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Humanities

Humanities is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the meaning of cultural expression and perceptions as seen through different interpretative lenses. Humanities is published bimonthly online by MDPI.

Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, ESCI (Web of Science), ERIH Plus, and other databases.
Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 32.4 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 5.9 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2024).
Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.

Impact Factor: 0.3 (2023)

Imprint Information Journal Flyer Open Access ISSN: 2076-0787

Latest Articles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

18 pages, 284 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Considerations on the Setting of Cervantes’s Captivity Narratives

by Jae Won Chang

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050110 - 27 Aug 2024

This study aims to explore the issues of Islamophobia and Christian ideology prevalent in Spanish society in the 16th and early 17th centuries by examining the slave trade conducted by Barbary corsairs and the hard lives of Christian captives depicted in the literary [...] Read more.

This study aims to explore the issues of Islamophobia and Christian ideology prevalent in Spanish society in the 16th and early 17th centuries by examining the slave trade conducted by Barbary corsairs and the hard lives of Christian captives depicted in the literary works of Miguel de Cervantes, and to highlight his efforts to overcome the clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam. To achieve this goal, first, the study delves into the historical context of the clash between Spain and Islam in the Mediterranean during the 16th century. Cervantes, who took part in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, was captured by Barbary corsairs on his return from military service and spent five years as a captive in the Bagnio of Algiers. The painful experience left indelible marks on his works. This study focuses on the dual meaning of Orientalism in his works. One prevalent form of Orientalism in Spain and Europe during that period portrayed Muslims as barbaric and anti-Christian. However, Cervantes presented an alternative Orientalism to propose a pathway to co-existence, rather than conflict, between civilizations and religions. Therefore, this study explores how Cervantes, even though he himself was a victim of the clash of civilizations, sought to overcome the confrontations and conflicts in his works, rather than perpetuating the prevalent Islamophobia of his time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Early Modern Literature and the Mediterranean Slave Trade)

17 pages, 300 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Contrapasso, Violence, and Madness in Dante’s The Divine Comedy and Westworld

by Alexander Eliot Schmid

Humanities 2024, 13(5), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050109 - 23 Aug 2024

The medieval epic poem, The Divine Comedy, and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s prestige drama, Westworld, have more in common than at first meets the eye. Both represent hellish and purgatorial geographies, both physical and psychological. And both share the view [...] Read more.

The medieval epic poem, The Divine Comedy, and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s prestige drama, Westworld, have more in common than at first meets the eye. Both represent hellish and purgatorial geographies, both physical and psychological. And both share the view that what is regularly considered “perfect liberty”, or the liberty to indulge in any and every desire one wishes to with impunity, is in fact a form of slavery, as argued by Aristotle. Both the denizens in Dante’s Inferno and the guests in Westworld’s park, therefore, are ensnared by their own desires. This article will consider the structure of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s hit HBO show Westworld, which I will argue takes parts of its structure consciously from Dante’s The Divine Comedy. And though at the outset, the two works of art appear dissimilar, the theologically and philosophically infused medieval Catholic-Italian poetry of Dante and the sensuous, nihilistic, and provocative story-telling of Jonathan Nolan’s recent work on the generation and expression of consciousness, ultimately what they share is similarity in structure and an agreement on the connection between activity, suffering, madness, perfection, consciousness, and freedom of the will from sin. Full article

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

15 pages, 800 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Transcendence in Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s Embodied Confucianism from the Perspective of Cultural Community

by Yingli Zhou, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas and Gaowei Li

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 108; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040108 - 20 Aug 2024

The concept of cultural community has been firstly or more obviously embodied in the works of the minority/minoritized literature or writers from marginalized countries and approached from different perspectives, such as small and enduring spiritual bonds, aspiration and an ideal, or self-deconstruction due [...] Read more.

The concept of cultural community has been firstly or more obviously embodied in the works of the minority/minoritized literature or writers from marginalized countries and approached from different perspectives, such as small and enduring spiritual bonds, aspiration and an ideal, or self-deconstruction due to heterogeneity, conflict, and difference. However, most researchers explore the cultural community in the works of merely one racial group, such as American Indian, Chinese, Korean, or African. There has been comparatively little research on the construction of a cultural community across races. Focusing on Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming’s embodied Confucianism, two cultural movements that fully embody a “new cosmopolitanism” and have the potential to dialog and complement each other, this study compares the views of transcendence of these two philosophies in terms of sense, the ultimate goal, orientation of time, vehicle for realization, and thinking pattern in the hope of the construction of a Sino-African cultural community, which reflects mutual understanding, coexistence, harmony without uniformity, and the contact, conflict, and intermingling of heterogeneous cultures. 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, 229 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“And the Script Sounds”: Literary Hermeneutics and Imaginary Listening

by Rolf J. Goebel

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040107 - 19 Aug 2024

Friedrich Hölderlin’s late hymns Patmos (first version) and Mnemosyne (early draft) create an intriguing tension between the “solid letter” that must be deciphered faithfully and the evocation of a “sounding script” that, together with an equally enigmatic “echo”, refuses direct hermeneutic understanding. At [...] Read more.

Friedrich Hölderlin’s late hymns Patmos (first version) and Mnemosyne (early draft) create an intriguing tension between the “solid letter” that must be deciphered faithfully and the evocation of a “sounding script” that, together with an equally enigmatic “echo”, refuses direct hermeneutic understanding. At the point where the reader’s interpretive desire threatens to fail, musical settings like Peter Ruzicka’s MNEMOSYNE: Remembrance and Forgetting can be listened to as an attempt to actualize what Hölderlin’s original writing must leave unrealizable: the presence of real sound. In this audio-hermeneutic transfer, the act of listening opens up possibilities of the audible that are promised by the literary text without being actualized. The present essay interrogates this intermedial translatability between letter and sound by isolating a few selected passages from the facsimile reproduction of Hölderlin’s palimpsestic manuscript of multiple revisions, as provided by the Frankfurter Ausgabe. Mindful of the discontinuities and gaps in the original poems, my own analysis foregrounds its own fragmentary mode of reading Hölderlin’s poetry and listening to Ruzicka’s music. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hölderlin and Poetic Transport)

13 pages, 231 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Mobility of Identity: The Cosmopolitan Vision in Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life

by Jiameng Xu

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040106 - 16 Aug 2024

Chang-rae Lee, a contemporary Korean-American writer, is renowned in the literary world for his rich imagination, delicate emotional expression, unique transcultural perspective and idiosyncratic narrative technique. He is one of the representatives who succeeds in transcending the classical paradigm of ethnic literature. Cosmopolitanism [...] Read more.

Chang-rae Lee, a contemporary Korean-American writer, is renowned in the literary world for his rich imagination, delicate emotional expression, unique transcultural perspective and idiosyncratic narrative technique. He is one of the representatives who succeeds in transcending the classical paradigm of ethnic literature. Cosmopolitanism stems from ancient Greek philosophy, further developing in the age of Enlightenment and thriving in the era of globalization. Taking close reading as the primary methodology and cosmopolitanism as the major theoretical framework, this research attempts to provide a multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary and in-depth interpretation of Lee’s A Gesture Life, and finds that Lee has expressed his ideal vision that rejects the essentialist paradigm of unchanging cultural identity and upholds cosmopolitanism which embraces cultural diversity and heterogeneity. Additionally, through the depiction of cosmopolitan community, Lee has expressed his expectation for peaceful coexistence, communal solidarity, and mutual assistance among various ethnicities, and he has visualized a picture that different ethnic groups engage in transcultural communication in a harmonious way. In conclusion, A Gesture Life has widened the boundaries of Korean-American literature, and the cosmopolitan vision in the text has contributed to the development and prosperity of American ethnic literature. Full article

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

16 pages, 321 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The “Final Rays” of a Setting Sun: Lenka Reinerová and the Legacy of “Prague German Literature”

by Markéta Balcarová

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 105; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040105 - 14 Aug 2024

Lenka Reinerová is considered a contemporary witness of both the 20th and 21st centuries and the last German writer in Prague. Indeed, she is the last known prose writer from Prague who wrote in German and boasts a long list of famous predecessors, [...] Read more.

Lenka Reinerová is considered a contemporary witness of both the 20th and 21st centuries and the last German writer in Prague. Indeed, she is the last known prose writer from Prague who wrote in German and boasts a long list of famous predecessors, such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, E. E. Kisch and others. Interestingly, Reinerová did not only earn a place among the Prague German literature writers because of her mother tongue. In her memoirs, she also engages with literary and academic discourse on the German-language literature coming from Prague. The following article aims to describe this continuity in more detail. Full article

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

20 pages, 4297 KiB

Open AccessArticle

‘After All the Years of Separation’: Musically Representing Author L.M. Montgomery’s Suspended Romances

by Merri Bell

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040104 - 11 Aug 2024

Canadian author L.M. Montgomery did not set out to write stories about romance. As she indicated in her journals, she wrote character-driven stories of young girls navigating their way through girlhood. However, she understood that the public, and her publishers, expected these girls [...] Read more.

Canadian author L.M. Montgomery did not set out to write stories about romance. As she indicated in her journals, she wrote character-driven stories of young girls navigating their way through girlhood. However, she understood that the public, and her publishers, expected these girls to experience romance that culminated in marriage, following the societal traditions of the time. Montgomery managed this dichotomy by having many characters experience a suspended romance, delaying the romantic aspect of the relationship for as long as possible. Arts-based practice is a mode of analysis and offers the opportunity to find a new way of understanding and communicating Montgomery’s type of suspended romance. Music is, in many ways, considered romantic, so it is an appropriate medium to communicate Montgomery’s romantic narrative structures. This paper investigates Montgomery’s use of suspended romance in her novels and how this delay provided her characters with time to develop other areas of their lives. An arts-based methodology was used to identify and analyse recurring themes in Montgomery’s work, as the question is not can Montgomery’s theme of romance be musically represented but how. The result of this creative experimentation is a new musical composition that articulates these suspended romances using six different musical devices. This creative work exemplifies the intertextual link that exists between Montgomery’s work and new musical compositions. Full article

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

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13 pages, 317 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cosmopolitanism Reinvented: Intercultural Encounters between Sino–African American Intellectuals in Early and Mid-20th Century China

by Xinwen Huang

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 103; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040103 - 9 Aug 2024

Against the backdrop of global decolonization, nationalist movements, and civil upheavals in the early and mid-20th century, a renewed form of cosmopolitanism emerged through the intercultural encounters between African American and Chinese intellectuals. This cosmopolitan ideal was cultivated and embodied by these two [...] Read more.

Against the backdrop of global decolonization, nationalist movements, and civil upheavals in the early and mid-20th century, a renewed form of cosmopolitanism emerged through the intercultural encounters between African American and Chinese intellectuals. This cosmopolitan ideal was cultivated and embodied by these two historically, culturally, and geographically distinct communities and ultimately exerted lasting influences on a global scale. Despite initially perceiving China as a distant Other, African American authors such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois made their journeys to China in search of cultural inspiration for literary creations and social endeavors. While actively promoting the works of African American authors in China, the Chinese intellectual community in turn viewed the African American people as the Other Self and potential allies in international affairs. Mutual understanding and appreciation were pursued from both sides, leading to a co-reinvention of cosmopolitan ethos. By delving into the interconnected narratives, this article seeks to elucidate the nuanced dynamics and reciprocal influences that characterized the Sino–African American intellectual relationships in the context of international solidarity, decolonization, and the quest for social justice in the early and mid-20th century. 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, 326 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analogical Perspective from “Shengsheng” Philosophy on Virginia Hamilton’s Survival Writing in M.C. Higgins, the Great

by Huimin Liu

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 102; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040102 - 1 Aug 2024

This article aims at examining Virginia Hamilton’s survival writing in the novel M.C. Higgins, the Great through the analogical lens with the traditional Chinese philosophy of “shengsheng (生生)”. Current research on Hamilton’s survival writing has ignored the cosmological aspect. In fact, what [...] Read more.

This article aims at examining Virginia Hamilton’s survival writing in the novel M.C. Higgins, the Great through the analogical lens with the traditional Chinese philosophy of “shengsheng (生生)”. Current research on Hamilton’s survival writing has ignored the cosmological aspect. In fact, what the novel reveals is not limited to the aspects of social and emotional survival, but also the ecological or cosmical co-existence. Considering Hamilton’s global awareness and some similarities between African and Chinese traditions, this article resorts to the cross-cultural reference of the Chinese “shengsheng” philosophy. The concept originating from Xici (《系辞》), the commentaries on Zhouyi (《周易》), is well known for its wisdom on how all things in the universe can be born and how they can coexist, and thus it can be drawn upon for exploring Hamilton’s survival writing. Specifically, this article takes a comprehensive analogical examination and discussion of the four aspects, namely, shengsheng virtue (生生之德), shengsheng affect (生生之情), shengsheng disposition (生生之性), and shengsheng fate (生生之命). This is to supplement the covering of Hamilton’s survival writing and to enlarge the interpretation of Hamilton’s works with philosophical and cosmopolitan visions. 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, 550 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Between Sensibility and History: The Count de Rethel (1779) by Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

by Hélène Vidal

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040101 - 26 Jul 2024

The Count de Rethel: An Historical Novel (1779) can be ascribed to Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) as a translation of Anecdotes de la cour de Philippe-Auguste (1733) by Marguerite de Lussan. The action is set at the court of Philip II [...] Read more.

The Count de Rethel: An Historical Novel (1779) can be ascribed to Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) as a translation of Anecdotes de la cour de Philippe-Auguste (1733) by Marguerite de Lussan. The action is set at the court of Philip II of France, known as Philip Augustus, at the time of the war with King Henry II and the Crusade with Richard I, known as the Lionheart. This inspired revival of fictionalised medieval history heralding romanticism in the age of sensibility refashions the codes of chivalry according to the aesthetics of the second half of the eighteenth century. This essay focuses on the interplay between fiction and history, between the present of writing and the rewriting of history through Cavendish’s translational prism, featuring the Middle Ages as a golden age of heroism and the Count de Rethel as a paragon of ancient virtue set against contemporary men of fashion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Eighteenth-Century Novel and History)

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11 pages, 248 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“Except for This Hysteria, She Is the Perfect Woman”: Women and Hysteria in An Inconvenient Wife

by Nina Marie Voigt

Humanities 2024, 13(4), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040100 - 25 Jul 2024

Historical fiction can be understood as a hybrid space: it represents the past and simultaneously allows a consideration of the culture it is written in. Under the assumption that novels help address cultural shifts and attitudes, this paper aims to investigate how, why, [...] Read more.

Historical fiction can be understood as a hybrid space: it represents the past and simultaneously allows a consideration of the culture it is written in. Under the assumption that novels help address cultural shifts and attitudes, this paper aims to investigate how, why, and with what implications medical discourses surrounding women are depicted in fiction. This paper explores the manifold conceptualizations of hysteria in An Inconvenient Wife written by Megan Chance in 1998, arguing that the novel presents a complex view of discourses of medicalization. Its central claim is that the novel constructs hysteria not only as a tool of oppression but also as a tool with which to escape social constraints and patriarchal control. Through understanding historical fiction as not merely commenting on the past, but as addressing contemporary issues, the text adds to discussions centering on intersections of medicine and literature. Full article

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

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