Humanities

18 pages, 306 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How the Music Machine Makes Myths Real: AI, Holograms, and Ashley Eternal

by Victor Robert Kennedy

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050140 - 21 Oct 2024

Viewed by 857

Since ancient times, music has been instrumental in giving life to the stories we build our identities and cultures around. I will examine how, in our time, music creates new myths by creating its own heroes and heroines through capital and the star [...] Read more.

Since ancient times, music has been instrumental in giving life to the stories we build our identities and cultures around. I will examine how, in our time, music creates new myths by creating its own heroes and heroines through capital and the star system. In traditional literary and cultural analysis, a distinction was drawn between the natural and the supernatural when discussing literary mythology; in the twentieth century, an equivalent distinction was made in works of art that, in Baudrillard’s terminology, make use of the realms of the real and the “hyperreal” (1981). In today’s mythmaking, the supernatural has been largely replaced by the technological, and recent developments blur the line between science fiction and fantasy; tech has become megalotech. A recent episode of the television series Black Mirror, “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too” (2019), explores these concepts with an examination of the pros and cons of replacing human performers with AI simulacra. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music and the Written Word)

9 pages, 219 KiB

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Hybrid: Reading Godzilla Through Posthumanism

by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Emiliano Aguilar and Jorge Eduardo Traversa

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 139; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050139 - 21 Oct 2024

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Abstract

This essay proposes to read the classic cycle of Godzilla films (roughly, 1954–1995) using a posthuman perspective that makes its emphasis on animal, vegetal and mineral life. We will use posthuman and materialist philosophy to analyze hybrid monsters as part of new interdisciplinary [...] Read more.

This essay proposes to read the classic cycle of Godzilla films (roughly, 1954–1995) using a posthuman perspective that makes its emphasis on animal, vegetal and mineral life. We will use posthuman and materialist philosophy to analyze hybrid monsters as part of new interdisciplinary studies about non-human agencies and their creepy potential. As such, we want to offer the first posthumanist readings of the Godzilla franchise, in time to celebrate its 70 years of existence and, in consequence, highlight how posthumanist the series has always been. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture)

9 pages, 268 KiB

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Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla”: An American Kaiju Anthem

by Daniel Patrick Compora

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 138; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050138 - 21 Oct 2024

Viewed by 822

Abstract

In 1978, the American hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult released the song “Godzilla” as the first single from the fifth studio album Spectres. Despite not registering on popular charts, it would eventually evolve into an iconic song of its era. “Godzilla” [...] Read more.

In 1978, the American hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult released the song “Godzilla” as the first single from the fifth studio album Spectres. Despite not registering on popular charts, it would eventually evolve into an iconic song of its era. “Godzilla” continues to receive airplay on classic rock stations, and it remains a staple of the band’s touring performances. In 2019, a cover of the song, more than forty years after its release, made its film debut in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Though the song is primarily a tribute to the Japanese monster from which it gets its name, “Godzilla” also reflects the nuclear fear and paranoia of the 1970s Cold War era. “Godzilla’s” cultural impact, the song’s lyrics, the Cold War context in which it was written, and its connection to the kaiju films featuring the famous monster are examined. While this is the most popular and well-known song dedicated to Godzilla, it is not the only one. Other compositions have, but they have failed to achieve the iconic status that Blue Öyster Cult’s version has attained. This song has evolved into an unofficial anthem for the great monster. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture)

14 pages, 342 KiB

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Global Community in James Welch’s The Heartsong of Charging Elk

by Kedong Liu, Yutong Zhao and Limin Li

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050137 - 19 Oct 2024

Viewed by 511

Abstract

Human beings have had beautiful dreams for a harmonious world since centuries ago; this can be termed cosmopolitanism, shijie datong, or global community. Based on theories expounded by Confucius, Tönnies, Anderson, Bauman, Derrida, and Appiah, we closely examine the concept of “global [...] Read more.

Human beings have had beautiful dreams for a harmonious world since centuries ago; this can be termed cosmopolitanism, shijie datong, or global community. Based on theories expounded by Confucius, Tönnies, Anderson, Bauman, Derrida, and Appiah, we closely examine the concept of “global cultural community” or “international community”, that is, the community involving individuals or groups of two or more countries by way of textual analysis, with James Welch’s The Heartsong of Charging Elk as an example. Through an analysis of the plot in the novel, we find that the American Indian protagonist Charging Elk integrates into the local French culture, while retaining his indigenous cultural identity, and thus negotiates a global community. This finding is also evaluated in the context of all five novels by Welch and in a broader scope of American Indian literature with inter-continental themes. The studies on cosmopolitanism or global community in American Indian literature can play an important role in exploring the construction of a global community for humanity for a shared future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Literature and World Literature: Toward a Global Cultural Community through a New Cosmopolitanism)

20 pages, 48839 KiB

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Capitalizing on Animality: Monstrosity and Multispecies Relations in Jordan Peele’s Nope (2022)

by Heather King

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050136 - 18 Oct 2024

Viewed by 1244

Abstract

One amongst many of the defining characteristics of so-called ‘late stage’ capitalism are human-animal relationships that have become acrimonious, hostile, or even monstrous in nature. A foundational premise of monster theory, and one that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seminal 1996 edited collection of the [...] Read more.

One amongst many of the defining characteristics of so-called ‘late stage’ capitalism are human-animal relationships that have become acrimonious, hostile, or even monstrous in nature. A foundational premise of monster theory, and one that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seminal 1996 edited collection of the same name suggests, is that the construction of the monster in popular culture is fraught with the boundaries that constitute the society that has spawned them; the monstrous body “exists only to be read” (p. 4). Bringing together the theoretical insights of the Marxist theory of reification, critical animal studies, and monster theory, this article examines the ways in which cinematic depictions of gigantic monstrosity can inform our theorizing of multispecies relationships under capitalism. Specifically, I explore how the tensions between capital and human-animal relationships serve to construct and constitute the multiform monster, Jean Jacket, in Jordan Peele’s 2022 film Nope. Through an examination of the multispecies relationalities that the film portrays, I argue that the figure of Jean Jacket is a monstrous culmination of the reified and therefore, necessarily deferred nature of human-animal relationships under capital. However, Nope’s conclusion alerts us to the radical dereifying potential of multispecies bonds of care and embodied knowledge; systems of resistance that can be forged even within our current capitalist ruins. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture)

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11 pages, 220 KiB

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Ecocritical Concerns in the Selected Poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Naomi Shihab Nye

by Amna Shamim

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050135 - 16 Oct 2024

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Abstract

Ecocriticism is an advancing field in literature that has opened up avenues in reading world literature from a whole new perspective. This paper seeks to flesh out ecocritical concerns in the selected poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Naomi Shihab Nye by using selected [...] Read more.

Ecocriticism is an advancing field in literature that has opened up avenues in reading world literature from a whole new perspective. This paper seeks to flesh out ecocritical concerns in the selected poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Naomi Shihab Nye by using selected concepts of the theory of ecocriticism given by Greg Garrard: pastoral, wilderness, and the sublime. An analysis of the poetry by the selected writers, sharing their roots from the Arab world, reveals their agenda of using nature as a trope in the form of resistance to colonialism. The writers give a glimpse of the people of their homeland and their culture imbued in nature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Literature and World Literature: Toward a Global Cultural Community through a New Cosmopolitanism)

11 pages, 229 KiB

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The Devil in the Machine: The Doctor Travels through Time in Chris Bush’s Faustus: That Damned Woman

by Verna A. Foster

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050134 - 9 Oct 2024

Viewed by 780

Abstract

Chris Bush’s Faustus: That Damned Woman (first performed in 2020) is a feminist and contemporary adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. The magus is a woman who travels through time from the seventeenth century to the far distant future. In the process, [...] Read more.

Chris Bush’s Faustus: That Damned Woman (first performed in 2020) is a feminist and contemporary adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. The magus is a woman who travels through time from the seventeenth century to the far distant future. In the process, Johanna Faustus becomes a brilliant scientist who attempts to create digital immortality by uploading the minds of billions of human beings to the Cloud. When a power failure destroys almost all of humanity, it is uncertain whether the universal outage is caused by Mephistopheles (in accordance with the expectations of Faustian fantasy) or is simply an unforeseen but predictable accident (in accordance with the expectations of technophobic versions of science fiction). I argue that Bush’s play traces the chronological and generic arc from magic/fantasy to science/science fiction, blending the two so that the age-old monster, the Devil, enabled by Faustian arrogance, is reimagined as an avatar for an unreliable technology that destroys what it is designed to preserve. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Re-imagining Classical Monsters)

18 pages, 3689 KiB

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Evergreen Avengers: Nature and Kaijū in the Twenty-First Century

by Sean Rhoads and Brooke McCorkle Okazaki

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050133 - 8 Oct 2024

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Abstract

After a decade of dormancy following the release of Tōhō Studios’ Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), Godzilla and other kaijū burst back onto the scene with Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla (2014). Several American sequels and a television series set in Legendary’s MonsterVerse quickly followed over [...] Read more.

After a decade of dormancy following the release of Tōhō Studios’ Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), Godzilla and other kaijū burst back onto the scene with Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla (2014). Several American sequels and a television series set in Legendary’s MonsterVerse quickly followed over the next ten years. Meanwhile, Japan’s Tōhō used their radioactive creation’s global success to reignite their own films with Shin Godzilla (2016), an animated trilogy, and Godzilla Minus One (2023). Short-format media like Chibi Godzilla and Godziban also circulated thanks to streaming services. Similarly, Godzilla’s longtime competitor Gamera also emerged from hibernation in an animated series produced by Kadokawa Corporation, Gamera Rebirth (2023). But how do these new installations relate to or depart from their predecessors’ predilection to address environmental concerns? This article continues the ecocritical analysis of kaijū eiga, expanding it to the 2010s and 2020s, as a coda to our duograph Japan’s Green Monsters (2018). This article picks up where we left off, examining the recent releases from an ecocritical standpoint. This analysis reveals that today’s films remain steeped in environmental commentary, but both fragmented and updated for the new concerns of the twenty-first century. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture)

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16 pages, 310 KiB

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“So Beautiful That Mortal… Eyes Can’t Take It”: How Postmodernism Shows Us the Function of the Beautiful in the Landscape of the Traumatic

by Griffin Lang Pickett

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050132 - 8 Oct 2024

Viewed by 964

Abstract

In her 2010 article “Aesthetic Wit(h)nessing in the Era of Trauma”, Griselda Pollock lamented the aperture between psychology, particularly that of PTSD, and esthetics in the search to bear witness to traumatic experience. This article explores the gray area that exists when the [...] Read more.

In her 2010 article “Aesthetic Wit(h)nessing in the Era of Trauma”, Griselda Pollock lamented the aperture between psychology, particularly that of PTSD, and esthetics in the search to bear witness to traumatic experience. This article explores the gray area that exists when the esthetic and the traumatic converge, arguing that such areas exist not only as direct representations of the difficulty of narrativizing trauma as described by such theorists as Cathy Caruth, Onno van der Hart, and Bessel van der Kolk, but also simultaneously as windows into the moments of what Dominick LaCapra calls “the sublime object of endless melancholia and impossible mourning”. Postmodernism is argued to be the organic choice of voicing traumatic retellings, and close readings of John Hersey’s proto-postmodern Hiroshima (1946), Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (1992), and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) work to highlight the intersections of trauma, postmodern literature, and esthetics; or, in Wallace’s case, theoretical discussions of traumatic tropes as facilitated by the postmodern tradition. In drawing attention to this tripartite convergence, this article hopes to continue in the vein of scholarship that reaffirms the need for evermore research in the field of trauma studies as well as substantiate a claim of the heightened importance of postmodern literature in the 21st century—an epoch indelibly marked by trauma, as noted by Pollock. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Trauma, Ethics & Illness in Contemporary Literature and Culture)

16 pages, 235 KiB

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The Finitude of the Human and the World of the None-Whole: On the Aesthetics of Existence in Korean Modernist Literature in the Posthuman Age

by Yerhee Kim, Thi Hien Nguyen and Hyonhui Choe

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050131 - 4 Oct 2024

Viewed by 623

Abstract

Posthuman discourse calls for a fundamental shift away from modern anthropocentric thought. This shift stems from the reflection that many of the problems in the modern capitalist world, including climate change, are rooted in anthropocentric attitudes and ways of life. Amid rapid climatic [...] Read more.

Posthuman discourse calls for a fundamental shift away from modern anthropocentric thought. This shift stems from the reflection that many of the problems in the modern capitalist world, including climate change, are rooted in anthropocentric attitudes and ways of life. Amid rapid climatic and technological changes, transforming our way of thinking is essential. This paper argues that such a transformation is possible through the exploration of new subjectivities that incorporate the other, transforming the self in the process. It examines how 1930s Korean colonial modernist literature illustrates this search for new subjectivities. Based on this exploration, this paper also concretizes the tendencies and problems in our society, particularly concerning technological fascism, through recent Korean fiction and discusses the significance of the literary imaginations of 1930s colonial Korean modernism in the posthuman era. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)

11 pages, 206 KiB

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Deconstructing Two Roads: Applying the Psychology of Regret to Resolve the Mystery Surrounding Robert Frost’s Most Beloved Poem

by Donald Thomas Carte

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050130 - 3 Oct 2024

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Abstract

In the lifetime anthology of Robert Frost’s poetry, one poem consistently stands out as the most beloved and recognizable of his works. To the average reader, for over a hundred years “The Road Not Taken” has engendered images of individuality and the need [...] Read more.

In the lifetime anthology of Robert Frost’s poetry, one poem consistently stands out as the most beloved and recognizable of his works. To the average reader, for over a hundred years “The Road Not Taken” has engendered images of individuality and the need to avoid following the crowd; this despite clear evidence within the verse that contradicts that reading. Most Frost scholars would agree the poem is the most misunderstood poem in Frost’s collection, and the academy has presented several intelligent and deeply introspective alternatives. However, none of these have garnered enough of a consensus to displace the initial misunderstanding. Through an interdisciplinary approach that makes use of the added epistemic approaches of historical research and the psychology of regret, this paper will uncover a hidden creation story for “The Road Not Taken”, and through a fulsome review of the poem’s origination, reveal a more basic axiom as to the purpose behind Frost’s two roads. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)

19 pages, 6849 KiB

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Metabolic Cinema: From Hollywood to Socialist China

by Ping Zhu

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050129 - 3 Oct 2024

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Abstract

Drawing on Karl Marx’s ecological concepts of the “metabolic rift” and the “emancipation of senses”, this paper explores an alternative ecocinema that integrates the ecological with the social and the economic. Early Hollywood films, such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) [...] Read more.

Drawing on Karl Marx’s ecological concepts of the “metabolic rift” and the “emancipation of senses”, this paper explores an alternative ecocinema that integrates the ecological with the social and the economic. Early Hollywood films, such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and The Good Earth (1937), represent the metabolic rift in human relationships as a byproduct of the metabolic rift with nature created in the process of urbanization; hence, they can be regarded as precursors to an alternative ecocinema, which I refer to as “metabolic cinema”. The Story of the Golden Bell (Jinling Zhuan), a comedy film produced during the Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958, offers an intriguing case for socialist metabolic cinema as a multisensory medianature that participates in and facilitates the metabolic process between humans and nature, as well as the social metabolism among humans, despite the period’s notorious ecological record. The film not only consciously moves away from the visual-centric model associated with capitalist consumerism by using the aural to rectify the once-aberrant visual but also demonstrates how romantic love, as one of the human senses, must be emancipated along with other senses through denouncing utilitarianism and commercialism and, subsequently, returning to need-based labor as the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between humans and nature. Full article

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12 pages, 278 KiB

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The Female Body and the Environment: A Transnational Study of Mo Yan’s Feng ru Fei tun, Murakami Haruki’s Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru, and Gabriel García Márquez’s El amor en los tiempos del cólera

by Yueying Wu

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 128; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050128 - 2 Oct 2024

Viewed by 523

Abstract

The female body is often depicted in parallel with the environment in many literary works. This article examines how the female body can prompt a rethinking of the environment by analyzing three literary works, Mo Yan’s Feng ru Fei tun, published in [...] Read more.

The female body is often depicted in parallel with the environment in many literary works. This article examines how the female body can prompt a rethinking of the environment by analyzing three literary works, Mo Yan’s Feng ru Fei tun, published in 1996 Murakami Haruki’s Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru, published in 1994-1995, and Gabriel García Márquez’s El amor en los tiempos del cólera, published in 1985, which root in Chinese, Japanese, and Latin American cultures, respectively. This paper argues that, on the one hand, the female body parallels the environment by displaying non-human characteristics and relating to natural elements in these three works; on the other hand, it deconstructs the boundary between the environment and humans by playing a crucial role in constructing human identity. This paper draws on theories of posthumanism, material feminism, and ecofeminism to explore the depiction of the female body and its role in rethinking the environment. The cultural hybridity of local and non-local worldviews—a key reason for situating this study within a transnational comparative framework—serves as a crucial element in demonstrating how the female body bridges the environment and human identity across all three works. This analysis aims to deconstruct the anthropocentric perspective on the environment, thereby rethinking the role of the female body in this context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Care in the Environmental Humanities)

25 pages, 18967 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Good People Do Not Eat Others?! Moral Ambiguity in Japanese Fairytales from the Late Nineteenth Century

by Tian Gao

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050127 - 1 Oct 2024

Viewed by 690

Abstract

In 2015, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK aired an educational series that re-examined traditional fairy tales by putting their characters on trial for their immoral behavior, such as revenge, violence, and dishonesty. These tales, rooted in premodern Japanese folklore, were widely available in [...] Read more.

In 2015, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK aired an educational series that re-examined traditional fairy tales by putting their characters on trial for their immoral behavior, such as revenge, violence, and dishonesty. These tales, rooted in premodern Japanese folklore, were widely available in various book formats by the late nineteenth century and, unlike modern adaptations, they did not sanitize violence or evil. This study analyzes four miniature picture books from the late nineteenth century that recount the story, Kachikachi yama (The Crackling Mountain). This analysis focuses on both verbal and visual representations of good and evil, with attention to themes of loyalty, filial piety, and virtuous revenge. The findings reveal that these picture books presented young readers with complex moral lessons, where the boundaries between good and evil were blurred. Additionally, they illuminate the prevailing image of children during that era, depicting them as “little adults” expected to be educated and prepared for the practical realities of the adult world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Depiction of Good and Evil in Fairytales)

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15 pages, 239 KiB

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“Cured, I Am Frizzled, Stale, and Small”: Jungian Individuation Realized in Robert Lowell’s Life Studies

by Todd Gannon

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050126 - 30 Sep 2024

Viewed by 532

Abstract

Robert Lowell’s Life Studies won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960 and is credited with initiating the confessional poetry movement, which included followers and students of Lowell such as Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. In Life Studies, Lowell channeled his [...] Read more.

Robert Lowell’s Life Studies won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960 and is credited with initiating the confessional poetry movement, which included followers and students of Lowell such as Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. In Life Studies, Lowell channeled his 1950s experiences with bipolar disorder and mental health hospitalizations into poems such as “Man and Wife”, “Waking in the Blue”, and “Home After Three Months Away”. Lowell’s hard-won Life Studies triumph, though most recently analyzed through socioeconomic and “divine madness” lenses, can also be understood through Carl Jung’s individuation concept which posits that self-realization can be attained through the reconciliation of one’s own conscious and unconscious mental processes. This article argues that Lowell’s Life Studies poems, when examined through Jungian individuation, enabled Lowell to achieve self-realization, and paved the way for mentally ill individuals to learn how to achieve psychological wholeness through art. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Discourses of Madness)

11 pages, 227 KiB

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“No Way Out”: The Gothic Concept of Home in Shirley Jackson’s Horror Fiction

by Margherita Orsi

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050125 - 28 Sep 2024

Viewed by 786

Abstract

The “haunted house formula” is a central component in every Female Gothic narrative from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically, it revolves around a heroine trapped in a gloomy mansion, seeking to escape a male villain. This trope, which covertly explores feminine anxieties [...] Read more.

The “haunted house formula” is a central component in every Female Gothic narrative from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically, it revolves around a heroine trapped in a gloomy mansion, seeking to escape a male villain. This trope, which covertly explores feminine anxieties such as domestic confinement and familial oppression, recurs multiple times in Shirley Jackson’s “house trilogy” as well, namely The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. However, as noted by many critics, while Female Gothic narratives usually conclude with the protagonist’s successful escape and her marriage to the male hero, in Jackson’s fiction, there is “no way out”. Her protagonists remain confined within the domestic space. This essay explores Jackson’s reappropriation of the haunted house trope as a symbol of the paranoia experienced by women in 1950s suburban America. The analysis begins by outlining the theme in traditional Female Gothic fiction, followed by an account of the sociohistorical context in which Jackson operated, without dismissing the significancy of her personal life experiences as well. Jackson’s “house trilogy” will then be examined, paying particular attention to the ways in which the haunted house formula is subverted to function not as an escape narrative, but as a metaphor for modern women’s inescapable confinement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction)

16 pages, 246 KiB

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The Return of the Repressed: The Subprime Haunted House

by Jaleesa Rena Harris

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050124 - 26 Sep 2024

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Abstract

This article merges evaluations of Black life through the Southern Gothic and the intersection of Black studies to conceptualize the “Black Gothic”. The Black Gothic conceives of a future that requires closely examining the past and the present primarily through a Southern Gothic [...] Read more.

This article merges evaluations of Black life through the Southern Gothic and the intersection of Black studies to conceptualize the “Black Gothic”. The Black Gothic conceives of a future that requires closely examining the past and the present primarily through a Southern Gothic and Black horror lens. Much of Black Gothic’s analytics depended upon the framework outlined within Afro-pessimism and the subprime; however, it differs in its pursuits of reparations as a way forward. The Black Gothic focuses on intermingling the lived anti-Black experiences of Black existence with supernatural gothic traditions, forcing readers to determine which experience is more horrific. The Black Gothic functions as a mode of interaction with the Southern Gothic and the Black horror visual genres; its definition invokes literary and visual modes and genres that expand the many depictions of Black life in America when it is constantly threatened by elimination and devaluation. The Black horror genre seeks to expose the “afterlife of slavery” through actual and speculative means. Meanwhile, Southern Gothic’s ability to cross temporal bounds makes these the ideal genres to present the enslaved’s repressed and debted history. Southern Gothic replaced ruined gothic castles with plantations; Black Gothic replaced plantations and the monolithic “South” with northern sundown towns, redlining, and subprime mortgages. The Black Gothic’s methodology uses a systemic fiscal devaluation of Black ownership, self, and property through the subprime. In company with Fred Moten’s conceptualization of the subprime, the Black Gothic views being marked as “subprime” as an antecedent to predatory housing practices; it is instead the moment that captured Africans experience social death. Using Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Misha Green’s HBO adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country, I define the Black Gothic and then outline its capacity to function as an analytic to further both the Southern Gothic and Black horror genres. The Black Gothic transcends gothic traditions by including films and texts that are not categorically gothic or horror and exposes the horrific and gothic modes primarily exhibited through the treatment of the descendants of enslaved Africans. Comprehensively, this article argues for a space to view the future re-evaluation of Black life through speculative and practical reparations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction)

19 pages, 342 KiB

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The First World War, Madness, and Reading between the Lines of The Marsden Case

by Gillian Gustar

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050123 - 25 Sep 2024

Viewed by 516

Abstract

The Marsden Case, Ford’s first published novel after the First World War, has received relatively little critical attention. This paper aims to redress the balance by offering a sustained reading which illustrates how the context of the First World War interacts with [...] Read more.

The Marsden Case, Ford’s first published novel after the First World War, has received relatively little critical attention. This paper aims to redress the balance by offering a sustained reading which illustrates how the context of the First World War interacts with a major theme in Ford’s oeuvre, madness. It follows Ford’s maxim that the novel was a place for inquiry and illustrates how Ford’s narrator explores the questions of who succumbs to madness and why. It highlights a debate at work in the novel on the role of talk in creating or curing nervous breakdowns. The novel’s opacity is part of a challenge to the wisdom of directly confronting or revisiting painful experiences, which speaks not only to the effects of the war but to the value of emerging Freudian psychotherapy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ford Madox Ford's War Writing)

11 pages, 201 KiB

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Utopian Science Fiction and Ethnic Future Imagination in Chinese Contemporary Science Fiction

by Yuqin Jiang

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050122 - 25 Sep 2024

Viewed by 648

Abstract

Utopian science fiction, as a fusion of science fiction literature and utopian literature, integrates the construction of imagined interactions between people, technology, society, and the environment in future narratives. In doing so, it deepens the aesthetic value and social significance of science fiction [...] Read more.

Utopian science fiction, as a fusion of science fiction literature and utopian literature, integrates the construction of imagined interactions between people, technology, society, and the environment in future narratives. In doing so, it deepens the aesthetic value and social significance of science fiction literature. Chinese science fiction utopian future narratives use technological imagination to construct three models of expression. First, they re-examine the symbiotic patterns of technology, humanity, and time within the multiple dimensions of human subjectivity. Second, within the transformation of social structures, they reassess the subject and emotions, recognizing that the acceleration of social change has transformed human nostalgia into a series of rehearsals seeking future possibilities in the past. Third, within the dissolution of cultural politics, they reconsider space and the environment, reconstructing planetary existence through a model of deterritorialization. The imagined technological developments constitute the internal logic of Chinese science fiction utopian future narratives, suggesting that the future is an uncertain movement entangled with technology, time, space, and human nature. The confluence of technology, time, and humanity gives rise to people’s expectations and yearnings for eternal life. However, these three modes of narrating the future also lead us to return to Earth as the central theme, highlighting the planetary nature and reflecting on the meaning of existence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Literature and World Literature: Toward a Global Cultural Community through a New Cosmopolitanism)

12 pages, 210 KiB

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Roots and Refuge: A Critical Exploration of Nature in Black Visual Narratives

by Desiree Cueto, Wanda Brooks and Susan Browne

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050121 - 23 Sep 2024

Viewed by 589

Abstract

This article examined the underrepresentation of Black characters in children’s picture books, particularly in natural settings, and its effect on Black children’s relationship with nature. Through an analysis of four contemporary picture books, the study revealed how visual depictions challenge these exclusions and [...] Read more.

This article examined the underrepresentation of Black characters in children’s picture books, particularly in natural settings, and its effect on Black children’s relationship with nature. Through an analysis of four contemporary picture books, the study revealed how visual depictions challenge these exclusions and expand narratives about Black engagement with the natural world. Utilizing visual semiotics and the theory of Black Aliveness, this research underscores the transformative power of illustrations by Black artists in enriching children’s literature and advancing joy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue African American Children's Literature)

12 pages, 241 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Unjust: Publishing Black and African American Children’s Books and School Availability

by Karen Bowlding and Kathy Anderson

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050120 - 18 Sep 2024

Viewed by 697

Abstract

Traditional book publishing has a pronounced and unjust deficiency of Black and African American voices. White culture, thoughts, and rules are the standard in traditional publishing. Black and African American authors are not typically picked up by white-dominated publishing companies. In traditional publishing, [...] Read more.

Traditional book publishing has a pronounced and unjust deficiency of Black and African American voices. White culture, thoughts, and rules are the standard in traditional publishing. Black and African American authors are not typically picked up by white-dominated publishing companies. In traditional publishing, mostly white literary agents are gatekeepers and acquisition editors shut the doors too frequently to non-white authors. Aspiring Black authors then resort to hybrid or vanity press companies that often use unscrupulous practices, charge exorbitant fees, accomplish little or low-quality work, and deny authors’ agency and full rights in the final disposition of a book. Because a majority of traditionally published children’s books featuring Black or African American stories or characters are written by or illustrated by non-Black people, the wide possibilities of adventure, celebrations, discovery, and friendship stories are not published for Black children. Instead, publishers favor stories about slavery, the civil rights movement, famous Black people, and hair tales as well as racially ambiguous characters. Regrettably, Black and African American culturally relevant stories written and illustrated by Black or African Americans are not readily available to children in school and library settings consistent with schools’ community or student demographics. This article shares research findings and viewpoints of Kathy Anderson and Karen Bowlding, two Black children’s book writers and publishing consultants who are also parents. Black and African American students encounter education and cultural injustice because of the practices of traditional publishing companies, educators, and librarians. Parents and guardians can ameliorate these issues with discernment and action. Foremost, publishing company decision-makers must acknowledge their own racial biases that deny representation and authenticity to all children in our US classrooms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue African American Children's Literature)

22 pages, 326 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Die Politik von Caligari: Totalitarian Anxieties in Adaptations of Robert Weine’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

by Phillip Louis Zapkin

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050119 - 16 Sep 2024

Viewed by 789

Abstract

Contemporary politics is filled with anxiety about the survival of democracy—particularly within a framework pitting liberal representative democracy against authoritarianism. In times of anxiety about authoritarianism, Western artists repeatedly return to a masterpiece of relatively early cinema: Robert Weine’s silent film Das Cabinet [...] Read more.

Contemporary politics is filled with anxiety about the survival of democracy—particularly within a framework pitting liberal representative democracy against authoritarianism. In times of anxiety about authoritarianism, Western artists repeatedly return to a masterpiece of relatively early cinema: Robert Weine’s silent film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This essay examines three twenty-first century adaptations: David Lee Fisher’s 2005 remake of the film; James Morrow’s 2017 novel, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari; and Georgie Bailey’s 2022 play Caligari. I argue that while the direct politico-cultural anxieties of Weine’s film have often been overstated, the emergence of adaptations during periods of heightened concern about authoritarianism reflects a deep-seated reception of the film as anticipating autocratic governance. However, for all its fears about power, control, and the loss of self-determination, Weine’s movie also contains the seeds of liberation. Cesare ultimately sacrifices his own life rather than murdering Jane. And it is this gesture that the adaptations examined here seek—a gesture of resistance. The sleepwalker can awaken and assert a form of just resistance in the world, even if the penalties are steep. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Re-imagining Classical Monsters)

17 pages, 2035 KiB

Open AccessArticle

From Folklore to Proust: A Quest across Symbolic Universes

by Francisco Vaz da Silva

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050118 - 13 Sep 2024

Viewed by 879

Abstract

This study explores the intersection of folklore and literature, specifically examining how a methodology developed for interpreting wondertales can be applied to a complex literary corpus, such as Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). [...] Read more.

This study explores the intersection of folklore and literature, specifically examining how a methodology developed for interpreting wondertales can be applied to a complex literary corpus, such as Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). The discussion proposes a case study for the use of allomotifs, or interchangeable motifs, to understand symbolic patterns in Proust’s literary work. The paper lays bare a widespread metaphorical field in wondertales, then follows its complications in the Proustian corpus. It suggests that Proust’s œuvre, much like folklore, operates within a symbolic universe where binary oppositions, such as good and evil or male and female, are fluid and dynamic. The discussion shows that Proust’s literary imagination aligns surprisingly well with the workings of folklore. This hybrid space of the imagination challenges conventional distinctions between folklore and literature, and brings to mind Lévi-Strauss’ erstwhile ruminations on the pensée sauvage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Depiction of Good and Evil in Fairytales)

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16 pages, 3520 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“Still Cool as a Zombie”: Community, the Zombie Aesthetic, and the Politics of Belonging

by Colin A. Cox

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 117; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050117 - 11 Sep 2024

Viewed by 1182

Abstract

From Night of the Living Dead (1968) to The Walking Dead (2010–2022), zombie media offers a consistent refrain, namely to avoid becoming a zombie. This refrain makes intuitive sense. Why would anyone welcome becoming a member of a roaming, mindless, and often [...] Read more.

From Night of the Living Dead (1968) to The Walking Dead (2010–2022), zombie media offers a consistent refrain, namely to avoid becoming a zombie. This refrain makes intuitive sense. Why would anyone welcome becoming a member of a roaming, mindless, and often violent undead horde symbolizing humanity’s destruction? However, zombification has affirmative, emancipatory possibilities. In “Epidemiology,” from Season 2 of the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), we see the zombie’s affirmative and emancipatory potential. In this essay, I argue zombification enlivens Community by provoking the show to rethink its relationship to its nominal protagonist, Jeff Winger, and to itself as a piece of avant-garde comedy television produced during the “Golden Age of Television,” what media scholars also call, “Peak” or “Prestige TV.” In this episode, Community evolves its understanding of its central protagonist by shifting, in some respects, from a conventional and historically predictable character to a character far less conventional. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Re-imagining Classical Monsters)

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17 pages, 1627 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hitchhiking and the Production of Haptic Knowledge

by Jonathan Purkis and Patrick Laviolette

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050116 - 11 Sep 2024

Viewed by 862

Abstract

Overall, the cultural and artistic practices that continue to surround hitchhiking subcultures are largely untapped by serious scholastic research. This paper, deliberately non-linear, explores the haptic dimensions of hitchhiking. We use this mode of travel to make certain observations about our late-modern, or [...] Read more.

Overall, the cultural and artistic practices that continue to surround hitchhiking subcultures are largely untapped by serious scholastic research. This paper, deliberately non-linear, explores the haptic dimensions of hitchhiking. We use this mode of travel to make certain observations about our late-modern, or cosmopolitan age, as well as about some of the subcultures surrounding adventurous, competitive, and alternative transport. The piece is grounded in a form of duo-auto-ethnography, inspired by the experiences of two authors who are well-versed in this practice, but who have still not met in person. The paper argues that one of the main lessons to arise from the era of mass hitchhiking during the mid-twentieth century is that the types of sensory knowledge acquired and passed on by hitchhikers themselves are unique in their spatio-temporal potential for being imaginatively transformed into tools for shaping wider socio-political projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Phenomenology of Travel and Tourism)

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19 pages, 315 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“And What If You Can’t Forget It? … What If It Stays in Your Head, Repeating Itself … ?”: Reading Chuck Palahniuk’s Horror Trilogy (Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted) for Obsessions and Compulsions

by Steve Van-Hagen

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050115 - 11 Sep 2024

Viewed by 753

Abstract

This essay argues that one of the distinguishing characteristics of Chuck Palahniuk’s self-described “Horror Trilogy” of novels, Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted, is their representation of obsessions, compulsions, and obsessive–compulsive disorders. This essay analyses these representations from a variety of different [...] Read more.

This essay argues that one of the distinguishing characteristics of Chuck Palahniuk’s self-described “Horror Trilogy” of novels, Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted, is their representation of obsessions, compulsions, and obsessive–compulsive disorders. This essay analyses these representations from a variety of different perspectives, including medical and psychiatric approaches, clinical and self-help narratives, and biocultural readings emanating from cultural history and critical disability studies. It is demonstrated that the novels reflect a range of the debates that arise from these competing approaches, and the points of similarity and difference in the readings produced are identified. Palahniuk’s representations, it is suggested, must be seen in the contexts of a number of his recurrent thematic preoccupations, and of his engagement with existential comedy. Ultimately, this essay suggests that Palahniuk’s representations of obsessions, compulsions, and OCD must be seen as multi-faceted and protean, as befitting the awareness of the complicated current debates about their conceptualisation that the novels display. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature and Medicine)

12 pages, 239 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Prague-Frankfurt Orient Express: Eschatology, New Humanism, and the Birth of Dialogical Thinking

by Baharak Beizaei

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050114 - 6 Sep 2024

Viewed by 766

Abstract

The Prague Circle, under the leadership of Max Brod (1884–1968), was a prominent literary group that flourished from 1900 to 1939. This era witnessed a struggle between emancipation and assimilation for German-speaking Jews within the Habsburg and German Empires. The Prague literati possessed [...] Read more.

The Prague Circle, under the leadership of Max Brod (1884–1968), was a prominent literary group that flourished from 1900 to 1939. This era witnessed a struggle between emancipation and assimilation for German-speaking Jews within the Habsburg and German Empires. The Prague literati possessed a unique capacity for Dialogfähigkeit, which played a crucial role in safeguarding them against aggressive nationalism. The Patmos Circle, led by Martin Buber (1878–1965) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929), transformed this readiness for dialogue into dialogical thinking: a distinct capability and an action-plan to combat the prevailing forms of confessionalism and nationalism during that period. Taking the concept of Dialogfähigkeit as a crucial cornerstone of Prague and Patmos literary groups, this paper analyzes some of the key moments in its development. The aim of this paper is to highlight a certain cross-pollination of ideas between the Prague and Patmos groups without arguing for explicit vectors of influence between them. This article places the Patmos Circle in its proper context through an examination of their publication, the quarterly magazine Die Kreatur (1926–1930). By focusing on the concept of New Humanism and the end of history, this research will analyze two modernist masterpieces authored by members of the Patmos Circle: Karl Barth’s Römerbrief (1919) and Franz Rosenzweig’s Der Stern der Erlösung (1919). Through a study of the evolution of dialogical thinking within the Patmos Circle, I contend that the term “circle” is more appropriate than “school” to describe such associations, as it acknowledges the diverse and overlapping group interests that united its various members. What distinguishes the Patmos group from the literary-aesthetic circles in Prague is their commitment to eschatology within a critique of progress and their pursuit of a New Humanism based on the value of dialogue as a vital occurrence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prague German Circle(s): Stable Values in Turbulent Times?)

14 pages, 289 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Humanist Anecdotes in Hard Times: F. C. Weiskopf and Lenka Reinerová

by Ernest Schonfield

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050113 - 3 Sep 2024

Viewed by 599

Abstract

This article examines humanist anecdotes about the turbulent times of the mid-twentieth century by F. C. Weiskopf and Lenka Reinerová. It provides a comparative reading of Weiskopf’s Elend und Größe unserer Tage. Anekdoten 1933–1947 (1950) and Reinerová’s “Tragischer Irrtum und richtige Diagnose” (published [...] Read more.

This article examines humanist anecdotes about the turbulent times of the mid-twentieth century by F. C. Weiskopf and Lenka Reinerová. It provides a comparative reading of Weiskopf’s Elend und Größe unserer Tage. Anekdoten 1933–1947 (1950) and Reinerová’s “Tragischer Irrtum und richtige Diagnose” (published in Mandelduft, 1998). The anecdotal form of these texts harks back to the popular Enlightenment (Volksaufklärung) anecdotes of Heinrich von Kleist and Johann Peter Hebel, published in 1810–1811 during the Napoleonic Wars. The anecdote as a literary form is particularly well suited to the representation of wartime and political repression. While Weiskopf’s anecdotes explore cruelty and heroism under the Nazi dictatorship, Reinerová’s autobiographical text juxtaposes crisis points in her own life—her time as a political prisoner in France in 1939 and in Czechoslovakia in 1952–1953; her return to Prague as her family’s sole survivor; and her periodic cancer treatment from 1948 onwards. Reinerová describes how the kindness of ordinary people, and her own optimism and resilience, helped her through the worst times. Her lived experience gives her authority as a storyteller in Walter Benjamin’s sense. Both authors contrast human extremes—the good and the bad—yet both remain optimistic about the human capacity for good. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prague German Circle(s): Stable Values in Turbulent Times?)

23 pages, 315 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lucidity of Space and Gendered Performativity in Arabic Digital Literature

by Manal al-Natour

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050112 - 2 Sep 2024

Viewed by 886

Abstract

This article seeks to examine a new trend in Arabic women’s literature that not only aims to forge women’s communities but also creates resistance. Digital media is the mechanism that some Arab women authors employ to implement and foster a self-authority that acknowledges [...] Read more.

This article seeks to examine a new trend in Arabic women’s literature that not only aims to forge women’s communities but also creates resistance. Digital media is the mechanism that some Arab women authors employ to implement and foster a self-authority that acknowledges flexible identities in an age of revolutions and search for freedom. As a case study, I examine Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Nessayne com and Rajaa Alsanea’s novel Girls of Riyadh, which originally appearing as compendiums, and Ibrahim Alsaqir’s novel Girls of Riyadh: The Complete Picture that comes as a literary response to the resistance of cultural and gender establishments. I suggest that the digital realm provides an arena for women to resist oppressing social establishments and that literary works and digital practices like Alsanea’s create spaces of and for resistance. Moreover, Alsanea’s and Mosteghanemi’s works are committed to promoting change in Arab societies, bridging the public and the private sphere by means of digital content. Arab women writers’ sites and blogs address subjects that challenge prevalent gendered structures in the Arab world, deconstruct cultural norms, give visibility and focus on the implications of gender on memory, love, masculinity and femininity, and sexuality. They do so by employing chats as a narrative technique that engages readers and women’s communities in the characters’ experiences and thereby inviting them to participate in making their work a site of challenge to gender and cultural establishments. As Alsanea’s representations of women subjectivities are uncommon and her characters defy the notion of the universality of woman as a shared gender, they are prohibited, criticized, and challenged. Those who defy gender performativity, such as Alsanea and Mosteghanemi, enact feminist resistance. The study engages with MENA gender and masculinity literature. It is also informed by Judith Butler’s notion of performativity, the construction of gender, and the demystification of the universalistic notion of “woman”. Full article

9 pages, 196 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dickens Lost: A Study on the Spatial Practice in Paul Beatty’s The Sellout

by Ling Wang and Shuangru Xu

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050111 - 30 Aug 2024

Viewed by 756

Abstract

Paul Beatty, as a representative writer of contemporary African American literature, pays close attention to the living space of African Americans, and their inheritance of their own history and culture in his Booker-Prize-winning novel The Sellout. Based on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad, [...] Read more.

Paul Beatty, as a representative writer of contemporary African American literature, pays close attention to the living space of African Americans, and their inheritance of their own history and culture in his Booker-Prize-winning novel The Sellout. Based on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad, this article analyzes how characters draw inspiration from their historical and cultural legacy, compete for their living space, remedy spatial injustice, and obtain their right of habitation in an erased black ghetto of Los Angeles, i.e., Dickens, with an attempt to elucidate the essence of their spatial practices of reinstituting slavery and segregation. It argues that beneath the surface of spatial change lies the pain caused by colonialism, the constraints of existing policies and the struggle of African Americans. Dickens, a seemingly marginal space, is, in effect, a representation of the negligible existence of Black people in America as well as a basis of their identity. By delving deep into the characters’ peculiar spatial practices that deconstruct state-level structural racism, this article demonstrates that Beatty criticizes the history of racial discrimination against Black people, expresses his concerns on the possible vulnerability of contemporary African Americans, and provides a new insight into their survival strategy in the so-called post-racial era. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Literature and World Literature: Toward a Global Cultural Community through a New Cosmopolitanism)

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Humanities, Volume 13, Issue 5 (October 2024) – 32 articles

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