Contemporary Stories Research Articles

There's No Place Like Home(land) in American and Soviet Fantasy Cinema of 1939: The Wizard of Oz and Vasilisa the Beautiful

There's No Place Like Home(land) in American and Soviet Fantasy Cinema of 1939: <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> and <i>Vasilisa the Beautiful</i>

Design Techniques for COVID-19 Story Maps: A Quantitative Content Analysis

ABSTRACT Story maps have emerged as a popular storytelling device in recent years with cartographers and journalists leveraging geospatial web technologies to create unique spatial narratives. However, empirical research analyzing the design of story maps remains limited. Two recently proposed design frameworks provide promising avenues to characterize story maps in terms of elements of vivid cartography and techniques of map-based storytelling. In this article, I conducted a quantitative content analysis on 117 story maps of COVID-19 to operationalize map-based storytelling and vividness frameworks and to identify common design traits in contemporary story maps. My findings indicated that most story maps are longform infographics that use scrolling to advance the narrative. Stories applied a variety of attention, dosing, and mood techniques to enrich the storytelling experience. Story maps were primarily vivid through their use of color and novelty. Overall, most story maps utilized only a fraction of the map-based storytelling framework techniques. This research also demonstrated that it is challenging to analyze story maps based on these frameworks. Finally, this article improves the frameworks by proposing two new story map techniques and suggesting avenues of refinement.

Empathy and Narrative: A Discussion of Contemporary Stories from Childcare and Healthcare

In caring professions, such as childcare and healthcare, empathy and narrative underpin important aspects of the emotional work of early childhood educators and nurses (Rogers, Jefferies &amp; Ng, 2022). Unfortunately, they are not given much attention in scholarly articles, but it is important for practitioners to understand them (Barton &amp; Garvis, 2019). This cross-disciplinary paper discusses the virtue of empathy from a philosophical stance, and its relationship to narrative when building shared understandings. There is a sense in which empathy and narrative are interdependent: storytelling helps to cultivate empathy in others, and empathy can be essential if we are to elicit and understand the stories that others have to tell. In fact, when it comes to eliciting and understanding the kinds of stories that are of particular interest for this paper (i.e., the personal stories to be told by young children participating in a research project, and those of patients in a healthcare setting), empathy tends to be especially important. As we argue, these examples drawn from early childhood education and care and healthcare serve to illustrate certain ways in which empathy, storytelling, and the development of shared understandings can be of deep significance; not only for researchers, educators and healthcare professionals, but also for senior administrative and public policy officials.

Social Networking Sites as Contexts for Uses of Narrative: Toward a Story-Critical Approach to Digital Environments

AbstractNarrative theorists have identified the role of social networking sites as elementary in the contemporary story economy. This article argues that they have, however, neglected to treat the sites as part of the digital infraculture which creates blind spots in current analyses of the digital as a context for narrative. The aim is to construct tools for a semiotics of the imperceptible, an approach to analyze the ways in which the digital shapes human agency in dimensions the users cannot directly perceive but which nevertheless affect users’ sense of what is possible for them. The article first reevaluates affordance and affect as concepts to demonstrate digital environments as a new type of context for uses of narrative. It then shows how these concepts can be applied to readings of experientiality and narrativity in digital environments which shape users’ narrative agency on multiple layers. Finally, the article examines how different agencies on these layers can be analyzed within the wider affective logic of the social networking sites. Finally, the article's findings are summarized as a story-critical approach to digital environments, one which accounts for the entanglement of individual agents in collectivities and points the way toward recognizing the ethics of shared responsibility.

Affective legacies: narrating the intergenerational transmission of racial feeling in oral history interviews

ABSTRACT This article explores the concept of affective legacies – the intergenerational transmission of affect through storytelling and embodied performance. I examine affective legacies as embedded in oral history interviews of school desegregation in rural North Carolina and what these oral history interviews teach us about how performances of memory shape our understandings of racism and racial integration as an embodied and affective practice. This study illuminates how affective legacies guide our relations, inform the way we perceive and remember, shaping an emotional meaning-making system that motivates our personal and cultural understandings and judgments as well as contemporary stories of racial struggles.

Covering Copyright: Phil Walden and Jimmy Carter in the Press during the 1976 Presidential Campaign

ABSTRACT Press coverage of the relationship between music executive Phil Walden and President Jimmy Carter focused on issues of popular music law like piracy, payola, and copyright, often insinuating the likelihood of quid pro quos and scandal. This article explores Walden’s meteoric rise, his lobbying for copyright reform, and news coverage of his relationship with Carter. The role of journalism in shaping public perception of the American presidency post-Watergate is considered central to this research. Although there is no evidence of a nefarious motive in Walden and Carter’s relationship, investigating why contemporary news stories were framed in that way can provide an illuminating case study of the ways that politics and popular culture intersect. This specific case demonstrates how legal issues like copyright can take on cultural meaning apart from their statutory power, and how press coverage can affect the negotiation and interpretation of that meaning.

Contemporary Love Stories: Love in the Trap, Hookup, and Consumer Culture

Contemporary Love Stories: Love in the Trap, Hookup, and Consumer Culture

“God’s Stone Has Fallen down from the Sky”: Functions of Oral Stories and Contemporary Dynamics of Local Tradition

This article considers folk ideas about boulders as significant objects of the natural landscape. The article mostly refers to the records made by the authors in 2005 and 2021 in the village of Oshib, Kudymkar District, Perm Region. Although the ethno-local tradition of Oshib was formed in a stable community, it has its own internal dynamics. As a result of this process, the plots of oral stories update and their functions change. The article considers the case of the Oshib stone in a broad context, i.e. in comparison with other cult stones. This approach helps highlight significant coincidences and shows the features of Komi-Permyak “vernacular mineralogy”. Folklore narratives and the proper names of stones reveal that the large size of the object becomes an important reason for the mythologisation of the boulder. It is believed that large single stones have a “heavenly” origin. One of the forms of ritual interaction is visiting stones as part of calendar rites. The Oshib boulder is found in a “dangerous” forest, so the inhabitants endow it with an ambivalent character: it is associated with demonic spirits and is used to frighten children. In the middle of the twentieth century, the folklore tradition of Oshib slowly disappears, but in the twenty-first century, its re-actualisation begins. At the same time, the actional code is completely changed, and the plots and motifs of oral stories update. In contemporary stories, there are two lines of mythologisation: one of them continues the theme of the “dangerous” stone, while the other one is a kind of adaptation of natural scientific knowledge. An important factor in the development of the tradition is the inclusion of the cult boulder into school project activities and the villagers’ intention to turn it into a tourist site. Folklore plots become a symbolic resource with the help of which the new “agents of tradition” solve this task.

IDEOLOŠKI RASPONI SAVREMENIH PRIČA O KOSOVU

This paper examines the ideological ranges of contemporary stories about Kosovo, as reflections on the social, political, and cultural background in which they arise, as well as the processes of establishing or abandoning the dominant identity matrices, based on the Kosovo myth. As Kosovo is our great story, the constitutive narrative of our national being, but also of Serbian literary-historical consciousness, it proved necessary to shed light on how contemporary Serbian prose reflects this narrative, but also to elucidate the diachronic perspective, which gives ideologies a mythical or symbolic dimension. The five authors and texts I am analyzing are Branislav Janković, “Nightingale the Chicken” (Slavuj-pile), Muharem Bazdulj “From Prizren the tame place” (Iz Prizrena mjesta pitomoga), Dejan Stojiljković, “No cour- age” (Nema hrabrosti), Vesna Kapor “What would you like to remember” (Čega bi voleo da se sećaš) and Ana Radmilović “Kosovo - three hundred miracles” (Kosovo – trista čuda). Among the selected contemporary stories, a range from establishing and empowering to challenging the dominant ideological discourse on Kosovo and its mythology is noticeable. The common intention is to constitute “small” stories by referring to a “private” view of Kosovo resulting from a fragmentation of the world image, and hence deconstruction or rethinking inherited identities based on new policies and ideological constructs represented in our era, which produce internal dissonance in the text itself.

‘The art of surviving’: Aaron and Guéra’s Scalped as a post-Western

ABSTRACT The term Post-Western has been used since the 1970s to refer to books and films that are not Westerns but use conventions of the Western genre to analyse contemporary conflicts and issues. The most important contribution to the establishment of this subgenre has been Neil Campbell’s monograph Post-Westerns (2013), in which they are described as films coming after and going beyond the traditional Western genre while at the same time engaging with its deeply haunting assumptions and values. This article seeks to adapt the concept of post-Westerns to Comics Studies and focuses on a recent graphic work that can be considered post-Western, Scalped, a 60-issue comic-book series written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by R. M. Guéra, published by Vertigo between 2007 and 2012. It tells a contemporary story of crime, violence and corruption in an Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where the Lakotas live in an environment of utter poverty, drug abuse and hopelessness. Making use of constant flashbacks and different points of view, Scalped makes references to the Western myth and establishes a dialogue with American history and the Western genre to show the contrast with post-Western contemporary nightmares.

Review: Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement, edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon

Review: <i>Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement</i>, edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon

“Are you gay or do you do gay?” Subjectivities in “gay” stories on the Persian sexblog shahvani.com

Abstract The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the influence of local-traditional perceptions of sexuality in the construction of subjectivity among men involved in same-sex sexual practices in contemporary Iran. In order to do so, I shall briefly outline some essential features of the local-traditional understanding of sexuality, which I consider to be epistemologically and ontologically different from the modern concept of human sexuality. Subsequently, the continuity of the local-traditional understanding of sexuality in the identity construction of those individuals involved in same-sex sexual practices will be demonstrated through an inquiry on contemporary pornographic stories written by users of an online platform with erotic and pornographic content. I will argue that the perception of and the explanation for same-sex desire as well as the categorisations of subjects found in these stories point to the predominance of local-traditional patterns of thought in the imagination of the authors of these stories. However, it will also be demonstrated that the modern idea of sexuality is present among some other users of this platform, whose modern worldview is in conflict and competition with the local-traditional views on sexuality. This conflict is best illustrated in the commentary sections of the stories on this website, where modern-thinking users question the “truth” of the epistemology behind these local-traditional narratives. This modern users’ criticism of the local-traditional view on same-sex desire shall be addressed in the last part of the paper.

Joe as the Wise Fool in Great Expectations: Dickens's Criticism of the Mid-Victorian Literature of Success and Upward Social Mobility

ABSTRACT Criticism of Great Expectations often portrays Joe, a gentle blacksmith, as important to the novel's definition of a true gentleman. While this is understandable, Joe plays a more important role in the novel's discussion of the contemporary literature of success to propagate the ideal of the self-made man. This role is as a wise fool and truth-teller, through whom Dickens highlights a contradiction in the literature's messages about the social mobility of working-class people. This contradiction arises as a result of the self-interested desire of the middle classes to bolster their advantageous position in the hierarchical Victorian society, and Dickens censures this self-interestedness. However, Dickens is also aligned with contemporary success stories in their denial of social climbing of the working classes because he believed that working-class social ambitions had the potential to disturb Victorian class society and his own gentlemanly identity. While he advocates a static stratified society, at the same time he wishes to ameliorate the status quo of Victorian class society and address the way it disadvantages the working classes. The means for social betterment proposed in Great Expectations involve the moral betterment of gentlemanly middle-class people.

Theological Imagination in a Throwaway Society: Contending with Waste

This article treats the topic of consumer waste by beginning with a contemporary story that illustrates the reality and complex dynamics of throwaway culture. Noting the dynamic quality of waste, it offers a brief review of the development of throwaway society. Beginning in a preindustrial world in which the battle against “moth and rust” required habits of reuse and repair, or what cultural historian Susan Strasser refers to as bricolage, it then traces changes in “natural” and “temporal” imaginaries, as well as economic and technological factors, that rendered obsolete the cultural skills and imaginative capacities of bricolage. Having argued that forgetting and loss of imagination are key to waste-making, it offers two Christian responses that schools and faith communities might practice: “material anamnesis” and “redemptive vision.”

A novel to influence public policy? The role of New Zealand in climate migration and the occupation of Antarctica

In recent years, the notion of ‘climate change fiction’ (‘cli-fi’) has passed into common parlance to denote a strand of fictionalized narratives foregrounding the dynamics and consequences of climate change on Earth. While the acceptance criteria for such a category are flexible at best, the role of policy-making and of New Zealand as a political actor and geographical setting to the global eco-catastrophe remain marginal features in such contemporary stories. Jeff Murray’s 2019 novel entitled Melt crucially bridges fiction and public policy, in a move to put the Pacific, New Zealand and Antarctica at the forefront of climate change debates. As the near future sees Antarctica melting, the novel particularly focuses on the sociopolitical and infrastructural challenge that millions of climate change refugees will represent to wealthy and relatively spared nations, such as New Zealand. Correlated issues in sustainable management, economic inequality, intercultural relations and geopolitics are further evoked. In its attempt to alert New Zealand policy-makers and the general public to these long-term questions, Melt importantly invites reflection on the potentiality of narrative to inspire action taking. This article takes the form of an interdisciplinary discussion between Murray, a first-time novelist with a professional background in strategy policy, and literary and cultural studies scholar Jessica Maufort.

Huawei in Venezuela: a review of 2006–2019

PurposeThe aim of this article is to describe Huawei's internationalization process in Venezuela and show how socio-political and economic conditions helped to expedite the company's development in this Latin American nation between 2006 and 2019. Through this internationalization process, Huawei participated in a large technological transition in Venezuelan telecommunications.Design/methodology/approachThis research uses an integrative approach, developing a quasi-case study from a review of the academic literature, contemporary news stories and institutional and practitioner documents.FindingsThe review indicates that Huawei was engaged in business with the Venezuelan phone company before its renationalization. Secondly, Huawei's internationalization was a beneficiary of the increased relations between the Venezuelan and Chinese governments, mainly through “oil for loans/goods” agreements. Lastly, this internationalization process includes wholly owned subsidiaries, direct export, greenfield and government joint ventures.Practical implicationsThis research provides an understanding to other firms and strategists about the benefits of strong bilateral economic relationships between home and host countries.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first academic articles that describe the internationalization process of Huawei in Venezuela. Considering the host country's changing political and economic conditions during the last 20 years, such research may provide a perspective for considering other Chinese business expansions in Venezuela and Latin America.

Composition Of Modern Uzbek Stories

This article discusses the views on the genre of the story, the essence, functions and significance of its composition. The compositional features of contemporary Uzbek stories, the basic artistic functions in the organization of composition, elements of the composition of a work of art are analyzed on the basis of the stories of Shoyim Butaev.

Winescape: Local Reinhabitation Narratives (The Case of Zielona Góra)

Reinhabitation narratives are cultural-educational practices that involve restoring the “ecological imagination” of places through stories associated with them. The term proposed by Serenella Iovino in the field of bioregional studies, which refers to places disrupted and injured by exploitation, is applied to contemporary stories about Zielona Góra. The author shows how, in reference to the city’s German past,these stories reactivate its wine tradition and project the winescape as a taskscape (in Timothy Ingold’s sense). Under consideration are both the effects of the destruction of the pre-war heritage (in natural and social terms) and regeneration, which is accomplished through three strategies: appealing to the winescape as a space determined by the laws of nature (1), activating the bio-memory inscribed in the enographic biotopos (2), and reactivating the winescape through sensory experience (3). Responding to the contemporary crisis of ecological imagination, local reinhabitation narratives instantiate place and revive its cultural and ecological possibilities. They constitute an “anti-epic” that opens up the past and the future.

The Images of Women in Selected Contemporary Short Stories by Contemporary Filipino Women Writers

This inquiry sought to discover the images of women as portrayed in the contemporary short stories entitled “Fallout” by Maria L.M. Fres-Felix and “Language” by Sunantha Mendoza. Feminist Literary Criticism, specifically liberal, radical, Freudian, socio-cultural, stereotypical feminist perspective were employed to critically analyze the actions and feminist perspective of the female characters. The study attempted to meet the following objectives: 1) to describe the images of women as depicted by the authors in the stories; 2) to identify the dominant devices used in the stories; and, 3) to determine the feminist themes conveyed in the stories. Through examining and analyzing the short stories, different images of women were discovered. The close textual reading resulted in the researcher’s coming up with the following findings: female characters are portrayed as involved, sophisticated, strong-minded, competitive, independent and unconventional. The dominant devices are symbols, juxtaposition, foreshadowing, imagery, idiom, metaphor, irony and figures of speech were effectively utilized in the stories to probe the images of women that are found in each story. Indeed, women will come a long way in facing the battle against patriarchal values.

Genre versus Prize: The Short Story Form and African Oral Traditions

In “The Short Story in Africa,” Nadine Gordimer writes that the genre is more malleable and open to experimentation with style, language and form than the novel, which means that it is more easily accommodated within a variety of media spaces. Gordimer adds that the short story is “a fragmented and restless form, a matter of hit or miss, and it is perhaps for this reason that it suits modern consciousness” (170–71). Taking its cue from Gordimer’s remarks, this article attempts to examine the genre of the short story through the lens of the literary prize industry in Africa. In most parts of the continent the development of the short story, like that of the novel and other genres, has been slow, facing a number of challenges such as a historically impoverished publishing industry. The rise in popularity of the local and global literary prize for the short story has however played a significant role in the promotion of the genre and literature generally on the continent. The article examines the short story’s increased presence in the digital space and interrogates the general assumption on the part of many of the prize-awarding bodies that the short story can be linked to African oral traditions. The aim of the article is to explore the relationship between the genre and the rising popularity of the literary prize on the continent, focusing on the various ways in which the prize is (re)shaping the contemporary African short story.&#x0D; Keywords: Orality, literary prize, publishing, exoticism, literary fracture, disconnectivity