Transversal Textures

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 2024, Netflix aired its new addition to the already flourishing genre of dystopian TV series. Ready, Set, Love is a Thai comedy romance show set in a world where an epidemic has all but wiped-out men and lowered the birthrate of baby boys to just 1%, turning men into a coveted treasure. Protected at all times, men live in an isolated area called The Farm, and they find partners via the eponymous dating show. The plot intertwines the love story with a gradual exposure of sinister governmental machinations ubiquitous to dystopia. This article aims to analyze how both the game show and the governmental regime objectify and commodify people to gain commercial profit and biopolitical power. The levels of objectification will be examined through the lens of Marxist postulates and reality television scholarship on the one hand and Foucauldian biopolitics on the other.Keywords: biopolitics, commodification, dystopia, Ready, Set, Love, reality television

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...

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 ...

In recent years, scholarly discourse has extensively examined retranslations, yet non-retranslations have received insufficient attention. The term non-retranslations refers to works in translation that persist in a literary system without undergoing retranslation. This study examines a concise bibliography of non-retranslations to gain a better understaning of the idea and its dynamics within the Turkish literary system. The bibliography of nineteen works by five Nobel laureates examines instances of non-retranslation through Antoine Berman’s notion of “great” translators. Another key notion used in this study is that of non-translation, which is also explored in the works of six modernist authors. Debates on the lack of (re)translation are compared to the significant increase in retranslations during the 2000s. This study’s findings reflect a tendendy that within the translated literary system Türkiye, non-translations and non-retranslations coexist alongside retranslations.Keywords:...

This essay delves into the relationship between legal justice and the lived experience of trauma following sexual violence, using Alice Sebold’s memoir, Lucky, as its central case study. Through a detailed textual analysis of the narrative, this study investigates the efficacy of the judicial system in providing meaningful recourse for rape survivors. It examines the journey of seeking legal justice, from the initial reporting of the crime and the subsequent investigation to the emotionally taxing courtroom trial and the ultimate verdict. The analysis pays close attention to the methods employed by defense attorneys, the pervasive influence of societal rape myths on the jury’s perception, and the ways in which the victim’s identity and experiences are scrutinized and often delegitimized within the legal framework (drawing on insights from scholars like Jordan and Rich). Furthermore, the essay extends its scope beyond the courtroom to explore the long-term psychological and emotional af...