Gaze in Flux

Kad trešnja ocvate i počne listati kao sada, ja se uvijek toga sjetim – pripovijedala je gospođa. Prije trideset pet godina otac je još bio živ, a u obitelji, ako se to može tako nazvati jer sam majku izgubila još prije sedam godina, kao trinaestogodišnjakinja, bile smo samo još mlađa sestra i ja. Imala sam osamnaest godina, a sestra šesnaest kad smo se preselili u prefekturu Shimane, u gradić od dvadesetak tisuća ljudi uz Japansko more u podnožju starog feudalnog dvorca. Moj je otac tu dobio posao ravnatelja niže srednje škole. Kako u samom gradu nismo našli prikladnu kuću, unajmili smo dvije sobe u hramu na periferiji, prema brdima, i tamo smo živjeli šest godina, sve dok otac nije dobio premještaj u školu u gradu Matsue. Udala sam se po dolasku u Matsue, u jesen svoje dvadesetčetvrte godine, što je za ono vrijeme bilo prilično kasno. Premda sam imala mnoge bračne ponude, do udaje mi nije bilo toliko stalo da bih napustila dom jer sam shvaćala da bi se bez mene obitelj potpuno raspal...

The newspapers were heaped up on a low bench, the kind pupils use in the private classes of eccentric schoolmarms. Damata sat reading placidly and without haste. Engrossed in the news, he didn’t notice the maids singing in the kitchen or the kids playing noisy games of hide-and-seek. Each time he sat forward to grab another paper his deck chair groaned like ship’s rigging. The noise was driving him mad. He was sick of telling Bia to get it seen to and she just retorting: “Man, that chair’s fine, Damata.” Such pig-headedness! They’d lived together for years, had a few kids – yet that stubborn way of hers was still an obstacle to their getting properly married. All the same, no good house in Mindelo closed its doors to her, for Nhô Damata was an upstanding man and had recognised their children.From his waistcoat pocket he removed a silver-edged snuffbox. With a sharp tap, he knocked the contents forward before taking a pinch between thumb and forefinger.Good stuff this. He took his snort...

This paper explores how Eurocentric ideas of nationalism and cosmopolitanism differ from Indian thinker and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore’s views and in what ways the intersection between nationalism and cosmopolitanism takes place in his novel The Home and the World (1919), originally published as Ghare-Baire in 1916. The novel will be analyzed mainly through Kai Nielsen’s philosophy of cosmopolitan nationalism (1999) and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s concept of rooted cosmopolitanism (2005). Tagore yearned for the conglomeration of different cultures and despised narrow perspectives on nationalism as constricted by geographical boundaries. As per his humanitarian worldview, he prioritized cosmopolitanism as his forte. The novel does not propose any conflict between ‘the home' and ‘the world'; rather, it suggests a state in which the home and the world would be negotiated to form a harmonious whole. In the Swadeshi period (1905-1911), when the future of Indian self-rule was being mulled ov...

Shannon Hale’s perhaps most famous work, Austenland (2007), is a romance novel centered on Jane Hayes, an Austen aficionado, dissatisfied with her love life. In an attempt to remedy this, she travels to a faux-Regency getaway destination, Austenland. An abundance of regulations and the behavior of Mrs. Wattlesbrook, the owner, create a strictly ruled society. This paper aims to analyze how Austenland’s Pembrook Park represents a society that monitors its subjects by using the concept of the panopticon. Drawing on the theories of Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault, the panopticon will be explained as a system in which subjects are under constant surveillance. The concept will then be applied to Hale’s novel to show why the characters abide by Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s rules even when she is not around, with only minor attempts at rebellion. Thus, the novel shows the effective use of a panoptic system in governing subjects in a given society.Keywords: Austenland, Shannon Hale, panopticon, popu...

Nineteenth-century England demonstrated a peculiar attitude toward the child. On the one hand, eighteenth-century Romanticism had brought about the idea of the Romantic Child, an idealized figure characterized by being inherently pure, innocent, and divine. On the other hand, the child was subject to intense sexualization and objectification, especially the “little girl,” an eroticized figure constructed by sociocultural tendencies and convention rather than being biologically determined, i.e., defined according to her age. The coexistence of these deeply ambivalent ways of perceiving the female child are, in turn, related to restrictive gender norms, with the middle- and upper-class Victorian woman idealized as the ‘angel in the house.’ As these women were expected to be confined to the domestic sphere and educate their children, a cult of childhood arose, along with philosophical incursions into the psychological development of the child. Taking into consideration this context, this ...

Serial ?he Genius of Russian Detection, I. D. Putilin, written by Russian author Roman Lukich Antropov (Roman Dobryi) at the beginning of the twentieth century, undoubtedly falls into the category of detective fiction; however, the titles of its individual instalments, such as The Secrets of Okhten Cemetery, The Bloodsucking Vampires of Petersburg, The Spring of Volga Sectarians etc., suggest a strong influence of Gothic literature. The article aims to expose the presence of Gothic literary devices in Antropov’s stories, including the introduction of supernatural monsters, namely ghosts and vampires, dismal atmosphere, sublime locations, structures, and objects, causing temporal distancing from the present into the past, suspenseful episodes invoking terror, and horror-infusing visualities. Moreover, the article proposes that the intention behind these elements is not merely to complicate the mystery and intensify the reader’s experience but also to convey cultural meaning related to t...