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

The series of novels “Eurasian Symphony” written by Rebakov and Alimov is a major event in the writing of China in contemporary Russian literature. The dual identities of the two writers and sinologists have endowed the novels with unique literary character and aesthetic taste. They have both systematic knowledge and in-depth research on Chinese history, culture and literary classics, and have the patriotism and literary imagination of Russian writers. China, as an idea and symbol, is the key factor in the writer’s creation of the ideal country of Ordus. With the help of the genre of afternative history and detective themes, the writers parodie Eurasianism, and China’s time and space become an organic part of the country of Ordus, expanding its geographical pattern and extending its historical latitude and longitude. Based on their high recognition of Chinese civilization, Rebakov and Alimov expressed their unique insights on the operating mechanism of an ideal society by reshaping Confucianism. The Confucian gentleman model is a yardstick for personal cultivation, and benevolent government and moral governance are the spiritual pursuits of a harmonious society. In the novel, Chinese cultural symbols are combined with Russian culture, and the writers construct the semiosphere of the cultural community of Ordus. Hieroglyphs are combined with Russian letters, and the writers shape the Chinese symbol system in the cultural space of Ordus.

Dr. Lim Boon Keng, JP, OBE (1869–1957) played a significant role in the cultural and educational development of early 20th-century Singapore and Malaya. Born into a Peranakan family in British colonial Singapore, Lim was the first Chinese student to receive the Queen’s Scholarship and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Lim is considered an intermediary between West and East (Xie, 2024). His unique background, blending Western education with traditional Chinese values, positioned him as a key figure in promoting Chinese education (Ang, 2007) and Nanyang Confucian Revival Movement (Wang, 2012) helped bridge the gap between the English-speaking Peranakan community and the broader Chinese population, shaping the foundations of Singapore’s unique multicultural identity.

By comparing Lim’s early 20th-century initiatives with later the government of Singapore’s efforts in promotion of Confucianism in the 1980s and the commitment to fostering a bilingual and bicultural society, this research offers a deeper understanding of his lasting contributions, his foresight in anticipating the importance of cultural and linguistic integration, and the enduring nature of Singapore’s multicultural identity.

This paper explores how Black Myth: Wukong introduces a new media narrative model grounded in Chinese philosophy. By leveraging the established image of Sun Wukong in media history, the game enables players to construct and dissolve their subjectivity through the process of becoming Wukong. This approach challenges the conventional digital narrative paradigm, which centers on player subjectivity. Furthermore, the game employs cyclical narrative time, drawing players into continuous cycles of media innovation. The evolution of the Wukong narrative reflects the evolution of the Sinicization of narrative from non-digital to digital media, and its transformation of media narratives. This development calls for the creation of a research framework and discourse for media narratives that embodies unique Chinese characteristics.

This paper aims to explore whether we can gain new insights and understandings of the Neo-Confucian diagrams of the Chinese Song scholar Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073) and Korean Joseon scholar Yi Hwang Toegye (1501-1570) through digital 3D animation. The Neo-Confucian tradition in China and especially Korea had a strong focus on the human being and our connection to heaven and earth, as well as creation. This led scholars to not only write down their theories but also visualize them through diagrammatic drawings. Such scholar was Zhou Dunyi, who created The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (太極圖, taiji tu), and Toegye, who created The Diagram of the Mandate of Heaven (天命圖, cheonmyeong do) based on Zhou’s diagram. These two diagrams are drawn in 2D. However, in recent years scholars have begun to wonder whether these diagrams, despite being in 2D, were intended to be imagined in 3D when observed based on certain statements found in the diagram’s corresponding textual explanations. The corresponding textual explanations of the diagrams have been studied before in the context of the diagrams being in 2D. Hence, if the diagrams have to be viewed differently, do we then have to analyze the textual explanation differently? As mentioned above, Toegye based his diagram on Zhou Dunyi’s, and therefore they have been compared in former research. Thus, would the comparison prove different if we viewed the diagrams in 3D instead of 2D? Lastly, we might ask whether employing digital methods, such as 3D animation, can aid us in the study of Neo-Confucian diagrammatic literature as well as provide us with new perspectives on how to study pre-modern Chinese Korean literature.

Shamik Dasgupta’s graphic novel Virulents, with illustrations by Dean Ruben Hyrapiet, offers an exploration of horror through the lens of mythology and technology. The increasing entanglement of technology and literature has transformed the ways in which narratives are created, disseminated, and received. The story follows an elite commando team investigating the disappearance of a military squad amidst intense bombing campaigns targeting suspected militant strongholds. The fusion of mythology and technology grabs another layer in its reconfiguration of the vampire trope through Indian mythological figures such as Kālī and Raktabīja (blood seed). The rhizomatic nature of these figures, representing boundless multiplication and decentralization, finds a parallel in the non-linear, fragmented structure explained in Deleuze and Guattari's book A Thousand Plateaus. The animated adaptation of the text utilizes graphic novel cut-outs, 3D war elements, stop-motion techniques, and Flash animation, further reinforcing its postmodern digital hybridity. This work suggests that technological advancements can disrupt conventional power dynamics, as seen in the evolving relationship between humans and vampires. By analyzing the convergence of war, mythology, and technology in Virulents, this paper would like to engage with broader debates on digital humanities and comparative literature. The study aims to demonstrate how digital tools such as animation, network analysis, and distant reading reshape the study of literature. It also interrogates whether technological advances redefine established mythological and supernatural narratives, challenging the presumed dominance of the supernatural over the human. The paper would like to contribute to the ongoing discourse on the role of artificial intelligence and intermediality in contemporary literary studies.

This paper conducts a cross-cultural comparative analysis of borderland narratives in the Global South, focusing on The Story of Southern Islet (Chong Keat Aun, 2020) and Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2015). These films portray borderlands—the Malaysian-Thai border and the Amazon rainforest—as liminal spaces where cultural hybridity, ecological trauma, and colonial legacies converge. Through non-linear storytelling and symbolic imagery, the films explore themes of discrete identities, spiritual connections, and the entanglements between humans, nature, and colonial histories.

Employing Deleuze and Guattari’s “deterritorialization” and the framework of postcolonial ecocriticism, this study examines how borderland spaces in these films transcend their geographical and cultural boundaries, functioning as metaphors for identity reconstruction and resistance against colonial structures. The analysis highlights how The Story of Southern Islet reimagines Southeast Asian borderlands as spaces of cultural syncretism, while Embrace of the Serpent envisions the Amazon as an ecological and spiritual frontier resisting the colonial project.

By situating these films within the theoretical discourse of spatiality and postcolonial studies, this paper argues that the cinematic borderlands in The Story of Southern Islet and Embrace of the Serpent reveal the transformative potential of hybrid cultural identities and offer a critique of modernity’s impact on both ecological and cultural systems.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abstract

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jew of Malta was composed by Christopher Marlowe in 1589 or 1590, in the aftermath of England's triumph over the Spanish Armada in 1588, when England's overseas trade was thriving, albeit with unsatisfactory outcomes. It is a common view among critics that the depictions of the Jew in The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice are in fact a reflection of the authors' profound writing on the anti-Semitism in society at that time. These works serve as a mirror mapping the prejudices of the times. However, these racist studies fail to recognize the important role of Jews in the development of capitalism and in the empire building of the modern state. The very title of the play, The Jew of Malta, contains two crucial information: the geographical space of Malta and the protagonist of the Jew. Marlowe placed the Jew in Malta, the centre of the eastern Mediterranean, to engage in commercial activity. Overseas trade was the source and driving force of early capitalism. The trade of Barabbas, for instance, was emblematic of the prevailing capitalism, chiefly in the form of luxury goods such as precious stones and gold. The overseas trade, both military and political in nature, played a pivotal role in the accumulation of wealth for the British empire. Notably, the slave trade contributed to this process, underlining the multifaceted nature of capitalism. The role of the Jews in the development of capitalism cannot be overstated. Not only did they contribute to the external expansion of capitalism, but they also played a significant internal role, shaping its ideology. The external form manifested as international trade and credit bonds of Barabbas, while the Jews' promotion of greed for profit and free trade became the embodiment of the commercial spirit of capitalism. The history of the British Empire was closely intertwined with the development of British capitalism. The geographical expansion of trade of Barabbas reflected the shift of Europe's economic centre beyond the Mediterranean and the change in the form of trade from export to import-export, alluding to the British construction of a world economic centre and imperial imagination.

Ae-ran Kim is a well-known South Korean writer, but her work has rarely been studied in Chinese academia. Her short story collection, How Was Your Summer? focuses on depicting the life experiences of urban marginal groups in the context of consumerism and liquid modernity. It is a reflection of the individual identity anxiety of the South Korean “post-80s” generation in the wave of compressed modernity. In the story “There Is Night There, and Songs Here,” Long Da, the protagonist, due to the dual constraints of family and social relationships, chooses to exile himself and run away to rebuild his subjectivity. This paper, attempting to interpret the work from the perspective of existentialism, will approach from three subject-object interaction forms: “gaze,” “disregard,” and “mutual gaze,” to explore the realistic connotations of the work and investigate the possibility of creating spaces for individuals to converse with others in the complex modern society.

In the course of the dematerialization of money, cash in the form of coins and banknotes has transformed into scriptural money, now represented as electronic currency stored on server hard drives. This form of money, often referred to as fiat money—drawing an analogy to fiat lux (the creation of light)—can be generated without any material basis. This evolution carries profound implications for society, politics, and the economy, which are further compounded by an additional technological change with similarly far-reaching consequences: the rise of artificial intelligence.

The combination of dematerialized money and technological advancement enables a remarkable paradigm shift in the realm of speculative stock trading, as vividly demonstrated in the novels Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo and The Fear Index by Robert Harris. At the core of both texts are successful financial masterminds who rely on an array of technological tools to conduct their business operations. The reader follows each protagonist over the course of a single day, during which their speculative endeavors are portrayed—ultimately leading to their downfall in both novels.

The respective forms of speculation, however, differ fundamentally: While DeLillo's 28-year-old stock market prodigy, Eric Packer, wagers against the yen from his highly advanced limousine and loses "money by the ton," Dr. Alexander Hoffmann from The Fear Index is a scientist who is "not actually interested in making money." For him, the stock market merely serves as a testing ground for a self-developed AI that governs the trading of his hedge fund. While Packer's hubris causes his wealth to nearly disappear entirely over the course of the day, Hoffmann's AI proves extremely successful, having learned to generate profit by exploiting the emotion of fear in the market. However, this insight leads the AI toward autonomy, ultimately allowing it to overpower its creator and subjugate all other employees.

Both texts pose fundamental questions about technological progress and its impact on the modern economic system, inviting comparison. Through the analysis of structure, narrative techniques, and characterizations, not only can the critical potential of the inherent critique of capitalism be revealed, but also how the speculative nature of literary fiction intersects with economic speculation.

Focusing on economic speculation is essential in order to fully decipher the literary space for reflection on this phenomenon as a whole. While Packer seeks to minimize uncertainty in his decisions by relying on a constant stream of information displayed across countless screens, Hoffmann's profits appear certain, as they are calculated through an algorithm. This effectively removes the previously foundational element of uncertainty from the concept of speculation, ultimately raising a pivotal question: Is speculation even necessary (or possible) in the age of artificial intelligence?

Ragtime written by E.L. Doctorow was a classic of postmodern novels, in which the author employed montage technique in film production to shape typical characters like the three white male figures. Doctorow mainly adopted psychological montage, lyrical montage and metaphorical montage methods to show the mental crisis of the middle-class white men under the tremendous social change including immigrants influx and labor capital conflict, who were usually assumed the most privileged group in the United States. This paper used Eisenstein's montage theory to analyze the promotion of character portrayal through the use of montage techniques and the confusion, struggle or lost state of the mainstream group in the United States in the early 20th century, which worth people’s reflection as the problems still exists in the current American society.

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

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

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

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

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The increasing advancement of humanoid robots and humanized technology has extended the boundaries of gender performance, femininity, and its exploitation beyond that of human women. A case in point: the launch of numerous sexbots over the years, some equipped with AI, mostly gendered female, all aimed to serve people as the “perfect partner.” Consequently, it has become necessary to expand the boundaries of gender politics to include nonhuman bodies in literature, in literary criticism, and in reality.

Recent works of science fiction such as Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), and Machines Like Me (2019) may be seen as such responses in literature. The purpose of this paper is to analyze their distinctive characterizations of female and male AI, and critique the feminist-posthumanist discourse generated thereof. I propose that their common strategy of utilizing fembots as feminist representatives of the emergent posthuman race to elicit greater acceptance of nonhuman persons—while effective in its goal—is not without its problems.

Although critical accounts have provided much insight into AI femininity itself in terms of its social construction, visual expression, and patriarchal exploitation, almost no observation has been made on its narrative privilege over AI masculinity, nor to the purposes and outcomes of such a privilege. At the intersection of feminism and posthumanism, there seems to be a lack of awareness of how the rhetoric of one is employed in the service of the other, or of the potential consequences of such a device. On one hand, each individual narrative is admirable in its rejection of the misogyny involved in the development of AI, artificial femininity, and mechanical servitude. On the other hand, the accumulation, entrenchment, and eventual simplification of these narratives into a trend may perpetuate sexist narrative practices within fiction and sexist business practices outside of it. In fiction, posthuman women are progressively flattened into “perfect victims” to the point of powerlessness, while posthuman men continue to be treated with the same apathy, fear, and violence that have been associated with them since 1960s Hollywood. In real life, this narrative trend may also potentially—however unintentionally—perpetuate the existing idea that gynoids are preferable to androids when it comes to robotic service, thereby encouraging the technological exploitation of the feminine form, and reinforcing patriarchal and stereotypical associations between femininity and ubiquitous servitude.

In concluding the paper with questions regarding alternative narratives, I hope to generate broader discussions over the ethical implications of engineering posthuman gender and posthuman entities in general. Regardless of the realistic possibility of creating artificial sentience or higher intelligence, how ethically compatible is it really, the two goals of creating an entity with human intelligence, and then unconditionally subjugating its intelligence to our services? Must not our very desire for a slave—woman or man, posthuman or human—be critically examined, rather than pursued in the hopes of a technological utopia?

This paper will provide a comparative analysis of American and Korean science fiction texts regarding language barriers between humans and non-humans. I will analyze Roger Zelazny’s “For a Breath I Tarry” and Kim Hye-Yoon’s “Interview with a Black Box.” With social and industrial coupling with generative AI increasingly becoming widespread in the present day, I view it as timely to revisit Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” and examine the usage and interpretation of language between humans and non-humans. I propose that analyzing the language of the non-humans in these science fiction texts would call attention to different types of language barriers between humans and non-humans and contribute to improving the human and non-human relationship. Zelazny’s text is set in a future apocalypse caused by a nuclear war. His text depicts a robot named Frost who studies anthropology and his efforts to understand humanity as he modifies his body over time, as well as finding loopholes in restrictions set by his superior, Solcom. Kim’s text depicts a future space colony where cyborgs are marginalized communities, and the story depicts a human main character Lana reminiscing about her relationship with her cyborg mother as she interviews other cyborgs as part of her survey regarding resident satisfaction with the colony’s gravity. Throughout the interviews, Lana learns how to adjust her questions, and learns how cyborgs’ recognition senses are uniquely different from human perception. I argue that these texts mirror each other, since in Zelazny’s story a robot learns about humans, and in Kim’s story the human tries to understand cyborgs. These texts reveal grey areas of the “machine language,” and the misunderstanding that comes from the limitations of programmed languages. For this paper, I view the “machines” in the texts as more than the conventional automatons, and they hold potentials to blur the boundaries between the human and non-human. I argue that these texts would contribute to understanding the language barriers and improve communication between humans and non-humans beyond technological relationships.

The relentless pursuit of technological advancement has brought humanity into new scientific surroundings, where robots, AI, and even cloning — once confined in science fiction —have now become reality. These innovations have undoubtedly improved many aspects of human life, enhancing convenience and efficiency. However, alongside the benefits of this advancement, it also gives rise to new forms of alienation and conflict in modern society. In an era where technology evolves faster than society’s ability to adapt, narrative can serve as “one of many discourses through which to grapple with the intersections of science, technology, human values, and our coming future”.

Never Let Me Go (2010), directed by Mark Romanek and based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, is one such narrative envisioning a dystopian world where clones are created solely to provide vital organs for “natural” humans. By centering on cloning, the film explores ethical issues such as the essence of humanity, social alienation, and exclusion through the relationship between humans and clones. This paper analyzes the film Never Let Me Go (2010) through the lens of posthumanism, particularly Rosi Braidotti’s concept of the “posthuman subject,” focusing on themes of alienation and exclusion. By critiquing anthropocentric perspective, this paper highlights the necessity of posthumanist thinking in redefining subjectivity. The alienation of clones depicted in Never Let Me Go reflects the deeply established anthropocentric mindset in modern society, rooted in Cartesian dualism. Through spatial, linguistic, and social exclusion, the film highlights how clones are denied subjectivity, reinforcing their status as mere biological resources. However, through Kathy’s first-person narration, the film invites viewers to empathize with the clones, prompting a reevaluation of rigid human/nonhuman distinctions. This study also draws a parallel between the film’s themes and the real-world marginalization of migrant workers in South Korea, emphasizing the necessity of posthumanist thinking in dismantling exclusionary hierarchies and fostering a more inclusive definition of subjectivity.

Recent theoretical frameworks such as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), New Materialism, and ecological theories from Anna Tsing and Donna Haraway challenge traditional anthropocentric perspectives by emphasizing the significance and agency of non-human entities within interconnected ecological assemblages. This raises critical questions about the positioning of humans within these networks of mutual influence. In the first chapter, through the keyword mushroom in Kim Cho-yeop’s novel "The Dispatchers," Anna Tsing’s ethnographic study "Mushrooms at the End of the World," and Nie Longqing’s non-fiction work "Mushroom Addiction", we imagine the possibility of various positions of existence where humans and non-humans are separated or coexist in order to adapt to modern society. In the second chapter, this study addresses the need to rethink the notion of the subject as it emerges from the contingent relationships between humans and non-human actors. We explore the speculative fiction of Kim Bo-Young, specifically the stories "An Evolutionary Myth," "On the Origin of Species," and "On the Origin of Species – and What Might Have Happened Thereafter".

Within the scope of graphic journalism, which encompasses any form of reportage that uses visual information (Schlichting, 2016, p. 2), is comics journalism. Although not conventionally referred to as literature, comics journalism hybridizes the traditional combination of image and text with reportage. Simultaneously, it revitalizes illustration as a form of visual journalism. Before the evolution of the printing press and cameras, narrative illustration was a regular part of newspapers. Modern photojournalism replaced the illustration as an objective, accurate, and immediate witness to events. (Barnhurst and Nerone, 2000, p.78).

Contemporary comics journalism embraces non-traditional objectivity by hybridizing hand-drawn illustrations with reportage and including the character of the comics journalist in their work (Weber and Rall 2017 pp. 385-389). When it conjuncts with history and memory, comics journalism transcends even greater disciplinary boundaries. An example of this form of comics journalism comes from Joe Sacco, the originator of the term “comics journalist” (Chute, 2016, p. 197). Sacco’s work situates itself in journalism and history (Kavaloski, 2018, p.135) by telling stories of war survivors, refugees, and Indigenous peoples. With the inclusion of his perspective and character, Sacco’s memories become a part of the reportage as well. As a result, comics journalism can become a conjuncture of not just history but oral history, the recollection of past events through word of mouth, and memoir, a non-fiction work of literature referring to the author’s memories.

Sacco’s process is an example of comics journalism that ties together the present and past, moving comics journalism beyond the limits of journalism. However, there is no map displaying where this form of literature transforms into oral history or memoir. Having such guidelines would allow journalists to understand their boundaries concerning objectivity and self-inclusion when creating comics journalism based on history and memory. As a result, this research-creation paper asks how these fields are distinct from and similar to one another by developing an illustrated feature that focuses on the history of a local park.

Established in 1908, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Park is a neighbourhood park in Montreal. Throughout its 117-year history, it has been the site of a visit from the King of England, sports games, concerts, intercommunity divisions, and two destructive storms. To produce a long-form article on why the park looks the way it does today, I employ comic journalism to illustrate its past and present. In the creation process, I bring historical research, interviews with park visitors, and my own memories together to develop a work of comics journalism, which is also an accurate depiction of the past. Using that for my research, I distinguish a preliminary set of guidelines for developing comics journalism that contains history, oral history and memoir.

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

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

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

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

Priya is India’s first female superhero. This article investigates the storyline of Priya, a rape victim and devoted disciple of Goddess Parvati, as presented in the comics. The analysis critically portrays the suffering, social disgrace, victim blaming, and alienation that female rape survivors experience around the globe, particularly in Indian culture. The narrative of the comics is interwoven with Indian mythology, in which the goddess Parvati is outraged by the sexual abuse of women in daily life and resolves to fix it. Priya's body is possessed by Parvati, who seeks revenge against the men who raped her. Priya is gifted a celestial tiger called "Sahas" (courage in English) by Goddess Parvati. The essay highlights the necessity for women's empowerment and protest against gender-based violence via the character Priya. The goal of this critical piece is to simultaneously concentrate on sexual assault against women, women's rights, and equality while confronting the deeply ingrained patriarchal customs of our society. We intend to discuss the three adventures of Priya to prove our point. Priya’s Shakti is a protest against rape-culture and discrimination towards women. The portrayal in Priya's mirror reveals the outcry of survivors of acid attacks and the psychological traumas of such assaults. Priya and the Lost Girls is a movement against women's trafficking and forced prostitution of women. In a nutshell, our research explores the psychology of a dark-skinned, salwar-kameez-clad girl who represents modern Indian women and her reformation against rape culture, racism, and the horrors of fundamentalism.

The rapid evolution of virtual production and AI technologies has significantly transformed traditional filmmaking processes, unlocking new creative potentials that were once constrained by the limitations of analog filmmaking. By introducing efficiencies across preproduction, production, and postproduction, these advancements enable filmmakers to explore a more fluid, dynamic approach to storytelling. In particular, virtual production blurs the boundaries between stages of filmmaking, often compressing or reordering workflows in ways that invite unconventional creative practices. AI-driven tools, such as real-time 3D background generation, further accelerate this process, offering filmmakers the ability to visualize and iterate concepts with unprecedented speed and ease.

This paper explores how these new creative workflows bear striking similarities to the development process of independently published comic books. Both mediums, through technological advancements, open up new forms of discovery and experimentation that were previously unattainable in traditional creative pipelines. The concept of "creative fungibility"—the ability to rapidly adapt and rework creative elements in response to new insights—emerges as a key theme in this comparison. Just as comic book creators often pivot between various stages of writing, drawing, and layout without rigid barriers, virtual production and AI allow filmmakers to engage in a similar cycle of continuous discovery. By analyzing the parallels between comic book creation and virtual production workflows, this paper will demonstrate how these emerging technologies offer an intelligent, adaptive framework that redefines the creative process across media.

This paper examines the role of embodied memory in Ken Liu’s The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, analyzing how corporeal testimony disrupts state-controlled narratives and complicates the politics of remembrance. Building upon the novella’s ethical dilemmas, this study explores how trauma is not merely archived but physically inscribed and re-experienced through sensory engagement. By foregrounding time travel as historical witnessing, this paper interrogates the epistemological and ethical implications of re-experiencing history through the body. Liu’s narrative transforms time travel into an embodied act of witnessing, where participants experience past atrocities as physical conduits of memory rather than detached observers. This raises questions about whether embodied testimonies strengthen historical accountability or risk appropriating trauma as a consumable spectacle.

The novella’s portrayal of physical aftereffects—visceral trauma, psychosomatic distress, and permanent physiological imprints—complicates the ethical stakes of embodied testimonies. By conceptualizing embodied memory not merely as a physiological response to trauma but as a form of historical inscription, Liu reframes the body as an active site of memory transmission. Unlike textual archives, which are subject to state manipulation, embodied memories exist beyond state-sanctioned historiography, making it both a radical alternative and a precarious form of testimony. By extending intergenerational trauma transmission beyond textual mediation, Liu reimagines history as something not only remembered but physically reinscribed.

Thereupon, Liu’s novella challenges Eurocentric models of historiography by rejecting the primacy of textual documentation in favor of embodied witnessing. Western historiography privileges written archives and nation-state frameworks, marginalizing non-Western histories, but Liu disrupts this paradigm by foregrounding sensory experience as a legitimate mode of historical validation. The text’s geopolitical conflict over historical truth—depicted through diplomatic struggles between China, Japan, and the United States—illustrates both the subversive power and the vulnerabilities of embodied testimony, as it challenges dominant memory structures while remaining susceptible to state appropriation.

By integrating literary analysis, trauma studies, and historiography, this study positions The Man Who Ended History as a key text in contemporary debates on historical representation, the materiality of memory, and the politics of remembrance. Ultimately, this paper argues that Liu’s novella advances an alternative epistemology that positions the body as an active medium of historical knowledge production. Through incorporating the limitations of archival memory and expanding discussions on embodied witnessing, this study offers a framework for rethinking historical accountability within memory studies, postcolonial historiography, and speculative fiction.

This paper interrogates the interplay between memory, remembering and forgetting, in the context of literary and visual narratives addressing the histories of “comfort women.” Drawing on the works of prominent scholars such as Marianne Hirsch’s ‘postmemory’ and Dominick LaCapra’s notions in “Trauma, Absence, Loss”, it examines how these narratives mediate the tension between the moral imperative to remember and the psychological and cultural desire to move beyond painful pasts. The analysis employs cognitive and affective frameworks, building on the insights of Alison Landsberg’s ‘prosthetic memory’ and Halbhwach’s ‘collective memory’ to explore how audiences are invited to engage with difficult histories, thereby challenging dominant societal narratives and fostering empathetic connections across temporal and cultural divides.

While much existing scholarship in this area parallels Holocaust studies, notably through Yael Danieli’s works on multigenerational legacies of trauma, the works of Saul Friedländer and James E. Young; this paper emphasizes an Asia-centric discourse, integrating theoretical perspectives from history, psychology, gender and memory studies to center the lived experiences of the “comfort women.” By doing so, it critiques and expands upon the Eurocentric paradigms often invoked in trauma studies. The study ultimately argues that the triangulation of remembering, forgetting, and reconciliation not only underscores the complexities of confronting historical injustices but also suggests a redemptive pathway for collective healing and justice. Through this, it seeks to establish a distinct foundation for further interdisciplinary inquiry into memory and gender within an Asian context.

Recent studies have explored how literature reflects the marginalization of queer identities in the society which places heterosexuality as a norm. Amruta Patil's graphic narrative Kari is such a canvas where the titular character's journey to self-discovery is painted against the swamped city of Mumbai. The society's deliberate act of subjugating the interests of queer identities is evident in Kari's interactions and experiences within the urban landscape. This landscape is characterized by a manufactured notion of gender identity, which the author deftly contrasts with Kari's gender fluidity. Kari, by deconstructing gender stereotypes and questioning traditional beliefs advocates for a space for the silenced voices of marginalized communities to be heard and considered. Cognizant of the vulnerable voices of queer communities disrupting the power hierarchies of society, Kari's divergence from what is considered as 'normal' can be studied from the lens of plurality. The othering of individuals deemed unconventional by power structures guarantees the definition and disintegration of the memories, histories, and narratives of resistance.

The graphic novel, as a visual-verbal genre, enables a multifaceted reading of the text, which is sensory and immersive, as the grammar and the imagination is given. The narrative structure of the graphic novel is itself subject to testimonial impulses as Hillary Chute suggests,"images in comics appear in fragments, just as they do in actual recollection; this fragmentation, in particular, is a prominent feature of traumatic memory" (Chute, p4). This sequential art form thus encourages the author and readers to engage with the narrative of abuse directed against the marginalized. This paper aims to understand the hegemony of standardization and homogenization of queer identities by looking at the narrative Kari as a graphic novel. By employing Hannah Arendt's philosophy of pluralism, the work will be studied for its representation of the vulnerable human body as a site for both struggle and resistance. The novel will also be analyzed for its distinct woman protagonist as providing an unprecedented syntax for representation of women characters in literature of the new era.

The ultimate goal of this research work is to make a comparative discussion between Krishan Chander’s Urdu short story “پشاور ایکسپریس” (Peshawar Express) (1948) and Syed Waliullah’s English short story “The Escape” (1950). Both stories depict the partition that took place in 1947, the journey of the refugees, deaths in riots, and violence against women. Besides sharing these common themes, they differ on some important points, such as Chander shows more violence than Waliullah, and Waliullah works more on refugee subjects' psyches than the narrative of violence. By using Benedict Anderson's and Ernest Renan's theories on nation and nationalism along with Judith Lewis Herman’s concept of “Complex PTSD” and Julian Ford and Courtois’s idea of complex trauma, this study employs a close reading of these two short stories and related theories on nationalism, partition, etc., as a methodology. The critical reading shows that Waliullah deals with the subject's psyche regarding the partition issue, while Chander's main focus is the presentation of the violence of the 1947 partition. Besides, both of them use trains as a symbol of not only the refugees' endless misfortune but also the process of alienation that happened between populations that lived together and struggled to decolonize their land. Moreover, Chander depicts collective struggle, whereas Waliullah depicts subjects’ PTSD to understand the effect of these brutal events on a refugee entity. All of these suggest that Waliullah's narrative is the extended and deepened version of Chander's work.

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.

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.

Scholarly digital editions have become an important resource in literary studies. They make openly available and contextualise a broad range of document types, including literary manuscripts, correspondence, or photographs, which shed new light on authors’ lives and works, their composition practices as well as their social and professional networks. They thus allow scholars to explore aesthetic, philological, and material aspects, as well as historical and biographical information within their social, cultural, and political contexts.

The specific affordances of the digital medium and its capacities to highlight (transnational) movements, connections, and relationships merit some reflections on digital editions as life-writing projects that seem to take up new trends in auto/biographical scholarship and practice. Capturing the dynamism, non-linearity, fragmentariness, and relationality of human lives through, for instance, network graphs, interactive maps, and non-hierarchical entry points, digital editions tie in with the objectives of relational biography or metabiography. Digital editions of pre-existing collections of ego-documents do not offer a coherent cradle-to-grave narrative but a glimpse into a fragmented life and decentred subject, with previously hidden lives coming into view. Moreover, they highlight the centrality of ‘persona’ as a concept in life-writing scholarship that does justice to the ways in which different versions of selfhood are strategically produced, staged, and disseminated through life narratives in a wide range of media and genres. Taking the scholarly digital editions Auden Musulin Papers (https://amp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/) and Auden in Austria Digital (work in progress), two projects based at the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (Austrian Academy of Sciences), as a starting point, I will explore the fruitful intersections of life narrative research and digital platforms, tools, and methodologies.

To understand the notions of classification, identification, domiciliation, and consignation in terms of private law and state law with reference to the upsurge in Open AI, Chat GPT, Block-Chain, Gen AI market to temper with the copyright norms, Intellectual Property Rights of the restored, revived and resurged archived manuscripts, records and literature for the conservation of cultural memory and history. Jacques Derrida writes in his book "The Archive Fever - A Freudian Impression" about the same in these words - “the exergue has at once an institutive and a conservative function: the violence of a power (Gewalt) which at once posits and conserves the law, as the Benjamin of Zur Kritik der Gewalt would say. What is at issue here, starting with the exergue, is the violence of the archive itself, as archive, as archival violence.” (Derrida, 1996)

But the contemporary digitization of the archival repository has navigated unlimited, fastest possibilities for marketing expectations. Content Creation by way of computing automation neural network through Artificial Intelligence has changed the course of discourse of pragmatics concerning the continuation and perpetuation of ideas, concepts and concerns regarding the understanding, circulation and continuity of art and literature down the generations. Investment by stakeholders regarding this emerging entrepreneurship is now very much liable to understand the employees' AI empowered utility to leverage the archival heritage and culture through apt usage of AI productive tools to market as well as to conserve the ethnic interest of the respective memory variables of indigeneity.

The wandering aborigines’ pseudo-historical images, lifestyle, and reflections once used to be a matter of dreamtime indigenous oral traditions and the same for the globalized world seem to be incredibly unbelievable or awesome. But since the computer-based knowhow has been a medium to be a source of repository of archives, the knowledge about the traditional societies, their ethnographic art, folk culture have been measured as parameters in computational virtual vision context, while the progressive generative images technology has opened an avenue for patrons and researchers to explore indigeneity and traditions not only as the metaphors of ethnic identity and ethical mode of going back to sustainable eco-system, but more it has emphatically relived the indigenous intangible indicators as neural perceptions to load in the memory of neural networks datasets that not only help to translate, but also enables to encode and decode relationship in cross-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic contexts, henceforth contribute significantly in building multi-dimensional learning models from the perspectives of neurological analyses (acoustic features, visual images, myths, motifs, signs, symbols as signifiers of their existential features and sustenance in their respective climatic time-zones), besides exploring time-binding factors concerning their ecological, biological context and environmental existence.

After studying some samples as case studies of natural language processing and neural network programming especially of the ethnography of folk culture from Australia and India, it appeared that virtual orientation is in fact and in principle a purpose of building pedagogues of virtual orientalism, besides being the resourceful neurons to calculate perceptron (a mathematical model of a biological neuron used in AI NNs or a simple algorithm to classify data) for multi-layer neural computational automated vision. Indeed, the wandering aborigines’ culture is now a wondering computational pool to build national interest for traditions and indigeneity, and to prevent their extinction, besides mitigating binaries of nature and culture.

The paper aims to present an overview of the involved Repository learning models’ performance initiated to preserve and restore the process of loss, the function, and the training. Secondly the paper will also attempt to present the pro-active steps taken by the governing agencies in cross-cultural context to conserve intangible assets for generating text and content for the further academic proposed scholarships.

Within the ideological context of transhumanism, speculative fiction deals with ‘What if?’ by pushing current global trends and developments into realms defying empirical materialism. Ai Jiang’s transhuman postapocalyptic novelette I am AI explores the consequences of technological human augmentation through the protagonist ghostwriter Ai who, for the sake of increased productivity, slowly replaces her body parts, including her heart, with artificial technology. She falls into a philosophical conundrum in which she questions her identity and personhood as Ai or as A.I. Focussing on an analogue perspective, the Queer steampunk horror A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock looks at eco-transhumanism within a mycological cultural turn, as seen in popular cultural production. Medlock’s novel is about taxidermist Simon and botanist Gregor who live together in solitude on the edge of Victorian London society. They possess a strange fungus showing signs of intellect, and Gregor works to create true intelligent life from plant matter out of which the result is a half fungal-human female called Chloe.

These literary texts offer a type of protagonist echoing Harraway’s Chthulucene that heralds human and nonhuman as being linked in tentacular practices. A comparative analysis of I am AI and A Botanical Daughter show their exploration of the entanglement of “myriad temporalities and spatialities and myriad intra-active entities-in-assemblages—including the more-than-human, other-than-human, inhuman, and human-ashumus” (Haraway, 101). These literary texts challenge auto-poiesis or the self-human-making machine of history (Haraway, 118) by instead proposing sym-poiesis, namely the making-with or “becoming-with” Haraway, 119). Stories of making-with or becoming-with are exemplified through the marginalised protagonists in I am AI and A Botanical Daughter. These texts first explore how human existence is measured regarding exclusivity or inclusivity which is reminiscent of Agemben’s discussion of the homo sacre as either sacred or accursed. However, being on the edge of existence forces invention and creation in which new forms of knowledge and social relations are envisioned. As briefly summarised so far, these literary texts offer controversial perspectives to current ecological, political, and ethnic standards in our contemporary times to ensure that we do not end up living the forms of apocalypse projected in speculative fiction.

Works Cited.

Agemben, Giogio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press, 1998.

Haraway, Donna, J. Staying with the Trouble. Duke University Press, 2016.

Jiang, Ai. I am Ai. Shortwave Publishing, 2023.

Medlock, Noah. A Botanical Daughter. Titan Books, 2024.

There were two major climaxes in the reception of T. S. Eliot in China, the first was from 1930s to 1940s, and the second was in the 1980s. The first climax, or what we call the early reception of Eliot in China, directly arose from educational activities of a group of British and American scholar coming to China during 1930s to 1940s, the most influential ones among whom were I. A. Richards and William Empson. They made three main contributions in introducing and promoting Eliot in China: 1. initial introductions in courses and lectures, arousing Chinese scholars and students’ interests in Eliot; 2. collaboration with Chinese scholars to translate and introduce Eliot in newspapers and magazines; 3. enhancing the face-to-face communication between Eliot and Chinese scholars. Richards and Empson both had their own academic inclinations, and thus inevitably carried personal scholarly imprints and preferences when promoting Eliot. This led to two major tendencies in the early reception of Eliot in China.

The first distinctive feature was that Eliot’s literary theory was widely regarded as a kind of “practical criticism”. Another important tendency was an emphasis of “intellectuality” in Eliot’s poetry, which contributed to the formation of “The Intellectual Poetry” Movement in China. Apart from the influences from the early promoters, Chinese academy’s overall preferences and the demands of Chinese modernist literature were all factors contributing to how Eliot’s poetry and poetics had been translated, interpreted and reshaped in 1930s and 1940’s China.

T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” was published at a time that saw an unprecedented proliferation of means of mechanical reproduction. Not only images, but also sounds – music, voices, or sheer noise – were becoming reproducible. Walter Benjamin’s reflections on the effects of this reproducibility in art are well known. Many scholars have also remarked upon the increasing significance of media of reproduction in modernist texts.

This paper discusses the presence of what was at the time one of the primary media of sound reproduction, the gramophone, in “The Waste Land.” What Conrad Aiken called Eliot’s “allusive method” encompasses not only (inter)textual, but also (inter)medial practices. I argue that the mutual entanglement of these practices radically alters the quality of the many allusions pervading “The Waste Land,” and that by entwining textual and medial (re-)production, the poem offers a meditation on memory, its strange workings and undoings.

I begin by reading the allusion to Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (line 253) in conjunction with the gramophone (line 256) to show how the text of “The Waste Land” reflects upon the (re-)productive practices it engages. Building on this close reading, my paper goes on to discuss the critical implications of the poem’s textual-medial practices for how we might think about verbal forms of expression in today’s multi-medial landscape. Finally, I will link these changing forms of expression to questions of memory – individual, generational, and cultural.

Suryakant Tripathi, one of the four pillars of the Chāyāvādī movement (often compared with romanticism) in the twentieth-century Hindi literature, used a pen name ‘Nirālā’ which means ‘distinctive’ in English. His writings justify his pen name aptly. The poems that Nirālā wrote were indeed distinctive in features and content. He was the first Hindi poet to write in free verse. Nirālā, right from his childhood, suffered the pangs of bereavement. He lost his mother at the age of three and then his father at 20. The epidemic caused by the First World War devoured his uncle, brother, and sister-in-law, and in its later phase, it gulped down his wife and only daughter, who was already widowed by it. This continuous suffering due to the deaths of his dear ones made him devise an alternative to keep from feeling the anguish. This anaesthetic he developed from his poetry— an aesthetic object. Recounting the losses that turned him dry, he writes that ‘the waterfall of his affection has dried up; his body remains like sand. This branch of the mango tree (his body) that looks dried says – now no bird comes here; I am a written line with no meaning— life has burned out. He finds his life devoid of love, and writing poetry is a compensatory experience for him. This paper is intended to read into the psyche of the poet, analysing the poems written during and after the period that caused him all the losses with reference to his biographical narratives. The anguish forms the core of Nirālā’s poetry, which the poet was trying to pour out from within. His ‘Saroj Smriti’ he wrote lamenting the death of his daughter, is considered the best-ever written elegy in Hindi.

Antonio Machado (1875–1939), a Spanish poet, and T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), an English poet, played pivotal roles in revitalizing Spanish and English poetry during the first half of the 20th century. Despite distinct historical, cultural, and linguistic milieus, both poets shared a deep preoccupation with the inner world of individuals amidst the upheavals of modern society. Their experiences of war seemed to have shaped significantly their poetic identities.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 marked the collapse of Spain’s imperial era, leaving a deep scar on the national psyche. In response, the “Generación del 98” emerged, examining Spain’s decline and envisioning its renewal. Machado, closely associated with this movement, explored identity, memory, and historical disillusionment. Influenced by Symbolism and Modernism, his early poetry features dreamlike imagery and introspective themes, transitioning later to a more direct style engaging Spain’s sociopolitical reality. Campos de Castilla (1912) marks a turning point, using the Castilian landscape as a metaphor for national decline. Cancionero apócrifo (1924-36) introduces heteronyms like Juan de Mairena and Abel Martín, allowing philosophical dialogues on knowledge and poetic discourse. During the Spanish Civil War, Machado’s poetry took on a more political tone, blending mourning with resistance. His literary evolution captures both the crises of his time and the effort to preserve Spain’s cultural memory.

For T. S. Eliot, World War I (1914–1918) epitomized the moral and spiritual disintegration of modern society The Waste Land (1922), a cornerstone of Modernist literature, reflects alienation and existential anxiety in a fragmented civilization. Through intricate symbolism, the poem depicts the chaos following Western civilization’s collapse while hinting at spiritual renewal, a theme that later defined his poetry. Eliot’s conversion to Christianity in 1927 marked a shift in focus. During World War II, Four Quartets (1943) reached the pinnacle of his poetic achievements, contemplating spiritual redemption through philosophical and theological lenses. Together, these works establish Eliot as a towering Modernist poet who examined the crises of modern civilization, the void of human existence, and the possibility of spiritual recovery.

Both poets reflect the early 20th-century shift from an optimistic modern outlook to a fragmented, experimental, and often pessimistic view of modernity. They grapple with the collapse of traditional values and articulate the anxieties of a rapidly changing world, shaped by wars and political turmoil. Their works offer valuable insights into early 20th-century Modernist literature beyond linguistic traditions.

This study moves beyond traditional qualitative comparisons and employs digital methodologies to explore their complete poetic works. Computational tools uncover patterns and connections that remain hidden in traditional qualitative approaches. Part-of-speech (POS) analysis examines syntactic patterns, while word frequency and N-gram analysis highlight lexical preferences. TF-IDF analysis extracts keywords reflecting thematic priorities, such as Eliot’s focus on temporality, mortality, and existential disillusionment, and Machado’s emphasis on Spanish landscapes, memory, and national identity. Topic modeling maps existential and political concerns, while sentiment analysis tracks emotional fluctuations in response to societal upheavals. Eder’s Zeta method examines stylistic evolution, shedding light on shifting thematic and lexical tendencies. Comparatively, Machado situates his reflections within Spain’s sociopolitical landscape, blending national identity with personal memory, while Eliot navigates the breakdown of Western traditions and the search for meaning in a fragmented world. Machado’s symbolic landscapes contrast with Eliot’s cultural and historical references, yet both poets seek renewal amid decline.

Initial findings suggest thematic and stylistic parallels as well as key differences between Machado and Eliot. Both poets grapple with the collapse of traditional values and the search for renewal, but their approaches reflect unique cultural milieus. Machado’s poetry, deeply rooted in Spanish landscapes and folk traditions, emphasizes cultural memory and national identity. Eliot’s works, informed by a broader Western intellectual tradition, focus on philosophical abstractions and the fragmentation of modernity. Machado’s early Modernist-influenced work transitions to historical and political engagement, while Eliot’s poetry evolves from postwar despair to spiritual contemplation. Sentiment analysis confirms Eliot’s shift toward positive sentiment after his conversion, indicating an increased focus on redemption and renewal.

This research also highlights the dynamic potential of combining traditional literary scholarship with computational technologies. While traditional qualitative studies tend to focus on select works, digital approaches allow for an inclusive examination of a poet’s entire oeuvre. For example, Eliot’s fragmented style poses challenges for co-occurrence analysis due to frequent shifts in tone and subject, while Machado’s symbolic language complicates sentiment analysis. These limitations underscore the need to integrate computational and traditional methods for nuanced interpretation.

By bridging linguistic and cultural divides, this study emphasizes the universality of human concerns reflected in poetry. Both Eliot and Machado engage with themes of identity, spirituality, and societal upheaval, crafting works that resonate with the crises and possibilities of their time. Their poetry reflects the shared anxieties of modernity, while their distinct approaches illuminate the richness of their respective traditions. Digital methodologies not only enrich the study of these poets but also provide new ways to explore the intersection of tradition and modernity in global literature. This interdisciplinary approach underscores the transformative potential of combining literature and technology, paving the way for future scholarship at the intersection of the humanities and digital innovation.

In an increasingly globalized world, reading literature from different cultural worlds has become a nexus of cross-cultural exchange, through which we understand not only the unique elements of each culture but also the universality of human experience and emotions. To examine the ways in which a literary work crosses cultural and national borders, this paper looks at Juhea Kim’s recent historical fiction, Beasts of Little Land, as it serves as an interesting case. Written by an American author of Korean descent, the novel has been successful in the United States; when it was translated and crossed national and cultural borders into South Korea and other countries, it was also well received. It became a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and won the 2024 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for Foreign Literature.

As the composition, publication, translation and marketing of each novel result from the coordinated efforts by the author, the editor, the publisher, the translator, and the agent, this paper examines the geopolitics and market conditions that might have affected the shape of the novel as well as its reception in different parts of the world. More importantly, this paper offers a close analysis of the novel’s literary and aesthetic properties to understand precisely how it has been able to cross cultural borders successfully.

Later

Writing Maurice in early twentieth-century England, E. M. Forster delicately unfolds the story of closeted homosexual lovers and their exquisite pain. The conflicts imposed upon them by society are beautifully rendered, reminiscent of the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy’s poignant depictions of love and loss. Forster, who met Cavafy while stationed in Egypt during the First World War, was deeply influenced by the poet’s ability to infuse his verses with the sorrow of forbidden love. In Maurice, Forster revisits Cavafy’s lovers and, through his own unique narrative style, seeks to overcome their limitations.

The late twentieth-century Korean poet Ki Hyeong-do extends Forster’s exploration of queer pain. His portrayal of gay lovers remains subtle, reflecting a society still unwilling to acknowledge relationships beyond the heterosexual norm. The atmosphere of his poetry echoes Forster’s own frustration with forbidden love, and just as Maurice remained unpublished until after Forster’s death, Ki’s closeted narrative only began to gain recognition posthumously.

By the twenty-first century, the Korean literary landscape embraces a more forthright representation of queer romance. Park Sang-young’s characters openly discuss their sexual and romantic desires, expressing frustration at society’s continued indifference. Unlike Ki’s poetic persona, who seeks sanctuary in Seoul’s anonymity, Park’s protagonists boldly assert their presence. Yet, like their predecessors, his works center on lovers who exist but remain unseen by society.

Across time and geography, these four authors—Forster, Cavafy, Ki, and Park—persistently tell stories of love through the lens of queer romance. Their narratives evolve while simultaneously embracing and erasing one another. A close reading of their works reveals that, in a world unprepared to listen to marginalized voices, these writers turn to love and romance as their focal point, weaving their stories against the backdrop of distinct political, historical, and social contexts: Edwardian England, early twentieth-century Alexandria, Seoul during the democratic movement, and the neon-lit metropolis of twenty-first-century Seoul.

By reading their works, the presentation will demonstrate how the queer narratives of the West and East meet in the genre of the romance.

In my doctoral dissertation, I defined post-Orientalism as a literary discourse that is characterized by contrapuntal, subversive uses of Orientalist tropes, creating spatial topologies that are heterotopic rather than hierarchic. Such narrative frameworks are premised upon the history of Orientalist writing, but they repurpose its exoticism to present an internal critique of Eurocentric discourse.

In this paper, I propose to analyze the fictional library as a post-Orientalist trope, first formulated by Borges in his story “The Library of Babel” (1941). Umberto Eco’s "The Name of the Rose" (1980) mobilizes the trope as a metaphor for mirroring, intertextuality, and “unlimited semiosis,” and notably launches a critique of Eurocentrism by making the library a textually hybrid medieval space, containing the “heretic” works of Arab scientists. The “bibliophilic Orient” (in Timothy Weiss’s words) is not limited to Oriental texts alone, but encompasses a much wider array of texts that interact in a pre-Orientalist setting to produce proto-Orientalist narrative effects. Another key trope that is central to post-Orientalism and plays an important role in Borges’s and Eco’s poetics is the labyrinth – both as a recurrent image and as a form of narration. In their works, the library and the labyrinth become synonymous.

I shall examine Korean author Eunji Park's graphic text "The Mysterious Library: A Colouring Book Journey into Fables" (2016) in conjunction with Haruki Murakami’s "The Strange Library" (2005), and Orhan Pamuk’s "The White Castle" (1985), and Italo Calvino's "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler" (1979) to explore the fictional library as a travelling trope in global postmodernist literature. Inspired by Edward Said’s concept of “travelling theory,” I will argue that these non-European postmodernist authors carry the post-Orientalist potential of the trope further, contesting the Borgesian legacy and introducing claustrophobia and melancholy as its narrative effects. Adding to Marina Warner’s analysis in “The Library in Fiction,” my paper will present a new perspective on a popular postmodernist trope that recurs in contemporary world literature, with special reference to the Korean graphic metafictional novel. Since post-Orientalism can be defined as a narrative strategy as well as a critical method, the paper will demonstrate a novel method of approaching world literature.