Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob is an avant-garde, counter-historical novel that challenges traditional narrative forms. Drawing on the 18th-century Polish mystic Jacob Frank, the novel uses an omniscient narrator to explore Jacob's messianic journey across the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, his conversions to Islam, Catholicism, and Judaism, and his fluctuating wealth and status. Tokarczuk employs fragmented narrative, textual collage, and shifting perspectives, crafting the novel as a "constellation novel" where readers actively piece together Jacob's character, transcending conventional narrative boundaries.

In 2024, Polish director Krzysztof Garbaczewski, inspired by Tokarczuk's work, created an intermedia theatrical performance as part of the Digital Storytelling Program at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and CultureHub. Collaborating with artists from nine countries, Garbaczewski blended online theater, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and audience participation to simulate the process of meaning-making that readers experience with the novel. Garbaczewski's approach entailed extending the concept of the "writerly text" present in the original novel, employing multimedia interaction and immersive theatrical techniques to transcend the boundaries of individual media. This approach enabled the text to take on a more open and dynamic form, transforming the audience from passive recipients into active participants. Secondly, the material and symbolic bodies of the actors underwent a process of increasing complexity and polysemy within the context of this media interaction. The fluid bodily representations of the actors reflected the process by which readers imagine and construct the protagonist's image while reading the novel. Finally, as a counter-historical work, The Books of Jacob removes the limitations imposed by time, space, and narrative perspective on the concept of historical authenticity, inviting readers to reconstruct history for themselves. Garbaczewski's intermedia theatrical work utilizes participatory multimedia formats that provide audiences with multiple perspectives and remediate authenticity, constantly reconstructing and re-examining individual experiences of reality.

Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob and Garbaczewski's intermedia theatrical work collectively present a novel narrative practice that not only blurs the boundaries between history and fiction but also redefines the relationship between the text and the audience. Through intermedia interaction, the audience enters a dynamic, multi-dimensional narrative world, where they actively engage in a critical reflection on history and reality. This participatory experience fosters a more liberated and open artistic engagement, challenging traditional modes of storytelling and the passive reception of narrative content.

In the context of globalization, issues of cultural identity have become increasingly prominent. As a canonical text exploring cultural alienation, Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! and its intermedial narrative strategies provide significant insights into contemporary cultural identity crises. While existing scholarship has predominantly focused on the play's thematic concerns and character portrayal, systematic research on its intermedial narrative strategies remains limited, particularly regarding the functionality and significance of musical elements as crucial narrative devices. This study pioneers an integrated theoretical framework combining intersemiotic translation, intermediality, and multimodal semiotics to construct a multidimensional analytical model, aiming to reveal the unique value of intermedial narrative in expressing cultural identity crisis.

The analysis centers on three musical elements: first, examining the intersemiotic translation of the popular song "Philadelphia, Here I Come!" to reveal how media transformation reflects the protagonist's cultural alienation; second, investigating the intermedial tension between Irish folk songs and dramatic narrative to analyze how cultural dialogue deepens the thematic concerns; and finally, interpreting the symbolic implications of Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor through a multimodal semiotic lens.

The research demonstrates that Friel, through his sophisticated intermedial musical narrative, constructs a multi-layered semiotic space that not only manifests individual identity crisis during cultural transformation but also reveals the profound contradictions between modernity and tradition. This innovative narrative strategy not only enriches intermedial narrative theory but also provides a new methodological perspective for examining cultural identity issues in the context of globalization.

Woman, Demon, Human (1987), widely regarded as the first feminist film in Chinese cinema history, emerges as a pioneering exploration of female subjectivity through the integration of Hebei Bangzi, a traditional Chinese opera, and modern cinematic language. This intermediality not only enriches the film's narrative but also creates a distinctive emotional context that interrogates gender norms and reimagines the possibilities of artistic expression. By merging the theatrical traditions of Hebei Bangzi with the visual and narrative forms of film, the work bridges past and present, tradition and modernity, while reflecting on the sociocultural transformations of its historical moment.

Central to the film is the protagonist, Qiu Yun, who chooses to perform the male character of Zhong Kui, an ugly ghost/god judge from Chinese folklore. Zhong Kui’s story, particularly the Zhong Kui Marrying off His Sister, has evolved through its cross-media transmission—from folk tales to popular literature, and Chinese opera—where the character of Zhong Kui’s sister, Zhong Hua, also undergoes significant transformations. Zhong Hua’s depiction moves from traditional feminine subservience to a complex, emotionally resonant figure, embodying broader changes in gender representation across media. Qiu Yun’s transgender performance in the film, a surrealistic combination of Zhong Kui and Zhong Hua, becomes a site of implicit defiance against societal expectations, symbolizing her rejection of conventional gender roles and her journey toward empowerment.

Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s Mulan-type dilemma, which critiques the necessity of women to adopt male roles to gain agency, this paper examines Qiu Yun’s portrayal of Zhong Kui as a variation on this paradigm. Unlike traditional narratives of female heroism, which require the erasure of femininity, Qiu Yun does not merely imitate masculinity but reclaims and redefines it within the context of her artistry. The absence of her debt-ridden husband and the turbulence of the historical period create an interwoven backdrop that highlights the systemic barriers women face in asserting their identities. Despite these challenges, Qiu Yun transcends the restrictions imposed by her historical and cultural context, ultimately stepping onto the international stage to deliver her unique interpretation of Zhong Kui.

This paper investigates how the intermediality of Hebei Bangzi and film serves as a transformative medium for reflecting on female subjectivity, gender identity, and societal transformation. It also explores how the evolution of Zhong Kui’s narrative, particularly through the figure of Zhong Hua, aligns with the film’s expressions, providing a broader lens for understanding the tensions between tradition, modernity, and the reconstruction of gender in Chinese cinema.

The story of a husband who returns home in disguise after a long absence, strings his distinctive bow, punishes his wife’s suitors, and reunites with his family is a tale-type widely represented in folk and literary traditions worldwide. This tale-type is best known through its earliest recorded version, the Odyssey, an epic poem that is attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer. Comparative analysis of the stories about the homecoming husband and research on the historical and cultural background of these stories suggests that an original tale, the so-called prototype, could have been transmitted from its place of origin to other parts of the world, giving birth to the many regional versions, such as Central Asia’s Alpomish, The Epic of King Gesar found in Tibet, Mongolia, and other parts of Inner Asia, Japan’s Yuriwaka Daijin, and many other stories.

The study presented in this paper is part of the broader research on the above-mentioned tale-type known in folklore studies as The Homecoming Husband. This paper examines the development and evolution of the Korean versions of the Homecoming Husband across time, space, and media, focusing on The Song of Chunhyang, one of Korea’s best-known love stories, mostly known today as a song of the pansori repertory. It further explores the possible connection between the prototype of The Song of Chunhyang and similar stories found in other regions of Asia.

Indeed It is very difficult to discuss the archetype (origin, basis) of literature, but I think sticking to the archetype research is the most important thing in comparative literature. When discussing the archetype research of East-West literature, we think of the archetype of Asian literature and ancient Greece, which is the basis of Western literature. Although we are accustomed to the dichotomous thinking, Persian literature as the archetype, which connects the East with the West, has been forgotten in our minds.

In this paper, I bring out the concept of archetype, whose meaning is containing the origin in the transmitting stages. The realm of literature in Persia is extensively composed of Iran, Asia Minor (Turkey of present), Pakistan, Central Asia, western region in China, and from the ancient era, these countries have had history and culture in common. The ancient literature must be understood from the ancient point of view, not the present.

We commonly remind the ancient Asian civilization of the China and India. We do not remember Persian civilization which had affected China and Indian civilization. The flow of literature is not different from the that of civilization. On the one hand, Persian literature have transmitted to the domains of India, Tibet, South eastern literature, and on the other hand, have spreaded over the China, Korea, and Japan, by means of western region in China. The Korean traditional literature, the Zen's poem, had derived from the these genealogy. Along with the archetype of Asian literature, the relation with ancient Greek literature will be revealed. Its literature had been affected by Aryan culture including Mithraic and Zoroastrian literature.

In searching for the archetype of literature, the most important thing is the flow and genealogy of literature related to the comparative literature. The others might think that the literary works itself is more important than the literary flow and genealogy. The imitation and transmission in literature is one of the important aspects in ancient era. The great literary works in the Ancient and Medieval era have had a great influence on the works in the other literary realm, and the first works gradually have been changed and transmitted. Nevertheless until now on the literary works has been focused on its contents and language's classification, not the literary flow and genealogy.

The literary works in the ancient era is laid on the foundation of the Religious Thought. Supposedly a scholar do not recognize the flow and genealogy of literature along with that of religion. If he knew Sufi literature within the Islamic Sufism, he would not analyze it correctly. Accordingly to know the flow and genealogy of Sufism is the first thing to do. For Sufism has the history of 3000 years of the Aryans holding Pantheism.