La Caricature littéraire : L’Éducation sentimentale de Flaubert

Author(s): Cécile Guinand / Language(s): French Issue: 5/2015

In the fictional universe of L’Éducation sentimentale, caricature is practiced in several ways by some characters who design caricatural portraits, play the role of famous caricatural characters and perform literary caricature in their press releases. Present and produced in the fictional universe, Flaubert also integrates it in the narration. He builds a literary caricature on the basis of graphical caricature. Based on the principle of distance, he highlights the gap between the pretensions of the characters and the paltry result of their efforts. He restores the device of the framework of lithography, in which the figures move like puppets, on the model of ball scenes by Gavarni. He then adds a caption that emphasises their comical scope. Finally, he skillfully practices caricatural portrait on the model of Daumier through the accentuation and reduction of traits. Characters and narrator thus fashion and allow a satirical view of society through the use of caricature. However, Flaubert’s "romanesque" poetics aims not to conclude. As such, the sharp judgment specific to caricature is not satisfactory to him. The author will redirect the intention in the wake of Daumier in order to mitigate its satirical scope and develop its ludic aspect. He will thereby superimpose the different voices of the characters to preserve the narrative’s polyphony. Flaubert as well as Daumier take some distance in order to avoid any definitive moral conclusion.

“Things are changing under the skin of England” : Representation of immigrant encounters in Hanif Kureishi’s ‘Borderline’

Author(s): Yağmur Demir / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

This paper analyses Hanif Kureishi’s lesser known play Borderline (1981). In this work, written under the influence of 1980 Southall Riots, Kureishi addresses the problems of immigrants living in England and depicts how the idea of Englishness is challenged by the immigrants who are engaged in racist politics, suffer from identity crisis, and strive to gain a sense of belonging. Both first-generation and second-generation immigrants who are unable to feel the sense of belonging in the host land (England) are depicted as occupying in-between spaces. A portrait of an immigrant Pakistani family, each member of which goes through different stages of adjusting themselves to the society they have joined is presented along with other immigrant characters in the play. To fight with the injustice and racial abuse, a group of second-generation immigrants establish an organisation called Asian Youth Movement. Although it is implied that England and English people are not ready yet to embrace other cultures, immigrants, especially second-generation immigrants, endeavour to make England “habitable.” In the play, Pakistani immigrants are portrayed as subject to certain changes during the integration process, which in the long-term will have permanent effects on English national identity, culture and society. This paper aims to display how immigrants (despite being considered a threat) try to overcome the difficulties they face in the host land, and in the meantime inevitably make a change in the English culture.

Academic (Non)Reading from the Perspective of “User Friendliness:” an Insight from the Fields of the Sociology of Literature and of Multimedia

Author(s): Piotr Toczyski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

This article discusses data that is usually difficult to find but sometimes becomes publicly accessible, facilitating reflection on the current transformation of the humanities within Polish academia. The data was collected during classes at metropolitan universities in 2013, when over 700 students of law and other humanities individually responded to auditorium questionnaires. To account for the results of the study, the researchers suggest the categories of “non-reading” and of “ease of access”. Studies of (non)reading in Poland from 2012 form the backdrop for this investigation.

Where Codes Meet: On the Literary Uses of Iconic Signs

Author(s): Grzegorz Grochowski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Combination of Word and Image has been recently made part of literary works, with increasing frequency (e.g. novel narratives or lyrical monologues). In such cases, image becomes part of the utterance itself, finding a place for itself in a certain sender-receiver relationship arrangement, thus also becoming a pole of various meaning-generating tensions and an integral part of the entire work.The article aims at discussing the role that images, i.e. iconic signs, play in the structure of artistic pieces of this sort. The main focus is on the multiple semiotic games whose basis is the clash of differing sign-based orders, world-representing forms and communicativeconventions. Analysis of selected pieces aims at showing the multiplicity of possible functions ascribed to visual elements as part of verbal text. A comparison of the achievements of a few selected writers is also convincing of how mutually remote positions were assumed by artists against the significative value of iconic sings (from affirmation, criticism, through to problematisation).The condition for the reader to understand the arrangement s/he comes across is, therefore, to find its suspected motivations, to discover the premises providing the grounds for such a course of presentation, and, to formulate a hypothesis restoring the coherency of a text being based upon two incommensurable orders of meaning.

The PRL in Biographies: Preliminary Remarks

Author(s): Grzegorz Wołowiec / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The past of the People’s Republic of Poland still seems to be an incomplete object of the scholarly debate, whose most heated episodes concern the biographies of particular participants of this history. The article discusses the discursive rules which determine the shape of contemporary biographic representations. The author analyses two dominant and conflicting narrative strategies: consensual and antagonistic. He points to their genesis, political pragmatics as well as the outcome for the presentation of history. The biography of Ryszard Kapuściński, written by Artur Domosławski, serves as a case study of extremely difficult conditions of the biographic writing which struggle to transgress the existing interpretative frameworks.

O najstarszych polskich przekładach literatury słowackiej

Author(s): Lucyna Spyrka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2018

Based on J. Jarniewicz’s concept of two types of translator’s attitude: legislator and ambassador, the article concentrates on the reasons behind the oldest Polish translations of Slovak literature: a folk song, part of J. Rostworowski’s novel „Zamek na Czorsztynie”, a novel by J. Kalinčiak „Reštavracia” translated by P. Stalmach and a drama „Matka” by J. Gregor Tajovsky translated by F. Gwiżdż, showing the circumstances of their appearance and the attitudes of their translators.

Patrząc wspólnie w kierunku jedynego Boga

Author(s): / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 1/2018

The Russian Jewish Question, Asked and Answered. Virtual Polemics Between Moisei Berlin and Yakov Brafman in the 1860s

Author(s): Vassili Schedrin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Russian authorities had very limited knowledge of their Jewish subjects. The government relied more on its enlightened perceptions of the Jews and Judaism than on empirical observation. This situation changed radically in the 1860s, when at the onset of the Great Reforms era the government sought full and veritable information about all imperial subjects, including Jews, to facilitate the efficient policymaking by framing and answering Russian Jewish question. As a result, Russian language studies—written by Jews, Russian Christians, and Jewish converts to Christianity—on Judaism, Jewish history, society and culture started to appear. The article focuses on two such studies: Moisei Berlin's Essay on the Ethnography of the Jewish Population in Russia (1861) and Yakov Brafman's Book of Kahal (1869). Virtual polemics between Berlin and Brafman highlights fundamental differences between Russian studies of Judaism and Jewish life and classical Western European Christian Hebraism, namely, Russian scholars’ general lack of interest to the Talmud and to its alleged anti-Christian thrust, and almost exclusive focus on Jewish communal, social, and political institutes—kahal, chavurot (voluntary societies), beit din (rabbinical court) and others—and on their alleged anti-government nature.

The Translation of the New Testament into Hebrew in the Eyes of Franz Delitzsch: Philology, Mission, Theology

Author(s): Eran Shuali / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

In this article, I examine the way in which Franz Delitzsch envisioned his masterpiece translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, first published in 1877. I focus on the aims Delitzsch attributed to his translation and on the way in which the translation project was embedded in the wider views held by Delitzsch as a Hebraist and a theologian. Furthermore, I show how Delitzsch’s conception of his endeavor structured the translation work itself.

The Role of the Jew in Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont’s Adumbratio kabbalae christianae

Author(s): Sheila Spector / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

While the use of the Jews as scapegoats is well documented, less noted is how they have provided a pretext for exploring and writing about heterodoxical ideas that otherwise might cause problems for the author. A case in point is the Adumbratio kabbalae christianae, by seventeenth-century esoteric thinker Franciscus Mercusius van Helmont. Although ostensibly designed to convert the Jews, a close examination reveals that the text was intended to inform like-minded Christians about an esoteric mode of thought that, at the time, was repudiated by Church authorities.

O uchodźcach z Grecji (i nie tylko) na lekcji we współczesnej szkole – „Nowe życie. Jak Polacy pomogli uchodźcom z Grecji” Dionisiosa Sturisa

Author(s): Magdalena Ochwat / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The article refers to the turn of the 1940s and 1950s of the 20th century, when the Greek refugees, the victims of the civil war, arrived in Poland. There were approximately 14 thousands of them. The article author refers to the concept of literature that delights with the good and the school that shapes minds and civic attitudes, which is essential in the contemporary world, marked with migration crises.

„Zebra”, „Opowieści spod oliwnego drzewa” i „Bahar znaczy wiosna” jako nowe propozycje lekturowe o wielokulturowości

Author(s): Lucyna Sadzikowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The article aims at presenting children’s and youth books published in 2013, 2014 and 2015 by the publishing house called ‘Poławiacze Pereł’. The author analyses the content of three short stories: „The Zebra” by Ifi Ude, „Bahar Means Spring” by Agnieszka Aysen Kaim and „Tales Under the Olive Tree” by Aida Amer. The article author presents her considerations on multiculturalism as a subject of Polish education. The students’ comprehension of ‘otherness’ may enable them to respect and accept the differences in race, appearance, religion, behaviour, culture, clothing and preferences.

Tematyka Zagłady na lekcjach polskiego – szansa budowania otwartości

Author(s): Ewa Jaskółowa / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The article author claims that Ida Fink’s „The Journey” can help attract young readers’ attention to the traumatic experiences of Jews during World War II. The analysis of the events described in the novel and, above all, the behaviour of the main character and the narrator, helps to create an understanding and empathic attitude towards the suffering of others. The article author claims that reading texts written by people who survived the Holocaust can initiate reflection that condemns racist and xenophobic behaviour and statements.

Между конфликтите и сътрудничеството: Иван Найденов и Петко Р. Славейков

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

The paper deals with the complex relationship between Ivan Naydenov (1834– 1910) and Petko R. Slaveykov (1827–1895) – two active participants in the struggle for independent Bulgarian Church, establishing the Bulgarian Exarchate, and in the social life in 1870’s. The debates in the newspapers and the collaboration between these two prominent newspaper editors are in the focus of the study. The unpublished letters of Naydenov to Svetoslav Milarov (1849–1892) are among the important sources used in the paper. The research aims at offering a more precise picture of that time and of the attitude towards the so-called “enlighteners”.

Tjetri dhe mrekullia e hutisë: Kamy e Pashku

Author(s): Avdi Visoka / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 35/2017

This paper will examine the concept of the Other in Literature by introducing many cultural, philosophical, religious, ethical, and aesthetic issues. In fact, the Other can be considered in the function of cultural, ethical, ethnic, and social belonging. The perception of the Other is also inseparable from self-construction and personal identity preoccupations, as well as from the construction of relationships with the other:This is a sui generis articulation and self-articulation within illusion, fiction, and reality.The Concept of the Other has a very particular resonance in the novels of Camus (The stranger) and Pashku (Oh). The concept of absurd as a perception of the Other, as an articulation of the self and as a generator of mutual relations makes these authors very special in literature. The examination of convergences and differences in the novels of these authors will shed light thorough this paper by interrogating the lieuxcommuns between Albanian and French literary space, with a special regard to the relationships of us versus them.

Virgjëresha shqiptare, "Tjetri ekzotik" në rrëfimin e Alice Munro-së

Author(s): Edlira Macaj Tonuzi / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 35/2017

The concept of "the other" initially studied in philosophy as a self-reliance (Hegel), as an inter-subjectivity foundation (Husserl), as an inevitable manifestation (J. P. Sartre), as a mythical, historical, sociological approach, where "the other" is the female (S. De Beauvoir); as an opposite part of the self (Lacan), as the other after the other (Derrida) etc., but also studied in the literature, psychology, sociology and culture, has marked its development in several directions. "The other" is considered as the different, the unacceptable, the differentiator, the stranger, etc. depended from the study's point of view, thus generating the meaning that it takes in every case. This paper will examine how the "other", known since at the beginning as an Albanian typical social part (The sworn virgin), becomes a motif of inspiration, cultural lending and transformation in the Alice Munro’s story, gaining so new functions literary motivated. This "other" borrowed from far away, appears as the exotic "other". Taken from a distant reality for her (Munro’s) readers, especially vitalized with its exotically function, this "other" will be discussed in our point of view from a philosophical, moral, sociological and cultural perspective referred to the relevant theories (Derrida, Todorov, Baumann, Jenkins, etc.)The concrete subject of study is: an introduction to the typical sworn virgin as an Albanian social phenomenon. Defining it as "the other" and displaying its integration in the Munro’s text while facing the other culture. The Albanian sworn virgin as the Munro's "Exotic Other".The cultural refraction of this social "other" made by its unique code and recognized in its psychology of the place where it works, comes throughout the fantasy and narrative structures from an author without real contact with the culture from she borrowed the model. Reactivation in the exotically context, of the seduction from the unknown, vocative, etc., becomes a version of connection of time and mankind. It serves to the modern human being to accept and respect the other and it comes to us as a free choice where the literary fantasy disengages the connection from the genesis, and the whole scheme is understood by enriching the meanings that ‘the other’ takes as: the only one-other in relationships with others through differences or similarities.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS FOR IASA 8TH WORLD CONGRESS. Laredo TX, 12–21 July 2017

Author(s): Manuel Broncano Rodríguez / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Laredo is located in the vicinity of the Rio Grande/Bravo, in many senses the epitome of the border, of the frontier, of the “limen” in its etymological sense of “threshold,” “doorway,” or “limit.” The general theme of our reunion was “Marginalia: The Borders of the Border,” and the contributions the IASA members made addressed this theme from multiple perspectives, thus leading to most enriching discussions about one of the most written about topics in the scholarship of the last few decades. Such a topic has rekindled new interest, especially in the light of the recent political transformations in many regions of the globe, which are leading to revived feelings of essentialist nationalism and its atavistic fears of the other, call it the immigrant, the dissenter or, if you want, the barbarian. It is happening in Turkey, it is happening in Poland, it is happening in Britain, it is happening in the US. In this context, borders and walls, both physical and ideological, are being erected once again. Marginalia, in turn, is a Latin term that in its origins referred to the inscriptions that monks and other amanuensis made on the empty space surrounding the body of text inscribed on a parchment. Romance languages are largely the product of marginal inscriptions on Latin manuscripts. Thus, the first manifestations of the Spanish language are found in the glosses that monks scribbled on the margins of those manuscripts to clarify and comment on words whose meaning was already obscure for the medieval reader, and those annotations were made in the new romance language, which was nothing but macaronic Latin. By extension, marginalia refers to those writings that do not belong in the canonical body of works of a culture or civilization, and is close in meaning to apocryphal. Furthermore, it can be understood as referring to the interstices that exist between two or more cultures, nations, or religions. In our usage of the term, marginalia refers to those areas of the world that are populated by displaced or uprooted individuals, limbic spaces in which mere survival may become an illegal activity. The present address seeks to explicate the essence of the basic concepts underlying—and driving—the theme of the Congress.

Методически дейности за развиване на интеркултурната комуникативна компетентност на учениците чрез обучението по български език в първия гимназиален етап

Author(s): Polina Zarkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2019

The present article aims to provide methodological activities of developing students’ intercultural communicative competence in Bulgarian language teaching. The matter of the paper is motivated by the standpoint considering intercultural competence as the key competence of the 21st century. Its leading role is determined by multiligualism and multiculturalism that characterize the world nowadays. To turn youngsters into successful communicators in order to manage the challenges towards them, issued by the modern society, it is necessary for them to develop skills which enable students to participate in intercultural dialogue effectively. The communicatively oriented Bulgarian language teaching has the characteristics needed to make students master intercultural communicative skills.

Kształtowanie tożsamości awatara w grach komputerowych. Studium komputerowych adaptacji „Waldena” Henry’ego Davida Thoreau

Author(s): Izabela Tomczak,Paweł Stachura / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2018

The article discusses possibilities of character building in computer games, which for many gamers is a way of expressing and modifying their own identity. Games differ in the degree of freedom given to a gamer in shaping the identity of the in-game character, or avatar, and in many games avatar-formation is an important part of game structure, providing a lot of game satisfaction, and requiring as much time and involvement as the game-play itself. The games under discussion are adaptations of H.D. Thoreau’s „Walden”. The choice of games stems from the observation that identity, freedom, and limitation are important themes of Thoreau’s work, which is reflected in the games under discussion. The three games discussed in the article are, thus, treated as modernist and postmodernist readings of a literary text, giving the reader/gamer more or less limited possibilities of shaping the character/avatar.

O besmrtnim sijamkama – fikciji i fakciji… i još ponešto o braći po oružju, ne manje smrtno ozbiljnoj

Author(s): Nermin Sarajlić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 21/2015

Zapinje li kome ili ne, svejedno, neće ništa škoditi, da dočara starozavjetni pripovjedni horror dovoljno će biti u sjećanje prizvati Kratki film o ubijanju Krzysztofa Kieslowskog. Kao i onomad u drevno doba Ne ubij se izvrnulo u svoju suprotnost.