Transversal Textures

Alongside decadent style, form, imagery, and political imagination, decadent subjectivity is one of the defining features of the decadent novel. In Arthur Machen’s texts, various types of decadent characters appear – ranging from occult monomaniacs and cursed men of letters, to hedonists and degenerating youth, all the way to dandies and aesthetes. However, the question arises: are all decadent characters necessarily decadent subjects? This article analyses three dominant types of decadent characters – the Faustian occultist, the flâneur detective, and the martyr of decadence – in Machen’s most well-known decadent works: the novella The Great God Pan (1894) and the novel The Hill of Dreams (1907). It will be demonstrated that while the Faustian occultist and the flâneur detective are undoubtedly constituted as decadent seekers of meaning in modernity, they ultimately do not evolve into reservoirs of decadent antimodernism. On the other hand, the character of the saintly martyr of decad...

In this essay, I examine two premiere national military museums, Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum and Istanbul’s Harbiye Askerî Müzesi, with attention to how each museum renders the legacies of interimperial warfare. In particular, I interrogate the curatorial display of spoils of war and the representation of collective subjects in each museum to argue that they harness and relativize imperial-era violence for the ends of the contemporary nation-state. In the context of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, I focus on the presentation of the Ottomans as definitive enemies of the Habsburgs on the basis of exhibits depicting interimperial battles, especially the 1683 Siege of Vienna. Secondly, I interpret the uncanny relationship between the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian nation-state through the display dedicated to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. With regard to the Harbiye Museum, I focus on the ideological ethnonationalism that saturates the exhibits and t...

This paper brings the analysis of the controversial parts of A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term by Bronislaw Malinowski and Black Notebooks by Martin Heidegger. Although the Polish-British anthropologist and the German philosopher did not influence each other during their lifetimes, they share many characteristics as authors who introduced paradigmatic changes in the field of twentieth-century human sciences. These include spatial displacement woven into their thoughts and theories, an inclination toward family life alongside engagement in polyamory, and posthumously published diaries and personal notes. The latter makes a problematic spot in human sciences as they reveal the racist and even misogynous side of Malinowski and the antisemitic sentiments of Heidegger.Keywords: Malinowski, Heidegger, Black Notebooks, diary, Hutt, Tent“Exterminate all the brutes” is probably one of the most infamous phrases from the novel Heart of Darkness (1899), written by Polish author Józef Teodor ...

Food has a vital role in a person’s life. It provides sustenance and ensures the proper functioning of the mind and body. It has also always had a social role in encouraging interaction and connection. Additionally, many religions relate food and eating to sexuality, as in the Bible or Kama Sutra. Both forms of food symbolism, communality, and sexuality are present in Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020-ongoing), adapted from Julia Quinn’s book series (2000-2013). Famous for being close-knit, the Bridgertons exhibit incessant camaraderie and deep emotional connection. This paper argues that the series often conveys their familial intimacy through food and eating. Moreover, food is used to show romantic connections and conflicts, such as when Daphne and Colin express desire for their respective romantic interests while eating sweets. Likewise, cherries arguably represent Lady Featherington’s daughters’ virginity. Finally, food serves as a powerful symbol of the social status and knowledge availa...

From ancient times, with the adoption of the Chinese cultural framework, to the modern era of introducing Western culture, Japan has defended its cultural boundaries with the image of a distinctive self. This paper will question some of the established interpretations of classical Japanese poetry by examining the thoughts and ideas of the Japanese scholar Kamo no Mabuchi. Mabuchi wrote his most important works during the Meiwa era (1764-1772) and is, among all, famous for his interpretation of Man’yoshu, an ancient collection of Japanese poetry, from which the new Japanese era name Reiwa was recently taken. This paper will attempt to deconstruct some of the mechanisms of how classical Japanese literature and images of the past continue to be used as a means of “nation-building” in times of crisis.Keywords: Man’yoshu, kokugakusha, Kamo no Mabuchi, Reiwa, Japanese nationalismJapan uses eras, or nengo (??), as part of its traditional calendar system. Although the Gregorian calendar is off...

In this article, I am interested in exploring issues of solastalgia and climate anxiety and how overcoming these emotions leads to the establishment of posthuman agency in Jeff VanderMeer’s ontologically multifaceted novel Borne (2017). I argue that the circumstances of ecological grief can be transformed into an inclusive form of materialist entanglement and intra-active agency, which can eventually create optimal conditions for cross-species understanding. Divided into two core sections, the article first delineates the concept of solastalgia and its dynamics of addressing environmental doom. Through specific textual examples, it examines the conditions of climate anxiety experienced by Rachel, the central protagonist of VanderMeer’s novel, and, secondly, it substantiates how Rachel, by the end of the novel, transforms her solastalgia into an emancipating weapon that helps her, along with Borne as a nonhuman companion, to re-establish a symbiotic relationship with the newly emerging ...