Digital adaptation has transformed classic literary texts, reshaping their themes, aesthetics, and cultural significance. This paper examines how Pride and Prejudice (1813) and its digital adaptation, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), reimagine key themes such as gender, class, and social mobility through technological mediation. While Austen’s original novel critiques 19th-century marriage norms and class structures within the refined spaces of drawing rooms and country estates, the adaptation merges romance with action-horror, turning the marriage market into a battlefield. This transformation not only subverts traditional gender roles but also reinterprets social hierarchies in a post-apocalyptic setting, where survival is as critical as social status. Elizabeth Bennet, once constrained by the expectations of her time, becomes an empowered warrior, demonstrating physical strength alongside her intellectual independence. Mr. Darcy, too, is reimagined as a brooding fighter, reinforcing yet complicating his aristocratic privilege. Through this genre hybridity, the adaptation challenges the boundaries between high and popular culture, recontextualizing Austen’s social critique for a contemporary audience. By analyzing how digital media affect narrative structure, thematic development, and audience reception, this study explores how technology reshapes the cultural legacy of Austen’s novel. Ultimately, this paper argues that digital adaptation extends the critical discourse of Pride and Prejudice, not only preserving but also reinterpreting its core themes, highlighting the fluidity of literary tradition in the digital age.

This paper delves into the harsh realities of European imperialism in Africa, with a particular focus on the atrocities committed in the Congo. Through the perspective of Marlow, the narrator who journeys to Africa to command a steamboat for a Belgian company, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness offers insight into the destructive consequences of colonialism. The novel not only reflects the historical events of the 19th century but also critically examines the concept of “civilization” as a colonial construct used to justify exploitation. The study explores how the notion of civilization was manipulated to oppress African populations, serving as a myth to veil the brutal nature of imperial conquest. It also highlights the multifaceted destruction brought by colonialism, ranging from the violent subjugation of native peoples to the environmental degradation caused by the relentless extraction of natural resources. Furthermore, the character of Kurtz symbolizes the psychological and moral collapse of the colonizer, illustrating how the imperial mission corrodes the very individuals who pursue it. Ultimately, the novel portrays civilization not as a force for progress but as a deceptive ideology masking greed, domination, and human suffering.

Carol Churchill, a British considerable dramatist in the late twentieth century, first came to prominence as a major playwright in the 1980s. The primary theme that Churchill addresses in her novel is that of gender politics, which are imposed on individuals by a patriarchal society. Churchill demonstrates how women throughout the ages cannot escape from patriarchal systems and why some of them accept dominant patriarchal ideologies and exposes questions about women’s roles in Top Girls. By describing different types of female characters and how they succeed as women, Churchill criticizes the established social and economic norms and how they affect women. We can see that in the Nijo and Griselda characters and how such social standards affect their identities. Despite being from different eras and cultures, Nijo (a 13th-14th century Japanese courtesan) and Griselda an obedient wife in Western literature in Caryl Churchill's play Top Girls share a number of important similarities and endurance through their life experiences and roles in the play.From the moment of his birth, Nijo is selected for the role of concubine to the Emperor, a position that entails the fulfillment of sexual duties. Griselda is a character based on the figure of the obedient wife in Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale" from "The Canterbury Tales. The present article explores the question of whether obedience is valued in society or whether fighting against it brings success to women.

This paper examines how mother influence and social context interact to shape children's character development in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls. Both plays depict complex familial relationships in which mothers significantly shape the moral and psychological development of their children, while societal structures, particularly class, social expectations, and economic pressures, also play a critical role in defining the characters’ identities and choices. In An Inspector Calls, Sybil Birling’s rigid classist values influence her daughter Sheila’s initial worldview, fostering a superficial sense of social responsibility that is later challenged through a moral awakening. In contrast, in Death of a Salesman, Linda Loman’s passive support of her husband Willy’s unrealistic dreams contributes to Biff Loman’s identity crisis and his ongoing struggle to reconcile his self-worth with his father’s expectations. The paper argues that while maternal influence is pivotal in shaping the children’s moral and psychological growth, it is equally important to consider the broader societal forces such as the class system, societal pressures, and economic conditions that shape these dynamics. The paper ultimately underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of character development, where both familial and social influences are integral to the formation of individual identity, and sheds a light on the ways in which individuals are shaped by the world around them.

This paper explores the symbolic role of nature and the storm in King Lear, as both a reflection of political chaos and an embodiment of Lear's psychological turmoil. Shakespeare's use of the tempest transcends mere stage spectacle, serving as a powerful metaphor for the disintegration of order—both within the kingdom and within Lear's mind. The storm externalises the consequences of Lear's folly, mirroring the collapse of hierarchical structures following his abdication of power. Simultaneously, it dramatises Lear’s descent into madness, exposing the fragility of human identity and authority. Drawing on critical perspectives from scholars such as A. C. Bradley, Harold Bloom, and Northrop Frye, this study examines how Shakespeare aligns meteorological upheaval with moral disorder and existential vulnerability. Furthermore, the storm underscores the limits of human control, revealing an indifferent natural world that resists human attempts at mastery. Yet amid this turmoil, the play also hints at the possibility of ethical awakening and compassion. By interrogating the storm’s role as both political symbol and a psychological mirror, this paper argues that King Lear presents a profound meditation on power, suffering, and the inexorable forces—both natural and human—that shape the tragic condition.

This study examines the philosophical implications of animality in two plays by Edward Albee: <Seascape> (1975) and <The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?> (2002). As one of the most experimental playwrights of late twentieth-century American theater, Albee has consistently challenged social norms, explored existential contradictions in the human condition, and interrogated the breakdown of communication between people. Despite being written thirty years apart, these two plays share the theme of boundaries between humans and animals, raising ontological questions about both beings. In the two works, animals do not function as metaphorical devices, but rather as mediators that show the psychological complexities of human characters and lead to the broader point of discussion. In <Seascape>, the encounter between humans and lizard creatures breaks down the boundaries and creates a transformative realm of perception. However, in <The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?>, a human’s love for a goat symbolizes the social taboos and radical challenge to anthropocentric values, which ultimately leads to the disintegration of a family. This thesis employs two theoretical frameworks: René Descartes’ animal-machine theory and Jacques Derrida’s animal alterity theory, together with the deconstruction of anthropocentrism. Through close textual analysis informed by these theories, the study reveals that Albee’s plays transcend social criticism to question the hierarchy and boundaries between human and non-human beings. In so doing, it emphasizes that these issues have philosophical significance and critical relevance in the contemporary world.

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

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

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

We welcome discussions around the following possible topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The translation of foreign literature into Chinese has been a powerful force in shaping 20th-century Chinese literature, among which the translation and reception of Western classical literature in China deserves attention, and its value needs to be reassessed. First of all, different from the cognitive tendency of that time in China that focused on and evaluated highly of Western modern literature, Chinese translation of Western classics deepens Chinese understanding of the core of Western civilization, and constructs a relatively complete and flexible cross-cultural cognitive framework covering ancient and modern times. Second, the centennial history of the Chinese translation of ancient Greek tragedy, which has been one of the most influential literary forms, reveals the historical opportunities for conscious selection, acceptance, and transformation by Chinese translators since the May Fourth Movement. The interaction and integration of the East and the West brought about by Greek tragedy’s eastward journey has gradually deepened over the century. Third, translation is the bridge of cross-cultural communication between civilizations, the studies of which can promote the mutual learning among civilizations, such as the philosophical basis of civilization exchanges theory, the humanistic core of the humanistic spirit, the construction of a dual and multi-directional civilization mutual learning model, and the pursuit of cultural diversity as an effect and goal.

A consideration of the meaning(s) of cosmopolitanism has become a constructive way to illuminate different perspectives on literature, if these were oriented toward global and local points of view. The fact that cultural flows facilitated by new technologies have challenged the idea of local and/or national literatures cannot be disputed. However, neither can the often unintended consequences of reading literatures from global points of few, in that such approaches often relate texts and traditions to normative, a-historical paradigms. From a hermeneutic vantage point, it seems as if global approaches sometimes can be even more limited in scope when considering what can be achieved from a more local perspective.

These issues become even more pertinent when literature is noted for its significant contribution towards the dynamics of memory cultures. If a specific literary tradition assumes the function of historical archive within a particular memory culture, it opens up questions as to how precisely one should then navigate cosmopolitan approaches to it. Cosmopolitanism itself has become an important and contentious topic within the field of memory studies, as questions are asked about the ethics of creating collective memory discourses in the age of globalisation. As is the case with literature, modern technologies enable the flow of information to activate and establish memories in real time. But the question remains as to what extent cultural memories can be abstracted to form part of a global or cosmopolitan discourse. It seems as if the issue of cosmopolitanism can be used not only within the disciplines of literary studies and memory studies, but also as a way to consider the entanglement of these fields.

This paper will use these issues as informative background in order to introduce a research project in which Afrikaans literary discourse of the 1990s and early 2000s is examined in order to assess its navigation of the difficult South African past. As the time in question was characterised by significant sociopolitical and cultural changes it also triggered a readjustment of the ways in which the past and its meaning(s) were aligned and reconciled with the present. Not only were these changes examined in the literary works themselves, but it also became evident in the ways in which these selfsame works were read by readers, critics and scholars, many of whom emphasised the extent of how these texts engaged with history. But the Afrikaans literary system does not only form part of a larger South African memory culture, it is also embedded within transnational mnemonic practices which plays its part in how the general trajectory of memory cultures can be understood. Cosmopolitanism becomes the crucial issue here as it becomes a conceptual tool to examine oscillations between the local specificity of memory, language, and literature on the one hand, and the global reach of transnational memory and world literatures on the other.

“Synthesis” is a key strategy in Yuan Kejia’s poetics of “Modernizing Chinese New Poetry” in 1940s. Regarding the Western origins of “synthesis”, researchers acknowledge the inspiration of T.S. Eliot and I.A. Richards, but ignore the important influence from Stephen Spender. Firstly, Yuan Kejia described the characteristics of modern British poetry as “from analysis to synthesis” (“from self-deprecating mockery to pity”), in which “synthesis” and “pity” could both be traced back to Spender’s theory. Secondly, different from Eliot and Richards, who cut off the relationship between art and life, Spender’s theory of “fusing” ideas, experience and objective reality into a single line or image, inspired Yuan Kejia to include “reality” as an important part of “synthesis”. Finally, translations of contemporaries stimulated Yuan Kejia to translate Spender’s theory of modernity in 1940s, which was revitalized in 1980s through Calinescu’s theory. Yuan Kejia’s acceptance from the left-wing Spender’s poetics reflects his literary adjustment and perseverance in the Beijing intellectual circle during the wartime.

Saul Bellow’s masterpiece Herzog features how mobilities essential to the urban experience revamps individual perceptions of spatial-temporal reality, exemplifies Bellow’s preoccupation with the dangling intellectuals in the modern world. Herzog’s mobile experience between Montreal, Chicago and Berkshire features a perceptually rich spatial experience. This paper adopts Yi-Fu Tuan’s “perception-attitude-value-worldview” methodology of Topophilia studies, contextualizing Herzog’s journey in American Jewish Immigration history in the 19-20 century, examining how Herzog’s urban mobility experience revolves around a complex of topophilia. Ascribing Herzog’s mobility experience to his unwitting impulse to restore topophilia complex that values rootedness and stability, this paper contends that Herzog’s topophilia contests the prevalent western ideology that equates modern mobilities with freedom, progress, and dynamism.

Herzog’s cosmopolitan trajectory originates in his Yiddish-speaking family’s migration to Montreal during the 19th century, a period marked by the mass exodus of Jews from Europe. Despite the adversities of poverty, this immigrant narrative cultivated his profound sense of rootedness, familial attachment, and enduring topophilia. His subsequent relocation to Chicago and marriage to Madeleine, a cosmopolitan Catholic, epitomized upward social mobility while simultaneously precipitating an existential crisis of identity and a pervasive sense of placelessness. Following his divorce and psychological collapse, Herzog sought refuge in Ludeyville, a rural property purchased with his inheritance from his deceased immigrant father. In the “country solitude and privacy,” he reestablished familial connections, reclaimed self-respect, and revitalized his topophilia through an intimate bond with his “American estate.” This country estate thus affords a testimony of Herzog’s withdrawal from the cosmopolitan world, and symbolizes his unwitting hope for immobility—stability and meaning—after a life-long journey of mobility.

Herzog’s experience of mobilities in the cosmopolitan world suggests that the declination of a place-based localism caused by the globalized mobility erodes topophilia, taking a toll on the modern mind. His reestablishment of topophilia under the disguise of a revamped nation-based localism—his American version of man-place attachment—reflects Bellow’s humanist thoughts about “existence” and “place.” Through Herzog’s quest for rootedness, Bellow denounces how modern mobility reduces each unique individual to a common self, leading to disorientation and alienation rather than liberation. Bellow’s ontological insights on the man-place relationship accentuates a sense of place, addressing the humanistic geographical concern of “men living in the world” over “men being in the world,” inviting readers to reassess the celebrated modern mobility and to explore alternative ways of being in the world.

The Three-Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin offers a rich narrative that intertwines science fiction with profound philosophical questions about human survival, technology, and the role of fate in a hostile universe. In this paper, I explore how the theological debate between "Faith in Christ" and "Faith of Christ" resonates within the context of the Three-Body Problem, drawing attention to the tension between human agency and the cosmic determinism of a seemingly indifferent universe. These tensions can be analyzed through the lens of cosmopolitanism and localism, two concepts that have been central to discussions of global flows and cultural exchange in the digital age.

The novel's portrayal of humanity’s struggle against the Trisolaran threat raises essential questions about the limits of human effort (faith in one’s own capabilities) versus the role of external, cosmic forces (the faithfulness of a higher power, or perhaps the universe itself). This tension mirrors the duality inherent in global flows today—where technological advances (embodied in the novel’s space-time technologies) promise unprecedented control and connection, yet also confront individuals and nations with their vulnerability to forces beyond their control.

In the context of cosmopolitanism, the Three-Body Problem presents a worldview where humanity is forced into a broader, universal struggle for survival, yet it is simultaneously constrained by the "localism" of its own understanding, culture, and limited perspective. By examining how the characters’ actions (and their reliance on both technological and philosophical solutions) reflect a theological engagement with faith, both human and divine, this paper explores how these theological questions also mirror contemporary global tensions. How does humanity navigate a world where the global is increasingly interconnected, yet local ideologies and cultural beliefs persist and resist? What does it mean to confront the unknown forces in our world, whether they are extraterrestrial or technological, through the lens of faith?

Ultimately, this paper argues that The Three-Body Problem presents a cosmopolitan narrative that also reveals the persistent undercurrents of localism, demonstrating how global and local struggles intertwine in both the political and theological dimensions of contemporary literature.

The longstanding discourse surrounding the formal boundaries of theater and cinema has persistently oscillated between self-definition and deconstruction. The advent of artificial intelligence, however, fundamentally destabilizes the foundational premises of such debates. This study proposes a tripartite theoretical and historical inquiry into the evolving relationship between theater and cinema under AI’s transformative impact:

1. Historicity

Through a longue durée perspective, the paper traces the entangled theoretical trajectories of theater and cinema, contextualizing their dialectical tensions within China’s digital transition. By examining historical paradigms—from the nationalist aesthetics of xiqu films (1950s-1970s), the modernist reinvention of cinematic language (1980s), to the enduring "shadow-play theory" (1990s-present)—the analysis reveals how shifting conceptions of artistic essence, medial specificity, and social functionality mirror evolving sociopolitical imaginaries. Crucially, it interrogates the current historical juncture: What epistemological ruptures does AI introduce to these century-old debates?

2. Crisis of Indexicality

The study confronts AI’s ontological challenges to both media. Digitalization has already fractured cinema’s indexicality—its physical bond with reality—while destabilizing theater’s foundational conventionality. With generative AI, could these art forms face an ontological severance from their material histories? How might their mechanisms for constructing realism be reconfigured? Drawing on New Cinema History methodologies, the paper further explores whether suppressed historical dimensions of theater-cinema interplay (e.g., pre-cinematic spectacles or marginalized performative traditions) might be unexpectedly reanimated through AI’s technological unconscious.

3. Theatricality as Public Praxis

At its core, the investigation centers on theatricality—the embodied publicness intrinsic to both arts. Will AI amplify theater and cinema’s capacity for cultivating communal experiences through expanded technological interfaces, or obliterate the irreducible value of embodied human encounters? Does algorithmic curation of cultural consumption signal the atrophy of public spheres, or necessitate a radical redefinition of "publicness" itself? The paper also critically examines the unexamined cultural politics embedded in AI-driven production, distribution, and reception networks, rejecting simplistic binaries of techno-optimism versus neo-Luddism.

By interweaving media archaeology, aesthetic philosophy, and critical technology studies, this research aims to recalibrate theoretical frameworks for understanding performative arts in the algorithmic age, while illuminating the dialectical interplay between technological determinism and humanistic resilience.

My paper offers a comparative analysis of erotic desire as the grounds for comparison that defined Global Modernism. By analysing the innovations that took place in the works of Velimir Khlebnikov (Russian-speaking), e.e.cummings (English-speaking), Nizar Qabbani (Arabic-speaking), I interrogate how this new poetic language helped liberate ‘Eros’, hence how it became a phenomenon that acquired the status of a global, intercultural phenomenon that can be anchored with the help of the aesthetic category I term "Erotosphere".

Within modernism, traditional notions of the continuous, the unified, the coherent, were replaced by a language of the interrupted, the plural, and the incoherent. The figurative language used, as well as wordplay, breakdown of syntax, mixture of the profane and sacred registers, allusions, parody or semantic displacement, are examined to identify how a new meaning and expression of erotic desire are constructed through the materiality of language in each of the poets’ works.

Erotic desire in the works of Khlebnikov, cummings, and Qabbani spawned a revolution in all three poetic languages. I argue that erotic desire in the works of these three poets is a precarious tension, creating a kind of linguistic-epistemological cognitive symbiosis. This symbiosis institutes a new poetic tradition that provides the basis for comparison, leading to a new approach in comparative and world literature.

Lea Ypi’s autofictional narrative Free: Coming of Age at the End of History (2022) explores identity, freedom, and cultural translation in communist and post-communist Albania. This abstract examines how Ypi's work, rooted in Albania’s unique historical context, serves as a translation of these lived experiences for a global audience. Judith Butler’s concepts of performativity, subjection, and ethical responsibility are used to analyze the cultural, political, and ideological translation in Ypi’s narrative.

Identity as Performative Construction

Ypi presents identity as shaped by ideological expressions. In Gender Trouble (1990), Butler writes, “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; [...] identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Butler, 2006, p. 25). Ypi reflects on how her identity was shaped by ideology: “The Party was not just an organization, it was an ideal to strive for” (Ypi, 2022, p. 42). This performative construction reveals tensions between competing ideologies.

Freedom and Subjection

Ypi explores the paradox of freedom in Albania’s political context. Butler, in The Psychic Life of Power (1997), states that subjection and freedom are intertwined: “Subjection is the process of becoming subordinated by power as well as the process of becoming a subject” (Butler, 1997, p. 2). Ypi recounts: “We were free not to go to school anymore, but also free not to have a job. Free to starve” (Ypi, 2022, p. 201).

Translation as Ethical Practice

Ypi’s work translates Albania’s political history for a global audience. In Giving an Account of Oneself (2005), Butler emphasizes that self-narration is shaped by norms of intelligibility: “Our capacity to reflect upon and give an account of ourselves is conditioned by norms of intelligibility” (Butler, 2005, p. 21). Ypi translates personal experiences, offering different perspectives on freedom: “For my parents, freedom meant being at peace with the past. For me, freedom meant traveling west” (Ypi, 2022, p. 168).

Lea Ypi’s Free is a profound exploration of identity, freedom, and translation in the context of Albania’s political transformations. Butler’s perspectives offer tools for understanding how Ypi translates her experiences across cultural boundaries.

References

Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power. Stanford University Press.

Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life. Verso.

Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. Fordham University Press.

Butler, J. (2006). Gender trouble (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Ypi, L. (2022). Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. W. W. Norton & Company.

Vladimir Jankélévitch (1903-1985), professeur de philosophie morale à la Sorbonne de 1951 à 1981, toujours très présent en France 40 ans après sa mort, a publié de son vivant 10 livres sur la musique. Amoureux du piano, il vivait dans un appartement de l'île de la Cité à Paris avec deux pianos à queue et entouré d'une grande collection de partitions. Anne Queffélec (1948- ), pianiste qui appelle Jankélévitch « collègue » a écrit en 2020 un texte intitulé « En noir et blanc » pour le Cahier Vladimir Jankélévitch(L’Herne). Le texte de Queffélec jette un nouvel éclairage sur la personnalité de Jankélévitch et, en même temps, sur sa philosophie et sa théorie musicale du point de vue d'un pianiste. Elle vouvoie Jankélévitch dans ce texte et évoque le potentiel de ce que Jankélévitch aurait pu être.

Cette communication se référera à la contribution de Queffélec comme point de départ pour approfondir notre compréhension de la philosophie et de la théorie musicale de Jankélévitch ainsi que de sa vie au piano.

Since the introduction of Bakhtin’s theory to China in the 1980s, the literary and theoretical circles initially paid attention to his polyphonic novel theory and then moved towards a comprehensive study of his dialogism and holistic methodology. In the face of a new historical context and the urgent need to inject fresh blood, Chinese realist poetics has received new inspiration from Bakhtin’s holistic sociological poetics. Bakhkin’s discussion of Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novels rooted in the context of complex modernity in Russia in the 19th century inspired the Chinese literary circles to open up the dynamics of realist poetics and modernist poetics. Bakhkin’s transcendence of the non-sociological side of formalism and his persistence in the study of integral literature also provide resources for the way realist poetics can be effective in a modern context.

The historical trajectory of the worlding project, as demonstrated by the effective collaboration between Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour in their human-and-nonhuman approach to cosmopolitanism and by the further interpretations and expansions of this approach by Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Donna Haraway, is evident. A consistent emphasis on incorporating nonhuman elements into storytelling pervades the worlding project, from Latour's concept of agency to Stengers' idea of the 'middle voice' to de la Bellacasa's care and Haraway's creation of new mythologies. For example, Donna Haraway's emphasis on mythologies implies that, to participate in the interconnected relations of humans and nonhumans, humans should not rely solely on human creativity and intellect; instead, humans must also embrace the quasi-narrative by nonhumans as part of the collaborative efforts with them.

To further connect the anthropological aspect of worlding with narrative, this project will examine how narratological suggestions in the worlding project can assist in identifying new narrative modes of nonhuman storytelling. Specifically, the project aims to respond to the call from anthropologists and science historians for a refreshed narrative approach and the critical need to theorize non-anthropomorphized narration. The project's core concern is to map new modes of non-anthropomorphized nonhuman narration. This research will explore non-anthropomorphized narration, responding to the challenges posed by the worlding project theorists, and advocate for the expansion of narratological vocabulary to adequately register non-anthropomorphized narration. To this end, two 2021 novels will be examined: Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness and Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves.

Re-questioning and reassessing the function of poetry seems a timely topic in our age as the human civilization confronts the overwhelming power of digitalized knowledge.　Throughout history poetry has left traces of individual voices, creating cracks in the existing texture of meaning. With the overwhelming power of artificial intelligence, now with its generative capacity to combine words, create phrases and verses, editing and recreating from its omni-knowledgeable source of information, it can apparently produce something equivalent to literature, including poetry.

In the Japanese case, attempts have been made to allow the AI to produce haiku, the result of which was relatively successful. Having been fed the database consisting of 150 million pieces from the past and given all the necessary rules, it performed wonderfully, producing what looks like top quality haiku. Can this be regarded as poetry? My question extends further to whether such a method would apply to free-verse poetry, which has no rules. Free-verse constituted the main body of modern Japanese poetry, which moved away from a set syllabic structure and experimented with words to create new meaning, conveying messages that could not be expressed through straightforward narrative. The very intention of such enterprise lay in breaking down the grammatical conventions, dislocating common understanding, creating blank spaces between words in order to allow the unspoken message to arise. Could this be possibly done with artificial intelligence? Obviously, this is not a random dislocating process, and behind each poetic creation stands the human body, its intricate workings of senses, and the idiosyncratic experience of each individual poet, leading to the singularity of every poetic piece.

In this presentation I will explore in particular the relationship between body and language, how the bodily perception and the bodily experience play a crucial role in poetic creation, and how poetry has functioned and will continue to function as a potential power to resist against the mainstream discourse, creating a tear in the ordinary, challenging the accepted understanding of things, urging us to see the world in different light, uncover the myths, discover new landscapes, and hear unverbalized voices. Paying attention to the inseparable connection between body and language in the making of poetry, I believe, is of particular importance in our age so thoroughly penetrated by digital information, so much so that against the inundation of verbal utterances online we must be constantly be reminded that humans do live as bodily beings and that it is through our body that language is spoken, messages are conveyed and sentiments are shared. (2737 characters, space included)