The success of LLMs require us to decide upon the question of what language is with a new and historically specific set of categories: vectors, contextual word embeddings, dependency parsing, number, data sets and resource richness, and so on. This paper discusses the related topics of language ontologies and language difference in light of these categories. It builds on pre-AI accounts of language and meaning that nonetheless use strikingly similar terms and ideas (I. A. Richards on vectors and contextual embedding; Alain Badiou on transitivity), in order to develop an understanding of language difference which in turn sharpens our idea of what poetic language is and what happens when it is translated. Language difference, in this account, makes possible a correlation of recent advances in decolonial linguistics with a provisional theory of poetic language and translation. It also brings into focus what is at stake (ethically and analytically) in comparison's 'transactions between contexts'.

One of the promised benefits of the internet and AI tools is the democratization of information: they seem to make the world’s knowledge available to anyone with a web browser and suggest that anyone can become a translator by relying on the extensive resources they offer. But as the limitations and dangers of LLMs have become more apparent, it is increasingly clear that users, especially college students, need careful guidance in using these tools in ethical and effective ways. As Wharton professors Ethan and Lilach Mollick have argued, teachers can help students use LLMs to learn evaluative skills and become more attentive readers and writers. José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson repeatedly emphasize in their book Teaching with AI that AI tools are most effective when coupled with thoughtful reflection and expert mentoring. This is as true for translation as for other skills, especially given the ways that LLM-assisted translations can either challenge or perpetuate biases and existing power dynamics. This paper outlines specific methods for helping college students learn how to create, evaluate, revise, and reflect on AI-supported translations that balance fidelity to language and meaning with awareness of the ethical concerns that such translations can and should raise. I will share the experiences of my students (at a socioeconomically diverse, large public American university in a conservative Western state) with LLM-assisted translation as they moved through a sequence of assignments that builds from comparing existing translations of a text, then engaging with the original source (using AI translation as necessary), evaluating LLM-assisted translation results, revising prompts for AI-based translations, evaluating new results, and reflecting on the process throughout. Mentoring students through this sequence can help them become not only more effective translators but also more ethical and self-aware technology consumers inside and outside of the academic setting.

Arabic and Chinese are two large languages. Each plays an important role in the development of digital humanities, translation studies, and AI. Is there a direct line between these two large languages in the make-up of translation generating AI? Is translation to and from these two languages mediated through English? Are AI translation tools educated in culture, ethos and visualising capacity that are inherent in language? This contribution reflects on these issues from the prism of Arabic and Chinese wine poems. Arabic and Chinese have in common a culture and tradition of wine drinking and poetry, but each tradition is grounded in a unique ethos. Would it be possible to 'teach' AI translation tools to be sensitive to difference in culture and ethos?

The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has dramatically transformed the landscape of translation, particularly in the realm of literary and poetic works.This paper explores the potential of Chat-GPT and Claude as a conversational collaborative tools in the translation of the work by Argentinian performative poet Marico Carmona. This research investigates how a conversational approach to prompting can enhance translation processes and focuses on the dynamic interaction between human translator and AI, highlighting how iterative dialogue and targeted prompting can reveal nuanced linguistic, literary and cultural interpretations. Key elements in this research are the AI's capacity to consider performative elements in the translation output, its ability to generate multiple translation alternatives and its potential to effectively serve the needs of alternative voices and ways of expression.

Drawing from the experiments conducted for the AIDCPT (AI, Decoloniality and Creative Poetry Translation) project, this paper focuses on the impact of text generative AI and LLMs in studying low resource languages within a decolonial context and understands the impact that intervention of text generative AI has had on different contexts of language use, with special focus on translation, and knowledge production of low resource languages. It is apparent that the intervention of AI has produced new ways of using linguistic skills for oral language-cultures that do not have a significant presence in the lettered world. My experiments so far have captured the manner in which careful prompt engineering and ongoing dialogue with the machine help in working with low-resource languages and complex situations of language difference and contestation. This paper delineates the strategies adopted to translate poems emerging from the Miya poetry movement in contemporary Assam, educate the LLM in context, questioning its assumptions about language, and uploading materials such as an alphabet script, audio-visual tools to make it learn the importance of the latent heterogeneity within plurilingual language-worlds.With the intervention of AI, the human experience of translation, which shapes and is further shaped in the process of establishing a relationship with an other, and the modalities of language experience becomes complex. Acts of ‘doing’ language, through writing, reading, talking, listening are intervened by the arching presence of AI that can participate in acts which were earlier contingent upon human experience. This paper aims at mediating into the networks of AI as sites of learning and knowledge production, and that of cultural exchange which is facilitated in the shared socialites of language use in everyday speech as well as creative writing. With AI and LLMs intervening into this site, questions regarding the production, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge become inevitable. While the contribution of AI and LLMs in research and academic practices is undeniably important, this paper intends to rethink the manner in which these models acquire existing knowledge and generate responses, thus engaging with the technicalities of prompt engineering and AI training along with concerns of ethics and representation.

This paper will begin by introducing the AI-Decoloniality and Creative Poetry Translation project (AIDCPT) based in the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Research Centre at Oxford University (https://occt.web.ox.ac.uk/ai-decoloniality-and-creative-poetry-translation). Large Language Models construct language variety in a different way from older tools: instead of an array of separate standard languages, they represent language as a something more like a continuum of difference. This new ontology of language difference is manifest in the well-known ability of LLMs to imitate a range of styles; it also enables them to participate in translanguaging and other kinds of non-standardised linguistic interaction. The AIDCPT project explores how this capacity can support creative, decolonial translation practices. The paper will then present one such practice: the imposition of constraints, via prompt engineering, which can force an LLM to produce more creative and linguistically varied translations than it otherwise would. I will end by considering what is meant by ‘creativity’ in this case.

Generative AI tools have amplified the potential for proliferation inherent in the translation process, creating both challenges and opportunities in the field of literary translation. To explore some of these issues, I will focus on the translation into Spanish of the poetry collection Piano in the Dark (2023), by the American writer Nancy Naomi Carlson, winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize 2022. Through creative interaction practices with the Large Language Models (LLMs) ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, I will analyze the translation capabilities of these tools based on the corpus of poetic texts. These AI tools offer translation options and insights into the poems that can be useful for translators. However, their output sometimes reveals biases and stereotypes. My aim is to identify effective strategies that may guide these models to contribute to the literary translation process and study how the opportunities these tools offer may be maximized, while addressing the ethical and ideological considerations tied to their use.

In the 2003 sf novella by Liu Cixin 刘慈欣, “Poetry Cloud” 诗云, an advanced AI system, in the shape of a clone of Tang-dynasty poet Li Bai 李白, generates poetry. Yiyi 伊依, a literature teacher, challenges the clone Li Bai to generate poems of the same value as the original Li Bai. Naturally, their interpretation of what poetry is differs greatly: Yiyi thinks that poetry is the output of individuals and their human experience within their environment. The clone Li Bai believes that technology, and its ability to store and connect information suffice to create and surpass Li Bai’s original poetic compositions.

Since the publication of “Poetry Cloud”, the binary opposition between AI and human creativity continues to be a main issue of contention, even though much of our understanding of how the world connects and creates its cultural products has been relying on data gathering combined with computational analysis.

In this paper I aim to investigate some conceptual implications and practical possibilities of human-LLM poetry translation. The idea is to make poetry translation a mode of inquiry that draws more visibly and more widely on knowledges and practices across different linguistic, cultural, and literary domains. My specific interest is to experiment with posthuman multilingualism that highlights algorithmic, synaesthetic aspects of the relationship between words and sound, and creates synergies that are culturally transgressive or have boundary-shifting effects.

The resulting multiverse should consist of an extremely fluid, constantly deconstructing and reconstructing system, where distinct languages rub against each other, re-assorted, interrelated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This study examines the practice of indirect Japanese translation of Jules Verne’s works, focusing on translations by Morita Shiken (1861–1897), a prominent translator and literary figure of the Meiji period. During this era of drastic change, as Japan sought to absorb Western culture, Western literature, often indirectly translated, became a vital medium for cultural assimilation. Although Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a popular writer of the time, many of his works were first translated into English from the original French, and Japanese translations were based on these English versions. This practice stemmed not only from limited access to the original texts, but also from the concept of translation and shifting notion of literature in Japan. Scholars have noted that the English versions of Jules Verne’s novels often contained shifts from French originals but assuredly served as mediators and fostered the comprehension and curiosity of foreign cultures. Japanese readers were particularly attracted to the diverse knowledge of technology and natural history presented through Verne’s storytelling.

Shiken is known for his translations of French and English literature, particularly those of Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, and Edgar Allan Poe. Based on his profound knowledge of English and literature, he introduced several major works of these authors to Japanese readers in a distinctive literary style. Moreover, as a prestigious translator of the time, he was instrumental in reorganizing the concept of translation. In his first essay on the subject, he criticized the practice of inserting Japanese idiomatic phrases into translated texts and advocated faithfully recreating the expressions of the source text in Japanese. This essay is regarded as a significant contribution to the concept of literal translation, which influenced the foreignization of the Japanese writing style.

This study compares Shiken’s early translation of Verne’s work, published as a serialized novel in a newspaper, with its English source text and French original with reference to his essay. Additionally, it examines the role of serialized novels in newspapers, highlighting their function in conveying information about international politics. His interpretation of the novel and interest in geographical descriptions are discussed by closely analyzing the translated text. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that Shiken’s translation was a creative experiment integrating foreign expressions into Japanese in an attempt to reform its conventional writing practices.

Translations and adaptations of French novels played a significant role in the literary landscapes of Meiji Japan. While much progress has been made in tracing the original sources of translated works, many remain unidentified or misattributed. With the advancement of digital humanities, global databases of books and newspapers have made previously inaccessible materials searchable, offering new possibilities for reconstructing translation trajectories.

This study focuses on Le Crime d'Orcival (1867), a representative work by Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873), widely regarded as a pioneer of detective fiction. It begins by collecting various English versions of the novel and then compares them to a Japanese translation to investigate the text’s indirect translation and reception in Meiji Japan. Key resources used include the Internet Archive and the National Diet Library Digital Collections (NDL), which allow for a detailed textual comparison and identification of translation sources.

While Ruiko Kuroiwa is often credited for introducing Gaboriau’s works and modern detective fiction to Japan, another important figure, Sojin Gantei (1864-1913), deserves renewed attention. Sojin not only continued Kuroiwa’s serialized translation of Bijin no Goku (1889), but also translated over twenty detective novels. Among these, Satsugai Jiken (1890) is an indirect translation of Le Crime d’Orcival.

Through a comparative analysis of the French original and its English translations, this study demonstrates that the Japanese version draws from both the London and New York editions, forming what may be called a “hybrid retranslation”. This case illustrates how detective fiction in Japan was shaped not by direct contact with French literature alone, but through a layered and mediated process of textual transformation.

The continuous influx of ideas from the West and Japan profoundly shaped China's transformation in the modern era. Amid the clash between foreign and traditional Chinese gender norms, modern female translators grappled with integrating notions of political revolution and feminist social reform into their works. This paper examines the perspectives of Chinese female translators on gender and politics through indirectly translated literary works between China, Japan, and the Western world in the early twentieth century. It investigates the female translators' attitudes and contributions to intellectual emancipation, as well as their roles in shaping societal discourse in modern China, while also tracing the specific sources of the translated works. This paper focuses on Ruzimei, a Chinese translation of the British novel Lord Lisle's Daughter, which was indirectly translated via Japanese by Liu Yunqin in 1916. Liu has been studied as a politically radical novelist but has rarely been discussed as a female translator. The paper compares the different language versions of the indirect translation, paying particular attention to changes in vocabulary, form, gender representations, and ideological shifts that emerge during the translation process. This research aims to illuminate the cultural dialogue embedded within the translation by examining stylistic and content variations. In contrast to her outspoken advocacy and activism for political revolution, Liu Yunqin took a more measured and cautious approach to feminist reform. While promoting ideals such as free marriage and independent women, she concurrently cautioned against "inappropriate" male-female interactions and subtly perpetuated the devaluation of women in the translation. This study investigates how Liu Yunqin utilised her translation to articulate a moderate perspective on gender norms, employing techniques such as omission, addition, and modification. It situates her restrained approach to women's emancipation within the complex context of modern Chinese history, marked by the dual influence of traditional gender norms and new feminist ideas. The analysis underscores her struggles to reconcile different social expectations of women in the public and private spheres.

The translation of religious texts is not merely an act of linguistic substitution but a process of ideological negotiation, particularly when the source and target cultures hold fundamentally different worldviews. This presentation examines the translation of Christian ideals into Japanese during the Meiji era (1868–1912), focusing on the challenges faced by missionaries and scholars as they worked to render biblical concepts intelligible within a non-Christian concept and cultural framework. By analyzing key translation debates—such as the contested rendering of "baptism" (shinrei vs. senrei )—this study explores how the Meiji Bible translators navigated theological divides, linguistic constraints, and socio-political considerations.

Beyond baptism, other doctrinally significant terms, including Christian concepts such as "grace" (megumi ), and "faith" (shinkō ), reveal the tensions between fidelity to Christian theology and the necessity of cultural adaptation. These choices not only shaped how Christianity was understood in Japan but also influenced the broader literary and philosophical discourse of the period. By situating the Meiji Bible translation within the context of Japan’s modernization and engagement with the West, this presentation argues that translation functioned as a transformative force, reshaping religious language, social structures, and conceptions of morality.

Ultimately, this study highlights the Meiji Bible as more than a religious text—it was a site of negotiation where linguistic and theological boundaries were redrawn, creating a uniquely Japanese interpretation of Christian doctrine. Through this lens, translation emerges not as a neutral act but as an active force in cultural and ideological exchange.

This presentation explores the role of sincerity in Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven (2009) and considers how this theme may have influenced the novel’s reception in the English-speaking world, particularly following its acclaimed 2021 translation by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Through an analysis of both form and content, it argues that Kawakami constructs an aesthetic of sincerity by using a clear, direct prose style that fosters a dialogic relationship with the reader, and by portraying narratives centered on the pursuit of personal authenticity and meaningful human connection. This use of openness and sincerity as an ethos to overcome suffering and social isolation resonates with 21st century trends in contemporary American fiction and opens up the possibility of considering Kawakami's work in a greater social context. By situating Heaven within a broader transnational literary context, the presentation sheds light on cultural and stylistic factors that could have contributed to Kawakami’s notable literary success in the English-speaking world.

This study delves into the universe of sijo, classical Korean chant poetry, through a formal and thematic analysis of the anthological work “Sijô: Poesiacanto Coreana Clássica”, the only sijo compendium translated into Brazilian Portuguese by Yun Jung In and Alberto Marsicano in 1994. The research explores the origin of sijo, its recurring themes and examines its musical aspect and graphic layout. Based on the compilation by Yun Jung Im and Alberto Marsicano, the work seeks to uncover the most important characteristics of this poetic genre, revealing its beauty and cultural richness. In this case, the translation of the work in question plays a crucial role as a tool of intertextuality. By introducing sijo to the Brazilian public, the translation opens doors to cultural dialogue and to the formation of cultural identities of chant poetry in Brazil. Therefore, this work also seeks to examine, through an intertextual-cultural analysis, how the translation of sijo can inspire new translators to venture into this poetic genre. The theoretical basis will be Kristeva (1974) on intertextuality and translation as an intertextual process; Bakhtin (2003) on translation as dialogue; Bassnett (2002) on the role of translation in fostering intercultural dialogue involving peripheral cultures; and Venuti (1998) on the formation of cultural identities. At the end of the research, we hope to be able to affirm that, by having access to concrete, high-quality examples, Brazilian translators can be inspired by the forms and techniques of sijo, expanding the range of poetic possibilities in our language and that the translation of sijo contributes to expanding knowledge about Korean culture, stimulating intercultural dialog and opening the way to new poetic creations.

This study revisits the practice of self-translation, where an author translates their own literary work. The form of self-translation practice can be to produce the work in the mother tongue first, then translate it into the adopted language, or vice versa. Some authors even write in two languages simultaneously. Self-translators share the commonality of mastering two or more languages, but the underlying motivations and processes they undergo may differ. Some write in their adopted language to liberate themselves from their mother tongue, others feel that they are better able to express themselves in their adopted language. Other factors come from the desire for their people's voices to be heard more in the dominant language, or simply to gain a wider audience. However, writers who write in their adopted language will always be expected to produce works in their mother tongue.

This study aims to explore what motivates an author to write outside their mother tongue, engage in self-translation and how it affects their work. The focus is on Laksmi Pamuntjak (b. 1971) from Indonesia and Yoko Tawada (b. 1960) from Japan. Both employed an exophonic strategy―writing in a language outside their mother tongue. Pamuntjak wrote her novel Amba: The Question of Red (2012) initially in English, then translated it into Indonesian. Meanwhile, Tawada produced her novel The Naked Eye (2004) simultaneously in two versions, German and Japanese.

Pamuntjak wrote in English to introduce Indonesian history to the world. She wanted Indonesian literature to be appreciated abroad. Then at the request of an Indonesian publisher, she translated her novel into Indonesian. In the process, Pamuntjak felt she was not translating but recreating her work. She found it to be a frustrating process, but eventually she experienced a rediscovery of language and identity while writing in her mother tongue. For Tawada, writing in German made her more creative and explorative. And when she translated her work into Japanese, she found it a personal metamorphosis that led to liberation.

The translation of Japanese waka and later tanka (31-morae poem with 5-7-5-7-7 form) into Russian has a long history, yet tanka continues to bring many challenges for translators today.

When translating tanka the translator encounters not only the text but also a poetic tradition that is closely related to culture. In this way, the translator acts as a cultural mediator — someone who does not only translate words but also negotiates between different literary and cultural norms, recreating both meaning and poetic form. The Russian poetic tradition differs significantly from the Japanese, which causes many problems when translating tanka into Russian. In Russian translation tradition, it is customary to translate tanka unrhymed. However, unrhymed translation often causes tanka to be considered a philosophical aphorism. On the other hand, rhymed translations sacrifice the nuances of the meaning of words used in a poem.

Beyond the rhyme issue, there is also a problem of conveying the rhythm. Tanka is not simply a text; it is rhythm. This rhythm largely defines tanka as a genre. However, this rhythm is difficult to recreate in Russian translation because of differences in language structure. Until now, translators have applied two common methods to recreate the rhythm of tanka in translations. The first way is to keep the number of syllables the same as in the original, and the second one is to convey it through composing the translation in five lines, sometimes also making the first and third lines shorter than others. Both methods convey the compactness of tanka and give the effect of a five-part structure, but do not recreate the real unique rhythm of tanka.

Considering the rhyme and rhythm problem, this study proposes applying a multimodal approach and dual translation method to convey the rhythm of tanka and its musicality. This approach treats tanka as a multimodal text, consisting of both a verbal and a rhythmical component. The dual translation method combines both unrhymed and rhymed versions of each poem that respect semantic nuances while also providing a version that recreates a rhythmic reading experience more familiar to Russian readers. In addition, to convey the original sound and rhythm of each tanka it is proposed to attach phonetic transcription and audio recordings. This will enable communication between the poet and Russian reader and represent tanka in Russian in a way that conveys its ‘soul’ and brings the reading experience as close as possible to that of the original for Russian-speaking audiences.

This study analyses different translations of the science fiction short story “Shōjo” by Mariko Ōhara, aiming to highlight the varied approaches taken in addressing the "other" and the "self" in the translation process. During the cultural turn of the 1970s, it was established that translation requires a displacement of the self to make room for the other, even if that displacement is temporary. In this context, feminist translation studies argue that no translation is isolated or devoid of ideology, thus translators can use feminist theories to choose what to translate and how to translate.

First published in SF Magazine in 1984 and later included in the collection Mental Female, “Shōjo” explores the complex relationships between Jill, a male dancer with feminine characteristics, the alien prostitute Kisa, and his roommate Remora. Comparing excerpts from two translations, one intended for official publication in English, which exhibits no explicit interference from the translator, and another produced in an academic context in Brazilian Portuguese, employing feminist translation theories and a clear ideological stance — this study examines how each approach conveys the “other” and the “self” in the translation process. Despite the differences in target languages, each translations employs a variety of strategies for each one to bring out similar meanings.

The comparison reveals the differing positions adopted by the translators and how they either highlight or obscure the "other" — whether it is the author of the story, the context in which it originated, or the alien environment depicted in the narrative.

The official translation, despite showing clear traces of the translator’s influence, tends to silence the other. In contrast, the academic translation seeks to balance the translator's voice with that of the other through conscious interventions, thereby fostering a transcultural dialogue.

In the Anthropocene, life seems to have lost its sacred value. Connections with other forms of life as well as with other human beings seem broken. Jacques Derrida in “Politics of Friendship” (1993) observes that political history is based on the figure of the enemy and thereby frontiers were established. To counteract this tendency, Derrida proposes the notion of friendship, drawing on Aristotle’s definition of this relationship, that is founded on virtue. A friend is someone capable of loving, rather than being loved. To develop virtues is a difficult task, so Derrida considers that humanity is not yet prepared (p.388).

Similarly, but with a strong conviction in human potential, peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda encourages young people—who possess “a fresh sensitivity and a passionate seeking for ideals”—to create a “tide of friendship” (Ikeda, 2017) as a mean of transforming society. The emphasis is placed on becoming a good friend and fostering a “deep appreciation” (2017) of the Other. Ikeda’s confidence in this approach is rooted in the Buddhist concept of happiness which aligns with a Thai saying: “Real happiness makes people joyful and fills them with wisdom and compassion”. Becoming a good friend may help achieve this deep form of happiness.

The Japanese literary writer, Dazai Osamu, appears to have been interested in fostering these ideals when he wrote the short story "Run, Melos", an adaptation of the Greek myth of Damon and Pythias. The plot is developed around Melos, a young man condemned to death by the king, who is granted a brief reprieve to attend to matters outside the city. A close friend accepted to take his place and would be executed in case Melos failed to return. Despite severe obstacles, Melos could fulfill his promise, and the king, moved by the loyalty of the two friends, released them both.

Another example can be found in Naruto by Nasashi Kishimoto, a globally popular Japanese manga whose protagonist is deeply committed to creating bonds with others and strives to be virtuous. The successful dissemination of this manga allows us to verify the interest of young audiences in narratives that convey moral values.

Literature texts, according to another philosopher, Jacques Ranciére (2004), have a political effect. Literary signs -which are the core of a literary work- hold the potential to awaken a new conscience. The mentioned stories by Dazai Osamu and Masashi Kishimoto, which have been translated into many languages, contribute to the promotion of a “politics of friendship” in the world. Through such literature, children may develop into citizens who advocate for peace while also, according to Buddhist Humanism, cultivate wisdom and the capacity for developing a happier life.

This study analyzes the process and effects of translating the tanka of Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912) into Portuguese, highlighting the dynamics and implications of a collaboratively/cooperatively conducted translation. The translation in question, Tankas (1985), was carried out by two authors with markedly distinct trajectories: Masuo Yamaki (?-?), a Japanese-Brazilian who undertook a more literal rendering of Takuboku’s works, and Paulo Colina (1950-1999), an Afro-Brazilian poet and activist of the Brazilian Black Movement (Movimento Negro), who adapted Yamaki’s more “faithful” translations to his own aesthetic and poetic sensibilities. The translated tanka were selected and compiled mainly from two of Takuboku’s works: Ichiaku no suna (1910) and Kanashiki gangu (1912). Takuboku is widely recognized for crafting poetry that, with remarkable sensitivity, bridges the everyday reality of Japanese people with poetic expression. His poems explore daily life through an uncommon perspective for his time. Additionally, his works often reflect political engagement with the issues of his era, adding layers of complexity to the genre.

Regarding the translators, limited biographical information is available about Masuo Yamaki beyond what can be inferred from his published translations. Yamaki appears to have been a Japanese-Brazilian literary enthusiast who pursued translation alongside a professional career, dedicating himself to rendering Japanese works into Portuguese and vice versa. Paulo Colina, on the other hand, was a prominent figure in Brazilian literature, particularly within its Afro-diasporic segment. Co-founder of Quilombhoje (1980), a pioneering initiative dedicated to the consolidation and publication of literature by Black Brazilian authors, Colina also contributed to the early editions of Black notebooks (Cadernos negros, 1978-), a foundational journal of Brazilian peripheral literature. His involvement in Takuboku’s translation project reveals a unique cultural dialogue, where the works of the Japanese poet are reinterpreted within a context marked by the struggle for visibility and identity affirmation in Brazil.

The primary aim of this study is to investigate the translation process of Takuboku’s poems, which unfolds through the mediation of two distinct cultural agents, exploring the potential of dialogic translation in such contexts. This approach to translation not only reflects cultural tensions but also opens pathways for new forms of cultural interaction, emphasizing the potential to build bridges in situations of exclusion and invisibility. Thus, this study seeks to contribute to discussions on translation as a space of resistance, exchange, and cultural transformation.

Throughout Turkish history, there have been many instances of natural disasters that the people have either managed to overcome or have struggled with. Türkiye's geographical location makes it particularly susceptible to earthquakes, such as the devastating İzmit earthquake of 1999. However, unlike nations such as the USA or Japan, these disasters seldom leave a significant imprint on Turkish literature.

I am keen to delve deeper into the reasons behind this phenomenon by examining Nazım Hikmet’s poem "Kız Çocuğu," which addresses the atomic disaster in Hiroshima and was translated into Japanese during the Shōwa period. What inspired this Turkish poet to engage with Japan's tragedy, and why was the poem rendered into Japanese?

In my case study, I plan to analyze the Turkish-Japanese translation, the specific word choices made, the poet's historical background, and the motivations behind the creation of this poem.

The study provides a comprehensive overview of the English translations of the “ Talks at the Yaenan Forum on Literature and Art,” both within China and internationally. It specifically focuses on two widely acknowledged translated versions: one published by Beijing Foreign Languages Press (FLP) and the other by Michigan University Press. By conducting a comparative analysis of key terms such as “stand point ”( li chang) ,“ the masses ”( da zhong) ,“ the mass style ”( da zhong hua ) ,“popularization ”( pu ji) , and “ raising standards ”( ti gao) , this study examines and explores the changes in the fundamental meaning and values of the “Talks” between the original Chinese text and the translated versions. These variations are elucidated through an analysis of the diverse motivations and strategies employed by the translators, which were influenced by historical factors and contemporary trends. Ultimately, this study argues that the translation of the “Talks” across centuries offers compelling evidence of the far-reaching global influence of the Sinicization of Marxist literary theory.

Cultural ecology explores the dynamic interaction between human societies and their environment, focusing on how cultural practices and beliefs evolve in response to ecological contexts. In this paper, the author examines the natural and cosmological views expressed in Zhuang mythology, particularly in the Buluotuo Book of Songs, and the works of Native American authors such as Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko. By probing into the shared themes of nature and ecology in these literary traditions, this paper investigates the cultural and ecological values embedded within these texts and how they reflect the worldviews of their respective societies.

Zhuang mythology, preserved in works like the Buluotuo Book of Songs, offers a profound example of the interconnectedness between human existence and the natural world. The Zhuang people’s cosmology centers around a harmonious relationship with the earth, animals, plants, and celestial bodies, portraying nature as both a provider and a spiritual force. Animals such as the buffalo symbolize agricultural prosperity and strength, while trees like the banyan represent community and wisdom. Celestial bodies, such as the sun, are seen as life-giving forces that regulate both the physical world and spiritual cycles. Similarly, Native American literature, as exemplified in the works of Erdrich and Silko, shares a deep reverence for the natural world, but with unique variations based on cultural and historical contexts. In Erdrich’s Tracks and Love Medicine, animals such as the wolf and eagle symbolize freedom, wisdom, and family. In her stories, the natural world is not a mere backdrop but a dynamic participant in the spiritual and emotional lives of the characters. Silko, in Ceremony, portrays a cyclical and restorative view of nature, with animals such as the bear and coyote serving as spiritual guides that embody both ecological and cosmic principles. The moon, sun, and stars in Native American traditions also function as celestial forces that govern time, growth, and the spiritual connection between humans and the earth.

Ultimately, the comparative analysis of Zhuang mythology and Native American literature reveals a shared recognition of the need to nurture the earth, understand its cycles, and live in accordance with its rhythms. The ecological values embedded in these texts offer critical insights into sustainable practices and the preservation of cultural identities, encouraging contemporary readers to rethink the relationship between humans and nature in an age of environmental crisis. They also provide an important bridge and bond for the cultural exchange and integration of the two nations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other’s minds, if only for a few pages” (Banu Mushtaq). By these words what Mushtaq means is, of course, a process of separation of one from the other. There is something definitive through which people from a community segregates other people in the same community or people in a different community, based upon their differences. Generally, this act of division and categorization is done on the basis of ‘caste’, ‘class’, ‘sex’, ‘religion’ etc. The foundation of the process of dissociation lies in the perspectives of the self towards the other, the way one perceives ‘an other’ (‘an other’ is not like the self, but different). What literature does is, it helps us to understand the concept of other, the way ‘an other’ is transformed into ‘the other’, the otherness of the other and the self’s engagement with the other. I have selected two works by Tagore – ‘Chaturanga’ and ‘Streer Patra’ which solely deal with one’s relation with an other. This paper investigates how the process of othering is achieved and what are the criteria that are taken into account while objectification of an individual (Nanibala in ‘Chaturanga’ and Bindu in ‘Streer Patra’) and a group of people (Lower caste Chamars and Muslims in ‘Chaturanga’) occurs. This is the view of the paper to understand how efforts have been made to subsume the otherness of the other under the umbrella of the same. It also looks at the points of view of the ‘othered’, their responses to the process of making them different. The present paper addresses a lack of diversity and plurality and it investigates how humanist and ethical engagement with the other helps an individual to understand the world as a relation. The concept of ‘care’ helps us to comprehend the differences of the other and asserts that the others are not really others but the self’s imagination and product of excessive thought which is powerful enough to dismantle the power structure in a given society.

Based on the perspective of embodied-cognitive translatology, this paper takes Michael Nylan’s The Art of War in English translation as the research object, and explores the embodied-cognitive process of “interactive embodiment” and “cognitive processing” in its translation. The study finds that Nylan’s translation, by reconstructing the mapping relationship between the author’s space and the translator’s space, not only focuses on the deep understanding of the cultural connotation of the source text, but also fully considers the cognitive acceptance of the target readers.In terms of “Embodiment”of the physical world, the translator breaks through the traditional “author-centeredness” and reconstructs the physical world of the source text by critically reflecting on the author, usage and value of “The Art of War”, reflecting the “similar but not equal” interaction with the physical world. At the “Cognition” level of the mental world, the “mapping” and “creative imitation” strategies are used to achieve cross-cultural cognitive access through form-meaning mapping and context reconstruction. The study further verifies the theoretical value of the “Reality-Cognition-Language” principle of embodied-cognitive translatology, and the practical path of creative transformation in the translation of Chinese canonical books, which provides insights for the innovation of local translation theories and international cross-cultural communication research.

Once W.B.Yeats suggested J. M. Synge, “Give up Paris… go to Aran islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found an expression” (Synge 1968,63). In response to that Synge has written about the life of a distant world, which is segregated from the ‘big world’. Writing is an act, a process of knowing the people and understanding the universe. It gives voice to the voiceless and reveals the unrevealed. It brings out the hegemony and hierarchy between dominator/ dominated, colonizer/ colonized, able/disabled, white/black, have/ have- nots. Mahasweta Devi , an iconic, activist, remarkable vibrant writer of Bengali literature, much of whose work has been for the indigenous people and which deals with their misery, misfortune, suffering and exploitation. I have selected the fictional works – Draupadi, Aranyer Adhikar, Sishu, to analyze Devi’s representation of the subalterns and tribals. There is a history of representation and most of the writers maintain that style to present the dispossessed, marginalized, suppressed and oppressed. This paper seeks to discuss how Mahasweta’s representation of the subaltern and tribal differs from the other writers. It examines how ‘the act of resistance’ becomes a very much part of her writing which tries to subvert and challenge the mainstream dominant discourse.

This paper intervenes in the debate between Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Blanchot regarding Charles Baudelaire’s so-called moral failure by situating the poet’s longing for refuge within the aesthetic rather than merely moral framework. Whereas Sartre condemns Baudelaire for retreating into bourgeois norms due to his “bad faith”, this paper argues that Baudelaire’s desire for refuge —whether physical, psychological, aesthetic, or moral—is fundamentally a search for the mediating conditions necessary for artistic creation. Baudelaire resists neither full immersion in the crowd nor complete surrender to boundless self-expansion. His struggle with mediation marks not his moral failure but his aesthetic endeavor to achieve the autonomy of poetic creation.

The longing for refuge—and the failure to find one—is carefully staged in a crescendo throughout Les Fleurs du mal, particularly in Tableaux Parisiens. To explore this argument, the paper closely reads a series of poems. Beginning with the motif of the window as a symbol of the dialectical tension between inside and outside, reality and imagination in the opening poem “Le Paysage.” The attic window circumscribes an internal space that shelters the poet from the external world. This conditions his exchange with the Parisian cityscape and his transformation of it into urban pastoral. However, this idyllic refuge progressively collapses, first in Les Sept Vieillards, then further in Je n’ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville." Finally, “Le Gouffre” portrays the total dissolution of the interior: as infinite emptiness floods through every window, the whole domestic space evaporates into an abyss, leaving the poet with no escape. Here, even dreams and imagination collapse alongside the stable existence of order and numbers.

By tracing the fragility of poetic mediation through spatial symbols such as the window, this paper reinterprets mediation as an aesthetic strategy for maintaining the precarious equilibrium between interiority and exteriority. Far from a moral shortcoming, Baudelaire’s struggle for refuge is essential to poetic creation’ independence from science and ethics.

From 1941 to 1951, Samuel Beckett’s metaphorical writing, influenced by the

international political climate, increasingly highlighted the conflict between the war’s deprivation of life and humanity’s instinct for survival. Drawing upon Beckett’s early poetic theories and their impact on his novelistic practice, the quartet of novels – Watt, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable – all employ rhetoric such as paradox, pun, and repetition to construct a balanced and opposing binary “tension,” transcending the boundaries between content and form. This “tension” reflects the author’s conscious imagination of the connection between surface and deep meaning under the onstraints of censorship. It constitutes the poetic character of the novels’ linguistic structure, and this experiment in cross-genre writing reveals Beckett’s reflection on future narrative models.

ABSTRACT: This study examines the journey of William Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet in Mongolia from its first performance in the debut of the Soviet Union in 1979 to its modern performance on the Mongolian stage, as well as the Mongolian translations of Hamlet. The study's objective elucidates the interrelationship of world literature and its adaptation to local culture that is eligible for its target audience. This study explores the Mongolian version of Hamlet, focusing on cultural and linguistic adaptations that reflect the unique socio-historical context of Mongolia. An in-depth analysis of Mergen Khasbaatar’s 2013 translation of Hamlet emphasizes how elements of traditional Mongolian culture, such as nomadic life, Buddhist philosophy, and the language of honor, are incorporated into the original text, preserving the originality of the play and making it accessible to local readers. This study places the translation within a broader theoretical framework, such as Schleiermacher’s externalization and localization, which uses the cultural sensitivity required to express climate, family ties, and social hierarchy. The findings contribute to the field of translation studies by highlighting the role of the cultural context in literary adaptation and offering insights into the transformative potential of translated works also this research will contribute to future research on a profound understanding of the adaptation of Western literature works to Eastern cultures.

Key Words: Hamlet, culture, translation, Mongolia, adaptation

The rise of the digital society has led to the emergence of a new generation—digital natives—who grow up immersed in digital technologies. These individuals engage with analog culture through various digitalized materials, accessing and interacting with archival cultural content via platforms like Google, YouTube, and ChatGPT. Further enriching this experience is virtual reality technology, which enables the immersive recreation of past analog cultures. In this context, retro culture—cultural artifacts from older generations—has found new life in the digital age. Ernest Cline foretells of this phenomenon in his duology, Ready Player One (2011) and Ready Player Two (2018). In the novels, OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) serves as a digital version of Foucault’s heterotopia: it is a virtual public space which facilitates communication and socialization between digital natives. Essentially, the virtual reality of OASIS, in conjunction with our omnipresent Internet, promotes the rapid dissemination of retro culture. Ready Player One’s protagonist and allies become masters of 1980s culture, eventually attaining their fame as winners of the novel’s Easter egg hunt. During the process, they experience and learn a respectful sensitivity for the importance of retro culture. Ultimately, the novel illustrates that retro culture can be a bridge to bond two disparate cultures – the analog and digital generations. In essence, retro culture’s popularity in the digital generation can be a form of cultural translation, aiding the development of digital technology. These phenomena provide a positive effect for reducing generational gaps by promoting cultural sharing and empathy.

This study examines how contemporary Korean diasporic literature uses sound and rhythm to reflect cultural identity and navigate hybrid linguistic spaces, viewed through Guy Deutscher’s linguistic relativity framework. Analyzing Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny (2021) and Frances Cha’s If I Had Your Face (2020), I argue that their innovative use of auditory elements not only mirrors the authors’ international experiences but also shapes readers’ cognitive engagement with the texts.

Chung’s tales blend Korean onomatopoeia with surreal imagery, creating a soundscape that transcends linguistic barriers. In “The Head,” visceral auditory descriptions evoke horror while demonstrating how language influences sensory perception. Conversely, Cha’s collection of short stories integrates Korean terms within English text, crafting a multilingual rhythm that reflects complex cultural identities. Her use of “oppa” and “unni” reconstructs social hierarchies that resist direct translation, illustrating how language shapes social cognition.

This analysis reveals that these authors construct new linguistic landscapes challenging monolingual paradigms. By manipulating sound and rhythm, they create a “third space” of cultural expression that defies traditional categorizations of Korean or Western literature. This research extends Deutscher’s work by showing how multilingual texts can create unique cognitive effects, offering new perspectives on the relationship between language, thought process, and cultural identity in an increasingly globalized literary landscape.

Speaking anxiety remains a prominent barrier for Uzbek EFL students where the pressure to perform often outweighs the opportunity to learn. Many students experience fear of judgment, fear of making mistakes, and the discomfort of speaking in an unfamiliar language, which negatively impacts their fluency and confidence. Traditional classroom approaches, which often prioritize grammar and rote memorization over communication, can exacerbate these anxieties.

This presentation explores the integration of popular culture as an innovative and effective strategy to address speaking anxiety among Uzbek EFL students. Popular culture, with its universally appealing mediums such as music, movies, TV shows, and digital media trends, provides engaging and familiar content that can make speaking activities less intimidating. Incorporating role-plays inspired by popular films, analyzing song lyrics for discussion, and encouraging students to present on trending topics can foster a relaxed and motivating classroom atmosphere.

By bridging the gap between students’ personal interests and the curriculum, I believe, teachers can create a supportive environment where learners feel empowered to express themselves. This presentation will offer a practical framework for incorporating popular culture into EFL lessons, backed by recent studies and classroom applications. Additionally, this approach leverages the emotional connection students have with popular culture to make language learning more relatable and meaningful. Ultimately, this approach not only alleviates anxiety but also enriches the language learning experience, preparing students for real-world communication challenges.

This paper examines the portrayal of Southeast Asia in the Korean drama imaginary, identifying trends, concerns, as well as critiquing the purported relationship between South Korea as the centre of production of popular culture, and Southeast Asia as its passive market. Recent studies have highlighted the controversial portrayals of Southeast Asia in Korean dramas, particularly noting the prevalent stereotyping of the foreign. While arguably only issues necessitating improved cultural sensitivity, these problematic portrayals have led to criticisms from both scholarly and mainstream audiences. This can in turn jeopardise the reception of Korean popular culture in Southeast Asia, considering Southeast Asia’s position as one of its primary market. This paper thus proposes a review of the portrayals of Southeast Asia in the Korean drama imaginary, by looking at Korean dramas such as Princess Hours (2006), Racket Boys (2021) and Little Women (2022). By using the framework of geographic imaginaries, this paper identifies trends in Korean dramas such as filming in foreign locations with the aim of accuracy in representation, using foreign locations as substitutes for locations inaccessible due to issues with production or political reasons, and imagining foreign locations through filming locally or through the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). These findings will be used as a starting point in critiquing the linkage between Southeast Asia and Korean popular culture, examining the position of Southeast Asia as purportedly passive consumers, the imbalance of leisure mobility between South Korea and the Southeast Asian region, as well as the complex issue of the discriminated Southeast Asia, by looking at prejudice against migration marriages, mixed-race marriages, and Southeast Asian foreign workers in South Korea. Ultimately, this paper contributes to further considerations of the Korean Wave phenomenon in Southeast Asia, particularly considering Southeast Asia’s importance in enabling the contemporary revitalisation of the concept of Asian Cool.

This paper examines Rose Macaulay's novel The World My Wilderness (1950) as a reflective post-war narrative that utilizes the ruins of London as a significant motif. The novel delves into the complexities of memory, social morality, and the reconstruction of identity in the aftermath of World War II. Through the protagonist, Barbara, who finds solace amidst the bombed remnants of the city, Macaulay critiques the societal attempts to reconstruct a sense of normalcy while highlighting the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in a fragmented society. The ruins not only symbolize the historical and social memory of London but also act as a heterotopic space that challenges conventional notions of recovery and rebuilding. Various scholarly interpretations reveal the multifaceted nature of the ruins, suggesting they embody both trauma and the potential for hope. Macaulay’s portrayal of this heterotopia serves as a resistance against societal norms and an exploration of personal identity amidst chaos. The narrative intricately weaves together historical remnants and personal recollections, illustrating how the past continuously influences the present. Ultimately, this paper argues that The World My Wilderness transcends mere depiction of destruction, offering a profound commentary on the human condition and the enduring impact of war. Through Macaulay’s lens, the ruins become a site of reflection and a catalyst for understanding the complexities of post-war existence, advocating for a deeper engagement with memory and identity in the face of societal upheaval.

Jonathan Swift, an 18th-century English poet and satirical novelist, is dismissed as a misogynist for his anti-aesthetic treatment of female body images in Gulliver’s Travels and a series of scatological poems. Swift employed a strategy of depicting ugliness in female body images to challenge the conventional perceptions of women and the objective world held by male voyeurs or narrators. In Gulliver’s Travels, the passionate and lustful image of the female Yahoo with her disgusting filthy bodies subverts the traditional male courtship model and stereotypes of female physical attractiveness. Besides, his scatological poems, such as “The Lady’s Dressing Room”, “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”, “Strephon and Chloe” and so on, delicately depict women’s excremental vision in private space and the real state of their bodies from the perspective of male gaze, which not only surpasses the aesthetic confines of libertine tendencies prevalent in early 18th-century England but also reveals the concurrent existence of beauty and ugliness in the objective world. From Swift’s poems and personal letters, it can be seen that the purpose of uglitic appreciation of womanhood is not to disparage women, but rather to dismantle the pretension and ostentation built upon luxury consumption and the female image within the male aesthetic perspective. Swift's works are frequently misconstrued as expressing misogyny, yet in reality, his thoughts lean more towards a form of impartial misanthropy. Swift gets rid of Descartes’ mind-body dualism, emphasizing the integration of body and spirit in his works. He believes that physical ugliness is not limited to one gender. Swift’s poem “Cadenus and Vanessa”, published in the same year as Gulliver’s Travels, and his epistolary diary even hints that women have equal potential to men on a spiritual level. However, despite reshaping the female image and altering the paradigm of gender relations, Swift does not intend to subvert the social order; rather, he aspires to enhance the moral and spiritual realms of both sexes, particularly women. During that period, British society was contemplating the excesses of libertinism and luxury consumption, and embarked on a reform aimed at improving moral standards and public behavior, thereby enhancing social morality. Swift responds to the call for social reform through his appreciation of ugliness in his works, uncovering the ugliness of real life, and thus urging readers to awaken amidst the ugly yet authentic realities, ultimately fostering social progress and the refinement of humanity. Therefore, from the reflection of female body images to the hope for an elevation in the moral standards of both genders, misogyny and scatology ultimately reveals Swift’s sentiment of social reform.

Focusing on East Asia as the primary research subject and perspective, topics such as Sino-centric consciousness, political economy, literature and thought, and material culture have long been explored by scholars in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Among these, Korean women's poetry, written in classical Chinese, represents a form of extraterritorial Sinology. These works not only circulated in Korea but were also widely introduced into China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, contributing to discussions on Sino-Korean relations, literary and cultural exchanges, intellectual history, and gender studies.

This study, within the framework of East Asian cultural exchange, focuses on the adaptation of Chinese classical poetry in Joseon women's poetry. This phenomenon first appeared in the works of Heo Nanseolheon, who extensively employed Chinese literary allusions and Yuefu poetic themes. Her approach sparked debates in both Chinese and Joseon literary circles, with some viewing it as imitation or plagiarism, while others praised it for embodying the refined spirit of the Wei-Jin and Tang traditions, bringing significant scholarly attention to her poetry.

Later, Joseon women's poetry increasingly engaged in poetic exchanges with Chinese poets. Seo yeongsugak (徐令壽閣) was particularly notable in this regard, further expanding the adaptation of Chinese classical poetry. In addition to incorporating literary allusions, she employed techniques such as matching rhymes (次韻) and imitation (擬作). Her poetic responses extended from Tao Yuanming in the Eastern Jin to Tang poets like Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, and Meng Haoran, and later figures such as Su Shi and Lu You .

Why did Seo yeongsugak engage in poetic exchanges and imitations of these Chinese classical poets and their works? What unique characteristics can be found in her matching-rhyme and imitation poems of Chinese literati poetry? Does her work inherit and innovate upon Heo Nanseolheon’s poetry? Additionally, by comparing the poetic exchanges and literary allusions of Chinese women poets with their male counterparts, can we reveal distinctive creative patterns within this transnational poetic tradition?

And why was Seo yeongsugak able to access such a vast number of Chinese literati poems? Can this offer insights into the circulation and reception of poetic texts between China and Joseon? These are important questions that worthy of further exploration.

Relevant research has been conducted by scholars such as Zhang Bowei, Zuo Jiang, and Hao Xiguang. It is hoped that further discussions can be made based on the achievements of these predecessors.

This study delves into the construction of female identity in the literary works of two prominent authors, Isabel Allende from Chile and Ding Ling from China. Despite the vast geographical and cultural distances between them, both authors have made significant contributions to the representation of women’s experiences, particularly during the 20th century, a period marked by rapid modernization and social change.

The central premise of this research is that the construction of female identity in the works of Allende and Ding Ling is a dynamic, evolving process. Rather than a fixed concept, their depictions of womanhood are shaped by resistance, personal growth, and the confrontation of societal norms. Both writers approach femininity from a historical perspective, using their narratives to reflect the broader socio-political contexts of their time—contexts that, while promising liberation from old oppressive structures, also gave rise to new forms of domination and control. Their work does not only portray the individual struggles of women but also engages with collective networks of resistance, highlighting the intersectionality of gender with other forms of marginalization.

This study adopts a comparative literary framework, grounded in feminist literary criticism, which allows for a transnational approach to understanding the similarities and differences in the way both authors depict female identity. The research examines the socio-political backgrounds of both authors—Allende’s Chilean context and Ding Ling’s Chinese context—using these settings to analyze how the evolution of female subjectivity is influenced by external forces, such as class, politics, and cultural expectations. Furthermore, feminist theories are applied to explore the representation of gender and the broader dynamics of power and resistance that are central to the authors’ narratives.

Through a close reading of key works from both authors, this study explores the common threads that emerge in their depiction of women’s struggles for autonomy and self-definition. For Isabel Allende, the focus is on multi-generational female genealogies, where women pass down knowledge, memories, and practices of resistance. Her protagonists often engage in acts of defiance against patriarchal structures, creating solidarity networks that empower them to reclaim their identities. On the other hand, Ding Ling’s works explore the evolving nature of female identity through a more fragmented lens, particularly emphasizing the transition from personal struggles to a broader engagement with political and social change, often marked by the rise of communist ideologies and the shifting role of women in revolutionary movements.

The comparative methodology allows for a richer understanding of how modernity, gender, and politics intersect in both writers' works, shedding light on the complex ways in which women’s identities are shaped by cultural, historical, and political forces. This study also acknowledges its limitations, such as the narrow selection of texts analyzed and the focus on contextual over formalist analysis, but it offers significant insights into the commonalities and differences between the two authors’ portrayals of female identity.