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Editorial
Non-thematic issues always represent a challenge, mostly premised on defining and constructing a subtle thread that would, at least apparently, unify all of the numerous submitted papers, thoughts and opinions about a variety of different subjects. Sometimes the final product, the metaphoric body of our journal, is a harmonious and perhaps even optimistic reading of cultural, social and literary phenomena, while on some other occasions the projected and articulated themes and ideas tend to be a bit harsher, stronger and more explicit in their nature. Such is the issue in front of you; in spite of the cheerful and celebratory time of the year, the segment dedicated to culture and literature is defined by the somewhat gloomy overtones of the presented ideas, merging silently with the foreboding shadows and the unfriendly figure insidiously dominating our cover. However, the articulated themes and analyses, while inclined toward the darker states and altered perceptions of reality, still form a rich tapestry of research and scrutiny, actively and significantly contributing to contemporary debates on the subjects at hand....
12when traveling to Saint Isidore3behead the enemy without faltering4his offspringeven in his divinity5The witches convenethe over fifty-inch distance across67where only the eyes can be seen8to isolation at Quinta del Sordoand perhaps, with the precious Leocadia9The shadows could not leave him10that created the fourteen picturesWhat the paintbrushes insisted onfrom everyone11from the same book appears not to have time1213The hands were tiedClotho, Lachesis, Atropos14
This paper examines the young heroine’s ambivalent relationship with books in Doris Lessing’s coming-of-age novel Martha Quest. Martha, a young British girl growing up in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the wake of World War II, is a voracious young reader who reads extensively in order to make sense of the world in which she is living. Sometimes the books she reads lead her to think critically and challenge the canonical authorities and patriarchal society; however, at times her reading experience is also unsettling and frustrating because the books she reads are mostly produced within a biased system she intends to go beyond. The paper analyzes how Martha relies on books to reshape her national identity and personal life, and how she deals with the discrepancy between the world represented in books and reality in terms of Benedict Anderson’s concept of an ‘imagined community’. Furthermore, this paper also discusses how Martha’s portrait as a bewildered reade...
Princeze nikada ne umiru. Udaju se i žive sretno do kraja života. "Ideja će mi sinuti kad se najmanje budem nadala", kaže Alice, "uvijek je tako. Neću očajavati." Upravo sjedi na kauču držeći bilježnicu u rukama u koju je trenutak prije, velikim štampanim slovima na vrhu lista, upisala "ideje za Afonsov rođendan". Pažljivo je povukla pet strelica i svaku označila brojem. Poslije toga nije napisala više ništa. Ovo je već sedmi popis koji radi otkako je sjela. Pogleda uprta prema dnevnom boravku, oko kažiprsta lijeve ruke mota plamen jarkoplave kose, kao u lutke."Kako se to smišlja neka ideja", upita se šapatom koji je uvježbala još u mladosti, "kako?"
The limitations of Chinese transcription and the domination of Chinese scripts in print cause a difficulty in reflecting the otherness of Chinese foreign terms in English. The discrepancy among Chinese dialects has also brought about challenges. A novel form of translating Chinese foreign terms in The Joy Luck Club was invented in order to improve the representation of otherness. Since the publication of the first Chinese version of the novel, better results have been demonstrated in more recent retranslations of The Joy Luck Club. Fewer deletions and less mistranslation indicate an improvement in the latest retranslations in comparison to the older versions. On the basis of a result-oriented analysis, supported by data and real-time reading experience, this study discusses linguistic and non-linguistic factors in translating Chinese foreign terms in English in The Joy Luck Club into five Chinese and one Japanese version. Reflecting otherness can provide an accurate translation whereas...
In this article we analyze the novel Waiting for the Barbarians, by the South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee. We read the novel from the perspective of some ethical insights of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, associating them with the emphasized domination of the political in the novel. In this unequal relationship, however, political domination gradually cedes place to the ethical doing, the beginning of which is marked by aporia, that is, by an attempt to reconcile two irreconcilable perspectives: that of loyalty to political authority and that of individual responsibility for the other human being. When the latter takes place, the main character – the unnamed Magistrate – becomes an ethical subject. But this is not an easy process, and in order for this to happen, he must experience physical pain and risk his own life. In doing so, he undergoes the journey from a position of political power to complete disempowering. However, taking responsibility for the other is a much ...
Rape is a crime so close and personal, a trauma so individual, yet an experience so grotesquely impersonal, collective and inherent in our culture that it has a distinct place in the artistic practice of many feminist authors fighting for a voice where the cry had been muffled, refusing to be reframed into another masculinist fantasy of violence. Resistance through performance art as a mode of expression, its power and limitations, is what this article attempts to approach and start to untangle. When it comes to the artistic mode that prides itself most on its closeness to life and body – when there is pain, the pain is real – this paper aims to answer the following questions: how does one approach a violent invasion of a person’s body and self in a culture that perpetuates the mass psychology of rape (Brownmiller), and what can it mean to those who stand by and watch? Keywords: rape, feminism, performance art, autobiography, representation, representability, pain
