Modernist authors repeatedly created fictions that showed the deleterious effects of poor reading practices. This talk shows the dangerous or deadly effects of uncritical reading in works of Conrad, Joyce, and Katherine Mansfield and goes on to discuss the ways in which the characters’ interpretive dilemmas are re-staged within the text for the reader to experience. This often results in the creation of a text designed for two implied readers, one of which is aware of the limitations of the other. Thus, characters in Conrad’s early text, “An Outpost of Progress” (1899). The men, who manage a trading station in Africa, find some torn books left behind by their predecessor. For the first time, they read imaginative literature, greedily consuming fiction by Dumas, Fenimore Cooper, and Balzac. In the same paragraph, they are depicted reading imperial propaganda in an old newspaper; here too, they have a naive and credulous response to the material, their emotions are readily manipulated by the author, and they are entirely unable to read either text critically. Enjoying the way they had been cast as significant agents in this impressive narrative of imperial enlightenment, “Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to think better of themselves” (94-95). Somewhat later they find themselves involved in the more brutal aspects of colonialism and soon they become implicated in slave trading. Implicit in Conrad’s tale is a sustained critique of any simplistically mimetic approach to reading, a keen awareness of the fabricated nature of all writings, the motives behind their production and the methods by which they attain their emotional effects, as well as a more general suspicion toward widely held or officially sanctioned worldviews. The characters’ inability to read either kind of text critically—to see through the two related kinds of fabrication—contributes to their deaths. Their ignorance and helplessness are vividly contrasted to the knowledge and pragmatism of the African bookkeeper, Makola. Elsewhere in modernist fiction, we see that uncritical reading is associated with delusion, failure, and death. This narrative strategy is then juxtaposed to African American authors’ works directed to two different and at times opposed readerships, white and Black, as the concept of the dual implied reader is further developed and extended. Numerous works employ this division, including the stories of Charles Chesnutt, Ralph Ellison's *Invisible Man,* and Ishmael Reed's *Flight to Canada.* Ellison discloses the material effects of reading and being (mis)read, laying particular stress on the writing of history and the documentation of those who are usually written out of its pages. Reed discloses the unexpected virtues and dangers of reading in his novel, as when his protagonist publishes a poem which brings him fame, but it “also tracked him down. It pointed to where he were hiding. It was their bloodhound” (13). I theorize this practice, too.

While self-reflexivity has been a part of comics almost since the art form's inception, it is mainly since the end of the 20th century that metacomics has diversified to include a look at the now long history of what French specialists call the "ninth art" itself. This gesture, which aims in particular to claim for comics the status of a recognized art form, also takes into account the tradition of comic-book bashing: in an often humorous way, comics take up the criticism of comics, which have long been seen as unserious, as a low art form, as reserved for a children’s audience to whom it might even be harmful. Yet this self-reflexive questioning of comics is often accompanied by the depiction of a vertiginous fictional immersion that risks engulfing real readers and fictional characters alike.

Does this fear of comics also reflect a fear of fiction in general? Or of some type of popular fiction that is perceived as particularly dangerous?

Focusing on a selection of European and North American comics, I will discuss the link between metafiction and fear of fiction in the specific context of an art combining text and image.

My talk will consider direct criticisms of comics, as in "Ex Libris" (2021) by US artist Matt Madden, for example, when one of the many volumes of comics read by the character (and the reader through his eyes) opens on a page where a librarian warns against comics, “seduction of the innocent” – an obvious reference to Fredric Wertham’s infamous 1954 pamphlet. In other works, classic criticism is taken up by the characters themselves, by an unsympathetic grumpy old man in Quebec writer Jean-Paul Eid’s "Le Fond du trou" (2011), or on the contrary in a touching way in German artist Flix’s rewriting of "Don Quixote" (2012): Alonso Quijano, the new Don Quixote, writes to a local newspaper to complain about comics that, in his view, “have nothing to do with reality”. Other works evoke the fear of comics in more subtle ways, such as Schuiten and Peeters’ archivist character, relegated to the “myths and legends subsection” - or, more symbolically, the “great void” that threatens to swallow up Imbattable, the very special superhero by French author Pascal Jousselin, or the ground that slips away from Julius Corentin Acquefacques, Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s famous hero. Finally, two works that are no longer strictly speaking comics, "L’Archiviste" by Schuiten and Peeters (1984) and "Le livre des livres" by Marc-Antoine Mathieu (2017), offer collections of vertiginous possible comic worlds. For these incomplete, undeveloped worlds, fictional immersion is only suggested - the reader may be frustrated or relieved to escape the danger of fiction.

En vertu de différences concernant la conception de la nature de la fiction et de ses éléments constitutfs on rencontre une acceptation plus ou moins développée ou au contraire un rejet de la fiction narrative et de son ontologie. Le cas semble très différent lorsqu'il s'agit de fictions dites juridiquest ou plus largement normatives. Cette différence est toutefois trompeuse. Les fiction normatives sont généralement mal analysées et utilisées ensuite sous d'autres appellation comme cela peut se voir actuellement avec l'attribution de personnalité à des entité "naturelles" comme des rivières ou des montagnes. On montrera que la peur ou le rejet de la ficiton plus exactement identifiée se retrouve dans les domaines les plus divers.

This paper aims to explore the intersection of literature, technology, and media through a theoretical reflection on the concept of “augmented literature.” Within the progressive integration of narrative practices and immersive technologies, such as augmented reality and locative media, the traditional literary text expands, transcending its material and symbolic boundaries. Accordingly, this study focuses on the intersection of transmediality, transmateriality, and locative media, analyzing how these dynamics redefine the concepts of narrative, reception, and narrative space.

At the center of this analysis is the case study of the transmedial adaptation of Die Nächte der Tino von Baghdad, an experimental literary text by Else Lasker-Schüler from 1907, reimagined by the artistic duo ConiglioViola. Their project does not merely adapt the text for other media but employs technologies such as augmented reality and geolocation to create a layered narrative experience. Through a combination of physical and digital spaces, ConiglioViola’s project becomes an emblematic example of augmented literature, where the original text is fragmented and reconfigured into a multiplicity of forms and languages.

A crucial role is played by locative media, which integrate the literary narrative with physical territories and the reader's movement through space. Geolocation thus becomes a technique that enhances the text, transforming ordinary places into narrative settings and creating a tension between the real and the virtual.

In this perspective, the concept of transmediality becomes central: the narrative fragments and recomposes itself across different media platforms, enabling the reader/user to enrich the text with a network of media experiences that transcend the traditional boundaries of the literary text. As this process suggests, such fragmentation is not merely mediated but also material.

The second part of this paper will address the category of transmateriality, considering both the transition of the text into different material regimes (from the ephemeral to the tangible) and the active role of technologies in transforming literature. This transformation enhances the traditional capacities of literature, redefining it as a space for experimentation, dialogue, and the integration of diverse languages.

The narrative that colonizers are revered as deities by their colonized subjects due to their scientific advancements and military power was first introduced to Japan in the mid-19th century. Influential historical texts, such as Peter Parley’s Universal History and Jules Verne’s or Rider Haggard’s novels, played critical roles in constructing myths that justified and bolstered Japanese imperialism. After Japan invaded Dutch Indonesia in 1942, interest grew in the ancient Javanese legend of the rightful king. The Japanese forces appropriated this legend, establishing the myth that the peoples of Southeast Asia were eagerly awaiting Japanese soldiers as liberators from Western oppression. The propaganda film Momotaro: Sacred Sailors (1945) adeptly incorporates these legends, depicting Japanese soldiers as metaphorical knights on white horses, entrusted with the mission of delivering occupied peoples from their subjugation. In the film, these soldiers are portrayed as morally and historically justified in their actions, positioning them as heroic liberators. Conversely, Western colonists are depicted as “goblins,” ultimately vanquished by the Japanese soldiers, who parachute in to overpower them. This cinematic representation serves to invert the earlier deification of colonizers in Japanese mythology, reframing European colonialists--once revered as gods--as malevolent goblins. In this way, the film attempts to perpetuate the narrative of a Japanese “Deus Ex Machina” at a moment when, in reality, Japanese imperialism was on the brink of collapse. This presentation will analyse the techniques and motivations behind how this film medium effectively conveys such myths.

This project proposes the development of an interactive hypertext platform to explore the contrasting experiences of Erfahrung (cumulative life experience) and Erlebnis (immediate, emotional experience) in Western classical novels, with Don Quixote as the central text, as he moves between these two modes of experience. He begins deeply entrenched in Erlebnis, driven by grand illusions of chivalry and a distorted perception of reality. However, through failure, disillusionment, and reflection, he ultimately attains Erfahrung in his final moments. By engaging with Don Quixote’s evolving perspective, readers can reflect on the consequences of each approach to life, applying these insights to their own understanding of personal growth and decision-making.

To further illustrate this contrast, additional characters exemplifying Erfahrung and Erlebnis will be analyzed, providing a comparative framework for understanding how different approaches to life shape moral and psychological development. Typical fictional heroes such as Kitty from Anna Karenina and Daniel d’Arthez from Lost Illusions exemplify Erfahrung, as they gradually adapt to hardships and transform them into wisdom and self-sufficiency. They follow paths of patience, resilience, and moral growth, gradually making informed decisions. In contrast, characters like Anna Karenina and Lucien Chardon (Lost Illusions) are defined by Erlebnis. They live by extemporaneousness and react instinctively to opportunities or crises without considering broader consequences. Their impulsive choices and fleeting experiences lead to instability, self-destruction, or tragedy.

As readers follow each character’s story, they will encounter two distinct choices per key passage, each presenting a different perspective—one for Erfahrung and the other for Erlebnis. Visual markers such as color-coded headings, distinct borders, or numbering systems will guide the readers through related passages within a structured, non-linear format. By engaging actively with the text, readers can make choices and explore different narrative paths, transforming reading into a participatory experience. Ultimately, this project reimagines classical literature as an active, immersive engagement, demonstrating how interactive storytelling enhances literary analysis and deepens engagement with the text

The paper aims to investigate the role of AI in literary writing and to challenge the dichotomy between viewing it as a tool and as an author. While the lack of agency and consciousness makes it impossible to consider AI on the same level as a human writer – even when a system achieves high performance in writing – AI nonetheless exerts a transformative power on literature, preventing us from dismissing it as a mere tool. When used in the writing process, AI demonstrates its capacity to challenge our understanding of what constitutes a literary text, reshaping our perception of authorial intention and the creation of meaning, and prompting a reconsideration of the definition of creativity. This transformative power manifests in two key aspects that will be analyzed: the generation process and the AI gaze.

The use of AI in writing alters the generation process. Until now, regardless of the medium (manuscript, print, digital), a text has typically undergone various stages of human revision before reaching its final published form. The introduction of AI, however, disrupts this process by introducing a fundamentally different mode of human-machine interaction. This shift has formal implications and necessitates new approaches to the genetic study of AI-generated texts. The paper proposes and examines three key aspects to consider when analyzing AI-assisted writing: the specific phases of the writing process where AI is involved (e.g., research, text generation, or editing); the type of AI system used and its technical generation process; and the degree of automation and mode of interaction. Understanding these aspects is essential both for writers employing AI in their creative process and for scholars analyzing AI-generated literature.

The second transformative aspect is what can be defined as the "AI gaze," referring to AI’s distinctive way of representing the world. Notably, recent AI systems are capable of using language to describe concepts and facts without any prior semantic understanding. Beyond its philosophical and cognitive implications, this ability holds creative significance, offering a possible new perspective on the world. Scholars have identified several characteristics of the AI gaze, including an innocent eye, a different or deficient perception of historicity, the capacity to explore data unconscious, quintessence representation, and counterfactual imagination. These characteristics, along with AI textual generation techniques, will be analyzed through case studies such as 1 the Road by Ross Goodwin and Non siamo mai stati sulla terra by Rocco Tanica. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to stimulate debate on the status of AI-generated literature within the broader artistic landscape.

The career of British director Peter Greenaway, now more than four decades long, has been strongly animated by a profound intermedial research, from various movies on architecture and paintings to multimedia exhibitions till the recent design of an extremely creative subway station in Naples. His movie Prospero’s Books (1991) adapts Shakespeare’s The Tempest, giving to the object book a central role, especially as a magical tool and as a catalyst of a neo-baroque intermedial creation. Theatre, dance, opera, computer graphics and animation are continuously intermingled, and create a complex parallelism between page, screen and frame. The result is a strange masterpiece that can be considered the culminating point of Greenaway’s baroque and melodramatic poetics of the excess.

In this presentation I read Rumer Godden’s novel The River (1946) as a diasporic coming-of-age novel whose female adolescent protagonist carries out an implicit critique of (post-)imperial Englishness, and its racially supremacist and masculist underpinnings, while attempting to find a place in the world as member of the ruling Anglo-Indian, middle-class elite that rules India right before its independence. Drawing on the English author’s childhood memories from her life in the Narayanganj area, now in Bangladesh, around the second world war (often read as privileged and idyllic), the novel, as I claim, disturbs the spatial paradigm of enclosure that structures (post-) imperial Britain’s self-understanding at the time of decolonisation. This is a point in history when the nation begins to close itself off from the (colonial) world and its brutal (colonialist) past in an attempt to protect itself from cultural and racial contamination, and to maintain its image of greatness as a way of compensating for the loss of its world status in the postwar reformulation of Western hegemony and planetary colonial relations. As I argue, the novel carries out its critique by representationally casting Harriet’s, its young protagonist’s, close relationship with the vegetal and floral life of the family garden, with which she identifies, as an act of exposure that opens up the protected, fenced off, space of the Anglo-Indian household to the disruptive unpredictability associated with the (more-than-human or culturally different) outside. For the garden in Godden’s text is a porous and ambivalent space of learning and self-realisation for its adolescent narrator; it is also a space of entanglement (of human, plant and animal life) and intermixture (of English and indigenous world views on nature, life and death); and a space of (phyto-)writing that causes Harriet’s world “to tilt” and change its orientation; it offers an upside-down perspective on lived experience, social relations and cross-cultural, cross-species contact and, in embracing, what Luce Irigaray regards as the indeterminacy, plasticity and openness of plant life to other life forms, it holds the promise of “trans-human” (to use Michael Marder’s term), cross-cultural symbiosis. My reading of Godden’s critical take on (post)colonial Britain is indebted to the plant philosophies of Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder, to new insights coming out of the emerging field of postcolonial environmental studies, to thinking around planetary cohabitation (for example, Achilles Mbembe’s “earthly community” and Gayiatri Spivak concept of “planetarity”), phenomenological theories of space and embodied existence, and debates related to new materialism.

The aim of this paper is comparing the textual construction of intergenerational dynamics in two postcolonial coming-of-age novels, Reef by Romesh Gunesekera (1994) and O Último Olhar de Manú Miranda [The Last Look of Manú Miranda] by Orlando da Costa (2000). Set in Sri Lanka on the brink of civil war, Reef is a work halfway between a coming-of-age novel and a memoir. The novel is the first-person account by Triton, a Sri Lankan cook who emigrated to the UK, recalling memories of his adolescence spent working in the manor house of a marine biologist, who becomes his friend and a spiritual master. On the other hand, O Último Olhar de Manú Miranda is a novel, narrated from a third-person perspective, that reconstructs the childhood and late adolescence of a Goan Catholic during the last decades of the Portuguese colonial rule. As an orphan, Manú Miranda grows up surrounded by uncles and friends, although it is an older man from outside the family circle, the owner of a fraternity house for young students, that becomes his mentor and a father-like figure. One of the goals of this work is analyzing the friendship between these characters in the light of the impact that colonial education had on the paternal figures in question. In these works, youth is not represented as a time of lightness and joy, but rather as a time of restlessness due to the atmosphere of civil war in the country and the uncertainty about the future of younger generations. The values behind the informal education received by the two young men from their mentors will be explored, which can be interpreted as a reflection of the two authors on the permeation of the colonial mentality in post-imperial societies. In addition to the formal aspects that characterize the two works and frame them within the genre of the coming-of-age novel, we will finally discuss the narrative strategies that the writers implement to represent the idea of a world in decay, be it the Portuguese colonial world or the vulnerable society of post-colonial Sri Lanka.

Incorporating Rosemary Radford Ruether's ecofeminist theology and related theories, this paper attempts to conduct an interpretation of Jack London's short story "The Seed of McCoy" from the "South Sea Tales" series by integrating gender, ecology, and religion through a close reading of the text. It is argued that feminine qualities are doubly dominated by traditional maritime narratives and the language of naval conventions, being forced into an object position. The plot of novel conquest is presented through the confrontation and clash of binary gender energies. Ultimately, it is through the Mystical-Savior-McCoy, who embodies androgyny with female power in a subject position, that the characters emerge from the Dilemma and achieve Salvation. However, the underlying Blue Gender Dilemma in the novel is not alleviated; on the contrary, such metaphors in the novel lay bare Jack London's contradictory feminist perspective.

结合萝斯玛丽·R·鲁塞尔生态女性主义神学思想及相关理论，本文试图在文本细读基础上，综合性别、生态、宗教三个维度，对杰克·伦敦“南海小说”系列中的短篇故事《麦考伊的种子》进行解读：女性特质在传统海洋叙事和航海惯习语言中受到双重辖制，被迫居于客体位置；航海征服的故事情节却以两性能量的对峙与交锋呈现；最终，依靠“雌雄同体”且女性力量居于主体的“神秘救主”麦考伊，众人方走出“困境”，获得拯救；但小说中潜在的“蓝色性别困境”并未得到缓解，相反，此类小说隐喻使得杰克·伦敦矛盾的女性观念暴露无遗。

From the “mother-child river”, where women are imagined to become pregnant by bathing in the water as recorded in ancient Chinese fantastical texts Classic of Mountains and Seas and Journey to the West, to the modern reproductive technologies of the artificial womb that increases the survival rate of premature infants in real life, the technological singularity of human creation lies in the simulation and reconstruction of the “soil” for nurturing new life—the endometrium. The technical challenge lies in the early implantation of the fertilized egg into the endometrium. Several Chinese and Western sci-fi works have reimagined human reproduction in the context of numerous ethical constraints, combining speculative thoughts with cutting-edge biological and medical experiments. Representative works include Dung Kai-cheung’s Android Jenny, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, Li Li’s Kangaroo Man, and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. This paper studies how these sci-fi works represent non-binary reproductive methods such as self-replication and gender transformation to decipher the human genetic code and explore the possibilities of new human reproduction. It examines how the matriarchal utopia is constructed in these works for reconfiguring the fertility issues in realities.

Cities are the background and setting for science fiction works set both on and off future Earth. The city setting assumes an active role within the narrative, as its attributes are crucial to the contests and conflicts that transpire within it. Sometimes, cities undertake the role of actors, intervening, shaping, and framing the action. The techno cities depicted in contemporary Chinese science fiction not only exhibit distinct ways of conceiving a vibrant and resilient urban future and understanding the problems of China’s large-scale and rapid urbanization, but also reimagine urban environments by manipulating spatial and temporal elements, using technological methods to regulate the allocation of time and space, and generate new visions of urban landscapes that reshape the human beings who live in the city. This article discusses two representative works, “The Fish of Lijiang” (2006）by Chen Qiufan and “Folding Beijing” (2014) by Hao Jingfang, which creates a unique chronotope that allows for a close examination of a variety of social issues and problems. Within such imaginative contexts, cities assume the nature of an incomprehensible entity that is unresistible. Through textual analysis, this paper focus on whether post-2000s Chinese SF explore the subversion of humanity by evolving technological cities?

Contemporary Chinese science fiction works extrapolate different kinds of crises, such as drastic climate change in the “Post-Ice Age Record“ (后冰川时代纪事 2007) by Wangxiang Fengnian and rampant plague outbreak in “The Plague” (瘟疫 2002) by Yan Leisheng, in which crisis has become a mode of negotiating with the existing (post)humanist discourses. This is to say, the virus’s emergence and spread or the escalating climate change is merely a scene-setting device, and the authors show much more concern about its social impacts – the existing social stratification is rather amplified than alleviated by such a “great equalizer” of climate change or a

pandemic that is thought to affect impartially and indiscriminately everyone regardless whomever you are. This research considers the posthuman subjects they portray to illustrate how SF writers unveil the interplay among power, hierarchy, domination, and exclusion in defining humanity. Those not sheltered from the crisis are garbage, rats, enemies, and the Ultimate Other, but no longer humans. These two stories somewhat suggest a posthumanist turn that what is to be a human is a social construct and ever-increasingly internally fractured.

In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese sci-fi narratives have defied conventional gender norms and showcased innovative expressions of female empowerment amidst technological evolution. These works feature robust and self-reliant female characters—ranging from scientists and technicians to ‘post-human’ women and ‘female’ cyborgs—set in technology-driven (near) future settings. They delve into complex examinations of future world- making, gender roles, and technological impact. This study will focus on three recent representative female-authored sci-fi works: ‘Who Can Own the Moon?’ (2023) by Mu Ming, ‘Jolly Days’ (2023) by Tang Fei, and ‘Preface to the Reprint of “Overture 2181”’ (2024) by Gu

Shi. It investigates how technology is gendered in these narratives and how the female characters navigate and challenge the implications of technological progress. It will first conduct a contextual analysis of the broader socio-cultural shifts including gender roles and technological advancements in China, followed by a close reading of new motifs, character archetypes, and narrative techniques for expressing feminist themes. This study aims to reveal the current gendered textual politics within these female authors’ works and to elucidate the feminist perspectives on the technological future as depicted in contemporary Chinese science fiction.

The Prix Goncourt stands as France’s most renowned literary prize, enjoying both national and international acclaim. Its influence extends beyond the literary field into the commercial realm, where the award often ensures broad visibility and strong sales for the winning title (Pickford 2011; Sapiro 2016). This intersection of critical recognition and commercial viability plays a key role in promoting the French language and culture on the global stage, particularly through translation.

This presentation investigates the Prix Goncourt’s function as an accessible and effective form of soft power. Drawing on Nye’s (1990) definition—achieving influence through attraction rather than coercion—it considers how the symbolic capital of the prize, along with the media narratives it generates (rumours, anticipation, controversy), fosters the international circulation of French literature (Heilbron & Sapiro 2018). For publishers abroad, the award acts as a pre-existing marketing machine, meaning much of the promotional groundwork is already laid and commercial success in translation is, to a large extent, pre-secured.

The methodology combines quantitative data on translations into Spanish and Catalan over the past thirty years with qualitative analysis of paratexts and media coverage. This dual approach allows for an exploration of how publicity —and in particular, scandal— can shape reception and drive translation interest.

Selected case studies will examine whether the Goncourt creates enduring visibility for authors beyond the award year. Special attention will be given to works that sparked media controversy, assessing whether such attention enhances or undermines the soft power effect. Ultimately, the study reflects on how literary prizes like the Goncourt serve not only as markers of cultural value, but also as strategic tools for international cultural influence.

The marine science fiction works of Alexander Belyaev, a pioneer of Soviet science fiction, are centered around a unique cluster of ecological imagery—"the deep sea," "the giant ship," and "the shipwreck"—constructing a narrative system that intertwines the cultural DNA of Slavic frozen soil civilization, Soviet techno-utopian fantasies, and the sacred natural worldview of Eastern Orthodoxy. Through the lens of ecocriticism and literary geography, this paper systematically analyzes the progressive relationship and ecological metaphors of these three core images in Belyaev’s works, revealing how they transcend the unidimensional framework of "technological eulogy" prevalent in Soviet-era interpretations to form a distinctly Slavic ecological critique, one imbued with both warning and religious aesthetic dimensions.

The "deep sea" imagery embodies the Slavic people’s complex emotions toward the "old-world wilderness." On one hand, the deep sea is envisioned as a "liquid primordial forest," extending the resource-rich symbolism of terrestrial woodlands; on the other, its perilous environment—populated by monstrous creatures and sunken wreckage—reflects humanity’s awe and fear of nature. This duality stems from the frozen soil civilization tradition, shaped by Russia’s geographical determinism, where nature is simultaneously a lifeline and a threat—a "dualistic wilderness worship."

The "giant ship," as a materialized symbol of technological myth, lays bare the violent encroachment of anthropocentrism upon marine ecosystems. In works such as *The Amphibian Man*, the ship’s clamor, pollution, and predatory acts are reinterpreted through the estranged perspective of the non-human protagonist, Ichthyander, as "acoustic colonization" and "optical pollution," highlighting technology’s transgression of natural order. This imagery poignantly captures the rupture between traditional frozen soil civilization and Soviet industrial fervor, as well as the collective silence on ecological ethics during this period.

The "shipwreck" imagery culminates in a religiously-inflected natural judgment, deconstructing techno-utopianism. Drawing on the visual narrative of tempestuous seascapes in Orthodox art (e.g., *The Ninth Wave*), Belyaev portrays the shipwreck island as an altar to nature’s divine power: human technological creations (ships) decay and vanish before the timeless ocean, while nature, through wildfires and currents, enacts its "agential rebellion" to punish civilization. This imagery not only perpetuates the Slavic ecological view of "nature as divine law" but also establishes a Russian ecological warning mechanism distinct from the Western "garden-machine" paradigm.

Belyaev’s ecological narrative exhibits a polyphonic structure: superficially a hymn to technological progress, yet deeply a lament for civilizational self-destruction. This duality arises from the inherent tension between the author’s theological heritage and his role as a Soviet sci-fi pioneer. Ultimately, through the variations of "deep sea–giant ship–shipwreck," Belyaev exposes the eternal peril of technological rationality overstepping natural limits. His ecological narrative not only serves as a literary lens for understanding ideological struggles in the Soviet era but also, with its uniquely Slavic religious reverence for nature, offers ethical insights transcending anthropocentrism for addressing contemporary global environmental crises.

This paper engages with Sisir Kumar Das’s seminal contribution to comparative literature through a close reading of selected essays from Indian Ode to the West Wind: Studies in Literary Encounters. It demonstrates how Das’s literary perspective embodies an inter-literary approach, highlighting encounters between Western and Indian traditions and advocating a cross-cultural framework for understanding literary transactions across diverse texts. Das’s critical praxis is marked by a deep awareness of the epistemological frameworks and methodological paradigms that inform literary studies across cultural, linguistic, and disciplinary borders. Central to his scholarship is the interrogation of monocultural literary historiography and the assertion of a dialogic, inter-literary model grounded in reciprocity and mutual illumination. By traversing the five thematic divisions of the book — reception, influence, cross-cultural hermeneutics, travel writing, popular literature, and comparative inquiry — this paper foregrounds Das’s call for a polycentric and border-crossing literary discourse. Through his emphasis on literary transactions between Indian and Western traditions, Das challenges the unidirectional flow of influence and articulates a contrapuntal methodology that disrupts hegemonic literary hierarchies. His conceptualization of ‘literary encounters’ functions within a transnational and translational framework, where texts migrate, adapt, and resonate across cultural and linguistic frontiers. This paper argues that Das’s vision of comparativism is both corrective and generative—corrective in its critique of parochialism, and generative in its projection of a globally networked literary consciousness. By theorizing literature as a dynamic site of negotiation rather than fixed identity, Das reconfigures the conceptual terrain of Indian literary studies and expands the comparative horizon to accommodate plural affiliations, multilingual crossings, and dialogic affiliations. Ultimately, this paper repositions Das’s comparative poetics as a vital intervention in both national literary discourse and the broader praxis of global comparative literature, offering a model for thinking through literature as a practice of crossing borders—geographic, linguistic, and conceptual.

Vietnam is one of the countries in the East Asia cultural circle that is most deeply influenced by Chinese Confucian culture. There are many folk tales in China and Vietnam, which contain rich Confucianism. Taking the "fish-dragon" story complexes of the two countries as examples, they both emphasize the Confucianism of collectivism, striving for progress, unity, individual social responsibility and sense of mission, fairness and justice, integrity, etc., reflecting the strong cultural influence of Confucianism and the high acceptance of Chinese Confucian culture by Vietnamese traditional culture. The influence of Chinese Confucianism on Chinese and Vietnamese "fish-dragon" story complexes is mainly reflected in the specific plots and the symbolic meaning of the stories such as the Chinese "Carps Leaping through the Dragon Gate" allusion and the legend of the "Fish Leaping Through the Wu Gate" in Vietnam. Due to the fact that the social circumstances of China and Vietnam are not exactly same, these valuable Confucian thoughts were integrated into the local society of Vietnam, and the process of "localization" occurred, which was expressed in folk stories and other art forms, thus playing a pivotal role in promoting the evolution of Chinese and Vietnamese culture and civilization, and profoundly affecting the social development of the two countries, especially the Civil Service Examination System of China and Vietnam.

This session explores literature's engagement with historical trauma, memory, and authoritarianism across diverse cultural and historical contexts. Through comparative analysis of works from South Korea, Japan, Ireland, and the United States, we examine representations of colonial aftermath, political oppression, and intergenerational healing. Featuring four presentations, this session highlights the ways in which literary narratives bear witness to trauma, challenge historical erasure, and serve as sites of resistance and remembrance.

Oh aims to compare James Joyce's *A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* and Yang Yong-hi's *A Tale of Korea University* to examine the aftermaths of (post)colonialism by analyzing the anguish of artists living under British and Japanese imperialism respectively. As both James Joyce, an Irish novelist, and Yang Yong-hi, a Zainichi filmmaker and novelist, deal with the dilemma of colonized artists, this study examines the similarities and differences between the two Bildungsromans in terms of history, language, and identity. This presentation argues that both Joyce and Yang yearn for harmonious relationships between the colonized and the colonizers while portraying the aftermaths of colonialism.

Park and Han examines generational trauma and healing in *Comfort Woman* by Nora Okja Keller and *We Do Not Part* by Han Kang. Both texts portray mothers and daughters bearing trauma as marginalized Asian women. Nature motifs, such as rivers and snow, symbolize pain for the mothers but serve as a path to healing for the daughters. Keller highlights intergenerational healing among women, while Han explores healing through horizontal relationships. Ultimately, this presentation shows that confronting pain rather than suppressing it offers hope for healing.

BAE examines how George Orwell’s *Nineteen Eighty-Four* and Han Kang’s *Human Acts* portray dehumanization and the impossibility of grievability through Judith Butler’s theory of ‘grievable life.’ Despite differences in genre and historical context, both novels depict authoritarian regimes that render human life precarious. *Nineteen Eighty-Four* illustrates how the Party erases dissenters, controlling life and death through surveillance and repression. Similarly, *Human Acts* portrays government-sponsored violence during the Gwangju Uprising, where grieving for the dead is systematically silenced. By applying Butler’s framework, this study explores how oppressive regimes deny individuals the right to mourn, further devaluing human life.

Son examines examines the relationship between socio-political conditions and immigration patterns through a comparative analysis of Nancy Jooyoun Kim's *The Last Story of Mina Lee* and Jeanine Cummins's *American Dirt*. This presentation explores how the suppression of painful memories from Korean history creates a generational divide between parents and their children. Furthermore, it critically explores whether literary themes—such as the Korean War, war orphans, drug cartels, and illegal immigration—have been reconstructed into simplified narratives to suit white tastes in mainstream American publishing.

This presentation will focus on the Japanese manga Bungo Stray Dogs and speculate on the possibilities of pilgrimages to sacred places based on this work. This work is an action manga in which the great writers of modern Japan are transformed into characters and fight each other using their unique supernatural abilities. In addition to dozens of Japanese literary masters and intellectuals, including Osamu Dazai, Atsushi Nakajima, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Akiko Yosano, and Kenji Miyazawa, it is a grandiose action manga involving foreign literary greats such as Montgomery, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, and Poe. The main setting is contemporary Yokohama, and the biographical facts and works of the writers are accepted and reconstructed in the shaping of the characters and their different abilities.

What can be sanctified in this work as content when the findings of literary studies and the history of literature and culture are irradiated on it?　What kind of pilgrimage maps can be drawn from these sacred sites? 　We will develop a model of a pilgrimage map based on at least the following three perspectives.

(1) Maps based on individual writers (ex. Aomori and Tokyo based on Osamu Dazai, Morioka based on Kenji Miyazawa, Kyoto, Tokyo, Paris based on Akiko Yosano, etc.)

(2) Maps centered on individual episodes (ex.Yokohama City, the setting of the film)

(3) Maps based on the network of writers (ex.Poe and Edogawa Rampo, etc.)

Through such analysis, we will build a theory centered on the original work of literature and biographies of literary figures in the process of revitalizing the original work as content for pilgrimages to sacred places. In other words, it is a theoretical construction from the perspective of how the findings of literary research can be (and ideally should be) incorporated into regional development, cultural preservation, and tourism studies based on content tourism. By doing so, we would like to raise a question for dialogue between the two different research fields of tourism studies and literature in order to collaboratively preserve cultural resources and create culture.

This presentation explores the fascinating intersection of Chinese detective fiction and transnational tourism, examining how novels written in Chinese can catalyze cross-border travel and contribute to tourism development. By analyzing popular Chinese detective series and their impact on international readership, I investigate the phenomenon of literary tourism evolving into a broader form of contents tourism.

The study delves into the global appeal of Chinese detective novels and their translation into multiple languages, revealing how these works create compelling literary landscapes and fictional geographies that inspire real-world exploration. I examine the development of tourism products and experiences based on detective novel settings and plots, demonstrating how narrative spaces become tangible destinations for international travelers.

Additionally, this research considers the literary techniques and narrative strategies employed in Chinese detective novels that resonate with diverse cultural audiences. By exploring themes such as justice, morality, and the interplay between tradition and modernity, I uncover how these works engage readers across borders, fostering a shared imaginative space that transcends linguistic and cultural divides.

This presentation examines the transmedia storytelling and transnational dissemination of Korean webtoons, focusing on their growing role in fostering content tourism and cultural exchange. As a globally popular form of digital comics, webtoons have not only captivated audiences worldwide but also inspired tourism by creating immersive fictional worlds that fans seek to experience in real life.

The study explores how the unique narrative and visual qualities of Korean webtoons make them particularly suited for adaptation into various media formats, including television dramas, films, and games. These transmedia expansions amplify the global reach of webtoons while establishing recognizable settings, characters, and themes that spark international interest in Korean culture and destinations. For instance, locations featured in webtoon-based adaptations often become tourism hotspots, drawing fans eager to connect with the stories they love.

Additionally, the research delves into the transnational spread of webtoons through global platforms and partnerships, highlighting how this medium transcends cultural and linguistic barriers. By examining case studies where webtoons have directly influenced tourism—such as themed tours, exhibitions, and fan-driven pilgrimages—I reveal how these digital narratives transform into tangible travel experiences. This phenomenon reflects the broader potential of webtoons to act as cultural ambassadors, promoting Korea as a desirable destination while enabling fans to engage with its culture on a deeper level.

The objective of this closed group session is to address two key "border-crossing" phenomena that characterize 21st-century literature in the context of the advancing information age and media diversification: “transmediality” (adaptation across media) and “transnationalism” (consumption and adaptation across national borders). The session aims to construct an analytical framework to explore how these phenomena give rise to new forms of tourism.

Specifically, the session will first review the existing frameworks of literary tourism research and their limitations. Following this, four scholars—two men and two women from both Korea and Japan, ensuring a balance in both nationality and gender—will examine the characteristics of recent literary works in terms of transmediality (e.g., adaptations into manga, anime, video games, TV dramas) and transnationality, through several concrete case studies.

The case studies to be discussed include: the new literary pilgrimage phenomenon inspired by the Japanese manga and anime Bungo Stray Dogs; the transnational development and tourism surrounding Chinese detective novels; the transmedia and transnational expansion of the Three Kingdoms as classical literature and its related tourism; and the transmedia and transnational spread of Korean webtoons.

The session will then analyze how such border-crossing phenomena are triggering interactive tourism experiences and clarify the characteristics of these interactions.

It will argue that traditional approaches to literary tourism studies are insufficient to fully capture these phenomena and that the framework of contents tourism, which has recently gained attention in tourism studies, offers a more effective analytical tool.

Through this session, we aim to demonstrate the potential for literature studies to transcend disciplinary boundaries and explore new applied research fields.

This presentation first outlines and introduces the fundamental theories of Contents Tourism, which have been increasingly discussed internationally since the 2010s. Subsequently, attention is directed to the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi) to examine how the work has been adapted and received across various media formats within the East Asian region. Particular focus is placed on case studies in Japan, spanning from the Edo period to the present day. Specific media examined include novels, games, manga, puppet theater, and kabuki.

Additionally, the analysis considers how these adapted works have contributed to the formation of new Contents Tourism destinations, such as Kobe City, which has utilized Romance of the Three Kingdoms in local revitalization efforts due to its association with Mitsuteru Yokoyama, the manga adaptation’s author, and Iida City, which features a puppet museum dedicated to Kihachiro Kawamoto, who created puppets for NHK’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms puppet theater series.

Building on this exploration, a hypothetical content creation model is proposed to explain the mechanism by which literary adaptations generate Contents Tourism. This discussion aims to highlight the contributions of Contents Tourism theories to literary studies while also identifying potential challenges inherent in their application.

Vietnam is one of the countries in the East Asia cultural circle that is most deeply influenced by Chinese Confucian culture. There are many folk tales in China and Vietnam, which contain rich Confucianism. Taking the "fish-dragon" story complexes of the two countries as examples, they both emphasize the Confucianism of collectivism, striving for progress, unity, individual social responsibility and sense of mission, fairness and justice, integrity, etc., reflecting the strong cultural influence of Confucianism and the high acceptance of Chinese Confucian culture by Vietnamese traditional culture. The influence of Chinese Confucianism on Chinese and Vietnamese "fish-dragon" story complexes is mainly reflected in the specific plots and the symbolic meaning of the stories such as the Chinese "Carps Leaping through the Dragon Gate" allusion and the legend of the "Fish Leaping Through the Wu Gate" in Vietnam. Due to the fact that the social circumstances of China and Vietnam are not exactly same, these valuable Confucian thoughts were integrated into the local society of Vietnam, and the process of "localization" occurred, which was expressed in folk stories and other art forms, thus playing a pivotal role in promoting the evolution of Chinese and Vietnamese culture and civilization, and profoundly affecting the social development of the two countries, especially the Civil Service Examination System of China and Vietnam.

As hybrids combined with Western Christian culture and Oriental traditional culture, Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Kirishitanmono are good objects for comparative literature studies. Death of a Christian is a representative work of Kirishitanmono written by Akutagawa, with comparing with Saint Marina, the Virgin from European hagiography longitudinally and comparing with Kwan-yin Thi Kinh a Vietnamese folktale horizontally, we can find the sense of Akutagawa as a comparative literature practitioner.

The generation, flow and development of the "Third World Literature" theory in East Asia is a multidimensional, multi-layered, and dynamically changing academic topic.Before Fredric Jameson's 1986 publication, East Asian literary circles, notably in Taiwan and South Korea, had already explored and discussed "Third World Literature." South Korea saw a peak in this discourse in the 1970s, viewing Korean literature as part of Third World literature, reflecting deep cultural identity understanding and a regional awakening. Taiwan followed a similar path, influenced by modernist literature and social movements, with pioneers like Chen Yingzhen exploring East Asian "Third World Literature." The interconnection of "national literature" and "Third World" became a key foundation, but Cold War ideologies hindered exchanges, fragmenting the discourse until the 1980s, despite support in South Korea and Taiwan.

The easing of the Cold War and historical events spurred new literary trends in East Asia. The 1987 "Kawamitsu Shinichi-Huang Chunming Dialogue" marked a breakthrough, fostering emotional and theoretical connections between Taiwan and Okinawa. Kawamitsu emphasized historical similarities and the importance of interconnectedness in Third World literature, providing new directions for East Asian literary exchanges.With Taiwan's martial law lifting, the Soviet Union's dissolution, and the Cold War's end, literary interactions accelerated. The 1992 "Occupation and Literature" symposium ended East Asian Third World literature's isolation, bringing together researchers who proposed new perspectives on "occupation" literature, broadening research horizons and highlighting cultural and political connections.

Intellectuals like Huang Chunming and Kawamitsu played a pivotal role in disseminating and innovating the "Third World Literature" discourse, grounded in East Asian realities. They emphasized its anti-theoretical, dynamic, and generative nature. The discourse's evolution is intertwined with global changes, national growth, and academic exploration. A central theme is the concern for the "people," especially marginalized groups' devastation under neocolonialism. This people-centric approach gives East Asian "Third World Literature" unique significance in globalization. East Asian intellectuals have reflected and transcended Jameson's theory, enriching its connotation and providing insights for other regions.

The generation, flow and development of "Third World Literature" theory in East Asia profoundly reveals the cultural consciousness and theoretical exploration of the East Asian region during specific historical periods and also showcases the localization practice and innovation of global literary theory in the East Asian region.

The significance and value of a writer in the literary world are beyond dispute, yet discussions about the role and meaning of writers within “world literature” currently seem insufficient. Professor David Damrosch, when discussing “what is world literature”, explores aspects such as “circulation”, “translation” and “production”, which clearly present an economic research model of “world literature”. As “producers”, what capabilities and skills should writers possess to enter the “economic field” of world literature and reap the “benefits” of global fame? On the other hand, how can writers who have successfully entered this field construct the “republic” of world literature through their personal names and the circulation and translation of their works, thereby contributing to the human civilization? Regarding the first question, Damrosch illustrates through the story of P. G. Wodehouse that a writer who can successfully enter the economic field of world literature must first exhibit “a polyglot exuberance o

This paper examines the cultural origins of the Korean people from a mythological perspective, systematically analyzing the narratives of Korean ethnic origins and their historical construction logic through textual comparison. Myths form a "primordial attachment," a cultural bond that connects a group to its history and culture, helping to establish collective memory. Korean origin myths reflect the essence of Korean culture, carrying the origins and identity of the Korean people.In ancient East Asia, the world was united by Classical Chinese, forming a "Sinic cultural sphere," while the Korean Peninsula belonged to the "Dongyi cultural sphere." The "Twenty-Four Histories" of China contain the "Dongyi Biographies," which document the tribes and states of the Korean Peninsula, serving as key sources for understanding Korean origin myths within the Chinese historical context.Theories on Korean origins include Siberian, Dongyi, Baiyue, and indigenous theories. The author argues that the Korean people originated from the "Dongyi" of Chinese history, with shared cultural roots evident in both Korean and Dongyi myths. These myths reflect cultural traits such as cohesion, bravery, passion, and filial piety.The "Yi" (barbarians) and "Xia" (the Chinese) distinction is a matter of perception, shaped by identity and belief. In the Western Zhou period, "China" referred to the people of the realm, without distinguishing between "civilized" and "barbaric." Korean origin myths not only preserve ethnic memory but also provide historical evidence of the Korean people’s participation in the construction of East Asian civilization as part of the Dongyi cultural legacy.

In a recently published study [Perspective Chapter: The Illusion of Dystopian Justice as a Means toward Social Justice. K-drama’s Global Success Unveiled http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1006893], I conducted a preliminary analysis of several South Korean TV series to explore how they engage with themes central to the ongoing discourse on the Global South. These series delve into the distortions of neoliberal society, articulating social discontent surrounding economic and power imbalances. Specifically, I argue that contemporary South Korean audiovisual productions do not offer escapist or optimistic visions of the future. Instead, any semblance of hope for social empowerment and improvement is placed in frameworks of dystopian or unrealistic justice, situating such hope outside the realm of reality or the legal structures and values shared by democratic governments globally.

While it may be premature to claim that South Korea's film and television industry is taking the lead in developing a global counter-narrative, it is undeniable that its audiovisual content—deeply rooted in local contexts and culture—resonates on a global scale, attracts millions of viewers worldwide, and sets new standards both technically and in terms of content. South Korean audiovisual production's global resonance largely stems from the way these narratives confront urgent issues of global power imbalances, offering a unique lens through which such inequalities are examined.

Building upon these initial findings, my current paper seeks to take further steps in this line of inquiry. First, I aim to expand my corpus by exploring additional narratives within South Korean audiovisual productions. Additionally, I plan to address a broader range of topics. Specifically, my focus will shift toward narratives that delve into the root causes of global imbalances. At this stage of my research, I am particularly interested in stories depicting how citizens of the Global South are compelled to shoulder social responsibilities in sustaining democratic systems, especially during periods when long-lasting or endemic social disparities escalate into severe inequities or injustices.

These narratives confront the subjugation of the Global South by politically, culturally, and economically dominant powers, including hegemonic states, ideologies, and global economic-financial systems. Within this context, they portray a sense of civic responsibility toward one’s national community, as expressed or perceived by the social actors featured in these series, such as politicians, media representatives, and law enforcement officials, but also ordinary citizens. These narratives examine the capacity of citizens to devise meaningful alternatives or any form of counter-power grounded in local values and needs. By doing so, these narratives challenge audiences to consider the potential for grassroots movements and localized approaches to offer viable solutions to systemic global injustices.

The simultaneous emergence of feminist movement in South Korea and Mexico, or the resonance between the “Red Light, Green Light” game in the popular show Squid Game and the lived experiences of migrants crossing the border, exemplify the transnational fluidity of meaning. Drawing upon Derrida’s notion of “différance”, which posits the inherent instability and interconnectedness of signification, this panel seeks to interrogate the “hauntings” of meaning within a global/transnational South Korean context.

Specifically, we seek to address the traces shared in cultural productions from South Korea and other parts of the world. Our focus is on non-traditional encounters that transcend the pursuit of social mobility (i.e., the “American Dream”), teleological progress, or other capitalist, modern, or humanistic aspirations. Instead, we seek to explore encounters that are intransitive (Nan Da 2018), contactless or virtual, self-destructive, deconstructionist, and, ideally, between minorities or marginalized communities. We invite contributions that explore how meaning is generated, disseminated, and destabilized through processes of cultural exchange, political mobilization, and artistic representation, recognizing that signification is perpetually in flux, resisting fixed demarcations and ontological boundaries.

Given these premises, we thus welcome papers on (but not limited to) the following topics and/or related topics:

*Representations of 'minor' transnationalism in media, examining how cultural productions depict the experiences and perspectives of marginalized communities within and beyond South Korea.

*Critical analyses of South Korean cultural productions, employing deconstructive approaches to uncover hidden power structures, challenge dominant narratives, and shed light on social issues with global resonance.

* Explorations of the relationship between South Korea and the Global South as represented in media, including depictions of solidarity, conflict, and cultural exchange.

* Examinations of how various media forms explore the global or transnational impact of wars (like the Cold War), political movements (like the Gwangju Uprising), and national trauma on South Korea's modern history and its ongoing legacies.

We encourage submissions from people working understudied connections between Korea and the rest of the world. For example, cultural exchanges or encounters between Korea and countries in Europe, Africa, South-East Asia, and Latin America.

To submit your work, kindly email both Janeth Manriquez Ruiz at mmanriq2@nd.edu and Inha Park at ipark2@nd.edu.

In her book, The Disposition of Nature, from 2019 Jennifer Wenzel poses a question that is fundamental for thinking with the planet. She asks what the world-imagining that corporations foster look like, and how those ‘imaginaries’ have a shaping effect on the warming planet we inhabit. This question remains unanswered. In this paper, I attend to guilt, a major environmental affect, that plays a crucial role in precisely the world view that individuals and communities inherit from corporations. While guilt has largely been written of in both climate communication and environmental art, as an apathy-inducing, regressive environmental affect, I will demonstrate the potentials of guilt. I argue guilt has a shaping effect on environmental narratives, blooming into unexpected aesthetic modes that can negotiate the glaring discrepancy between the emotional experience and the scientific knowledge of the climate crisis. Locating and analyzing art that accounts for such discrepancies of living through the climate crisis is crucial for environmental scholarship, especially since such art, turns out to flourish outside the Anglophone world, thereby also broadening the rather slim and homegenous cli-fi canon. Therefore, I will demonstrate how guilt functions in two ‘cli-fi workplace’ novels, one from South Korea, Yun ko-Eun’s The Disaster Tourist and the other from Argentina, Agustina Baztericca’s Tender is the flesh. I find that guilt is not a stable, moral emotion, but rather a a ‘sticky affect’, that is continuously assigned and rejected by characters, corporations and readers, as an unresolved planetary emotion for humans living under the condition of environmental crisis. Guilt is particularly fruitful for negotiating the tug-of-war between world imaginings that living in a crisis causes, because of its position in-between the personal and the political, the private and the public. I will deploy a planetary comparativist method that favor tracing relations between smaller parts of the literary works rather national elements, thus eliciting illuminating surprising thematic and narrative connections across oceans. Reading for ambivalently negative affects through a planetary comparativist method, illuminates the complex inter-relations of climate crisis with capitalism, class and gender across the planet.

Digital technologies have profoundly reshaped literature, not only transforming traditional reading habits but also introducing innovative forms of narrative creation and consumption. Audiobooks, as a convergence of oral tradition and digital media, serve as a prime example of this evolution by reintegrating auditory storytelling into the fabric of contemporary literary experience. This research explores how the production of audiobooks redefines the boundaries of literature and its reception in the digital age.

Drawing on examples from leading audiobook platforms such as Himalaya and Dragonfly FM, this study analyses how professional-generated content (PGC), user-generated content (UGC), and professionally-user-generated content (PUGC) intersect in audiobook creation. Meanwhile, advances in AI-driven text-to-speech (TTS) technology have enabled the large-scale production of audiobooks, making them more accessible to diverse audiences across platforms like WeChat Reading and Jinjiang Reading. While these innovations democratize literature, they also raise critical questions about the erosion of creative plurality and the potential alienation of audiences through algorithmic standardization.

This research addresses the tension between human-mediated and AI-generated audiobook production. Traditional audiobooks rely on performative interpretations to convey emotional depth and artistic nuance, enriching the narrative experience. In contrast, AI-produced audiobooks prioritize efficiency and scalability, potentially diminishing the diversity of storytelling and reducing the act of reading to a commodified exchange. Furthermore, algorithmic recommendation systems employed by platforms influence user behaviour, limiting agency and transforming literary consumption into a digitally controlled experience.

Key questions explored include: How does AI-mediated audiobook production impact the transmission of literary and artistic value? Can AI replicate the performative and emotional depth traditionally conveyed by human narrators? Does the integration of AI foster "hyper-social interactions" that enhance audience engagement, or does it exacerbate the alienation inherent in technologically mediated experiences?

By examining the implications of intelligent audiobook production, this study contributes to the discourse on literature in the digital age, particularly the interplay between technology, creativity, and audience agency.

In the context of the intermedia narrative and cultural integration, the virtual world of video games has three levels of "crossing boundaries" based on the existence of literariness, that is, crossing the boundary of the video games themselves (Infinite Possibilities): The first part discusses the relationship between media convergence and “literariness”. This synergy between various media platforms opens new vistas for storytelling and engagement. Media convergence deeply affects contemporary literature and makes "literariness" broadly possible and ubiquitous. The second part explains that in the context of convergent culture, literariness is possible to exist as a "story-universe" in video games. The open-world structure inherent in many video games cultivates environments rich with infinite narrative possibilities, which makes the "story-universe" (with infinite possibilities at the fictional level) possible (also due to the parasitism of literariness). The third part discusses the notion of otaku and “infant-universe”. This concept was first proposed by Hong Kong urban new generation writer Dong Qizhang in the three-part novel "Time History. Dumb Porcelain Light". The “infant-universe" is born from the limitations and possibilities of life" and "between reality and imagination", "opening a gap of possibilities" for real life, so that life can "walk to the edge of infinity". "Infant-universe" boldly blurs the line between fiction and reality，which means a world parallel to reality with infinite possibilities. The unique perspectives of committed otakus, coupled with the "circular reversible" nature of contemporary existence, facilitate the realization of "infant-universe" (at the real level) in our actual lives. Therefore, as a form of video games that is deeply mixed with literariness, they have become the most profound existence with the most possibilities and uncertainties in the “kaleidoscope” of media convergence, while also having a profound impact on the real world.

From the ubiquitous "literariness" to the "story-universe" and finally to the "infant-universe", this article creatively sorts out a possible path for the coexistence of video games and literature in the context of a convergent culture and the heights that can be achieved. The three levels represent the three stages of the "crossing of boundaries" of video games. If the third stage can be achieved on a large scale, the cognition of the material world, time and the universe may be rewritten again.

It is not novel for literature to be viewed as a ‘composite’ art or medium, which has different arts, media, and modes of representation within it. In literary studies, multimodal fiction is studied as one of the manifestations of this idea, and the multimodal novel is understood as a novel that integrates nonverbal modes of meaning-making, such as, e.g. photographs, maps, handwritten letters, etc., into its narrative discourse (Hallet 2018, 26). The multimodal novel has been conventionally conceived as a printed book, since the genre is believed to actively rely on nonverbal textual elements when conveying narrative details (Wagoner 2014, 2). But what would it mean for a multimodal novel to be realised by means of another technical medium, when its core practice is to utilise the conventions of the print novels in new ways?

In this paper, I examine how multimodal novels, which are remediated as audiobooks, engage with nonverbal textual elements that they rely on in their printed forms. Are the narrative details – that are based on nonverbal modes of meaning-making in printed books – modified, left out, or replaced by other modes of meaning-making in audiobooks? Do multimodal novels become monomodal when they get transformed into audiobooks? Or should audiobooks not be viewed as a medium that limits the possibilities to convey narrative information of printed multimodal novels?

Considering the fact that all novels are multimodal, I start the paper by defining the multimodal novel, proposing different degrees of narrative details’ dependence on nonverbal modes of meaning-making, that is, whether they are inherent elements of or complimentary tools for the narrative construction. I then differentiate novels as audiobooks and printed novels as separate media (according to Lars Elleström’s model of media’s modalities, modes, and qualifying aspects (2014)) to exemplify possible modal changes that printed multimodal novels (of different degrees of narratives’ dependence on nonverbal modes of meaning-making) can undergo when being remediated as auditory texts.

I proceed with the analysis of several multimodal novels – “Extremely Loud and Incredibely Close” by J. Safran Foer (2005), “The Raw Shark Texts” by S. Hall (2007), “Night Film” by M. Pessl (2013), “S” written by D. Dorst and conceived by J. J. Abrams (2013) – in their printed and auditory manifestations. These primary texts may be argued to be not “suitable” for the audiobook format as they heavily rely on the materiality of the medium of printed novel and, hence, serve as curious examples to demonstrate how audiobooks transform the multimodal narratives of printed books. I conclude that multimodal novels as auditory texts not only remain multimodal narratives but also give researchers another reason to view audiobooks as not a kind of remediation but an independent medium (Have and Pederson 2021, 214), contributing to the ongoing discussion of the status of audiobooks in media terms.

How do New Materialism and intermedial studies reshape traditional literary criticism within memory studies? This presentation addresses this question by shifting the focus from trauma theory to material processes and technologies of mediation. I will examine how "El clan Braniff" (2018), an intermedial novel by Chilean author Matías Celedon, engages with Chile’s dictatorial past through a montage of judiciary records, analogue slide images, and late-1970s visual advertising. I will interpret this novel as a formal experiment in what Fuller and Weizman term “investigative aesthetics” (2021), fostering an “expanded state of aesthetic alertness” to the infrastructures transforming social reality and the acceleration of mediatization, described by Andrew Hoskins as the intensified “impact of the media upon processes of social change so that everyday life is increasingly embedded in the mediascape.”

The novel borrows its title from the 1970s U.S based Braniff airline, which it exposes as part of an international network of political persecution, arms and drug trafficking tied to Pinochet’s regime, remnants of the Nazi elite and Latin American cartels. By discentering character-driven narrative with a documentarian emphasis on infrastructure, the novel demands a materialist reading, as it frames historical violence through the logistics of commercial aviation rather than personal trauma. The juxtaposition highlights the dependence of the Chilean Army’s para-legal networks on commercial jets as the iconic technology of late-capitalist globalization (Vanessa Schwartz). Moreover, this also suggests how political repression across Latin America paved the way for such a new stage of capitalist expansionism to take off.

Further, I analyze how "El clan Braniff" incorporates a history of Braniff’s visual branding to establish a continuity between its sleek air travel marketing and the deregulated transnational circulation of capital. The novel’s intermedial strategy underscores how corporate branding masked a geopolitical reality where tourism and privatization intersected with covert counter-insurgency.

Finally, I analyze how the novel redefines fiction’s role in historical recollection. Contextualizing its plot around a real case of political assassination, it speculates from the perspective of accomplices who were not submitted to trial, narrating their disappearance within the blind spots of justice. By incorporating a collection of found analogue slides as part of its narrative, "El clan Braniff" stresses the epistemic opacity of images and the limits of historiographic and judicial knowledge. By doing so, the novel demonstrates fiction’s unique potential to offer at least a speculative counter-history of State terrorism—one that history struggles to articulate fully. However, such counter-history would seem to require pushing the boundaries of “literariness“ towards an intermedial and materialist approach.

In dialogue with worldwide research on Martian literature, this essay charts the history of how Mars was fantasized and fetishized in modern Chinese science fiction. Although writings of Mars have garnered considerable attention in the West, Chinese Martian novels wait to be scrutinized, indicating an avenue to prompt reflections on the pivotal role of Mars in articulating terrestrial affects, anxieties, and believes embedded in the fabric of world literature. Ever since H. G. Wells’s (1898) most renowned The War of the Worlds was translated into Chinese in 1915, Western Martian fiction continued to be translated and trans-adapted into Chinese, alongside domestic creations that likewise attempted to symbolize the Mars. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s own comment on his The Martian Chronicles, “Mars is a mirror, not a crystal.” This essay employs Mars as a method to “mirror” not only the perceived images of modern China in the eyes of Chinese writers but also the specular intersection between Chinese and Western Martian fiction. The 1915 translation of The War of the Worlds marks a pivotal moment in the development of Chinese Martian fiction that regardless of its degree of adherence or innovation, falls under the influence of Wells’s literary legacy. Chinese Martian fiction therefore is somewhat cognate with its Western counterpart, embodying as a mirrored pair. I resort to the trope of “the distorting mirror” to underscore this reflective process mediated by translations of not only Wells’s novel but also other foreign Martian narratives. Seventeen years later, in 1935, Lao She’s Cat Country developed and sophisticatedly localized this genre. I draw upon the metaphor of the “demon-revealing mirror” (zhaoyao jing) from Chinese mythology to examine Lao She’s satire, which is a self-evident parody of Western Martian fiction characterized by evident touches of traditional Chinese fiction—the non-human feline inhabitants of Mars aptly incarnate the spirits of both Western science fiction and Chinese gods-and-demons fiction (shenmo xiaoshuo). In the post-1949 period, Zheng Wenguang’s From the Earth to Mars (1956) is hailed as the socialist state’s first science fiction. The symbolic importance of Mars within Chinese science fiction is again affirmed. Over the span of three decades, Zheng’s three Martian novels, of varying lengths, manifest the influence of socialist aesthetics on Chinese Martian literature. The concept of “the prophetic mirror” is adopted to address the futuristic and socialist-realist features within Zheng’s work, wherein the goal of terraforming Mars is intertwined with the goal of constructing socialist China. I end with a brief survey of more contemporary Martian writings, along with an elaboration on the visual structure of “mirroring the mirror” drawn from the investigation of the Chinse Mars as well as on its implication for the nexuses between Chinese and Western science fiction.

The future is wet. Imagining the future means imagining our relationships with the waters of our planet. Floods abound in climate change fiction, apocalyptic literature and film, and even our daily news. Indeed, troubled waters are part of our collective understanding about what the future will be. The increasing awareness in climate change fiction about water is testament to the growing global anxieties about water and our imagined control over it. Fiction about the future recognizes the problems, and in terms of what will be affected, everything is on the table—the marshes, the oceans, the streams, the rivers, the ponds, the lakes, the estuaries, the aquifers, the ice-sheets, the bogs, the glaciers, the clouds. There are very few places left on the planet where we can safely dip a cup and have quick drink. The rivers and streams that run through all large cities in the world are, to varying degrees, filthy. The oceans are full of plastic. The ice is melting everywhere. The global sea levels are rising. We have long known of the many problems, and fiction about the future is vitally concerned with solutions. Habit, exposure, and scale, however, have weakened our sense of immediacy (as if the problems are in a distant future) and our confidence in our abilities to act effectively (as if individual actions mean nothing). Building on work from seemingly different fields (cognitive psychology, mycology, ecocriticism, cryology, and others), this article will offer an organized set of analyses that demonstrates how preconceptions create the blind spots that prevent us from doing our work as environmental citizens. The future is wet—just how wet depends on how we see and act today. Part of this means confronting the rhetoric of defeat and the apparatus of failure that structures our understandings of things that are either below the surface (thermohaline patterns, for instance) or that are dissolved beyond visibility (such as radiation-contaminated waters). Using texts as varied as Moby Dick and Odds Against Tomorrow (among others), I will offer a methodology for understanding both that our perceptual horizons are limited with regard to water and, perhaps more importantly, that change is still possible.

For Will Alexander, a contemporary African-American poet strongly influenced by

surrealism, our current time of ecological crisis is occasioned by the legacies of

colonial inhabitations. While outlining how colonialism’s first victims were groups and

races of people, he insists that this planetary schema implicated ecosystems and

nonhuman life. His writings are therefore pervaded by colonialism’s ecological effects

as well as pervasive antiblackness, and in response generate imaginaries beyond

Occidental logics. Beginning with Vertical Rainbow Climber in 1987, his poetry and

related writings persistently attack racialization and ecological exploitation via a

transformative language that ‘simultaneously exists and de-exists’. Destabilizing a

metaphysics of reality sedimented by colonial capitalism, his works create hybrid and

persistently futurist imaginaries that reject linear logic in favour of nonlinear

associations drawn across multiplicities of theories, disciplines and lexicons, where

geology, physics, climatology, astronomy, biology and chemistry, are woven together

with explorations of African and Oriental cultures, spiritual systems and stories. The

relative lack of critical studies on Alexander is a major omission given these

powerfully original renditions of human-nonhuman relations, anthropogenic

disruption and contamination, apocalyptic visions of global warming, shifts from

microcosmic to macrocosmic phenomena, human migration and drift, and

speculations about future life on and beyond Earth. My study therefore presents the

development of Alexander’s global vision up to Exobiology as Goddess of 2004. I

trace the pervasive influence of Caribbean surrealism and its mix of politics,

environmental concerns and universalism, before examining the development of

climatological, geological and evolutionary biological terminologies and images. I

then chart how this develops into questions of collectivity, contamination, and

circumstance, which leads into texts haunted by the sense that Anthropocene life

has crossed a threshold of sustainability, and therefore to potentialities for a poetics

of nomadism, hybridization, and ecological entanglement.

In his later years (1980-1984), Michel Foucault turned to the study of Western classics and explicitly proposed the concept of "Aesthetics of Existence", conducting a comprehensive investigation of ancient Greece, Hellenistic Rome and the early Christian world around this concept. Since Foucault's death in 1984, this concept has had a huge impact in the Western theoretical circle and has become increasingly important in guiding real life. With the successive publication of Foucault's lectures at the Collège de France in recent years, it has been discovered that the concept of "Aesthetics of Existence" holds a pivotal position in Foucault's entire intellectual career. So, what is the "aesthetics of existence"? Why did Foucault turn to the study of the aesthetics of existence in his later years? This article attempts to explain the specific connotation and practical inspiration of the aesthetics of existence within the context of Foucault's thought on Ethics , arguing that Foucault's genealogical exploration of the aesthetics of existence is not a break from his earlier analysis of the relationship between Power and Knowledge, but rather a response to the crisis of subjectivity and ethical predicament of modern neoliberalism.

The future of the Environmental Humanities is increasingly arboreal. There is a profound importance, now more than ever, for recognizing and understanding the agency of plants in our world and for acknowledging that without plants, humanity simply would not exist—a fact that contemporary literature is increasingly addressing. In The Overstory, by American author Richard Powers, the central issue is the correlation between current environmental crises and failures to communicate with trees. Powers predicts that our continuing dysfunctional relationship with the plant world will culminate in a catastrophic disaster in the near future, and he thus shows that it is critical to re-examine how we conceptualize trees. Drawing on the research of botanists and humanities scholars who engage in “thinking with plants,” particularly anthropologist Eduardo Kohn and philosopher Michael Marder, I will argue that communication is not restricted to language and that traditional anthropocentric notions of intelligence and subjectivity preclude the possibility of recognizing the unique properties of plants—such as their decentralized and networked intelligence, modular structure, and relational modes of existence. For Powers, Kantian anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism, along with the various beliefs that stem from them, blind us to what trees are and how they communicate. Anthropocentric thinking obscures the vital functions and values of trees, leaving visible only those aspects that are directly related to fulfilling human needs. By focusing on plant semiosis and cognition and considering how they might inspire transformations in human social structures, with Marder and Kohn as my touchstones, I will provide a theoretical framework for examining The Overstory’s central questions and will suggest that how we see and conceptualize trees is central to our future.

This paper examines "The Station," a contemporary Chinese dance-theatre production, through the lens of Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia, exploring how the performance reflects the complexities of contemporary Chinese identity. The work's portrayal of seven characters—each representing different facets of modern existence—serves as an allegory for the tensions between tradition and modernity, individual desires and collective memory, as well as neoliberalism and neoconservatism in China. Drawing on the performance's use of space, time, and movement, the paper argues that "The Station" creates a heterotopic space that challenges conventional narratives, allowing for the coexistence of contradictory elements within contemporary society. In doing so, it redefines what it means to be "contemporary" in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. By incorporating diverse cultural influences and addressing themes of alienation, identity, and temporal fragmentation, "The Station" embodies the fluidity and complexity of Chinese modernity. The paper also examines the role of artistic collaboration and the tension between traditional and contemporary dance forms, offering new insights into the potential of performance art as a site for cultural negotiation and reimagination.

Comics and graphic novels, in mainstream western discourse, have often been studied in terms of aesthetic sequencing or paneling. Comic strips have been associated with humorous content, and forms such as the visual caricature with political satire. Comic books and graphic novels, especially ones which are serialized, have a history of depicting superhero narratives and larger-than-life themes. The world of graphic narratives has grown exponentially in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Consequently, established modes of enquiry have emerged as insufficient. The comparatist’s perspective of plurality and relationality is required in order to ethically engage with this intermedial form and address the hierarchies within the academic research surrounding it. In this paper, two graphic novels based on life stories from different cultural contexts will be explored. The biographical graphic novel 'Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability' (2011) by Durgabai Vyam, Subhash Vyam, Srividya Natarajan, and S. Anand, which tells the story of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s life along with the contemporary reality of caste-based violence in India, will be read alongside Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel 'Persepolis' (published in two parts in 2000 and 2001), the story of the author and artist’s childhood in Tehran and her complex relationship with her homeland. This comparative reading will focus on narrative flow, questions of identity and belonging within the axis of caste, gender, nationality and religion, the politics of aesthetics, the visual schemata, and varying perspectives towards the making of art. While 'Bhimayana' is the result of a collaborative effort of Gond artists and a publishing house dedicated to caste-based narratives, 'Persepolis' is the individual artistic and narrative endeavour of Satrapi. Each choice is inextricably tied to the intentionality, narrative content and cultural ecology of each graphic novel. When the two are read together through the idea of juxtaposition, the cornerstone of the graphic narrative form, what emerges is a plurality of approaches towards storytelling, visual language, history, identity, belonging, culture, socio-political commentary, and much more. This understanding of plurality is crucial in challenging hegemonic perspectives which perceive difference as an obstacle instead of the crux of human experience.

This research aims to make an inter-artistic comparison between Alan Moore’s 1986 graphic novel “Watchmen” and Brandon Vietti’s 2024 animated film “Watchmen” to understand the adaptation's in/fidelity. These two works depict the post-World War II era, known as the Cold War, and illustrate how the tensions between two major powers of that time, America and the Soviet Union (later Russia), constantly expanded toward the probability of another devastating conflict. Besides sharing this common theme, these two works differ from each other in some aspects, such as character development or frame/shot division. By using film adaptation theories, this study employs a close reading of the comics and the film—where the film is treated as a text—as a methodology. The critical analysis shows a thematic alignment between these two works—both enlist the turbulence of the Cold War. Though Vietti is concerned about this historical context, his venture is to metaphorize the contemporary geopolitical instability. Besides, Vietti's engagement with symbolism is analogous to Moore's, notably the depiction of the Comedian's bloodstained smiley badge, which is a sign of pain behind the containment. Furthermore, Vietti slightly changes Moore's narrative structure. For example, Moore reveals the Comedian's backstory through the reminiscence of the remaining former members of Watchmen during his funeral, whereas Vietti reconstructs the same issue through Rorschach's interactions with other members as he notifies them of the Comedian's death. Finally, Veitti takes his freedom in terms of framing and color grading in his animation, though he has a reference of Moore's artistic approach. Though they don't have a shared temporal and spatial context, all these findings admit a continuation of Moore's version through Vietti's recreation. This research argues that Vietti's animated film is parallel to Moore's comics, denoting an inter-artistic exchange rather than a reinterpretation.

Comic took its root from Rodolphe Topffer, who was the artist of “The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck”, first printed comic. He also invented comic strip, publishing seven, which is now usually known as comic books or more recently graphic novels. Comic studies are considered as pure leisurely activity. It does not have any accurate space in grammar or literature as such. Although, comics are not widely accepted as a genre in academic field but, comic studies can be seen as something useful in literary studies as it provides details with images that will have a greater impact in the minds of the readers. Graphic narrative is a very diverse discourse, it does not only provide a written details but also a visual representation of what the author wants to convey through his/her works. Which makes it a very hybridized mode of communication.

We can also make a connection of graphic narrative with ancient times. Like, In the early times, people who used to live in cage, drew in the walls that used to deliver a story of their living condition, culture and also the societal aspect. Same can be seen in graphic narratives, where there is a visual representation that helps to deliver a story or any important aspect. In recent times, we can see a section in newspaper where comic used as a mode in journalism where graphic narrative is being used to deliver an important news or messages through visuals. Even graphic narrative has become so popular in nowadays that it has been used to make movies and series, which are known as Anime, for instance, “Naruto”, “Death note”, this type of anime has so much popularity among its audience, and they connect with the characters so intensely is something beyond imagination.

Comic studies is not only for fun or leisure, but it also delivers very important moral messages. For example, Indian comic books like “Nonte Phonte” by Narayan Debnath, where it teaches student teacher relationship and also the values of friendship, “Gopal Bhar”. Stories like this make education fun for children because it has comics which will keep the readers engage along with morals that will be helpful for them in future.

Graphic narratives also make the plot interesting like for instance, any character in the story fell down or got hurt, the emotions are also presented as “Aaaaa..!!” inside a cloud shape thing along with visuals, that keep the readers on the edge. We have seen this in comic books like “The Adventures of Tintin” by Herge, and many more. Even the Tintin’s pet dog, Snowy’s emotions and actions are portrayed so wonderfully. Graphic narrative should be included in the academic field too as it will help students to build more knowledge as graphic narrative provide a layered narrative language. For example, in Art Spieleman’s Maus series that focus on the second world war and the Holocaust.

Through the changes in comic studies and graphic narratives, overtime we can also see how the mode of communication has changed. In recent time we have seen the way of communication has become so less troublesome. Now days we all are connected through social media like, Whatsapp, Instagram, facebook etc. Earlier, people used to send letters to each other, which was time consuming but now a large space is connected through social media. Even access to any recent news has also become easy. We don’t have to wait for newspapers to receive news, everything is available online. It also has a very profound impact in literature also, in early times, reading books or getting a copy of a book used to be costly. It more or less used to be for certain section of people. Now, most of the books are accessible online, also the reading audience has increased. People are also getting educated with passing time. It has kind of become a norm to know how to handle social media or the use of short forms like IDK, CFA, X, IYKYK etc, or else someone is not considered as a part of a so called “society”.

As we know everything comes with its consequences. In this fast-paced world, where social media is the backbone of communication, also has its drawbacks. For example, the cybercrime, or the online frauds that are in the front page of the newspapers. However, to conclude, the way of communication may have developed over time, we might have come to wireless services of everything, but these advantages are also making us robotic or a slave to machines.

Muna Madan, a Nepali epic, tells the story of Muna and Madan, two young lovers from a poor family in a rural Nepalese village. It depicts the struggles, sacrifices, and hardships of life for those who are forced to make difficult choices in order to survive. In addition to its emotional impact, I employ the use of pathos in Muna Madan serves a larger social commentary. Pathos involves the aesthetics of emotions and excavates how audience-focused discourse is persuasive. Through the use of pathos, Devkota is able to convey a sense of empathy and understanding towards these people and to draw attention to their plights. Emotions are not just personal experiences but are shaped by social and cultural contexts, and they can reveal important insights into power dynamics and social structures. By employing the key ideas expressed by Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, bell hooks, and Sara Ahmed, I flesh out the emotional appeal of the epic and finally explore how Devkota creates an aesthetic effect and draws attention to social discourse, and advocates for change in the epic.

This study examines the nexus of supernaturalism, nationalism, and the concept of "space of memory" in cross-national East Asian horror films, offering a critical analysis of the narrative in the 2024 film "Exhuma" (Excavate The Grave). Set against the backdrop of post-WWII Korea, the movie follows the actions of an elderly Korean Feng Shui master and a young shaman as they unite their forces to combat a curse left by the Japanese onmyōji along the 38th Parallel. Their objective is twofold: to thwart the historical curse and to safeguard Korea's future from the shadows of its past. Using varied filmmaking techniques of the horror genre and transhistorical perspectives, "Exhuma" intricately weaves together forgotten generational and cross-border memories, official narratives, and surreal visions of the Korean Peninsula's historical myth, creating a narrative tapestry that facilitates the healing of historical traumas. By leveraging the "Feng Shui" elements, the film not only critiques the established boundaries and societal norms but also blurs the line between suppressed communal memory and official documents using the unique technique of horror movie storytelling, thereby opening up new avenues for introspection and societal critique within the realm of East Asian cinema.

The 1950s & 60s saw the emergence of the Beat Generation literary movement, which questioned social conventions and encouraged a new generation to pursue unusual avenues for self-expression. Jim Morrison, the iconic front man of the Doors, was profoundly influenced by the writings of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Michael McClure. Morrison's early exposure to Beat literature influenced the formation of his distinct aesthetic perspective. Beat themes of existentialism, rebellion against conformity, and a quest for spiritual enlightenment struck a chord with Morrison and became essential elements of his lyrical and poetic expressions. The research employs a comparative analysis of key Beat texts and Morrison's lyrical poetry to identify thematic parallels and stylistic influences. It also sheds light on the impact of the Beat Generation's rejection of societal constraints on Morrison’s experimentation with tabooed or forbidden subjects. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the essay provides a comprehensive understanding of the symbiotic relationship between Beat Generation literature and Jim Morrison's artistic evolution. In short, this article critically traces the influences of the Beat Generation in the writings of Morrison.

1942 – 1945 were very important years in the history of India and Japan. For India, these years were the height of their anti-colonial struggle and what it meant to be Indian. Japan, too, strove to create a new image of themselves. They wished to recast themselves as the ‘spiritual’ and cultural ‘liberators’ of Asia where western imperialism would be banished and all of Asia would ‘Co-Prosper’. Evidence may be found in the Meiji Pledge of 1868, which sought to promote “Knowledge [that would] be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule”. There was a rapidly growing discourse that positioned Japan as the “guardian and protector of Asia” against the West.

The paper traces the historical circumstances of World War II and Japan’s Asia campaigns during the war and argues that the Japanese Imperial Army’s invasion of India - transformed how Japan was perceived in India. The paper tries to uncover this using the personal and collective memories of and about wartime Japan in India as portrayed in Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya’s novel Love in The Time of Insurgency (originally published as Yuruingam in 1960) and Eastern Kire’s Mari (2010). These narrations specifically focus on the Japanese invasion of North East India during the Second World War. Using theories of memory studies, the paper will study how identity and belonging is continuously constructed, deconstructed and re-constructed by nations, governments, soldiers, citizens in and from Japan and India.

I argue that these narratives also outline the nature of the political discourse in 1940s India, drawing attention to shifting loyalties in support of or opposition to participation in the Second World War. Using literary and historical testimonies from multi-generational sources, this paper also unearths the ideas of nationhood and nationalism that existed in the era. It questions how the ideas of nation’, ‘nationalism’, ‘freedom’ and ‘patriotism’ prevailed in the era. I study these ideas using Rabindranath Tagore’s conceptualisation of Japan, Pan-Asianism and Nationalism, specially focussing on his essays Nationalism in India and Nationalism in Japan. The paper demonstrates how Tagore’s ideas of nationalism may be in contrast with the transforming social, political and cultural policies in the same era, especially propounded by Okakura in his text The Ideals of The East. The paper also briefly tracks the history of Japan and India encounters – through Indian historical and literary archives.

Comparative Literature has much evolved since it was first broached, so much so that there are sub disciplines studied within it globally. One such classification is Comparative Indian Literature or CIL. Given the vast geography and unparalleled diversity of India, the availability of several languages and their respective literatures opens new doors to comparison and comparative analysis. An Indian classical dancer such as a Kathak artiste who performs all over India gets to breathe and live this literature on stage. While performing in Kolkata, one can't avoid taking up a piece by Tagore and while performing in Vrindavan, most dancers take up a Shloka on Krishna.

As a typical achievement of the Sinicization of Buddhism, the myth of Nezha's "taking root and settling down" in China has gone through a long process. To put it simply, it originated from India, took shape in Buddhism, and thrived in Taoism. The god Nezha entered China along with the eastward spread of Buddhism. He was the son of Vaiśravaṇa, the Heavenly King of the North. Initially, his image was merely that of an inconspicuous Dharma-protecting god. Although there were records about him as early as the Northern Liang period, his stories were not widely circulated. During the conflict of foreign cultures, Taoism took the initiative to carry out "localization" transformation on him. Consequently, Nezha gradually evolved from the fierce Hindu Yaksha god and Buddhist Dharma-protecting god into a young sea god wearing a "red bellyband" who was adored by the Chinese public. Stories such as Nezha's Adventure in the Sea, His Battle with Shi Ji, His Returning Flesh to His Mother and Bones to His Father, and His Rebirth with Lotus Roots basically took shape. Meanwhile, the fictional mythological figure Nezha was historicized by novelists in the Ming and Qing Dynasties as the vanguard officer in the campaign against King Zhou of Shang. With the body of a young child, he took on the historical mission of overthrowing the Yin Dynasty and assisting the Zhou Dynasty, becoming a significant part in historical romances. Eventually, the stories of Nezha were finalized. From Hindu and Buddhist scriptures to Taoist literature, and then to the folk literature works in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, the stories of Nezha gradually became richer and more complete, and his character image also became fuller and more vivid, embodying both Buddhist and Taoist features, while also containing cultural elements such as Confucian ethics and folk beliefs. Although Nezha was initially recorded in early Buddhist literature as an attachment to Vaiśravaṇa, the mythological stories of Nezha finally completed the process of Sinicization and localization through Taoization and historicization, and the image of Nezha has also become an iconic cultural symbol of China.

Bao Daizhi Outwits by the Chalk Circle is a typical legal drama written by Li Xingfu, 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. However, current academic research on Klabund's adaptation remains relatively inadequate. 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.

On November 18, 2024, The New Yorker's FICTION column published a piece by Han Kang, excerpted from her novel 'We Do Not Part' and eventually rewritten into the short story 'Heavy Snow'. As one of the most important literary publications in the United States and even worldwide, The New Yorker occupies a pivotal position in contemporary world literature. The publication of Han Kang's work at this juncture aims to introduce readers in the English-speaking world to the works of the Korean Nobel Prize winner and to realize the exchange between different cultures, making the adaptation of 'We Do Not Part' worthy of further study. Han Kang's work often explores complex, multi-layered psychological and emotional dynamics, uses multiple perspectives, circular digressions, fragmented or even disjointed narrative structures, and focuses on the mood and atmosphere of the characters rather than traditional plot development. Editors unfamiliar with these traditions may attempt to make the narrative more 'linear' or 'coherent' for Western readers by selectively simplifying or removing plot points. More importantly, Han Kang uses many metaphors to depict her personal painful experiences and national traumatic memories. The heart of 'We Do Not Part' is the Jeju Island Incident on April 3, which deeply affected Koreans, and it is Han Kang's mission to record this period of history, which is also an important reason why she was awarded Nobel laureates in Literature. In the revised version of 'Heavy Snow', not only were Han Kang's distinctive personal characteristics lost, but also dilutes and weakens the historical weight of “한(a deep existential pain unique to Korean identity)” , which is the most important element of the original, and recontextualizes it in a way that conforms to the Western narrative framework. As can be seen in 'Heavy Snow', the process of adaptation is also a process of balancing readability and cultural specificity, as the editors of The New Yorker, in their efforts to make the text accessible and universal, have unintentionally culturally transposed Han Kang's work and literarily colonized it as Oriental literature - non-Western works must be reworked to fit into the established categories of Western literature.While the editors may be well-intentioned in their efforts to attract a wider audience to the Nobel Prize-winning works, the nature of the adaptation significantly undermines the richness and depth of the original, making it necessary to take a more critical look at Western adaptations of Eastern literature as well as the delicate balance between cultural specificity and wider accessibility in a globalized literary landscape.

The combination of history and literature helps people build a bridge between the past and the present, the reality and the imagination. Nowadays, historical fiction is experiencing a global renaissance. Outside the Western world, the “Oriental Memory” is also increasingly embedded in the background context of world-historical fiction. This development highlights the necessity for a holistic comprehension of the historical fiction genre within the framework of contemporary globalization. It demands a reconstruction of its evolutionary path and current look, while also reflecting on ourselves and anchoring and constructing our national identities. Despite the significant increase in both the number of studies on historical fiction and the publication of guides to this genre, most of these works remain constrained by entrenched stereotypes, demonstrating a relative insularity and a lag in addressing contemporary developments. The defectives are mainly reflected in two aspects: the deep-rooted Western centrism and the lack of a global vision to examine the development of historical fiction in different cultures by parallel comparison. Within the discourse framework established by canonical texts, the category of “World” is frequently conflated with “West” or even narrowly defined as “Europe,” while Oriental works, which have evolved along distinct historical trajectories, are often marginalized. In literary criticism, existing studies tend to operate within segregated paradigms, dividing discussions between West and East, English and non-English literatures, and among different countries and regions. This fragmented approach lacks a cohesive global perspective and a unifying methodological framework in Novel Typology, which would facilitate an integrative analysis of these diverse literary traditions. Comparative literary studies of world-historical fiction frequently remain confined to single comparisons with Western historical fiction, focusing on how Western historical fiction has influenced the emergence of “modern historical fiction” in other cultures. For example, in China, despite an intuitive recognition that many works representing the pinnacle of our literary achievement are explicitly “historical,” the concept of the “historical fiction” is one of imported goods. This dichotomy has led to “A disjuncture between modern and ancient historical fiction in China, resulting in what might be described as two distinct yet unrelated traditions of Chinese historical fiction.” This narrow perspective not only obstructs a comprehensive understanding of the diversity and complexity of world-historical fiction but also constrains the recognition and appreciation of the value embedded in historical fiction and even historical traditions within different Eastern and Western cultural contexts. Current research urgently requires more cosmopolitan approaches to transcend regional, cultural, and civilizational boundaries.

Hu Shi, as an important figure in modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history, holds profound significance in his writings and reflections on the European Renaissance. Through an in-depth study of The Diary of Hu Shi and his other works, this paper explores Hu Shi’s engagement with, understanding of, and the impact of the European Renaissance on his own intellectual and cultural practices. During his studies abroad, Hu Shi systematically interpreted the essence of the Renaissance through reading works such as Renaissance by Edith Helen Sichel, with a particular focus on the rise of vernacular languages during the Renaissance and its significance for the formation of modern nations. He believed that the Renaissance was not only a revival of literature and art but also a comprehensive transformation of thought, culture, society, and politics, a view that deeply influenced his thinking on the modernization of Chinese culture.

Hu Shi drew parallels between the European Renaissance and the Chinese New Culture Movement, proposing the concept of “China’s Renaissance” in an attempt to drive cultural change in China by learning from European experiences. His advocacy for the vernacular Chinese movement was partly inspired by the linguistic transformation during the Renaissance, emphasizing the use of language reform to popularize national culture and enhance national consciousness, thereby achieving cultural modernization. This idea is not only reflected in his literary theories but also permeates his overall planning and practice of the New Culture Movement.

However, Hu Shi’s interpretation of the Renaissance was not a direct adoption of Western experiences but was combined with the historical and contemporary context of China. He emphasized the “foresight and historical continuity” of intellectual leaders, striving to build an effective connection between modern civilization and China’s traditional civilization. Although Hu Shi’s discourse on “China’s Renaissance” has certain limitations, its role in promoting the modernization of Chinese culture cannot be ignored. By drawing analogies with the European Renaissance, Hu Shi provided important theoretical support for the New Culture Movement and influenced subsequent reflections on the path of cultural change in China.

The Chinese experimental opera adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays have become a unique phenomenon of cross-cultural exchange, which not only demonstrates the deep fusion of Chinese and Western theatre cultures, but also promotes the combination of the traditional art of xiqu with modern aesthetic concepts. By analyzing the experimental Peking opera “King Lear”, the experimental opera “Who is Macbeth?” and the experimental kunqu “I, Hamlet”, this article discusses the unique value and significance of these works in cross-cultural exchange. These works bring audiences a refreshing theater-going experience through unique Chinese-style performances, post-modern presentations of traditional opera elements, and deep linkage between Chinese and Western culture and thinking—firstly, the performance structure, stage design and vocal style employ rich Chinese representations in their adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays; secondly, the metatheatrical devices, such as solo performer and play-within-play structure, express their postmodern reinterpretations of traditional xiqu; thirdly, the Eastern and Western character linkage and similar identity exploration show the cultural connection and common value in different backgrounds. Through the unique Chinese-style performance, the post-modern presentation, and the deep linkage between Chinese and Western theaters, Chinese experimental opera brings the audience a brand new experience and provides a useful path for the innovative practice of xiqu.

The introduction of the discourse of “civilization” in late Qing Dynasty promoted a transformation of literary concepts and practices. As a key figure in the dissemination of “civilization theory” in modern China, Liang Qichao’s changing views on civilization influenced the evolution of his literary values. From the Hundred Days Reform(1898) to the years his exiled in Japan, Liang was deeply influenced by the civilizational theories of Fukuzawa Yukichi, the father of Japanese Enlightenment thought, who advocated for the development of “Western civilization”. Liang applied this framework to guide literary reform, assigning the novel with the mission to create “new citizens”, emphasizing its educational and enlightening functions while downplaying its entertainment or leisure purposes. This shift led to the elevation of the “novel” and “drama” as literary genres. After returning to China in 1912, Liang persistently reflected on and revised his earlier views on civilization, achieving a transformation from a singular to a plural view of civilization, from a hierarchical theory of civilizations to a harmonious one, from an uncritical adherence to evolutionary theory to a more reflective stance on it, and from a focus on scientificism to an emphasis on “individualism” rooted in human nature.In terms of literary cultural values, Liang’s views evolved from an admiration of Western modern civilization to a return to Chinese classical culture.Regarding the social value orientation of literature, his literary focus shifted from “intellectual enlightenment” to “emotional enlightenment”, and from “the mass governance” to “the individual life”. As a result, the genre of “poetry”, which emphasized “emotional education”, was elevated to the highest position in literature. Liang’s later insights into the modern elements within Chinese classical poetry, his emphasis on the ethnic, historical, and literary significance of poetic language, and his predictions regarding the development of vernacular poetry all provided valuable perspectives for the development of modern Chinese poetry, which warrant further study.

The finiteness of language, that is, the problem of “linguistic negation” has always been the focus of research in both Chinese and Western academic circles, which actually involves the understanding and grasping of the way of discourse between Chinese and Western literature and even civilization, but at present, there is still much room for exploring the comparative research on the theoretical contents of the two. In the 1940s and 1950s, Maurice Blanchot systematically discussed his views on literary language in a number of books and articles, and constructed a unique view of literary language. Later, Blanchot's theory of language provided an ideological reference for Roland Barthes' proposal of zero-degree writing, and Barthes had an important influence on the creation and criticism of Western post-structuralist and post-modernist literature in the 20th century. And all of this is, ultimately, a reflection and breakthrough of the 20th century Western view of language and discourse under logocentrism and phonocentrism. However, all these attempts have yet to break away from the barrier of “language” to solve the problem of the finiteness of language. As a pioneer of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida once favored Chinese characters in his deconstruction of logocentrism, and emphasized in Writing and Difference the possibilities of Chinese culture in transcending logocentrism and phonocentrism. In fact, just like Derrida’s viewpoint, China has already proposed a way to solve the problem of the finiteness of language by breaking out of the linguistic framework as early as Confucius, that is, in the Book of Changes-Xi Ci I, Confucius put forward the idea of “Setting up an Image to Express Meanings” to show his aim of making up for the inadequacy of the language in terms of representation by means of images or imagery, which is obviously a solution to the problem of the finiteness of language in a way that is different from that of the Western tradition. This is obviously a different solution to the problem of the finiteness of language from the Western tradition. This study summarizes the above-mentioned ways of solving the problem of “linguistic negation” in the Chinese and Western traditions into two paths: “endogenous” and “exogenous”, and presents the differences and similarities between the two paths through a comparative analysis of them, pointing out the value of the Chinese literary theory’s discourse of “Setting up an Image to Express Meanings” to the Western philosophical tradition of language, so as to provide the necessary theoretical support for the mutual understanding and learning of Chinese and Western discourse and civilizations.

The perception of the independence of ancient Greek civilization and the belief that Western civilization originates solely from ancient Greece are among the historical foundations of Western superiority and Eurocentrism. However, ancient Greek civilization was not immune to the influences of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. The spread of civilizations across regions occurs through the mobility of their members, and mutual exchange and learning between civilizations is a fundamental law of their development. Ancient Greece was never geographically isolated from the East. The Eastern civilizations around the Mediterranean continuously contributed to the rise of ancient Greece through trade, migration, and other exchanges, laying the foundation for the flourishing of ancient Greek civilization. The formation of this brilliant civilization was never a product of isolation. Efforts to obscure the influence of Eastern civilizations on ancient Greece, to disparage Eastern civilizations, and to disregard historical facts must be addressed and clarified. The wheel of history, driven by exchange and mutual learning, turns alongside the progression of time. Historical truths must not be distorted by constructs such as "civilizational superiority" or "civilizational centrality," and ancient Greek civilization is no exception.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the history of civilization as a kind of "new history" was established in Europe, absorbed by Japan, and then introduced to China by Liang Qichao and other scholars of the Qing Dynasty, attracting widespread attention in the academic circles. 21st century, a large number of works on the history of Western civilization have been translated and published in Chinese, and the Western trend of thought continues to influence the public's cognition of the development of civilization, and Western scholars have always dominated the discourse on the history of civilization.At the same time, the attention of the academic circles to the writing of the history of civilization has been increasing, and the works on the history of civilization written by Chinese scholars have been published one after another, and the theoretical researches have been deepened continuously. from the 19th century to the present day, the writing of the history of Chinese civilization has gone through three major stages of aphasia of writing, taking the path of the West, and breaking out of the West, and has continuously constructed a discourse system of the view of civilization with Chinese characteristics. However, it cannot be ignored that the writing of the history of Chinese civilization started late and had a short history of development, and there are still many problems, such as: omission of historical facts and insufficient understanding of the origin of Chinese civilization; applying Western theories and following the logic of Western civilization history writing in terms of writing ideas, definition of "civilization", phasing of the era, and other core concepts; lack of the concept of writing the history of civilization for mutual benefit; and neglecting the concept of writing the history of different civilizations. In the absence of the concept of mutual learning of civilizations, the intermingling and mutual appreciation among different civilizations are neglected; the writing field is limited, and no attention has been paid to the writing of the history of Chinese scientific civilization, the history of Chinese minority civilizations, and other topics.

Abstrast

This article explores the development of comparative research in Uzbek literary studies, focusing on its historical evolution and the contributions of key scholars. Initiated in the latter half of the 20th century, comparative research has advanced significantly, incorporating the works of prominent Uzbek authors in a global literary context. The study highlights Navoi's "Khamsa," literary relations between Uzbek and world literature, and significant figures such as Abdullah Qahhor and Jack London. It examines genre-specific studies, such as autobiographical confessions, through a comparative analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Leo Tolstoy, revealing universal themes of morality, self-reflection, and cultural values. The article underscores the significance of comparative literature as a method to deepen understanding of national and global literary heritage.

Angela Carter is famous for her subversive writings, her exuberant allusiveness to fairy tales and Gothic tales, and above all, her dazzling postmodernist techniques in bringing everything together. Incorporating Gothic and postmodernist techniques, Carter’s fairy-tale writings demonstrate her unparalleled originality and wide-ranging literary influences. While postmodern Gothic characterizes Carter’s generic style, fairy tale constitutes the structural principle.

Noticeably, Carter’s postmodern Gothic fairy tales are permeated with Oriental elements and references. Based on close reading and contextualization, this thesis sets to extract the “Orient” from Carter’s postmodern Gothic fairy tales, probing into its formation and interpreting its significance. On the one hand, as a literary element, the Orient is historically interwoven with the Gothic literary tradition in presenting Western imagination of the other. On the other hand, with the rise of postmodernism and critique of Orientalism, this “Orient” constructed by Eurocentrism was and is still under deconstruction. Given that Carter is highly conscious of both critical theories and her own creative writings, her (re)presentation of the Orient comes not as a mimicry of tradition, but a deliberate divergence from the traditional orientalist discourse which allows further critical reflection of it.

In order to address the issue in a more specific context, this thesis also looks into Carter’s individual perspective with special attention to her experience in Japan and the self-professed political commitment of her writings, aiming to qualify Carter’s (re)representation of the Orient and her conscious engagement with orientalist discourse by writing back in a subversive way. The Orient is aesthetically significant to Carter’s postmodern Gothic style, and most importantly, it is politically relevant to Carter’s “decolonialising” project and “demythologising business”.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, an English-language travelogue about China's food, cities, and customs and culture published by British author Fuchsia Dunlop in 2008, has sparked a strong reaction overseas, and is of great significance to the international dissemination of Chinese culture, especially Chinese secular culture. Currently, domestic and international research on the book focuses on translation studies and cross-cultural communication paths, and little has been done on its study of Chinese secular culture writing. However, it is precisely Chinese secular culture that has triggered Fuchsia, as a cultural "other", to open up multiple reflections on cross-cultural identity, thus promoting the deeper dissemination of Chinese secular culture. This paper takes the Chinese secular culture writing in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper as the object of study, summarizes the contents and characteristics of Chinese secular culture writing, and then explores the significance of Chinese secular culture for the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture as well as cross-cultural identity under the wave of globalization. The paper is divided into three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction introduces the object and background of the study, the current status of research at home and abroad, as well as the research methodology and significance. The main text consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 first clarifies the content and value of Chinese secular culture, and elaborates on the practical possibilities of Chinese secular culture for the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture; Chapter 2 summarizes the Chinese secular culture written in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which includes dietary culture, urban culture, and rural customs, and analyses what kind of cross-cultural reflections these secular cultures have triggered in the author; and Chapter 3 goes on to explore the characteristics and cultural significance of Chinese popular culture in cross-cultural communication. At the level of value identity, Fuchsia's attitude towards Chinese secular culture, including food culture, has changed from "shock" to "recognition"; at the level of cross-cultural identity, Fuchsia has pursued and rebuilt her self-worth in the process of learning Chinese culture, and completed a journey of cultural roots in the perspective of globalization, and confirmed her own cultural identity in the context of globalization, and re-recognized herself. In terms of cross-cultural identity, Fuchsia traces and rebuilds her self-worth in the process of learning Chinese culture, completes a cultural root-searching journey under the perspective of globalization, and confirms her own cultural identity in the context of globalization to know herself again. The conclusion summarizes the whole study and draws conclusions. This paper argues that the writing of Chinese secular culture in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper highlights the unique value of secular culture in Sino-foreign cultural exchanges, such as its popularity, acceptability, wide dissemination, and two-way interaction, in order to stimulate the thinking and transformation of the cultural identity of the "other", to make the Chinese culture deeply involved in the identity thinking under the tide of globalization, to promote the deep-level dissemination of Chinese culture, and at the same time, to confirm her own cultural identity in the context of globalization, and to re-know herself. This will enable Chinese culture to be deeply involved in the identity thinking under the wave of globalization, promote the deep-level dissemination of Chinese culture, and at the same time enable Chinese readers to re-examine their own cultural traditions in a roundabout way from an external perspective. This is of great academic value and practical significance for exploring the choice of content and the tendency of the path of Chinese culture spreading overseas.

This paper examines modernity through Tash Aw’s portrayal of intra-Asian migrant subject-making, where diaspora is reconstructed within the evolving narrative of neoliberal urbanity. By centering Malaysian migrants as neo-urban dwellers in Shanghai, Five Star Billionaire deconstructs diasporic paradigms, foregrounding urban nostalgia as the emotional labor of navigating the simultaneity of Asian modernity and late capitalism. Through the layering of uneven temporalities onto Shanghai’s urban fabric, the novel envisions a diasporic futurity—where homecoming is both desired and deferred, modernity is continually disarticulated and rearticulated through nostalgia. Aw’s deconstruction thus reframes diaspora within a broader Global South affiliation, mapping Shanghai’s precarious position in the world-system.

Aw visualizes how late capitalism “lives” in Shanghai by paralleling his five characters’ fragmented and classed socio-economic conditions. By embedding their nostalgia within Shanghai’s materiality, Aw reconstructs diasporic longing as a force complicit in exclusionary urban belonging. Rather than enabling resistance, nostalgia turns inward, becoming self-referential or melancholic mourning. For Justin, nostalgia is narcissistic yet politically precarious—it distances him from his family’s “across Asia” real estate expansions but remains entangled in class hierarchies. His aestheticized vision of longtang and slums romanticizes spaces of historical erasure and labor exploitation, reinforcing urban nostalgia’s complicity in producing “old Shanghai” as a commodified, exoticized spectacle. Meanwhile, Phoebe’s performative cosmopolitanism and Yinghui’s entrepreneurial feminism exemplify neoliberalism’s absorption of nostalgia, where longing and belonging is reframed into narratives of self-reinvention and elite mobility. When situated within Shanghai’s materiality, nostalgia’s fragility is weaponized—reinforcing elitism, regionalism, and a cosmopolitanism that is paradoxically inclusive and exclusionary.

The characters’ nostalgia thus illuminates the city’s historical negotiations, where past, present, and future are relentlessly rehearsed and reproduced in unresolved tension. Aw’s narrative of “reinvention of the self” parallels the city’s continuous reinvention of modernity. Through this dialogue, Aw captures Shanghai’s urbanity—a resilient living force that nostalgically longs for its cosmopolitan glamour of the 1930s while simultaneously navigating semi-colonial remnants, socialist experiments, condensed modernization, and neoliberal accelerations. By situating Shanghai within a glocalized framework while downplaying its national identity, Aw suggests the potential for an urban identity that transcends temporal zones and national boundaries. Yet, the unresolved trajectories of his characters reflect his ambivalence toward Shanghai’s metropolitan future.

Drawing on WReC, Jameson, Benjamin, and Boym, this paper challenges the unhistorical “achieved” Western modernity by presenting geopolitical variants born in the hyper-localities of Asia. By interrogating diaspora and metropolis “simultaneous” with Asian modernity, this paper examines the full “worlding” of capital as positioned within “world-literature.” Situating Shanghai within a comparative lens, this study traces the localized expressions of modernity across East and West, considering their distinct cultural histories, modernization trajectories, ideological constructs, and neoliberal conditioning.

Literary critics have not often shown interest in Rabindranath Tagore’s views on Buddhism. This has resulted in his most outstanding Buddhist drama not being fully explored. Chandalika differs greatly from the other Buddhist dramas in the world in the depth of its Buddhist view. 　

Tagore’s Chandalika is based on “Sardulkarna-Abadan,” which focuses on an orthodox Buddhist concept of the ascetic path to self-emancipation. Tagore changes the focus and dramatizes a Bodhisattva path which prioritizes the liberation of all sentient beings without seeking self-emancipation.

In “Sardulkarna Abadan” Prakriti who is fascinated by Ananda’s beauty asks her mother to use her magical power to allure him. Thanks to Buddha’s help, Ananda goes back to his temple. In Tagore’s story Ananda comes back to Prakriti for her emancipation.

Ananda says to her, “Give me water” which suggests his respect for an outcaste girl, who belongs to the most dehumanized caste. His words cause Prakriti’s awakening. They also arouse in her a burning longing for him. Prakriti wants to make an offer of worship for him, but he does not come. Under her mother’s magic spell, Ananda is forced to turn toward her. Using magical power is like churning mud, but Prakriti believes that mud can never be purified without churning it. This mud signifies the walls of categorization and segmentation. Tagore describes Ananda’s anger as well as suffering and conflict because his anger should destroy the mud walls which distinguish self from others, the fetter of sacred and secular dualism so that the falsehood of Prakriti’s birth will be shattered.

Ananda’s calling makes her believe that she has boundless pure water within her. When the handful of water she gave to him mingles with his holy vow it becomes one fathomless boundless sea, which washes away her fate as a Chandalini, a curse worse than the gallows. She believes that her mortal pain is the gift she offers for Ananda’s vow. Anand suffers from intense fire, but he has to incorporate her sufferings for her emancipation.

In the end he comes to her, his body bearing the load of the soul’s defeat. Ananda was dragged down to her earth, but she believes that without his fall and defeat she can never be raised. He can never be freed when she is not. Ananda’s passage to the Bodhisattva is interrelated with Prakriti’s emancipation.

Ananda’s coming to her creates Prakriti’s new life as well as his release from the mud wall of segregation. Ananda’s love awakens Prakriti’s revelation and her self-abandoning worship for Ananda, which helps Ananda break the fetters of his ascetic approach and take a step toward a bodhisattva’s enlightenment.

“Madame Butterfly,” a story published by American author John Luther Long in 1898 in The Century Magazine, was adapted into a play by David Belasco in 1900, and then into an opera by Puccini in 1904. As David Henry Huang criticized the portrayal of the Japanese woman in “Madame Butterfly” as a representation of Western Orientalism in his play M. Butterfly (1986), the image of Madame Butterfly, a submissive Japanese woman who was willing to take her life for the white man she loved, had dominated Western narratives of Japanese women in the 20th century. The “Madame Butterfly”-style romance between a Caucasian and an Asian woman became popular as Geisha movies among American Hollywood film offerings following the second world war.

On the other hand, other “Madame Butterfly”-style romances were produced and performed in Japanese theaters at the beginning of the 20th century. Exemplifying this trend is the “Morgan O-Yuki” story based on the life of Yuki Kato, a geisha who married George Mogan, a nephew of J.P. Morgan, in 1904. The first “Morgan O-Yuki” novel was published in 1902 under the title Morgan O-Yuki 40,000 Yen in which an American man, desperately in love with O-Yuki, attempts to kill himself for her. Thereafter, many writers wrote on this topic and described the sensational relationship between O-Yuki and Morgan. Most importantly, the “Morgan O-Yuki” performed by Fubuki Koshiji appeared as the first Japanese musical at the Japanese Imperial Theater in 1951, functioning as iconic of the new Japanese woman at a time when Japan was under the occupation of the United States. In this presentation, I will examine how the interracial romance of an American man and a geisha was presented differently in the United States and Japan and utilized for differing purposes. This comparison will shed light on cultural norms and barriers of the time as well as the ideological complexities embedded in such interracial love stories. Throughout the discussion, I wish to present “Morgan O-Yuki” stories as Japanese counter-narratives of “Madame Butterfly.”

Manga versions of Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama have been published in over 80 countries and the total number of volumes sold is over 260 million as of 2024. The animated versions have been broadcast in over 80 countries. In this presentation, the influences of many countries on Dragon Ball and the modifications of the English animated version will be examined.

Originally, the setting of Dragon Ball (Weekly Shonen Jump, 1984-1995) was in China. According to an interview with Akira Toriyama, the origin of Dragon Ball was The Journey to the West, an old Chinese story, and the main character’s name is Son Goku after the original main character of The Journey to the West. Other characters’ names are Oolong, Yamcha, and Tenshinhan, which are Chinese food and drinks’ names. The dragon who possessed the dragon balls is called Shenron. The title Dragon Ball is named after the Hong Kong film Enter the Dragon (1973) featuring Bruce Lee.

On the other hand, in Dragon Ball, it is revealed that when one collects seven dragon balls, one’s wish can come true, which was inspired by the old Japanese story Nansou Satomi Hakkenden, in which one’s wish can come true when one collects eight balls.

Thus, in the first place, Dragon Ball was based on old Chinese and Japanese stories. After that, however, as the story goes on, many characters appear whose names are vegetables such as Nappa[leaf vegetable], Vegita[vegetable], Cacarrot[carrot], and musical instruments such as Piccolo, Tambourine, and colours such as Blue and Purple. Furthermore, not only earthlings but also Gods in heaven, a hermit, a hermit cat and many extraterrestrials, such as Saiyans and Namecks, appear.

The world and the narrative space of the story grows wider and wider as it proceeds. The first theme itself, in which Goku wants to collect seven dragon balls, changes into other themes of battling, friendships and family love. Thus, the initial Chinese influence in Dragon Ball weakens as the story unfolds, and the work expands in the dimensions of space, narrative, and character naming.

Turning now to the anime version based on the original manga, the English version of the anime aired in the United States has several modifications to the original story. First, for example, in the original, Goku trains in kung fu, but in the American animated version, he trains in karate. The scenery is Chinese in nature, which seems strange to a Japanese viewer, but in the U.S. they wanted to emphasize Japaneseness. Several other alterations were made, including the addition of a chair to cover Goku's front in the scene where he bathes naked, and the cutting of the scene where Goku reveals to Bulma his age of 14 years, and the unnatural cutting of the scene where the pig Oolong transforms into Bulma and tricks Kame-Sen'nin (Turtle hermit).

This presentation will examine the influences and worldviews of Dragon Ball, starting in China and expanding not only to Japan but also to other countries, the universe, and the heavens. Besides, to examine the changes and modifications conducted to the animated version shown in the U.S., the background of Dragon Ball and the acceptance of this work in the world, especially in the U.S. will be revealed. We can know how pop culture of one country can cross borders in a specific way.

Comparative literature traditionally refers to the academic study of literary works written in different languages, often comparing works in native and non-native languages. The criteria for such comparisons are as diverse as those found in general literary studies.

The concept of tojisha-hihyo (patient criticism) may be unfamiliar to many. This emerging field embodies an aspect of comparative literature. Tojisha-hihyo is a term coined by the Japanese psychiatrist Saito Tamaki to describe the presenter's academic work. To grasp the essence of tojisha-hihyo, one must first understand pathography.

Pathography is an academic discipline where psychiatrists analyze the literary and artistic works, as well as the life histories of their creators, to identify the source of genius within their mental health conditions. The term "pathos" means "disease" in Greek. In recent years, a new subfield called "salutography" has developed within Japanese pathography. Salutography examines how brilliant individuals, despite tendencies toward mental illness, achieve "salutogenesis" through their creative endeavors. "Saluto" means "health" in Greek. This modern perspective has indeed enriched pathography.

The presenter’s practice of tojisha-hihyo is based on salutography. While psychiatrists have historically offered their interpretations of literature and art with reference to mental health, the presenter—as a person with autism spectrum disorder—expressed his views by drawing upon knowledge about mental health. This approach incorporates comparative literary methods, examining works in various languages. Through this exploration, new possibilities for comparative literature are revealed.

The presenter’s approach to tojisha-hihyo can be divided into three types. The first is "comprehensive tojisha-hihyo," which comprehensively expresses the presenter's worldview as someone with autism spectrum disorder through literature and art. The second is "individual research tojisha-hihyo," which employs traditional literary research methods to examine autism spectrum traits in the works and life stories of various creators. The third is "dialogical tojisha-hihyo," which interviews other individuals with autism spectrum disorder to understand their interpretations of literature and art, thereby analyzing the aesthetics of their reception.

This presentation will focus on the ways in which heterolingual texts reveal their author’s rapport with the languages they use and speak, through a case study of Cia Rinne’s work. Heterolingualism refers to the practice of using multiple languages simultaneously within a single text (Grutman, 1997), also referred to as translanguaging with code-switching as the norm rather than the exception (Domokos, 2021). Louis de Saussure speaks of a “particular relationship” speakers develop with the languages they speak, based on degrees of familiarity and intimacy (Saussure, 2024). Linguist Aneta Pavlenko has stated that emotions have been severely undertheorized in the study of multilinguals (2006) and questions that arise in heterolingual literary theory may be a step in addressing this gap. Recent literature on language memoirs and linguistic autobiographies (Sampagnay, 2024) has delved into how multilingual writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Xiaolu Guo and Elif Batuman engage with their languages in narratives explicitly addressing how they learn and use their languages, and how they feel about them, but the subject matter need not be so explicit for this “relationship” to become apparent. This talk will argue that it can be glimpsed through heterolingual texts, which are capable of giving insights into their author’s linguistic autobiographies, through tone, theme, vocabulary…

Within the contemporary heterolingual poetry scene, few poets in the last years have been as vocal about their practice as the prolific Cia Rinne, who has written, curated, and performed many of her pieces around Europe and across the world. Her minimal, visual and audio pieces consist of interlingual sound play and striking list-like layouts. She has attended several interviews in which she addresses her own creative practice and motivations for her unique practice. However, these explicit accounts of her own process aren’t necessary for a reader to grasp how Rinne interacts with, relates to and considers her own multilingualism, or for the study of heterolingual texts in general. This presentation will perform a case study of Cia Rinne’s work, applying the framework of Suchet’s notion of ethos (2014) – the way in which an author implicitly presents themselves through their writing – to demonstrate some of the ways heterolingual poetry is revealing of their author’s rapport with their languages.

The presentation adopts the term “linguistic landscape” to refer to a part of a writer’s linguistic identity, how they’ve interacted with languages throughout their lives – either geographically, thematically, or contextually –, and how their own subjective experience of language contact inspires their writing.

Karolina Pavlova (1807-1893), Russia’s foremost female poet of the nineteenth century, was a polyglot writing in Russian, German and French. Her native trilingualism facilitated a fluid and performative ethno-linguistic identity at odds with the tenets of monolingual nationalism that pervaded at the time. While Pavlova has received considerable attention from feminist critics, her multilingualism remains an understudied topic. This paper addresses Pavlova’s polyglot upbringing, her multilingual romance with the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, the strategic stakes of her career as a trilingual poet and translator, the perception of her as a non-Russian by her Slavophile contemporaries, and her own conflicted attitude toward her Russianness. In a wider sense, the paper argues that the nineteenth century should be put on the map of the emergent field of literary multilingualism studies.

The interdisciplinary project Rájácummá – Kiss from the Border (2017–2018) by Niillas Holmberg, Jenni Laiti, and Outi Pieski merges environmental community art, poetry, and visual media to address themes of language contact, cultural identity, and sovereignty. Comprising eight poetic lines installed within the Deatnu River valley—the borderland between Finland and Norway—alongside eight photographs and a lithograph, the project critically examines the dynamics of Sámi self-governance and the sustainable use of land and waterways.

This work positions language as a bridge between culture and environment, emphasizing reciprocity and respect as foundational principles for life in the border region. Through its poetic and visual narratives, Rájácummá reimagines mobility and coexistence, rejecting the rigidity of national borders in favor of practices rooted in the region’s natural and cultural characteristics. By granting equal status to nature and humanity, the project advocates for a model of sustainable living informed by Sámi traditions and perspectives.

This presentation will explore how Rájácummá reflects language contact not only in its multilingual Sámi and Nordic context but also in its broader cultural and ecological implications. It highlights how literature and art can transcend linguistic and national boundaries, fostering dialogue about environmental justice, cultural resilience, and decolonial futures.

Our proposal focuses on contemporary “Basque” literature and the staging of contact between languages in a particular diglossic context, namely when the Basque-speaking community is divided along a Basque/Spanish and Basque/French border. We will question the literary and stylistic strategies of two works that respond in very different ways to the contact of different and rival idioms, caught in the competition of minor local languages and national languages with strong symbolic power on the global literature market. Frédéric Aribit’s novel Trois langues dans ma bouche (2015) highlights an example of linguistic autobiography that supports a more general reflection on the disappearance of minor languages on a global scale. The author compares the situation of the Basque language with local indigenous endangered languages. This comparison produces a hybrid writing between languages that plays on effects of sliding, polysemy, literal translation and etymological wordplay that are all ways of bringing into play the "contact" of languages. The originality of Aribit's writing consists in the maximum broadening of the contact between different languages. Basque/French bilingualism is only a starting point for the more general consideration that every language is constantly in contact with a plurality of other languages. The situation of the minor Basque language will be mirrored with a language in the process of extinction, Ayapaneco, spoken in Mexico. A stylistics anchored in wordplay and etymological roots allows other languages to emerge (Nahuatl, Taino), just as the Basque language will be imaginatively compared to Corsican and Japanese, in a form of exophony that can recall the writing of Yoko Tawada. A completely different strategy is chosen by Itxaro Borda for her truculent 100% Basque written and published in Basque in 2001 then self-translated or rather rewritten in French in 2003. This work (winner of the Euskadi Prize for Literature in 2001) is made up of a series of sarcastic texts on Basque identity, its clichés and stereotypes developed on and by the Basques. In the case of Itxaro Borda, it is the choice of self-translation as contact between two languages that is interesting. Frederik Verbeke was able to show to what extent the strict refusal of self-translation is frequent in the Basque literary field, Basque not having to rub shoulders either imaginatively or practically with Spanish or French. Although Itxaro Borda initially rejected any form of self-translation, in line with the ideological position so common in the Basque literary field, she ended up making the self-translation gesture and the contact between the dominated and the dominant language the place where she pursued her reflections on both the minoritized languages and the hypocrisy of Basque nationalism. A parody of “first contact” with a Martian also allows us to thematize the question of contact between historically and ideologically opposed idioms.

Many post-colonial authors, including Russophone ones, adopt strategies to minoritize majority languages by infusing them with realia, barbarisms, and innovative narratives. Varvara Nedeoglo’s multi-media work, however, resists easy classification within this framework. While Russian is her first and main language, her poetry presented alongside her visual art, estranges and fractures Russian through heterographics (Lock) - use of different scripts within one text with an emphasis on non-phonetic aspect of writing.

The paper will examine the use of multiple languages and scripts in Varvara Nedeoglo’s poetry. First, I’ll describe Nedeoglo’s heterographic experiments and will situate them within the broader context of linguistic and discursive changes in contemporary Russian language and literature.

For instance, typographic symbols like blank squares, tildes, and asterisk signs reflect practices of censorship and self-censorship, while Roman characters such as ‘Z’ and ‘I’ have acquired socio-political connotations tied to the war in Ukraine. Moreover, Nedeoglo’s “expanded alphabet,” which incorporates characters from minority languages such as Chukchi, Gagauz, and Komi, consciously blurs the distinction between major and minor languages.

Then, I’ll offer a close reading and translation of a few excerpts from Russkiie devochki konchaiut svobodnoi zemlei (Russian Girls Come (with/onto) Free Soil) published in 2023. One of the translation challenges stems from the central role of Slavonic languages in conveying the core themes of the volume. Modifying the Roman - or any other - script would reshape the narrative and tell a completely different story of violence, domination, and self-identification. Nedeoglo’s use of hybrid scripts counters the dominant discourse of purity revealing the inherent complexities and power differentials embedded in scripts. Her work invites a multimodal reading that merges interpretation with a purely visual engagement - an experience that should be preserved in translation.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ politico-economic writings have profoundly shaped global leftist political praxis and cultural production. In Germany, leftist writers and artists have continuously reinterpreted Marx and Engels’ theoretical texts in response to shifting political contexts, often mirroring broader historical transformations in German society. During the rise of the Nazi regime, Bertolt Brecht sought to artistically reframe Das Kommunistische Manifest as a poem, while Alexander Kluge reimagined Marx’s Das Kapital in his 2008 documentary film as a response to the global financial crises and the resurgence of capitalist contradictions. Both artists used media to evoke political emotions during times of crisis, exploring the role of media forms in mediating revolutionary affects. This paper brings Brecht and Kluge into dialogue and examines how political emotions are closely intertwined with media forms in German leftist cultural production. It focuses on the transmedial engagements that arise when Marxist theory is reworked across different media. In particular, it asks how diverse media forms serve to mediate, articulate, and disseminate political emotions within their respective historical and cultural contexts. By tracing these transmedial encounters, this paper highlights the ongoing relevance and adaptation of Marxist thought in German cultural production and its role in shaping political affect in times of crisis and transformation.

The academic community has already widely recognized the intermedia writing in the work The Unconsoled. This paper explores the relationship between the artistic philosophy and political justice conveyed by Kazuo Ishiguro in his intermedia writing. The small Central European city in the novel is plunged into an inexplicable crisis, and the citizens place high hopes on art, especially expecting the arrival of the protagonist, Ryder, to resolve this crisis. However, Ryder’s absurd experiences seem to confirm Plato’s view that art should be banished from the “Republic”. However, the exploration of various musical genres and art forms in the novel, along with its polyphonic writing and Kafkaesque experimental style, illustrates the close relationship between art and politics. The paradox of the use of art is shown in a humorous way, implying a contest between dependent art and autonomous art. The novel suggests that dependent art, represented by mass art, weakens the perceptual consciousness of the people. Commercial temptation and political manipulation lead people into a state of being unconsolable. Meanwhile, the people in crisis have already begun to develop a consciousness of change under the enlightenment of modern/postmodern music, experiencing painful metamorphosis, seeking the path to future freedom and happiness, and striving to build a just and good life.

American Fiction (2023), written and directed by Cord Jefferson and adapted from Percival Everett’s Erasure (2001), tells the story a novelist named Thelonius “Monk” Ellison whose anonymously published stereotype-catering book brings him unexpected commercial success.

As an adapted film, it exemplifies the double meaning of the verb “adapt” - to change behavior to fit in a place or a situation, or to change an artistic form to another. This article thus carries out a twofold analysis of adaptation: the adapted film not only reproduce the meta narratives in the novel, but also exhibits how Monk adapts his “not black enough” self to the stereotypical assumptions held by others concerning his race. The film can in this sense be considered as a meta-adaptation (i.e., an adaptation that highlights the concept of adaptation in itself) in which adaptation is discussed from both an intermedial perspective and a sociocultural one. The two aspects are inextricably joint as they shed light on each other. I borrow Lars Elleström’s definition of adaptation as transmediation that stresses the adapting process rather than considering it a unidirectional procedure. Correspondingly, the adaptation of a racial identity is also established not by the performer alone, but by audience’s participation with collective imagination and memories, rendering the adaptation a dialectic mechanism. The outcome of adaptation (a film adaptation of a novel/an identity performance) is not an unchanging termination. Instead, it leaves an impact on the source of adaptation (the novel/the original self identity) as it creates new meaning and opens up channels to new significance. Ultimately, this article proposes to examine adaptation as an active contributor to the weaving of a network of significance through self-reflexive mediality and self-conscious racial performance.

Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013) explores the protagonist Theo’s journey through trauma, identity formation, and ethical dilemmas, with visual imagery and the gaze as central themes. The novel intertwines the narrative of Theo’s growth with the iconic painting The Goldfinch, using art as a symbol for Theo’s internal struggles and evolving identity. Key paintings, such as The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Boy with a Skull, play significant roles in shaping Theo’s ethical consciousness.

The dynamic between Theo and the portraits he views—where the paintings seem to gaze back at him—offers a unique ethical perspective. Unlike typical subject-object gazes, these portraits engage the viewer in a reciprocal interaction, blurring the lines between observer and observed. This "gaze" becomes a metaphor for Theo’s self-examination and identity reconstruction, as the paintings challenge him to confront his past and make ethical decisions.

Portraiture, with its active gaze and spiritual resonance, guides Theo through his ethical struggles, prompting him to reevaluate his choices and develop a new sense of belonging. Through his encounters with these paintings, Theo redefines his relationship with himself and others, ultimately finding redemption and a clearer ethical path. The novel’s use of visual art suggests that the act of viewing is not passive but an active, ethical behavior that reshapes one’s identity.

This paper, informed by Nancy’s theory of artistic gaze, examines how the protagonist’s search for self-identity is mediated through visual ethics. By exploring Theo’s interactions with portraiture, this study offers a new perspective on the novel’s exploration of identity, ethics, and the power of visual culture in shaping our moral choices.

A9-7. Scriptural Reasoning and Comparative studies

In the context of the theme “Comparative Literature and Technology” of the twenty-fourth annual conference of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) from July 28 to August 1, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea, we propose a special panel entitled “Scriptural Reasoning and Comparative Literature”.

Scriptural reasoning (SR), an academic tool for people to engage in inter-faith dialogues by reading and reflecting on scriptures from all around the world, is gaining increasing significance in the contemporary era of digitalization and globalization. The importance of international communication cannot be overstated. Thus, more attention should be attached to SR since it plays a key role in cultural exchanges between different nations and regions. It also accords with the leading academic concept, “Global Humanities” which highlights interactions of humanities and arts and integration of knowledges among various disciplines through interdisciplinary methods and diverse cultural perspectives. The questions our session aims to explore include but are not limited to:

1.By analyzing the language, grammar, syntax, and meaning of scriptures from different religions, what interpretations can we arrive at that help shed new light on the classical texts?

2.How can we find the methodologies that are applicable to the inter-faith dialogues involved in scriptural reasoning? How should such methodologies be carried out in practice?

3.Inherent in the Abrahamic tradition, scriptural reasoning is usually thought to involve the studies of Jewish, Christian and Islamic scriptures. With the growing need to introduce diverse voices, how can we establish scriptural reasoning between China and the West?

In summary, centering around the above questions and beyond, this session will delve deeply into scriptures across faith boundaries and foster cultural dialogues across different religions and cultures.

In my research, I investigate how an emerging textual structure of configuring space and spatial movements in early modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean vernacular fiction grapples with established ethical frameworks from the perspective of relational literary history. I delve into the historical relationship between the textual practices of “mapping” space, especially how the “foreign” and the unknown are linguistically represented, and the material/technological practices of crafting cartography (proto-world maps) in which cultural selfhoods are both reinforced and challenged. By revealing the interconnectedness of textuality, visuality, and materiality, I examine how spatial movements conform to or contest normative ethicality and how specific imaginaries in fictional writings mobilize a new affective contour of spatiality.

How does East Asian early modern fiction as a genre destabilize the interiority of dominant cultural systems by “externalizing” and transferring “illegitimate” feelings into a geographical replica deemed as the other? In response, I reconsider how transgressive fantasy and desire are transcribed into space at the linguistic level. I illuminate how new territories of feminine subjectivity and what I call “spatialized queerness” are implied in early modern East Asian fiction, a genre that carves out a heterotopic domain of discourses in ambivalence with official morality and historiography. In addition, I address the shifting relationship between the “Sinitic Cosmopolis,” specifically the literary Sinitic as a shared written script, and vernacular languages in relation to literary cartography. How does re-examining the historicized conditions of early modern East Asian material and literary culture challenge the ways in which we habitually evaluate the center-periphery binaries?

I tackle texts such as the Qing Chinese fantasy fiction Flowers in the Mirror, the serialized Edo Japanese epic novel The Eight Dogs Chronicles, the Korean fiction Taewonji and its aftermath, as well as Water Margin and its multiple editions, sequels, and adaptations. By bringing these different yet interrelated narrative threads together, I hope to shed light on larger issues of how early modern East Asian subjects make sense of, come to terms with, and re-imagine the world beyond their familiar knowledge structure. Amidst the actual boundary-makings and invented images of space, I am inquisitive about how variegated acts of mapping topography and border-crossings complicate the gender dynamics and express both bodily and emotional “queerness” at work.

What kinds of agencies surface or become revised in the fictional narratives concerning border crossings, and what are their sociopolitical conditions or consequences? How is individual subjects’ cultural situatedness an ongoing negotiation in mobility? By bringing a “global” perspective into the analysis, I also reconsider the framework's inherent parameters while seeking new potentialities to interpret critical concepts in humanities.

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.

This study offers a comparative analysis of enlightenment and nationalism in the poems of Shin, Chae-ho （申采浩), a Korean nationalist thinker, and Lu Xun （魯迅）, a foundational figure in modern Chinese literature. It aims to explore and compare the enlightenment and nationalist ideas of these intellectuals through the unique art form of poetry, a genre that—though not dominant in their work—holds significant ideological and literary value. This research examines how themes of enlightenment and nationalism emerge in their poetry, identifying both differences and commonalities in their perspectives. Additionally, it analyzes formal elements, such as rhyme, structure, imagery, and symbolism, to provide a holistic view of their poetic expressions. Through this comparative study, the research seeks to deepen understanding of the intellectual landscapes of Korea and China and offer new insights into modern Korea-China relations.

Comparing eastern and western literary works, we examine varied forms of technologies in relation to society and politics. Through the lens of Socrates’ and Heidegger’s concept of “techne” and Taoists’ “Jixin”, our group investigate technology’s potential for revolution and corruption. Encompassing works from Victorian Britain, Ireland, China, and Singapore, our four studies focus on the complicated interrogation of technologies in the literary narratives and cultural imagination. The panel starts with a study of The Invisible Man (1897) by H.G. Wells, a Victorian prototypical sci-fi. Drawing on the alienation critique by Karl Marx and Rahel Jaeggi, this interdisciplinary study of literature and philosophy explores the motif of alienation as a loss of command caused by capitalization on knowledge and power. This foreshadows a more unsettling moral dilemma in Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones (2016), where the posthumous protagonist-narrator recalls his family’s various reactions to the power oppression from politicians with different priorities. This study explores how postmodern and artistic narratives are employed as literary techniques to navigate through the moral dilemma by integrating technology with humanitarianism. Then the panel continues with the analysis of a contemporary Chinese novel, The Seventh Day (2013) by Yu Hua, which examines how misfortunes come into being in the lives of the characters, deeply entangled in the dialectic between technology and power. It argues that this novel warns against imprudent wielding of power with technology in modern society, a reminder of prudent choices in individuals. The panel concludes with The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2017-) by Ho Tzu Nyen. It explores how technology potentially expands aesthetic elements, employing virtual reality tech to immerse the audience in the experience of distorted history. By extending the technological canon as an artistic medium, he allows for imaginative explorations of a world free from the constraints of power dynamics. Comparing these narratives and works, we aim at uncovering how technology provides the source of power for individuals, how it enmeshes citizens in moral dilemmas of modern society, how it breeds misfortunes and manipulates the ruled once deployed by the ruling, how it embodies resistance against a society already governed by a system armed with technology. Considering the bold representation of the dialectic between technology and power in these literary and art works, we propose that literature, being “techne”/ “technique” per se, at once functions as a critical force, a resistance point, and a remedy to the technologies in the technologized society (polis). Therefore, our group read literature as an “alternative technology” and methodology (“art”/techne) that reflects the technological progression and resists moral “regression” within the framework of systematic power, governance, and socio-political-technical relations.

We live in the age of “digital sublime” where the elements of literature are being transmogrified into different media of human expression and transgressing the boundaries of print media. Digital literature, which is the brainchild of such transformation, redefines the scope of comparative literature by expanding storytelling through hypertext fiction, interactive narratives, and transmedia storytelling. This paper examines their theoretical and methodological implications, analyzing how they challenge traditional literary forms and engage readers.

Comparative literature emphasizes intertextuality, translation, and cross-cultural exchanges. Digital narratives manifest these aspects through nonlinear storytelling and audience participation, enabling new ways of textual analysis across languages and cultures. The integration of artificial intelligence, algorithmic recommendations, and data-driven storytelling further influences literary interpretation. Key examples include Patchwork Girl (Shelley Jackson), Afternoon, a Story (Michael Joyce), The 39 Clues, Her Story, The Matrix Franchise, Quantum Break, and Star Wars: The High Republic, all of which integrate multimedia elements.

With reference to the aforementioned examples, this study explores how digital platforms shape literary production, reception, and intertextual exchanges. Using digital humanities and comparative media studies frameworks, this paper highlights the role of digital fiction in reshaping literary analysis and methodologies, emphasizing media convergence, interactivity, and reader agency.

This paper aims to examine William Wordsworth’s masterpiece “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” from the perspective of ecological ethics, arguing that Wordsworth possessed a strong ecological and ethical consciousness. In the poem, Wordsworth employs unique imagery representing the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. This imagery reflects a Romantic creative tendency that reveres nature and expresses the self, highlighting an ecological and ethical ideology that transcends anthropocentrism and seeks complete harmony between humanity and nature. The daffodil imagery in the poem carries significant symbolic meaning, presenting an ideal state of “abundant happiness” that can be achieved by moving beyond self-admiration. Structurally, the poem evolves from an initial sense of “solitary” to a final vision of “solidary”, embodying the concept of a harmonious relationship between humans and nature. It also illustrates the ethical choices of humankind and the evolutionary process of nature.

Bonobibi, a guardian deity of the Sundarbans, is revered by both Hindu and Muslim communities as a protector against tiger attacks and a symbol of ecological balance. Her legend, primarily oral and deeply embedded in regional folklore, exemplifies themes of human-wildlife coexistence, interfaith syncretism, and environmental ethics. This study positions Bonobibi within the framework of comparative literature, examining how her myth intersects with broader traditions of guardian deities across cultures. By employing Digital Humanities methodologies, including AI-driven textual analysis, folklore mining, and network visualization, this research tracks thematic shifts and linguistic patterns within various iterations of Bonobibi Johuranama, while also identifying cross-cultural resonances through comparative myth analysis. Drawing on ecocritical and postcolonial perspectives, this study explores how Bonobibi’s narrative engages with global discourses on ecofeminism and environmental justice. GIS mapping and spatial storytelling further contextualize the geographical dissemination of Bonobibi’s worship, demonstrating how mythological traditions adapt across time, space, and socio-political landscapes. Folklore network analysis, facilitated by tools such as Gephi and Palladio, uncovers intertextual and interreligious dimensions of Bonobibi’s myth, positioning her as a transnational figure within global mythological studies. By integrating AI-assisted textual and spatial analysis, this research highlights the intersections of folklore, ecology, and gender within comparative literary traditions. Ultimately, this study underscores the relevance of digital tools in preserving and analysing oral traditions, while situating Bonobibi as a crucial site of inquiry in comparative mythology and world literature.

We live in the age of “digital sublime” where the elements of literature are being transmogrified into different media of human expression and transgressing the boundaries of print media. Digital literature, which is the brainchild of such transformation, redefines the scope of comparative literature by expanding storytelling through hypertext fiction, interactive narratives, and transmedia storytelling. This paper examines their theoretical and methodological implications, analyzing how they challenge traditional literary forms and engage readers.

Comparative literature emphasizes intertextuality, translation, and cross-cultural exchanges. Digital narratives manifest these aspects through nonlinear storytelling and audience participation, enabling new ways of textual analysis across languages and cultures. The integration of artificial intelligence, algorithmic recommendations, and data-driven storytelling further influences literary interpretation. Key examples include Patchwork Girl (Shelley Jackson), Afternoon, a Story (Michael Joyce), The 39 Clues, Her Story, The Matrix Franchise, Quantum Break, and Star Wars: The High Republic, all of which integrate multimedia elements.

With reference to the aforementioned examples, this study explores how digital platforms shape literary production, reception, and intertextual exchanges. Using digital humanities and comparative media studies frameworks, this paper highlights the role of digital fiction in reshaping literary analysis and methodologies, emphasizing media convergence, interactivity, and reader agency.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized literary studies by enabling both the analysis and creation of texts that engage with various stylistic traditions. It has demonstrated remarkable efficiency in helping individuals find specific quotes or verses that align with their current emotions. Looking ahead, AI assistants may not only recite passages from Shakespeare or Donne but also generate original narratives or poetry on contemporary topics while maintaining their distinctive literary, linguistic, and thematic styles. This prospect is undeniably intriguing. Just as Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) transported a modern protagonist into direct encounters with renowned literary and artistic figures of the 19th century, a similar sense of excitement was conveyed through the cinematic experience.

This paper primarily comprises case studies that investigate AI's ability to rewrite and summarize literary works in the styles of different authors, offering fresh perspectives on comparative literature, authorship, and literary transformation. By utilizing AI and machine learning models trained on extensive literary corpora, this study explores the extent to which AI can replicate the style of a Hemingway novel rewritten in Jane Austen’s elaborate prose or reinterpret a Gothic narrative through the minimalist framework of modernist fiction.

Additionally, this study examines AI’s role in literary adaptation, genre transformation, and stylistic emulation by evaluating its ability to capture the linguistic, thematic, and rhetorical characteristics of diverse canonical authors, from Shakespeare and William Carlos Williams to Emily Brontë and Toni Morrison. By juxtaposing these writers' corpora, the research critically assesses the capabilities and limitations of computational models in preserving literary depth and nuance within large-scale textual datasets. Finally, it explores the broader implications of AI-driven literary emulation, offering critical insights into its impact on fanfiction (e.g., "Pride and Programming"—Jane Austen meets Sci-Fi AI), pastiche (e.g., "Hemingway’s Middle-earth"—Hemingway rewriting The Lord of the Rings), and the ethical considerations surrounding digital authorship.

Thus by situating AI-generated literary comparisons within the frameworks of comparative literature and digital humanities, this research highlights the intersections of technology, creativity, and literary tradition. It underscores AI’s potential to reframe discussions on authorship, intertextuality, and the evolution of literary style across historical and cultural contexts.

Bernadine Evaristo’s novel Girl, Woman, Other stands out for its specific socio-cultural context and its thematic focus. In the book, themes such as racism, feminism, gender and social inequality are discussed against the background of African migration to the UK. Born in South-East London in 1959, the author is the daughter of an English mother and a Nigerian father who migrated to the UK in 1949. In 2019, Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize alongside with Margarete Adwood’s The Testaments, making Evaristo the first black woman to win the prize. The novel follows the lives of 12 primarily black women in the UK over the course of several decades. Stemming from different social classes, they come from mixed cultural backgrounds and have different sexual orientations. A number of them are lesbian, bisexual or consider themselves to be non-binary. The stories of the characters are intertwined in numerous ways, the women being either friends, relatives or chance acquaintances.

The specific vocabulary linked to gender issues as well the references to British culture in general, and the gay community in particular, are a challenge for the book’s translators. In addition to its idiosyncratic language, the novel is mostly written without punctuation with the exception of the occasional comma or question mark. Apart from that, the specific layout of the text gives the impression of the novel being written in free verse. Thus, Girl, Woman, Other receives an almost poetic dimension. Evaristo herself refers to her style of writing as “fusion fiction”. In 2021, the novel was translated into French by Francoise Adelstain with the title Fille, femme, autre. The German translation by Tanja Handels, entitled Mädchen, Frau, etc., appeared one year later.

In this paper, I shall explore the French and German translation of Evaristo’s novel and analyse the different choices made by the translators. The task of translating references to a particular cultural environment is especially demanding when the latter does not exist in the same way in the culture of the target text. For this reason, Evaristo’s translators literally turn into cultural mediators in order to communicate the hybrid culture of Black British women, living on the margins of society, to a Francophone and German-speaking readership.

Literary translation, being a subjective activity, is limited by the translator's subjectivity. Zha Mingjian and Tian Yu define translator’s subjectivity as a subjective initiative in the translation process, with "its basic characteristics being the translator's conscious cultural awareness, humanistic qualities, and cultural and aesthetic creativity." Tu Guoyuan and Zhu Xianlong also emphasize that the translator should play a major role in the complete translation process (including the original author, translator, reader, and the receptional environment), as "it runs through the entire translation process, the subjectivity of other factors is only reflected in specific stages of the translation." In the conventional view of translation, translators frequently find themselves "serving two masters." They must serve the author by keeping to the criterion of "faithfulness" to the original work, while also taking into account the readers and striving for the effects of "expressiveness" and "elegance" in translation. These two features appear to be in paradoxical opposition.

In contrast to Chinese scholars who equate the translator's subjectivity, inventiveness, and centrality, Western writers and translators see translation as a subjective practice. Goethe once described translators as "busy professional matchmakers" (Übersetzer sind als geschäftige Kuppler anzusehen). "They praise a half-concealed beauty to the utmost, making us unable to resist our interest in the original work." Because of the translator's subjectivity, the original appearance of the work is partially veiled, preventing target language readers from having the most direct and true experience with the original. Lawrence Venuti, an American translation scholar, proposed the concept of "translator's invisibility," which describes the translator's identity as that of an invisible person hiding behind the author. He stated, "The smoother the translation, the more invisible the translator's identity becomes, and the more prominent the author's or the foreign text's meaning will be." According to Peter Bush, literary translation is "an original subjective activity situated at the center of a complex network of social and cultural practices." All of those underline the translator and author's complicated and subtle relationship, as well as the translator's subjective initiative.

Literary translation exemplifies the translator's subjectivity, notably in 20th-century Western modernist novels with variegated vocabulary and complicated styles. Ulysses (1922), considered a representative work of 20th-century stream-of-consciousness novels, uses the narrative framework of a single day in the lives of three ordinary Dubliners to reflect the intertwined relationships between the individual, family, marriage, religion, identity, and national survival. It follows the protagonist Bloom's journey from "wandering" to "return." To date, the novel has been entirely translated into over 20 languages. Since 1994, our country has progressively released three relatively competent and accepted complete Chinese translations: the 1994 and 1996 Jin Di editions of Ulysses (hereafter referred to as the "Jin edition") and the 1994 Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo edition of Ulysses (hereinafter referred to as the "Xiao edition") and the 2021 Liu Xiangyu edition of Ulysses (hereinafter referred to as the "Liu edition"). This has shattered people's imagination of this untranslatable tome, providing new inspiration for exploring the deeper meanings of the text and related modernist thoughts.

Faced with experimental novels like Ulysses, which present translation challenges, translators must not only fully understand the original text, including its typography, style, and syntactic transformations, but also consider the methods of language conversion when translating into the target language. Due to phenomena such as language overlay, the mixing of words and symbols, and the blending of styles, translations may sometimes eliminate the coexistence of different languages present in the original text. Translators also need the courage to make attempts and breakthroughs in their translations, finding the best way to balance the source language and the target language. Therefore, to better understand and interpret the Chinese translations of Joyce's novels, it is first necessary to explore the different identities, research experiences, and translation motivations of the four translators. These not only reflect the translators' personal translation styles but also represent the translation choices of different eras.

As a translator of modern Chinese literature, Jin Di (1921-2008) translated and published Shen Congwen's short story collection The Chinese Earth (1947) under his own name during his university years. He served as an English teacher at the Department of Foreign Languages at Nankai University in 1957 and at Tianjin Foreign Languages Institute in 1976, while also holding positions as a council member of the Translators Association of China and an advisor to the Tianjin Translators Association. Jin Di first began translating Ulysses with selected passages. Driven by a love for literature, Jin Di embarked on a career in literary translation. He firmly believes that literary translation should prioritize effect, which means that "the reader's experience of the translation should be as close as possible to the reader's experience of the original text."

Xiao Qian (1910-1999) held multiple roles. He was a writer, journalist, translator, and also served as the editor-in-chief of literary magazines. In the fall of 1929, Xiao Qian entered the Chinese Language Program at Yenching University, where he attended guest lectures on modern literature by Professor Yang Zhensheng and a course on modern British novels by American professor Paul Guise, learning about James Joyce and Ulysses. His wife, Wen Jieruo (1927- ), is a distinguished linguist proficient in Chinese, Japanese, and English, working as an editor and literary translator. She graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at Tsinghua University. During the translation of Ulysses, Wen Jieruo read a large amount of related Japanese literature, including Japanese translations and research papers, providing broader and more reliable reference value for the Chinese translation of the novel.

Liu Xiangyu (1942- ) is a renowned scholar and translator specializing in Western modernism and postmodernism theory. He graduated from the Foreign Languages Department of Shanxi University in 1967 and from the Department of Foreign Literature at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981, possessing a solid foundation in foreign languages and literary knowledge. He once went to the University of London to study 20th-century British and American literature and Western Marxist literary theory, and then to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to research modernist and postmodernist literature in Europe and America (his co-advisor was Ihab Hassan, who is regarded as the "father of postmodernism"), including studies on Joyce. Since the 1980s, he has begun to focus on and translate Joyce, translating excerpts of the poem Chamber Music, the short story The Dead, and ten chapters of Ulysses, among others.

Gérard Genette, a French narratologist, established the notion of "paratext" (or "derivative text" in the 1980s, which refers to "all verbal and non-verbal materials used to present a work that play a coordinating role between the primary text and the reader." Internal paratext (titles, translator's prefaces and postfaces, appendices, illustrations, etc.) and external paratext (book reviews, translator interviews, etc.) are subsets of paratexts. The translator's notes or footnotes in a translated work are common internal paratexts that serve as "primary sources" for understanding the translator's methodology or perspectives. Chinese annotations are clearly necessary for Ulysses, the large and comprehensive modernist novel. It not only conveys the translator's personal understanding and interpretation but also, to some extent, condenses the pertinent perspectives and theories.

Take Episode Four and Episode Fourteen as two examples. In Episode Four, Molly asked Bloom the meaning of “metempsychosis”, which is one of the core themes of Ulysses. To simply put it, the Jin version uses metaphorical language directly in the translation. Despite being plain and unambiguous, it lacks the original text's literary appeal. The Xiao version keeps the original terms while providing a brief explanation of their implications. The Liu version, on the other hand, conducts textual research on the material and incorporates it into the original context, providing readers with a logical interpretation and explanation. The translation of Ulysses necessitates not just consideration of important word connotations and metaphors, but also of the text's stylistic correspondence and appropriateness. For example, when it comes to changing registers in Ulysses, the key to translation is retaining the distinctions inside the same language.

In Episode 14, Joyce utilizes a range of languages, including Old Irish, Latin, old English, and modern colloquial speech, to mock numerous concerns, parodying many issues in the history of the evolution of British prose from antiquity to the present, and representing the complete process of a baby from embryo to birth. According to Liu's research, the original text uses a mixture of Old Gaelic (Deshil) and Old Latin (Eamus) in the first paragraph, Old English in the second paragraph, and modern colloquial language in the last paragraph. Therefore, in the translation, Liu's version uses oracle bone script, classical Chinese, and colloquial Chinese to correspond to these styles. Aside from stylistic considerations, because the first paragraph depicts the mixed form that existed prior to the birth of English during the Anglo-Saxon period, the translation employs three types of scripts—bronze script, small seal script, and clerical script—to simulate the mixed evolution of style. This translation not only exhibits the translator's smart vision, but it also demonstrates the compatibility and resemblance of the histories of Chinese and English script development. Compared to the Jin version, which likewise corresponded to the history of Chinese characters, lacking any literariness.

Generally speaking, the annotations and footnotes as paratexts can help readers better understand the connotations and implications of the original text, especially the unique linguistic techniques, formal experiments, and cultural allusions found in Joyce's novels. By comparing the annotations of three Chinese translations of Ulysses, it can be observed that due to differences in translation time and strategies, the four translators place varying degrees of emphasis on the annotations. The Jin version has fewer annotations and less in-depth content compared to the latter two translations, while the Liu version, as a retranslation, has conducted new research and interpretation of the original text based on the first two translations. From a single word to the entire text structure, it contains the author's understanding and reflection on human history, which is also what the translator hopes to present and convey to the target language readers during the translation process.

In traditional views of translation, the importance of the translator's role is often overlooked and undervalued. Nowadays, more and more experts and scholars are beginning to pay attention to the status of translators, exploring and studying their influence and value on the translated work and even the entire translation activity. Among these, the focus on the subjectivity of the translator reflects the degree of emphasis on the relative independence of the translator's identity and behavior. Due to the influence of educational background, social environment, cultural context, and ideology, there are certain differences in the translator's translation style and strategies. Understanding the translator's identity also helps to reveal their main translation thoughts, concepts, and the translator's mental world. At the same time, as an important internal subtext, the annotations in the translation text analysis reflect the translator's thoughts and interpretations of the original text. These annotations not only greatly aid the target language, but also provide important reference value for the translators studies.

For Chinese translators, translating Ulysses not only involves the complex language system but also the challenge of arbitrary switching between different stylistic and syntactic forms. In the case of Joyce's later two novels, the greatest challenge for translators lies not only in achieving the basic translation standards of "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance" but also in guiding readers to understand Joyce and the unique modernist texts he represents, including various textual transformations, stylistic changes, and profound themes of human history. At the same time, it is worth noting that the translator's subjectivity is not entirely free and arbitrary, "but rather has verifiable subjective and objective factors." For example, the richness and accessibility of reference materials are important objective factors that limit the translator's subjectivity, as they are situated in different historical periods.

Therefore, we need to be tolerant of the inevitable cultural misinterpretations and omissions that occur during the translation process, and encourage more knowledgeable scholars and readers to actively point out translation errors, promoting the revision and improvement of new translations. Only by truly recognizing and understanding the translator's experiences and the social context in which they operate, and accepting the unavoidable shortcomings of translation, can we more deeply and thoroughly understand the relationship between the original text and the translation, and appreciate the literary value and cultural connotations.

“The Only Moving thing; Was the eye of the blackbird”. As the poet Wallace Stevens said in his poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird that it is always the eyes which will be moving. It is always the perspective of a human being which seems to be differing and being in a constant change. We, as human beings, tend to often forget that it is not just the ‘I’ which seems to have this eye movement, but rather it is the whole human breed who possess the eye. The concept of plurality is not something which we invented, rather it is a present which we should discover with our own thinking. It is not fair for a particular set of people to be given the privilege of all types of “eye movement” they want while others are on blindfolds. This paper will in detail talk about the idea of plurality discussed mainly by Hannah Arendt and try to connect it with the way we look at gender in literature. Now putting this idea of differences which comparative literature tries to put into practice. As we noticed while studying the schools of Comparative literature, which basically showed an historical background of how people dealt with the concept of differences itself. We saw how concept of plurality was singularized in French school which later goes through different stages to come to this point we are standing.

The whole idea behind this paper is to connect my recent understanding of the practices of comparative literature to the way we see gender in Gender studies. The words “Queer” comes from the concept of “Odd” or “Strange” or “peculiar”. Thus, the whole idea of differences which is shown in comparative literature can be brought into play. As we understand comparative literature, it is more of a practice rather than a theory which talks about acknowledging the presence of differences. Thus, when we put the idea of acceptance of the differences in queer theory, the otherness shown within the queer theory gets demolished. Queer theory plays a big role in breaking the discourse of heteronormativity which tries to bring forth the plural nature of gender and sexuality. The binaries or heteronormativity was so much engraved in our society that people after a certain point thought that something different is either disease or crime.

I will be connecting this while concept to Katie O'Neil's children's graphic novels. One of the ways in which she tries to deconstruct the heteronormativity is through her children's graphic novels. However, it is quite evident how she falls prey to the lack of plurality in her perspective while representing the again lack of plurality and different perspectives. I will be dealing with two Graphic novels 'Princess Princess Ever After' and 'The Tea Dragon Society'. One of the best things about graphic is you can visually (through images) understand the text and otherness or alterities that is portrayed. Thus, my choice of selection to understand the intersectionality in it.

This paper examines how French rap artists deploy multilingual practices as sociolinguistic resistance strategies, analyzing their works as literary texts that exemplify complex language contact phenomena. Focusing on works by PNL, Niska, and Jul (2015-2017), and drawing on contact linguistics frameworks (Kotze 2020; Malamatidou 2016), I analyze how these artists construct what Guérin (2018) terms "contemporary urban borrowings" through the incorporation of Rromani, Arabic, Lingala, and regional French varieties.

The study specifically investigates three key manifestations of language contact in rap as a literary genre: code-switching as resistance to institutional French, language crossing as solidarity-building across ethnic boundaries, and the emergence of hybrid urban vernaculars. Through close analysis of linguistic data from rap lyrics as literary texts, I demonstrate how these contact phenomena operate at both individual and community levels, creating what Rampton (2015) describes as "cross-ethnically we-coded" spaces.

The research reveals how rappers' multilingual literary practices extend beyond mere lexical borrowing to constitute complex sociolinguistic strategies. These include tactical deployments of minority languages to challenge monolingual ideologies, deliberate code-switching to signal group membership, and the cultivation of hybrid vernaculars that reflect urban demographic realities. Such practices exemplify what recent contact linguistics scholarship identifies as "manifest and latent multilingualism" in creative literary contexts.

This case study contributes to understanding how language contact manifests in contemporary literary production, particularly in contexts of urban multilingualism and postcolonial language dynamics. It demonstrates how creative writers can exploit language contact phenomena to challenge dominant linguistic hierarchies while constructing new possibilities for multilingual literary expression.

Les expérimentations poétiques de Mallarmé, en transcendant les limites du langage, de la forme et du sens, ont profondément influencé l’art multisensoriel ainsi que la création artistique contemporaine utilisant les technologies numériques. Mallarmé disposait les mots de manière visuelle, générant simultanément sens et images. Sa poésie offre des pistes pour explorer les possibilités esthétiques de l’interaction entre texte et image dans l’art numérique.

Selon Flusser, l’image est un médiateur entre le monde et l’humain. L’espace de l’image constitue un espace d’interprétation et un complexe de significations, où les interactions entre les images prennent forme. La théorie musicale est étroitement liée à la complexité et à l’interconnexion de la littérature et de la peinture, abordant ainsi la capacité de la musique à être expressive ou représentative.

Selon Platon, le moment de création est un moment de folie divine, où les poètes, sous l’emprise de l’inspiration, établissent un lien avec la Muse, déesse de la musique. Aristote regroupe la composition, le caractère, le style et la pensée pour définir le texte, et voit dans le langage une richesse apportée par le rythme et la musicalité.

Mallarmé, à travers l’agencement physique des textes et des expérimentations structurelles, poursuit la quête d’une musicalité visuelle. Pour lui, l’art est une création technique complète, séparée du monde ordinaire. Le rythme de ses poèmes découle de l’utilisation technique du langage. Il considère le langage non comme un simple outil de communication, mais comme une technique artistique intégrant la forme et le contenu.

Mallarmé exploite les espaces entre les textes comme des silences dans une partition musicale, permettant au lecteur d’expérimenter le langage de manière sensorielle, comme la musique. Il pensait que le langage, par essence, ne pouvait jamais exprimer complètement la réalité, mais il n’a cessé de mener des expérimentations techniques pour dépasser ces limites.

Selon Julia Kristeva, ce que Mallarmé désigne comme le « mystère dans les lettres » fait référence au rythme sémiotique inhérent au langage. Dans ses poèmes, l’espace profond du texte est rythmique, libre, et intranscriptible en mots intelligibles, tout en restant profondément musical. Cependant, cet espace est limité par la syntaxe. La poésie révèle cette fonction mystérieuse des lettres tout en la rendant accessible grâce à la syntaxe. Le poète, guidé par son instinct rythmique, limite ce mystère au domaine de la musique.

Mallarmé a concrétisé le rythme poétique et la structure musicale à travers l’agencement visuel du texte. Cette étude a pour objectif d’explorer la modernité dans la poésie de Mallarmé à travers la musicalité visuelle et le rythme sémiotique qui s’y manifestent.

‘The Songlines’ (1987) a representation of travel writing by Bruce Chatwin is an exposure to the aboriginal tsuringa-tracks, or songlines. Chatwin has created a whole new Australia with an aboriginal grounding. In this travel writing, Chatwin is present as an author with Arkady; a half Russian, Australian citizen. It is through their eyes, that we perceive the aboriginals; the original inhabitants of Australia and its culture.

Chatwin on his Australian trip completed two decades of writing about the nomadic instinct. In Chatwin’s understanding of the aboriginal myth of creation, the totem ancestors-the great kangaroo, or the dream-snake, first sung themselves into existence and then, as they began to walk across the landscape, sung every feature of the natural world into existence. Each time they sung a rock or a stream, it came into existence. ‘A song’, Chatwin writes, ‘was both map and direction finder…’ (Chatwin,15). The ancestors ‘sang’ the world into existence, so much so that the sole aim of the aboriginal religious life was ‘to keep the land the way it was and should be’ (Chatwin,16).

The songlines comprised oral instructions and tradition passed down through generations. In hunter-gatherer societies, intimate knowledge of the landscape and its amenities was the key to survival. Many songlines were lost during the colonial encroachment of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many others exist to this day, preserving the living link between the land and the people who have lived on it for tens of thousands of years. The link is preserved through art, which is no longer for the sake of art. A study of songlines and allied concepts will be undertaken in this paper with special reference to the impactful role they play in Aboriginal art, enriching its layers of meaning and cultural significance. Aboriginal paintings are a visual representation of the land. The use of dots, lines, and patterns in Aboriginal art represents the topography, landscapes, and the pathways of these songlines.

Each painting encapsulates stories, ceremonies, and rites of passage connected to the songlines. These artworks are repositories of shared knowledge. The use of specific symbols, colors, and patterns delineate different clans and their ancestral territories.

Artworks connected to songlines are often used in rituals and ceremonies, reinforcing their spiritual significance. These practices ensure the continued transmission of knowledge and cultural heritage. Contemporary Aboriginal artists integrate traditional elements of songlines into modern art, blending the old with the new to tell their stories. This can be seen in various media, from canvas works to digital art. Artworks are used for advocacy, raising awareness about Indigenous rights and environmental conservation, and gender underscoring the contemporary relevance of songlines. Works by artists like Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's artworks are renowned for their depiction of songlines, merging traditional methods with innovative approaches. Women on the other hand were not really encouraged to paint, either by the men except as helpers, or by the arts advisors. Pansy Napangarti an unusual woman, a strong person who became a successful artist marketed her work herself in the early ’80s and learned a lot from Clifford Possum. Art works by artists and their contemporary relevance with songlines will be studied in this paper.

Sijo, which is roughly equivalent to the Japanese haiku, has been composed, enjoyed by and circulated among Koreans for more than 600 years. Sijo used to be a poetry genre appropriated mostly by the male Confucian elite during the Chosun dynasty. However, Sijo developed itself as the genre that most powerfully appealed to Koreans’ communal sense of aesthetics.

The essence of Sijo poems lies at the frugality of language use, usage of clear images, and the dialectical combination of manifested imagery and implied philosophy in the concluding line. To be more specific, as for the economics of language, Sijo is composed of strictly three lines, each of which contain about 15 syllables, thereby usually no more than 45 syllables as a whole. The first two lines usually provide backdrops for the final line: they are often devoted to describing or representing natural beauty or human episodes. The genuine intention of the poet reveals itself in the ending line. The poet manifests his or her realization of esoteric truth, sense of juissence, exhilaration, regret, self-rebuke, and resentment, which are often extracted from the episodes or scenes in the previous lines. Sijo has continued to reform itself complying with the demands of zeitgeists of new eras as Korean society shifted towards modernity: its form experimented with narrative style Shijo once so that it could function as a genre of engagement literature and it also attempted to incorporate elements of modernity in diverse ways.

By examining the ways foreigners— James Gale, Richard Rutt, Kevin O’rouke et al-- translated traditional Sijo into English, one can identify the particularities of sijo as Koreans’ unique form poetry in a broader global context.

In this paper, I examine how in Beyond the Blue: Kuroshio’s Voyage Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-Yi addresses technologies that (re-)mediate the darkness of the sea and transform humans’ relationship with the latter. Beyond the Blue is a collection of sea journals kept by Wu together with Hui-chung Chang and Kuan-Long Chen when they voyage around Taiwan on the ship Turumoan, though about two-thirds of the diaries are written by Wu. This work records the three’s thoughts and observations during the journey, an excursion serving as both a scientific investigation into the human detriment to the island’s near coast ecology and an opportunity allowing the passengers to learn how, in Wu’s words, “to get along with the sea.” The latter goal is enabled by several technological devices that (re-)mediate the sea darkness, as illustrated by the various media referred to in Beyond the Blue, including the vehicle that carries Wu and others around, the instruments employed to measure the percentages of dissolved-oxygen saturation and microplastics in different near-coastal ocean regions of Taiwan, and the poetic language Wu adopts to depict the sea water. Notably, these technologies are not adopted to render the sea an object of conquest or comprehension or to romanticize it as what remains pristine and bears no human footprint. Rather, they function as the very means by which the human travelers come to encounter the sea, primarily as what they barely understand or know how to grapple with. With these contrivances, the passengers on Turumoan are exposed to what is dark to them, to what is ungraspable to them and what causes anxiety and discomfort to them, be this “what” associated with the sea waves, the sea waste, or the sea as such. More importantly, these dark experiences occur over and again, triggering the sea change of these travelers—they finally know how to get along with the sea, not by overcoming or recovering from the dark feelings it arouses but by adapting to and even adopting them. In the meantime, an alternative interaction with the sea arises: no longer perceiving it as what is exploitable and inconsequential, those coming across the darkness pertaining to the sea come to consider their impact on the latter and alter how they treat it. Put differently, Beyond the Blue stages the (re-)mediation of darkness in a double manner: it re-mediates or transcribes recurrently the dark emotions brought about by the sea and stresses the significance of remediating or modifying the way human beings approach the latter. My purpose here is to analyze the technologies Wu conceives of in his journals respecting this twofold (re-)mediation. I first review the nature of the darkness at issue in my paper in light of Timothy Morton’s notion of dark ecology. Then, I discuss how the diverse technological devices or what I prefer to name “dark media”—the ship, the body, the sampling apparatus, or the sea waste—articulated in Beyond the Blue (re-)mediate the human-sea relationship. Afterwards, I draw attention to Wu’s understanding of the way humans can get along with the sea both in tandem and in contrast with Morton’s thoughts on this matter.

Taking contemporary feminist literary film adaptations as the research object, this paper applies theories of comparative literature and world literature to explore the reconstruction of feminism in cross-media narratives. Through analysing a number of film adaptations, it reveals the dimensions of women's emotional mobility, family relationships, and ethical views, and shows women's self-awakening and identity construction in modern society. Taking My Altair as an example, the film explores women's changing roles in family and society, as well as their defence of the basic rights to survival and life. This paper deconstructs women's rebellion against patriarchal space in the film adaptation, reconstructs social space, suspends the disorder of historical space with artistic vision, concerns the reproduction of heterogeneous space in the spatialisation of the female subject, provides a new perspective for understanding the film adaptation of feminist literature, and looks forward to the development trend of feminism in the future.

In recent years critical scholarships in the field of biopolitics or biopower have developed towards a recategorisation of the unattended forms of social life, reconceptualising the materiality and vulnerability of the lifeless in the changing social spacings of the Anthropocene. Through posing new, other wise kinds of analytics which disrupt the dominant binary between Life and Death, scholars have theorised around the redistribution of affect, in an attempt to tend to the slow, ordinary forms of violence which inhabit the lived spaces of the human and nonhuman. In particular, Elizabeth Povinelli (2016) poses three figures of geontopower (the maintenance of difference between Life and Nonlife) – the Desert, the Animist, and the Virus – as indicatives of the otherwise within late liberalism, which harbour the potential to enlighten an alternative form of governmentality.

Parallel to this, recent publications within multiple realms of artistic practices have addressed the increasing sense of urgency towards manifold environmental crises and geopolitical traumas, participating in the reinvention of the inert or inorganic, offering new, imaginative ways of survival and endurance. This research will contribute to the ongoing debates which explore the interaction between art and the plurality of “life worlds” (Biehl and Locke, 2017), responding to queries posing whether alternative theoretical approaches or glossaries are able – or not – to illuminate the precarious realities of entangled existences.

Moving beyond the museum or gallery space, I will examine the public spheres animated through site-specific video installations, here conceptualised as disruptive interventions which may reimagine certain moments or conditions of existence, thus opening alternative spaces and orderings wherein new arrangements of life forms may persevere. I will analyse the functionality of digital media and technologies in relevance to site-specificity, following the notion of site-specificity as “writing over the city, as palimpsest” which “decode[s] and/or recode[s] the institutional conventions so as to expose their hidden operations”, posing the projections as new, digital layers added to the earthly fabric of shared spaces within society, therein creating dispersed spatial platforms attuned to the constitution of multiple temporalities.

This paper explores Jean Epstein’s early experimental and theoretical writings on modernist poetry alongside his later writings on film that articulate film as a nonhuman intelligence and an ancestral form of artificial intelligence.

Poetry serves as both a moving target of emulation and a litmus test of humanlike intelligence for large language models like ChatGPT. The emergence of AI-written poems conjures an existential fear as they signify a nonhuman encroachment into not only logos, a uniquely human realm of language, but also poetry, its most capacious and revealing form. Recent studies show that readers find AI-generated poetry to be virtually indistinguishable to those written by humans, if not more favorable. In response, philosopher Yuk Hui points out that to consider the goal of AI as imitating human beings is a product of a long-lived and problematic understanding of technology as defined by industrialization and consumerism, whereby technical objects are only imagined as functional replacements to human labor and creativity rather than prosthetic aids to them.

How can we articulate a new relationship between humans and technical objects that is rooted not in the threat of replacement but in open imagination? This paper attempts to outline one possible answer by turning to the work of Jean Epstein. I bring together three areas of scholarship on Epstein’s writings on literature and film. First, I examine how Epstein’s theorization of modernist poetry has been considered as one heavily imprinted and transformed by cinema. Second, I examine the contemporary readings of Epstein’s book Intelligence of a Machine as an exposition of film as a form of AI. Christophe Wall-Romana elucidates how Epstein saw that the poetry of early 20th century France centered on sensory experience, which also formed the core of his theory of photogénie as an embodied epistemology of cinema. Christine Reeh Peters points out that Epstein’s later writings show a belief in the cinematograph as a machine capable not of image-production that approaches human impression, but of a uniquely nonhuman perception of the world that exists alongside a human one. I argue that his prescient articulation of machinic intelligence evades the anthropocentric prescription of the human-machine relationship. Lastly, I look at the influence of his work on ecological thought by considering his Breton films in which the ocean and the French littoral life are featured as a prominent motif, and question what it means to consider his films as a quasi-articulation of AI, given the devastating environmental impact of generative AI today.

Ultimately, I suggest that Epstein’s philosophy of literature and of cinema is simultaneously a philosophy of machinic thinking, and that it can helps us ground our own relationship to AI and technical objects at large not in post-apocalyptic fear of robot revolt but instead in the full imaginative capacities of human thought.

Parmi les ouvrages littéraires critiques écrits sur le roman entre le 17ième et le 18ième siècle, le livre de l’Abbé Jacquin, Entretiens sur les Romans, publié en 1755, adopte sans doute l’une des positions les plus réactionnaires à l’encontre du genre romanesque. S’inscrivant dans la droite lignée du père Porée dont le réquisitoire prononcé en latin puis traduit en français a rempli un rôle majeur dans l’ordre de proscription des romans décrété en 1737, Jacquin rédige un non moins virulent procès long de 396 pages. Le livre développe comme on le verra un long argumentaire qui mène à une condamnation irrévocable du genre romanesque. Les raisons qui motivent le rejet du roman ont déjà été maintes fois invoquées dans d’autres ouvrages de critique littéraire, notamment l’ « Avis au lecteur » de l’Histoire indienne d’Anaxandre et d’Orazie de François de Boisrobert (1629) dont les échos se répercutent jusque dans les Délassements de l’homme sensible de Baculard d’Arnaud (1789), les multiples comptes-rendus le plus souvent hostiles à l’encontre de genre romanesque présentés dans les Mémoires de Trévoux, ou encore le Voyage merveilleux du Prince Fan-Férédin dans la Romancie de Hyacinthe Bougeant (1735). Le Financier de Mouhy publié la même année que Les Entretiens de Jacquin, en 1755, se présente comme une réponse aux attaques du théoricien rétrograde. Mouhy s’adresse directement à Jacquin dans la préface du roman intitulée : Essai pour servir de Réponse à un Ouvrage, intitulé Entretiens sur les Romans, par M. l’Abbé J., in-12, 396 pages. Ce n’est pas en théoricien que Mouhy réagit au procès intenté contre le genre romanesque comme on pourrait le croire à une première lecture de la préface. Celle-ci sert de présentation à un « roman à la carte » qui répond à la charte moraliste du pouvoir ecclésiastique. Or, en suivant les règles prescrites par le porte-parole de l’institution religieuse, Mouhy montre l’impossibilité d’être d’un tel roman. De fait, la préface permet à Mouhy d’annoncer l’enjeu argumentatif de son propre roman : Le Financier fonctionne comme une réfutation à l’envers qui exhibe en les appliquant sérieusement l’ineptie des critères imposés par Jacquin et l’absurdité du principe d’imitation appliqué indifféremment.

Je propose de présenter ces deux textes peu connus afin de mettre en lumière la position extrême de Jacquin qui s’exprime à un stade tardif de la querelle du roman. En récupérant les arguments déjà maintes fois présentés par ses prédécesseurs, en ignorant les avancées littéraires de son temps et en se référant majoritairement aux romans héroïques du grand siècle plutôt qu’aux œuvres fictionnelles innovatrices des années trente, Jacquin adopte une posture qui exprime la peur des enjeux démocratiques inscrits en creux dans l’écriture romanesque en général et sur les potentialités subversives propres aux Lumières en particulier. Ce que Mouhy le romancier entend défendre.

Between World War II and the fall of the communist regime, censorship in Romania took various forms, shaped by shifting historical and ideological developments. The Central Military Censorship, which was in charge of book control and suppression, was established as early as 1945. Officially, its mission was the "defascization" of Romanian culture; unofficially, its aim was sovietization. From 1948 onward, the state maintained a strict monopoly over publishing and book distribution, continuously adapting censorship policies — both overt and covert — to align with evolving propaganda needs.

While the censorship of non-fiction was typically straightforward, fiction posed a more complex challenge. Certain themes were explicitly banned: eroticism, sentimentality, mysticism, “demoralizing” narratives, or works sympathetic to capitalist countries all ran counter to the regime’s ideological goals. However, beyond these obvious no-go areas, censors viewed fiction with deep suspicion. All along the different phases of the totalitarian regime, literary escapism was prohibited and any critical allusions — real or imagined — to contemporary realities triggered repression on the grounds that they had the potential to document the failures of the regime. This resulted in the boundary between fact and fiction shifting constantly as well as in an ongoing redefinition of the concept of fiction itself.

Our paper will explore some of the implications of those shifts in the practice of writing and reading. To that end we will draw on archival records of censorship practices and literary comments and interpretations to be found in Securitate surveillance files, with the discourse of literary criticism as a counterpoint.

Le Mouvement d’avant-garde des années 1980 peut être perçu à la fois comme une reproduction de la Révolution littéraire du 4 mai 1919 et une rébellion contre celui-ci. En ce qui concerne le Roman d’avant-garde, d’un côté, il puise dans la littérature occidentale pour repousser les limites des conventions traditionnelles littéraires. D’un autre côté, il se distingue par ce que les critiques des années 1990 qualifient de « mauvais genre », tels que le manque de critique sociale, la description de la violence et du sexe. Il manifeste ainsi un rejet, voire un certain dédain, à l’égard de la forme de roman du 4 mai.

Cependant, après une effervescence initiale, le Roman d’avant-garde connaît un déclin rapide dans les années 90. Après les manifestations du 4 juin 1989, L’atmosphère littéraire, autrefois dynamique, se redéfinit dans une direction plus conservatrice. Les écrivains d’avant-garde abandonnent leur posture révolutionnaire pour se retourner vers le réalisme. Quant à l’attitude des critiques, les commentaires dans les revues restent mesurés, mais les attaques sur Internet se font de plus en plus virulentes. Ainsi, le Roman d’avant-garde, qui était autrefois l’attaquant, est devenu, en fin de compte, la cible de ces attaques.

Afin d’analyser la position spéciale du Roman d’avant-garde dans l’histoire de la littérature chinoise, cet article propose une analyse de l’hostilité envers la fiction, à partir de l’espace poétique dans la nouvelle de GE Fei, La Nuée d’oiseaux bruns. Dans cette nouvelle, d’une certaine perspective, rien n’aura lieu que le lieu. En réalité, ce récit met en scène une cartographie littéraire des « hétérotopies », concept que Michel Foucault forge pour désigner des « espaces absolument autres ». À travers la description des paysages à la fois clos et ouverts, tels que bateaux échoués, ponts brisés, GE Fei invente des espaces concrets qui invitent à héberger l’imaginaire. En même temps, grâce à la structure de la mise en abyme, ce récit permet à l’espace fictionnel de refléter et contester l’espace réel où vit l’auteur, à savoir l’École Normale Supérieure de l’Est — foyer du Roman d’avant-garde. Néanmoins, ces hétérotopies dans La Nuée d’oiseaux bruns peuvent-elles s’immerger dans l’espace du discours d’aujourd’hui ? Ou bien, dans une certaine mesure, ces hétérotopies se réduisent en utopie : un monde clos, figé, uniforme, qui refuse les possibilités d’habiter autrement. De ce fait, plusieurs problématiques émergent : de quelle manière Ge Fei établit-il ces hétérotopies littéraires ? Comment ces hétérotopies s’inscrivent-elles dans l’espace du discours ? Et pourquoi s’effondrent-elles ?

Afin de traiter ces problématiques, cette recherche propose de réexaminer La Nuée d’oiseaux bruns avec plusieurs sources secondaires : critiques issues de différents médias, écrits autobiographiques, ainsi que mes interviews avec GE Fei et mon enquête de terrain à l’École Normale Supérieure de l’Est en 2024.

The concerns raised by fiction might be deeply related to (or have a lot in common with) those stirred up by AI, such as issues of reality and authenticity, creation and authorship, and ethical concerns like possible deception and manipulation. This paper explores the divergent attitudes toward fiction and imaginative literature in ancient Greek and Chinese philosophical traditions, focusing on the perspectives of Plato and Aristotle in the West and Confucius and Zhuangzi in the East. Plato on one hand regards poet highly as God’s “minister”, on the other hand criticized fiction as a dangerous imitation of reality that corrupts the soul and misleads the mind ( Republic, Book X), Aristotle in his Poetics justified for the fiction by celebrating its capacity to reveal universal truths and evoke catharsis. In contrast, Confucius emphasized the moral and didactic utility of literature, valuing historical truth over imaginative creation (“述而不作，信而好古”), while Zhuangzi embraced fiction as a creative and transformative tool for challenging conventional thinking and exploring the fluidity of meaning（eg. challenging Confucius’s ideas by re-telling his stories and refiguring his image）. These philosophical differences have profound implications for contemporary AI ethics, shaping how Western and Chinese societies approach the development, regulation, and use of artificial intelligence. Plato’s skepticism toward fiction and his emphasis on truth as an absolute ideal may influence Western societies to prioritize transparency and accuracy in AI systems. This could manifest in a strong demand for explainable AI (XAI) and rigorous validation of AI outputs to ensure they align with factual and ethical standards. Aristotle’s appreciation for fiction as a means to reveal universal truths might encourage Western societies to explore creative and imaginative uses of AI, such as in art, literature, and education, while still maintaining a focus on ethical boundaries. Confucius’s emphasis on moral utility and historical truth may lead Chinese society to prioritize AI applications that serve social harmony, ethical governance, and practical benefits over purely imaginative or speculative uses. Zhuangzi’s embrace of fluidity and creativity might inspire a more flexible approach to AI ethics in China, where the boundaries between truth and fiction are seen as less rigid, allowing for innovative applications of AI in storytelling, virtual reality, and other imaginative domains. Of course, the AI development came in a highly globalized era, therefore, the thoughts of these ancient philosophers would merge together to construct the global AI ethics. Considering this, it is definitely worthwhile to ask the question of “what would ancient philosophers say about AI?” We may seek for the answers based on their attitudes towards fiction.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized literary studies by enabling both the analysis and creation of texts that engage with various stylistic traditions. It has demonstrated remarkable efficiency in helping individuals find specific quotes or verses that align with their current emotions. Looking ahead, AI assistants may not only recite passages from Shakespeare or Donne but also generate original narratives or poetry on contemporary topics while maintaining their distinctive literary, linguistic, and thematic styles. This prospect is undeniably intriguing. Just as Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) transported a modern protagonist into direct encounters with renowned literary and artistic figures of the 19th century, a similar sense of excitement was conveyed through the cinematic experience.

This paper primarily comprises case studies that investigate AI's ability to rewrite and summarize literary works in the styles of different authors, offering fresh perspectives on comparative literature, authorship, and literary transformation. By utilizing AI and machine learning models trained on extensive literary corpora, this study explores the extent to which AI can replicate the style of a Hemingway novel rewritten in Jane Austen’s elaborate prose or reinterpret a Gothic narrative through the minimalist framework of modernist fiction.

Additionally, this study examines AI’s role in literary adaptation, genre transformation, and stylistic emulation by evaluating its ability to capture the linguistic, thematic, and rhetorical characteristics of diverse canonical authors, from Shakespeare and William Carlos Williams to Emily Brontë and Toni Morrison. By juxtaposing these writers' corpora, the research critically assesses the capabilities and limitations of computational models in preserving literary depth and nuance within large-scale textual datasets. Finally, it explores the broader implications of AI-driven literary emulation, offering critical insights into its impact on fanfiction (e.g., "Pride and Programming"—Jane Austen meets Sci-Fi AI), pastiche (e.g., "Hemingway’s Middle-earth"—Hemingway rewriting The Lord of the Rings), and the ethical considerations surrounding digital authorship.

Thus by situating AI-generated literary comparisons within the frameworks of comparative literature and digital humanities, this research highlights the intersections of technology, creativity, and literary tradition. It underscores AI’s potential to reframe discussions on authorship, intertextuality, and the evolution of literary style across historical and cultural contexts.

The pages of The Nine Cloud Dream (Guunmong) are imbued with scents, verses, and melodies, with music—particularly the sounds of the geomungo and tungso—playing a pivotal role in shaping relationships and driving the narrative forward. This study explores the function of music within the novel, aiming to translate its essence into digital music. While the story unfolds linearly, the interactions between characters are multilinear. At its center is Yang Shao-yu, whose encounters with the eight fairies follow a rhythmic pattern of meetings, separations, and reunions, culminating in their collective return to their original lives as nine. This cyclical journey mirrors harmonic progressions in music: a chord begins at the tonic, moves through various scales, and ultimately resolves back to its origin—much like the recurring themes of human relationships, desire, and dreams within the novel. The number eight in The Nine Cloud Dream is not merely indicative of the number of wives but serves as a symbolic device both thematically and musically. When turned sideways, the shape of 8 resembles the infinity symbol (∞), signifying circulation and perpetuity, which aligns with the structure of the novel where dreams and reality, life and death, the secular and the transcendental cycle. Similarly, in music, many compositions rely on eight-measure phrases for symmetry and balance while traditional Korean music (gugak) incorporates eight foundational rhythms (jangdan), and categorizes instruments into eight groups depending on the materials used. Yang Shao-yu's life in the dream world is dazzling, yet upon awakening he loses everything only to gain enlightenment. His journey reveals that although human desires are infinitely cyclical, true realization lies in breaking free from the cycle. Using digital music technology and sound synthesis, the ethereal soundscape will embody the themes and numerical patterns shown in the book. Through this approach, The Nine Cloud Dream is elevated into a richly vibrant and poetic experience, much like a dreamy music itself.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet, a landmark work by the Indonesian author, can be read as a postcolonial coming-of-age novel set in Asia. Inspired by the life of Tirto Adhi Soerjo, a pioneer of Malay-language journalism in Indonesia, the series centers on the character of Minke, who evolves from a student enamored with European culture at a prestigious Dutch high school in Surabaya into a charismatic nationalist leader. Offering a panoramic depiction of late 19th to early 20th-century Dutch East Indies society, the novels, while distinctly anti-colonial, acknowledge the undeniable role of the colonial system in shaping native elites. Two significant aspects are highlighted: the European-style education provided to indigenous people and the assistance and support from Dutch Ethical Policy advocates in promoting native self-governance.

As a postcolonial coming-of-age narrative, The Buru Quartet frames personal growth as synonymous with the emergence of nationalist consciousness. However, rather than presenting a simplistic critique of colonialism, it underscores the complex, ambivalent relationship between individuals and the colonial system. This nuanced exploration challenges monolithic anti-colonial perspectives, offering a deeper reflection on historical transformations.

The quartet’s historical and political context further enriches its significance. Written during Pramoedya’s imprisonment following the 1965 coup in Indonesia, the novels express his anxiety about Indonesia’s descent into a neo-colonial trap under Suharto’s regime. They also engage with Cold War geopolitics and the external interventions undermining Southeast Asian nations’ paths to self-determination. In this sense, The Buru Quartet redefines the coming-of-age novel not simply as anti-colonial propaganda but as a search for national direction through historical retrospection. It thus subverts the Eurocentric framework traditionally associated with the genre, offering new possibilities for postcolonial literary discourse.

This paper explores Crónica de uma Travessia by Luís Cardoso (b. 1958, Cailaco, East Timor) as a multifaceted life-narrative of colonial and postcolonial identity formation in Timor-Leste, positioning it within the frameworks of the colonial Entwicklungsroman, the (boarding) school novel or even, bearing in mind the Catholic/colonial millieu, a hypothetical missionary school novel. The novel offers a complex portrayal of the emergence of literary and historical consciousness through the protagonist’s perspective, developing within the slowness of colonial time yet marked by the rapid accumulation of historical and anthropological information. Cardoso's narrative style, characterized by both historical detail and ironic commentary, reflects a local Timorese perspective seeking recognition within a broader Lusophone literary tradition. By tracing the protagonist’s experiences within Catholic/colonial educational institutions, the novel does not explicitly critique the role of schooling as a tool of cultural assimilation and imperial epistemology—often found in postcolonial narratives—but rather seems to propose the Catholic and Portuguese colonial dimensions of Timorese identity as elements to be integrated into a new, composite sense of Timorese self. Two key examples of this dynamic include how Cardoso reconfigures historical memory through the character of the protagonist’s father, a symbolic figure who conflates Portuguese colonial authority with sacred Mambai tradition, and also the novel’s fixation on names and naming practices in Portuguese, which underscores a deeper reflection on identity and memory in Portuguese-speaking Asia.

Childcare in India reflects practices drawn from various religious traditions and social customs, ranging from Ayurvedic to Islamic practices associated with childcare, colonial education policy to post-independence national policies. The contemporary disciplining systems therefore reflect everything from the child-centeredness of Ayurvedic texts discouraging harsh speech and threats towards the child to practices drawn from colonial pedagogy, which considered the colonized subject— child to be inherently sinful needing socialization to overcome their savage nature. In a webinar, Spyros Soyrou invites Childhood Studies scholars to reflect upon the implications of Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence (originally an ecocritical theory) as inflicted on children and childhood. This paper contextualizes slow violence within certain disciplining practices and explores how the pre and post-independence novels such as The Crooked Line by Ismat Chugtai, Mohanaswami by Vasudhendra and Daughter's Daughter by Mrinal Pande reflect colonial, postcolonial and decolonial parenting practices. It also analyses the texts for possible arguments for overcoming them in favor of decolonial, "gentle" parenting.

As Chinese sci-fi enters the post-Liu Cixin generation（后刘慈欣时代） , Chinese sci-fi writers working in the 2010s and 2020s have engaged in more diverse sci-fi writing practices. Beginning with Chen Qiufan（陈楸帆）’s The Waste Tide（荒潮）, Mu Ming（慕明）’s The Serpentine Band（宛转环）, and then Shuangchimu（双翅目）’s The Cock Prince（公鸡王子）, this study will examine how Chinese sci-fi in the post-Liu Cixin generation imagines posthuman labour in the context of technological change, and what interactions labour has produced with the body and gender. It will also explore how the new labour, labourers, and labour relations created by Chinese sci-fi have changed the imagining of affective patterns and social structures in China.

Abstract:

In the context of contemporary China, humanism is mainly understood as an idea that emphasizes universal freedom and equality based on the individuality of humans. It held a very important position in Chinese social thought and ideology in the 1980s. However, the social movements and political reforms at the end of the 20th century led to a decline of humanism in mainstream Chinese politics, culture, and thought. The New Wave of Chinese science fiction since the 1990s, wrote largely outside the mainstream vision, takes on the remaining of humanist ideas in Chinese literature and culture from the 1980s. This paper analyzes how Zhang Ran’s science fiction novella When the Sun Falls responds to the challenges faced by humanism in the context of globalization in the 21st century on a level of cultural politics. It also discusses Chinese science fiction’s attempt draw on the solarpunk narrative to reconstruct humanistic ideals in a post-socialist context. When the Sun Falls can be considered the first solarpunk work in China. It explicitly evokes the real life political issues on a global scope. Particularly, it calls for environmental sustainability and social justice while proposing solarpunk solutions to related issues. It also highlights the universality of humanism through its presentation of the revolutionaries’ proactive and diverse struggles, reflecting the humanist ideals of freedom and equality. The many heroic figures with distinct humanistic characteristics that Zhang Ran creates in this work indicate an appetite for for activism. Faced with the gradual decline of humanistic ideals in the 21st century in the contemporary Chinese context of capitalist hegemony and technological despotism, conscious of the crises as well of the necessity of resistance, Zhang endeavours to reconstruct a possible future with humanistic values at its core with his radical imagination. Through a cultural-political interpretation of Zhang Ran’s work, this paper explores the profound uncertainty that characterizes the “future” in China within the complex realities of globalization. Furthermore, it indicates that a solarpunk reconstruction of humanism can offer indispensable insight to contemporary Chinese reality.

Donna Haraway defines cyborg in her A Cyborg Manifesto as an ideal figure that attempts to cross the boundaries between human and machines, human and animals, as well as human and other organic beings, possessing the potential to subvert established binary structures of gender, race, class, etc. This research focuses on the representation of cyborg and gender issues in multiple contemporary Chinese science fictions, by exploring three dimensions within cyborg narrative: cyborg body narration, the construction of emotion and feelings, and rethinking of posthumanism, which consistently revolves around the theme of “crossing boundaries”. This research examines whether these images of cyborg fit Donna Haraway's ideal cyborg imagination or not, and whether these cyborg representations offer new perspectives in the exploration of gender issues within Chinese science fiction. Through this analysis, this research further discusses how contemporary Chinese science fiction can create works that are able to escape from binary essentialism and embrace more possibilities regarding gender issues, by comparing the image of cyborg in both Chinese and Korean science fictions.

This paper examines the posthuman subject's technological considerations and their localized practices in Chinese science fiction literature, using Chen Qiufan（陈楸帆）'s science fiction collection "The Algorithms for Life" （人生算法）as the research text and integrating N. Katherine Hayles's theory of "cognitive assemblages." By analyzing the conflict between the discrete algorithmic logic and continuous embodied experience in "The Algorithms for Life," the study explores the dilemmas of posthuman subject in the digital age and reveals how they reconstruct the boundaries of subjectivity through human-machine cognitive collaboration.

The Canonization of The Epic of Gesar as a historical poem, is a long heroic epic formed by the accumulation of various cultural elements from Tibetan myths, historical narratives, cultural memories, customs, beliefs, and expressive discourse throughout different periods. In different eras, among different ethnic groups, and within varied historical contexts, continuously creating new versions of the epic. Moreover, through the recording, organizing, research, commentary, and further creative contributions by generations of eminent monks, wise sages, and scholar-literati, the process of its canonization has been persistently advanced.The Epic of Gesar is a living classic. From its orally transmitted form to the written texts that have been recorded and organized, through literary historiography, diverse interpretations among different ethnicities, and its translation and dissemination both domestically and internationally, it has gradually established its status as a classic.

Tsubouchi Shōyō is known as the ‘father’ of comparative literature in Japan, and his pioneering Shakespeare translations (completed between 1909 and 1928) are rooted in his comparative outlook. One comparative framework that seems to have influenced Tsubouchi throughout his career, starting in the 1880s, is the pedagogic ideal of 'wakanyō', namely the synthesis of local Japanese ('wa'), universal Chinese ('kan') and spiritualized Western ('yō') elements that was influential in late 19th century Japan. 'Wakanyō' is relevant to the gradual replacement during the period of Japan’s modernisation of the traditional 'kundoku' method of reading and translating classical Chinese texts according to Japanese syntax and word order with translation styles based on the contemporary colloquial. In the case of Tsubouchi’s Shakespeare translations, this movement (known as genbun icchi) facilitates a dynamic engagement with Shakespeare’s spoken idiom based on a modern techne of translation in which techniques such as paraphrase and compensation emulate the normative authority of Sino-Japanese characters, and can be demonstrated by comparing Tsubouchi’s early 1884 adaptation of Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar" with his 1913 translation of the same play in modern Japanese. Tsubouchi does not necessarily need to appropriate Renaissance ideals such as honour that are embedded in the play, and yet his creative and domesticating translation style does beg comparisons between such ideals and, for example, the Buddhist and Confucianist ideals that shaped the Chinese tradition, and can be set against the changing cultural relationship of China and Japan over the course of Tsubouchi’s career. My presentation will survey the basic techniques (or techne) of Tsubouchi’s Shakespeare translations, and consider what it means for them to refer not only to Shakespeare’s Renaissance culture but to the Chinese cultural sphere in which his early education was based.

To illustrate the cultural attributes of costume in the novel from a translation viewpoint, the research delves into the cultural translatability of costumes in the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber, focusing on the translation work of David Hawkes and John Minford. The theoretical foundation derives from previous scholars’ cultural translatability theories, summarizing the previous research and debates on translatability and untranslatability.

This study aims to expand the existing researches on cultural translatability in translation studies by investigating the subject through unconventional theoretical lenses. Based on the three aspects of translatability proposed by previous scholars, this study redefines three levels to evaluate cultural translatability: Linguistic level, Literary level, and Cultural level. From linguistics level, the study focuses on accuracy, examining whether Hawkes’ costume translation conveys the original textual content. In terms of literary level, The research investigates whether English clothing translations, like their Chinese counterparts, communicate character personalities, using Wang Xifeng and Jia Baoyu as case studies. From the perspective of cultural level, the study explores the extent to which clothing translations transmit the cultural connotations of the original text. Furthermore, it adopts a triangulated methodology encompassing questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews, and comparative textual analysis. Through this mixed-methods approach, the research seeks to address methodological unicity in previous investigations while providing complementary empirical evidence to advance current understandings of cultural translatability.

The study finds that while Hawkes’ translation captures the essence of the costumes, it partially fails to convey the deeper cultural connotations, especially for those unfamiliar with the novel. The research concludes that costume translation plays a supportive role in character portrayal rather than a dominant one and suggests using paratext to compensate for cultural losses in translation.

This paper explores how poetry—a highly condensed lyrical genre—achieves cross-artistic transformation through cinematic media, with particular focus on the transmedial transcoding mechanisms of imagery transmission, rhythm control, and emotional expression. Focusing on Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues as a primary case study—wherein the director strategically incorporates Bolaño’s poetry—the research delineates three fundamental processes by which cinematic language reconstitutes poetic essence: firstly, the materialization of poetic symbolism through visual metaphors (exemplified by aqueous imagery); secondly, the simulation of poetic cadence via montage temporality; and thirdly, the actualization of polyphonic lyricism through techniques of sound-image disjunction.

Successful poetic cinematization does not merely illustrate text but reactivates poetry’s latent spatiality through medium-specific devices (e.g., long takes, chromatic composition), creating an immersive “wanderable-habitable” aesthetic experience. While digital technologies (e.g., algorithm-generated imagery) have opened new experimental frontiers for poetic films, vigilance is required against technological spectacle eroding poetic negative capability. This study aims to establish practical paradigms for intermedial poetics research while constructing theoretical bridges for creative dialogue between literature and cinema.

This study explores the integration of fictional characters from classic literature into “daily-use AI-driven roleplaying models” (hereafter “Language Cosplay models”) to bridge literary narrative and artificial intelligence technologies. By developing AI-powered virtual agents, this study proposes a corpus-based character modelling framework that systematically transfers personality traits, behavioural patterns, and narrative trajectories of fictional figures from classic literature into interactive AI entities. This enables literary figures to “come alive” and enter real-world conversational scenarios to elevate readers’ interactive literary experiences. A case study based on Harry Potter from children’s literature illustrates the implementation. Using deep neural networks trained on domain-specific corpora (e.g., children literature) and psychological profiling algorithms, this study’s method attempts to construct cognitively credible agents that preserve narrative authenticity while enabling adaptive interaction. Such models not only demonstrate foundational literary comprehension capabilities but also engage users in multi-turn emotional interactions, delivering an immersive text-based reimagining experience.

A preliminary experiment demonstrates this framework’s potential to elicit multi-layered immersive experiences in user interaction. These include: (1) re-experiencing the source text through context-aware dialogue aligned with character development arcs; (2) enhanced empathic cognition via emotionally responsive outputs that reflect the protagonist’s psychological evolution; and (3) user-driven transmedia narrative expansion beyond the boundaries of the original text. This approach contributes to the growing field of digital humanities by reimagining literary engagement through intelligent character simulation.

Amid the era of "literature encountering images," Nietzsche's deconstructionist-inspired visual theories demand re-evaluation, offering fresh perspectives for both literature and photography. Just as literary works are seen as reading events, photography should be deconstructed as a multi-phase activity—a methodological approach to organically integrate Nietzschean thought. This process comprises three phases: Pre-shoot calibration (Focusing-Gazing)，Image-formation (Framing-Recording)，Post-shoot product (Photograph-Document). These phases align with Nietzsche's biography, constructing an experimental scenario wherein Nietzsche transforms: from photographer to "aesthetic phenomenon"，into "lens of life" generating "negative-world"，ultimately solidified into a photograph and then disembedded as an "ether dust particle" . This framework expresses Nietzsche's critique of metaphysical traditions via photographic metaphors, while offering Nietzschean interpretations of photographic imaging principles and AI diffusion models.

À l'ère de la « rencontre entre littérature et images », les théories visuelles de Nietzsche, inspirées par la déconstruction, exigent une réévaluation et offrent des perspectives novatrices pour la littérature comme pour la photographie. Tout comme les œuvres littéraires sont envisagées comme des événements de lecture, la photographie doit être déconstruite en une activité multiphase — une approche méthodologique pour intégrer organiquement la pensée nietzschéenne. Ce processus comprend trois phases : calibration pré-photographique (Focusing-Gazing), formation de l'image (Framing-Recording), et produit post-photographique (Photograph-Document). Ces phases s'articulent avec la biographie de Nietzsche, construisant un scénario expérimental où Nietzsche se métamorphose d'un photographe en un « phénomène esthétique », puis en une « lentille vivante » générant un « monde-négatif », pour finalement se solidifier en photographie et se désencastrer en « particule d'éther ». Ce cadre théorique exprime la critique nietzschéenne des traditions métaphysiques à travers des métaphores photographiques, tout en proposant des interprétations nietzschéennes des principes d'imagerie photographique et des modèles de diffusion AI.

The development of printing technology and the rise of the newspaper industry provided important vehicles for constructing a national imagination. Newspapers created extraordinary mass rituals that shaped the imagination of millions of people simultaneously, forming a shared "Imagined Communities". Tcheng Ki-tong, a diplomat from the late Qing dynasty who was stationed in France, was active in European intellectual circles. He frequently interacted with figures from the media and cultural spheres. He delivered speeches and published articles in newspapers. This made him a "cultural celebrity" in French society. During the golden age of journalism in France, this "Géneral Tcheng Ki-tong" actively utilized forms such as reportage and roman-feuilleton to rewrite the image of China and eliminate European prejudices and misunderstandings about China, aiming to promote mutual understanding between East and West. What were the characteristics of his literary practices in newspapers? How did they differ from traditional Chinese literary practices? Did he achieve his goal of changing the image of China?

Compared to other Chinese envoys of the same period, Chen Jitong's literary works reflected the characteristics of French reportage, blending political and literary elements. He emphasized introducing traditional Chinese culture and demonstrated the superiority of China's social system and ancient civilization. His works also carried national symbols and an underlying tone of civilization. He employed ethnographic and empirical methods to introduce customs that would civilize China's image.

Additionally, he recognized the influence of newspapers on public opinion. Through the literary form of serialized novels, which were easier for readers to understand and accept, he presented an alternative image of China. In creating and publishing Le Roman de l'Homme Jaune, it is evident that he shaped China's image not only through political justice, but also by introducing Chinese literature and depicting Chinese scholars and virtuous women to showcase various aspects of his homeland.

In the process, Chen Jitong also constructed multiple cultural identities: a diplomat who responded to current events with sensitivity; a celebrity with anecdotes; and a Chinese literati who was familiar with the French literary tradition and was able to use it positively. Taking Chen Jitong as a case study helps to understand how traditional Chinese intellectuals in the late 19th century react with emerging media technologies, and how Chen Jitong, as a Chinese diplomat, took advantage of the golden age of the European press industry to write about China and realise his own literary ideals; last but not least, it helps to understand the connection and interaction between literature and the press in the nineteenth century.

This panel, featuring four scholars, examines how body, representation, and narrative transcend the boundaries between East and West, shedding light on the intricate cultural, historical, and geographical interplay within the contemporary globalized world.

In “The Vietnamese-American Body in Motion: Diasporic Identity and Embodiment in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” Kai-su Wu, using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, analyzes the narrator’s body as a metaphor for diasporic dislocation and identity navigation. Wu examines how the narrator adopts embodied communication to connect his lived experience in the U.S. with the enduring, haunting memories of his family’s past in Vietnam.

Liying Wang, in her presentation titled “When Mulan Crosses the Pacific Ocean: The Chances and Challenges,” discusses several Mulan-themed adaptations in the post-Disney era (since 1998), investigating how American cultural imperialism both blessed and cursed the story of this Chinese heroine. While globalization transformed Mulan’s legend from Chinese national literature into world literature, it also posed a challenge for China to reclaim her by initiating a series of ideological, generic, transmedial, and narratological modifications.

Lijun Wang’s paper, “Shangri-La in American Apocalypse: Toward a Contemporary Tibetan Orientalism,” aims to renew and complicate our understanding of how Tibet is reimagined in contemporary American apocalyptic fantasies. By focusing on disaster films and science fiction such as 2012 (2009), The Creator (2023), and Zero K (2016), Wang argues that while the Western convention of romanticizing Tibet continues to permeate, the patterns observed by Donald Lopez Jr. have notably evolved. Although Tibet remains idealized as a utopia, the West is now portrayed as a dystopia, with Westerners depicted as destroyers of the world while Tibetans emerge as saviors.

In “The Western Tentacles and the Chinese Great Serpent: Cthulhu Literature in China,” Jingyun Xiao traces how Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos was introduced into China and gave birth to a genre that might be called “Chinese Cthulhu literature” over the last few decades. By comparing four Chinese Cthulhu tales with Lovecraft’s original works, Xiao argues that Cthulhu, the evil god originating from Western modernism, has intertwined with Chinese mythology, history and culture, contributing to transnational circulations within the globalized mediascape of Cthulhu.

Together, these four panelists engage with border-crossings of the body, representation, and narrative between the East and the West, offering rich insights into the globalized nature of comparative literature and culture.

The large-scale release of Chinese women’s book series in the 1990s, is often regarded as a sign of the prosperity of local women’s literature. Yet from most critics’ perspective, gender, as a cultural capital, was possibly named, interpreted and manipulated by the cultural market, undermining the radicality of its representations and hindering the generation of gender politics. Firstly, this paper sorts out the representative women’s book series published during this period. By focusing on the related cultural producers(female authors and editors) and their texts, this paper then outlines their differentiated ways of articulating western feminism and local femininity, as well as their ambivalent attitudes towards cultural consumption.

Thereafter, the “Red Poppy” series, one of the largest book series of female authors edited by male, serves as the main case. The “red poppy” imagery which denotes threat, seduction and revolution in western culture and Chinese experiences of modernity, seemingly empowers female discourse, but might once again stereotype women as the mystic and heterogeneous other. The second volume of this series initiates the “yingji” form, which extensively displays female authors’ own photographs. Through the innovative text-image interplay(laying out and describing these photos), the female authors tentatively construct their self-image, identity and private history. During this process, women are not always in the passive position of “being edited/watched”; their everyday interpretations unveil and even rebel against the disciplines of body imposed by national ideologies in the Chinese visual and textual tradition. The practice, to some extent, adjusts the deviating representations about femininity and its cultural potentials primarily manifested by “red poppy”. And its trans-media trait, has henceforth become common in Chinese female authors’ strive for their discourse resources.

This paper examines the auto-orientalizing discourse articulated by the eroticized Chinese female body in Shan Sa’s novel Les Conspirateurs and Angelin Preljocaj’s choreographic work The Fresco, both of which depict inter-racial love stories that navigate between East and West, Self and Other. Les Conspirateurs unfolds as a psychological and political thriller where an American spy and a Chinese spy engage in a complex game of disguise, deception, and seduction. Their encounter blurs the boundaries between lies and realities, and layers of identity intersect and dissolve. In The Fresco, inspired by a traditional Chinese legend, Preljocaj reimagines the motif of the "journey to the Orient." The story follows two British travelers who become mesmerized by a woman depicted on a fresco and are drawn into an illusory, fantastical realm where imagination and desire intertwine.

Both works traverse the cultural and emotional complexities of cross-cultural encounters, depicting the Chinese female body as a contested site for external gaze, desire, and agency. Despite reflecting contradictions generated by orientalist discourse, these bodies also become spaces for negotiation and transformation.

Addressing a key research gap, this study explores how the legacy of orientalist representations continues to shape modern intercultural narratives across literature and dance. While much scholarship focuses on 19th and 20th-century dichotomies of orientalism, there is limited attention to how these dynamics endure and evolve in contemporary contexts. By employing postcolonial theories, including Homi Bhabha’s hybridity and Édouard Glissant’s chaos-monde, the paper argues that these works represent a shift from rigid dichotomies to fluid hybridization. The Chinese female body emerges not only as a symbol of contradiction but as a locus of creative potential, articulating a vision of cultural intermixing where identities blend, disrupt, and reimagine themselves in a globalized artistic landscape.

Chinese characters and Chinese books were transported to Japan through Korean peninsula. Korean reprinted Dongpo’s poems and essays according to Chinese edition, and these Korean printed books were transported to Japan through commercial trade and war plunder etc. from 16th century, which were very helpful for Japan to learn from Chinese traditional culture, and these Korean books also influenced Japanese books’ printing. We can see there’re mainly two tyles of Korean books of Dongpo’s poems and essays, by the writer’s book survey in Iwase Bunko Library, University of Tokyo Library System and National Diet Library,Japan: the first style is Dongpo’s personal book of poems and essays, and the second style is anthology of famous literati’s anthology in Tang and Song Dynasty, which include some of Dongpo’s poems and essays. In addition, the main part of these books are official block-printing one， which tells us that Korean were valued and accepted Dongpo’s poems and essays from government to ordinary people. Dongpo’s lifetime, including where he stayed, such as Hangzhou, Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou’s customs were knew by overseas’ people through these books. The Korean books have high material value, and the headnotes, interlinear notes, review, preface and postscript are all very valuable for bibliographic study, literature study, and history study.

In the oldest historical book of Japan, Kojiki, we can see some records about Japanese acceptance of Chinese books from Korean Peninsula, such as The Analects of Confucius etc. During this cultural interaction history, Dongpo’s poems and essays printed in China were transported to Korean Peninsula firstly, then to Japan. Dongpo’s books of poems and essays had become popular, that’s why we can see lots of Dongpo’s books reprinted by Korean Peninsula, which were transported to Japan by commercial trade or war plunder later, sometimes by giving as gifts and so on, just as mentioned above. On the other hand, We can see some records about Korean printed ancient Chinese books in Shulin Qinghua wrote by Ye Dehui in Qing Dynasty. Ye honored these ancient Chinese books printed in Korean and took it as good edition.

We can find many cases about ancient Chinese books printed in Korean transported to Japan in historical books, and can find many such books exist until today in Japan, but how they are transported to Japan exactly? This paper tries to answer this problem according to the book survey in many libraries in Japan, and takes Kim Sekyun김세균(金世鈞,1465-1539)’s collections in Iwase Bunko Library as example to analyst the historical records in China, Korean and Japan. In addition, this paper records edition information about Dongpo’s books of poems and essays printed in Korean Peninsula, but now collected in Japan, and these books were all read by writer during her book survey.

As a distinguished philosopher and anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism and its derivative theories have had a significant impact on human society in the 20th century and beyond, bridging the theoretical domains of the natural sciences and the humanities. This paper focuses on Lévi-Strauss's analysis of Japanese culture, employing his structuralist methodology and anthropological perspectives. It investigates two key dimensions: the convergence of signs and the divisionnisme. Through these perspectives, the paper reconstructs the cultural motifs and structural characteristics of Japan as outlined by Lévi-Strauss, revealing his dynamic and multifaceted framework for comparing Eastern and Western cultures and the approach to synchronic understanding. Furthermore, the paper explores the methodological insights and modern implications that Strauss's research on Japan offers for contemporary scholarship.

The discussion will be organized around four principal themes. First, the interplay between tradition and modernity, as framed by art history. Second, the relationship between nodes and frameworks in the study of mythology. Third, the centripetal forces arising from the interaction between East and West, each resisting yet generating mutual attraction. Fourth, the presentation modes of structuralism and the novel understanding of synchronisme. Lévi-Strauss characterizes Japanese culture as "the hidden other side of the moon," reflecting his expectation of symmetry, resonance, and mutual understanding amid the cultural divergences between East and West, with the aim of transcending cultural dualism and seeking greater integration across spatial and historical dimensions.

However, it is evident that some of Strauss’s discussions on the characteristics of Japanese culture still bear traces of exotic cultural imagination, and his treatment of the holistic connections within Asian cultural history is somewhat insufficient. Nevertheless, Lévi-Strauss’s work continues to represent a seminal Western interpretation of Eastern culture, providing valuable insights into cross-cultural dialogue within the context of the Anthropocene and offering profound reflections on the relationship between humanity and nature.

The “transcendence of modernity” is a highly controversial but tense proposition in Japan's reflection on modernity. Japanese intellectuals have adopted the perspective of the opposition between the “East” and the “West” in an attempt to transcend the “modern” imposed on Japan (East Asia) by Europe and the United States in the modern era. This “East-West dichotomy” focuses on the specificity of Japan and attempts to produce localized knowledge. However, the theory of the “modern supra-grammatism” ignores the idea that “modernity is ourselves”, that is, in the reality of global capitalism, “local knowledge” is always a product of globalization. The Modernization of East Asian Countries The course of modernization in East Asian countries was accompanied by wars and colonization, which made the East Asian countries have complicated emotions towards “modernity”. On the one hand, achieving “modernity” is an inevitable requirement for “preserving the nation and the race”; on the other hand, achieving “modernity” is at the expense of “local specificity”. This paper argues that the dichotomy between “local” and “world” and the attempt to return to “nationalism” is inevitably unattainable; it is necessary to go beyond such a perspective and deal with “local” and “world” in a communitarian way. The relationship between “place” and “world” must be addressed in a communitarian manner, beyond such a perspective.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

During the more than six hundred years from the Goryeo Dynasty to the end of the Joseon Dynasty, many Korean literati in the envoys to China and Japan wrote an abundant of travel records. These materials are increasingly valued by scholars in South Korea, Japan, and China. Among them, the parting poems and essays written by Korean literati for their envoy relatives and friends on their travel to China or to Japan have received less attention. These literati wrote either based on their own East Asia travel experiences or based on their own imagination. Their creative motives, creative mentalities, and the features of the overseas countries they described presented the constructed images of China and Japan in three dimensions, and also reflected the complex political, economic, and cultural relationships among the three countries. Compared with the one-dimensional study of the East Asian travel poems and essays by Korean literati, the parting poems and essays on East Asian travels contain the dialogues and exchanges between the see-off literati and the literati being seen -off, presenting the similarities and differences in the images of China and Japan constructed by Korean literati more diversely. In addition, the parting poems and essays on East Asian travels also have certain reference values for the authenticity and textual research of the historical materials in“Chaotian Lu”and "Yanxing Lu" (Records of Travels to Beijing written by Korean Literati), and are also very helpful for deeply understanding the social conditions, ideological cultures of China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula, and for the mutual learning of East Asian civilizations.

This article takes D.T.Suzuki’s elaboration on the "emptiness" of Zen Buddhism at the Eranos conference as an example to explore the ideological phenomenon of the westward dissemination of Zen Buddhism in the 20th century. The Eranos conference has been held annually in Ascona, Switzerland since 1933 and has played a crucial role in the cultural exchange between the East and the West. Currently, this aspect has received scant attention in the Chinese academic community. Suzuki delivered consecutive speeches at the conference in 1953 and 1954, presenting people with an inner path to extricate themselves from the spiritual predicament of modernity. In Suzuki's elaboration, the awakening of the spiritual world implies having no discriminatory mind towards all things. People can unveil the veil that dichotomous thinking casts over the real world by independence from language and non-objectification enabling the mind to directly apprehend "emptiness". At this juncture, people no longer draw a boundary between the self and nature, thereby dissolving the anxiety of constantly being threatened by the external world. He employed the "The Ten Oxherding Pictures" to suggest that the "emptiness" of Zen Buddhism unifies "non-being" and "non-nothingness", possessing the "possibility" of continuous renewal. The connotation of "emptiness" has been enriched in the ideological confrontation between the East and the West, inspiring European thinkers and artists to re-understand the world in their perplexity and also being beneficial for people nowadays to practice a positive meaning of life in their daily routines.

Translation, which aspires to provide a transparent rendering of a literary work in another language, inevitably clouds how this work's position in the original culture is perceived by the culture of its reception. The translator is a traitor not only at the level of the sentence, as many have noted, but also, more profoundly, at a canonical level. Translations can eradicate or obscure canons, just as they can make them accessible. Hence, translations of French literature in the 1940s and 1950s were expected to theorize either existentialism or the "nouveau roman," making it more difficult for Anglo-American readers to perceive the work of more socially oriented French writers such as Roger Vaillant or Romain Gary. Translations of Latin American literature in the 1960s and 1970s were inevitably perceived as disseminating "magic realism," even though this aesthetic was typical of only a few isolated regions of Latin America. This is a case not simply of some works overshadowing others, but of a literary geography that does not correspond Ito reality being extrapolated from the minority of works that are published. in translation. This tendency is accentuated in the Romanian case, where comparatively few canonical works have been translated into English. The elevation of Mircea Eliade by American students of the 1960s, who saw him as the apostle who brought South Asian religions to the hippie generation, made it more difficult for Anglo-American readers to perceive the wave of inter-war Romanian fiction to which Eliade had contributed as a young man. Drawing on the careers in English translation of Romanian novelists of the 1930s, including Eliade, Mihail Sebastian and Jean Bart, this presentation will argue that, at the level of a culture, the contradictory enterprise of translation often obscures as much as it divulges, ultimately mapping out an alternate vision of a national canon rather than reproducing that perceived by readers in the country of origin.

In 2022 came out in Romanian a reference work titled Dicţionarul romanului central-european din secolul XX [Dictionary of the Central-European Novel of the 20th c.], coordinated by Adriana Babeţi, which I have edited. While I was preparing the manuscript for publication I found out that many of the novels written by influential writers from the neighbouring Slavic countries were not translated into Romanian over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. Actually, out of 75 writers originating in 6 Slavic countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia), roughly half (35) were not translated.

My paper proposes an analysis of the reasons for this intriguing situation and of the cultural policies at play on the background of different historical contexts, with particular emphasis on the contemporary period (after 1990). Who were the translators and how were these translations received within the Romanian literary field are other issues that deserve our interest. A case study which will be discussed in greater detail is that of the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić.

Dès le début du postcommunisme, l’espace littéraire roumain traverse la reconfiguration des stratégies spécifiques de légitimation et la redéfinition de ses rapports avec le champ politique. Les pratiques institutionnelles d’exportation littéraire (coordonnées par des programmes gouvernementaux) deviennent de plus en plus visibles dans l’espace publique et, plus d’une fois, apportent une visibilité ambivalente pour les écrivains et leurs œuvres.

Le sujet de cette communication porte sur les pratiques d’autoreprésentation de Mircea Cărtărescu (n. 1956), l’un de plus traduits auteurs roumains contemporains, par rapport à sa propre trajectoire d’internationalisation. A travers une analyse posturale, qui aura comme noyau l’identité discursive rendue visible dans les journaux intimes de l’auteur (4 volumes, publiés de son vivant) et dans des interviews et articles de presse, on essaiera d’identifier les manières dont un auteur vit son parcours d’internationalisation. On tente de rendre visibles les indices d’autoreprésentation de sa notoriété croissante, ses rapports avec les traducteurs et le public étranger, mais également l’impact de cette internationalisation sur l’image de soi d’un auteur qui fait des valeurs spécifiques de l’autonomie littéraire (croyance dans l’humanisme de la littérature, intérêt pour la forme, désintéressement économique) son crédo immuable.

Laurent de Premierfait, grand humaniste du règne de Charles VI, est notamment connu pour avoir été le premier à traduire le Décaméron de Boccace. Ses traductions en français à partir du latin ont notamment inauguré la mise en circulation du Livre de vieillesse, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes et du De casibus virorum illustrium. Figure emblématique de la dynamique des transferts culturels entre lʼItalie et la France au XIVe siècle, le rôle politique de Laurent de Premierfait sʼinscrit dans une histoire à part des translation studies.

Si pour lʼétude de la Renaissance, les traductions constituent un réseau culturel essentiel, force est de constater que des processus similaires se reproduisent dans toute lʼhistoire de la construction de lʼidentité européenne. Avec lʼélargissement de lʼUnion européenne, des vagues succesives dʼintégration culturelle ont permis au public occidental de découvrir dʼune part un cinéma extrêmement original (voir le cas de la soi-disant Nouvelle vague roumaine), dʼautre part des milieux littéraires de lʼest de lʼEurope qui avaient lʼoccasion de raconter leur version sur lʼhistoire vécue après la fin de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale. Les traductions littéraires, en tant quʼinstitution politique à part, nourissent lʼimaginaire social dʼun rattrapage et constituent des témoignages spécifiques sur le besoin dʼexister en dehors dʼune géographie donnée et dʼune histoire totalitaire. Pour les pays de lʼest de lʼEurope au seuil du IIIe millénaire, gagner cette géographie autre par les traductions littéraires trahit un besoin de transgression vers une nouvelle identité historique.

Amongst the many genres in the lyric mode, the intent to lament sets the tone for the much-anthologised literary forms – elegy, monody and threnody, to name a few. This paper shall attempt to depict the relation between the performativity of genres and the construction of grief found in the act of using language, beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of the European literary system, in the primary texts – Amrita Pritam’s 'Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu' ('Today I Invoke Waris Shah') and in Usha Ganguli’s dramatization of Mahasweta Devi’s 'Rudali'. Despite having residual elements of an ode in its title, Amrita Pritam’s 'Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu' ('Today I Invoke Waris Shah') emerges as a lyric of lament, instead of a lyric of celebration/glorification, due to the difference in its intentionality and aesthetic reception. Further, the use of intertextuality is exemplified in the invocation of Waris Shah to lament for the “heers” (daughters) and the land of Punjab during the time of Partition. Simultaneously, the intermediality in Usha Ganguli’s dramatization of Mahasweta Devi’s 'Rudali' offers the voices of the “Rudalis”–women who cry at funerals for a living–the space to disclose as well as claim the performance of their expression of grief, both through language and their bodies which is exhibited in the act of beating their bosoms and breaking their bangles-a conventional sign of widowhood in the language-culture system the text is located in. Although the change is in the mode–from narrative to dramatic, that is, the novel 'Rudali' written by Mahasweta Devi in Bengali to the play of same name written by Usha Ganguli in Hindi, respectively–the intent to lament manifests itself in the poesis of grief in the performance of the Rudalis and suggests the possibility of reading the text as a lyric. A close reading of the primary texts in this paper, therefore, challenges the canonical approach towards the literary historiography of genres with the aim to extend the horizon of expectations through a phenomenological understanding of genres with respect to plurality and relationality.

Abstract: The Bildungsroman Until I Find You by contemporary American writer John Irving unfolds with Jack Burns’ tumultuous journey to uncover the mystery of his father’s prolonged absence. Set against the backdrop of a turbulent society, the narrative depicts the struggles and explorations of an individual in search of the answer to “Who am I?” Jack's twisted family relationships plunge him into a state of self-loss from a young age, and his quest for his father becomes his proactive response to the emotional and identity crises he faces. This journey aids him in rediscovering his true self and reflects Irving's profound contemplation on the relationship between the “self” and “others”— the discovery of the father ("you") is essential to Jack's self-discovery ("I") . The “you” in the novel’s title refers not only to the father Jack has long been looking for but also to the true self he has been pursuing. Through an analysis of Jack’s growth process, it becomes evident that the restoration of one’s true self is not achieved by erasing painful memories but rather by confronting and embracing all experiences, thereby shaping a complete, rich, and authentic self.

Both in the area of Walden and Hunan province, water has witnessed life derived from it circulate continuously and maintain its original form despite the alternation of seasons and recurrence of historical events. As a special archetype, water carries the collective memories of human civilization, which symbolizes life and circulation in many primeval myths and legends east and west. Both Northrop Frye and Jung took water as an important archetypal image related to life and circulation. This research will adopt the archetypal criticism theory by Frye and the collective unconsciousness theory by Jung to explore the archetype of water, which symbolizes the circulation of life and carries the human collective unconsciousness in both Chinese and western culture. This research will also analyze the difference of water archetype in Chinese and western myths, in the aim of enhancement to mutual learning among civilizations.

This presentation examines the emotional language surrounding the term “shachiku” (corporate livestock) through a close analysis of the narrative I Work at a Black Company and I Think I’m at My Limit (Watashi wa Burakku Kaisha ni Tsutometeirun daga, Mou Genkai Kamoshirenai), originally posted on 2channel (２ちゃんねる), Japan’s largest anonymous internet forum.

The text, which began as an anonymous testimony of workplace suffering, gained widespread attention and was later adapted into a novel and film. It reflects the exhaustion, alienation, and psychological entrapment experienced by workers under exploitative conditions in so-called “black companies.” Through this narrative, I explore how precarious labor is emotionalized, how shachiku identity is internalized, and how digital anonymity enables both confession and solidarity.

By situating this story within the broader context of 2channel discourse, I argue that the post functions not merely as personal catharsis but also as a collective emotional document, capturing the shared affect of a generation navigating unstable employment. This analysis contributes to an understanding of how digital narratives mediate labor emotions in contemporary Japanese culture.

My research will focus on the period from the birth of Korea's first dedicated game magazine, 『게임월드(Game World)』 (published by 미래시대, launched August 1990), to the emergence of 『게임매거진(Game Magazine)』 (published by 커뮤니케이션그룹, launched November 1994). 『Game Magazine』 was notable for systematically sectioning and covering not only games but also related media such as animation, models, and TRPGs.

Previously, game strategy guides were often just a section within student computer magazines like 『컴퓨터학습(Computer Study)』 (published by 민컴, launched November 1983). The advent of a dedicated game media meant that the other sections typically found in computer magazines had to be reconfigured within the new format of a game magazine. Therefore, the period from the inception of 『게임월드』 to the birth of 『게임매거진』 offers valuable insight into the journey of this nascent Korean media genre as it refined its unique format.

At the time, game magazines were seen as nearly the sole 'subculture information magazines' capable of providing systematic and historical knowledge and information about games in general, or various related contexts, that were interconnected and expansive, going beyond simply introducing or analyzing games." Considering that Japanese subculture magazines had already functioned as specialized media for their respective fields and developed their own unique formats in the 1980s, the nature of Korean game magazines suggests they couldn't simply mirror Japanese magazine formats. While Japan offered an endless supply of news suitable for magazines—covering games, animation, models, and more—the key challenge for early Korean game magazines was how to effectively arrange this content within a unique format.

Under the hypothesis that this search for a distinct format was the key keyword for the dawn of Korean game magazine history, this study will analyze 『게임월드』, 『게임뉴스(Game News)』 (published by 다선기업, launched August 1991), 『게임챔프(Game Champ)』 (published by 제우미디어, launched December 1992), and 『게이매거진』 as primary sources. By comparing their editorial formats and analyzing the discourses contained within them, this research aims to clarify how these media constructed sections beyond games, how they integrated other subcultures like animation, and how these elements gradually became formalized as staple content within the magazines.

This presentation examines the trends of the fantasy genre in major Korean and Japanese web novel platforms by comparing works categorized as fantasy based on platform-provided metadata. The analysis focuses on KakaoPage and Naver Series in Korea, and Shōsetsuka ni Narō and Kakuyomu in Japan. Using metadata such as genre tags, keywords, and story summaries, the study investigates the differences in thematic and narrative tendencies found in fantasy web novels across the two countries.

In this study, the term "fantasy genre" does not refer to its traditional literary definition, but rather to a practical classification system defined by each platform in accordance with user navigation and service design. Based on this framework, the presentation compares how fantasy web novels differ in narrative and thematic expression, aiming to highlight cultural distinctions in genre trends.

Through this analysis, the study reveals how fantasy web novels diverge between Korea and Japan, and explores the potential of data-driven methods in digital humanities for conducting cross-cultural genre comparison and platform-centered literary research.

This study conducts a comparative analysis of media discourses on the transitional period from the end of the Shōwa era to the beginning of the Heisei era, focusing on articles published between 1989 and 1996 in Asahi Shimbun’s online database and the Zainichi Korean magazine Chunggu. These two outlets—one a major Japanese national newspaper, the other an ethnic publication by the Korean diaspora in Japan—offer distinct perspectives on sociopolitical change during this era of transition. The quantitative phase extracts keywords from both databases and identifies those directly related to Shōwa and Heisei. These keywords are analyzed for relational patterns and used to filter articles for topic modeling and further keyword reanalysis. The qualitative phase examines representative articles from dominant topic clusters, analyzing their discursive structures and thematic orientations. Through this process, the study explores how Zainichi Koreans perceived the era shift, articulated their identity and direction, and how these representations differed from or intersected with narratives in Japanese mainstream media. Ultimately, this research aims to shed light on the cultural and ideological dynamics embedded in the media discourses of a society in historical transition.

A Comparative Analysis of Grave of the Fireflies and the Original Novel” examines the differences between Isao Takahata’s animated film and Akiyuki Nosaka’s original novella, analyzing why the film has often been interpreted as an anti-war narrative or a reflection of Japan’s victim consciousness. Although Takahata stated that his work was not intended as an anti-war film—arguing that true anti-war messages should address the causes of war—audiences inevitably perceive the tragedy of Seita and Setsuko as a condemnation of war. The study focuses on the contrasting portrayals of Seita: in the novel, he is depicted as helpless and passive, indirectly responsible for his sister’s death. In contrast, the film softens these traits, casting him more clearly as a victim of circumstance. This divergence obscures Takahata’s original intent to critique the emotional immaturity and lack of resilience in modern youth. The paper suggests that the failure of the audience to grasp this intent stems from the film’s narrative choices, which elicit sympathy for Seita. Ultimately, the study explores the gap between the director’s message and audience reception, emphasizing the importance of interpretation in media consumption.

"The Pure Land of Suffering: My Minamata Disease" is the representative work of Japanese writer Michiko Ishimure. Once it was published, it received great acclaim and was continuously reprinted. It was praised by Natsuki Ikezawa as "the greatest masterpiece of Japanese literature after the war". The "Michiko-style" invented by the author breaks the boundary between documentary and fiction, endowing "The Pure Land of Suffering" with the significance of stylistic innovation and possessing strong artistic quality that cannot be ignored. Moreover, it attempts to reconstruct the female language beyond the male language. Taking the "Michiko-style" as the key word, this paper links the narrative methods of dialect and poetic language with the development process of Japanese society after the war. Conversely, it also interprets the influence of the modern "Michiko-style" from the perspective of literature and language. The refinement and sublimation of Michiko Ishimure's "Michiko-style" not only finds an outlet for resolving the modernity crisis characterized by environmental problems but also provides useful inspiration for us to study the value of literary styles.

With the development of society,women's self-consciousness has become stronger and stronger,and they believe that they can rely on themselves to improve their social status instead of realising their own value by relying on men.Female writers boldly display their desires and feelings in their works,thus opening up a new period of development for women's literature.Women's literature reveals the complexity and diversity of women's problems with a multi-dimensional perspective and deep social insight.This way of writing not only pays attention to the specific dilemmas of women in various fields such as family,workplace and society,but also explores in depth the social structure,cultural concepts and psychological factors behind these dilemmas.The women in the works struggle with multiple conflicts,such as spirit and flesh,love and affection,career and family,showing the spiritual confusion from "self" to "superego".These confusions not only stem from the specific problems of personal life,but also go deeper into the thinking of the essence and existence of "human".

This paper analyses and compares women's literary works from three countries, namely Under the Tree,Vegetarian and Brick Lane,which come from different cultural backgrounds and have different perspectives,but together reveal the challenges and dilemmas faced by women in contemporary society.From the perspectives of women's consciousness and destiny,we use comparative research methods to explore the various dilemmas faced by women in modern society,and analyse their writing styles and profound meanings,with the aim of revealing the unique perspectives and values of women's dilemmas in contemporary literary works.

Under the Tree is a work by Chinese writer Chi Zijian.Through depicting the growth story of the main character Qidou,it exposes the struggle and confusion of women in family,society and self-knowledge in the rural background where the traditional patriarchal system is deeply rooted.The work deeply describes the state of women's existence based on the perspective of vernacular ethics.

Focusing on Korean urban women,Han Gang,author of Vegetarian,uses her protagonist,Young-hye,to shed light on the multiple pressures women face in their families,marriages, and society.Young-hye refuses to eat meat because of a nightmare, an act that touches a sensitive nerve in social norms and causes her to suffer tremendous pressure from her family and society.Through Young-hye's tragic life,the work criticises the oppression of women by gender discrimination and social norms.

Monica Ali,author of Brick Lane,looks at the survival of Bengali immigrant women in post-colonial British society.The protagonist,Nazneen,struggles with the multiple dilemmas of race,class,and gender as she endeavours to construct her own cultural identity.Through Nazneen's story,the work explores the plight and the way out for ethnic minority women in a multicultural mixed society in the context of globalisation.

Although these three works have different geographical backgrounds and character settings,they all deeply reveal the dilemmas and challenges faced by women in modern society.These works are not only a profound writing of women's experiences,but also a powerful critique of social reality and a philosophical reflection on what "human beings" are.

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.

Queer theory in literature is a critical approach that examines how literary texts represent, subvert, or reinforce dominant norms of sexuality, gender, and identity. It rejects the conventional binaries (male/female, homosexual/heterosexual etc.) to resist the rigid structures of society including societal identity and class system.

This study uses queer theory’s principles of Fluidity and Intersectionality to analyze the subsequent identities in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through close reading and textual analysis. The principle of Fluidity questions the notion of fixed identities, exploring the evolving nature of Huck’s and Jim’s identities throughout their journey. It also highlights multiple roles played by both characters influencing their relationship which blur the lines between kinship, love and desire. Other principle explores Intersectionality of Huck’s and Jim’s experiences, demonstrating how their identities are shaped by multiple factors including race, class, gender and sexuality. It challenges the traditional concept of identity, belonging and citizenship.

By analyzing a pure and sincere love and friendship between Huck and Jim, this queer reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens a new horizon for scholars to use Queer theory to analyze texts beyond sexual love or LGBT+ categories.

Ultimately, it argues that Huckleberry Finn remains a deeply queer and subversive text, one that compels readers to rethink their assumptions about identity, belonging, and the American experience.

Twain’s masterpiece still continues to resonate with contemporary debates around identity, politics, social justice, and human rights.

In 2024, the game "Black Myth: Wukong" produced by Game Science Corporation has sparked a global craze among players and discussions among researchers, reflecting the cross-media performative nature of video games as a new form of productive force. This work is based on the traditional Chinese literary classic "Journey to the West" and integrates elements of Chinese traditional culture. In the construction of cross-media narratives, it demonstrates the performative aesthetic characteristics of the digital, virtual, interactive and generative in the field of humanities from the perspective of cultural exchange and mutual learning. Eastern fantasy stories have been rejuvenated under the creative influence of emerging audio-visual technologies, thereby recreating heroic myths closely related to modern people and generating transcendent life-political significance in immersive user games. Exploring the performative traits of video games will further contribute to exploratory thinking about the community with a shared future for mankind in the era of globalization.

The Chinese experimental opera adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays have become a unique phenomenon of cross-cultural exchange, which not only demonstrates the deep fusion of Chinese and Western theatre cultures, but also promotes the combination of the traditional art of xiqu with modern aesthetic concepts. By analyzing the experimental Peking opera “King Lear”, the experimental opera “Who is Macbeth?” and the experimental kunqu “I, Hamlet”, this article discusses the unique value and significance of these works in cross-cultural exchange. These works bring audiences a refreshing theater-going experience through unique Chinese-style performances, post-modern presentations of traditional opera elements, and deep linkage between Chinese and Western culture and thinking—firstly, the performance structure, stage design and vocal style employ rich Chinese representations in their adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays; secondly, the metatheatrical devices, such as solo performer and play-within-play structure, express their postmodern reinterpretations of traditional xiqu; thirdly, the Eastern and Western character linkage and similar identity exploration show the cultural connection and common value in different backgrounds. Through the unique Chinese-style performance, the post-modern presentation, and the deep linkage between Chinese and Western theaters, Chinese experimental opera brings the audience a brand new experience and provides a useful path for the innovative practice of xiqu.

This article aims to analyze the interplay of migration, boundary, identity and alienation through giving a close eye on the characters of ‘The Boundary’ and ‘The Reentry’, two stories from the book Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. Contrapuntal reading with postcolonial lens, particularly the concept of ‘hybridity’ of Homi K. Bhabha, has been offered to explore how the characters navigate through the liminal ‘third space’ between their native and adopted culture. Lahiri’s projection of Rome serves as a pivotal point of understanding the city as a metaphor for both inclusion and exclusion. The unnamed narrator of “The Boundary” negotiates between both physical and metaphorical borders which addresses the struggle of belonging and alienation. In "The Reentry," the protagonist’s return to Rome highlights the dissonance between memory and reality, reflecting the psychological complexities of reintegration. In both the stories Rome has been depicted as a space that shapes the identities and puts forth the dual shades of the city as it becomes a space of both estrangement and reconciliation. Bhabha’s theory illuminates the characters’ struggles with cultural adaptation and the search for home, revealing the fragmented and hybrid nature of diasporic identity.

With the advent of the digital age, the emergence of multiple media has gradually made "intermediality" a significant focus in literary and artistic studies, providing a new research perspective for Chinese American literature. Based on the intermedial theories of Werner Wolf, this paper explores the intermedial reference and intermedial transposition in the renowned The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter by Chinese American writer Amy Tan. Among them, through the intermedial reference to the structure of polyphony, the novels demonstrate profound cultural connotations, achieving a unity of intermedial form and content. Meanwhile, the two novels have been adapted into a film and an opera respectively. This intermedial transposition reflects the interaction of multi-dimensional intermediality and highlights the important role in enhancing the international communication of Chinese culture. Then, this paper further reveals the unique value of intermediality in Chinese American literature as represented by Amy Tan's works, exploring its significance in fostering exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and enhancing the global influence of Chinese culture.

In recent years, the feminist movement in South Korea has become increasingly intense, and Korean women are urgently calling for their rights. In the Korean feminist movement, the novel KIM JI-YOUNG, BORN 1982 has become one of the representative works of Korean feminism due to its influence and appeal. The author Nam-joo Cho presents the first half of the protagonist Kim Ji young's life in an objective way, like a mirror reflecting the phenomenon of "Misogyny" in Korean society. The novel's unique "scattered perspective" writing style presents the plight of Korean women in multiple ways. KIM JI-YOUNG, BORN 1982 was born during an important period of the Korean feminist movement and also guided Korean women on the path of unity and resistance against injustice. After being translated, remade, and spread globally, it further contributed to the global feminist movement.

In 1780, Lu Yijian, a literati of the Korean dynasty, met and communicated with Bo Ming, a Mongolian literati of Qing dynasty literati . In Lu Yijian's “Sui Cha Lu”, Bo Ming's resume, lineage and appearance were all involved, which could complement the shortage of academic circles. Through the exchange of Neo-Confucianist ideas between the two people, One can gather that Bo Ming respected Cheng Zhu's Neo-Confucianism. His ideological tendency reflected the history of the confrontation between Neo-Confucianism and the heart-mind theory in the early Qing dynasty. And his Neo-Confucianist view coincided with Lu Yijian; The concept of Bo Ming’s literature theory is closely related to the literature theory of the eight masters of the Tang and Song dynasties, at the same time, Bo Ming accepted the influence of the Tongcheng faction. He and Lu Yijian held the Spring and Autumn Annals as the view of the classics, which reflected the rising academic trend of literature and classics during the Qianlong period. Lu Yijian praised Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, which not only circuitously reflected the debate about the creation methods in the Korean literary world, but also reflected his idea of focusing on Tang in the field of literary creation. His view on the Book of Rites reflected the adherence of Korean Neo-Confucianism to "etiquette".

Though they are hermits, both Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth have much in concerns for their societies respectively. They cherish concerns for their societies, and the evidences can be found from their poems. They express their concerns for their societies in different manners. Tao Yuanming achieves his purpose in an implicit manner while Wordsworth does it in an explicit way. This difference result from their different cultural roots. In the world history, China’s despotism is the most complex in system, the most profound in connotation, and the most far-reaching in influence, and thus the depression of the individual is the greatest. With this cultural background, Tao Yuanming can only rely on an implicit manner to express his ideas. In contrast, in Britain, the Renaissance leads to a great liberation of thought, the bourgeois revolution shatters the ideological chain of the society, and the industrial revolution improves the consciousness of democracy and freedom. In this cultural context, Wordsworth is free to air his ideas on his society explicitly.

Abstract: Chinese farewell poetry stands as one of the most remarkable literary art forms in the cultural exchange between Eastern and Western civilizations. Over the years of practice, numerous farewell poems have been translated and introduced to the western world, serving as a valuable gateway for Westerners to understand, appreciate and even to develop a fondness for Chinese culture. The current status and the impact of translation and dissemination of Chinese farewell poetry still remain as an unexplored issue and warrant a comprehensive review. Therefore, This paper aims to address this gap by first examining the current statuses of the translation and dissemination of Chinese farewell poetry. Then, it will summarize the theoretical frameworks that have guided these practices. At the end, this paper will analyze effect and roles of these efforts on enhancing the cultural exchange between eastern and western cultures. The results of this paper are expected to provide valuable insights for the translation and dissemination of other Eastern art forms to the Western world.

The Dream of Red Mansions is a masterpiece of Chinese classical novels which has well epitomized the narration features of “chapter novels” —— the typical fiction genre popular in the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties. This novel have not only integrated the distinctive narrative techniques of Chinese oratory literature and opera arts, but also inherited the narrative patterns of Chinese historical biographies, forming some unique net-like narrative structure. Quite different from the the narrative focuses such as “plots”, “protagonists”, “conflicts”, and “rhythm” in western narration traditions, it tend to unfold a vast world gradually before the readers through the rotating of different scenes and character groups just like in the opera performance. Many scattered narrative fragments are woven together from different directions like in a loom machine. However, it is just because of this unique narration organization that it is quite difficult to grab its general narrative structure picture along some single clues. As an important field of “Digital Humanities”, “Computational Criticism” has further pushed literature studies forward to a quantitative “descriptive” paradigm with the support of big data and other computing technologies, which may offer some solution to this quest. Therefore, a corpus of the former 80 chapters of The Dream of Red Mansions was built with the aid of ParaConc in this paper to capture the narrative structure of the work under a distant reading model. The word frequency of the appellations of the main 34 characters along the chronological order of the whole novel was set as the indicator system. All the 34 characters are divided then into 2 narrative functional sequences, namely “clue character” and “satellite character” based on their Concordance Plot Bar patterns. Putting in a coordinate system, these characters then fell again into 8 narrative function zones from weak to strong. When putting the Concordance Plot Bars together, a picture of the net-like narration structure was presented in a visual and macroscopic way. Through this text mining method, the “opera-scene style” narration pattern was extracted from the rotating character groups, and the net-like narration structure of The Dream of Red Mansions is able to be seen directly. This study served as a exploration of the “Computational Criticism” method on heterogeneous national literature traditions in a more “descriptive” way, which helps to break the barrier formed by fixed and uniformed theoretical frameworks in the past several decades and capture the distinctive beauty of various national literature traditions in their original flavor to form a diversified world literature wealth.

On the basis of the achievements accumulated in the past thousand years, Chinese poetry literature in the Joseon Dynasty has achieved rapid development, not only the number of works is amazing, but also the quality of works is quite high, which can be called the heyday of Chinese poetry on the Korean Peninsula. Throughout the more than five hundred years of development of Chinese poetry in Joseon Dynasty, there have been two distinct changes in poetry style. Taking these two changes of poetry style as the dividing points, the development of Chinese poetry in Joseon Dynasty can be divided into three stages.

In the early stage of the development of Chinese poetry in the Joseon Dynasty, the study of the poetry circle mainly focuses on the poetry works and poetics of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Chen Shidao and so on. In terms of of the meaning of the theme of poetry, except free verse, Chinese poetry styles reflect the characteristics of Song style, and the political meaning of "Express Aspiration" is equal to the Neo-Confucianism meaning of "reasoning". From the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century is the middle period of the development of Chinese poetry of Joseon Dynasty. During this period, the Tang style recurred, which had been popular in the Korean Peninsula poetry circle. The literati mainly studied Tang poetry, and the poetry circle took "Tang style" as the mainstream. In the Korean poetry circle after the 18th century, the color of speculation became more and more intense and the content of poetry was more substantial. The group of literati began to reflect on the study of Tang and retro, the status of Song poetry was rising, and the style of Tang and Song poetry showed a trend of gradual integration. However, the compatibility of Tang and Song poetic styles in this period was not a simple combination or to practice both of Tang and Song poetic styles, but a new style that adopts the strengths of others and uses them for itself. With the awakening of national consciousness and the enlightenment of practical learning, the tendency of opposing imitation, advocating stylistic innovation, and advocating "Joseon style" in poetry has become more and more prominent.

In the history of eastern and western Literature, there is a Secretive Counterpoint Writing chain deserves our attention. Mili: A Chinese fairy tale figured a story between a powerful Chinese prince and an England girl in trouble. Walpole originates a kind of narrative tradition, which regards the gender, race and identity as the important elements in building the relationship between eastern culture and western culture. The tradition is also widely employed in the literary works such as Madam Butterfly, Miss Saigon and L'amant in the 19th century. However, the three novels reverse Walpole’s cultural orientation, represent its race discrimination. Nevertheless, M. Butterfly, The Lost Daughter of Happiness and K express their dissatisfaction with race discrimination in the western people’s minds .These seven works ranging from Mili:A Chinese fairy tale to K fully improve this narrative tradition, in which main elements such as the gender, race and identity are frequently used and developed in different eras, forming the Counterpoint Writing relationship between them.

This paper reexamines the translation of Lord Byron as a rebel hero and poetic model of British Romanticism in ‘May Fourth’ China, foregrounding its intricate engagement with the evolving trajectory of Chinese literary modernity. In doing so, it proposes a framework grounded in Even-Zohar’s Polysystem theory, Lefevere’s notion of rewriting, and theoretical conceptualisations of literary modernity. With a particular focus on the 1924 special issues of Short Story Monthly and Morning News Supplement, this study explores the poetic and sociocultural constraints that shaped the translation of Byron’s poetry in the era characterised by the rise of vernacular language, the prosperity of modern free verse, and the integration of Western mode of expression into Chinese literary repertoire. The descriptive and historical analysis not only unveils the critical role of translation in both reflecting and contributing to the transformation of Chinese poetry from a ‘stagnant’ old genre to a ‘living’ new one but, more significantly, suggests that the newness of the modern cannot be framed as a clear-cut rupture with the past but rather involves a set of fierce and intricate confrontations and collaborations between the traditional and the modern, as well as the indigenous and the foreign.

Under the perspective of mutual learning of civilizations, the image of the Miao people in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China is a diverse and complex topic. The image of the Miao people in this period was not only influenced by their own cultural traditions, but also deeply imprinted with the collision and integration with foreign cultures, especially the western Christian culture and the mainstream culture of the Central Plains. With The West China Missionary News (1899-1943) as the center and through the image of Miao people in this period, we can have a deeper understanding of the uniqueness and diversity of Miao culture, and a better understanding of the communication and interaction between different cultures.

Firstly, the portrayal of the Miao in the The West China Missionary News is examined, focusing on three aspects: the natural environment, social culture, and psychological essence. This analysis reveals a Western depiction of the Miao as "primitive" "backward" "poor" and "ignorant" reflecting a derogatory and negative perspective. This stereotype stems from Western labeling, portraying the Miao as a group in need of Western "salvation" and "enlightenment". Further, the construction of the Miao image in the publication is scrutinized through historical, textual and authorial contexts, elucidating how the Miao have been represented as "the other". The examination explores the dynamics behind the formation of their image. Lastly, the value of the "foreign gaze" is assessed, revealing the Miao's image and its implications. This reevaluation serves as a mirror to reflect on unnoticed cultural issues and exposes the significance of the representation of Southwest China's ethnic minorities under modern Western discourse.

Through foreign eyes, we can observe that news reports featuring images depicting Miao people not only serve as personal creative records reflecting what Western writers have witnessed, but also offer colorful depictions reflecting cultural histories among southwest Miao people during late Qing Dynasty up until the Republic of China. Unique news styles coupled with narrative elements present throughout The West China Missionary News contain intertextual values bridging textuality with reality when examining literary imagery.

This historical experience offers important insights for mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations. Firstly, cultural exchanges must be based on the principles of equality and respect, avoiding cultural hegemony and assimilation. Secondly, cultural transformation should focus on the protection and development of indigenous cultures, rather than simply transplanting foreign cultures. Finally, cross-cultural exchanges require sincere cooperation and mutual understanding from both parties to achieve true mutual learning and win-win outcomes.

The algorithmic transformation of digital ink art provides a cross-disciplinary artistic paradigm for addressing cultural aphasia. Grounded in Variation Theory as its methodological foundation, this paper demonstrates how Chinese literary theory reconstructs indigenous aesthetic discourse to counteract the subjective colonization of Eastern art by Western techno-centrism.

The study reveals the dual cultural effects of algorithmic disenchantment: While Western technology reduces "bone method brushwork" to computational symbols, Chinese literary theory activates dormant aesthetic genes through cultural filtration mechanisms. The digitization of ink ontology does not entail passive dissolution, but rather achieves algorithmic empowerment of traditional aesthetics through transmedial reinterpretation of "qiyun" (spirit-resonance) and revitalization of "fenggu" (wind-bone). This investigation decodes China's approach through two experimental paradigms:1. Poetic resistance to technological hegemony through "qiyun": Xu Bing's The Character of Chinese Characters reconstructs "feibai" (flying white) brushwork as fragmented data-stream narratives through cross-civilizational dialogue between oracle bone script and ASCII codes. Guided by Liu Xie's "spiritual thought" from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, the work transforms creative consciousness of "conceptual primacy over brushwork" into intersubjectivity within interactive interfaces. By embedding Eastern temporal philosophy within Deleuze's "Logic of Sensation", it subverts David Damrosch’s presumption of cultural dissipation in "elliptical refraction".2. Paradigm-shifting challenge to modernity narratives through "fenggu": The AI landscape program reconstructs spatial cognition in convolutional neural networks using Guo Xi's "Three Distances" theory, with initial parameters set through Shitao's "One-Stroke" doctrine. The "raindrop texture strokes" generated through adversarial training create non-Western visual syntax. This "algorithmic cunfa" not only disproves James Cahill's modernist anxiety about the "end of Chinese painting", but also establishes bidirectional negotiation between technological rules and Eastern aesthetics through Xie He's "Six Principles" evaluation system.

This paper proposes that digital ink art fundamentally constitutes a technological pathway for Chinese literary theory to resolve cultural aphasia. Through "intermediality" and "cultural transposition", Chinese aesthetics achieves three breakthroughs: transforming technological disenchantment from passive adaptation to active reconstruction; shifting artistic subjectivity from "othering" expressions to localized transcoding; and materializing civilizational dialogue beyond theoretical abstraction into technological embodiment. This provides Eastern wisdom transcending postcolonial narratives for the global literary community.

The Beats of the 1940s and 1950s inevitably invites exploration of the diverse intercultural influences that shaped it and its lasting legacy. In the last decades, Chinese scholars have made great contribution to the international research into Zen for the Beats, through the concentration on Han Shan, or Cold Mountain in Tang Dynasty, in the Beats’ translation and literature works. Central to this maverick community is Jack Kerouac, the leader who combined the figure of Han Shan with his personal background in his works.

With the booming of the Theory of Variation in Chinese comparative literature, scholars have noted the quality of Variation in the image of Han Shan yet few have provided convincing or detailed arguments regarding the rich connotations of Kerouac’s portrayal of Han Shan. Even among the limited studies, the focus tends to be on the similarities between American local culture and Zen, claiming it was Zen’s compromise that prompted the intercultural communication while meanwhile denies the distinctive value of Kerouac’s literary vision in shaping this image.

However, as the Theory of Variation in comparative literature mainly studies the variation in the communication of literature between different countries and different civilizations, with an emphasis on identifying difference, Kerouac are vital contributors to world literature for his noteworthy and innovative variation of Han Shan. Therefore, taking Kerouac’s varied depictions of Han Shan in two of his semi-autobiographical works — The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels as a compelling case study within the framework of the Theory of Variation, I would demonstrate how Kerouac employed cultural filtering through selecting and omitting Chinese Han Shan while infusing this image with American cultural and philosophical dimensions i.e., Christianity and Transcendentalism. Intriguingly, his creative writing of Han Shan may predict and provide a way to comprehend Deleuze’s aesthetic concept of Rhizome.

Through an American lens, Kerouac has transformed Han Shan into an ever-lasting heterogeneous symbol within world literature. Thus, investigating Han Shan’s dynamic evolution as a world literary symbol within Kerouac’s works under the perspective of Variation, not only bears relevance in understanding the Beats, but also experiments a new avenue of inquiry of contemporary literature, shifting from pursuing homogeneity in comparative literature to the mutual learning of disparate civilizations in world literature.

In the early 1960s, young Bob Dylan entered the scene and core of the New York counterculture movement, perceiving the popularity of the distinctive ideas from the Chinese classic "I Ching" among the youth represented by the hippies, which were quite different from Western traditions. Through reading, communication, and in-depth contemplation, Bob Dylan artistically transformed the philosophies in the "I Ching", such as the simplicity of the great way, change and constancy, and the interdependence of opposites. He successively created songs like "Blowin' in the Wind", "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and "Like a Rolling Stone", which reflected the contemporary value of ancient Chinese I Ching thought in terms of form, content, and philosophical connotations. The "I Ching" also had significant enlightening significance for Dylan's artistic creation that had a global impact. Dylan's reception of the "I Ching" is an important case of Chinese culture being introduced into the United States and having a profound influence, which deserves the attention of the academic community.

Theory of world literature used to stand extensively on the premises of translatability and readability through which works of literature become recognized as world literature. However, one alternative avenue of theoretical investigation for the ways literatures achieve global avowal is through the other chances offered by ‘misreading’ ‘mistranslation’ and ‘untranslatability.’ Untranslatability is a relatively new means of inspection in literary studies and criticism, which revisits the act of translation by re-considering the moments of failure, resistance, and impossibility of translation. If translatability has been regarded as the only and secure road to synthesize globally recognized literature, yet untranslatability might also enhance the possibility of supplementing literary worldliness. The article tests and investigates the chances of universalizing and canonizing literature through the spectrum of misreading and mistranslation by applying such notions in the cases of Borges and Kafka.

Genocide. Specicide. Ecocide. Tierracide: these paradigms involving the massive devastation of our planet in the Anthropocene haunt contemporary cultural production and, as I want to show in this paper, reflect what the Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht calls ‘perverse resilience’ and the ‘death of resilience.’ My paper traces this death of resilience via scenarios of human/non-human animal entanglements in the biopolitically real convergence of mass slaughter of animals and human genocide and how world literature responds to this. In "The Rings of Saturn" (1995), for example, a literary perambulation across East Anglia, the German-British author W.G. Sebald compares the mass extermination of herrings with the horrors of colonialism in Belgian Congo and the Holocaust. In North American fiction, genocide of the Indigenous people and the near-extinction of the bison come together in John Williams’s "Butcher’s Crossing" (1960), Michael Blake’s "Dances with Wolves" (1988), and in Louise Erdrich’s novel "Roundhouse" (2012). Doris Pilkington’s/Nugi Garimara’s memoir "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence" (1996) explores the interface of the eradication of Australian Indigenous culture and rabbits, a species imported by Europeans and then declared as vermin, and the Chinese author Jian Rong’s novel "Wolf Totem" (2004) deplores the environmental devastation, eradication of wolves, and subsequent destruction of culture in Inner Mongolia as a form of colonial ethnocide.

My work draws on Glenn Albrecht’s discussion of Earth emotions and his negative outlook on any kind of resilience in an age in which eco-alienation keeps increasing in devastating proportions. I do, however, also wish to invoke counter-philosophies such as George Monbiot’s activism for rewilding the planet, Baptiste Morizot’s Wild Diplomacy, and Canadian First Nations scholar Tasha Hubbard’s work on "Singing Back the Buffalo". What are their messages of hope and does contemporary literature also develop these?

The American Sinologist Benjamin Schwartz remarks that the Axial Age is “the age of transcendence”. In line with Schwartz’s argument, Ying-shih Yü observes that, in the Chinese breakthrough, the contrast between the actual world and the transcendental world is much less radical and absolute than that found in other civilizations. Yü considers inwardness to be the defining characteristic of the Chinese conception of transcendence and thus speaks of an “inward transcendence”. Upon closer examination, however, Yü’s rigid dichotomy between the Chinese and Western views of transcendence proves simply unfounded. The notion of inward/immanent transcendence can be considered as a common concept shared by both Chinese and Western intellectual tradition—a rigorous study on its varying forms of concretization in Chinese and Western literary texts will lead us further towards fully understanding its connotations and possible implications for our thinking patterns. In the German novel Zauberberg, Castorp’s is by no means an external transcendence—there is, throughout the story, no indication of the existence of the metaphysical world. The transcendence is immanent in the physical world. The argument that the immanent/inward transcendence is exclusive to the Chinese mind is but another example of essentialist dichotomy.

Contemporary realist writing faces the challenge of reconnecting mimesis with ontology. Historically, as seen in Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis, mimesis has been deeply tied to human life-worlds. However, in its current urgent connection with ontology, the focus shifts: life-worlds no longer belong exclusively to humans, nor are they necessarily meaningful in relation to humans. Now, especially after a decisive environmental turn in millennial fiction, one aspect that stands out to me as particularly vital is to pinpoint the writing in which the environment returns in mimesis. A literary theory, challenging human-character-centered approach to literary analysis, favorable to appreciating the form of things-clustered fiction needs to be secured. This project will read three exemplary novels, including Barkskins (2016) by Annie Proulx, The Overstory (2018) by Richard Powers and Migrations (2020) by Charlotte McConaghy. These contemporary novels are mainly realistic in tenor, distinct from the speculative fiction, elevating environmental writings in the novels under discussion to the analysis that can pay due attention to agencies and affordances of human environments. I will explore the argument that the novels under discussion are things-centered fiction, especially in the sense of form. They place the realism of environments at the center and other formal elements such as characterization, and plotting can be understood as derivatives. This things-centered form challenges a blasé cohabitation with environments and in turn highlights the human characters’ capacities—or limitations—for change.

It is rare for a poem to make it into national, let alone international news, and go viral on social media. In 2021, a 22-year-old poet accomplished this: Amanda Gorman recited her spoken word poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Gorman’s occasional poem calls for unity, collaboration, and healing after a period of political turmoil and division. It urges overcoming past difficulties and trauma, honouring history, and moving toward a brighter, more utopian future.

The poem was not only a response to the contested 2020 presidential election and the escalating culture wars; significant parts were written and rewritten in reaction to the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6. Gorman’s vision of hope draws on Afrofuturism and the literary traditions of the African American community, such as signifyin(g)—a hallmark of African American expression—and the religious language of Black sermons. It simultaneously references historical documents, political discourse, and pop culture, creating a blend of pathos and progressiveness. On one hand, the poem resonates with the nation’s past; on the other, it embodies a youthful spirit. As Brandy E. Underwood observes, referencing a popular Twitter hashtag, Gorman’s work delivers “a healthy dose of Black Girl Magic.”

The poem’s impact stemmed not only from the text but also from its connection to a specific moment and place in time, Gorman’s powerful recitation, her symbolic appearance, and persona. These elements coalesced, intertwining intra-, inter-, and extratextual layers in an inseparable way. Given its viral popularity, translations were quickly commissioned worldwide. In Europe, in particular, debates arose over who should translate the poem, raising questions about (i) a translator's ability to translate the poem accurately, (ii) translation ethics, and (iii) the role of identity in both of these. The controversy peaked with the Dutch and Catalan translations, as original translators Marieke Lukas Rijneveld and Víctor Obiols stepped down or withdrew.

This paper explores the aesthetics, politics, and ethics of translating Gorman’s poem, focusing on the role of identity. It examines how elements of Gorman’s work—including her recitation, symbolic appearance, and persona—can be adapted into text. It addresses translational challenges and ethics, referencing debates around Rijneveld and Obiols, and analyses strategies by European publishers in Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Expanding on the political and ethical implications of translator selection, the paper then focuses on the German translation by Uda Strätling, Hadija Haruna-Oelker, and Kübra Gümüşay to highlight discursive and linguistic challenges related to race and African American literary traditions.

By reflecting on these aesthetic, political, and ethical dimensions, the paper aims to provoke debate on the translation process. It asks three central questions: (i) To what extent can or should the translator’s identity translate Gorman’s persona? (ii) How do these considerations affect the poem’s interpretation and reception? (iii) Are these issues distinctly European, shaped by colonial and post-colonial dynamics, revealing underlying cultural attitudes toward race and translation ethics?

A9-13

The newly established ICLA Research Committee on Language Contact in Literature: Europe (LCLE) intends to revisit translation, literary multilingualism and related fields as sites of linguistic contact and change within the literary realm. We thus reconsider literature with a focus on the multiple ways in which languages interact and influence each other when they come into contact, both at the level of individual speakers and that of linguistic communities. A number of scholars have proposed to apply a contact linguistics paradigm to translation (Kotze 2020; Malamatidou 2016); this Committee’s goal is to reinvent this approach for the global literary context (e.g. Hassan 2022). As many contemporary scholars of comparative literature (e.g. Yildiz 2012, Gramling 2016) recognize, the traditional focus on national literatures is insufficient to capture the global dimensions of the literary process. We therefore propose language contact in literature as a unified framework that can encompass and facilitate dialogue across several fields: the study of literary translation, multilingual and translingual literature, minor and borderland literature, influence across language boundaries, postcolonial literature, international literary movements and potentially others. Our aim is to identify and distinguish the diverse elements that contribute to literary language contact in its various guises, including linguistic and sociological factors, techniques and processes, as well as aesthetic and stylistic considerations. At the same time, we aspire to understand how different settings of language contact relate to one another, how they interact and what distinguishes them. To achieve these purposes, linguistics offers valuable theoretical support.

We invite original research papers that address the following areas and topics:

- The notion of language contact and how it can be productively applied to literature

- The array of elements/factors involved in a language contact in literature framework and their modulations

- The stylistics of language contact

- Manifest and latent multilingualism as an expression of language contact

- Translation as language contact

- What linguistic theories and approaches can contribute additional perspectives and nuance to the study of literary language contact

- The role of the author’s linguistic background and of the reader

- Potential challenges and limitations, notably in terms of particular language pairs, integrating and reconciling existing terminologies and extending the approach beyond the European context

- Specific case studies on literary translation, multilingual and translingual literature, minor and borderland literature, influence across language boundaries, postcolonial literature or international literary movements

- Additional areas in literary study where a language contact framework may apply

Any questions should be addressed to Eugenia Kelbert (eugenia.kelbert@savba.sk) and Marianna Deganutti (marianna.deganutti@savba.sk).

The paper presents the case study of a literary production in a minority language that exists in a borderline between two important literatures in Europe: Italian and Greek. The language called by its native speakers Griko, is a mixture of the medieval Greek and southern Italian dialects. It is almost not used in everyday life anymore and can be defined as a ‘performative post-linguistic vernacular’ (Pellegrino 2016). After its existence in an exclusively oral form after the fall of Constantinople, several attempts by local activists to promote literary creativity in this language have been made from the second half of the 19th century onwards. The paper analyses the main strategies adopted by the authors, such as translations from Latin, Italian, Ancient and Modern Greek; borrowings from the local folklore and its elaborations; bilingual works; novels written in Italian but including specific words and phrases in Griko; musical and theatrical performances facilitating the understanding for the audience not familiar with the language. It also takes into consideration the activities of the local authorities who organized poetry festivals and competitions to stimulate the literary creativity of residents who speak the language. The study identifies the folklore genres that are productive for local writers. Thus, funeral laments occupy a special place in the local heritage, often compared with the Ancient Greek texts (Romano 1979; Montinaro 2004), and are considered an important cultural identity marker of the Greek-speaking villages (Figlieri 2023: 302-304). Other productive genres are children's entertainment poetry (nursery rhymes and lullabies), epideictic speech, and prayer. The religious texts attracted the attention of numerous authors who tended to restore, at least to some extent, the liturgical and ritual function of the Greek idiom that lost it with the local population’s conversion to Catholicism in the 16 century (Aprile 1994: 61-72). The corpus of the religious texts in Griko includes translations from Latin and individual creative works elaborating different examples from the canonical writings. One more aspect of the process of a literary creation in the minority language is the translation of canonical texts from the ‘big’ literatures (Haller 1999). Here, the choice of the works to translate is as interesting as the stylistic features of the translation dictated by the limitations of the language in which the authors write. To study all these aspects of the borderline literary tradition, it is necessary to pay respect to the multilingualism of the authors and the readers, their linguistic competencies, the limitations of the language, and the influence of the neighbouring literatures and cultures, so the language contact framework seems to be fruitful for such analysis.

Roberto Bazlen is a pivotal figure in Italian publishing and cultural history. Hailing from Trieste, he belonged to a generation of plurinational and multilingual literates who found intellectual freedom in the spaces between rigid national labels such as “Italian” or “Austrian.” Bazlen’s intellectual identity was shaped by the experience of the border, allowing him to bridge cultures during an era marked by wars and mass displacement. His cultural mediation played a crucial role in founding the publishing house Adelphi and in the enduring dissemination of Central and East-Central European literature in Italy. The multilingualism of Central European authors in the Adelphi canon, such as Elias Canetti, Johannes Urzidil, the Singer brothers, and Joseph Roth, became emblematic of the intellectual tradition of “Mitteleuropa” as popularised in Italy, serving as a key example of cross-cultural influence.

This paper explores the multilingualism of Adelphi’s “Mitteleuropa” catalogue, starting with its founder, Bazlen—“the writer who does not write”—and his role as a mediating polyglot reader. It examines the resemanticisation of the term “Mitteleuropa” in Italy and considers in which way the linguistic background of this combined author-reader figure informs an editorial approach rooted in a style shaped by the border. This style, grounded in the singularity of writing-producing human experience, underpins a literary conception which aims to an inner transformation of the reader—the “singular book” (it. “libro unico”).

I argue that Bazlen’s conception arises from a stylistics of language contact, shifting focus away from national, classical, and pedagogical canons toward what Deleuze and Guattari describe as “minor literature,” emerging from linguistic and cultural margins. While the myth of national irrelevance or equivalence in Austria-Hungarian literature has been critically deconstructed by generations of scholars, this paper underscores the contemporary importance of fostering multilingual authorship and readership that transcends the notion of literature rooted in a homogeneous linguistic framework. Such an approach cultivates an appreciation of language contact as a productive force in literature, offering valuable insights for overcoming cultural provincialism through book selection and publishing, and resisting reductive tendencies such as fandom. Ultimately, this vision of literature prioritises diversity, transformation, intellectual exploration, and the creative act of mediation.

In my presentation I will focus on specific literary phenomena, which are saturated by manifest and latent multilingualism. Hungarian transborder literature and émigré literature have come to form two distinct categories in the literary historical discourse, and they are a result of two distinct forms of mobility. Transborder Hungarian literature came to denote works produced in the Hungarian language within the territories of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Serbia (the former Czechoslovakia, USSR, and Yugoslavia respectively), where significant Hungarian minority populations exist as a result of the post-WWI redrawing of the region’s borders. This conceptual categorization could be seen as an example of what Brubaker calls “the movement of borders over people” (2015, 136). Émigré literature, or as it is often referred to locally, the Hungarian literature of the West – as “the movement of people over borders” (Brubaker ibid.) – has been produced by authors who left Hungary in 1946-48 during the consolidation of state-socialist rule and the aftermath of the 1956 revolution.

Firstly, I will concentrate on these two literary phenomena from the institutional categorization perspective: how the inherent linguistic otherness, i.e. the coexistence of these literatures with other, surrounding languages dislocates both the traditional descriptive categories with which Hungarian literary history operates, and the viability of a literary canon based on the borders of the nation state.

Secondly, through analyzing István Domonkos’s Rudderless (1971) poem and Andrea Tompa’s The Hangman’s House (2010I) novel, I elaborate a nomadic poetics that challenges the normative frames of grammar, syntax, genre, and medium by creating diverse multilingual language contacts.

This paper examines two nineteenth-century literary texts by authors of Romani background in different regions, Ferenc Sztojka Nagyidai (1855-1929) and Martin J. Mathiassen Skou (1849-1919), and discusses the languages present in them. Both works employ the majority language alongside Romani, with the latter appearing in specific contexts within the narratives or parts of the editions. These texts do not follow a bilingual publication model but rather a multilingual one, where the choice of language reflects the cultural dynamics within the narrative. Romani sections appear without translation in these instances, which demonstrates the significance of Romani within the literary and cultural framework.

Drawing on these early examples of original literary texts by Romani authors, this paper explores several interconnected themes: the early development of Romani literature alongside other European literary traditions, highlighting authorial agency and literary expression; the inherently multilingual nature of (early) Romani writing, shaped by the linguistic repertoires of its authors and their communities; and the crucial role of the Romani language as both an identity marker and a means of depicting cultural settings within literature.

Situating these works within broader discussions of literary multilingualism and language contact, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how linguistic diversity shapes literary production. On the one hand, it challenges traditional, monolingually framed perspectives on literary history, while on the other, it highlights the early history and inherently multilingual nature of early Romani literature.

The poetry of New York School poet Frank O’Hara is often discussed within intermedial contexts, but mostly limited to the intermedial connections between his poetry and painting. However, a closer examination reveals that the pictorial quality in O’Hara’s poetry is fundamentally connected to performance. This connection is rooted, on one hand, in the tradition of American poetry since Walt Whitman, and on the other hand, deeply influenced by historical avant-garde artists. Additionally, the intermedial performance of O'Hara's poetry also has its unique contemporary socio-cultural context, namely the rise of neo avant-garde art and the post-war American consumer culture, and the intermedial performance of his poetry manifests as a tension between the embodied performance and the spectacle performance of mass media.

In the face of a folk art world in the 1960s that was confined to political propaganda and “unplugged” forms, Bob Dylan emphasized the dynamic production of poetry through stage performance. Bob Dylan's performance practice on stage, as art generated by language, pulls poetry out of its textual framework and infuses it with musicality, liveness and performativity. According to John Searle's discourse on the performativity of language, it is clear that all language is a form of action, and Bob Dylan's performances begin with language and end with action. Performativity is expressed in Bob Dylan's art as “events” that serve as transitions and changes, which breaks with Derrida's claim that performance is the power of quotation and repetition, and seeks to balance the stylized repetition of meaning with the resistance that is generated by repetition. Bob Dylan's tour of upwards of 3,000 shows exemplifies the dialectic of repetition and subversion in performativity, demonstrating the same source lyrics and divergent individual experiences for performances in different situations and contexts, the performativity of these performances is at once quotative and at the same time interventionist and resistant to quotability. Bob Dylan moves back and forth between the triple space of text, song, and stage, radically merging poetry, chant, and performance to recapture the sensual aesthetics of folk art and simplicity. These poetic performances form Bob Dylan's artistic autonomy in a way that marginalizes the hegemony, creates a symbiotic experience of identity between the audience and the singer in performance scenarios across time and space, and generates positively divergent forces within an audience with differences in gender, class, ethnicity, and geography, thus dissolving the paradoxes that arise within performativity.... -referential stylistic repetition and resistance to pre-existing styles. Bob Dylan and the audience perform poetry to generate a new type of narrative that is different from the lyrics and the experience of the audience, where the story sung by the singer is highly integrated with the personal experience of the audience, transcending the didactic values of good and evil, and thus liberating the audience from the constraints of the distributive experience. Against the backdrop of Hans Lehmann's “theatricalization of space,” Bob Dylan, both poet and singer, emphasizes that poetry is theatrical in nature, and that the space in which a song is performed is a situation in which the internal structure of the theatre has been transmogrified, thus activating the theatrical effect of poetry.

This study examines the emergence of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry performance in the context of the post-World War II revival of modernism. It traces Ginsberg’s engagement with both the Beat Generation coterie and a broader cultural sphere, analyzing his deviation from conventional textuality in the framework of New Criticism. Emphasizing spontaneous creation and performative practice, the study explores his interactions with various artists and art collectives, highlighting the manifestation of his "shock" aesthetics as a means of sensory stimulation and transcendence of everyday life. Through the lens of voicing impulse, presence, and performance space, this research investigates how Ginsberg’s work engages with diverse media forms, revealing innovative avenues in poetic expression. Furthermore, the study explores the transformation of Ginsberg’s poetry performance in response to technological media and religious influences, considering how it engages with and influences social politics and popular culture. Drawing upon influence studies and inter-media theory, the paper situates Ginsberg’s poetry performance within the broader genealogies of modernism, lyric poetry, and 20th-century cultural history.

East/West comparison focused on genres, canons, and concepts of poetics has served to give comparative literature a place in Asian academia. But that model of comparison has its limits. Looking to the long history of writing on the Asian continent, do we not see definitions of "literature" that vary from the European standard, as well as modes of circulation not anticipated elsewhere? The models and logics of comparison offered by the literatures of East Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia not only expands the reach of the discipline but modifies accounts of national literary history that are current on the continent by emphasizing exchange and adaptation rather than offering nativist genealogies. For this panel, case studies of intra-Asian literary relationships, from the beginnings of writing to the present, are invited, with the particular aim of clarifying general dynamics of cultural growth.

In contemporary America, Chinese and African Americans are two significant minority groups with a closely intertwined history of racial power struggles. The memoir Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, a two-time National Book Award-winning African American author, vividly recreates the life of African Americans in the southern United States during the latter half of the twentieth century. By examining the elements of Chinese kung fu in the book, one can observe how Ward uses martial arts as a philosophy of life and cultural practice to shape Black identity, strengthen community ties, and promote social progress. Ward's work is not only a personal historical reflection but also a tribute to and exploration of how African Americans have harnessed the cultural power of kung fu in their struggle for freedom and equality.

Party document is not simply an ideology but also forms a discourse. The paper examines the debate within the Manchuria Branch of the Chinese Communist Party (MCP) over the nature of collective hamlet (集团部落) during the Japanese colonization of Manchuria. The collective hamlet was a colonial mechanism that controled landless Chinese peasants whose land had been expropriated by the colonial agencies. It describes how the Party was split around the question of the mobilization of the Chinese hamlet residents. What was crucial, as I argue, was the uneasy reconciliation of national revolution with the Party’s rigid borrowing and adaption of class struggle from orthodoxy Marxism represented by Comintern. In the early twentieth century, emphasis on the integration of the masses into anti-imperialist struggle was circulated globally against colonialism and capitalism. This left internationalism discourse, advocated by Comintern, bypassed the orthodoxy Marxist typology of revolutionary class in favor of nationalism nurtured in the local context to galvanize national revolutions against the capitalist world order. The ambiguity arisen created confusion for the MCP in designing its revolutionary strategy with respect to the mobilization of the expropriated Chinese residents, who were loosely tagged as lumpenproletariat and did not belong to orthodox Marxism’s classical interpretation of revolutionary agent. The Party managed to situate the spoiling of collective hamlets at the interstitial space between the sphere of economic social relations and that of the national imaginary. This study reexamines the ideological underpinnings of the Party’s documents compared with orthodoxy Marxism, calling for a nuanced understanding of the complicity between nation and capital that shored up the complicated forms of dominance in the colonized Manchuria.

Literary scholarship has long characterized Korea's colonial period (1910-1945) as an era of modernist literature heavily influenced by mainstream European literary traditions. However, this perspective overlooks significant evidence of transcolonial solidarity during this period. While Korean literary modernism undoubtedly engaged with German, French, Russian, and English literary traditions, this study highlights one of the less acknowledged but crucial influences: Indian literature. Beyond the well-documented impact of Tagore's poem, “The Lamp of the East,” on Korean writers of the time, this research examines the significant role of another Indian poet who was translated and widely read during this period: Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949).

Naidu’s poetry and political activism was widely known internationally during her time. Korea was no exception, and Naidu’s involvement with India’s independence movement as well as her role as a suffragist and feminist was reported in newspapers and discussed by writers in literary magazines. Naidu's influence on Korean modernist writers of the early 20th century demonstrates that the colonial period was not merely an era of blind Westernization. Rather, the patterns of literary study and emulation during this time reveal deliberate expressions of transcolonial solidarity. This framework can be extended to Korean writers' engagement with the Harlem Renaissance or the Irish Literary Revival, which should be understood not as instances of reception of the Western powers, but as manifestations of lateral interest between colonized peoples. Current scholarship often categorizes the study of Indian, Irish, and Black Renaissance literature under the broad umbrella of "English literature," effectively mislabeling these works and obscuring their original anti-colonial intentions. This research thus challenges such notions to reconsider how to categorize and understand colonial Korean writers' approach to global literatures.

This paper examines Naidu’s reception in literary magazines and newspapers of colonial Korea, analyzing how Korean writers engaged with both her poetry and political activism. Choi Young-sook’s travel writing and interview with Naidu and Gandhi (Samcheolli 1932), Lee Ha-Yoon’s survey of Naidu’s work (Dong-A Daily 1930), and Kim Eok’s translations of Naidu’s poetry (Kaebyeok 1922) are examples of cases which reveal how Korean intellectuals selectively translated and interpreted Naidu’s work to construct networks of anti-colonial solidarity. By examining these intra-Asian literary connections, this research contributes to a broader understanding of how colonized nations developed horizontal relationships through literary exchange.

Contemporary African American science fiction writers have produced remarkable works that engage deeply with issues of race, identity, and the implications of technological progress. By examining these narratives, this paper explores how these authors envision utopian futures and how their work reflects both the promise and the dangers of technology, particularly in relation to race and social justice. Reading The Intuitionist, in which the elevator is the central image, from the perspective of criticism of technology, this paper finds that African American writer Colson Whitehead reveals the ills of modernity lurking behind technological development and also criticizes technology’s collusion with racism. Futher, as a way to deal with the maladies of modernity and racism, the novel imagines a better future brought about by African Americans’ voodoo technology of intuition. Despite of its inherent paradoxes, Whitehead’s construction of utopia demonstrates the contemporary inheritance of afrofuturism, which explores the intersection of African culture with technology. In this sense, Whitehead's The Intuitionist offers critical insights into the intersection of race, technology, and power, providing a distinctive contribution to the ongoing discourse on fiction of technology.

Popular environmental discourse often employs compelling metaphors such as "Spaceship Earth," which is one of the most influential. Since emerging as a key concept in the 1960s, this metaphor continues to shape perceptions of the planet. However, today's average meaning of the expression has evolved significantly from its initial conception. The phrase originated from various sources and gained popularity through mentions in the works of prominent intellectuals. Among them, R. Buckminster Fuller is credited with introducing the comparison of Earth to a spaceship. Fuller's interpretation was characterized by futuristic optimism, emphasizing harmonious global unity. Later, economists Barbara Ward and Kenneth E. Boulding adapted the metaphor, infusing it with a more urgent and critical tone in the context of economic challenges. Their reinterpretation reflected the contemporary enthusiasm toward the US-USSR Space Race and the global anxieties of the 1960s shaped by the Cold War.

Given this background, this paper explores the semantic shifts of "Spaceship Earth" through a rhetorical analysis of the writings of Fuller, Ward, and Boulding, situating their rhetorical strategies within the sociopolitical climate of the time. It seeks to uncover why the metaphor had to be redefined in this era and evaluates its subsequent influence on today’s environmental discourse and societal perspectives.

The Noise of Time "is a fictional writing based on the experiences of the famous Soviet musician Shostakovich, who served as the protagonist. It is referred to as a" fictional biographical novel "by critics. Author Julian Barnes is adept at handling the relationship between reality and fiction, using spatial narrative to write about what truly interests him deep down. The Noise of Time presents diverse spatial features in the narrative of the novel: a circular structure is used in the spatial generation of the text structure; Using the technique of juxtaposing places in the spatial construction of historical writing; Presenting an image of a 'brave coward' in the spatial shaping of character images. The novel uses spatial narrative to present the power status and oppression of people's living conditions in the former Soviet Union through profound reflection on history.

The "Condition of England Question," proposed by Romantic historian Thomas Carlyle, addresses the consequences and costs of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The competition between the great powers of Britain and France, embodied by the Napoleonic Wars, catalyzed significant technological revolutions, such as innovations in naval artillery, military medicine, and industrial technology. However, the benefits of these technological advances and the emerging industrial civilization were not evenly distributed, and the condition of British workers and the lower classes became increasingly dire. Charles Dickens’ "Condition of England" novels focus on the issue of the New Poor Law and, through sharp satire, expose the inhumane conditions of workhouses and the suffering of impoverished children, gaining the attention of Queen Victoria.

Dickens also critiques the flaws of equity law, as explored in Bleak House, where he investigates the inefficiency and dysfunction of the judicial system. A Tale of Two Cities directly inherits Carlyle's spirit from The French Revolution, warning both the rulers and the people of Britain about the dangers of social collapse, as exemplified by the terror and upheaval during the French Revolution. Dickens’ works carry a profound critique of social institutions and the impact of technological revolution, urging a moral and ethical reevaluation of the relationship between technology, society, and politics, while resisting the moral regression of Victorian society.

Through his interactions with Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, and Queen Victoria, Dickens made clear his advocacy for the interests of the lower classes, addressing these concerns to the British elite. His "Condition of England" novels, with their detailed social portrayal and critique of the generational consequences of technological revolution, offer valuable literary insights into the social structure and technological progress of the Victorian era. Dickens' reflections on the technological revolution in Victorian Britain contribute to an understanding of technological morality and ethics from a literary perspective and help trace the cyclical patterns of progress and decline in the history of ideas.

In the fall and winter of 2018, the reputation of the Swedish Academy and its Nobel Prize in Literature hit rock bottom. At the magnificent prize ceremony in Stockholm in December, the esteemed Nobel honours were given to physicists, physiologists, chemists and scholars of economics, but the literary category was omitted. The empty chairs on the podium where the Swedish Academy was supposed to sit, displayed the shameful metoo-scandal and the time-honoured, learned assembly’s inability to handle it. It was not a secret that the administration of the world’s most important literary prize was on the verge of being given to another institution.

A year later, the Academy’s attempts to restore its status totally backfired: Olga Tokarczuk’s prize was a perfect fit, but the choice of Austrian novelist Peter Handke did not go down well at all with the international critics. Yet again, the 18 members of the Swedish Academy had proven too incompetent to handle the Nobel Prize.

But since that moment in 2019, the world has witnessed a remarkable recovery. Year by year, the Swedish Academy has successively regained its respectablitity, and by the time Korean author Han Kang received the prize in December 2024, the world’s most notable literary award was no no longer tainted with shame. What mechanisms made this fast and smooth process possible? How could the world forget the quite recent shortcomings of the Swedish academicians? This presentation will explore the details of the extraordinary survival of the Nobel Prize in Literature, drawing on internal practices of the Swedish Academy as well as on the media logics behind the prize’s unique position on the international cultural stage.

This review explores Han Kang's The Vegetarian through the lens of literary, philosophical, and geopolitical traditions. As the 2024 Nobel laureate’s novel, The Vegetarian, introduces themes and characters rarely encountered in Korean literature, it represents a departure from established norms. However, through the lens of plant-like characters and poetry as a “vegetablic” genre, the novel can be situated within the tradition of Yi Sang’s Wings from the 1920s, which, for instance, presents a male protagonist appearing as a plant-like character.

In terms of genre history, both European and Arabic literary traditions have occasionally described not only characters but poetry as a whole as “vegetablic.” The German romantics notably remarked on “vegetablic poetry, animalic philosophy, mineralic ethics,” a concept introduced by F. Schlegel, albeit without detailed explanation. Within the natural philosophy of Romanticism, poetry was categorized as vegetablic. Furthermore, both European and Arab traditions have metaphorically compared poets to gardeners. This metaphor provides a useful entry point for understanding the hybrid literary form of poetic prose exemplified in The Vegetarian.

The philosophical aspect of Han Kang’s vegetarianism can be examined by reflecting on the traditional philosophical discourse around animal consumption, which the novel presents as a form of initial violence against animals and other humans. Traditionally, the justification for animal consumption has rested on the belief that animals lack self-consciousness. This argument is used to justify human violence toward other beings while emphasizing the distinctiveness of the human species within the food chain. Han Kang’s vegetarianism challenges this hierarchical view of modern subjectivity.

This ethical dilemma regarding animal consumption intersects with the colonial period, where an Indian colonial subject asked European missionaries, “How can a being that eats animals tell the truth of God?” (Homi Bhabha) This Indian perspective on vegetarianism posits it as a prerequisite for assuming a transcendental position, deemed necessary for revealing absolute truth.

The vegetarianism of Han Kang is analyzed through these three lenses: literary, philosophical, and geopolitical. The discussion seeks to uncover transcendental implications of Han Kang’s vegetarianism, positioning it as an ideal of poetic spirit that resists the violence produced by monolithic modern subjectivity. Ultimately, it invites us to reconsider the fundamental interconnectedness between humans and other beings.

Abstract:This paper focuses on the comparative study on feminist themes in the novels of Korean writer Han Jiang and Chinese writer Zhang Ailing. Han Jiang's novels often show the struggle and awakening of Korean women under the interweaving of tradition and modernity, while Zhang Ailing is good at depicting the complex emotions and survival dilemmas of women in the old Shanghai city. Through the close reading of the texts, this paper analyzes the similarities and differences in the portrayal of women and the use of narrative strategies in their writings, reveals the common tenacity and helplessness of women in the context of East Asian culture, provides a unique perspective for cross-cultural feminist research, expands the in-depth understanding of the connotation of women's literature, and helps deepen the discussion of contemporary women's consciousness.

The evolution of women’s writing in East Asia has not only been shaped by but also contributed significantly to global literature in the 21st century. This paper explores a comparative analysis of Can Xue’s The Last Lover (2005) and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (2007), examining their innovative representations of violence within a global framework. Both novels experimentally depict the sensations and deformations of the female body, illuminating the oppression and resistance women face within stifling familial relationships and rigid social structures. By examining the body as a sensory medium, a distorted image, and an embodied allegory, Can Xue and Han Kang collectively redefine and reflect on women’s traumatic experiences—historically marginalized within male-centered artistic and intellectual traditions. This study argues that the modernist reconfiguration of corporeality, femininity, and marginality in these works transforms the portrayal of violence, both historical and gendered, in contemporary fiction, advancing the empowerment of women’s writing in global literature. This interdisciplinary study further highlights how female authors challenge patriarchal literary traditions, bridging East Asian cultural transformations with global socio-historical modernization and offering valuable insights into the cultural and intellectual shifts explored in comparative literature.

This study examines the complex dynamics of translating culturally-specific rhetorical devices through a comparative analysis of thirteen English and French translations of a pleonastic verse from Ṭarafa's pre-Islamic Mu'allaqa. While pleonasm serves as a standard rhetorical device in classical Arabic poetry, carrying specific aesthetic and functional purposes, it is generally avoided in Western poetic traditions. The research demonstrates how translators navigating between these different literary systems must reconcile competing demands: preserving the source text's literary features while adhering to target language poetics. Through close comparative reading of translations spanning from 1782 to 2000, the study reveals that successful literary translation depends not merely on linguistic equivalence, but on the translator's ability to recreate the functional aesthetics of the original within the literary conventions of the target culture. The findings contribute to comparative literature discourse by illuminating how translators' choices reflect their cultural and disciplinary traditions, personal interpretative frameworks, and understanding of both source and target poetic systems. This research advances our understanding of cross-cultural literary transmission and the role of translation in shaping comparative literary studies, particularly in bridging Classical Arabic and Western poetic traditions.

This critical presentation examines A donde tú vayas, iré (2016), a novel by Jewish-Mexican writer Victoria Dana. Dana, a Mexican of Syrian descent who honed her craft in the literary workshop of Miguel Cossío Woodward, has published two novels: Las Palabras Perdidas (2012) and A donde tú vayas, iré. In her second novel, the protagonist and narrator, Latife, embarks on a journey to uncover the story of her parents' migration from Syria.

The novel focuses on the perpetuation of patriarchal discourse through its female characters. This analysis, conducted from an intersectional and feminist theoretical perspective, explores how the narrative illustrates the continuation of patriarchal norms within the family sphere.

The story is narrated from the perspective a young girl Latife, a Jewish woman who, with her family along with her family, escapes from Damascus to immigrate to Mexico in the aftermath of the revolution period. While Mexico initially promises change, offering a contrast to the violence of the war in her homeland after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the anticipated transformations do not significantly alter the status of women in the novel.

Skillfully, the author establishes a dialogue between the past and the present, revealing the persistence of patriarchal practices embodied by women, despite the passage of time and changes in geography. This analysis highlights the novel’s exploration of the complex interplay between historical context, migration, and gender dynamics.

Through its characters, particularly the female ones, Dana underscores how societal expectations and traditional gender roles endure, even in the face of significant social and geopolitical changes. By exposing the continuity of patriarchal structures across time and space, the novel invites readers to reflect on how deeply entrenched power dynamics shape the lives and experiences of women.

Though very first institutional engagement with comparative literature in South Asia emerged from the perspective of Bengali literature, but it took long time in Bangladesh to begin. The institutional introduction of comparative literature as a full-fledged program occurred in 2015 at Jahangirnagar University. Apart from this, some universities used to offer a singular course or academic discussion on this literary discipline. And numerous writings in the field of comparative literature have emerged outside the formal institutional practices, primarily driven by individual initiatives. A prominent figure in this domain is Professor and playwright Munier Chowdhury. In 1969, he authored a significant work based on comparative literature, entitled 'Tulanamulak Samalochana'. Additionally, Munier Chowdhury expressed a desire to establish a dedicated department for this discipline at Dhaka University. At present, Prof. Azfar Hossain, Dr. Shamim Reza, Dr. Suman Sazzad, Musfikur Rahman are working for the development of comparative literature in Bangladesh. This scattered intervention creates difficulties to the new researcher of the field.

This paper aims to analyze the current scenario, development, and future of comparative literature in Bangladesh. Since it has a become sovereign country with its own national literature corpus, it demands a new critical examination of the trends and developments of comparative literature in Bangladesh. It also seeks to map how literary history and trends have shaped Bangladeshi literature and how Comparative Literature should evolve in this context. This study will explore a few developments in this regard.

The type of unrequited which I will be taking is depicted through a relationship which is not fulfilled because of different reasons. The image which will be the identifying marker for Unrequited love as a state of being is the waiting of a lover for his/her beloved. The beloved waiting for love for a very long time which will further continue till forever is what makes the basic image for unrequited love for this assignment.

In the Bengali poetic system, the image of unrequited love is a very common theme which comes up again and again throughout different narratives. While working on Sufism and its emergence in the Bengali language. The idea of unrequited love is shown as a dominant image which shows the state of the devotee as well as lovers. I will be focusing on the image of one (lover or devotee) waiting for their beloved (can also be divine). I will start with an introduction to the image which I will be focusing upon. Then moving on, will try to show this in the poetic system of other Indian languages. I have worked with Baul Geet previously, which gave me the starting image due to dominance in the Sufi.

As we focus on the image of unrequited love, we see the same across poetic systems of various language’s cultures as well. It shows the same image i.e. the state of being. The image which I will be focusing upon is the waiting of the lover for his or her beloved. For lyric mode in Bengali, I will be taking a poem by Tagore. The lovers in these poems are the people expressing their love, while on the other hand, beloveds are the people who do not reciprocate or are not able to accept that love.

Jane Loudon’s three-volume novel, The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827), expresses a dystopian/utopian world where an Egyptian mummy of Cheops is reanimated in 2126 and he challenges to improve England damaged by political and religious conflicts as well as advanced technology. England in 2126 is ruled by absolute monarchy, governed by Roman Catholicism, and managed by scientific and technological inventions such as telegraphic machines, moving houses, and ariel voyages. Influenced by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), however, Loudon’s The Mummy presents the revived Cheops as a temporal savior of the collapsed society. The ancient Egyptian civilization as a popular trend for the Victorians represents a possible space of the unknown world, and the rapidly introduced scientific inventions embody an experimental reference to create a futuristic novel (later, so-called Science Fiction). The Egyptian mummies which were employed as medicine in palaeopathology in the Middle Ages are examined in bioarchaeological and biomedical fields. Unwrapping mummies in the nineteenth century are connected with surgery as a medical treatment in the twentieth century when they are investigated by X-ray and CT scanning. The Mummy explores a series of cultural and scientific traits of ancient Egyptian mummies such as biomedical references, improves the awareness of ancient cultural and medical heritage as a global treasure of human beings with scientific examinations, and furthermore, proposes an anticipated transfiguration of technology and science that affects humanity. Loudon intends to create an innovative future world with a satirical and critical perspective.

In 2012, Chinese American writer Yan Geling published the English novel The Flowers of War along with Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s same-titled blockbuster. The novel’s main plot surrounds the clashes between a group of schoolgirls and fourteen sex workers inside an American church during the Nanjing Massacre. However, few people know that the main storyline of The Flowers of War originates from the 1988 Chinese film Taking Refuge. This paper traces how Yan’s story travels from the 1980s Chinese nationalist, patriarchal cinematic discourse to a transnational fictional narrative, contextualizing the cinematic and literary narratives within their respective historical, sociopolitical, and cultural environments. In particular, this essay examines the transformations of racial and gender politics in Yan’s revisions by mainly focusing on the cinematic and literary representations of two groups of people—the Chinese sex workers and the foreign priests. The comparison between the 1988 Chinese film Taking Refuge and the 2011 English novel The Flowers of War is, by virtue of the specific genre of self-adaptation, able to offer glimpses not only of the Chinese cinematic discourses regarding foreigners, nationalism, and the female body in the 1980s but of the transnational historical consciousness, feminist space of agency and potentiality, and post-coloniality reverberating in Yan’s diasporic writings.

La production de Tannhäuser du metteur en scène d’opéra d’origine canadienne Robert Carsen a été controversée pour avoir remplacé les chevaliers chanteurs médiévaux par des peintres contemporains. Par exemple, Jean-Jacques Nattiez reconnaît l’originalité singulière de cette production, mais remarque aussi son infidélité non négligeable par rapport au contexte d’origine 1).

En revanche, Thierry Santurenne, qui a publié une monographie sur Carsen, souligne la parenté avec une scène du film de Jacques Rivette La Belle Noiseuse, librement inspiré du Chef-d’œuvre inconnu de Balzac 2). Mais quant à l’infidélité de son interprétation, il dénonce également le décalage contextuel créé par la réécriture, des chanteurs aux peintres. L’ouvrage met le doigt sur les points suivants : la scène de l’original où Tannhäuser chante un hymne à Vénus et avoue être avec la déesse de la beauté est transformée en un scandale causé par le fait qu’il enlève en public le voile d’une toile qui représente un nu avec des coups de pinceau passionnés. Et selon Santurenne, un artiste contemporain rappelant Jackson Pollock ou Yves Klein ne ferait jamais scandale dans une galerie new-yorkaise ou parisienne d’aujourd’hui qui adore les provocations intellectuelles.

Nous sommes donc tentés de conseiller Carsen de la manière suivante : et s’il avait été un peintre moderne au lieu d’un peintre contemporain ? La mise en scène de l’opéra par Carsen se termine par l’acquisition du tableau de Tannhäuser -- dont on ne voit que le chevalet et le verso de la toile -- par un musée imaginaire. Le tableau sera accroché à côté du Déjeuner sur l’herbe d’Edouard Manet, qui fit scandale au Salon de 1863.

Vu sous cet angle, le Tannhäuser de Carsen ne dépeint pas seulement l’angoisse créatrice personnelle de l’artiste, mais aussi sa lutte avec la société. Cette tension entre l’artiste et la société constitue la nouveauté de L’Œuvre de Zola par rapport au Chef-d’œuvre inconnu de Balzac. Et comme l’un des modèles du protagoniste de L’Œuvre est, bien entendu, Manet, et qu’il provoque un scandale comparable à l’exposition du Salon des Refusés de 1863 en peignant un tableau, qui rappelle Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, la mise en scène de Carsen a donc offert des clés pour rendre visibles les parentés cachées entre Tannhäuser et L’Œuvre, lesquelles ont déjà été évoquées par Patrick Brady, mais de façon tout à fait différente 3).

1) Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Fidélité et infidélité dans les mises en scène d’opéra, Vrin, Paris 2019.

2) Thierry Santurenne, Robert Carsen. L’Opéra charnel, PUV, Saint-Denis, 2016.

3) Patrick Brady, ‘‘L’Œuvre’’ de Emile Zola : roman sur les arts, manifeste, autobiographie, roman à clef, Droz, 1967.

This paper attempts a comparative study of gender issues figuring prominently in three films of the Gothic genre set in the backdrop of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonial Bengal, where gold and women intertwine in tales of darkness and desire. The films selected for analysis are Satyajit Ray’s Monihara (1961), a classic in Bengali Gothic cinema, Goynar Baksho (2013) by Aparna Sen, and Bulbbul (2020), directed by Anvita Dutt, in an attempt to shed light on the symbolic and narrative significance of gold in the Bengali female gothic genre. The selected films utilise the Gothic’s trademark elements—the uncanny, the macabre, and supernatural—to navigate women’s roles in a society transformed by colonialism, economic change, and shifting gender dynamics.

To analyse the relationship between gold and women in the backdrop of 19th Century Bengal, Fentje Henrike Donner draws attention to “the common usage of the Bengali idiom of “women and gold” (kaminikanchan), whereby women are symbolically equated with gold, and both signify the mundane world which is opposed to spiritual progress” (Donner 1999: 377-378). The words “kamini” and “kanchan” are Sanskrit terms used in almost all Indian languages— “kamini” means “woman” and “kanchan” means “gold.” Gold, in this cinematic context, serves as more than a material asset; it becomes a conduit for exploring ideological constructs around gender, wealth, and desire.

The three films, while portraying women in complex roles as Gothic heroines, foreground the societal conditions that both elevate and stigmatise women’s connections with gold. In Monihara, the female protagonist’s obsession with her jewellery intertwines with themes of loss and spectral vengeance, while Goynar Baksho and Bulbbul explore power dynamics through characters who navigate colonial and patriarchal constraints, asserting autonomy through their association with gold. This paper contends that gold in Bengali Gothic cinema is emblematic of a broader critique, serving as a gendered trope that exposes underlying social anxieties and reshapes traditional representations of femininity, power, and materiality in colonial Bengal. Through such Gothic representations of the “golden” brides of Bengal, gold transcends mere ornamentation, becoming central to a discourse on power and identity in a rapidly transforming cultural landscape.

Discourses around Bengali cinema, both critical and popular, have historically dealt with the question of crisis. This paper will look at the crisis narrative represented in early Bengali film criticisms of the 1930s and 1940s. This period is important in the history of Bengali cinema as well as in the cultural history of Bengal. Print cultures have been central to the articulation of modernity and political identities in nineteenth and early twentieth-century India. Writings and criticisms about popular entertainment forms largely contributed to these discourses. With the rise of cinema as a mass entertainment form in India, journals and magazines dedicated to cinema, including many in vernaculars, emerged in the 1920s and gained momentum in the 1930s. Colonial Bengal, being one of the most important sites of film production in India, and due to the presence of an English-educated middle class, saw the emergence of numerous film periodicals during this time. The articles published in film magazines like Nachghar, Filmland, Bioscope, Deepali, Batayan, and Kheyali dealt with diverse topics around the popular medium, which included questions on the social and moral function of cinema and its aesthetic standards. This paper will look at select writings published in the early Bengali film magazines and will try to trace whether the crisis is concerned only with the medium of cinema or corresponds to the greater crisis of the Bengali middle class. The paper will also examine the questions of moral and cultural choices, modernising practices, and the formation of national aspirations.

Le Mont Athos a été lʼobjet dʼinnombrables récits de pèlerins ou visiteurs. En Occident en1422, le Florentin Buondelmonte ouvre la marche avec un ouvrage en latin. Plus tard, en France, “dès 1547, Pierre Belon, médecin et botaniste, grâce à lʼappui éclairé de la cour de François 1er et du cardinal de Tournon”, pourra “visiter la Sainte Montagne et en laisser une fidèle description”. Mais parmi ces récits qui décrivent les couvents et la vie quotidienne des moines athonites, il existe des écrits de la fin des années 20 et du début des années 30, qui mettent en lumière les visions des moines athonites.

Ce sont des approches singulières qui touchent à un certain tabou, dans la mesure où deux dʼentre-elles sont des descriptions faites par des femmes, qui étaient interdites de séjour à la Sainte Montagne, et qui montrent un certain contraste avec celle données par des hommes. Cʼest ainsi que nous nous proposons de les approcher dans leurs dimensions stylistiques et littéraires, au travers de trois auteurs que quelques années séparent: Marthe Oulié et Hermine de Saussure avec leur "Croisière de 'Perlette', 1700 milles dans la mer Egée (1926), Maryse Choisy, journaliste, prétendant avoir passé un mois parmi les moines de la péninsule interdite aux femmes depuis 1046, dans son reportage intitulé “Un Mois chez les hommes”, paru en 1929 aux Editions de France et Eugène Mercier qui en 1933 publia "La Spiritualité Byzantine, L'Orient grec et chrétien, Attique, Thessalie, Macédoine, Salonique, le mont Athos" aux Editions du Cygne .

Cette étude comparative de ces trois récits de voyage au pays des Hagiorites mettra en lumière ce qui a, de tout temps fasciné le pèlerin-voyageur, le quotidien de ces moines vivant comme dans un Moyen-Age byzantin figé mais non moins étonnamment réel constituant lʼessence même de cette admiration pour les uns, ce non-sens pour les autres, surtout quand il est question de femmes, qui se sentent exclues de ce “Jardin de la vierge”, qui en reste la maîtresse exclusive.

Références Bibliographiques:

BELON du MANS, Pierre, Les Observations de plusieurs singularités & choses mémorables, trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie & autres pays étranges, rédigées en trois livres, Chap. XXXV-XLIII, Paris, 1553.

BOUSQUET, P. A. Abbé, Les Actes des Apôtres Modernes, Relations épistolaires et authentiques des Voyages entrepris par les missionnaires catholiques pour porter le flambeau de lʼEvangile chez tous les peuples et civiliser le monde, Tome Deuxième, Paris, Au Bureau, 1852, pp 105-119.

CHOISY, Maryse, Un Mois chez les Hommes, Paris, Les Editions de France, 1929, 230 p.

DE MEESTER, Placide, D., O. S. B., Voyage de deux Bénédictins au Mont-Athos, Paris, Rome, Bruges, Bruxelles, Desclée de Brouwer, 1908, 321 p.

DE NOLHAC, Stanislas, Athènes et le Mont Athos, Paris, E. Plon et Cie Editeurs, 1882, 314 p.

DE VOGUE, Eugène-Melchior, Viconte, Syrie, Palestine, Mont Athos, Voyage au pays du passé, 2ème édition, Paris, E. Plon et Cie Editeurs, 1878, 333 p.

GEORGIRENES, Joseph, Archbishop, A Description of the Present state of Samos, Patmos, and Mount Athos, Licenfed, London, 1678, reprinted in ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΙΚΗ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΟΝ ΜΕΛΕΤΜΩΝ 23, Athènes, BΙΒΛΙΟΠΩΛΕΟΝ ΝΟΤΗ ΚΑΡΑΒΙΑ, 1967, 112 p.

GOTHONI, René, Paradise Within Reach: Monasticism and Pilgrimage, Helsinki: Helsinki University, 1993. 183 p.

MERCIER, Eugène, La Spiritualité Byzantine, LʼOrient grec et chrétien, Attique, Thessalie, Macédoine, Salonique, Le Mont Athos, Paris, Editions du Cygne, 1933, Chap. VII-XXIV, 187-520.

NEYRAT, Alexandre-Stanislas, Abbé, LʼAthos, notes dʼune excursion à la presquʼîle de la montagne des moines, Paris, PLon; Sourrit et Cie Editeurs, Lyon, Librairie Briday, 1884, 247 p.

OULIE, Marthe, de SAUSSURE, Hermine, Croisière de 'Perlette’, 1700 milles dans la mer Egée, Paris, Hachette, 1926, 253 p.

PERILLA, F. Le Mont Athos, Son Histoire - Ses Monastères - Ses Œuvres dʼart- Ses Bibliothèques, Paris, J. Danguin Editeur, Salonique, édition de lʼauteur, 1927, 188 p

This paper examines the life and diary of the ‘American Goddess of Mercy’—Minnie Vautrin, who managed an all-women refugee camp during the notorious Nanjing Massacre in China. Starting with a concise biography of Vautrin, this paper probes her embodiment of cross-cultural identities and pioneering role in Chinese women’s educational reform. In particular, I highlight the dual function of her wartime diary and how her descriptions of sexual violations unveiled the convoluted gender and racial power politics in the refugee camp. For the past few decades Vautrin’s diary has inspired a myriad of literary and cinematic works featuring the Nanjing Massacre transnationally. I examine the afterlife of Vautrin’s diary by mainly focusing on the characterisations of Vautrin and Chinese heroines in a constellation of novels and films which manage to reimagine stories out of the silence, gaps, and aporia in her diary. I contend that such a way of writing out of silence and fissures in Vautrin’s life writings revisits the American Goddess of Mercy myth and gives voice to the violated Chinese women who are usually marginalised in official historical discourse.