涵，更是文化融合与创新精神的体现。东南亚汉诗创作者在移植汉诗传统的同时，孕育出具有热带风情与家国情怀的新声。东南亚新诗既批判社会现实，抒发个人情感，又细腻描绘地方景观，明确表达文化认同，且在艺术表现上与中国大陆新诗同步发展，紧密相连。同时，东南亚华文诗歌在创作实践中展现出地域性转化与自主创新的特点，反映了该地区华人复杂而丰富的情感世界和身份认同。民国时期东南亚新诗研究不仅有助于挖掘边缘声音，更是探讨全球化语境下文化互动与身份认同问题的重要视角。

Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and Guan Hanqing`s Rescued by a Coquette both demonstrate concern for women`s ethical choices and orthodox order by depicting their unique ways of maintaining ethical order and their struggle against ethical order disruptors. The high similarity in plots makes it possible to conduct comparative research between the two plays. Two plays depict the different ethical choices made by various female subjects under the manipulation of the Sphinx factor, highlighting the decisive role of humanistic and animalistic factors. Writers use the subtle ethical choices made by female characters to form a complete process of ethical choices and present the maintenance of ethical order. This article aims to clarify the various ethical choices made by ethical subjects under the influence of the Sphinx factor, as well as the progressive relationships between subtle choices, and the role of humanistic elements in shapig character`s ethical deicisions. The interplay of ethics, agency, and cultural representation all reveal the process of making choices, which has achieved the ultimate success of ethical choices for female characters.

“Die Wiederholung” is a long novel by Austrian writer Peter Handke, published in the 1980s. Within the novel's multilayered memories and narratives, the recurring portrayal and imitation of “patterns” permeate the entire storyline and plot progression. Through its distinctive forms of “repetition” and “juxtaposition,” the novel not only delineates the internal texture of sensory patterns but also constructs their external contexts. These narrative techniques reflect the author’s perception and contemplation of the “new subject” and its relationship to external reality. This involves a series of questions about how “narrative” captures and reproduces the original “feeling” of human experience and how it recognizes, responds to, and engages with such feelings.This paper analyzes the unique manifestation of the concept of “perception” in “Die Wiederholung” within the socio-cultural context of the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the novel's linguistic and formal characteristics. By examining the textual details and structural features of its language, this study seeks to trace the trajectory of sensory modes and their generative logic. Through the dual dimensions of “sequence” and “externality” of sensation, this paper aims to uncover the role and intention of “patterns” in Handke’s creative work. Additionally, it examines the connection between the “new subject” and “affect,” shedding light on how these elements contribute to the broader thematic framework of the novel.

The theatrical form known as the ‘theatre of the absurd’ has made its mark in ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ scholarship and generated much recent critical currency. This theatrical form has established itself in opposition to European bourgeois realist theatre, and has come to be seen as avant-garde, fragmented, and often more ‘universal’ than realist theatre. In this paper, the ideas associated with absurdity in theatre will be understood as forming a repertoire of signification, which will primarily be explored in relation to two European dramatic texts of the mid-twentieth century, Samuel Beckett’s 'Waiting for Godot' (1952) and Harold Pinter’s 'The Birthday Party' (1959). By locating various aspects of absurdity in these plays within their contexts and also identifying the similar and different manners in which the ‘absurd’ is manifested, it will be shown that the ‘absurd’ is not a fixed category that can be applied universally to any play that is said to belong to the ‘theatre of the absurd’, and that this concept is seen and expressed differently by the two playwrights. Further, elements of absurdity will be located in Sriranga’s 'Listen, Janmejaya' (1966), to demonstrate that the repertoire of signification surrounding the ‘absurd’ is also visible in, and expanded by, theatrical practices outside of what critics call European avant-garde theatre, and that ‘traditional’ Indian theatre as well as ‘modern’ Indian theatre have continued to make use of these elements to achieve various dramatic effects. The concepts of performance and appearance will be crucial throughout this exploration, as they are sites of the ‘absurd’ as much as language is.

This research provides an inter-artistic comparative discussion with methodological approach focusing on the counter-narrative method applied in Milton’s text 'Paradise Lost' and Cabanel’s painting 'The Fallen Angel'. Living in Foucault’s discursive regime, we know that narratives are not just stories, narratives are power relations holding epistemological views of the world. Narratives create the overlapping spider web of knowledge and discourses that rules the social, political, religious, cultural and ideological positioning of the individual. Human beings usually live in a world that is predetermined and pre described. We are living in a story already ‘told’ by the master or the teller. What if we are the teller, ourselves this time? Does the story change? English poet John Milton (1608- 1674) and French Painter Alexandre Cabanel (1883-1889) addressed this question in their literary and artistic creations. The epic poem 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton and the painting by Cabanel titled 'Fallen Angel' both attempted re-telling the strong theological knowledge written in the Bible. The author and artist represented the story of Lucifer moving away from the grand spot light of religion and the divine torch of God. Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 and Cabanel’s painting Fallen Angel is from 1847. Similarities between the text and the art piece are- the theme of Divine error, character of Lucifer/Satan, and the representation of grand narrative with counter story. Differences include- the nationality of English and French, temporality of 17th and 19th century, medium of creation which are word and Image. Counter narrative is a method or a way to present alternative perspectives that challenge dominant narratives from the perspective of a marginalized group, generating stories that generally change the master narrative with the same storyline by refuting it and representing it from several other perspectives. This method tends to detail the experiences and voice of those who are historically oppressed, excluded or silenced in an epistemological setting. Theoretical framework for this study activates two principles of counter-narrative method. First one is Bakhtin’s idea of ‘chronotope’ which refers to how images of the human subject in literature gradually acquire a sense of historicity, of being embedded in specific times and places. The human subject comes to be represented through time as a free agent creating counter-narrative. The second idea is ‘Foucauldian tool box’ of understanding how counter narrative is generated from politics of subject. This study focuses on two comparative points; the critical analysis of the text’s idea and painting’s symbols and further investigating how their ideas and symbols are creating counter-narratives. With all of these portions of understanding tied together, this comparative study unveils how Milton’s 'Paradise Lost' and Cabanel’s 'Fallen Angel' refused grand narrative with counter narrative.

아버지의 눈을 뜨게 하려 목숨을 버리는 심청을 주인공으로 하는 <심청전>을 연구 대상으로 <심청전>에서 긴장이 해소되는 지점을 중심으로 ‘안도’를 읽어나가 본다. 죽음을 가운데 둔 이 작품에서 향유층이 죽음으로 인해 빚어지는 긴장감을 어떻게 덜어내게 되는지를 심청이 죽음을 받아들이는 지점, 심청이 용궁에 이르는 지점, 심청이 연꽃을 타고 육지로 나오는 지점, 심청이 궁궐에 이르러 왕과 만나는 지점에 나누어 살펴본다. 이후 이를 ‘숭고미’를 염두에 두고 ‘안도’와 관련하여 해석한다. 서양에서의 숭고미가 ‘자연’에 기반한 것임에 반해 인간의 도리를 중심에 둔 동양에서의 숭고함에 대한 관념은 그와 다른 것임을 읽어나가며 아버지를 위해 희생하는 딸을 그리는 작품인 <심청전>이 왜 아름다운 고전으로 읽히게 되었는지를 미적 측면에서 읽어나간다. 이로써 그간 심청의 죽음 앞에 놓였던 ‘숭고’의 의미를 재탐색하며 심청의 죽음이 보여줄 수 있는 ‘위함’이 무엇인지 새롭게 살펴본다. 이를 통해 ‘희생제의’적인 측면이 강조되는 한국 고전문학에서 도출할 수 있는 미감(美感)의 의미를 화두로 던져보고자 한다.

This study aims to analyze Shimcheongjeon, which depicts Simcheong who gives up her life to open his father's eyes. Focusing on the scenes where narrative tension is relieved in Shimcheongjeon, ‘relief’ should be read in this study. This study shall analyze how the readers relieve the tension caused by Shimcheong’s death. For the analysis, the scenes where Simcheong accepts her death, Shimcheong reaches Yonggung, Shimcheong comes out to land on a lotus flower, and Shimcheong reaches the palace and meets the king. After that, it is interpreted in relation to relief concerning with sublime. While the sublime in the West is based on Nature, the idea of sublime in the East centers on behavior and thoughts in human. It could show that an aesthetic point of view why Shimcheongjeon, a work depicting a daughter who sacrifices her life for her father, was read as a beautiful classic. With this, the meaning of sublime in Korean classic literature text could be newly interpreted. Through this, the meaning of aesthetics that can be derived from Korean classical literature, which emphasizes the sacrifice for the others could be read in another point of view.

This study aims to analyze the issues of women and justice represented in Korean popular culture, focusing on the recently released Korean crime film Citizen Deok-hee(2024). The film, which deals with the emerging crime of voice phishing, is based on a true story. The protagonist, Deok-hee, is modeled after Kim Seong-ja, a victim of voice phishing, who later played a decisive role in uncovering a criminal organization. Kim Seong-ja’s story reveals the deeply embedded male-centered structure within the law, which continues to marginalize women. In other words, although the democratic judicial system pursues the neutrality and fairness of the law, it has historically adopted the perspectives and positions of men as universal, while ignoring or concealing women’s perspectives, experiences, and voices.

In particular, Korean crime films and dramas, which are actively produced and consumed, often reflect a stereotypically male-centered structure of law and crime. The heroes who mercilessly punish villains are usually men, while the victims they rescue are typically the socially vulnerable—children, the elderly, and women. While crime films pursue poetic justice rooted in the moral triumph of good over evil, they maintain a male-centric narrative that sidelines women and other social minorities by focusing on heroic male figures. Citizen Deok-hee, by basing its story on Kim Seong-ja, a real-life crime victim and key figure in resolving the case, criticizes the male-centric nature of the legal system and prompts viewers to reconsider the actual meaning of so-called “gender justice.”

In conclusion, this study argues that Korean popular culture demonstrates how law and institutions must listen to “women’s voices” in order to truly recognize women as legal subjects, and that doing so is essential for the realization of genuine gender justice and equality.

This study compares the Spanish novela negra and digital detective games to examine how both forms, while sharing a common detective narrative structure, construct fundamentally different models of reader/player subjectivity under distinct cultural and media environments. The primary cases include Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Pepe Carvalho series, its 1988 game adaptation Los Pájaros de Bangkok, and the modern digital detective game Disco Elysium.

Novela negra, rooted in the literary tradition of 19th-century detective fiction, presupposes truth as an internally embedded and interpretable entity, positioning the reader as a passive, empathetic, and interpretive subject. In contrast, digital detective games reconfigure truth as a construct generated through the player’s choices and interactions within technologically driven, interactive frameworks. Consequently, the user shifts from an external observer to an internal operator who actively engages in the unfolding of the narrative. Los Pájaros de Bangkok, situated at the boundary between literature and games, functions as a transitional narrative in which the weakening of traditional detective structures is accompanied by the emergence of game-like interactivity, revealing the structural shifts between media.

By comparing these narrative systems, this study argues that the evolution of detective storytelling is not merely a formal change but a reflection of broader cultural transformations in how subjectivity is imagined. Specifically, it shows how sensory perception, technological mediation, and cultural logic shape narrative structures. Ultimately, this research contends that literature and games should not be seen as isolated genres but as interrelated platforms for experimenting with the cultural construction of narrative subjectivity.

This study aims to examine more deeply the relationship and significance between the concept of "stylization(양식화)" and the critique of "schematic realism" through a focus on the criticisms published by Kim Hyeon in the mid-1960s. This will be developed through research in two particular categories. First concerns the influence of Bachelard inherent in the concept of "stylization." Kim Hyeon's reception of Bachelard is well known, and this is particularly evident in his critical work from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. This paper argues that "stylization" is related to Kim Hyeon's major concept of "enveloping(감싸기)" and that it is based on the scientific epistemology of French philosophy. Furthermore, this argument will be advanced through an approach to "factual form(사실형)" in the critique of "schematic realism(도식적 리얼리즘)" found together in criticisms dealing with "stylization." Second, based on this, we aim to examine why Kim Hyeon develops his discussion centered on "religion(종교)" in "A Study on the Stylization of Korean Literature(한국문학의 양식화에 대한 고찰)" published in 1967. Through this, we seek to reveal that the concept of "stylization" is not simply a matter of style, but rather an epistemological concept closer to the French term modalité, which is more often translated as "modality" rather than "style" in Korean.

This paper intends to study Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian (2007), translated into English by Deborah Smith in 2015, through the eco-feminist lens offered by Vandana Shiva. Shiva criticizes patriarchal and capitalist systems that exploit both women and nature. She argues that women’s close relationship with nature makes them key agents in resisting ecological destruction. The theory reveals the interconnectedness of the novel’s critique of patriarchal oppression and environmental exploitation. The domination of women is linked with the domination of nature. The protagonist’s rejection of meat reflects a rejection of patriarchal systems that exploit and consume both women and nature. Her desire to abstain from participating in the violence inflicted upon animals reflects an eco-feminist critique of human dominance over nature, often linked to men’s dominance over women. The protagonist’s desire to be transformed into a tree shows an act of defiance against patriarchal systems and an expression of eco-feminist ideals, where harmony with nature is prioritized over human constructs of dominance. This paper investigates to what extent this novel can be analyzed as a fiction which brings Vandana Shiva’s approach together with a critique of male-dominated society in the sense of an ecofeminist position.

This paper will focus on the motive of historical violence and inherited family trauma presented in The White Book (2016) by South Korean writer Han Kang. The main theme of this fragmented narrative is the inherited family trauma resulting from the tragedy of the author’s mother who lost her first daughter shortly after having delivered her. However, the historical violence that occurred in Warsaw during World War II serves as the background and inspiration for Han Kang’s perceptive thoughts aiming to work through this painful personal experience. Not only does she describe her stay in “the white city”, which suffered severe destruction after the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, but she also builds an analogy between the resurrected city of Warsaw and her deceased sister who arduously strives to reconstruct herself.

What is more, while walking through the streets of the Polish capital, the heroine of The White Book encounters multiple memorial plaques which have been used for decades to commemorate the victims executed by the Nazis. Having discovered that Polish people still light candles and lay flowers to honor the victims of the war, she expresses a regret that the violence which occurred in South Korea has not been properly historicized. This very scene reflects Han Kang’s conviction that trauma can be soothed only when the tragic past is properly exposed, embraced and integrated.

I am also going to present a short story entitled The Dybbuk (1996) written by a Polish writer Hanna Krall, which also provided inspiration for Han Kang in the process of writing The White Book. The protagonist of The Dybbuk is an American Jew inhabited by soul of a stepbrother who died in the Warsaw ghetto. These two works will be analyzed through the lens of the theory of an American psychologist and therapist Mark Wolynn presented in his book It Didn't Start with You (2016). According to Wolynn, tragic experience can be passed down through generations but trauma can be also healed if one uncovers the difficult past and include forgotten or estranged family members back in the family system. This theory will be used to demonstrate that the protagonists of The Dybbuk and The White Book who welcome the souls of their siblings to inhabit their bodies are in fact breaking the cycle of transgenerational trauma.

All in all, the aim of this paper is to prove that The White Book not only copes with inherited family trauma, but also expresses a strong belief that the wounds of the tragic past – coming either from historical violence or painful family experience – cannot be healed unless they become the object of perception and interpretation. In other words, this deeply intimate work of Han Kang highlights the importance of historicization in the process of healing national and personal trauma.

The presentation speech for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature highlights the poetic as a defining characteristic of Han Kang’s works. This poetic goes beyond exploring rhetoric and language, engaging with the enduring and ever-evolving question: “What is poetry?” This study takes a dual approach, focusing on both the author’s body of work and the study of poetry, to explore the essence of poetic expression in Han Kang’s writing. Centered on her only poetry collection, Dinner Placed in a Drawer, the research draws upon Roland Barthes’ theories of writing and Stanley Cavell’s philosophy of ordinary language and poetics. Through in-depth textual analysis, it explores how Han Kang employs distinctive language, imagery, and forms to achieve genre innovation. By using the human body as a medium, she creates a poetic space that evokes an aesthetic rooted in fragility and pain. Her poetry not only questions the fundamental essence of human existence but also affirms a commitment to the position of individuality through the act of language, providing readers with a bridge that links the personal and the universal, humanity and the world.

This presentation will explore the meaning of history and trauma in Han Kang’s historical novel, Human Acts, through the lens of Jacques Derrida’s hauntology. Han Kang employs poetic diction and the haunting voices of ghosts that linger over the massacre scenes in Gwangju, a tragedy perpetrated by martial military forces. During the Gwangju Uprising, many civilians resisted but were brutally slaughtered by paratroopers sent to suppress dissent and secure Chun Doo-hwan’s coup d’état. The testimonies of this atrocity are conveyed not only by survivors but also by ghosts, whose lingering voices disrupt the flow of time. These spectral testimonies do not merely haunt; they create intra-active connections between the living and the dead, as well as between contemporary society and the past. The voices of the dead reverberate across time, unsettling both history and the unrealized futures that never came to be. This presentation will offer an in-depth analysis of these connections through a close reading of Human Acts.

The London Review of Books (April 5, 2018) draws a compelling parallel between Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved and Han Kang’s works in their representation of devastating historical violence. As testimonial literature, Han’s writings resonate not only with Holocaust literature but also with diverse histories of violence across the globe.

This presentation examines the concept of liminality in the historical testimonial literature of Han Kang from South Korea and Breyten Breytenbach from South Africa. Their works reimagine historical violence through multiple liminal perspectives that transcend conventional boundaries of representation. This analysis explores several intersecting themes: the Buddhist philosophical concept of the endless fluidity between yin and yang; the permeable boundaries between life and death (rooted in Buddhist notions of reincarnation); Breytenbach’s exploration of nothingness in dialogue with Han’s metaphysical use of white; and the dissolution of boundaries between human and animal, leading to post-humanist considerations. Ultimately, both authors posit love and compassion as transformative responses to historical violence.

This comparative study investigates how these two authors, emerging from distinct geopolitical contexts, articulate historical violence and its traumatic aftermath in their respective societies. Their engagement with liminality includes a critique of contemporary violence, the articulation of survivor’s guilt and trauma (embodying Rothberg’s concept of the implicated subject), and the enactment of post-human performances that, following Deleuzian thought, offer healing and empathetic possibilities in contemporary reality. The analysis demonstrates how both authors employ liminality as a literary strategy to navigate historical trauma and forge pathways toward reconciliation and understanding—or toward what Han powerfully conceptualizes as 'love'.

Kafka is acknowledged by Ishiguro as one of his major literary influences, but their relationship has not been closely verified. The archive of Ishiguro’s manuscripts and papers in the Harry Ransom Center in Austin houses Ishiguro’s extensive notes on Kafka’s works, revealing his fascination with Kafka’s The Trial (1925). This article explores Ishiguro’s unpublished essays and critical notes about Kafka’s narrative techniques, and his millennial novels adapting Kafka’s tactics with the new mode of imagination altered by contemporary visual media, such as photographs and film, to reflect on the dialogues and interactions of writers between cultures based on such media specificity. Referring to the archives of the Ishiguro Papers, I argue that reading and thinking about Kafka helped Ishiguro incorporate surreal aspects of dream and memory into The Unconsoled (1995) and When We Were Orphans (2000). To support this argument, I use the coined dream narrative terms that Ishiguro identified in Kafka’s writing (such as “unwarranted emotion and relationship”, “delayed recognition”, “weird placing and venues”, and “normalization of the oddity”) to cross-examine Ishiguro’s two novels with Kafka’s The Trial to show how Ishiguro experiments and gradually founds his characteristic “appropriation” technique by adding more filmic elements to the Kafkian dream language. The result of such combination is a new world literature that reaches far to readers from all civilizations. Through his profound reading and transmedia adaptation of Kafka, Ishiguro reconstructs world literature. It also bears testimony to Kafka’s great legacy to world literature.

Art history is a form of cultural identity that records philosophical reflections of different cultures, from external appearances to inner worlds. It needs to factually and objectively reflect various artistic genres from different geographical and ethnic origins, as well as their histories of transformation and logics of development. However, from epistemic structures, discursive logics to rhetorical methods, the writing of world art history is subject to the sustained influence of Western-centrism. Although the emergence of a global art historiographical approach in the second half of the 20th century made room for non-Western art in the canonical art history, simply fixing and mending art history will not suffice in transforming the well-established academic paradigm of Western art historiography. To write an art history that accurately reflects the varying artistic profiles, historical genealogies and processes of transformation from different parts of the world, it's necessary to depart from an objectivist art history, to put an emphasis on cultural exchanges, and to construct discursive rules and narrative systems with national artistic characteristics.

Translation serves as a potent remedy for the exchange of heterogeneous civilizations and stands as a crucial bridge connecting indigenous literature with the global literary growth. Contemporary Chinese literature, as an integral component of world literature, continues its connection with world literature through the variation inherent in translation, actively participating in its construction and fostering cultural exchange, complementarity, and literary innovation and integration, during which translators are regarded as as the primary agents and intermediaries. Existing research has overlooked the role of Sinologist translators in the construction of world literature, with Carlos Rojas being a prime example. Rojas is a pivotal translator of contemporary Chinese literature who centers around the English translation of works by authors such as Yan Lianke, Yu Hua, and Jia Pingwa. It can be said that Rojas selects original texts with an eye for the global elements of contemporary Chinese literature, and his translations display a strong consciousness of world literary construction. For one thing, he pursues a translation strategy that balances the effects of defamiliarization and comprehensibility, thereby reflecting a translation philosophy that values both the artistic merit of literary works and reader awareness. For another, he strives for variation in translation strategies that entails neologism, transformation, supplementation, omission cater to the cultural aesthetic preferences of English readers while highlighting the manifestation of heterogeneous cultures, embodying his view of cultural inclusiveness. In this way, Rojas, as the eyes of the foreign, has contributed to bridging Chinese literature with world literature.

Abstract: Since ancient times, the academies in Bashu area are rich in cultural resources. The concept and practice of "making Shu with Confucianism", "taking rites as Confucianism" and "taking wind as teaching" contain rich cultural traditions and regional characteristics of value orientation. Bashu Academy is not only the preservation of traditional culture, but also an important field of academic innovation, cultural reproduction and social change. The academy attaches great importance to the academic debate and academic exchange of "understanding righteousness and principles", and allows different schools of thought to give lectures to reflect the spirit of mutual learning of a hundred schools of thought among civilizations. In particular, the "lecture" system prevalent in the Song and Ming dynasties has become an important way for the academy to give lectures and promote the development of academic culture. From the perspective of field theory, Bashu Academy is not only a place for academic education, but also a key cultural mechanism in the social reform, carrying the transformation and revival of modern and modern Chinese culture. On the basis of deeply grasping the prominent characteristics of mutual learning among civilizations, summarize the experience of producing and cultivating excellent traditional Chinese culture in Bashu Academy culture, keeping pace with The Times, promote the construction of Chinese national community, and give play to the greater role of Bashu culture in forging the consciousness of community of the Chinese nation.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, an English-language travelogue by British author Fuchsia Dunlop, has garnered significant attention overseas for its portrayal of China's food, cities, customs, and culture. The book holds great importance for the international dissemination of Chinese culture, particularly its secular aspects. Current research primarily focuses on translation studies and cross-cultural communication paths, with limited exploration of its Chinese secular culture writing. However, it is this secular culture that prompted Fuchsia, as a cultural "other," to reflect deeply on cross-cultural identity, thereby facilitating a deeper spread of Chinese secular culture. This paper examines the Chinese secular culture writing in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, summarizing its contents and characteristics. It further explores the significance of Chinese secular culture for the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture and cross-cultural identity amidst globalization. The paper is structured into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction outlines the study's object, background, current research status, methodology, and significance. The main body comprises three chapters. Chapter 1 elucidates the content and value of Chinese secular culture, highlighting its practical potential for international dissemination. Chapter 2 summarizes the Chinese secular culture featured in the book, encompassing dietary culture, urban culture, and rural customs, and analyzes the cross-cultural reflections these cultures elicited in Fuchsia. Chapter 3 delves into the characteristics and cultural significance of Chinese popular culture in cross-cultural communication. At the value identity level, Fuchsia's perspective on Chinese secular culture evolved from "shock" to "recognition." In terms of cross-cultural identity, she pursued and rebuilt her self-worth through learning Chinese culture, completing a cultural root-searching journey from a globalization perspective. This process allowed her to reconfirm her cultural identity in a global context and gain self-rediscovery. The conclusion summarizes the study's findings. The paper argues that the Chinese secular culture writing in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper underscores the unique value of secular culture in Sino-foreign exchanges, including its popularity, acceptability, broad dissemination, and two-way interaction. It stimulates the transformation of the cultural identity of the "other," deeply engaging Chinese culture in identity thinking amidst globalization. This facilitates deep-level dissemination of Chinese culture, reconfirms cultural identity in a global context, and prompts Chinese readers to reassess their cultural traditions from an external perspective. This has significant academic and practical implications for exploring the content choice and overseas dissemination path of Chinese culture.

This JCLA-KCLA Joint Session Roundtable will bring together members from the Korean Comparative Literature Association (KCLA) and the Japanese Comparative Literature Association (JCLA). The session aims to compare current trends in the field of comparative literature, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics for scholarly work, focusing on the following four topics:

First, "Recent Activities" will involve sharing key activities and research achievements of each association, while also exploring future directions for comparative literature research in the current academic environment. Second, "Education and Social Impact" will examine changes in comparative literature education and its influence on society, discussing ways the discipline can contribute to the community. Third, "Academic Publication" will analyze trends in scholarly publishing within comparative literature and exchange practical information on strategies for publishing in domestic and international journals and monographs. Finally, "Internationalization and the Global Anglophone" will delve into methods for expanding comparative literature research globally, including strategies for promoting exchanges with the Anglophone academic world and building international scholarly networks. This will also involve an extended discussion on comparative literary discourse possible between Anglophone comparative literature and East Asia.

This roundtable is expected to be a meaningful opportunity to vitalize academic exchange between the two associations and collectively seek solutions to the pressing challenges facing the field of comparative literature.

Members from KCLA and JCLA will compare trends in the field, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics around the 4 topics below.

1) Recent Activities

2) Education and Social Impact

3) Academic Publication

4) Internationalization and the Global Anglophone

This presentation critically reviews the activities of KCLA since the 2000s and examines the possibility of comparative literature in East Asia. And I would like to discuss how KCLA will respond to the phenomenon in which cognition and methodology of comparative literature is spreading in various academic fields.

Members from KCLA and JCLA will compare trends in the field, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics around the 4 topics below.

1) Recent Activities

2) Education and Social Impact

3) Academic Publication

4) Internationalization and the Global Anglophone

Within this context, the present author will talk about the education and social impact.

While narratology flourished in European languages academia from the late 20th century onwards, shifting its emphasis on the structure per-se to the action of telling/narrating, similar studies also developed in East Asia around the turn of the century. Examining literary texts in East Asian languages, scholars adopted, refined, and sometimes modified narratological concepts and frameworks created based on mostly Western literatures. More recently, they started taking up diverse cultural artifacts and expanded their scopes including socio-historical issues. Regrettably, though, such rich studies of narratives in these languages are still underrepresented in global academic forums. This session revisits narratological approaches using Korean and Japanese examples, while showcasing latest developments in studies of narratives in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region with a particular emphasis on their sociocultural contexts.

- Presenters (*: chairs): (1) AN Young-hee (Keimyung University)." The Discovery of the Inner Self: The Establishment of Narrative Style in Modern Japanese and Korean Novels." This paper addresses how two writers in East Asia, Iwano Hōmei and Kim Dong-in, established the fundamental style for a confessional novel in Japanese and in Korean respectively, which is related to the issues of subjectivity and objectivity.; (2) KOSAKA Eliko* (Toyo University). "Kibei Literature in Translation: Reexamining the Narratives of Minoru Kiyota's War Memoirs." This paper examines Minoru Kiyota’s memoir of his WWII and Korean War experiences written in Japanese and in English translation, exploring what their use of different narrative styles may convey and concurrently occlude.; (3) MAESHIMA Shiho* (University of Tokyo). "Changing Expression/Perception of ‘Reality’: Narratological Transitions in Modern Japanese Journalistic Reporting.” Taking up a modern practice of news reporting, this paper examines how narrative techniques to report current affairs changed in Japan from the late 19th century until the interwar period, which, concomitantly, led to transitions in perceptions of “reality.”; (4) PARK Jin-su (Gachon University). “The Narratology of Japanese and Korean Popular Music: The Function of Perspective in Enka and Trot.” – Popular music formed in the 1910s and 1920s in the Korean peninsula and Japan developed separately since the 1960s onwards out of their need to establish national identities. This paper addresses its cultural implications by analyzing perspectives in their representative songs.; (5) TAKEUCHI Akiko (Hosei University). “Narratological Approach to Noh Drama: Narration, Fusion of Voices, and Representations of Salvation.” – In noh, not only characters’ speeches but also narration is enunciated on stage, and the boundary between the two is often fused, making the voice ambiguous. This paper examines the use of such a unique language in the representations of hell and salvation, with the aid of narratology.

- Discussant: SAKAKI Atsuko (University of Toronto)

Few contemporary films delve as deeply and in such an original and impactful way into the issue of female body image as The Substance by Coralie Fargeat. The film revisits a long history of representing the female body, projecting sexism, ageism, abjection, disgust, beauty, and ugliness onto it. In Western art history, starting from the Renaissance, this classical theme of the confrontation between the beautiful body of the young woman and the abject body of the elderly woman is well-documented. Hans Baldung Grien (The Ages of Woman and Death, The Three Phases of Life and Death), Caravaggio (Judith and Holofernes), Albrecht Dürer, and later Goya also portrayed elderly women or witches with grotesque characteristics. A painting that epitomizes this theme is Lucas Cranach’s The Fountain of Youth (1546), which juxtaposes depictions of elderly women with flirtatious, youthful beauties, summarizing the plot of The Substance.

However, the film’s director introduces a rejuvenation device that merges both bodies into the same individual, who, now split, wages war against herself, transforming the elderly body into pure flesh and abjection. The final scene suggests a form of feminine revenge against the objectification of women’s bodies. Other films in the body horror genre have influenced the construction of Demi Moore’s monstrous transformation in The Substance, such as the infamous “bathtub woman” in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).

In this presentation, I intend not only to provide a brief historical overview of the abject representation of the elderly female body but also to reflect, through Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, on the meaning of this (anti-)machist theater of horror that Fargeat presents. It is worth noting that the film also portrays the media mogul, played by Dennis Quaid, as an abject, grotesque figure. This character combines extreme sexism with a filthy male body, with a mouth transformed into an anus—eloquently illustrating how he speaks nothing but “crap.”

The 2024 drama Like a Rolling Stone (出走的决心) presents the story of a 50-year-old woman who has spent her life living for others. After enduring years of familial pressure, she ultimately decides to leave, marking a pivotal moment of self-liberation. Told from a female perspective, the film offers a contemporary reexamination of the “Nora’s departure” theme, positioning itself as a reimagining of the Nora myth in the new era. Unlike the 1920s, when Nora’s story first entered China and departure was often idealized, this film explores the practicalities of leaving, questioning not only the act of departure itself but also the complexities of life thereafter. The shift from idealism to realism reflects a more thoughtful, strategic approach to personal liberation. The film addresses not only the empowerment of women but also delves into the underlying societal structures that perpetuate their oppression.

The film’s deeper reflection on Nora’s departure is evident in three key aspects: First, the protagonist’s departure from both her father’s and her husband’s homes highlights the evolution of the Nora myth since the New Culture Movement. Nora’s original departure in A Doll’s House symbolizes a quest for personal independence, but as the myth entered China, it became a symbol of resistance to arranged marriages and evolved to reflect the pursuit of romantic freedom. In the 1930s, during the push for women’s liberation, the focus shifted to the call for women to leave their husbands’ homes.

Second, the protagonist’s careful preparations, particularly her focus on achieving financial independence, underscores the importance of economic autonomy in the process of liberation. This mirrors the growing recognition of economic rights within women’s liberation discourse. Initially, the emphasis was on the spontaneous act of departure, but with the introduction of Marxist theories, economic independence became central, prompting deeper reflections on the aftermath of Nora’s departure.

Finally, the film does not focus on a male-female binary but instead reveals the structural societal issues that contribute to women’s oppression. The protagonist’s daughter, driven by her own career concerns, pressures her mother to stay, suggesting that the forces oppressing women are not solely patriarchal but also tied to a capitalist, patriarchal system. This sophisticated treatment of women’s issues demonstrates a mature understanding of the complexities of liberation.

Like a Rolling Stone offers a contemporary reflection on the Nora myth, encapsulating the evolution of women’s struggles in China and providing new insights into the challenges of women’s liberation in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Jonathan Swift, an 18th-century English poet and satirical novelist, is dismissed as a misogynist for his anti-aesthetic treatment of female body images in Gulliver’s Travels and a series of scatological poems. Swift employed a strategy of depicting ugliness in female body images to challenge the conventional perceptions of women and the objective world held by male voyeurs or narrators. In Gulliver’s Travels, the passionate and lustful image of the female Yahoo with her disgusting filthy bodies subverts the traditional male courtship model and stereotypes of female physical attractiveness. Besides, his scatological poems, such as “The Lady’s Dressing Room”, “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”, “Strephon and Chloe” and so on, delicately depict women’s excremental vision in private space and the real state of their bodies from the perspective of male gaze, which not only surpasses the aesthetic confines of libertine tendencies prevalent in early 18th-century England but also reveals the concurrent existence of beauty and ugliness in the objective world.

From Swift’s poems and personal letters, it can be seen that the purpose of uglitic appreciation of womanhood is not to disparage women, but rather to dismantle the pretension and ostentation built upon luxury consumption and the female image within the male aesthetic perspective. Swift's works are frequently misconstrued as expressing misogyny, yet in reality, his thoughts lean more towards a form of impartial misanthropy. Swift gets rid of Descartes’ mind-body dualism, emphasizing the integration of body and spirit in his works. He believes that physical ugliness is not limited to one gender. Swift’s poem “Cadenus and Vanessa”, published in the same year as Gulliver’s Travels, and his epistolary diary even hints that women have equal potential to men on a spiritual level. However, despite reshaping the female image and altering the paradigm of gender relations, Swift does not intend to subvert the social order; rather, he aspires to enhance the moral and spiritual realms of both sexes, particularly women. During that period, British society was contemplating the excesses of libertinism and luxury consumption, and embarked on a reform aimed at improving moral standards and public behavior, thereby enhancing social morality. Swift responds to the call for social reform through his appreciation of ugliness in his works, uncovering the ugliness of real life, and thus urging readers to awaken amidst the ugly yet authentic realities, ultimately fostering social progress and the refinement of humanity. Therefore, from the reflection of female body images to the hope for an elevation in the moral standards of both genders, misogyny and scatology ultimately reveals Swift’s sentiment of social reform.

The literary creations of domestic workers constitute a significant component of Chinese new worker literature. In these non-fiction works, the physical images of domestic workers evolve from victims of domestic violence and instrumentalized tools in labor to beings who attain subjective cognition through literary expression. This transformation process unfolds in three primary stages: in rural areas, their bodies are subjected to discipline and oppression, including shaming education during growth and domestic violence within marriage; in domestic labor, their bodies are neglected and objectified as tools of labor; and through literary creation, they re-examine their bodies and emotions, discovering their own value through sisterhood identification. The physical writing of domestic workers demonstrates the dual emancipation process of the bodies and emotions of new worker women: on the one hand, these women revisit their bodies through literature, resisting their fate of being oppressed and objectified; on the other hand, their emotional awakening is accompanied by reflection on gender oppression and class inequality within the urban-rural dual structure. This awakening of subjectivity, from body to emotion and from individual to collective, not only showcases the crucial role of literature as an empowering tool but also serves as a literary testament to the historical situation of new worker women in this era.

Against the backdrop of the Cold War,McCarthyism and the Cold War containment policy instigated a heightened sense of public sensitivity and panic regarding the underlying violations and deviant behaviors.As the cultural context trended towards popularization,it was inevitably and closely intertwined with regulatory discourses,which were disseminated through medical fields such as psychiatry.Richard Yates,an American writer,by focusing on the issue of mental illness in the cultural context from the 1950s to the 1960s,revealed the degradation of the middle class's subject power in the post-war American cultural narrative.In Yates's works,the mentally ill are depicted as malleable symbols,representing the public's anxiety and challenging and polysemous concepts.These characters,often referred to as "Foucaultian madmen,"diverge from the previous stagnant "simulacra" and are instead positioned as the other within Deleuze's "becoming" context.Through absolute freedom and acts of destruction,they subvert the implicit social regulations that govern them.While confronting the suspension of "bare life,"they compel readers to reevaluate the general medical premises represented by psychiatry.

On this basis,Yates' novel in different periods corresponded to the phased characteristics of the development of mental illness treatment in the United States,providing a clear perspective on the ever-changing mental health diagnosis methods in post-war America.In his early novels,Yates revealed the transformation process of the psychoanalytic discipline from experiencing a short-lived peak in the late 1950s to gradually declining in the early 1960s by depicting the disadvantaged position of women in the psychoanalysis and treatment system.This perspective is rooted in the practical needs of post-war medical care and cost-saving in medical expenses,as well as the continuous attention of the media and the film industry to "mental illness".He thus criticized the legitimacy and effectiveness of this discipline from the perspective of the private sphere.The exposure of the poor conditions in state-run mental hospitals by Life and CBS in the 1960s,and Kennedy's vigorous promotion of institutional reform for mental illness,prompted Yates to shift his focus to the public sphere in his later works.By capturing the psychological states and distinctive experiences of the protagonists,he made a thorough evaluation of institutionalized treatment services within the national public sphere from two aspects:the spatial power mechanism and the delayed-onset harm of custodial treatment.Yates' works rendered mental illness and its treatment as crucial components of body metaphor,revealing how individuals break free from coercion and bondage in the context of “impotentiality”.Consequently,a brand-new dialogue space was formed.While deconstructing the futile pursuit of regulation,the text also explores the human cost associated with the harmonious operation of a democratic society.

During the 1950s, the writers portrayed a series of images of nursing mothers, leaving a traceable legacy of visions of Chinese women. These images are not only a literary description of the movements, “The Campaign of Defending World Peace” “The Movement of Literacy” and “The Movement of Collective Parenting”, which documented the development of bio-politics in New China, but also a demonstration of the realization of bio-governance at the grassroots level and of the liberation and development of women during the 1950s. This article aims to investigate the images of these women and their bodies, which significantly affect the reformation of Chinese fertility culture, the improvement of daily life, the change of power dynamics between genders, and the development of bio-politics during the 1950s.

Xue Mo is a prominent contemporary novelist known for his authentic portrayal of rural village life in northwestern China. The fictional world that Xue Mo has created is imbued with a romantic longing for a lost nomadic lifestyle, a lyrical iteration of primitivity and rawness, rich surrealistic imagery, and folkloric figures that have long enthralled the Chinese readers, but this is also a world of misery, pain, violence, and depravity built upon the theme of the body in distress and the soul for salvation. This theme echoes through a number of Xue Mo’s award-winning fictions, including the recently translated novel Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia. With his characteristic style of “enchanted narrative” that breaks the barriers of time and space to tell an eternal story of suffering, romance, and redemption that lasts from the Kingdom of Xixia (1032-1227) to the present time, Xue Mo reconfigures the distressed body as a re-evocation of the Buddhist paradox about the body and the soul in an enriched modern context of empathy and enlightenment.

In their paper "On the Impaired Female Body Image in the U.S. Novels (1990-2020)" Peina Zhuang and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek analyze the representations and features of the impaired body images of women. They note that different periods (as divided into 1990-2000, 2001-2008 and 2009-2020) have their own focus on the images and also the causes they want to present. For instance, novels in the period from 2001-2008 devote large space to the depiction of an impaired body image related with natural disasters and modern medicine, as demonstrated by the bomb in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the reduced linguistic ability caused by a stroke in Everyman, the postoperative head scar in Exit Ghost, and the self-harm inflicted by Marilyn due to mental breakdown in Blonde. And the causes for the impairment in 2009-2020 change into factors, such as aging, rape, car accident, shooting and so on. So, the depiction of such images is not merely a simple writing of the physiological “scar.” This paper argues that the shift from portraying power dynamics in gender relations and social status to reflecting the impact of uncontrollable forces—such as war, disasters, and illness—on the human body highlights postmodern fiction’s meditation on the unpredictability of fate. It extends the focus on the dignity of marginalized and vulnerable groups to encompass the dignity of ordinary individuals.

In the poetry collection Put Dinner in the Drawer, Han Jiang attaches great importance to the "body" of human beings. While she depicts daily life in a true way, she also highlights individual consciousness in a way of "body writing", that is, she expresses the inner spiritual world with the extreme perception of the body, so as to realize the communication and commonality between the individual spirit and the real world. The perception of the body in Han Jiang's poetry is presented through three specific aspects: first, the embodied "anatomy of the body" presents the broken body, expressing the poet's attempt to achieve a complete personality; Secondly, the two kinds of media of bodily perception, "visual" and "anti-visual", give the body in her poems meaning that transcends individuality. Finally, the body perception in Han Jiang's poetry has a unique value in the aspects of humanistic concern and concern for South Korean traditional culture.

The seminar explores what it means for literature to act as its own agent in modernity, to essentially have its own agency in modernity. Consequently, it freights techne as a drive that exceeds technology, and suggests literature to be more than a cultural instrument, more than a reflection of "lived experience." The question becomes then whether modernity has transformed literature into a peculiar phenomenon, one whose fulfillment is no longer found in an object. Can we speak of literature as a techne that no longer reveals itself in objects? Perhaps the question should be, has technology in a modern world produced a writing, a literary drive, that extends the aesthetic to encompass another kind of materiality, or perhaps no materiality at all. Sponsored by the ICLA Research Committee on Religion, Ethics, and Literature, the seminar invites presentations on • literature as an extra-material drive, • the literary as a phenomenological experience • technology as an expansion of literary codes • the written as cryptological object • the ethics of the literary in modernity • religion as a literary code • the transformation of religion, ethics, and literature in modernity • translation as a literary language

This paper examines how F. Scott Fitzgerald adapted Charlie Chaplin’s innovative film techniques in his short story “Pat Hobby and Orson Welles” (1940), demonstrating the profound influence of early film technology on modernist literary practices. Through a close comparative analysis of Chaplin’s Pay Day (1922) and Fitzgerald’s text, this study reveals how film techniques were transformed into literary devices, particularly focusing on doubling and substitution techniques.

The research demonstrates that Fitzgerald deliberately referenced Chaplin’s work, specifically citing a streetcar scene from Pay Day within his story. This explicit connection provides a unique opportunity to examine how film technology offered new narrative possibilities for literature. The study analyzes how Chaplin’s film techniques—including the strategic use of props, choreographed movements, and character substitutions—were ingeniously translated into literary devices by Fitzgerald through carefully constructed parallel scenes, symbolic props, and character doublings.

By tracing how Fitzgerald adapted these film techniques into written form, this paper illuminates the complex intermedial relationship between early film technology and modernist literature. The analysis reveals that Fitzgerald not only borrowed surface-level plot devices but also developed sophisticated literary equivalents for film’s visual language.

This paper examines how Tian Han (China) and Mohan Rakesh (India) reimagined classical playwrights—Guan Hanqing and Kalidasa—to navigate the ideological minefields of 1950s cultural politics. Through textual analysis and historical research, the paper reveals three interlocking dimensions of intellectual negotiation: (1) the protagonists’ artistic struggles within the dramatic texts, representing the conflict between literature/artistic creation and politics; (2)the playwrights’ own dilemmas emerge through production histories, reflecting the existential crises of intellectuals in newly independent nation-states; and (3) the global contexts the writers grappled with, i.e. the ideological tensions between "freedom" and "peace"—key discursive battlegrounds in the US-USSR Cold War cultural rivalry—which profoundly shaped competing visions of literary autonomy and political commitment in their creative praxis. The paper concludes that these plays exemplify a “Southern metadrama” paradigm, which reconfigures classical heritage not as static tradition but as dynamic, contested terrain for postcolonial identity formation. This comparative framework challenges Eurocentric models of intertextuality and offers new methodologies for global South literary studies.

Decision to Leave by Park Chan-wook is a densely literary film, in the sense that it contains multiple layers of rich poetic language. For this Korean film to be accessible to English-speaking audiences, subtitles are essential. However, since the film’s subtitles prioritize the conveyance of meaning, a certain loss of the film’s poetic dimension is inevitable. Based on Walter Benjamin’s translation theory, this article analyses the language and images intertwined within the film by exploring literal translations of Korean into English. Specifically, ‘heart’, a key word that permeates the film, is divided into three modes – doubt, connection, and cut – which relate to three dimensions or states respectively – aerial, liquid, and solid – inextricably linked to the various senses of sight, hearing, smell and touch. Based on these, and after analysing the intermingling of boundaries within the film, its use of poetic language renders its content and images opaque, prompting the audience to actively read its images and languages.

“What, don’t you know that a Pole is ready both for dancing and for the rosary?” (pol. być do tańca i do różańca, said of someone who is both serious and easy-going, depending on the situation) asks one of Gombrowicz’s characters in his famous avant-garde novel exposing the Polish complexes, Trans-Atlantyk (1953). Until his death in 1969, the writer, known for his harsh assessment of the Polish nation, his inclination toward abstract humour and his creativity for neologisms, did not live to see his novels published in the Polish People’s Republic. Nonetheless, thanks to the efforts of Kultura Paryska ran by Jerzy Giedroyć, an émigré paper publishing censored Polish authors, Gombrowicz rose to fame in Western Europe, with his plays staged all over the French capital, accompanied by speculations about his nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

How did an author who based his literary enterprise on criticising Polish ‘martyrologic’ national spirit and mocking the pompous tradition of Polish Romanticism gain such widespread popularity among the French audience? Despite apparent untranslatability of Gombrowicz’s works, given the author’s play with the Polish language, as well as frequent references to Polish heritage and historical context, his most important novels and dramas have been translated into French, and some adapted as theatrical plays, effectively making him a European writer at a time when almost no writers from the ‘Other Europe’ had similar aspirations.

The paper examines Gombrowicz’s success in the Parisian theatre as a case study for debating postnational narration and the cultural mobility of nation-specific literature. It focuses particularly on the role of theatrical adaptations in enabling a global reading of an oeuvre deeply embedded in national heritage. Special attention is given to universalisation of national humour and the challenges of translating it and detaching it from its country of origin. The paper explores how theatrical directors navigate the risk of ‘flattening’ the complexity of nation-specific literature, ensuring that foreign audiences are encouraged to look beyond the play’s universal themes. Ultimately, it is argued that, despite globalisation’s efforts to make nation-specific literature more accessible worldwide, a postnational reading does not diminish meaning but rather multiplies its interpretations.

Selon le chercheur Claude Tapia, « le courant postmoderne véhicule […] des tendances au désenchantement, au pessimisme, au scepticisme à l’égard des valeurs héritées des Lumières ». La littérature, dans ce contexte, adopte une position critique vis-à-vis de la société contemporaine, où le progrès technique ne se solde pas forcément par une augmentation du bonheur humain. La technologie, omniprésente, revêt, en particulier, une dimension à la fois utopique et dystopique.

Cette dualité s’observe dans les romans de Michel Houellebecq. La technologie y apparaît comme une réponse potentielle aux maux de la postmodernité. Dans Les particules élémentaires, face à l’aliénation généralisée, l’auteur envisage une solution radicale : le clonage ; afin de créer une nouvelle race humaine, asexuée et immortelle, libérée des afflictions de l’existence. L’homme serait ainsi immergé dans un présent sans fin, où les liens avec autrui seraient indissolubles et la notion de séparation, obsolète. Cependant, cette utopie transhumaniste soulève de nombreuses interrogations. Les clones, malgré leur longévité, semblent réduits à une existence virtuelle et désincarnée. Dans La possibilité d’une île, les néo-humains se distinguent par leur apathie et leur existence routinière. Leur société, fortement aseptisée, est caractérisée par l’absence de contact physique, la répression du désir et l’atomisation des individus. Dans Sérotonine, Houellebecq explore les conséquences des innovations technologiques dans le domaine agricole. La mondialisation et l’industrialisation de l’agriculture, tout en augmentant la productivité, entraînent la disparition de modes de vie traditionnels et posent des questions environnementales.

En somme, à travers l’œuvre de Michel Houellebecq, la technologie, loin d’être une solution miracle, se révèle un outil ambivalent. Elle peut être porteuse aussi bien d’espoir que de menace. Entre utopie et dystopie, les représentations littéraires de la technologie chez Michel Houellebecq invitent à une réflexion critique sur son rôle dans la société contemporaine.

This paper explores how scientific-technological and ecological imaginations intersect and co-envision an alternative eco-future that embodies and haunts its present by analyzing PRC’s first eco-science fiction film, The Ozone Layer Vanishes (Daqiceng Xiaoshi, dir. Feng Xiaoning, 1990). Released at a moment when millennial aspirations and anxieties shaped global futurisms, the film engages with ozone depletion as an incision into societal problems, technological overreach, and global ecological crises, critically reflecting on humanity’s role in planetary futures. While a highly technologized future has often been imagined as incompatible with ecological concerns, this paper examines the film as presenting an alternative future where scientific-technological and ecological narratives and practices are deeply entangled, mutually shaping and co-producing one another. By centering the bodies of animals, children, and women, the film foregrounds them as active agents in planetary survival and future-making, challenging their traditional othering in technologized fantasies of the future. This paper approaches these often-marginalized bodies as a critical, material-discursive nexus within the entangled network of technology and ecology, interrogating what it means to be human at the intersection of technological and ecological futures. As embodied sites where different forces collide and converge, these “ecological” bodies go beyond a mere futuristic projection, but carry the weight of their lived experience with societal instability, technological disruptions, and environmental precarity. Drawing upon Steven Shaviro’s notion of a “futurity that haunts the present,” this paper argues that an alternative eco-future, as imagined in the film, is not detached from the present but is already latent within it, carrying the potential for haunting and even becoming actual reality.

As China's "Great Nation Rejuvenation" becomes increasingly manifest both discursively and materially, the bidirectional interaction between science fiction and state narratives intensifies. Recent popular sci-fi blockbusters and visual design works in China collectively construct a visual "Sino-topia" under the aesthetic paradigm of "Grand Infrastructure." Serving as an ideal medium articulating state discourse with speculative creation, visual media unleash aesthetic energy and affective force through meticulous details and material textures in their representations. This configuration not only effectively stimulates nationalistic sentiments and captures collective identity, but also reveals symptomatic ruptures in its imagination of social relations and societal formations. While successfully mobilizing national affect, these cultural productions exhibit inherent discontinuities between their technological sublime and the epistemic frameworks of social imagination in contemporary China.

The final and most destructive act of the British Empire on India relies on a simple yet decisive action: the tracing of a line. Partition. The entire subcontinent brutally fractured, lastingly divided. From the onset of colonization, lines have been used as a spatial conquest tool to control, contain and domesticate the Other. Colonial India is a striking example of the imperial use of lines, and their representations in novels of the late 19th century, British and Indians, testify to their omnipresence. Whether through invisible social lines or visible architectural ones, the Other’s place is assigned, defined, and relegated to the margin – behind the line traced by the imperial power. Yet although these lines are represented at times as immutable, each limit calls for its crossing. The liminal characters, or line-crossers, keep evolving in the margin of imperial lines and crossing them.

This paper demonstrates the crucial role of lines in geocritical analysis, by rethinking lines as not only a narrative device, but as an essential conceptual device in spatialities. The line creates the place. The delineation of a line onto space divides it, thereby circumscribing a specific fragment of space possessing boundaries, effectively turning it into a place. The line enshrines its power through the cristallization of the code’s – or doxa’s – principles and ideology. Infusing the place with meaning, symbolism, and power, this foundational act is nonetheless constantly challenged and questioned by the literary representations of the crossings. Indeed, based on Westphal’s premise that space possesses its own transgressivity and fluidity, and drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic conception of space, this paper argues that the space of the line is a thick one, endowed with space’s caracteristics – infinite, fluid, labile. By entering this thirdspace or in-between, the line-crossers access agency through lines of flight, their reterritorialization pending.

Whether an act of subversion, transgression or resistance, each crossing shatters the established apparatus of power. The conceptualization of the space of the line, along with literary analysis of line-crossings shed light on underground sites of resistance, laying hidden in the margins. The line’s polymorphic nature displays fascinating aspects of ambivalence and subversion through its oscillations. Within the folds of the space of the line, emerge the possibilities of connection, the actualization of potentials, and the glimpse of another world, a plausible world, within which the encounter between the Self and the Other might, finally, be possible.

Female wanderlust, often depicted as a figure of agency and autonomy, remains largely constrained in film narratives. However, advancements in film techniques, particularly location shooting, have brought paradigmatic changes in storytelling. A polyphony of geographical spaces reshapes and fills prior vacuum space in female subjectivity, generating new imaginations for spatial autonomy, memory, and selfhood in cinematic journeys.

The meaning of wandering could be reconsidered through Baudelaire’s notion of flânerie, introduced in The Painter of Modern Life, which captures the rhythmic acts of strolling through city streets without a set purpose or destination. Benjamin deepens this concept in The Arcades Project, where he frames wandering as a bodily revolution, to resist capitalist modes of production. This perspective is later expanded by Rebecca Solnit, who explored the gendered history of walking, highlighting its social messages in the reclamation of feminist autonomy and resistance. Viewing wandering as an agentic move within intersubjective space, I apply this analysis to the filmic space, which, I consider, shares some essential features with real urban environments.

Thus, I argue that, through a close analysis of two Alain Resnais films, the female protagonists map their space as emotional cartographies shaped by their wandering. These spaces, in turn, become sites of embodied and affective elements, deeply intertwined with personal memory.

Alain Resnais is renowned for his nonlinear narratives and space-time distortions, with mise-en-scène of memory flashbacks frequently interwoven with urban landscapes. Through a comparative analysis of Last Year at Marienbad, and Hiroshima Mon Amour, this paper examines how spatial cartographies engage with filmic narratives, and, ultimately, evoke feminist agency. I draw on the methodologies of psychogeography discussed by Giuliana Bruno, and urban theory from Henri Lefebvre and Guy Debord, alongside analysis of filmic segments of wandering. In particular, I explore the closure scene in Hiroshima Mon Amour, where Elle (starring Emmanuelle Riva) walks through empty nighttime streets in Hiroshima, sometimes encountering Hui (starring Eiji Okada) and sometimes not, culminating in a psychological climax. Similarly, I examine the retrospective gardening scene in Last Year at Marienbad, where Delphine Seyrig’s footprints create continuity through geometricity, impossible parallels, and memory.

By focusing on representations of filmic space, this research contributes to understanding how space acquires narrative significance through its virtuality, shaped by its technically mediated nature. The interdisciplinary perspectives I apply—from psychogeography to urban and media theory— enrich its contextual discourses. In conclusion, this paper reimagines female wanderlust through the lens of spatial theory, showcasing how film reinvents narrative autonomy for women as shown in Alain Resnais’ films.

Edouard Glissant introduced and developed a new critical approach to Caribbean identity throughout two of his major works, Caribbean Discourse (1981) and Poetics of Relation (1990). Glissant, while recognizing that all cultures are to some degree “composite cultures,” clarifies the historical, cultural, and geographical conditions that primed the Caribbean for a creolized orientation. This presentation is a comparative literary investigation into societal attitudes towards creolization in nineteenth-century Philippines, Spain, and Louisiana. Following the geo-cultural theories of Glissant and Michael Wiedorn, I develop a framework for comparing peninsular and archipelagic thought. In the application of creolist theories to these geographies, this presentation probes the extensibility of Glissant’s archipelagic and island studies theories beyond the Caribbean context as well as provides a new mode of thinking through cultural connectivity in the nineteenth century. In analyzing works by José Rizal, Benito Pérez Galdós, Kate Chopin, and Lafcadio Hearn, I illuminate a connection between geographical thought and creolist attitudes across literary traditions.

This paper argues the question of translatability in presenting metropolis through digital and literary outlines of travel. As a complex space to translate due to its diversity and alterity, metropolis will be examined here after the ways of expression used in YouTube travel videos presenting Istanbul from the point of view of Korean vloggers. The objective of this paper is to discuss the variety of digital elements in compounding the narrativity of the experience of travel by the agency of small narratives and thus expanding the scope of interpreting the metropolitan city and its diversity as a contemporary world phenomenon and as a matter of consideration for comparative literature.

This paper addresses the challenge of interpreting interactive fiction, a genre that subverts traditional reading practices through hyperlinks and multimedia elements. By examining Serge Bouchardon’s 'A Web Odyssee' (2021), a digital reimagining of Homer's ancient epic, it explores how literary hermeneutics can be adapted to analyse works of electronic literature. Interactive fiction, which merges storytelling with digital tools, transforms understanding and interpretation by requiring readers to actively participate in shaping the narrative. Drawing on Peter Szondi’s literary hermeneutics, this paper highlights the limitations of traditional hermeneutics when applied to interactive fiction and proposes methodological adaptations to navigate the dynamic interplay of text, interface, and medium in digital storytelling. By addressing the interpretive complexities posed by electronic literature, the paper demonstrates how literary hermeneutics can evolve to provide a dynamic framework for analysing digital narratives.

This study examines the rise of "internet fiction" (“Int'ŏnet sosŏl”) in South Korea during the 2000s as a female-led genre, focusing on its unique contribution to working-class female culture. This largely overlooked genre, primarily consumed by teenage girls, significantly impacted Korean popular culture, influencing not only genre fiction but also television and comics. This study will analyze internet fiction’s cultural specificity through three interconnected lenses:

1. Social Space: The study will explore how internet fiction created a distinct online literary space, contrasting with the middle-class bias of the 1990s online literary landscape. It will analyze the interplay between online and offline communities (classrooms, bookstores, comic shops) in shaping the reading experiences of teenage girls.

2. Gender and Nationalism: This research will compare the representation of femininity in Korean internet fiction with Anglophone online genre fiction, highlighting the complexities and contradictions surrounding patriarchal nationalism within the genre.

3. Class Dynamics in Romance: The proposal investigates the unique portrayal of working-class romance in Korean internet fiction, specifically focusing on relationships involving “iljin” characters (ruggedly masculine working-class boys). The analysis will emphasize how class dynamics, rather than sexuality, define these relationships.

This study will contribute to the limited scholarly work on internet fiction, providing a historical perspective on its development and its emergence as a significant platform for female-centered narratives in Asia. The findings will offer valuable insights into the cultural impact of digital spaces on young women’s creative expression and identity formation.

As the landscape of literary studies continues to shift in tandem with rapid technological advances, the role of digital tools has become increasingly prominent in shaping how, why, and where we teach and study literature. This proposal aligns closely with the thematic focus of the ICLA 2025 conference—particularly the strands Performing Literary Criticism in Digital Spaces and Reworlding World Literature—by examining how artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and online platforms like Coursera offer new modes of engaging with texts, foregrounding questions of accessibility, global collaboration, and pedagogical innovation.

For my presentation, I propose a personal essay (rather than a conventional paper) that investigates two core dimensions of this technological turn in digital literary education: first, the affordances of AI, VR, and related platforms in designing online literature courses; and second, the ways these technologies enable deeper, more interactive student engagement in literary study. Throughout, I draw upon my multifaceted background as a fiction writer, literary scholar, and Learning Experience Designer at the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan (UMICH) to illustrate how best practices and pilot projects in digital literary pedagogy can address the opportunities and challenges of teaching and studying literature in an online environment. By foregrounding specific course modules, including a VR learning activity that immerses students in the historical and cultural contexts of particular novels, my presentation underscores the transformative potential of new technologies while also probing unresolved questions concerning equity, access, data ethics, and the social dimension of reading itself.

In recent years, global events—including the COVID-19 pandemic—have accelerated the move toward online and hybrid learning across higher education. The field of literary studies, traditionally associated with in-person seminars and close-knit reading groups, has not been immune to these shifts. Indeed, scholars have increasingly acknowledged the potential of digital platforms to transform engagement with texts, whether by harnessing multimedia annotation tools, digital archives, or collaborative discussion forums. The rapid development of technology like AI chatbots and VR environments has also redefined the relationship of the student of literature to their learning subject. My proposal thus aims to explore how digital tools can help shape a more inclusive, wide-reaching form of literary engagement, particularly for online learners who might not have easy access to physical resources.

One of the central arguments of my presentation is that AI can be used to streamline various aspects of online course design while personalizing the learning process for students. For example, the instructor can use AI-driven systems to generate adaptive reading guides—by analyzing a student’s discussion posts or quiz results, these tools can automatically produce real-time study guides tailored to the learner’s skill level and interpretive style; it can facilitate language support—through real-time machine translation and natural language processing, the instructor can guide students whose first language is not English in the translation process, thereby supporting a more genuinely global classroom; the instructor can also, with the help of AI, suggest research pathways like complementary secondary readings or even relevant primary sources based on a student’s stated research interests, thus fostering deeper inquiry and a personalized learning experience.

Where AI augments and personalizes textual engagement, VR amplifies the immersive dimension of literary study. Through VR headsets or browser-based 3D environments, students can encounter the physical, cultural, and historical contexts of the works they are reading. This capability aligns particularly well with the conference theme Performing Literary Criticism in Digital Spaces, since VR effectively becomes a theatrical stage for performing interpretations of a text’s atmosphere, characters, and social milieu. One practical illustration I intend to include in my presentation is a pedagogical activity I developed where students “entered” a meticulously reconstructed parlor from another historical context, complete with period-appropriate décor, soundscapes, and interactive objects (e.g., diaries, letters, newspapers). They could read short excerpts from a specific literary text while virtually experiencing the environment in which those novels were set. The objective was to foster empathy and historical sensitivity: if students can sense the claustrophobia of certain domestic spaces or the rigid formality of certain social norms, they are arguably more equipped to parse characters’ actions and the thematic textures of these literary works. One of the challenges in these kinds of activities is ensuring robust critical reflection; some learners may be so absorbed in the “wow” factor of VR that their interpretive work remains superficial. My presentation will thus argue that VR modules must be carefully scaffolded with reflective assignments—guided journals or group discussions—to ensure that immersion does not supplant critical rigor. Another challenge is that high-quality VR requires powerful computing devices and robust network infrastructure—resources often unavailable to students in economically or technologically under-resourced contexts. I will argue that, despite the optimism around VR, institutions must remain attentive to the digital divide and proactively seek solutions such as low-bandwidth versions, institutional loaner headsets, or cross-platform flexibility that supports mobile devices.

In the domain of AI-enhanced literary education, ethical concerns loom large as well. Many platforms collect granular data on learners’ reading patterns, discussion posts, or even biometric responses in VR. While these data can drive personalized learning paths, they also raise questions about user consent and privacy. Moreover, biases in AI algorithms can subtly shape the direction of literary interpretation by emphasizing certain authors or interpretive frameworks over others. To address these issues, my presentation will propose guidelines for ethical AI implementation in literary pedagogy. Transparency—educators and institutions should clearly communicate how AI tools gather, store, and utilize student data; data governance—access to any collected data should be carefully regulated, ensuring it cannot be used for purposes beyond pedagogical improvement, and algorithmic diversity—course materials and references should intentionally include texts from marginalized communities, thereby broadening the dataset on which AI tools base their analyses. Such measures underscore the fact that technology should serve as an aid—rather than a determiner—of interpretive inquiry and pedagogical practices.

Another challenge that I explore is the fact that literary study has historically thrived in communal settings—whether seminars, reading groups, or literary societies. One might reasonably worry that online courses dilute the social aspects of learning, reducing rich, face-to-face discussions into text-based message boards or solitary VR experiences. However, a key proposition of my presentation is that AI and VR can, paradoxically, open up new forms of communal engagement. VR-based co-presence can, at times, be more inclusive for geographically scattered learners, offering real-time dialogue that surmounts physical distance. AI chatbots can simulate ongoing conversation partners, especially for students who hesitate to speak up in group settings or who struggle with confidence in a second language. Still, these technologies cannot entirely replicate the serendipity and intimacy of in-person gatherings. My conclusion will stress the need for a balanced, “blended” approach that situates AI and VR as tools that augment, rather than replace, the fundamental human act of reading and discussing literature together.

Ultimately, my presentation aims to provoke a broader discussion among conference participants, educators, and policymakers about how best to harness the power of AI, VR and online educative platforms to reimagine the future of literary education. Through case studies, critical reflections, and practical guidelines, I hope to offer a framework that both celebrates the possibilities and acknowledges the limits of these new digital horizons.

The Creative Woodblock Print Movement (創作版画運動) emerged as a distinct departure from ukiyo-e, establishing a new direction for printmaking in modern Japan. This movement initially arose as a reaction against the mechanization of printing, emphasizing the artistic value of woodblock prints. The magazine Housun (方寸) is considered a pioneer in this field. Published during the late Meiji era, Housun was an artistic magazine that showcased various forms of creative printmaking and literary works. It was independently produced as a coterie magazine by nine members, with contributions from various writers. The magazine’s primary creators, Kanae Yamamoto (山本鼎) and Hakutei Ishii (石井柏亭), were not only accomplished artists and writers but also skilled craftsmen in the field of visual printing. A distinctive feature of Housun was that all production processes were carried out by the members themselves. They took on the roles of editors, publishers, and creators, embodying a holistic approach to their work. The individuality of Yamamoto and Ishii drove the magazine’s deep integration of art, literature, and technology during a time when visual printing techniques and artistic expression were not yet clearly separated in early modern Japan. Utilizing their diverse talents, they engaged in experimental techniques to enhance the magazine’s appeal. This presentation will examine how Yamamoto and Ishii expressed their artistic vision and critical perspectives through their expertise in woodcuts, lithography, copperplate printing, and the new printing technologies of their time. It will also explore how their work positioned the creation of literature and art as a dynamic interplay between the creators’ expressive goals and the methods and technologies available to them.

Mythology has been the subject of scrutiny in Indonesian visual art for decades, even centuries; it has been adopted into, challenged and even (re)appropriated to critique an array of sociopolitical issues in Indonesian society. Specifically, these myths are almost always patriarchal in narrative and or visual aesthetic, characterising female characters as submissive and or demonising their resistance to the gender status quo. As such, Indonesian women artists, in particular, have subverted these expectations and inquired into gender representation in their oral histories. This paper will analyse how contemporary Indonesian women artist, Citra Sasmita, (re)appropriates patriarchal Balinese and Javanese mythology through her intermedial usage of text and visual art: her installations spotlight snippets of Indonesian mythology literature alongside her macabre depiction of naked, chimaera-like women in her rendition of Balinese Kamasan paintings. Together, her installations — as part of her broader Timur Merah Project — present the symbiotic relationship between text and her visual iconography as they influence, complement and wrestle with each other in the gallery space. My paper will first begin by establishing the (gender) politics of Indonesian mythologies and how it is reflected in their national sociopolitics. After establishing the significance of mythology in Indonesian society, I will link this significance to the development of modern and contemporary Indonesian visual art iconography, and how artists such as Sasmita have come to appropriate mythology for her gender critique. Lastly, I will textually and visually analyse Sasmita’s intermediality and how it bolsters her inquiry into the representation of women in mythology (and by extension, in Indonesian society). I will be placing my analysis in conversation with other theorists such as Roland Barthes and Wulan Dirgantoro. Ultimately, my paper aims to excavate the semantic and visual intricacies of text and visual art as an intermedial form of gender critique in Indonesia, and how this informs our wider understanding of the significance of mythology as a critical tool in Indonesian visual art and literature to date.

Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a work dedicated to Bob Dylan. With the growth of cross-media research between music and literature, such a theme in this story hasn't been systematically brought to deeper study. This article aims to explore the unique cross-media narrative features of literary and musical integration in the story, and the implications of this from the perspective of cross-media narrative.The protagonist Connie’s personal experience closely mirrors the themes of Dylan’s song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” And this connection is particularly evident in the story’s end, where Arnold Friend’s reference to Connie as “little blue-eyed girl” directly mirrors the song's title, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” By utilizing the characteristics of the music, the text creates a thematic resonance that aligns the music with the fiction’s underlying motifs, thereby enriching the emotional and spiritual depth of the narrative. This interplay between music and literature lends the story greater significance, reflecting the distinctive cultural and social context of the 1960s. This article provides a new perspective in the research of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", and a new example for further studying in cross-media narrative.

As a young artist who has grown up in the 21st century, Li Shun employs “light and shadow” as the medium for his artistic creation. In the three sections of his art exhibition titled “Capturing Light and Shadow”, he has accomplished the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese literati art through intermedia means by utilizing video, paintings, calligraphy works, and urban landmarks. From the perspective of Lars Elleström’s theory of media modalities, Li Shun’s exhibition is intricately connected across four aspects: material, sensorial, spatiotemporal, and semiotic modalities, forming a media mixture of “light and shadow” art within the intermedia field. Li Shun’s intermedia reinterpretation of traditional Chinese literati art inspires young artists not only to modernize traditional art in terms of form and content but also to recognize that art is a metaphysical spirit rather than a physical skill. Intermedia art creation is in the ascendant, and the mission of young artists to “fight for art” continues.

• Vision, mission, short history and present activities of the Memory of the World program

• The Memory of the World International Register

• Memory of the World and ICLA: areas of common interest

In my presentation I will consider not only the importance the ICLA’s partnership with the Memory of the World programme, but also how it can provide a necessarily critical eye, thanks to its long history of engaging in and with the criticism and self-criticism of the disciplines of comparative literature, world literature and translation, individually and in their combination, in their histories and their practices. This can bring nuance and complexity to apparently straightforward assumptions about the intrinsic value of activities such as literary comparison, or translation as bridge-building.

The Presentation introduces some fields of education and research that are interesting for both Comparative Literature and the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW) like the history of translators and translations, the reconstruction of Lost Memory,e.g. of dispersed libraries, the relation between oral literature and documentation, and some more.

Oral cultures of memory conceive of 'texts' and 'archives' differently. While mediating between 'subcultures' and 'dominant cultures', interculturally or intra-culturally, translation often takes on the role of a legitimating agency, thereby misrepresenting the nature of cosmologies they (subcultures) are founded upon.

The Zhongyong, also known as The Doctrine of the Mean, has gradually attained recognition as a philosophical classic over more than 300 years of translation endeavor, since its initial English translation in 1691. A comprehensive review of its translation history unveils significant shifts in the understanding and reception of The Zhongyong. The work has been rendered into 29 English versions, that encompasses full translations, selected translations, compilations, and even adaptations in comic form. In this paper a detailed overview of the English translation history of The Zhongyong is presented, that categorizes it into three distinct phases: (1) “An Interpretation of Confucianism through a Christian Lens (1691-1905)”, in which, translators primarily sought to draw parallels between Confucianism and Christianity. (2) “An Interpretation of Confucianism through Western Cultural Frameworks (1906-2000)”, where translators predominantly adopted a culturally oriented translation strategy, that aligned The Zhongyong with Western philosophical and cultural paradigms. (3) “A Reinterpretation of Confucianism through Its Chinese Cultural Context (2001-present)”, in which, the focus shifts to the restoration of the original philosophical and cultural essence of the text, and contributes to its canonization as a philosophical classic within global discourse. The translation of the title “Zhongyong,” is further examined through an analysis of four representative renditions to illustrate the diverse conceptual understandings they reflect. The findings indicate a notable trend towards interpretive translation, wherein various strategies are employed to enhance readers’ comprehension of complex philosophical concepts. As the demographic of translators has diversified, translation strategies have also evolved from domestication in the earlier phases to foreignization in the contemporary phase, which signifies a growing emphasis on preserving the authentic Chinese philosophical context.

When The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in Europe, it instantly created an enormous social impact, where many enchanted readers imitated the outfit, the temperament, and even the suicidal decision of Werther. This phenomenon, known variously as the “Werther Fervor”, the “Cult of Werther”, or the “Werther Effect”, has long been discussed in the Western academia. The term “Werther effect” has been used to refer to “imitation suicides elicited by media portrayals of suicide”, and it has since been widely researched in the fields of public health, media studies, and cultural studies. In this research, I discuss the Chinese counterpart of the Werther fervor in the early twentieth-century by probing the way readers merged their reading of this novel with their own circumstances. I then zoom in on how the impact of Guo Moruo’s translation may have been associated with the suicides of young students, a striking social phenomenon observed by many Republican critics.

While Goethe was already introduced to Chinese readers as early as 1898, he only became much more widely known after the first full translation of Werther, translated by Guo Moruo, was published in April 1922 by Taidong Book Company in Shanghai. Between 1922 and 1932, Guo’s translation was reprinted over 50 times, testifying to the extent of its popularity. In fact, Guo’s translation of Werther not only left an indelible mark on the modern Chinese language, but also wielded an enormous influence on the susceptible minds of young Chinese writers and common readers alike. The most notable worshippers of Werther include Guo Moruo himself, Tian Han, and Zong Baihua, who together composed the anthology Kleeblatt (三叶集 Shamrock) to focus solely on Goethe, as well as a less known yet equally, if not more, passionate follower, the playwright Cao Xuesong. I examine the reading of Werther by these writers as well as by common readers, before probing the close relation between the reading of this work of popular literature and the social issue of suicides in China at the time.

Drawing on trauma studies and memory theories, this paper examines Malaysian Chinese writer Tan Twan Eng's English novels, The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, analysing how they engage with themes of forgiveness and memory ethics in the context of Malaysia's 1980s Look East policy. Tan's novels powerfully depict the trauma of Japanese occupation in Malaysia while exploring his protagonists' complex struggle between preserving wartime memories and healing from trauma. Rather than advocating for post-war retribution, his works thoughtfully examine the intricate process of restoring justice while preserving traumatic memories.

Tan's novels skillfully balance the duty to remember with an aspiration for peace, proposing a path toward non-violent reconciliation with former perpetrators. Through this lens, Tan's work offers both a novel approach to traumatic narrative and a fresh perspective on justice. While acknowledging that historical memory and justice for victims remain essential moral imperatives, Tan suggests that love, forgiveness, and friendship can serve to promote peace and reconciliation with former adversaries.

This is particularly evident in the meaningful interactions between protagonists and their Japanese visitors, which symbolise an ethics of non-violent reconciliation, whereby collective remembrance facilitates communal healing. Through these encounters, Tan envisions a future where former enemies can forge peaceful relationships, potentially preventing future conflicts. His work demonstrates that while we must maintain our responsibility to remember history and seek justice for victims, these goals can be achieved through paths that emphasise understanding and reconciliation rather than retribution.

The idea of sacrifice is evident in narrative systems throughout different languages. In European as well as Indian context, there are epics and other narrative forms which show the presence of the idea of sacrifice. In the European context, we can start with epics like The Iliad and The Odyssey, which possess characters with sacrifice being one of the features in them. While in the Indian context, we have Ramayana, which also shows the same. I will be extensively talking about the emergence of sacrifice from Iliad to Meghanada Badh Kavya. On the other hand, we also have a sacrificial nature in the Indian context which can be traced to be present. It is seen throughout the epics (and Mahakavyas in India) of different languages that one of the common generic markers is the presence of war in epics. Now, very simply, these narratives have one or generally more warrior noble characters. These noble characters are meant to go through certain types of journeys of their own and also go through certain types of sacrifices. I will be starting the paper by introducing the archetype I have selected from the epic The Iliad and will further try to find its emergence in the characters of other epics like Odysseus and Meghnad Badh Kavya. I will take up the presence of sacrifice across epics in different contexts and trace it through certain characters of these epics. The image of sacrifice which I will be talking about differs from epic to epic, which is based on the situation the character is in but acts as the ultimate path to achieve their goal. I have taken sacrifice as an archetype because of its presence in the epic Iliad and Odysseus as well (Ramayana as well), which further is also seen in other epics. I will be focusing upon a specific image which is of a male character. The sacrifice is shown as something important which leads to them fulfilling their duty towards the nation, family, society, etc. The characters which I will be focusing upon are Hector from The Iliad, Odysseus from The Odyssey and Meghnad from Meghnad Badh Kavya. To also show its presence in Indian Mahakavyas, I will be taking up the Lakhman from Ramayana.

Pain and Trauma axiomatically understood in many subjective sensitivities - may be referred to be fluid, transient and enigmatic in phenomenal reality and in context of consciousness-raising which actually in categorization of varied independent constructs that is resistance, resilience, precarity, rehabilitation, reinstatement etc. Simplistically put, pain is unpleasant, yet the context determines its configuration and reception. Moreover, fixed definitions and meanings can be slippery as they go beyond emotional and sensory experiences; they are shaped by a number of social and cultural factors and are experienced variously. The psychodrama of protest and experience while in pain and trauma, anxieties for instance - cannot be standardized and sometimes it seems to resist description entirely. The narratives and accounts of the tangibly felt and perceived experiences of pain and trauma may become an axiomatic reference to the overall human experience of mortality.

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For writers of autofiction, which, as Jonathan Sturgeon and Rebecca van Laer argue, allows authors to construct a narrative self out of real and imagined experiences, translation offers possibilities of complicating and clarifying the author/narrator's identity through transposition into transnational contexts. Arguing that Korean-born Danish writer Maja Lee Langvad's award-winning narratives Find Holger Danske (2006), Hun er vred (2014), and Tolk (2024) exemplify this autofictional positionality, this paper explores the interpretative spaces their translations into English open up, by translators of different cultural backgrounds and by AI programs. Meaning in Langvad's texts is simultaneously embedded in and obscured by language, which takes on special significance in the age of mechanical translation through artificial intelligence bots that lack both a self and an individual cultural context. Langvad’s texts are at once formally innovative, evading generic categorization and relying on wordplay and cultural allusions, and deeply personal in their treatments of transnational adoption and cross-cultural (mis)communication about food, sexuality, belonging, and identity. In comparing recent translations of Langvad's texts into English by Paul Russell Garrett, Katrine Øgaard Jensen, Barbara Haveland, and AI bots, this paper traces how translating autofiction also entails translating the authorial/narrative self into and out of real, imagined, and technological cultural contexts.

This paper explores the dynamics of power in the Chinese translations of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go through the theoretical lens of Stephen Greenblatt’s subversion-containment model. The study juxtaposes Zhang Kun’s human-crafted translation with a GenAI-generated version to investigate how each translation rewrites the source text within the Chinese linguistic and cultural context. By focusing on key aspects such as narrative tone, lexical choices, and structural adaptations, the research examines how the translations engage with the source text's portrayal of power relations, particularly regarding the inevitability of the clones' tragic fate. The study adopts a comparative methodology, analyzing textual features to identify variations and continuities in the representation of the original's themes of control, subjugation, and existential inevitability. It situates these translations within a broader cultural studies framework, emphasizing the role of human translators and artificial intelligence as agents of rewriting. Zhang’s translation is assessed for its nuanced human interventions, while the GenAI version is scrutinized for its algorithmic tendencies and limitations, revealing divergent approaches to narrative fidelity and cultural resonance. Findings indicate that both translations, despite their differing natures, contain elements of subversion and containment. Zhang’s translation subtly reinterprets the clones' plight, embedding it within Chinese cultural values, whereas the GenAI version, while mechanically precise, inadvertently amplifies the deterministic tone of the original text. These findings underscore the potential of translation to not only mediate but also reshape power dynamics, reflecting the evolving interplay between human creativity and artificial intelligence in literary adaptation. This research concludes that Never Let Me Go (“莫失莫忘”) serves as a profound lens to examine the implications of posthumanism and power in the age of artificial intelligence. By shedding light on how translations rewrite the original work’s exploration of human agency and control, the study contributes to ongoing debates in translation studies, posthumanism, and the ethics of AI in literature.

The evolution of world literature shed light on the growing interest and epistemology in translation studies, allowing peripheral countries to introduce their rich culture and traditions to the center stage. This phenomenon bred into what we call “cultural mediator,” a term introduced by Robert Taft referring to the “person who facilitates communication, understanding, and action between persons or groups who differ concerning language and culture” (Taft 1981, 53). Roig-Sanz and Maylaerts emphasized the vital roles of translators as cultural mediators. They act as either customs officers, who want to follow the dominant norm and stop exchanges and work in a context of ideological or political control, or cultural smugglers, who encourage exchanges and often make their norms, circuits, channels, and forms. A closed reading of Tiffany Tsao’s translation of Norman Erickson Pasaribu's "Curriculum Vitae 2015" revealed that her role as a cultural mediator in the translation was shaped by her socio-biographical background, fluency in Bahasa Indonesia, deep understanding of Indonesian culture, and engagement with the community of practice. The process-oriented approach directed this paper to scrutinize culture mediators in cross-border multi-directionality and cultural representations as they are "active at the levels of cultural product production, circulation, transformation, and reception" (Roig-Sanz & Meylaerts). Moreover, this paper explores the socio-political status of Indonesia and how it is brought to a wider audience with respect to political, cultural, ethnic, and ideological boundaries.

Depuis le premier texte traduit en 1994, Gilles Deleuze est perçu comme philosophe de formation, théoricien de la littérature, critique d’arts et critique de cinéma par métier, sa pluralité identitaire vient de sa traduction à plusieurs vitesses. Traduire Deleuze en Chine consiste d’abord à traduire des livres par lui, puis à traduire des ouvrages sur lui, même à éditer des textes à son sujet. A l’appui d’une enquête, le présent article analyse la traduction, l’édition et la réception de Deleuze en Chine.

Le premier chapitre porte sur les initiatives éditoriales visant à faire connaître Deleuze en Chine. Dans l’espoir de comprendre l’actualité de la philosophie française, les chercheurs et éditeurs chinois prennent des initiatives : 1) éditer des recueils avec des extraits des ouvrages de Deleuze, 2) traduire des livres préparateurs, 3) traduire la collection, 4) établir des manuels de la littérature comparée pour mettre Deleuze au rang des théoriciens littéraires. Ces choix éditoriaux mettent en valeur la part de la littérature dans la pensée de Deleuze.

Le deuxième chapitre analyse la traduction des ouvrages de Deleuze en Chine selon quatre modalités : l’intégration, la réédition, la reprise et la révision. Pour l’intégration, les éditeurs chinois prennent des ouvrages pour les fusionner en un seul volume. Pour la réédition des livres les plus lus, la modification des titres est très sensible. La reprise des textes en caractères traditionnels est adoptée dans le souci de publier Deleuze le plus vite que possible. La révision est un mode adopté récemment par les traducteurs chinois, en tenant compte de la différence terminologique.

Le troisième chapitre s’interroge sur l’influence de Deleuze sur les milieux académiques. La pensée de Deleuze permet encore plus de possibilités à travers la traduction qui laisse découvrir des moyens inédits pour créer des notions. Pour les notions comme le « devenir-animal », la traduction chinoise s’essaie de trouver l’équilibre entre le néologisme et la terminologie. Pour celles comme la « machine littéraire », les chercheurs chinois créent de nouvelles notions à partir de la traduction. Pour celles comme la « littérature mineure », les débats, récupérés par les positions différentes, finissent par revenir au point de départ : fonder un savoir local dans une perspective comparée et globale.

En Chine, traduire Deleuze ne s’y limite plus à traduire ses propres ouvrages, l’idée est de faire découvrir une bibliothèque d’ouvrages scientifiques sur lui. De français en chinois, ses ouvrages fascinent par les néologismes philosophique et littéraire, qui transmettent, par la traduction, la possibilité de créer de nouveaux concepts. Pour les chercheurs chinois à l’attente d’un savoir « chinois », Deleuze signifie plus qu’un théoricien : une terminologie génératrice, un arsenal conceptuel, une pensée non dualiste capable de tenir en compte l’inclassable, l’insaisissable et l’impensable.

The partition of 1947 as it was experienced in the then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, often remains overlooked. Poonch, a principality in the princely state of J&K was attacked by the Kabalis (Pashtun tribal invaders) in October 1947 in the aftermath of the partition of the Indian subcontinent, which led to mass scale displacement and rehabilitation of Poonchies. This paper analyses three obscure Poonchi life-writings Khooni Itihas 1947, Kashmir: Ek Unkahi Dastaan, and Of Duty, Intrepidity and Treachery: Story of the Hero of Poonch and their confluence with oral narratives collected from the displaced refugees residing in the demographic regions of Jammu and Rajasthan, India. Relying on Roberto Esposito’s idea of ‘community,’ it is contended that there is a conflux of the written and the oral which enables the reconstruction of partition through the lens of re-consolidation. Reaching beyond the anecdotes of violence, yet being informed by them, this paper infers that these life-writings when supplemented by the oral narratives emerge as a mechanism of re-grouping among the displaced Poonchies.

The paper tries to analyse “disability” and “religion” among the minorities in India through life writing narratives of Naseema Hazruk’s The Incredible Story (2005) and Preeti Monga’s The Other Senses (2012). The Indian Prime Minister coined a new term ‘Divyang’ which means person of extraordinary talent but still they are regarded as liability. Disabled women specially in India and in South Asia are triply marginalised, i.e. first as a female, religion and followed by infirmity. Naseema was a Muslim woman who was demeaned in her day to day life yet she became a disabled activist. The book narrates her struggle with rehabilitation, accessibility, education etc.The text also documents how Naseema, being a Muslim woman, encountered hurdles and challenges posed by the upper caste Hindus in her ceaseless struggle for the empowerment of disabled. Her autobiography is one of the pioneering texts of the disabled in India. It is considered to be the first women disabled life narrative published in the subcontinent. A founding text of disability life narratives in India. Similarly, Preeti Monga who was born in upper middle class Sikh family and was subjected to domestic and financial issues. Her story reveals continuous threat of domestic violence and fighting to save her children in an abusive marriage while asserting her right as an individual. Her only demand from a patriarchal society is dignity and respect. Both the novels analyse socioeconomic difficulties faced by the disabled and while doing so these life writings describe social realism in public discourse.

This article attempts to restore the subjectivity of Indian educated middle-class women during the Partition period through three Partition novels: Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day (1980), Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988) and Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters (1998). Despite extensive research on women in Partition, there is little focus on the group of educated middle-class women. In mainstream historical and political discourse, these women have consistently been constructed within the official discourse dominated by males. They are either ‘Mother India’, or the ‘new woman’ to meet the requirements of India’s changing political atmosphere. However, by delving into the particular historical context and personal experience of the educated middle-class women in three novels, the article argues that they continuously subvert the essentialized identities imposed upon them by different versions of official discourse. As the embodiment of Shakti, they are distinct from the archetypes of ‘Mother India’ and the ‘new woman’. Instead, they create their ideal family spaces based on their personal cognition, and transcend the homogeneous gender discourse to reflect the fluid and complex nature of female identity.

Comic book Westerns began to appear in Poland in the interwar period, and these were mostly translations and adaptations of American or European works, although several Polish Western comics were published at that time, too. The Second World War interrupted the development of the art of comics in Poland, and its aftermath was far from conducive to the revival of the genre because of the strict control of the publishing market by the authorities. It was in the 1960s that authors could again create comics with a greater sense of freedom, and this is when the comic book Western re-merged in Poland, largely thanks to the work of Jerzy Wróblewski, one of the most prolific Polish authors of comics of the second half of the twentieth century, who employed a range of popular genres in his work. He was the only Polish comics author who can be said to have specialized in the Western, and the paper will concentrate on the construction of heroes and anti-heroes in his Westerns. In the 60s and 70s he produced a series of sensational/adventure formulaic Westerns, featuring what might be called romantic Western heroes—lone men with exceptional fighting skills and a good sense of justice. Some of them set out on a search for beloved women who have been kidnapped, which enhances the aura of romance. In the 80s. Wróblewski continued to work on Westerns, but completely changed the convention into a cartoonish, parody representation. He created a series of stories about sheriff Binio Bill, who always takes the upper hand, but before this happens he faces adventures the depiction of which resembles gags in a slapstick comedy. The aura of heroism that traditionally surrounds the Western hero is thus completely dispelled.

This paper examines Eric Drooker’s 2010 graphic adaptation of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl as a reinterpretation of Ekphrastic Beat poetics in visual form. By translating Ginsberg’s charged rhythms into sequential art, the adaptation fleshes out the poem’s core tension between resistance and repression. Moloch will be read as a visual embodiment of faceless, mechanized power, a modern anti-hero, while Carl Solomon stands as a symbol of human vulnerability. The paper attempts to explore the shared ground between Beat poetry and comics, both of which challenge conventional narrative through fragmentation, reworked structures, and rhythm. The incantation of the unsymbolisable , the inchoate, and the essential sense of uncontainment of the poetry is transfigured into panels of abandon and colour. The adaptation brings to the surface the psychic dissonance at the heart of Howl—where language falters before the trauma of modern life, and the image steps in to express the ‘untranslatable.’

The Asterix comics, created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo in 1959, have for over half a century played a vital role in contextualizing life under the Romans. It is in fact oftentimes the very first contact its younger readers might have with Antiquity.

The stories have transported fans of all ages to several of Rome’s provinces, offering a pointed critique of imperialism while also delineating the benefits of cross-cultural interaction. Asterix is a hero whose physical strength derives from his community: he is a regular Gaul who drinks the magic potion brewed by Panoramix, the druid, as an act of resistance against the Romans. In his travels, he meets many peoples who attempt to resist in their own ways.

By telling the stories of martial glory through a graphic narrative, it could be said that the Gauls would be reclaiming a very Roman narrative strategy, as Roman Emperors were famous for commissioning detailed retellings of their victories over one people or another (see the Arch of Titus or Trajan’s Column). Julius Caesar, himself the antagonist of Asterix, went as far as to write “The Conquest of Gaul”.

In this paper, I will argue that Uderzo and Goscinny caught on to the similarities between Gaul in the first century BC and France in the 20th century AD, effectively using the ancients to speak about their present. While some of the grand themes of the comics, such as national identity, are retroactively imposed on Antiquity (see Hobsbawm, 1990, “Nations and Nationalism since 1780”), other major topics, like Imperialism, have roots in Classical Civilisation (see, for instance, Loren J. Samons, 1999; E. Babian, 1968, for Greek and Roman Imperialism respectively).

Confucianism advocates the unity of man and nature, which has been fundamental to the philosophical thoughts in China for thousands of years. When the whole mankind is facing an ecological crisis due to the rapid industrialization and the unequal development in the world, some important Confucian concepts concerning the relationship of man and the natural environment have been re-interpreted by some leading scholars of new Confucianism, such as Ji Xianlin and Tu Weiming, in dialogue with other relevant religious and philosophical thoughts, especially in Hinduism and Christianity. The essay intends to analyze some of the important texts of new Confucian scholars and to explore their significance in relation to the contemporary ecological thinking. In addition, a comparative approach will be adopted to address the commonalities of different religions and philosophical traditions with regard to their conceptualization of man and its position in the secular and material world.

Organic naturalism is the metaphysical basis of Western aesthetic modernity, the development process of which has always been accompanied by a shift from “mechanical modernity” to “organic modernity”. The paper discusses the intertwining between Chinese culture and Spinoza and Leibniz, who were known as the “ancestors” of the theory of organism, and furthermore points out that there were both external “confluences” and internal “influences” between Confucianism and Western theory of organism. Based on the organism, aesthetic modernity had taken its shape, or, in other words, both of them developed synchronously, and the development process of which were accompanied along with the factual participation of Confucianism. However, this kind of participation, generally speaking, is secretively resonant and difficult to be accurately measured.

Prof. Li Zehou, a renowned Chinese scholar, once proposed to construct some kind of "world philosophy" by integrating the thoughts of Confucius, Marx and Kant. Following this line of thought, a deep comparison and integration of Confucius's Gantong Theory, Karl Marx's Practical Aesthetics, and Immanuel Kant's thoughts of "Sensus Communis" may lead to the generation of some kind of new aesthetics. Confucius emphasized that accepting others with an open mind and obtaining inner peace is the premise of "feeling into the essence of the world." He believed that "fully understanding ordinary people" is a precondition for "world peace", while aesthetic activities, such as poetry learning and appreciation, or Xing Guan Qun Yuan (兴观群怨）are means to understand people deeply. Therefore, Confucius sought to influence others through spiritual communication, and opened up a way to reinforce foundation and promote development through artistic aesthetics. Marx argued that feelings derived from repeated practices could "directly make a person a theorist". That is, a person can directly feel into the essence of all things and people. He emphasized that practice could ultimately liberate and elevate people’s feelings, confirming them as essential forces of human. Marx thus demystified the activity of feeling into the essence of all things and people, and developed a kind of Practical Aesthetics to gain all sensibilities and essential insight of people. Kant, in fact, had already questioned how "feeling into the essence of all things and people" could be possible and proposed "Sensus Communis" as the a priori condition for the phenomenon that"people feel and think about things in much the same way." Both Confucius's Gantong Theory and Marx's Practical Aesthetics should be based on Kant's thoughts of "Sensus Communis"; otherwise the two theories would be dogmatism to a certain extent. There is no doubt that integrating the three thoughts contributes to the construction of a new aesthetic view dominated by Gantong Theory. Moreover, the new aesthetics can not only provide a fresh perspective for interpreting literary works at home and abroad, but also offer new insights for personal arrangement of life, both physical and psychological.

James Joyce put a lot of Chinese images into Finnegans Wake in a fragmentary way. By analyzing those Chinese fragments, this paper demonstrates that Finnegans Wake presents a world history in which various races and cultures blend and coexist. Although Joyce had to use images with racial discrimination popular in Western texts, he uses them fragmentarily to remove their contexts of racialism and mixes them to prevent the discrimination. Joyce frames the Chinese history in Finnegans Wake with a Vico’s structure of Bruno's dialectical unity. Those seemingly random fragments and this structure of dialectical unity together form a universal history both ordered and random, noble and vulgar, opposite and unified, grand and trivial. His fragmentary history breaks the latent hierarchical order in the ordinary world history, and points out a possibility of the integration of different races.

The ghazal is a genre of poetry with roots in the classical Arabic tradition. As the contributors to Thomas Bauer and Angelika Neuwirth’s two-volume anthology Ghazal as World Literature (2005-06) testify, what originated as a mode has become a popular form with adaptations throughout centuries and different languages. Well-known authors of anglophone ghazals include Adrienne Rich and Agha Shahid Ali, and pioneers experimenting with the form in German include Johan Wolfgang von Goethe and August Graf von Platen. While the former are twentieth-century poets, the latter were active nearly two centuries earlier. Yet, the ghazal has become far more wide-spread in English, as recent examples by Zeina Hashem Beck show, while adaptations of the form to the German language remain rare exceptions. This presentation analyses selected ghazals by Hashem Beck to argue that the form not only adjusts well to the English language, it also leads to applications, which are extremely diverse in content. Jan Wagner’s “ephesusghasele,” in contrast, demonstrates how tributes to an ancient legacy function in a time of electronic distribution. Both poets take advantage of new technologies to accompany the written with spoken texts. They thus also hearken back to the roots of the ghazal in oral traditions.

“Cheongsanbyeolgok” was a widely popular folk song in the late Goryeo-Korean period. Its composer was anonymous and orally passed down until the Hangeul was invented in Joseon-Korea. Its musical notation was recorded in Shiyonghyangakbo (Compilation of Current Popular Korean Songs) during King Seongjong’s reign in the early Joseon period. Interestingly, it was also played in the court and influenced the creation of several court music scores. Considering that Joseon-Korea made such a strict Confucian cultural policy as to burn literary works on love and that Joseon-Korean Confucian scholars criticized Goryro-Korean folk songs as “Namnyeosangyeojisa” (songs of explicit content) in a derogatory manner, it is surprising that “Cheongsanbyeolgok” enjoyed such a privilege: its Buddhist theme of ‘Muae’ (non-attachment) and its exotic refrain, “Yalli Yalli Yallasheong Yallari Yalla” might have attracted even Joseon-Korean Confucian scholars. Even though the performance aspect of the song remains dead, its rhythmical refrain has continued attracting Korean folks.

Nevertheless, it is unbelievable that little research has been conducted on “Cheongsanbyeolgok.” Recently, Hokyung Seong interpreted the lexical meaning of its refrain as “give us a lot of harvest,” proposing that the five words originated from the Mongolian language. However, this interpretation does not align well with the overall meaning of the song. In this context, I interpret “Cheongsanbyeolgok” as a cultural product of the globalized history of the Pax Mongolica. Goryeo-Korea, though incorporated into its Ulus political system, participated in the unified global economy of the Mongol Empire and maintained the long Korean culture of hospitality of welcoming various ethnic groups, including Arabs, Persians, Indians as well as Han-Chinese, Mongols, and Japanese, starting from the 8th century. I believe folk songs like “Dong Dong,” “Seokyeongbyeolgok,” “Ssanghwajeom,” and “Cheongsanbyeolgok” showcase the cultural exchanges from “the West” in the ancient sense when Koreans had no knowledge of the Western European world. Thus, in this presentation, I will approach “Cheongsanbyeolgok” as a Korean Ghazal, influenced by the Persian Ghazal, while examining the historical context of Goryeo-Korean society’s cosmopolitan culture during Pax Mongolica.

Diverse Musical Influences: Ghazal Performance in Pakistan:

Pakistani ghazal performances embody rich cultural heritage, intricate instrumentation, and

emotional expression. This traditional genre navigates secular love, mystical devotion, and

spiritual yearning within intimate settings.

Traditional instruments, including sitar, tabla, harmonium, tanpura, flute and rabab, create a

unique soundscape. The sitar's intricate plucking patterns and tabla's rhythmic accompaniment

establish a melodic foundation. Harmonium and tanpura add depth.

Ghazal performances unfold within ornate halls, luxurious homes or outdoor venues, fostering

artist-audience connections. Solo singers deliver emotive, poetic verses, accompanied by

cross-legged musicians engaging in spontaneous exchanges. Audience engagement manifests

through enthusiastic applause and poetic recitations.

Secular themes explore longing, passion and heartbreak, while mystical themes delve into

spiritual devotion and Sufi poetry. Candlelight and incense create meditative ambiance.

This cultural phenomenon weaves music, poetry and atmosphere. Ghazal performances

transcend entertainment, embodying Pakistan's rich heritage and

emotional depth.

Research Significance:

This study illuminates ghazal's cultural significance, exploring instrumentation, performance

settings and emotional expression. By examining secular and mystical themes, this research

contributes to understanding Pakistan's rich musical heritage.

Key Findings:

1. Traditional instrumentation shapes ghazal's soundscape.

2. Intimate settings foster connections.

3. Secular and mystical themes navigate complex emotions.

Conclusion:

Pakistani ghazal performances embody cultural richness, instrumental intricacy and emotional

depth. This traditional genre captivates audiences, solidifying its significance within Pakistan's

cultural landscape. Future research will explore ghazal's evolution, global impact, cultural

preservation and educational applications. Furthermore, investigating ghazal's therapeutic

benefits, cultural significance and historical context provides valuable insights. Ghazal's

enduring popularity testifies to its power.

The migration of the Ghazal form across linguistic and cultural boundaries mirrors a profound interplay of textual and nonverbal dynamics. This paper examines the translation of nonverbal communication within diasporic Ghazals, employing the framework of the cultural turn in translation studies. By focusing on how Ghazals retain or reshape their kinetic-visual imagery, the study explores the translation challenges posed by deeply embedded cultural kinesics and oculesics—facial expressions, gestures, and gaze. Drawing on Imru’ al-Qays’s Mu’allaqa as a case study, the research analyzes 18 English and French translations of a verse renowned for its nonverbal eloquence, assessing how translators negotiate cultural semiotics and maintain the delicate balance between preserving the source text's nonverbal essence and adapting to the target culture.

This investigation situates the Ghazal within a broader discussion of diaspora as a site of cultural translation and transformation. By recontextualizing the nonverbal elements, the paper interrogates how diasporic texts mediate between cultures, offering new perspectives on the symbolic associations and narrative gestures intrinsic to the Ghazal tradition. It argues that translators, as cultural mediators, play a pivotal role in re-inscribing the poetic form with relevance for diverse audiences, ensuring that the cultural duality and emotional resonance of the Ghazal remain intact in its global iterations. This approach underscores the dynamic interplay of power, ideology, and cultural identity in the translation and reception of diasporic Ghazals.

Amy Tan's long novel The Bonesetter's Daughter transcends the interpretive framework of the debate between Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston. The intervention of this work is to expose the hidden phenomenon of discrimination against the Chinese community in American society in the mid-to-late twentieth century, in which the dominant discourse places them in an inferior position in the civilization system by highlighting the differentiated characteristics of the Chinese American habitus. The native-born Chinese American community, represented by Ruth Young, is thus caught in an identity dilemma, and needs to further recognize the contributions and sacrifices of their forefathers by redeeming their ethnic memories and incorporating themselves into the genealogy of glorious traditions. As a result, the Chinese American community further acquires the ability to reconstruct historical narratives and to speak out on issues of modern civilization from multiple perspectives, questioning and critiquing dependent discriminatory relationships and their mechanisms of functioning, and thus, within a dialectical perspective between universality and ethnicity, seeking to achieve inter-subjective recognition for justice and equality in the social interaction.

This paper studies Li Kotomi’s 2022 fantasy novel, An Island Where Red Spider Lilies Bloom (彼岸花盛開之島), and investigates how the trope of translation illustrates a utopia of inclusion and transformation. Considering Walter Benjamin’s concept of “pure language,” an amalgam of fragmented languages that does not communicate the meaning of the original and is something “exiled among alien tongues,” I read the island in Li’s novel as a cultural imagination that challenges state sovereignty and a future-oriented vision. I argue that the fictive island designated as “the other side” (仁良伊加奈伊) symbolizes the intertwined relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, giving rise to a linguistic practice that resists constancy and lineage.

Jessica Tsui-yan Li will present a paper on “Eileen Chang’s The Greatest Wedding on Earth (1962).” This paper focuses on the screenplay, The Greatest Wedding on Earth (Nanbei yijiaqing 1962), written by Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing 1920-1995). Together with the Hong Kong based production team, Chang integrated the Shanghai elements into the Mandarin-speaking film scenes in postwar Hong Kong. The Greatest Wedding on Earth was marketed towards the Mandarin speaking middle-class Chinese diasporas in Hong Kong and other Asian countries. The younger generation of Chinese with various linguistic and cultural backgrounds resolve the conflicts through compassion and love. In this paper, I will analyze how various Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese cultural issues have been perceived, negotiated, or flattened out in depicting Chinese cultural diversities. I will also examine the Hollywood cinematic techniques of plot conventions and comic effects in portraying the images of new women of the time.

In my presentation, I discuss the preservation and transformation of cultural identity demonstrated in literary representation of Cantonese opera in a global and diasporic context, particularly in North America. In surveying the motif of Chinese opera in Chinese American literature and real-life performances in North America, I argue that the depiction of Chinese opera illustrates the struggles and dynamics of Chinese Americans remembering and negotiating their cultural identities between their hometowns and North America.

Chinese opera has been a popular cultural entertainment in Chinese American communities. It is a hometown entertainment for most Chinese in North America. Familiar themes and atmosphere in Chinese opera bring forth both individual and collective memory of Chinese Americans, reminding them of not only where they came from but also who they were prior to their arrival in Canada. Chinese opera performances and their related activities illustrate the manifestation of transcultural identity of Chinese American communities. The introduction and adaptation of these cultural activities in North America symbolize the transcendence of borders, linguistics boundaries, and geographic distance.

Cultural meanings and convention encoded in Chinese opera reinforced the early Chinese settlers’ cultural heritage, which was passed down to later generations of Chinese Americans. The impact of cultural imagination, identity and social memory transmitted by Cantonese opera was most vividly illustrated by the writings of Chinese American writers, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Wayson Choy and Denise Chong, who remade and reinterpreted the stories and cultural space of Cantonese opera in their Chinatown stories and memoirs.

What is a good death? I explore Ann Hui’s response to this question in A Simple Life (2011) in this paper. A Hong Kong New Wave pioneer, Ann Hui (b. 1947), describes the end-of-life choices of a maid—Ah Tao—who decides to retire to a nursing home after a stroke. Her clairvoyant preparation for what lies ahead as death looms draws attention to two pivotal approaches to ming: “accepting fate” (认命rènmìng) and “knowing the divine will” (知天命 zhītiānìing). Whereas the verb ren is often construed as a passive, feminine act of acquiescence to fated suffering, the verb zhi harnesses active, male-dominated Confucian learning to follow a path charted by Providence. Despite these gendered interpretations of ming, I argue that Ann Hui gives Ah Tao the agency to integrate acceptance (rèn) with acknowledgment (zhī) to illustrate the art of dying well in simple living.

In my talk, I offer a textual and discursive exploration of an eighteenth-century Algerian folk poem (malḥūn) about the 1770 Danish-Norwegian bombardment of Algiers, referred to in Algerian sources as "The Poem of the Bomb" (Qaṣīdat al-Būmbah). I explore this vernacular poem alongside other previously overlooked late eighteenth-century Algerian historiographical-cum-autobiographical sources, namely Ibn Ruqayyah al-Tilimsānī’s (d. 1780) al-Zahra al-Nayyirah (The Radiant Flower) and al-Ḥājj Aḥmad al-Sharīf al-Zahhār’s (d. 1830) Mudhakkarāt (Memoir). Through this comparative reading, I underscore the critical importance of engaging with neglected non-European and non-Eurocentric sources that foreground Algerian and broader Maghribi perspectives on the 1769–1772 Danish-Algerian War and the 1770 bombardment of Algiers. Relatedly, I analyze the poem’s use of Romance loanwords associated with corsairing and piracy, drawing intertextual connections to an older Algerian folk poem, "My Corsair Has Won a Booty"(Qurṣānī Ghannim) on the 1565 Algerian-Ottoman siege of Malta, known in the Arabo-Siculo-Maltese as "L-Assedju l-Kbir" (The Great Siege).

This paper undertakes a comparative philosophical and literary investigation into the role of artificial intelligence as a narrative agent in both digital games and AI-generated literature. Central to this inquiry is a question that cuts across aesthetics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language: what does it mean to "author" in an age where machines generate, structure, and even co-create stories? How do these practices challenge our inherited categories of authorship, intentionality, and interpretation? Focusing on the Nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War as a model of adaptive procedural narrative, and supported by cases such as AI Dungeon, the paper examines how narrative is constructed when authored partially or wholly by algorithmic systems. In digital games, AI narratives are not merely generated but enacted, shaped through the player’s interactivity and embedded within dynamic, feedback-driven systems. In contrast, AI-generated literature, including works produced by large language models such as ChatGPT, often retains the conventions of linear authorship, albeit without a stable authorial subject. Philosophically, this paper builds on theories of authorship and meaning from W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, who argue that an author’s intention is neither accessible nor relevant, and from Roland Barthes, who claims that the origin of meaning lies in the reader’s engagement rather than the author’s voice. These frameworks highlight a broader transition from traditional authorial control to interpretive plurality which finds new expression in machinic and interactive forms of storytelling. On the basis of these frameworks, I argue that AI’s narrative interventions demand not only new literary classifications but a rethinking of narrative itself as a philosophical object that is no longer grounded in human intentionality alone, but distributed across machinic processes, player engagement, and algorithmic design. This theoretical inquiry into authorship and interpretation articulates how digital technologies serve as co-constructors of meaning in evolving literary environments.

Following the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, postcolonial themes—such as the cultural identity of Hong Kong—once prominent in Hong Kong literature, gradually faded into the backdrop of historical change. Yet, the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has sparked renewed interaction between Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese literature, prompting fresh debates about the place of Hong Kong literature and its ties to Mainland literary traditions in today’s context. Given the complexity of this evolving dialogue, this study revisits earlier explorations of Hong Kong’s cultural identity by writers like Leung Ping-kwan and Li Pi-Hua during the handover period. Building on their work, we undertake a textual analysis of two novels by post-90s Hong Kong Drifters writers—Stefanie Chow’s The Wandering Dragon Toys with the Phoenix (Yau Lung Hei Fung, 遊龍戲鳳) and Lucia Lo’s The Memory Puzzles of Hong Kong Drifters (Gong Piu Gei Jik Ping Tou, 港漂記憶拼圖)—to probe the cultural identity of Hong Kong anew.

This study seeks to reframe the dynamic between “periphery and center” in literary narratives by examining how Hong Kong Drifters writers portray the city amid the GBA’s rise. In doing so, it explores their cultural identity and proposes the concept of a “literature circus within the GBA” as a means to connect peripheral and central narratives. This framework engages with Leung Ping-Kwan’s notion of a “third cultural space,” aiming to mend the rifts and tensions stemming from differing colonial histories. Looking ahead, the study also considers how this “literature circus” might open up new narrative possibilities, fostering deeper connections between Hong Kong and Mainland literature in the future.

Bao Daizhi Outwits by the Chalk Circle is a typical legal drama written by Li Xingdao, a writer from the Yuan Dynasty in China. In 1832, the French sinologist Stanislas Julien first translated The Chalk Circle into French.Unfortunately, the play did not gain widespread attention in European academic circles at that time. In 1876, the German writer Anton Fonseca translated Julien's French version into German. Subsequently, through the translations and introductions by German sinologists such as Wilhelm Grube and Alfred Forke, the play gradually entered the receptive horizon of German writers in the 20th century. Among them, Klabund's adaptation of The Chalk Circle is particularly notable. The successful staging of this adaptation not only brought international reputation to the writer but also played a significant role in promoting the development of drama in the Weimar Republic. It even sparked a trend of adapting Chinese dramas among German writers in the first half of the 20th century. By this point, the "Two Mothers Contending for a Son"story had truly entered the German-speaking literary world, embarking on its journey around the globe. This paper aims to return to the historical context, examining the reasons behind Klabund's adaptation and the initial staging process, and exploring his rewriting strategies and the implied motives behind them. Such an examination of the reception history of this particular case not only clarifies the traces of Sino-German literary and cultural exchanges but also reveals the formation process of a world literary classic.

Abstract: Late 19th century to early 20th century, Missionaries' works in Southwestern Mandarin mainly include Dictionnaire Francais-Latin-Chinois de la Langue Mandarine Parlée, Proverbes Chinois, Recueillis et mis en Ordre,Dialogues Chinois-Latin Traduits mot a mot avec la prononciation accentée，Grammaire de la Langue Chinoise，Dictionnaire Chinois-Français de la Langue Mandarine Parlée Dans l‘Ouest de la Chine Avec un Vocabulaire Français-Chinois，Western Mandarin, or the Spoken Language of Western China，A Course of Lessons in Spoken Mandarin Based on the Gouin Method,Short Cut to Western Mandarin first hundred steps(Romanized), and Chinese Lessons of First Year Students in West China. We have researched and interpreted the words "鸭静", "姨台", "凑", "㧯", "奏奏", "柇皮" and "谷𣿅鸡" that appear in the literature. On the basis of clarifying the relationship between many variants, we have researched the dialect original character and explored their etymology.

The concept of “corpse” as “thing” is essential in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. The corpses in these narratives act as both “ontological objects,” each with its distinct trajectory and nature, and “agentic objects,” which actively intervene in the course of the story. This paper analyzes Poe’s three short stories---“Ligeia” (1838), “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), and “Some Words with a Mummy” (1845) ---each representing his Gothic, detective, and science fiction genres. The focus is on the notion of “thingness,” referring to the ontology and agency of the corpses within these texts. This analysis provides a fresh interpretation through the lens of thing narrative, particularly utilizing object-oriented narratology. From the Gothic corpse entwined between life and death, which are both real and surreal in “Ligeia,” to the suspenseful corpse that displays phenomena and obscures the truth in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and then to the science fiction corpse able to communicate across time and space in “Some Words with a Mummy,” the corpses in these three works demonstrate how the “corpse” as a “thing” gets entangled with spirit and competes with “the will”, how it constructs and deconstructs the “truth” each individual has discovered, or how it fuses technology and humanity together to create a new form of being. Through imaginative exploration in his different types of stories, Poe highlights the diverse aspects of corpses’ agency and “lures” readers to reflect on their profound ontological nature, which Graham Harman has termed “withdrawn” real objects. Poe’s exploration of “thingness” in these narratives sets the stage for his later prose poem, “Eureka,” allowing him to express the inexplicable and engage with what Quentin Meillassoux calls “The Great Outdoors.” The thing narrative surrounding corpses also aids Poe in pioneering, developing, and enriching various short story genres. More importantly, Poe uses corpses to depict “life,” which, in his view, encompasses not just human existence but also the life of nonhuman objects. He portrays these objects as “animate,” “sentient,” and “intelligent,” suggesting that they are always wielding thing power by the force of attraction and repulsion. For Poe, there is no fundamental ontological difference between humans and nonhuman objects, and the agency of things enables them to have power and affect other things in their own ways. Thus, humans and human life cannot be considered the focal point of the universe, and “life” takes many forms among all things. The three short stories mark different stages of Poe’s exploration of corporeal existence and demonstrate how the author articulates life through death, as noted by Gaston Bachelard, culminating in his ultimate reconciliation with mortality.

This article analyzes the narrative of nonhuman elements in the American cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson, and its Chinese counterpart, Waste Tide (2013), by Chen Qiufan, in the context of world literature, aiming to explore the way they configure the connections and networks of the world system. It argues that, similar to the role of literary forms and contents in Franco Moretti’s research and artificial sites in David Damrosch’s world literature theory, the artificial humans in both novels are narrated as a centre of calculation which connects different classes, cultures, and domains both inside and outside their home countries, forming a network resembling the star-shaped typology. Meanwhile, the technical products in these narratives act as conduits for transporting the presence of the ancient, distant and current systems in the world into one another, showcasing a mesh global network that directly connects individual sites and domains in different countries and cultures. These agencies of nonhuman narrative in the East and West not only reveals a new episteme to reassemble the connections between the literary, social, cultural and economic structures in both developed and developing countries, but also help address the recent concerns of multiculturalism by breaking down cultural boundaries and incorporating nonhuman objects as part of the material basis of the “form” of different cultures.

The mimetic turn in posthuman studies has gradually developed into what can be termed mimetic posthumanism. The mimetic paradigm not only provides theoretical support for the loosening of human boundaries within the posthuman framework, but also facilitates the construction of desires under the imagination of the posthuman. If we recognize transhuman medical technologies’ shaping of human desires in the pursuit of human enhancement, what standard should we adopt? How can we prevent this process from aligning with capitalism to reshape social structures that treat ordinary people as sacrificial victims? This paper navigates between the two foundational pillars of instinct views and the mimetic paradigm in the archetypal writing of desire. It explores two works that rewrite the mythological themes of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex: the modern novella “The Beast in the Jungle” and the contemporary science fiction film The Beast. These three works reflect the dynamic relationship between instinct and mimesis in the formation of desire, oscillating between the binary framework of gender and the distinction between “human” and “beast” (non-human). In pre-modern theological societies, heterosexual desire was primarily presented as an inescapable, instinctual fate, with mimesis hovering as a potentiality in the background. In modern humanist societies, social constructions of heterosexual desire heavily rely on mimesis, though the instinct persists, albeit faintly. In posthuman, technologically integrated societies, mimesis serves as a paradigm for creating “transhumans” in the realm of life sciences, where purified emotional desires are manufactured, driving out instinct, yet failing to fully fulfill the promise of “human enhancement.”

In early Western political cartoons, China is often depicted as an evil and ugly dragon threatening Western civilization. Such a negative image is rewritten in contemporary graphic novels among which The Night Eaters deserves special attention. The Night Eaters is a graphic novel horror trilogy by the extraordinary collaboration of Eisner Award-winning and bestselling author Marjorie Liu and illustrator Sana Takeda. It depicts the life of a Chinese American family in the United States. In the book, the stereotypical image of China as the demonic dragon is subverted cleverly. Instead of reconfirming the positive connotations of the dragon in Chinese culture, such as divinity, power, prosperity, and good fortune, which would have been another form of simplification of the image, Liu and Takeda complicate the dragon image and deconstruct the dichotomous conceptions of the dragon through its innovative narrative and art form. This article attempts to address the three key methods employed to this end. First, though the story is inserted with flashbacks about the mother’s past, her real identity is kept initially as a secret and only gradually revealed to be a demon eater in Book 1. Yet the reader does not know that she is not only a demon eater but also a dragon until the end of Book 2, which may evoke different emotional reactions from readers of Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds and change their previous cognitive frames in various ways. Second, this information gap and the consequent narrative surprise are accentuated by the visual depiction of the mother as a normal human being who is both terrifying and awkwardly adorable. The reader is only told but not shown what the mother is, which differs from the outright visual depiction of the dragon in early Western political cartoons. Third, the tension that exists between the Western and the Chinese images of the dragon is also embodied in the book’s visual style which is both poetic and horrifying, beautiful and disturbing. Via the detailed reading of the book’s content, narrative discourse, medium specificity, as well as cultural contexts, the article hopes to not only show the intricate relationship between nonhuman narratives and racial narratives, but also shed light on how the graphic novel in general contributes to the construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of collective images of certain groups or communities.

In Chapter 17 of James Joyce's Ulysses, there is a multitude of list fragments. For a long time, these list fragments concerning things were dismissed as inexplicable digressions or unnecessary descriptions. However, with "Turn to Things" influencing the domain of narratology, the focus of literary narratological research has undergone a shift over the past decade. Things, once relegated to the silent background in traditional narratology, have now moved to the forefront, and the theoretical paradigm of Thing Narrative gradually took shape. When the ontological meaning of things is increasingly emphasized, the thing narrative revolution may offer us a new interpretive framework for understanding of the unique literary form of the list in Ulysses. In what sense does the use of lists in literature, as a representational medium, allow readers to transcend the cage of representation and confront things directly? This paper focuses on the intersection of list writing and Thing Narrative and analyzes several list passages in Joyce's Ulysses, examining how Joyce's list writing becomes a field for the self-manifestation of things and how it evokes reader’s mental experiences to perceive "thing-in-itself".

In the narrative of Chapter 17, the progression of Stephen and Bloom's actions is initially sustained and subtly advanced through the Q&A format. However, Joyce frequently interrupts this flow by inserting extensive lists of things into the text. These lengthy, exhaustive lists disrupt the ongoing human narrative, creating a stark visual contrast and imposing obstacles to the reading process. Readers are compelled to shift their attention away from the plot centered on the two protagonists, Bloom and Stephen, and instead focus on a world dominated by the overwhelming presence of things in the lists. Among these, the list of everyday things exposes the weird thingness through defamiliarizing the details of things; the list of natural things, with its chaos and disorder, escapes the constraints of Western rationalism; Bloom's associative list of celestial bodies and ancient fossils shows us "the Great Outdoors"; and the list of wedding gifts on the mantelpiece, which exchange gazes with Bloom, excavates the complex emotions he has long suppressed through a bidirectional interaction, subverting traditional subject-object relationships. In summary, as a high-density assemblage of things, these lists, through Joyce's experimental writing, offer readers a literary opportunity to glimpse the thingsness and demonstrate a heterogeneous power capable of destroying anthropocentric narratives and re-examining the essence of things.

This article examines the role of nonhuman narrative in world literature through the kalpavigyan (Indian science fiction/fantasy) of Satyajit Ray. While Ray is internationally recognized for the humanist ethos of his films, his literary oeuvre – particularly his kalpavigyan short stories –foregrounds encounters between human and nonhuman entities, including super-abled animals, extraterrestrial beings, and artificial intelligence. These narratives engage with global traditions of nonhuman storytelling, from indigenous cosmologies and magical realism to contemporary posthumanist fiction, offering a distinct postcolonial perspective on interspecies relations. Ray’s fiction does not, however, fully embrace the posthumanist decentering of the human; rather, posthuman themes coexist in these stories with an appeal to human ethics and indigenous mythological references that situate them in the humanist cultural discourse of world literature. I will argue, therefore, that Ray’s position regarding interspecies relations can be described as a proto-posthuman cosmopolitanism.

Situating kalpavigyan within world literature, this article examines Ray’s work alongside broader traditions of nonhuman representation. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti’s theorization of “minor science,” Isabel Stengers’ concept of “cosmopolitics,” and Judith Butler’s notion of precarity, I explore how Ray’s narratives engage with interspecies ethics, revisionary fantasies premised on the theory of evolution, and postcolonial critiques of Western epistemology. Stories such as Khagam and Mr. Shasmal’s Final Night feature spectral animals that trouble anthropocentric distinctions between human and nonhuman deaths, echoing animist traditions and global eco-fictional critiques of speciesism. Meanwhile, Ray’s Professor Shonku stories – populated by sentient machines, prehistoric creatures, and enigmatic nonhuman intelligences – resonate with transnational science fiction narratives that problematize the constructed boundaries between species and technologies.

By examining Ray’s engagement with nonhuman agency within the kalpavigyan tradition, this article theorizes the zoöpolitical nuances of his proto-posthuman cosmopolitanism. His speculative fiction neither fully dissolves human-nonhuman distinctions nor reaffirms human exceptionalism but instead constructs a framework in which ethical proximity to nonhuman others reshapes both scientific inquiry and moral consciousness. In doing so, Ray’s narratives contribute to a broader literary discourse on nonhuman storytelling, demonstrating how speculative fiction from a postcolonial context offers alternative epistemologies of interspecies relations and challenges the hegemony of Eurocentric and anthropocentric knowledge in world literature.

“The Ghost Bride” is a translated work by Zhou Shoujuan, which was first published in the 18th issue of Saturday Magazine on 3 October 1914, with a note next to the title of the translation, “By James Hogg, England”, and was later included in the European and American Famous Writers' Short Stories Series. “The Ghost Bride” was originally written as James Hogg's short story “The Mysterious Bride”. Hogg's original was a gothic-inspired tale of vengeance by a mysterious, nonhuman bride, which ends with an assertion of intent: “The wicked people of the great muckle village have got a lesson on divine justice written to them in lines of blood.” While Zhou Shoujuan's translation of this nonhuman narrative text has made many changes, such as changing the narrative perspective, simplifying many gothic elements in the original (deleting the prophetic omens of others, the mysterious bride's appearances in reality and dreams, etc.), mistranslating the key information, and altering the main theme of the story ...... It makes the translation similar to the traditional Chinese novels of the mystery and the supernatural. This paper attempts to clarify the background of the translation of “The Ghost Bride”, comparing the original text of James Hogg's “The Mysterious Bride” with Zhou Shoujuan's translation of “The Ghost Bride”, and by comprehensively examining the biography of the writer written by the translator, other translations of the same period of time, and other related materials, in order to investigate Zhou's changes to the original style and genre, and to examine how Zhou Shoujuan's translation produced “The Ghost Bride”, a translation work which synthesises the Western Gothic style and the Chinese ghost and spirit genre. Combined with the cultural environment and the translator's own factors, this paper further discusses the acceptance and creative adaptation of western nonhuman narration by translators represented by Zhou Shoujuan in the early period of the Republic of China, and probes into the academic circle's understanding of the meaning of nonhuman narratives in this period.

Even though the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CIA supported) affiliated periodicals in the West such as Encounter have been fairly well documented, CCF periodicals in Asia such as Jiyu (Japan), Sasanggye (South Korea), Free China (Taiwan), Solidarity (Philippines) and Horison (Indonesia) are waiting for further scholarly examinations. People working for these periodicals worked in close collaboration with each other. Hoki Ishihara (1924-2017) was the chief editor of Jiyu in Japan, and his Chronicle of the Intellectuals in postwar Japan (1984) is a rich record of the Cultural Cold War in Asia, as it records the activities of such renowned CCF-affiliated people as Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Sidney Hook, Sionil Jose, Chang Chun Ha. This presentation , after briefly summarizing Ishihara's (controversial) life and works, argues for the necessity of an Asian network of documenting and analyzing CCF affiliated periodicals in Asia, for the purpose of achieving a deeper understanding in literature and publication culture in Cultural Cold War in Asia.

Momoko Ishii (1907–2008) is widely recognized as a distinguished writer and translator of children's literature, including the Winnie-the-Pooh series. Following World War II, she played a crucial role in modernizing children's literature in Japan. She pioneered the establishment of Children’s Bunko (home libraries) to promote access to modern children's literature and cultivate reading habits among young readers. However, her work has not been sufficiently examined within the broader context of Cold War cultural dynamics.

This paper explores Ishii’s engagement with Cold War cultural networks by analyzing her efforts to institutionalize children's literature in postwar Japan. In 1952, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, she traveled across the United States to study library management, a trip facilitated by Japanese intellectual Shiho Sakanishi and numerous American librarians. Upon her return, Ishii co-founded the Home Library Research Group, which held regular meetings at the International House of Japan—an institution closely linked to the Rockefeller Foundation. Additionally, the group secured funding from the Asia Foundation to distribute basic book sets to newly established home libraries.

Through these initiatives, Ishii introduced innovative linguistic expressions for children’s literature, moving it away from its prewar function as a tool for moral instruction. Instead, she positioned children's books as a source of enjoyment in their own right. This shift aligned with the objectives of the Report of the United States Education Mission to Japan(1946, 1950), which sought to replace prewar moral education rooted in imperial ideology with postwar democratization efforts aimed at Japanese children. By situating Ishii’s contributions within these broader transnational frameworks, this study illuminates her role in shaping postwar Japanese children’s literature as part of Cold War cultural policy.

Tamizdat, or the practice of publishing banned works by Russian émigré or Soviet writers beyond the borders of the USSR, whether in the original form or translated into Western languages, has been identified as a significant phenomenon of the cultural Cold War. The dissemination of these literary works, particularly those that address contentious political or social issues, has been noted as a pivotal manifestation of the ideological and cultural tensions that characterized the geopolitical battle between the two superpowers and their allies in the late twentieth century. The most notable instance is Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, whose Italian translation was published by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore in Milan a year before the CIA-funded Russian original version was clandestinely provided to Soviet tourists at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. The aim of this paper is to recontextualize the process of establishing Izdatel'stvo imeni Chekhova (the Chekhov Publishing House, CPH), a subsidiary of the East European Fund (formerly known as the Free Russia Fund) directed by George F. Kennan with the aid of the Ford Foundation, and its publishing venture in New York as an earlier example of tamizdat than the Zhivago affair. The CPH publications encompassed a broad spectrum of literary genres, ranging from fiction (novels, short stories, drama, and poetry) to non-fiction, from the classics of the 19th century like Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Tyutchev, or Nikolai Leskov, to the translations of the contemporary literary and political works by British and American authors, such as Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918; Moya Antoniya, 1952) or Winston Churchill’s The Second World War (1948-53; Vtoraya Mirovaya Voyna, 1954). During the brief period spanning from 1952 to 1956, CPH released approximately 200 titles, including My (We, 1952), a novel by Evgeny Zamyatin first published in English by an American publisher in 1924, along with other unpublished texts by émigré writers whose works were no longer permissible for publication in the Soviet bloc due to their critical stance on the Kremlin. The CPH imprint and logo, which depict the Statue of Liberty emerging from a book, can be found in the bibliography of Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita (1955). A close examination of the publication history of three of Nabokov's Russian books — a novel, Dar (The Gift, 1952); an autobiography, Drugie berega (Other Shores, 1954); and a collection of short stories, Vesna v Fialte (Spring in Fialta, 1956) — illuminates his idiosyncratic position within the CPH's enterprise. This case study of Cold War publishing culture will demonstrate how geopolitical challenges played out in the search for a market for Russian émigré literature in the postwar American society.

This JCLA-KCLA Joint Session Roundtable will bring together members from the Korean Comparative Literature Association (KCLA) and the Japanese Comparative Literature Association (JCLA). The session aims to compare current trends in the field of comparative literature, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics for scholarly work, focusing on the following four topics:

First, "Recent Activities" will involve sharing key activities and research achievements of each association, while also exploring future directions for comparative literature research in the current academic environment. Second, "Education and Social Impact" will examine changes in comparative literature education and its influence on society, discussing ways the discipline can contribute to the community. Third, "Academic Publication" will analyze trends in scholarly publishing within comparative literature and exchange practical information on strategies for publishing in domestic and international journals and monographs. Finally, "Internationalization and the Global Anglophone" will delve into methods for expanding comparative literature research globally, including strategies for promoting exchanges with the Anglophone academic world and building international scholarly networks. This will also involve an extended discussion on comparative literary discourse possible between Anglophone comparative literature and East Asia.

This roundtable is expected to be a meaningful opportunity to vitalize academic exchange between the two associations and collectively seek solutions to the pressing challenges facing the field of comparative literature.

This JCLA-KCLA Joint Session Roundtable will bring together members from the Korean Comparative Literature Association (KCLA) and the Japanese Comparative Literature Association (JCLA). The session aims to compare current trends in the field of comparative literature, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics for scholarly work, focusing on the following four topics:

First, "Recent Activities" will involve sharing key activities and research achievements of each association, while also exploring future directions for comparative literature research in the current academic environment. Second, "Education and Social Impact" will examine changes in comparative literature education and its influence on society, discussing ways the discipline can contribute to the community. Third, "Academic Publication" will analyze trends in scholarly publishing within comparative literature and exchange practical information on strategies for publishing in domestic and international journals and monographs. Finally, "Internationalization and the Global Anglophone" will delve into methods for expanding comparative literature research globally, including strategies for promoting exchanges with the Anglophone academic world and building international scholarly networks. This will also involve an extended discussion on comparative literary discourse possible between Anglophone comparative literature and East Asia.

This roundtable is expected to be a meaningful opportunity to vitalize academic exchange between the two associations and collectively seek solutions to the pressing challenges facing the field of comparative literature.

Members from KCLA and JCLA will compare trends in the field, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics around the 4 topics below.

1) Recent Activities

2) Education and Social Impact

3) Academic Publication

4) Internationalization and the Global Anglophone

This JCLA-KCLA Joint Session Roundtable will bring together members from the Korean Comparative Literature Association (KCLA) and the Japanese Comparative Literature Association (JCLA). The session aims to compare current trends in the field of comparative literature, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics for scholarly work, focusing on the following four topics:

First, "Recent Activities" will involve sharing key activities and research achievements of each association, while also exploring future directions for comparative literature research in the current academic environment. Second, "Education and Social Impact" will examine changes in comparative literature education and its influence on society, discussing ways the discipline can contribute to the community. Third, "Academic Publication" will analyze trends in scholarly publishing within comparative literature and exchange practical information on strategies for publishing in domestic and international journals and monographs. Finally, "Internationalization and the Global Anglophone" will delve into methods for expanding comparative literature research globally, including strategies for promoting exchanges with the Anglophone academic world and building international scholarly networks. This will also involve an extended discussion on comparative literary discourse possible between Anglophone comparative literature and East Asia.

This roundtable is expected to be a meaningful opportunity to vitalize academic exchange between the two associations and collectively seek solutions to the pressing challenges facing the field of comparative literature.

Members from KCLA and JCLA will compare trends in the field, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics around the 4 topics below.

1) Recent Activities

2) Education and Social Impact

3) Academic Publication

4) Internationalization and the Global Anglophone

Critical focus on the (im)possible relations between the individual and the collective, especially in the context of literary texts, invites and incites attention to other (im)possible relations, such as those between aesthetics and politics, fiction and fact, and literariness and rhetoricity. In cases where it cannot be assumed that these qualities are mutually exclusive, it is conventionally expected that they nevertheless be considered in contrast to each other. Consequently, literary analysis offers “degrees” to which, for instance, an autobiography is factual or fictional and expressive or representative. This paper, however, is an attempt to consider these qualities not in separation, but in their interaction. It is necessary to note that what is being proposed is not a conflation of terms that have been rightfully differentiated for both conceptual and ethical reasons. Rather, the task is to understand how such apparent contradictions can co-constitute a text. The paper argues that, within such dynamics, individual voice and collective consciousness can coexist in productive tension.

In response to the questions raised by the panel, the paper posits that the supposed conflict between literacy expression and political representation can perhaps be reconsidered if it can be emphasised that while existence precedes essence (and therefore cannot be exhaustively determined), essence succeeds existence. In other words, essence remains a construction but one that is imagined, organised and utilised by subjects that exist in existential relations with one another. Such an approach to abstractions seems most relevant to the field of postcolonial studies.

This paper examines the categorization of hyphenated-American literature (e.g., African-American, Asian-American, Native-American) as a reflection of colonial and postcolonial stratification in the United States. By exploring how these identities are constructed and sustained, the paper critiques the linguistic and cultural implications of placing "otherness" before "American." Through close readings of texts classified as African-American, Asian-American, Arab-American, and Native American, this study interrogates the ways in which hyphenation both reflects and resists hierarchies of race, ethnicity, and national belonging.

Drawing on Roland Barthes’ concept of polysemy, the paper considers how the reader’s encounter with hyphenated identities often centers the tension between individual voices and collective categorization. While collective frameworks like "African-American literature" provide agency and recognition, they risk reducing complex narratives into rigid identity-based classifications and the perpetuation of monoliths. This multiplicity of voices resists homogenization, resulting in plurality within their subfield but also plurality in the experience of a singular text when the reader engages.

Situated within the methods of American Pluralism and post-colonial theory, this analysis highlights the hyphen as a site of struggle and negotiation, challenging the exceptionalist myth of a singular American identity. It argues that hyphenated-American literature is not a subset of "American" but central to redefining its boundaries and pluralistic essence. Ultimately, the paper foregrounds the role of literature in disrupting nation-state ideologies and reexamining categories of difference, offering a critical lens to reassess American exceptionalism and its implications for cultural and literary hierarchies.

With the emergence of Identity Studies as an important field in the 21st century owing to phenomena such as globalization, migration, the evolution of gender identities et cetera, literary critics and scholars continue to classify texts and authors into boxed categories such as “anglophone writing”, “francophonie”, “immigrant writing”, “exile literature”, “women’s writing”, “Dalit writing”, “African literature”, “diasporic writing”, “Indian writing in English,” so on and so forth.

This paper critiques the foregrounding of categories pertaining to identity in the reading of literary texts through a reading of select francophone novels. Through my engagement with the texts, I will explore questions such as: What is “Africanness” (if it exists!), Is there an African identity? Should literature be reduced to the mere assertion of one’s identity? If not, what is the purpose of literature? I interrogate these questions through a framework grounded in plurality arguing that the human condition is essentially pluralistic. With it, comes the related question– Can there be a pan-African identity that relates to the singular experiences and cultural practice(s) of an essentially pluralistic Africa? By unravelling the challenges of the 20th century discourse on the French literary system and its categorisation of the francophonie, these novels expose that literary history has been a construction of power. Classification of African writers and literatures into categories such as “exile literature”, “migrant writing”, “Black writing” or even “Francophone literatures” assumes literary texts to be mere representations of the identities ignoring the inherent plurality of human experiences.

Signalling aesthetics and/or “aestheSis” (Mignolo) as the intentionality bolstering the ‘event of literature’, I will undertake a reading of select novels from the francophone contexts to challenge any theoretical approach that looks for “authenticity” in works of fiction.

Mongo Beti, a prominent Cameroonian Francophone writer, presents the mobility of people, objects, and ideas as a tangible and observable reality in his fiction. His novels outline a colonial order of movement dominated by automobility while simultaneously constructing an anti-colonial vision through the movements of local characters returning to their homes. In the concrete and abstract "non-lieux" (non-places) generated by these movements—such as colonial roads, guerrilla, and extramarital affairs—Cameroonian subjects resist sedentary and essentialist modes of thinking to redefine their relationships with others, with places, and with history. The fluid, anonymized and double-negative relations are rooted in Beti's use of black humor, which permeates his narrative techniques. Through the dislocation of detective fiction conventions and narrative digressions, Beti ironically challenges colonial structures and offers a complex view of postcolonial identity. His writing style creates a mobile linguistic approach through the use of "français africain" (African French), evident in the gap between the signifiers of French and their meanings within the Cameroonian context. By playfully manipulating language and genre, Beti critiques colonial impositions while reappropriating French as a tool for subversion. This dynamic use of French in representing Cameroonian reality extends the concept of mobility and defines the Cameroonian Francophone writer as one who transcends both linguistic and cultural boundaries.

What is a ‘postcolonial novel’? Can a novel represent the postcolonial ‘social reality’ when read as literature? The paper contextualises these questions in the ‘postcolonial readings’ of Indulekha (1889), regarded as the first ‘modern novel’ in Malayalam literature. As a species of ‘literary criticism’, the analysis of ‘postcolonial readings’ is broadly a critique of the notion of ‘criticism’ in the domain of literature. As a meta-critical enquiry, the paper juxtaposes and analyses different critical comments on the novel. It is also a critique of the ‘conventions’ of ‘literary criticism’ which consider some readings by ‘professional critics’ as ‘authentic’. This hierarchisation of readings is irreconcilable with the plural nature of the practice of poiesis. Once we acknowledge the plurality of readings, we cannot say that certain readings are more authentic compared to other readings. Plural ‘Texts’ (Barthes) are performed by different readers. The paper evokes Edward Said’s and Statis Gourgouris’ critique of ‘professionalisation’ to examine how ‘postcolonial critic’ becomes a professional designation. Ideas such as ‘informed readers’ and ‘expert readers’ objectify ‘Texts’ and institutionalise particular readings as ‘the readings’. But a Text is not an object but a process. However, ‘critical theory’ considers the work as an ‘object’ of ‘knowledge’ about the author or the context, and an expert who is well versed in the respective field of ‘knowledge’ is deemed as a ‘competent critic’. ‘Postcolonial criticism’ also assumes a correlation between the novel and ‘postcolonial social conditions’. The paper demonstrates how ‘critical comments’ on the ‘colonial condition’ differ and contradict one another. The paper will elaborate on the notion of representation using Syed Sayeed’s critique of ‘literary representation’. The paper compares different critical comments on the novel and frames the comparison as a critique of postcolonial theory.

Night on the Galactic Railroad, the most famous novel of Miyazawa Kenji, has traveled across the boundaries of different nations and social media since his death in 1933. However, in the process of canonization, Kenji’s identity as a Buddhist believer has not been given due attention with few existing researches realizing the influence of his religious belief on his literary career. The imagination of a science-informed future shared by all human beings in Kenji’s fictional writings, in this connection, proves to be nothing but a natural product of this influence and embodies the ethical concerns of Nichiren Buddhism.

Under the influence of the Lotus Sutra, Kenji took science fiction as a vehicle of Buddhist ideas, with Buddha’s Milky Way, or Ihatov, at the center of the aforementioned imagination. The pursuit of Ihatov dictates many of his works and bridges the gap between Nichiren Buddhism and modern science. Furthermore, taking the form of Milky Way, Ihatov refers to one’s mortal life, which is neither an unattainable Arcadia perpetually beyond human vision, nor a result of mere calculation based entirely on logos. On the contrary, it could only be fulfilled by virtue of personal choices and rational thinking.

From the perspective of narrative structure, Nichiren Buddhism renders Ihatov an equal nature of all beings, including the author and the reader, who are both unaware of how the new world should be established and feel astonished at its magnificence. Moreover, the whole text of Night on the Galactic Railroad and other works is characterized by a sense of equilibrium between reason and emotion, which engages a pilgrimage by the trinity of characters, the writer and reader to an ideal village: the protagonists in Kenji’s works are all willing to sacrifice themselves for common welfare, and the writing process of Night on the Galactic Railroad also serves as an intellectual journey for Kenji himself, which was revised for four times and published without a final version during his lifetime, as if the novel itself represents the imaginary Ihatov and Kenji’s ultimate struggle.

As indicated by the fact that Kenji once chose to join farmers and establish the Rasuchijin Society to achieve the integration of agriculture, art, science and religion, he was undoubtedly an active participant of the secular world. Viewing difficulties as opportunities of self-cultivation, he advocated the elimination of all inherent standards and objective limitations and was eager to put Buddha’s compassion and wisdom into practice. In this sense, we can claim that Ihatov is by no means the end of this pilgrimage. The unfinished journey not only foreshadows the destiny of science, but also a unique concept of temporality Nichiren tended to propose, which turns out to be both linear and circular and accordingly endows Japanese science fiction, particularly Kenji’s works, with remarkable complexity and self-reflexivity.

The world in 800,000 years, which is the first Chinese translation of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, bears a very prominent cultural imprint of the translated language, which is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the influence of the contemporaneous trend of thought on the translation of the book, and the other is the dominant role played by the Chinese travel culture tradition in the translation of the book, “creative treason”. The former reflects the utopian imagination of the late Qing intellectual elite for the future society, while the latter becomes the self-relief of the intellectual community under the pressure of the dangerous situation of “country destroyed, its people annihilated”. Both of them have quietly changed the basic connotation and purpose of Wells’ original TM, reflecting a strong Chinese cultural identity. In the final analysis, this is closely related to modern Chinese people’s multi-faceted and continuous imagination of the ideal future of the nation. Though the dominant force in this process is the linear view of progress and evolution, the anti-evolutionary ideological undercurrent still lurks in the background. The translation of foreign science fiction novels in the late Qing and early Republican period was a powerful reflection of this ideological and cultural background. Although as early as before TM traveled to China, there were already anti-utopian novels such as “Diary of the End”(mo ri ji), which reflected the hesitant tendency of straight-line social progress in the future imagination of modern Chinese people, the ‘arrival’ and translation of Wells’s TM presented a more detailed and specific picture of the “arrival” and translation of this novel. However, the “arrival” and translation of Wells’s TM has presented this skepticism in a more detailed and concrete way. Although Wells’s TM could not be compared with the science fiction novels of Verne and Oshikawa Harunami in the late Qing and early Republican period, the significance of its textual travel should not be ignored. That is, Xinyi’s translation provides a model for intellectual reflection on the theory of social evolution and even the development of science and technology in relation to the human condition and its relationship between the two, and represents the fact that the intellectual community in modern China has entered the folds of the future imagination. Further, it embodies the necessary introspection that the modern Chinese intelligentsia retains on the tenor of the times. The significance of the research in this paper is that it makes an attempt and exploration for the study of the history of ideas in translated literature.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt draws on rich Buddhist cosmologies to imagine a history where Europe falls and Asia rises. Buddhist concepts and values such as rebirth, emptiness, and nirvana are intricately woven into the narrative to portray history as cyclical, traumatic, and in need of redemption and transformation. By intertwining Buddhist philosophy with the narrative structure of alternate history, Robinson critiques the limitations inherent in modern and postmodern historical discourses, and offers Buddhist philosophy as a potential solution to the crises of historiography to provide a therapeutic framework for reimagining historical thought. Through its depictions of recurring cycles of reincarnation, the novel illustrates how individuals and collectives confront and navigate the cyclical patterns of fate to shed light on new pathways for spiritual healing and historical understanding. Furthermore, the novel advocates for methodological approaches that emphasizes collective struggle and individual agency as means to transcend the “end of history.” Ultimately, through its unique fusion of Buddhist philosophy and alternate history, the novel reexamines global history that transcends Eurocentric frameworks and offers Buddhist-inspired insights into humanity’s future possibilities.

Recent years have seen the rehabilitation of fiction as a way to map complex futures. In addition to tech leaders’ book recommendations, this trend is exemplified by collaborations between science and creative writing. The Twelve Tomorrows-series at MIT Press (2011–), for example, features thematic future-oriented stories with a strong focus on probable developments to respond to ‘the moral imperative to be optimistic, to attempt to deal with climate change and the challenges it brings in a way that improves our situation, rather than giving in to despair’ (Strahan 2022, 1). On a similar account, Chen Qiufan 陈楸帆 recently teamed up with Kai-fu Lee 李开复, an IT entrepreneur, hoping that by ‘imagining the future through science fiction, we can even step in, make change, and actively play a role in shaping our reality’ (Lee & Chen 2021, xxi). While the two examples advance different agendas, they both place fiction in the backseat, conceding it an educational role or as a means to disseminate awareness of technological advancements.

To concede such a passive role to fiction, however, means to ignore the literary world-building processes that stands at the heart of most non-fictional engagement with the future, notably future foresight and risk assessment. After all, ‘scenario thinking’ continues to inform both statistical and case-scenario predictions, a method first explored by postwar cybernetics research. This type of investigation derives from a genuinely narrative approach, which places hypothetical sequences of events at the heart of its evaluations (Kahn & Wiener 1967; Aepli, Ribaux & Summerfield 2011). Literary imagination shows in the classical questions involved in the risk assessment process: what can go wrong? What are the consequences? On the other hand, the ‘narrative grammar’ of possible worlds, as explored by literary critics, complements the investigative purpose of scenario thinking by asking: what are the normative principles that regulate the reality of the narrated world? What is presented as certain, what as improbable? While obvious differences remain, such as literary studies’ stronger emphasis on perspective and risk analysis’ focus on mitigation and response, there is much room for dialogue between both fields.

Bibliography:

- Aepli, Pierre, Olivier Ribaux and Everett Summerfield. 2011. Decision Making in Policing: Operations and Management (Lausanne: EPFL Press).

- Kahn, Hermann and Anthony J. Wiener. 1967. The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-three Years (London: MacMillan).

- Lee, Kaifu and Qiufan Chen. 2021. AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future (London: Penguin).

- Strahan, Jonathan. 2022. Tomorrow’s Parties: Life in the Anthropocene (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

The focus of this research is on two interrelated issues regarding Hugo Meltzl and Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (1877-1888): first, it aims to point out that Meltzl and the origin story of comparatism that he was made to portray is central to the constitution of the discipline of World Literature, as devised by David Damrosch or Haun Saussy, some of the most influential comparatists of the past few decades. I will attempt to show that, in order to counterbalance the charge of Western-centrism, they performed a decontextualized and partial reading of Meltzl and Acta Comparationis. The second aim of the presentation, in the aftermath of other post- or de-colonial perspectives, is to historicize the discussion on Acta Comparationis in relation to new approaches to the Late Habsburg empire and in terms of the complex linguistic and identity politics embedded in the archive of the journal. The hypothesis explored here is that Acta comparationis is not a product arisen from an ineffable ideology at odds with an imperial or Eurocentric outlook, but a product embedded in the political project of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In the second part of the presentation, the practices of cultural comparison displayed in the pages of the above mentioned journal are assessed against the above mentioned environment and in relation to the manifesto(es) of polyglottism/decaglottism.

This presentation aims to discuss the testimonial literature of Romanian emigration in the 20th and 21st centuries, tracking the personal political commitments of the authors and how these commitments resonate or clash with the ideological readings they employ in their literature. Starting from the concept proposed by György Lukács in History and Class Consciousness (1923), where the Hungarian philosopher describes ‘true class consciousness’ as the awareness of the revolutionary historical role of the proletarian class, not just an awareness of one’s own social ‘status,’ the presentation investigates how the relationship between emigrant literature and social data can be described as a form of “self-reification” of the Eastern European subaltern condition and, conversely, the forms of awareness and overcoming of this reification. The main aim of this paper is to show how migration, the more it became a mass fenomenon, the more apolitical it got within literary representations. This is also due to the post-communist period, which created a tendency to explain every domestic problem through the thesis of ‘unnatural development,’ meaning that most of the social problems of Eastern Europe stem from the communist period, not from the semi-peripheral capitalism (Cornel Ban, Dependență și dezvoltare, 2014) which shaped the region. This thesis has made it difficult for writers to understand the problems of global capitalism without referring to the heavy communist legacy, and thus modified ‘class consciousness’ to fit the mainstream narrative of ‘unnatural development.’

This paper seeks to examine the diverse representations of Eastern European subjects as depicted in the works of German ethnic authors from Transylvania and Banat. These portrayals are structured around a stark dichotomy: on one side, an aspirationally “Western” segment of the population—associated with democracy and historical legitimacy—and on the other, a “Balkanized” majority, perceived as regressive and culturally backward. This division carries a distinct class dimension, engendering a form of ethnic inner diaspora. Much like other elitist migratory practices employed by Romanian writers or the phenomenon of “resistance through culture,” designating the preferred form of non-engaged dissent practiced during the communist period by Romanian intellectuals, such representations redefine class consciousness and reposition the so-called German “microliterature” (Mircea A. Diaconu 2017) within the Romanian literary landscape. As a prime example of post-communist literary export, this paper will focus on Herta Müller’s polyterritorial double diaspora. Her works navigate a dual symbolic distance: first, from her Romanian co-nationals under the Ceaușescu dictatorship, marked by her estrangement from the dominant cultural and political climate before the anti-communist revolution; and second, from her aspirational engagement with cosmopolitanism in relation to Germany, positioning her literature within a transnational framework.

Despite its efforts to leave behind the myth of creative uniqueness, most current definitions of world literature still celebrate authors as sources of exceptionalist thought and irreducible language (with the sole amendment that the modernist topos of creation ex nihilo has sometimes been replaced by the postmodern notion of cultural creolization). However, this paper aims to use the idea of serial history, widely practiced in the social sciences, to address the most conservative core of literary studies: the thesis of the canon as a repertoire of unique voices. According to the perspective shift I propose, classical questions such as “Who was the most original poet/novelist/playwright in X national literature?” transform into problems like “What transnational processes does the work of Y—recognized as a representative author in X literature—illustrate?” From this perspective, writers from various national literatures cease to be seen as sources of idiosyncratic discourses and instead become “serial authors,” nodes in different transnational networks whose value is directly proportional to their ability to associate within the broadest and most complex cultural clusters. This anti-canonical concept of world literature could be illustrated through any genre, era, or literary space, but in my paper, I have chosen to focus on literary criticism, where connections can be more clearly highlighted. Thus, in 19th-century Romanian culture, the idea that a national literature should reject the imitation of Western cultural institutions was accredited through Titu Maiorescu's so-called theory of “forms without substance”. A comparable echo can be found in the criticism of the Bulgarian intellectual Petko Slaveykov, who also warned against the dangers of imitating Western “cultural fashions.” But while the relationship between Maiorescu and Slaveykov can be explained through their belonging to a shared cultural area and the possibility of “traveling ideas,” this hypothesis becomes less viable in a transareal comparison—such as that between Maiorescu’s analysis (O cercetare critică asupra poeziei române de la 1867 [A Critical Inquiry into Romanian Poetry from 1867], 1867) and that of the Ecuadorian critic Juan León Mera (Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana desde su época más remota hasta nuestros días [A Historical-Critical Overview of Ecuadorian Poetry from Its Earliest Period to the Present Day], 1868). In this case, not only do their dates of publication and ideological positions (the rejection of foreign imitation) coincide, but even the phrasing of their titles appears strikingly similar. In any case, by continuously and extensively addressing the problem of cultural imports within their respective national cultures, the writings of Maiorescu, Slaveykov, and Mera acquire a transnational significance.

Never Let Me Go employs the nonhuman clone Kathy as a first-person narrator to explore the character development and life choices of herself and her two clone companions. Existing studies, both domestic and international, have primarily focused on the ethical implications of cloning, critiques of dystopian biopolitics, and explorations of identity and agency in Ishiguro’s works. However, a gap remains in addressing the ethical dynamics between individual and community coexistence among clones. This paper applies the framework of ethical literary criticism to examine the clones’ “othered” identities, conflicting moral dilemmas, and compromised ethical choices as they navigate interactions within both human and clone communities. The analysis reveals two key findings: First, the transition from opposition to coexistence reflects the clones’ intrinsic identity consciousness, emotional capacities, and struggles with their destinies, presenting them as ethically complex beings rather than mechanical entities. Second, their pursuit of ethical understanding symbolizes the growing significance of ethical considerations in contemporary and future human societies. This study critically reflects on the ethical dilemmas posed by biotechnological and AI advancements in high-tech contexts. It also highlights the deliberate efforts of ethnic writers to integrate teaching values in cloning narratives, showcasing literature’s role in fostering ethical awareness and navigating the moral challenges of technological progress.

This study compares two Nizami Ganjavi's Sikandarnama translations—a 1673 Bengali version by Sayeed Alaol and an 1882 English version by Captain Wilberforce Clarke. It looks at how the two translators approached the text differently, shaped by their time, audience, and cultural context. Alaol used a mix of direct translation and creative changes, adding details that fit 17th-century Bengali culture and politics. On the other hand, Clarke followed a more literal, word-for-word approach, adding detailed notes to explain the text to an English-speaking scholarly audience. The study also explores how each version reflects and reshapes the original’s cultural meaning. For example, Alaol added local references to Bengali society, while Clarke tried to stay faithful to the original text while explaining its cultural background to Western readers. By analyzing specific parts of the text, this research shows how translations can preserve and adapt a literary work to new languages and cultures, highlighting how cultural memory and tradition evolve.

Moving through the ACLA Reports, beginning with the Levin Report in 1965, the practice of translation was very much an argued over space. Levin and Greene reports were adamant on the elitism of programs and courses on Comparative Literature. The reports were skeptical of reading literary works in translation without knowing the source language. However, considering humane limitations, the Levin report states that in a comparative literature program if a reasonable amount of literary work is read in original language, then it would be “unduly puristic” to read certain remote languages in translation. This ideology poses a threat to the “marginal” languages and literature systems in the global context. It will obviously result in a Eurocentric bias, which is already seen happening to remote language literary systems. “The Translator’s Invisibility” by Lawrence Venuti clearly states that translations in the English language is significantly higher than any other European languages let alone remote and non-European languages. Bernheimer report provides a positive and accepting view on translations, where it is exclaimed that translation gives us a scope to understand larger contexts and interpret various cultures and traditions. This skepticism for translation is totally wiped out in “Exquisite Cadavers Stitched from Fresh Nightmares”. At this point, translation is given a special role to understand possibilities and limitations of any language. Translations may be a site of cultural clash, language is not merely a delivery system anymore but have its own rules, structure, and resistance.

The history of translation in Comparative Literature is provided to better understand the effect of culture, traditions, language literary system, politics, ethics of a translation practices. It is a complex phenomenon where the translator must evaluate and understand cultural specificities if he/she wants to truly portray the source text in the original manner in the target language, that is by foreignization. In today’s time, with the development of AI, machine translations are widely popular. These technological developments claim that it uses deep learning algorithms, neural networks to interpret and understand the context and structure of both the source language and target language. Despite the bold assertions, how much has AI succeeded in proper and correct translations? Even if I ignore the cultural and traditional contexts of any language literary systems, the machine translations are not even up to the mark is translating a coherent grammatical structure. Examples are all around our devices and social networking sites, where the audience is quite satisfied if they understand the shell of the foreign language as generated by AI.

AI is basing its results on data, algorithms, and patterns but often this information is not helpful in translating a tongue genuinely into another. Any translation should have a personal touch which can only be given by a human and never a machine or technology no matter how advanced. Translation requires not only the correct use of language and grammar but also the understanding of tones, sarcasms, emotional and physical condition of the speaker, which cannot yet be detected by AI.

The politics of translation is intertwined with both the source text and target text and are very complicated. Let me elaborate with some examples, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, when translating Mahashweta Devi’s “Draupadi”, left out an entire passage without translating as that passage contained a tribal song which Devi’s Bengali readers were not supposed to understand without delving deep into the tribal community and language. Spivak respected Devi’s method by not giving the opportunity to the English reading audience to know and understand the story fully without any hassle. Maintaining cultural specificity of the source language the translation turns rough, and readability is lessened. This readability is a result of the made-up hierarchies in language. For instance, colonial language holds a power in contrast to a colonized tongue. Machine translations might work well for industrial translations but in the case of literary translations, AI will not be able to grasp the politics which goes behind any language medium. A machine translation which does not even interpret the correct grammar will surely not understand the asymmetrical power relations and the apparent balance between languages. As Levy considers translations as a series of decision-making process.

AI translation always uses the method of domestication instead of foreignization. This is threat to marginal, non-European, remote cultures, and languages. AI, with domestication, will not take into account any cultural specificity of source text and will break it down to fit into the norm of the target language which will lead to a hierarchy of languages and cultures. Certain Bengali words such as “bhaar”, “anchol”, “payesh” cannot be translated into English without losing the essence of the language, yes, we can domesticate it and easily come up with “cup”, “hanging part of saree”, “rice pudding” but any Bengali speaker will immediately understand that its not the same. AI and machine translations thus will roughly translate a source language ignoring its cultural specificity making it easier to understand by the target readers, but is it worth it? A translation should be done to delve into a foreign language, understand the minds of the foreign tongues, not merely just get a content and structure of a foreign work, and be satisfied with just that.

However, before the contemplation of politics of translation process, machine translations take us back to Roman Jakobson’s idea of translation where he bases his idea on Sassure’s idea of sign, signifier, signified. Jakobson gives a simpler view of translation where circumlocution will give us a signified from a foreign sign. In one language we will never always find a single sign replacing a sign in the source text, so we require the help of various other signs to explain the foreign word in the target language. Machine translations does just that, detecting and interpreting a foreign word and replacing it with the closest possible signifier. Like, thesaurus and synonyms can replace a word but the essence of a sign cannot be captured.

본 연구는 한국의 전설적 존재인 구미호와 서구의 초자연적 존재인 뱀파이어의 현대적 변용을 비교 분석한다. 연구 대상으로는 2020년 tvN 드라마 <구미호뎐>과 영화 <트와일라잇>을 선정하였다. 과거 구미호와 뱀파이어는 인간을 위협하는 부정적 존재였다. 이들은 인간이 될 수 없다는 한과 슬픔 속에서 비극적으로 형상화되었다. 그러나 두 작품에서는 이들의 모습이 달라진다. 이제 그들은 인간에게 해를 끼치지 않는다. 오히려 인간 세계의 균형을 유지하는 역할을 한다. 또한 여주인공에게 헌신적인 사랑을 보여준다. 이를 통해 현대 사회에서도 영원한 사랑이 가능함을 암시한다. 여주인공이 수동적이고 나약하게 그려진다는 비판도 있다. 하지만 강한 남성이 여성을 보호하는 서사는 현대인의 심리적 안정을 반영하는 요소로 볼 수 있다. 경쟁 사회 속에서 많은 사람들이 기댈 곳을 원하기 때문이다. 본 연구는 구미호와 뱀파이어가 긍정적인 영웅으로 변모한 점에 주목한다. 이들은 과거 어둠의 상징이었으나, 현대에서는 세상을 지키는 존재로 자리 잡았다. 또한 오랜 시간의 흔적이 재산과 뛰어난 능력으로 표현된다는 점도 흥미롭다. 이를 통해 신화적 존재의 현대적 재해석과 그 사회적 의미를 조명하고자 한다.

Kim Yong Ik, a first-generation Korean-American writer, stands out among his contemporaries, such as Younghill Kang and Richard E. Kim, for his unique literary contributions and his nuanced portrayal of geographical spaces. While all three authors incorporate autobiographical elements into their works, Kim Yong Ik distinguishes himself by consistently drawing inspiration from his childhood in Tongyeong, South Korea—a small coastal town—and by maintaining a bilingual writing practice. Unlike Kang and Kim, who ceased creative activities after a few major works, he sustained a literary career spanning nearly four decades, producing over 50 short stories, novels, and plays. Kim’s portrayal of Tongyeong transcends its role as a mere physical location, becoming what Pierre Nora terms a “site of memory”—a symbolic space where personal and collective identities are reconstructed. Stories such as Happy Days and “From Here You Can See the Moon” depict Tongyeong as an idealized homeland that anchors his fragmented identity amidst cultural hybridity. Through vivid representations of coastal villages, fishing harbors, and traditional Korean customs, Kim reimagines his hometown as a space that bridges his longing for belonging in a foreign land. In contrast to Kang’s focus on assimilation into American society or Richard E. Kim’s exploration of ideological conflicts during the Korean War, Kim Yong Ik’s works focus on themes of nostalgia and imaginative reconstruction of childhood landscapes. His literature reflects a deep connection to his roots while engaging with broader diasporic themes. This geographical imagination is further enriched by his bilingual writing practice. Unlike most Korean-American authors who rely on translators, Kim translated his English works into Korean himself, ensuring the authenticity of his narratives across both languages. Critics have praised Kim for establishing a tradition of short stories within Korean-American literature and for addressing themes of identity through the lens of geography. His works explore the intersections between personal memory and cultural displacement by situating characters in specific spatial contexts—both real and imagined. For instance, while Tongyeong serves as an emotional and poetic foundation in stories like “The Smuggler’s Boat,” American settings such as Maine and Florida in “Sheep, Jimmy and I” and “They Won’t Crack It Open” reflect themes of alienation and cultural negotiation. Kim’s ability to use geography not merely as a backdrop but as an active agent in shaping identity underscores the distinctiveness of his literary contributions. His works reveal how geographical spaces can serve as sites of reconciliation and self-discovery for diasporic individuals. By transforming geography into a narrative framework that reflects the complexities of displacement and belonging, Kim offers a nuanced perspective on diasporic consciousness. In conclusion, Kim Yong Ik’s literary achievements lie in his sustained creative practice rooted in both personal memory and cultural geography. His works not only highlight the complexities of diasporic identity but also contribute to a richer understanding of Korean-American literature through their unique geographical imagination.

Les recherches sur les arts et la culture, en raison notamment de leur structure disciplinaire, ont relativement peu exploré les productions plurimédiales ou, plus exactement, la part la plus « technique » d'entre elles. Nul ne nierait pourtant l'importance des techniciennes et techniciens du son au cinéma, des coloristes de la bande dessinée, des préparateurs et préparatrices de copies des éditeurs littéraires – et si le théâtre se passe désormais de souffleurs et souffleuses, ceux-ci continuent d'appartenir à l'imaginaire collectif. Cette session aimerait proposer de s'intéresser à ces activités et métiers, ainsi qu'à leurs contributions concrètes à certaines œuvres plurimédiales. Dans une perspective comparatiste et générale, il s'agira de croiser un intérêt historien pour leurs conditions d'exercice et de visibilité avec un intérêt théoricien pour ce que ces techniques permettent de dire de l'intermédialité et des relations entre les arts « majeurs ».

PROGRAMME

Marie Kondrat et Romain Bionda : « Introduction »

Irène Le Roy Ladurie : « Une main seconde : sur la technologie de la couleur en bande dessinée. Contrainte, interprétation et création, trois niveaux d'auctorialité chez les coloristes de bande dessinée (France, seconde moitié du XXe siècle) »

Marie Kondrat : « La trace et la matrice : narrer Lascaux 2 (autour du travail de Monique Peytral) »

Melina Marchetti : « Le poème adapté en clips : une expérience augmentée ? »

Romain Bionda : « Des animaux et leurs humains au générique ? Enquêter sur les arts du spectacle des XXe et XXIe siècles »

Cette communication propose une lecture critique du dispositif éditorial et numérique Raconter la vie (Seuil, 2014-2016), conçu pour visibiliser des expériences dites « invisibles » à travers la publication de récits de vie. À partir de cette étude de cas, il s’agira d’interroger les conditions concrètes – techniques, éditoriales, numériques – qui régissent l’apparition publique de ces récits dans l’espace littéraire et médiatique.

Ainsi, loin d’être spontanée ou immédiate, la visibilité défendue par la collection est-elle façonnée par un ensemble d’agents souvent exclus du récit de la création. Il s’agira donc de situer l’analyse, d'une part, du côté des agents subalternes de la chaîne du livre, dont les gestes, bien qu’invisibilisés, participent activement à la configuration formelle et discursive des œuvres, tout en influençant les problématiques qui s’imposent dans le champ : des préparateurs et préparatrices de copie, aux correcteurs et correctrices, en passant par les maquettistes et les équipes de sélection ou de communication. Loin d’être de simples exécutants techniques, ces agents produisent des effets d'inscription différée dans les régimes de visibilité qu’instaure le dispositif éditorial. Et, à ces gestes humains s’ajoutent, d'autre part, des agents non-humains : des plateformes de publication, aux formats de métadonnées, algorithmes de recommandation, normes de référencement, indexation ou modération automatisée, et jusqu’aux interfaces numériques et aux dispositifs de tri et de diffusion en ligne. Ces dispositifs numériques (encore à définir précisément), en opérant comme filtres actifs et souvent opaques, reconfigurent profondément les conditions de visibilité/invisibilité, en particulier pour les œuvres associées à des enjeux de justice sociale ou de représentation des marginalités. Il s'agira alors de saisir comment ces technologies, loin d’être neutres, participent de l’éditorialisation généralisée du dispositif, redistribuant silencieusement les critères de lisibilité, de recevabilité et de légitimation des récits dits de l’invisibilité sociale.

La diversité de ces agents et métiers dits « techniques », mais décisifs, assure la lisibilité, la forme, la circulation et la reconnaissance des textes – tout en étant structurellement reléguée hors du champ symbolique de l’auctorialité. Or, l’analyse mettra en évidence les tensions entre la promesse démocratique du dispositif et les logiques de cadrage qu’il mobilise : standardisation du témoignage, étiquetage éditorial (« roman vrai »; « démocratie narrative »; « rendre visibles les invisibles »; etc.), hiérarchisation implicite des voix, ou encore incapacité à intégrer les récits non conformes aux attentes de lisibilité (comme ceux issus de mouvements sociaux récents).

This article collects and organizes relevant materials on the study of Lu Xun in the English-speaking world from the 1920s to the present, including English translations of Lu Xun’s works, as well as biographies, academic monographs, journal articles, and doctoral dissertations of Lu Xun in English. It also involves some literary history textbooks, selected readings, and encyclopedias related to modern Chinese literature in English, outlining the changes of Lu Xun’s images in the English-speaking world during different historical periods. On this basis, this article applies the theories of image studies, focusing on the construction of metaphorical and descriptive images. With the application of interdisciplinary methods, it sorts out images of Lu Xun in different media such as Lu Xun’s biography, translated works, academic research, and popular cultural media in the English-speaking world from the dimensions of intertextuality, context, and text. It analyzes the interaction between these images of Lu Xun and the historical, social, political, and cultural background of the English-speaking world and summarizes the common characteristics and dissemination of Lu Xun's images in the English -speaking world.

The concept of “world literature” is not only widely acknowledged as a plural and multifaceted phenomenon, but it also reflects the ongoing struggles of various nations seeking for literary and cultural influence. Proposed in the 18th century, the term “Weltliteratur” coincided with the emergence of the French comparative literature movement, often regarded as the origin of world literature studies in the French context. However, from the outset, a distinction existed between “comparative literature” and “general literature”. In the French context, the theory of “world literature” developed independently from comparative literature, initially understood as “general literature”. It was not until the 1990s that these two domains began to converge into a more integrated theoretical framework. Scholars associated with the “continental” tradition, such as Casanova, have conceptualized world literature as a dynamic and hierarchical literary field, laying the foundation for the evolution of the French notion of world literature. In contrast, the “archipelago” theory, which emerged within postcolonial discourse, focuses on the exploration of multicultural relationships and envisions a world cultural framework. Contemporary theoretical shifts in French world literature, including Glissant’s “poetics of relation”, Westphal’s “archipelago model”, and William Marx’s idea of the “world library”, reflect a distinct research paradigm that contrasts with the Anglo-Saxon approach to world literature.

This study examines the theoretical evolution of world literature within the French context, highlighting the convergence of the “continental” and “archipelago” models and their spatial dimensions. It also explores the distinctive theoretical features of French world literature, particularly in terms of its approach to theoretical construction, research methodologies, and literary historiography. Ultimately, the study seeks to deepen our understanding of French world literature theory and offer valuable insights for rethinking the broader discourse of world literature.

The study of Gabriel García Márquez’s novels has long been characterized by “Western-centrism”. When exploring the literary and cultural origins of Márquez’s novels, most of the relevant works emphasize the West over the East, especially ignoring the Arabic origins from the East. Literary research should return to historical events and focus on the facts of civilization intercommunication and the mutual influences between Eastern and Western literatures. A review of history shows that at least three threads of Arabic origin can be found in Márquez’s novels: Firstly, from the 8th to the end of the 15th century, the Arabic Empire ruled over the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe for nearly 800 years, profoundly influencing Western literature and, with the Western colonial activities, having a far-reaching impact on Latin American literature.Secondly, since the 18th century, amidst the “Oriental craze”, Western scholars have rediscovered and translated the classical Arabic literature work “The Arabian Nights”, promoting its widespread dissemination in Latin America. Thirdly, by the end of the 19th century, a large number of Arabic immigrants flooded into Latin America, profoundly affecting local society and culture. Based on these historical threads, Márquez’s novels not only received influences from the Arabic literary tradition and classical works through the mediation of the West, but were also directly influenced by the cultural traditions and social practices of Latin American Arabic immigrants. In works such as “Cien años de soledad” and “Crónica de una muerte anunciada”,he fused the long-standing traditions of Arabic civilization with the realistic situation of the Arab community, reflecting an equal view of civilization that differs from the theory of Western superiority.

The Great Preface plays an important role in the history of Chinese literature and literary theory, but most of the current studies on it are still limited to the domestic perspective, and the translation and research status of Western academic circles have not been objectively included in the vision of domestic researchers. By means of comparative literature interpretation and variation, this paper tries to understand the current research status of The Great Preface in the western academic circles in a macroscopic way, in order to make the methods and achievements of the Western academic circles as a supplement to the domestic academic circles, and to better realize the exchange and mutual learning between the ancient Chinese literary theories represented by The Great Preface and the western literary theories on the basis of mutual learning between the Chinese and Western literary theories.

Boris Pasternak’s simultaneous translation of Faust and writing of Doctor Zhivago between 1948 and 1951 allowed the ideas and symbolism of Goethe’s work to continue and develop in his writing, thus making his literary practice a typical example of intercultural dialogue. Pasternak’s juxtaposition of Faust and Hamlet embodies the philosophical distinction between the “doer” and the “contemplative”, and is projected in Doctor Zhivago as the dual character of the protagonist Yuri Zhivago: as a doctor, he devotes himself to the realities of salvation, perpetuating Faust’s quest for the meaning of life; as a poet, he questions the violence of the revolution and inherits Hamlet’s existentialist inquiries. This duality is not a simple opposition of character, but a profound definition of the nature of the “new man” by Pasternak — a “spiritual alchemist” who seeks transcendence in contradiction.

In the second part of Faust, Wagner creates the “Homunculus” through scientific experiments, an image that symbolises Enlightenment rationality’s quest for perfect humanity, but is doomed to extinction because of its lack of human nature. In the second part of Faust, Wagner creates the “Homunculus” through scientific experiments, an image that symbolises Enlightenment rationality’s quest for perfect humanity, but is doomed to extinction because of its lack of human nature. Pasternak projected this metaphor to the Russian Revolution, which was seen as a social experiment for the birth of a “new man”, whose initial aim was to break the shackles of the old order, but was reduced to the tragedy of “Homunculus” owing to violence and alienation. Faust’s grandiose project ended in a grave, and Zhivago’s manuscripts were lost in the turmoil, suggesting that no utopian construction can escape the mockery of history. Through this ending, Pasternak criticises the revolution’s devouring of individual values and reflects on the eternal conflict between Enlightenment reason and human nature. Pasternak’s work is not only an extension of Goethe’s legacy, but also a poetic summary of the fate of Russian intellectuals in the 20th century. Through a close reading of the text and cross-cultural comparisons, this paper reinterprets the philosophical depth of Doctor Zhivago and reveals how Pasternak responds to the complexity of the Russian Revolution within the framework of a Faust-Hamlet dialogue. The thesis provides new perspectives for understanding the exchange between Russian and German literature, and is also instructive for reflecting on the dilemma of the “new man” in the context of modernity.

From the seminal works of Moretti onward, the evolutionary approach has been central to the field of distant reading, offering a large-scale, data-driven framework for understanding the historical development of literary forms. However, equating literary evolution with natural selection poses major methodological challenges, particularly in modeling the ‘environment’ in which literary forms circulate and compete. This environment comprises multiple overlapping dimensions —social, political, economic, and more— whose effects are difficult to isolate and assess empirically. In my work, I focus on one of these dimensions, drawing from Bourdieu’s theory to model literary reception as staged within a social field. I then turn to Digital Social Reading platforms —specifically Goodreads— which, by combining the functionalities of a social network (making friends, following users, joining groups) and a book cataloging system (reviewing, rating, creating lists), provides an empirical basis for studying the social landscape of literary reception.

Through network analysis, I identify distinct reader communities characterized by coherent taste patterns that emerge and stabilize over time. By contrasting trends in readers’ choices within a specific community against a null model of cultural drift, I test whether genre preferences evolve due to value-driven selection or stochastic imitation dynamics. The findings suggest that while cultural drift plays a role, selective pressures within reader communities actively shape literary preferences, particularly in the rise and decline of specific genres. Ultimately, this study models one of the key ways in which the social environment drives literary change —by forming niches that exert a detectable selective pressure over the literary landscape, favoring certain forms, or genres, over others.

Stylometric authorship attribution is the task of assigning texts of unknown, pseudonymous or disputed authorship to their most likely author, often based on a comparison of the frequency of a selected set of features that represent texts. The way stylometric methods typically approach authorship attribution is to use the frequencies of a large number of simple features, such as words or character sequences, to determine of the degree of similarity between texts. These similarities, in turn, are interpreted as an indicator of the likelihood for two texts to have been written by the same author: the more similar the feature vectors, the more likely is identical authorship.

The parameters of the analysis, such as feature selection and the choice of similarity measure or classification algorithm, have received significant attention in the past. Two additional key factors for the performance and reliability of stylometric methods, however, are corpus composition and corpus language. They are relevant not only for the results in a specific case, but also for the overall performance and reliability of stylometric methods of authorship attribution. Therefore, the aim of ongoing research by our group is to disentangle the influence of corpus composition and language on the performance of stylometric authorship attribution: To what extent do the attribution accuracy and robustness of such approaches depend on the language of the materials, on the one hand, and on corpus composition, on the other? How do these two factors interact with each other, and how do they interact with feature selection?

This paper reports on results relevant for one part of this issue, that of language, by investigating four distinct but broadly comparable corpora in a classification scenario. In order to investigate the role of language independently of corpus composition, all four corpora were automatically translated into the other three languages using the DeepL machine translation system.

We can show that corpora of different language and composition lead to different attribution accuracy levels and different best-performing features, an expected result. We can also show that translated corpora (at least when all texts have been translated by the same machine translation system) usually lead to a lower attribution accuracy, overall, compared to their counterpart in the original language.

We will also report on preliminary results concerning the second part of the question, namely the influence of corpus composition on attribution accuracy, also in a multilingual setting. Here, we aim to show that using corpora composed of texts with high within-author similarity of texts and low between-author similarity of texts, in terms of basic metadata (such as author gender, subgenre, narrative perspective, or time of composition) generally leads to higher attribution accuracy than when the inverse is true (low within-author similarity and high between-author similarity).

Un nouvel outil numérique de visualisation est proposé pour l’analyse des textes littéraires dans une perspective comparative, à partir d’une approche novatrice. Il offre une lecture à distance particulière dans la mesure où il ne s’applique ni à une grande masse de données ni à un large corpus de textes à la fois, mais à un seul texte, dont il ne retient que la dimension visuelle, indépendamment de sa mise en page. Cette forme visuelle du texte est façonnée par les paragraphes et les chapitres, qui rythment le texte en fonction de leur longueur respective.

Un logiciel, Narra 2.0, a été développé afin de mesurer ces longueurs textuelles successives et générer un tableau de mesures, donc une suite numérique à partir de laquelle sont produites des données statistiques et, grâce à des algorithmes, des visualisations. Ces dernières montrent ainsi le rythme du texte en fonction de la longueur de ses paragraphes ou de ses chapitres, soit la fréquence des changements – et de locuteurs et de thèmes – dans le texte, une dynamique propre à l’écrit.

Cette méthodologie offre la possibilité de comparer les textes dans le temps (au fil des éditions), dans l’espace (de diverses régions géographiques) et pour un même auteur ou courant littéraire. Elle permet également d’appliquer la méthode éprouvée des atlas – stellaires du XIXe et XXe siècles –, aux recherches comparatives. À titre d’exemple, Un Atlas des spectres de textes littéraires, a confirmé l’existence d’une corrélation entre la longueur des paragraphes et le genre littéraire ou la période d’écriture.

This JCLA-KCLA Joint Session Roundtable will bring together members from the Korean Comparative Literature Association (KCLA) and the Japanese Comparative Literature Association (JCLA). The session aims to compare current trends in the field of comparative literature, discuss academic concerns, and share survival tactics for scholarly work, focusing on the following four topics:

First, "Recent Activities" will involve sharing key activities and research achievements of each association, while also exploring future directions for comparative literature research in the current academic environment. Second, "Education and Social Impact" will examine changes in comparative literature education and its influence on society, discussing ways the discipline can contribute to the community. Third, "Academic Publication" will analyze trends in scholarly publishing within comparative literature and exchange practical information on strategies for publishing in domestic and international journals and monographs. Finally, "Internationalization and the Global Anglophone" will delve into methods for expanding comparative literature research globally, including strategies for promoting exchanges with the Anglophone academic world and building international scholarly networks. This will also involve an extended discussion on comparative literary discourse possible between Anglophone comparative literature and East Asia.

This roundtable is expected to be a meaningful opportunity to vitalize academic exchange between the two associations and collectively seek solutions to the pressing challenges facing the field of comparative literature.

Notre communication vise interroger l'écriture dans son rapport à l'image dans une perspective comparatiste, dans le croisement de la littérature, l'histoire de l'écriture, l'histoire de l'art, la philosophie, à partir de l'examen de l'oeuvre d'écrivains modernes et contemporains. La base de notre argument est que l'image est le soubassement médial (Moser, 2006) privilégié de l'écriture. L'écriture fait remonter à la surface ce soubassement qui demeure souvent invisible, transparent à un premier regard, nous rappelant également que, dans le processus ontologique d'invention de l'écriture, l'image a joué un rôle de premier ordre ("l'écriture est née de l'image", nous rappelle Christin, 1995/2001). Ancrée sur différents supports, l'image survit donc dans l'écriture, soit comme fait de mémoire, soit dans sa matérialité même, en tant que fait graphique et visuel. Ce sont les traces de cette survivance matérielle du visible (Didi-Huberman, 2018) que nous comptons interroger, à partir d'exemples puisés dans les jeux typographiques, dans le collage ou montage des textes, dans les écritures "inventées", où la technique rejoint la techné dans l'invention de nouvelles formes, en élargissant par conséquent les supports, du papier à l'écran. Dans ce sens, nous allons examiner certains exemples de relation texte/image pratiqués dans la poésie et dans la prose (Mallarmé, Augusto de Campos, Michel Butor, Georges Perec, Le Clézio), mais accessoirement dans les arts (Masson, Dermisache).

“Otherness” is a strangeness beyond human experience. In architectural texts and images, it searches for interpreting similarities and differences in its (in)tangible elements that lead to unity-diversity. While the recognizable elements provide meaningful senses of symbolic richness, the alien becomes “otherness.” Their juxtaposition delivers the unexpected, contradicting its intentions and engaging in a dialogical tension between them.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the voice of the Cistercian Order, opposed mythical creatures in Romanesque capitals with suspicion. In his “Apologia” to Abbot William of St. Thierry (1124), he attacked the Cluniac. “But in the cloister…what profit is there in those ridiculous monsters, in the marvelous and deformed comeliness, that comely deformity?…we are more tempted to read in the marble than in our books, and to spend the whole day wondering at these things rather than in meditating on the law of God.”

Questions arise: Did the Church allow monks to use the perception and interpretation of architectural texts and images in worshipping God? Gestalt principles reinforce the notion that the world is built into perception. With Augustine’s sign theory, the spectator’s perceptive experience, interpretation, and contemplation should be flexible in the daily work of God.

Architecture provides a sacred space of the primaeval site in togetherness beyond time and space. When (in)tangibility is put together in diversity-unity, they deliver unforeseen characteristics to reveal variations and recognition of differences and questions in the works. It is a semiotic process between traditions and new arrivals in perception. Empathetic and flexible interpretations can identify “otherness.”

Tintern Abbey was built in 1131 adjacent to Tintern village in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye. It was the first Cistercian foundation in Wales. The abbey fell into ruin (16C), and its remains are a mixture of building works (1131–1536). Tintern has a decorated Gothic style. It ended monastic life under Henry VIII; its surroundings became industrial wireworks (1568). Tintern ruins became a visiting spot (mid-18C) in the romantic, picturesque Wye Valley.

Tintern calls Cistercian followers collective memories and curious tourists. It does not replace the tangible loss of the ruins but is traced in “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour,” written by the Romantic poet Wordsworth (13 July 1798).

The term “wilderness” in the Old Testament describes various social-ecological contexts from an uncultivated area to an abandoned ruin. The wilderness transformed into a hostile environment of danger, devils, and chaos. Being the liminal location, the desert desolation was not intended to be a site of punishment; rather, it was a place of encounter with God. Moreover, the “sublime” was not joyous. Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1798) depicts his experience of the terrifying feeling of being in the divine, surrounded by crags and waterfalls in the Alps.

It wonders: Wordsworth’s reflection on the glorious Cistercian Order that invoked the Second Crusade (1146–1149). This paper interprets the text (Wordsworth) and images (Tintern) through subjective-objective attitudes: how they support each other to transcend into wildness-sublime.

This presentation clarifies the reality of literary-cultural crossing borders by Japanese WWII repatriate-writers through the case studies of Gotō Meisei (1932–1999) and Itsuki Hiroyuki (1932–) analyzing their novels and essays. Gotō and Itsuki are famous Japanese monolingual writers that were awarded many literary prizes. They are also in the same age, which were repatriated from the Northern part of Korean peninsula and grew up in Fukuoka prefecture, the Southwest part in Japan after WWII. Moreover, they were deeply interested in Russian literature, entered the Department of Russian literature at Waseda University (Gotō enrolled in the evening course, on the other hand, Itsuki entered the daytime course, however, left the university for financial reasons), and described Russia and the former Soviet Union in their novels and essays. The previous research on Gotō and Itsuki (most of them are included in Japanese literature studies, not in the studies on comparative literature) have only focused on their repatriation from Korea from the point of view of the Japano-Korean relationship, though have overlooked that the northern part of the colonized Korea by Imperial Japan was also an important place to encounter the former Soviet Union for them because of the invasion and occupation by the Soviet troops right after WWII. It could be considered that this fact influenced their literary careers that we mentioned above. It is important to take “the hidden crossing borders” to former Soviet Union and Russia into consideration to examine the literary works of Japanese WWII repatriate writers.

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven.

"Towards a Theoretical Framework for Analyses of Body Images of Women in Literature"

Abstract: In his presentation "Towards a Theoretical Framework for Analyses of Body Images of Women in Literature" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses a number of seminal texts which provide a theoretical framework for the study and analyses of body image(s) of women in literature. For example, Paul Schilder defined body image as "the picture of our own body which we form in our mind, that is to say, the way in which the body appears to ourselves." Image(s) indicate(s) that we are not dealing with a mere sensation or imagination: there are mental pictures and representations involved, but it is not mere representation. Sarah Grogan defined body image as "a person's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about his or her body. This definition can be taken to include psychological concepts such as perception and attitudes toward the body, as well as experiences of embodiment. The concept of body image is used in several disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies and the media also often use the term and concept. Definitions of body image extends to the conscious and unconscious, the external and internal, reality and fantasy, as well as cultural and social forces and factors which affect body image such as gender, social media, ethnicity, social class, etc. Perspectives of "body image(s)" include "beauty," "ugliness," relationships between men and women, age and ageing of women, the image of the body and eroticism of women, etc.

Keywords: Body Images; Women’s Literature; Literary and Culture Theory

The concept of “Revolution plus Love” (geming jia lianai) emerged in the late 1920s as a literary response to political upheaval, intertwining political commitment with personal desire. This formula became a site where power, gender, politics, and literature intersected, offering a feminist lens on modern Chinese revolutionary literature.

With the rise of feminist theory, scholars have scrutinized the gendered dimensions of China’s revolutionary history, exposing discursive fissures in the nation/state myth. David Der-wei Wang and Jianmei Liu employed the “Revolution plus Love” formula as a case study to examine the gender and literary politics of modern China.Through the metaphor of syphilis, they highlighted the disparities between leftist male writers and their female contemporaries.

Against the backdrop of wars, women are often incorporated into the discourse of nation, ethnicity, and revolution, becoming symbols and representations within revolutionary narratives. Their bodies often serve as both weapons and instruments of revolution. This paper compares four literary texts set in similar historical contexts—Bai Wei’s A Bomb and an Expeditionary Bird (Zhadan yu feiniao), Jiang Guangci’s The Moon Forces Its Way through the Clouds (Chongchu yunwei de yueliang), Ding Ling’s When I Was in Xia Village (Wo zai xiacun de shihou), and Eileen Chang’s Lust, Caution (Se, jie). By analyzing these works, this study explores how different writers reconfigure the RPL formula, revealing the multifaceted interplay of revolution, love, and the female body while examining female identity construction in wartime.

This study highlights the divergent rhetorical strategies of male and female writers. Male narratives tended to reduce the female body to an expendable instrument for national or revolutionary agendas, whereas female writers foregrounded suffering, desire, and resistance. By employing mimicry, parody, and displacement, female writers critiqued the patriarchal foundations of revolutionary discourse and tried to reclaim the female body as a site of both political and personal agency.

Ultimately, this study examines how reconfigurations of the RPL formula challenge traditional male narratives. By employing rhetorical strategies centered on the body and desire, modern female writers deconstructed and redefined chastity within a patriarchal framework, creating new spaces for female subjectivity and expression.

This paper explores the construction of female identity through the fetishism of the head and the theme of death in two late 19th-century plays, Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen and Salomé by Oscar Wilde. By comparing the two works, the paper examines how the female protagonists engage in extreme behaviors related to their bodies in an attempt to assert meaning, subjectivity, and self-affirmation. In Salomé, the protagonist's obsession with Jokanaan's severed head and her desire to kiss this object of death demonstrate her fixation on mortality. In Hedda Gabler, Hedda's targeting of the heads of her former lover and current rival with a gun and flame symbolizes her struggle for control and self-destruction. These women construct their identities through actions closely tied to Memento Mori—the reminder of death—demonstrating an extreme aesthetic of self-destruction as a means of confirming their existence. In this way, death ceases to be merely an end; it becomes a symbol of existence and meaning. The intersection of head fetishism and the death motif reflects the complex emotional landscape of the fin-de-siècle, revealing how women, situated between the constraints of traditional and modern worlds, resist or respond to external pressures through self-destructive acts.

Rethinking the subject of the “moral disciplining” in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded outside the traditional interpretations, this paper aims to uncover how the reversed disciplining game, which is manipulated and practiced by the male protagonist -Mr. B to the female protagonist – Pamela, the maid, is played through the strategy of “sensualizing morality”. It is right in the overwhelming narrating and presenting of Pamela and the nearly absence of expressing and commenting of Mr.B in this epistolary novel that we find a hidden leading of the morally dominated Mr.B . Beneath the text of Pamela’s disciplining of him in spiritual morality, there is a subtext of Mr.B’s disciplining of Pamela by sensualizing morality, which fabricates Pamela’s identity of being enlightened in unconscious through expanding and diversifying her “virtue” in four respects below: endowing the concept of chastity with “body” and “sensibility”; highlighting the double advantages of “sensualized morality” practically and esthetically over the religious morality; shaping the individual “enlightenment self” through secularization of Puritanical moral principles; providing multiple possibilities of constructing new form of “ virtue” with the game of sensual writing. As the result of this sensualizing disciplining, Mr.B successfully cultivates a “double life” in Pamela of “social moral identity” in sense and “private moral identity” in sensuality, which ensures the ever-lasting vitality and fascination of love and sex in their marriage. The new form of moral identity relies more on Richardson’s unique literary creativity than just the mirroring of realistic world, which distinguishes this novel by shedding a new light on the rich ambiguity and unpredictability of enlightenment discourses in the 18th century.

During the industrial age, Britain developed rapidly, and as machine production progressed, people gradually became alienated. When Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover, he observed the distortion of humanity caused by mechanization and technology, as well as the oppression and resistance stemming from class differences. Although the sexual encounters he depicted were explicit, they also showcased women’s control over their own bodies. In the 1980s, Hong Kong experienced a golden period of rapid economic growth and was hailed as one of the “Four Asian Tigers”. Men in Hong Kong held absolute power and status in the commodity market, while women were in an awkward position in such a social environment. Their youth, beauty, and alluring bodies became their bargaining chips. Author Yi Shu created the representative character Jiang Xibao based on this reality, showcasing the life struggles of some young and beautiful women of that time and reflecting on her thoughts. Connie is an upper-class woman seeking a lover in the works of a male author, while Xibao is a mistress chosen by the upper class in the writings of a female author. Under the dual emptiness of spirit and body, Connie engages in multiple encounters with the servant Mellors in a forest that symbolizes freedom. Throughout this process, Connie becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her husband’s control over her body, and while pursuing physical pleasure with Mellors, she gradually regains her sense of bodily autonomy and self. In Xi Bao, Jiang Xibao initially possesses control over her own body, but her desire for money leads her to exchange her body and youthful beauty for financial gain. In acquiring money, she loses her power of choice and becomes lost in herself. Both works have been adapted into films in modern times, where directors and actresses engage in the deconstruction and reconstruction of the original narratives. This paper will compare and analyze the physical descriptions of Connie and Xibao in the texts, reflecting women’s control and choices regarding their own bodies, as well as the similarities and differences in how male and female authors portray women in similar social contexts. This analysis holds significance for comparative literature and cross-cultural communication. Additionally, the paper will provide a focused interpretation of the cinematic adaptations of both works, aiming to explore the modern value of these two pieces more profoundly.

We are soaked and steeped, permeated and marinated, saturated and percolated with water. We know, need, and love water because it constitutes our very existence. Aware that we are always in danger of drying out and are thus constantly in need of moistening, we enjoy when water touches us—even as we are conscious that it can drown us. Water is an active thing with stories and histories to tell, yet it has no desire to tell them. What it offers it offers without goodness or depravity, generosity or stinginess, vision or blindness, love or hate. Indeed, our love affair with water is totally one-sided: we need it; it doesn’t need us. The touches we enjoy from it are not the touches of a lover—even as we experience these touches as intimate, sensuous, and stimulating. And the body is intimately wet; yet theorizing about the body has been sorely dry and has lacked contact with the Blue Humanities. This talk will argue that representations of corporeality hinge on socio-cultural understandings of water and our relationships with it. Expanding the Blue Humanities into theories about corporeality, my talk will focus on literary wet bodies and narratives of women's immersion (primarily in the work of Amitav Ghosh and Bong Joon-ho, with a few nods to Shakespeare) and will show how recognizing socio-political views about water determine how we see bodies.

Around the saying that “when we gather the mustard plant and earth melons, we do not reject them because of their roots” (采葑采菲，无以下体) in the song titled as “Gu Feng” from Book of Songs (Shi Jing), the traditional interpretation represented by The Spring and Autumn Annals (Zuo Zhuan) and Mao Shi annotated by Zheng Xuan in the Han Dynasty, mainly focuses on the ethical principle of “choosing good part” (取善节), which calls for men in marriage to pay more attention to female virtues, rather than the physiological aesthetics directly symbolized by the “roots” (下体). This article takes the annotations on “Cai Fei” (采菲) in Xian Qing Ou Ji (闲情偶寄) and Xiang Lian Pin Zao (香莲品藻) in the Qing Dynasty as the center, surveying in the last traditional period of Bound-foot Fetish, the “gathering earth melons” has changed from the single ethical metaphor to one popular core expression of literati, who liked to play between body obscenity and the Classical orthodoxy. In Cai Fei Lu (采菲录) by Yao Lingxi during the Republic of China era, this expression has then become the final projection of the contradiction between the “loss” of sexual desire expressed by men through nostalgic writing and the “unattainableness” of the times.

Life writing, as an obituary or memorial talk, overwrites people’s own biography and memoirs. Concerning public figures of note, it patronizes as it purports to memorialize people as a first draft of history for the consumption of the general public. The memorial talk or obituary fixes the subjects image in the public mind in a condensed and highly selective way isolating and individualizing the subject to an extreme degree. It oversimplifies and controls the image. Writers employ life writing to serve their own ends, and a life writing is always written by another person a friend or colleague, it is a bibliographical article. A person is being appropriated for the next generation who protects a memory by creating it. The paper investigates the well-known Orientalist Armin Vámbéry’s obituary by the very famous orientalist Ignac Goldziher positioning of the former in relation to Hungarology that was quintessential in arguing Jewish loyalties to Hungary. In this way Goldziher put forward the notion that they are both Hungarian who pursue Oriental Studies out of love for their home, Hungary. At the turn of the twentieth century the Orient was employed as a metaphor to underscore the unique identity of Hungarians, positioning them as both Eastern and Western, distinguishing them from other Europeans. This nationalist-driven discourse formed the backdrop for Hungarian Oriental Studies. Like their Hungarian counterparts, Jewish scholars sought to trace the history of the Magyars in Asia, and the mixing of various peoples in the Orient before the Magyars migrated to Europe. In doing so, Hungarian Jews aimed to present themselves as authentic Hungarians and what patter place than in obituaries and memorial talks.

This paper delves into the distinct yet interconnected themes of adventure and spirituality in travel narratives. It examines and explores how cultural, historical, and religious contexts influence the portrayal of travel experiences from the west and the east by examining Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard and Karna Shakya's Dolpo. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the narrative styles, thematic elements, and cultural reflections in the west and the east. The methodology involves a qualitative analysis of the selected texts, focusing on recurring themes, narrative techniques, and cultural references. The study employs a comparative approach to draw meaningful conclusions about the similarities and differences between these two travel narratives. For this, I utilize Joseph Campbell's concept of the hero's journey to examine the protagonists' quests for self-discovery and transformation; Mircea Eliade's theory of the sacred and the profane to explore the spiritual dimensions of the journeys; and Edward Said's concept of Orientalism to analyze the portrayal and perception of Western and Eastern perspectives on travel and spirituality for the textual analysis and interpretation. Both narratives, however, share a common thread of self-discovery and personal growth through travel. This comparative analysis offers unique insights into their respective cultures and worldviews. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how travel writing can serve as a bridge between different cultures, fostering greater appreciation and empathy among readers.

Le bianwen (變文), forme singulière de la littérature populaire chinoise qui s'est épanouie sous la dynastie Tang, trouve son origine dans les manuscrits découverts en 1907 dans les grottes de Dunhuang. Ces textes, rédigés dans une version vulgarisée du chinois classique, constituent un corpus remarquable dont l'étude permet d'appréhender les modalités de transmission du bouddhisme en Chine médiévale. Selon André Lévy, ces textes s'apparentent aux « chantefables », caractérisées par une alternance rythmique entre vers et prose, dont la vocation première était la vulgarisation de la doctrine bouddhiste et sa diffusion auprès d'un public élargi. Cette transformation verbale s'accompagnait parfois d'une transposition générique du texte en représentation picturale, le bianxiang (變相), renforçant davantage la fonction narrative.

Dans ce contexte, l'œuvre de Lucien Bodard, ancien grand reporter et écrivain né en Chine, mérite une attention particulière. À l'âge de soixante ans, il publie sa première autofiction, Monsieur le consul, dans laquelle il recompose son enfance vécue comme « petit seigneur » au Sichuan. À travers une narration empreinte à la fois de satire et de nostalgie, il dépeint une époque marquée par le désordre, les intrigues, la violence et l'arrogance, où Seigneurs de la Guerre et colonisateurs occidentaux se disputaient la Chine. S'appropriant partiellement les codes du bianwen et du bianxiang, Bodard transforme et métamorphose des représentations issues des mythes et des canons bouddhiques pour les intégrer à son univers imaginaire, faisant ainsi émerger un orientalisme mystique qui, paradoxalement, met en lumière tout en le déconstruisant un colonialisme désormais condamné.

Notre analyse se concentrera sur l'étude de ces transformations et métamorphoses, ainsi que sur leur portée significative dans ce roman autobiographique.

Today, AI transforms how we produce and engage with knowledge, marking the start of a new epistemological era. What will truth mean when algorithms will govern our understanding of the world? How will society evolve when humans will no longer be the central authority of knowledge production? As Katherine Hayes suggests in “How We Became Posthuman” (1999), this marks the end of the Cartesian cogito, of a vertical epistemic paradigm, centred on the individual as the primary source of knowledge. Yet, as observed by Rosi Braidotti “We should approach our historical contradictions not as some bothersome burden, but rather as the building blocks of a sustainable present and an affirmative and hopeful future, even if this approach requires some drastic changes to our familiar mind-sets and established values” (2019).

In response to Braidotti’s call, this paper argues that literary translation, rather than being rendered obsolete by machine intervention, serves as a fertile space for reimagining epistemology and constructing an “affirmative and hopeful future” in the age of AI.

Focusing on Anne Carson’s creative translation of Catullus’ Poem 101 in NOX (2010) and her metanarrative engagement with the notion of “untranslatability,” this paper examines how Carson challenges the hegemony of Logos in the movement between languages. By foregrounding the inherent instability of meaning and the limits of linguistic transfer, NOX catalyzes a shift toward a horizontal epistemological paradigm—one that embraces dialectical exchange and decentralization in knowledge production. This reconfiguration offers a critical framework for addressing the complexities of the posthuman era, underscoring the transformative potential of translation as a site of epistemic renewal.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the popularization and transformation of the culture and literature of electricity in China. This chapter considers hypnosis in The Fantastic Story of Electricity as core to capturing how the technical knowledge of electricity and the literary imagination shaped each other to present the unpredictable culture of electricity in China. In this way, this chapter explores how a translated novel can settle down in the local Chinese context.

The translation and creative writing of The Fantastic Story of Electricity mirrors the epistemological background of electricity in late Qing China. The novel not only reveals that the dissemination and acceptance of electricity in China had to rely on the local cognitive framework, but also shows the complex situation where different knowledge competes and coexists in this process. At the same time, the literary narrative is not entirely passive; it is also constantly responding to, and even shaping, the knowledge system and cultural mechanism of electricity. Through analogies, The Fantastic Story of Electricity participates in the construction of a network of mediums around electricity and interprets it as a channel for affective expression, redemption, and fulfilment. This allows electricity to go beyond scientific and material phenomena and become an important medium for literary and ideological ideas. At the same time, the commentaries of novel also reveals its full self-awareness in taking up the role of ideological and philosophical expression.

In short, through translation, creation, and commentaries, The Fantastic Story of Electricity guides readers to think about how knowledge is disseminated and how it is intertwined with the cultural imagination, resulting in new understandings and interpretations of technology. In fact, then, this novel is not only a translation of a literary work, but also a presentation of the cultural history of electricity and the creative cultural responses that China has produced in this history.

The fluid relationship between natural philosophy and theology was deeply embedded within the knowledge systems of the late 16th and 17th centuries. The Moon, as a celestial body beyond earthly bounds, provided a fertile ground for literary explorations of rational thought during this period. As a pioneer of European science fiction, Godwin authored 《The Man in the Moone》, the first lunar travel narrative in the English literary tradition. Inspired by Godwin, Cyrano crafted 《Histoire comique des États et Empires de la Lune》, the first and perhaps most satirical lunar utopian novel in French literature. Building upon the knowledge framework inherited from the Renaissance, both authors engaged with emerging cosmological discussions to narrate ascension journeys that implicitly addressed theological purposes. Through the depiction of a morally idealized orderly society and a godless inversion of terrestrial norms, the two works chart distinct intellectual trajectories of 17th-century modernity: one rooted in an empiricist technological pathway, the other embracing a godless materialist relativism.

This proposal explores the relation between fiction and knowledge in the work of Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto. A forerunner of Brazilian post-modernism, Cabral voiced a "psychology of composition" - title of one of his books of verse, in dialogue with Poe - centered around reason and order, rather than inspiration and imagination.

For example, In Cabral's rather personal account of the myth of Amphyon, founder of Thebes - a theme he took from Paul Valéry's play -, the hero does not strike his lyre purposefully and watch as the stones move by magic. He instead travels the desert in search of silence and stillness, a landscape that matches his interior search for asceticism. Yet, by Chance, his lyre sounds and a city rises from the air. Within its walls, the hero laments his involuntary creation and longs for the lost purity of the desert. He then throws his instrument to the ocean in disappointment, closing the poem with a gesture that has been understood by many as a confession of the insufficiency of poetry as a mean of representing reality.

His next book, "The dog without feather", is the first of a series of long dramatic poems about the Capibaribe river and the peoples that live along its course, battling the arid conditions of Brazil's north-east and the social exploration that marks the region until today. The image of a "dog without feather" is explained to be that of an animal from which everything was taken, even what he does not have. In a second sense, "without feather" works as a negation of ornament and conspicuousness in the object represented - the Brazilian title brings "plumes" instead of "feather", which further conveys notions of lightness, rarity and beauty. The dog without feather is the dog "as it is", with no lyrical excesses that either cover it up or drift it away from truth.

This kind of historical dramatic poetry, at the same time sophisticated in its use of language but claiming for itself a documentary relation to social reality, found enormous success and cemented João Cabral as arguably the most important poet of his generation. Such success is an indication of how deeply rooted a notion of fiction as knowledge of the "otherness within" is in our cultural system.

What I'd like to bring to discussion is: at what cost can fiction be considered knowledge? What constraints - conceptual and actual - have been made to fiction in our literary tradition in order to make it work as an indispensable mean of knowledge of our social reality? Part of the answer, I believe, can be found in the trajectory of João Cabral de Melo Neto and in the development of his self-proclaimed rationalistic, "anti-lyrical" poetry. His disenfranchisement of lyrical poetry - and, in the same gesture, his attempt to rehabilitate it in a different conceptual basis - helps us understand the intricate relations between reason, referentiality and the elusive nature of human language, as well as our attempts to control it.

Severance centers on its protagonist, Candace, a Chinese American woman who survives a global pandemic that transforms people into non-violent zombies. Through Candace’s story, readers are presented with both the ordinariness of her daily life and the haunting memories of her immigrant experience. Two primary concerns that Ma seeks to address in her work are “issues of work” and “immigrant imperative for success”. In this paper, I investigate the two crucial subjects from a spatial perspective. I argue that Candace makes a breakthrough in constructing a “Third Space” for herself, one that avoids being confined in the physical “firstspace” of capitalism or spiritual “secondspace” of an imagined utopia. Drawing on Soja’s theory, I analyze megacities such as New York, Shenzhen and Hong Kong as representatives of firstspace for Candace’s life and work, These cities are overwhelmingly capitalistic and can be understood as “worlds of things”. Candace also envisions a utopian home based on her memories of Fuzhou and the Facility in which she and other survivors have settled in an apocalyptic world, which I classify as secondspace. However, as Candace finds herself unable to thrive in either of these spatial realms, she chooses to seek and create a space for herself and her unborn daughter that offers new possibilities—what Soja terms a “contradictory and ambiguous” space, one that is both “restricting as well as liberating” (56). This “Thirdspace” therefore becomes the site of transformation, offering an alternative to the rigid confines of both firstspace and secondspace.

Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity and the “third space”1 foregrounds the emergence of new identities through cross-cultural exchanges but often neglects the unequal power dynamics that shape these intersections. This paper critically examines the biopolitical and epistemological violence embedded in postcolonial hybridity, particularly its implications for identity formation within hybrid spaces. Engaging with Bhabha’s theory, it interrogates the structural forces of globalization, racialization, and state-controlled measures that define and regulate these spaces. By analyzing Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017) and Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012), this paper argues that hybridity risks depoliticizing the lived experiences of marginalized communities and obscuring the biopolitical violence endured by postcolonial subjects under neocolonialism and global capitalism. In Home Fire, Shamsie's characters confront the complexities of British Muslim identity, grappling with Islamophobia, state surveillance, and colonial legacies. Their experiences illustrate how hybridity can obscure the mechanisms of neocolonial governance and the racialized control of bodies. Similarly, in Disgraced, Akhtar’s protagonist Amir, a Pakistani-American lawyer, contends with racial discrimination, cultural appropriation, and internalized racism, exposing the limitations of hybrid identity in resisting structural violence and exclusion. While Bhabha’s “third space” is celebrated for its potential to transcend binary oppositions, it fails to account for the biopolitics of race and power that dictate access to and conditions within this space. Rather than fostering empowerment, hybridity often conceals imperial violence and entrenched global inequalities, ultimately neutralizing decolonial struggles and perpetuating systems of control.

As an example of the literary treatment of spaces of war during the period of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) in the city of Beirut, I have chosen Younes’s B as in Beirut (2009). According to Younes “As an Arab writer, […] I am a fighter, […] a ‘foreigner’ in the alleys of mainstream literary history” (Younes 2022, 16). Published seven years after the civil war in 1997, and set in Beirut, this novel provides an important insight into how four women (Lilian, Warda, Camilia, Maha) were able to resist, fight and survive in the same apartment building during the war. The aim of this paper is to examine how these female figures experienced this critical period of Lebanese history, as “neither totally ‘in’ nor totally ‘out’ of the war scene” (Younes 2022, 2), as “anti-hereos” (2) that ocupy an “in-between space” (2). The main questions addressed in this paper are: 1. How can the different spaces described be examined as: a) “heterotopia” according to Michel Foucault (2006)? [e.g. island: “an island in the middle of a sea filled with killer whales” (Younes 2009, 94)]; b) as creators of poetic images according to Gaston Bacherlard (2007)? [e.g. smells (Younes 2009, 45); womb (14)]; and c) as “third space of exile” according to Homi Bhabha (1994)? [e.g. “to stay there my whole life, suspended between those two places, claiming a third place that would be mine alone” (Jounes 2009, 46) ]. 2.How are the characters attached to certain objetcts that reflect their experience and “life on the verge of war”? (Younes 2022, 2) [e.g. human existence in a suitcase (Younes 2009, 1); interrupted stories (5-6); shade and roots of a walnut tree (44); new language (102)]. I intend to show that the use of different spaces and objects are a writing technique used by the author as „strategy[ies] of survival“ (Younes 2022, 4). The characters can only survive because they are located in this „in-between space“ and are emotionally attached to things. The novel gives voice to Lebanese women resistance fighters that remained in general invisible during the Lebanese civil war and therefore contributes to a greater understanding of a specific generation of women during this period of time.

Abstract

Chinese-German writers, particularly authors such as Luo Lingyuan, often inhabit the marginal space between two cultural worlds—China and Germany—living in a state that is both "Chinese and not Chinese, German and not German." This "third space," situated between two cultures and worlds, forms the foundation of their literary creation, reflecting their unique cultural identity and cross-cultural experience. Chinese-German literature not only exhibits the characteristics of the "third space" in terms of writing style and emotional content but also perfectly embodies the "third space" theory proposed by Homi K. Bhabha within its cultural concepts and narrative models. This theory emphasizes that identity is not fixed or immutable but is instead formed through the interaction and fusion of different cultures at their points of convergence, creating a new cultural identity.

For Chinese writers living in Europe, they are both influenced by Western culture while maintaining the roots of Chinese culture. This dual cultural influence makes their creations imbued with Western rationality and free-spiritedness while preserving the national sentiment and moral ethics of traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, Chinese-German writers’ literary works often transcend the expression of a single culture, creating a new cultural perspective and narrative mode through the dialogue and intertwining of Chinese and Western cultures.

From the content perspective, Luo Lingyuan’s literary works are deeply influenced by her immigrant experience, exhibiting a "transnational" literary characteristic that blends dual experiences. This feature is not only reflected in the geographical crossing but also profoundly in the collision, exchange, and fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. This cross-cultural collision endows Chinese-German literature with a unique "bridge" function, providing a medium for dialogue between different cultures while offering new perspectives on cultural identity in the context of globalization.

In Luo Lingyuan’s works, Chinese-German characters often face the clash and fusion of both Chinese and German cultures. Their identities cannot fully integrate into the German context, nor can they entirely break free from the influence of Chinese culture. For example, the new Chinese immigrant female characters in her works exhibit dual cultural characteristics—neither fitting the traditional Chinese female archetype nor resembling the typical German female personality. This cross-cultural trait makes Luo Lingyuan’s works complex within the "third space." Homi K. Bhabha’s "third space" theory argues that the writing of immigrant authors is not merely a simple juxtaposition of two cultures; instead, it creates new cultural experiences and outcomes through the intersection and collision of these cultures.

This study selects several of Luo Lingyuan’s novels and, based on the "third space" theory, systematically examines the embedded concept of the "third space" within her works. It explores how her works reflect her worldview of multicultural civilization exchange through the blending of languages, the dual cultural traits of her characters, and the portrayal of new Eastern female identities in her novels.

Keywords: Chinese-German Literature; Luo Lingyuan; "Third Space"; Linguistic Hybridity; Characterization

Abstract：

Marshall McLuhan said that media are the extensions of human senses. In the era of electronic media, media technology not only extends human senses and magnifies sensory perception, but also shapes the natural environment into a sensualized aesthetic environment. The extension of the senses and the sensualization of the environment become the prerequisites for the aesthetic turn in the field of literature.

Sensory aesthetics in the stage of electronic media is different from the linear narrative in the stage of print media, which focuses on the growth of characters and the processes of event and thus has a mode of meaning generation that emphasizes the goal of an ending as well as a central idea. Language centers around reason, and the aesthetics of literature functions towards society, forming the integration mode of truth, goodness, and beauty; what is good and true is beautiful, and the aesthetics must go through the transformation mechanism of social significance.

However, the sensory aesthetics developed in the stage of electronic media is direct, intuition-based aesthetics, highlighting the intuitive image while diluting ideological significance. The sensualization of electronic media arouses the aesthetics of intuitive image in the following three dimensions:

Firstly, it directly shapes the spatial dimension of sensory perception, which departs from the linear overall diachronic continuity narrative, manifesting itself as a non-centralized, non-logical or non-rational language, forming a discontinuous spatial narrative.

Secondly, technology and electronic media directly fuse out the urban landscape environment, which directly become aesthetic objects in literature, as well as the medium that triggers the presentation of people and objects in memory, which, as a result, becomes a concomitant form of sensory images aroused by the electronic media.

Thirdly, electronic media bring in the world of objects and the world of the ordinary life, and creates a perspective of “seeing”. Marshall McLuhan pointed out, satellites provide a perspective of “seeing” from outside the Earth, the world is transformed into a stage, and “seeing” is prominently portrayed. Furthermore, electronic media magnify visual sense and make “seeing” a way of giving form to space, to objects and to daily life. Under the lens of technology, under the basic sensory perception in the sight of “seeing”, objects and daily life, which used to be excluded from literature, has now become the content of literature.

Electronic media technology has not only shaped the threshold and new forms of literature, but also fundamentally shifted the paradigm of literature from being close to philosophy and history in the past linguistic era to being close to art and aesthetics.

In the twentieth century, the rise of the Mandarin movement and the evolution of modern Chinese literature unfolded within the dual context of the interplay between Eastern and Western cultures and the broader transformation of China's modernization. Based on an analysis of various newspaper and magazine texts documenting gramophones and gramophone records during the Republican period (1911–1927), this article seeks to reconstruct the field and boundaries of the integration between media technology and linguistic transformation within the context of the Mandarin movement, drawing on the methodological framework of media archaeology. It explores how the gramophone sparked curiosity and imagination, generated sensory experiences of modernity, and was eventually co-opted by official powers for its capacity to reproduce “real” sounds. This transition saw the gramophone move from private spaces to public domains, where it became intertwined with the dissemination of the national language and the promotion of new literature. The article examines how media technology, through its interaction with statism and nationalism, facilitated the adaptation of modern knowledge production and established a new type of discourse network. At the same time, it exposes the challenges posed by the homogenization of knowledge production, the erosion of subjectivity, and the intricate cultural and political implications embedded within this evolving discourse network.

This study examines the liminal and diasporic experience of reading aloud Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE as a performative enactment of a shamanistic ritual. As an artist’s book that defies conventional genre classifications, the experience of reading DICTEE differs significantly from that of typical literary texts. Many readers have noted the distinctive impact of reading DICTEE aloud compared to silent reading, as evidenced by the recent surge of read-aloud sessions of DICTEE in both the United States and South Korea. To identify anew the unique form and aesthetics of reading DICTEE aloud, this study conceptualizes oral reading of DICTEE as a performative and ontological event that transcends the boundaries of the typical literary reading experience.

DICTEE invents two opposing modes of translation between spoken and written language: dictation and recitation. While orality is often linked to Otherness, including primitivity and femininity, literacy is closely associated with modern Western imperialism, a relationship that extends to the sensory hierarchy between sound and vision. Therefore, DICTEE employs a strategy in which orality actively infiltrates and disrupts the structure of textuality, through techniques such as the manipulation of punctuation and spacing, the use of homophones, and the destruction of syntax. Fragmented by the penetration of orality, DICTEE forms a new borderline language that simultaneously embodies and dismantles orality and textuality.

Reading aloud, on the other hand, serves as a material translation that brings the text of DICTEE to life through the reader's body. In DICTEE, the Diseuse experiences speech as physical exertion, foregrounding the material dimension of language beyond the semantic. Theorists such as Walter J. Ong, Hélène Cixous, and Mladen Dolar highlight the subversive potential inherent in the voice: whereas writing anchors the spoken word within the visual domain, sound creates an aural space that dissolves the boundaries between the subject and the Other.

By being performed through the reader’s voice, the oral reading of DICTEE functions as a shamanic ritual that restores voices that have never been spoken or heard throughout history. By allowing multiple voices to speak through the reader's body simultaneously, the oral reading of DICTEE breaks down bodily and ontological boundaries between the subject and Other, fostering an affective community that transcends the division between gender and race, extending across both historical and fictional space-time. However, this community also shares sensory alienation, as DICTEE is marked by fundamental unreadability — manifested in its use of multiple languages, unreadable photographs, diagrams, and margins, etc. The community emerging through the oral reading of DICTEE inhabits this epistemological and sensory void, opening an interstitial and diasporic space-time that will be continually performed and reconstituted through shamanic invocation.

Contemporary studies in sexuality have increasingly focused on social construction of identities and categories, emphasising the influence of gender, power and political-economic dimensions (Parker & Aggleton). While studies in Indian erotic literature do shed light on gender roles, literary motifs and artistic appreciation of erotic literature, they under examine the role of material culture, mainly cosmetics, in the process. Instead, cosmetics have been studied as a subject of everyday life, detached from the innate connection it shares with sexuality. In ancient Arab societies, for instance, the use of perfumes is intricately tied to the aspect of eroticism (Hirsch), also to be noticed in Rabbinic texts that deal with women’s use of cosmetics in ancient Judaism (Labovitz).

Such academic scholarship is yet to develop on India, possessing a rich erotic literary tradition where application of pastes with designs on bodies of both men and women served as acts of sexuality and tools of seduction. This paper addresses these gaps by examining the neglected relation between sexuality and material culture of cosmetics, specifically focusing on body pastes such as sandalwood, musk, henna, and camphor and their designs in the early Indian literary traditions of Sanskrit and Tamil.

By employing an interdisciplinary conceptual framework grounded in material culture studies and comparative analysis, this paper questions: What functions did cosmetics serve in erotic contexts in Early Indian Literature? What role did they play in construction of gender roles and sexuality? Through a vast corpus of early erotic and love poetry in Sanskrit and Tamil, this paper finds gendered and regional variations in application of the same pastes and designs between these literary traditions situated in acts of sexuality, where the very act of application became a tool of seduction. For instance, sandalwood paste on female bodies was eroticised in Sanskrit poetry while application of the same paste on male bodies by females became an act of seduction in Tamil poetry.

This paper contributes to the field of comparative literature by bridging the gap in scholarship between sexuality and material culture of cosmetics. It demonstrates that cosmetics’ usage showed considerable change across ancient India that was reflected directly in erotic literature, for it played an important role in sexuality. Secondly, the material culture of cosmetics corresponds directly with the culture of clothing that in turn, corresponds to the socio-religious norms of the changing society, signalling a complex relationship between material culture of clothing, sexuality, gender and social acceptability.

By situating cosmetics within the broader context of Indian erotic literature, these findings serve implications to fields of literature, gender and cultural studies, offering a deeper understanding of how material culture shapes and reflects cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality.

The paintings of Late Qing Lingnan artists Ju Chao (居巢) and Ju Lian (居廉) have garnered attention from art historians due to their extensive engagement with regional subjects and their meticulous, realistic style. However, their active participation in Lingnan's intellectual and literary circles, along with their poetic works and interactions with their paintings, has yet to be thoroughly examined. This paper focuses on the cross-media interaction between their poetry and paintings, seeking to reassess the material culture of Late Qing Lingnan. It explores their works depicting Lingnan's regional characteristics from three cultural levels: first, as regional knowledge from the southern frontier of the empire; second, as part of the Eastern world in a foreign trade port; and third, as scenes of daily life within the local community. This paper begins with their pursuit of likeness and realism in art, restoring the historical context of their perceptual engagement with the material world. Secondly, the paper investigates the innovative significance of 'food' as a motif in their paintings, exploring its role in everyday life and its contribution to the cultural strategy Lingnan painters adopted during early globalization. In conclusion, this paper seeks to position Ju Chao and Ju Lian's artistic creations within an increasingly complex and fragmented cultural context, offering a new understanding of the local perspectives and potential embedded in their painting styles and orientations.

Abstract:

Cultural productions related to “comfort women” continue to thrive due to the growing urgency to remember this socio-political and historical issue. As of September 2024, only eight survivors remain in Korea, following the recent passing of another victim-survivor. “Comfort women” is a term coined by the Japanese military when the Imperial Army forced women from its colonies into sexual slavery during World War II. It took four decades for the first victim in Korea to come forward and expose the “comfort women” system. However, the patriarchal Korean society at that time suppressed these women’s voices, burdening them with societal guilt and shame. In the absence of public recognition, literature emerged as a crucial medium through which the experiences of these women could be explored, offering a space for reclaiming their lost histories and empowering their narratives. It also became an inclusive platform for writers from outside Korea to engage in the redress movement.

Among the many writers addressing this sensitive historical issue, Mary Lynn Bracht, a Korean American author, stands out for having crafted a historical novel about “comfort women” with the aim of providing literary redress. The work effectively merges Bracht’s creative reimaginings with historical references, such as Jeju haenyeos (self-sufficient women divers) and testimonies from Kim Hak-sun and Jan Ruff O’Herne. The novel recounts the story of two sisters, Hana and Emi, whose experiences evoke the collective memory of the “comfort women.” Hana is forced into the “comfort system” but consistently resists her oppressors. Emi, whom Hana saves from being taken, preserves the memory of her sister and underscores the necessity of remembering all “comfort women.” Bracht’s narrative thus links the silenced trauma of the victim-survivors with the memory and recognition of future generations, ensuring that these marginalised histories are preserved and acknowledged. Her novel addresses historical omissions and contributes to a broader discourse on the need to remember and bear witness to these unspoken atrocities.

The deportation of several peoples of the (North) Caucasus to Central Asia in 1944-45, accused by I. Stalin of having collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War and pardoned only after 1956, remained a taboo topic across the USSR until M. Gorbachev popularised a policy of transparency (ru. Glasnost) and lifted censorship in the late 1980s. Before that, local writers who remembered this collective trauma in fiction and non-fiction were either left untranslated – thus hindering their reception in a supralocal context – or, in case their works did appear in Russian, forced to rely on Aesopian language to avoid heavy censorship. This contribution will compare and contrast three works of historical fiction that focus on the deportation, written by Chechen, Ingush, and Balkar authors and published in Russian in the early 1990s: the novellas Odin den sudby (en. One fateful Day, 1993) and Vyiti zamuzh za ogon (en. Getting married to Fire, 1991) by A. Aidamirov and S. Chakhkiev respectively, and the drama Tiazhkii put (en. The difficult Path, 1991) by A. Tepeev. It will highlight personal similarities between these authors and focus on the interplay between the form of their works and their content. As non-Russian Soviet writers who started publishing in Russian in the 1960s, these authors adhered to the formal tenets of Soviet multinational literature – a project with strong imperial undertones tied to the doctrine of Socialist realism and gradually implemented in the USSR since the 1920s. However, by (more or less overtly) criticising Stalinist imperialism and contributing to keeping alive the local collective memory of the deportation, they incorporated elements of early postcolonialism in the content of their works. This contribution will thus elucidate the interrelations between the conventional form of Soviet multinational literature and the subversive character of early postcolonial content in a time of transition for both Russia and the North Caucasus.

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was one of the most significant British writers of the 20th century. He was born into a Brahmin family of Indian descent in Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean island nation. For a long time, historical narratives of the region had been predominantly shaped by European colonizers, whose perspectives were inclined toward their own interests and values. Consequently, these narratives often concealed the violence and oppression inherent in the colonial process while neglecting the voices of the colonized. As a British writer of Indian descent born in the Americas, Naipaul's multicultural identity enabled him to examine the impact of colonialism from a unique perspective.

The Loss of El Dorado is one of V. S. Naipaul’s most representative works of historical writing, focusing on the history of Trinidad in the Caribbean region. Through meticulous archival research and narrative reconstruction, Naipaul not only reflects on the profound impact of colonialism but also seeks to transcend Eurocentric narratives by uncovering overlooked historical truths and suppressed voices, thereby challenging dominant power discourses. Moreover, for Naipaul, the rewriting of history is not merely a retrospective examination of the past but also an exploration of contemporary cultural identity. The Loss of El Dorado offers the Caribbean people an opportunity to reexamine their history—an endeavor that extends beyond historical authenticity to questions of how postcolonial societies understand themselves and construct their cultural identities.

This study aims to explore V. S. Naipaul’s rewriting of Caribbean history from both postcolonial and historiographical perspectives, examining his motivations, strategies, content, characteristics, as well as the significance and impact of his historical reconstruction. Specifically, the research will address the following questions: (1) What are Naipaul’s motivations for rewriting Caribbean history? (2) What does Naipaul’s rewritten version of Caribbean history entail, and what narrative strategies does he employ? (3) How does Naipaul’s historical rewriting compare with other colonial narratives in terms of its distinctive features? (4) What impact does this rewriting have on Caribbean cultural identity and its reconstruction?

In conclusion, this study not only enhances the understanding of historical narratives in postcolonial societies but also prompts a critical reflection on the crucial contemporary significance of identity construction in postcolonial nations, particularly in the context of their ongoing cultural and economic ties with the West.

The revolutionary hero Zhu Fusheng is a typical example of "real characters and real incidents" in the literature of the liberated areas. He is a real person beside the Yihe River in Shandong Province. He is the object of the writers and the star who actively integrates into the new democratic revolution. News reports and literary and artistic works with Zhu Fusheng as the theme emerge one after another. He is a model worker and a hero supporting the front in Dazhong daily and Luzhong Dazhong; He is a resourceful, heroic and unyielding fighting hero in the Gu Ci Zhu Fusheng turns over; He is a typical figure in the reportage Zhu Fusheng. The themes of literary and artistic works of different genres are intertextual. Newspapers, news and letters explain the times of the turned heroes. The reportage Zhu Fusheng praises the heroic character rationally. The drummer Zhu Fusheng turns over presents revolutionary passion. The works narrate Zhu Fusheng's emotional world from different aspects. The news praises the hero from the emotional dimension of the opposition between the enemy and ourselves. The drum CI looks forward to the hero with the emotion between the comrades. The interview explores the hero's growth path from the emotional adjustment of the hero's self; Aesthetically, they jointly shape the lofty form. News reports weaken the concrete production and highlight the lofty spirit. Literature and art emphasize the details of life and highlight the dignified tone. The art production in the liberated areas draws materials from real people and stories to shape the laborer Zhu Fusheng, a model of the times with people's character.

Abstract:

Translation apparently appears to be more than a semantic transfer of the basic information, and it is not an apolitical process. Jacques Derrida terms it much more complicated than merely a direct transfer of language. Transference of meaning from the source language to the target language engages both the linguistic and cultural processes. Lexical equivalence of words of one language to those of another language does not justifiably define translation. The most challenging task of translation is to grasp the arbitrariness of the meanings of the source language and incorporate it into the target language as much as possible. This arbitrariness creates spatiality which allows a translator to utilize his authority of imposing gravity, levity, faithfulness, or even faithlessness upon the target text. True, translation, in this modern world of multilingualism, multiculturalism and globalization can be the gateway to reciprocation of cognition and mutual comprehensibility. In Bangladesh, which is predominantly a monolingual country, translation from English to Bengali and vice versa is widely practiced? However, it is irrefutable that translation is never apolitical as it possesses the potential to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct the conscious incorporated into the source text. Besides, intertextuality between the ideology of the translator and that of the source text has the capacity to construct a new conscious and promote the hegemony of the translator. It is really a crucial issue pertinent to the translation process and requires in-depth research. This paper will address the research question- how does translation process construct, deconstruct and reconstruct? This paper will use Jacques Derrida’s theoretical framework of translation and consider select Bangladeshi translators and their works as samples.

This paper traces how the Jinghai Fenji 靖海氛記 [Record of the

Pacification of Pirates] by Qing dynasty historian Yuan Yonglun 袁永

綸 blossomed—through translingual adaptation—into the Argentine writer

Jorge Luis Borges’s famous short story “La viuda Ching, pirata” [The

Widow Ching, Lady Pirate] in the latter’s 1935 collection, Historia

universal de la infamia, known in English as A Universal History of

Infamy.1 The original text, published in Canton in 1830, was translated into

English by German sinologist Charles Neumann in 1831; this in turn was

further adapted by British writer Philip Gosse into a portion of his The

History of Piracy, upon which Borges, knowing no Chinese, based his own

Spanish retelling.

By closely comparing Borges’s reworking with the previous Western

versions, and against the original source in Chinese, I argue that when

adapting the Chinese work, Borges opted for brevity and lightheartedness;

moreover, his multivoiced “baroque” Orientalism proved a self-conscious

parody of itself while caricaturing the biases of Chinese officialese at face

value, thereby offering a corrective to the fallacies of cultural appropriation.

One of the oldest poetic forms, the sonnet has long been associated with European love poetry dominated by white male voices. Since the 20th century, however, African American poets have redefined and transformed the sonnet into a distinctive Black poetic form, infusing it with their marginalized experiences and unique language. In this context, this paper analyzes Marilyn Nelson’s A Wreath for Emmett Till (2005), a sonnet sequence that memorializes Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy whose 1955 lynching became a pivotal moment in African American history, and explores how Nelson reclaims the sonnet as a powerful space for mourning, remembrance, and resistance. Focusing on the intersection of transgenerational trauma, art, and political activism, this paper discusses how the poet’s creative engagement with the sonnet reflects an effort to confront the traumatic legacy of racial violence embedded in collective memory while reshaping the European form into a monument to the sufferings and resilience of the African American people.