University of Zadar | eISSN 1847-7755 | SIC.JOURNAL.CONTACT@GMAIL.COM
Editorial
It is likely that anyone who encounters the term otherness for the first time would think it describes something different from us and yet akin to us. And they would be right, just as they would simultaneously be wrong. Otherness is an exceptionally complex term, which cannot be understood separately from the idea of the self. When we want to articulate who is, to us, the other, we also have to articulate who is their opposite – the latter being us. Therefore, when speaking of the other, we inevitably speak of ourselves. The coupling of terms myself/other was mentioned already by Hegel, who emphasized that the identification of the Other enabled the synthetization of one’s own identity (112). The Other (who is often identified within ethnic, racial, religious, geographical, and many other cultural and social categories) functions as a mirror. For Georg Simmel, for example, the Other is more than a stranger who is either close to or distant from us. The Other is an element that can simultaneously be a member of the group, outside of it, and in a confrontation with it (144). For Emanuel Levinas, the Other is what I am not. It is identified as one similar to us, but also different and extraneous. Precisely this extraneousness, which Levinas also refers to as alterity, illuminates a subject’s path toward himself by demonstrating that which is intrinsic – where he belongs (43, 48). By identifying the Other, a person or a group is labeled in a process in which we construct our own roles, our position within the society, and the meaning of ourselves. To have an Other is essential to creating an identity, for by identifying the Other, we facilitate the understanding of that which is “here” and that which is “there” because, as Antony Smith emphasized, identity is not created merely from one’s own experiences, memories, and myths, but through positioning oneself in relation to the collective identities of Others (11-36, 43). This process of synthetization of one’s own identity consists of forming an awareness of an in-group, which is based on a necessary delimitation toward an out-group. ...
This text discusses the discursive construction of the body of a woman/witch as a threatening Other under Article 60 of the Criminal Practice, which served both as a criminal law and as a criminal procedure law in Hungary, and thus Croatia and Slavonia, during the period of mass witchcraft trials from 1699 to the mid-18th century. Otherness is approached from a psychoanalytic, Lacanian point of view because it opens up the possibility of understanding the collective affective politics of fear as a reflection of the unconscious in the language that created the witch imaginary, which takes its origin from the register of the imaginary and the mirror stage, i.e., in the psychological economy of structuring of the self/ego. The legal procedures that are analyzed in the text as part of the symbolic register seek to socially channel and discipline fear first by inscribing on and into women’s bodies various deviations and transgressions of the human, which are then entirely annulled through d...
All narratives of Caryl Phillips present prolific ground for research in spatial literary studies. Phillips’s “Heartland,” the focus of this paper, deals with the mechanics of Britain’s enslaving past. The narrator is an anomalous character who stands at the borderline between two multiplicities and takes part in the social deterritorialization process of the absolute anomalous or, to say, a perpetual outsider, the slave, who loiters without a safe anchorage. The process of social deterritorialization necessitates the eradication of all beacons of geographical, familial, tribal, linguistic, and cultural belonging. The process of social deterritorialization necessitates the eradication of all beacons of geographical, familial, tribal, linguistic, and cultural belonging. This then requires a more stratified understanding and evaluation of the slave-making process as well as a critical reading of narratives of slavery such as “Heartland.” This paper, therefore, aims to construct a multifo...
The article presents an overview and analysis of the five existing Croatian translations of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, including two integral translations (Ivan Krizmanić, 1827; Mate Maras, 2013) and three partial ones (Pasko Antun Kazali, mid-19th century; Hugo Badalić, 1896-97; Antun Šoljan 1962, 1980). In addition to providing five diverse Croatian interpretations of Paradise Lost, an English and international classic, these five renderings reflect various tendencies and developments within Croatian literary culture and particularly those that affected its translation practices in different periods.Keywords: John Milton, Paradise Lost, Croatian translations, Hugo Badalić, Pasko Antun Kazali, Ivan Krizmanić, Mate Maras, Antun ŠoljanIn Croatian culture, John Milton is esteemed as an undisputed English, European, and world literary classic, even though he is not counted among the most popular and influential anglophone (canonical) authors, which include – first and foremost – William...
U mom gradu sigurno niste bili, ali znate taj tip. Izlaz s autoceste, industrijska zona, kino s pet dvorana, kilometar kvadratni grada nakrcan stoljetnim pabovima. Atlantik je blizu; blizu je kvrgava čeljust obale s rtovima pod vječitom najezdom galebova. Ljetne večeri; miris balege naliježe na pašnjake okolnih naselja dok ravnodušni volovi podižu glave da bolje osluhnu riku friziranih jurilica koje klinci ganjaju zabačenim cestama.Mlad sam, a nas mladih ovdje nema mnogo, pa se može reći da se sve nas pita. Nedjelja je. Gotov je vikend, taj trodnevni festival drobljenja. Nedjelja je dan pročišćenja i kajanja; dan omekšanih lubanja, uzburkanih želudaca i šupljih obećanja da se više nikada, ali nikada nećemo tako razvaliti. Veseli te što dan ide svome kraju prije nego što je uopće počeo. Osam sati već je odavno prošlo, ali vani se još nije smračilo; topla svjetlost prožeta je onom ugodnom melankolijom koja prati srpanjske večeri na zapadu. Sa mnom za stolom, u prostoru za pušače vani pre...
I have never yet written
I’ve only scribbled this or that nor was it ever true
I now can write and can see, what it is.
True.
Such truth as is reality itself, like that which is not like itself
A mathematical dream:
An absolute good. On the cube.
Now I will write no more, I’ll merely jeer.
Jeer even Anatole France himself and I surely can write yet surely more can cry and even more can endure... if someone requires it of me.
It bothers me greatly that there is no reasoner... measurer.
Since I cannot write poetry
I’m trying it more often. Perhaps then it will be beautiful
The way kitsch was, like an alien continent,
Where never before have I walked and yet
Have led there among great dangers... others
And could do it bravely.
And on a little branch I walked there myself.
I’ve just seen it. It was not a joy ride, just
what was shown to me by those fevered, willing friends
Since then I’ve feared having a passion.
Like cocaine. Like this familiar moment (?)...
Hypnotized. Useful. Custom-made.
when we were astronauts in training
we spun around at a breakneck speed
in a shining sphere in the dark
until our eyes ended up
on the other side of everything
when we were cosmonauts in training
we had to endure with a smile
the pin that pricked the left side of our chests
the pin that bore the badge of a hero
combusting in flames
somewhere far away
when we were astronauts in training
our lady friends
our future wives had to smile and
tap their fingers on a burnt down cigarette
their hands, red nails and
the soft arm of a child intertwined
when we were cosmonauts in training
we had to sing with others
eat with the chosen ones and dance as if
we’re already floating in a capsule
through the depths of dark
when we were astronauts in training
we were told we must believe
in ourselves and the future that was already there
that we had to go out there
that we were the best of all of those
who stood around us and now clapped
we climbed the cross alone
that’s how mad we’d gone
when we were cosmonauts in training
good old earth do not cry we said
good old earth do not be afraid
the days passed oh
stay put do not budge
this is between us and the future
between our capsule swirling
along the edge of what
can only mean
you’ll never see us again
when we were in training
we drove in the sun
by the lake where the fishermen cast their
shoulders into the sludge
and muddy waters
through the crowns in which the dry leaves
quivered
when we were in training
we were already dying of boredom and the prospect
of chasms in our lives
we found ourselves beside
a very old dog
it’s Rufus you said
it’s Laika
I tried to cheer you up
and then came a woman strapped with a bomb
stood between us and set herself off
the vacuum sucked up all the bloom
all the sudden future and our running had to stop
when we were astronauts in training
when we were cosmonauts in training
the training lacked something
only the ferns grew around us
as we sat back into the evening splattered
with mud
large concrete blocks crumbling down
and a cloud of dust and ashes rising into a very dark night
and then came a woman strapped with a bomb
with a fair face and a fixed gaze
she set herself off
and so it goes on for this whole afternoon
the night
the uncertain morning in a vacuum
Rufus has lost a leg
Laika is dead
we have to accept it
while on our faces
in the dust the bluish images flash
the flame and great clouds
of ashes rise up in the end
into that vast space
and finally finally
