Lively Histories

In this paper, I will refer to the Malaysian Migrant Worker and Refugee Poetry Competition and the subsequent collection of the selected entries entitled Voices of the Displaced. I will contend that this opportunity of showcasing the literary and cultural agency of traditionally peripheral migration in Malaysia is effectively instrumental in generating an alternative perspective in addressing the existing discourse of migration and diaspora. Therefore, I will propose that the notion of “local modernities,” as professed by Bill Ashcroft, is an appropriate articulation in order to locate this contemporary cultural contingency. Consequently, I will attempt to argue that the emerging diasporic interspaces of local modernities in Malaysia are capable of not only creating shifting spaces and practices where participatory negotiation of sameness and difference can be sustained, but also of initiating a polylogue that represents the distinctive divergences.Keywords: migration, diaspora, local ...

Contemporary Austrian novels with a family theme go beyond the problematization of two-generational conflicts and tell the story of at least three generations of the family. These are generational novels that often deal with the phenomenon of crisis and the collapse of the family as a result of the crisis. The paper shows that historical caesuras run through the generational novel, showing the causes and consequences of major socio-political changes on the family, which is the basis for all family conflicts in the novel Es geht uns gut (We’re Doing Fine) by Austrian writer Arno Geiger. The approach to the topic begins with a conceptual definition of the crisis and the family, and a reflection on their interconnectedness. When it comes to crisis, the starting point is that it requires a reaction within the community, and that the lack of an appropriate response leads to disintegration; in this particular case it concerns the family but can be reflected in the wider society. The aim of t...

Recent years have witnessed the trend that comedy studies combine with what were once considered separate disciplines, such as translation studies. Nevertheless, few studies have been conducted to investigate the linkages in the areas of comics studies and comedy studies. Rewriting Humour in Comic Books: Cultural Transfer and Translation of Aristophanic Adaptations, which is part of the series of Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, timely fills the gap by excavating humor in comic book adaptations of Aristophanes’s comedies.The book is composed of six chapters, including an introduction (chapter 1), a main body of 4 chapters, and a conclusion (chapter 6), together constituting a theoretically rich and empirically rigorous study. The first chapter starts by stressing that Marvel Comics may use humor for branding purpose, considering that humor is something memorable that readers are instinctively willing to appreciate and share. The author then explains why he chooses the ...

Knjiga Ant Spider Bee: Chronicling Digital Transformations in Environmental Humanities istodobno obuhvaća dva nova, zanimljiva i drugačija područja humanistike – digitalnu i ekološku/okolišnu humanistiku. Budući da su dva navedena polja veoma kompatibilna i popularna, očekivano je da će doći do premrežavanja i prožimanja u novu disciplinu nazvanu digitalna ekohumanistika. Taj se proces i događa kroz posljednjih nekoliko godina – projekti poput Digital Environmental Humanities na Sveučilištu McGill u Kanadi, The Digital Environmental Humanities na Sveučilištu Umea u Švedskoj, Environment and Society na Sveučilištu LMU u Münchenu itd., zatim počeci sveučilišne nastave iz digitalne ekohumanistike na spomenutim sveučilištima. Upravo su potonja dva projekta (iz Švedske i Njemačke) iznjedrila blog Ant Spider Bee (Mrav pauk pčela), pokrenut 2011. pod uredničkom palicom trojca Kimberly Coulter, Wilko Graf von Hardenberg i Finn Arne Jorgensen. Duhovito nazvan prema usporedbi o mravima, paucima ...

Life insecurity and precariousness caused by neoliberal capitalist activities as well as the consequences that are felt worldwide as global crises (environmental, economic, migrant, health crisis) have a great impact on people and their sense of living a viable life, a “life that is worth of living.” These circumstances create new forms of life – a life without the promise of stability and without a sense of security. However, with the feeling of insecurity, the promotion of anti-stress activities grows, such as outdoor activities (hiking, walking in nature, running, visiting nature parks, etc.). In this text, inspired by affect theories (Berlant, Ahmed) we analyze different perceptions of nature landscapes (mountains, nature parks in Croatia). We ask: how “nature” is experienced in a social atmosphere marked by different crises and which possibilities emerge from different imaginaries about nature.Keywords: historical present, perception of nature, social atmosphere, consumerism

This article aims to identify conceptual metaphors in the Middle English text of The Miller’s Prologue and The Miller’s Tale and to find their equivalents in the Croatian translation done by Luko Paljetak, in order to deduce which metaphors are conventional in both languages and cultures. The investigation of conventionality will be based on the comparison of source concepts in English and Croatian linguistic expressions used in conceiving of metaphorical targets. Metaphors in both languages will be classified according to their cognitive function into structural, ontological, and orientational, which will appoint to the type(s) of metaphors with the greatest and smallest amount of overlapping. Finally, the analysis will lead to the conclusion whether the differences in metaphor usage in two languages are the consequence of cognitive differences between their speakers or the consequence of socio-cultural development that took place in the period of about 600 years which have passed bet...