Formulaic Narratives Research Articles

Exploring Quicksand. Translation Criticism and Literary Criticism in the Face of the Petrification of Contemporary World Literature

In contemporary discussions on the condition and further perspectives of World Literature the moods of disappointment and disillusionment seem to dominate. Reservations concern World Literature in its complexity – its canon, potential multilingualism, existing hierarchies and often contradictory conceptualizations. The crisis of World Literature is not, however, the result of any given scandal, but rather of many years of progressive petrification resulting in actual monolingualism, formulaic narrative patterns, consolidation of the center-periphery hierarchy and abandonment of the real pluralism of interpretation. One of the areas that seems to meet the challenge of World Literature is undoubtedly translation criticism. Therefore, the aim of the article is to reflect on how contemporary theories and conceptualizations of World Literature as well as its farfetched utopia can benefit from translation criticism’s input. The article also argues that translation criticism may become a field that dynamizes contemporary World Literature and restores its reordering or even revolutionary potential.

Empire of the Self

This article explores how lifestyle blogs use life writing to establish a professional persona and an aura of authenticity that is necessary for maintaining a community of readers. Utilizing close readings of lifestyle blogs across a spectrum of personas, I argue that these two purposes often come into conflict, creating a precarious dynamic for lifestyle bloggers that they attempt to manage through their use of the diary, which is deployed in two key ways. The first is through the use of the diaristic mode, a reflexive and revelatory discourse that disrupts the façade of the self-brand and underscores the blogger’s authenticity. The diary is also used as a prescriptive disciplinary practice in order to create didactic and formulaic narratives that can be readily consumed and replicated but that often result in a sense of inauthenticity.

Телесериал в Китае: генезис и развитие жанра (50–90-е гг. ХХ в.)

In this article, I analyze Chinese TV series as a phenomenon of mass culture; a market product created on the basis of a specific national cultural code under conditions of strict ideological control. The chronological framework of this study is the second half of the 20th century: from the late 1950s, when television appeared and the production of TV drama began in China, to the late 1990s, marked by the creation of a system of supervision and control of the television industry, the transformation of TV drama into a modern format television series, the formation of the major serial genres, and the growth of production and consumption of TV series. Since then, the trend that persists in the 2000s—watching a series as a widespread form of leisure—is becoming noticeable. I examine TV dramas as a product shaped by multidirectional influences. On the one hand, the television market demands that the product be spectacular and entertaining, while on the other hand, TV series are subject to close state control and regulation. The government issues licenses for TV series production, determines priority themes for new series annually, approves a brief synopsis prior to filming, censors the finished series; and establishes national television awards to stimulate the production of “correct content.” The most popular genres in the last quarter of the twentieth century are historical, moral, family, and martial arts dramas. Considering that a series is a formulaic narrative (J. Cawelti), it is these genres that seem to have the maximum number of techniques and possibilities for combining an engaging plot and broadcasting the right message. For example, family, moral series demonstrate socially approved norms of behavior. The wuxia genre represents the uniqueness of Chinese culture and creates a sense of Chineseness. Given the general attitude to history in the Chinese tradition, it is not surprising that historical series occupy a special position, being one of the most important means for the state propagation of the “etatist and paternalistic worldview.” The analyzed historical and cultural material leads me to the conclusion that whatever the viewer watches—a series about the portal travelers or a screen version of the Chinese classics—their attention is offered ideologically safe product, checked by various authorities and spreading meanings that are useful for society and the state.

Eksplorowanie ruchomych piasków. Krytyka przekładu i krytyka literacka wobec petryfikacji współczesnej literatury światowej

Exploring Quicksand. Translation Criticism and Literary Criticism in the Face of the Petrification of Contemporary World Literature In contemporary discussions on the condition and further perspectives of World Literature, the mood of disappointment and disillusionment seems to dominate. Reservations concern World Literature in its complexity – its canon, potential multilingualism, existing hierarchies and often contradictory conceptualizations. The crisis of World Literature is not, however, the result of a scandal, but rather of many years of progressive petrification resulting in actual monolingualism, formulaic narrative patterns, consolidation of the center-periphery hierarchy and abandonment of the real pluralism of interpretation. One of the areas that seems to meet the challenge of World Literature is undoubtedly translation criticism. Therefore, the aim of the article is to reflect on how contemporary theories and conceptualizations of World Literature as well as its far-fetched utopia can benefit from translation criticism’s input. The article also argues that translation criticism may become a field that dynamizes contemporary World Literature and restores its reordering or even revolutionary potential.

Self-reflexivity and the Representation of The Indian Diasporic Community in Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood

This paper discusses Deepa Mehta’s lighthearted romantic comedy Bollywood/Hollywood as a representation of the Indian diasporic community settled in Canada. What makes this film especially interesting is that it focuses on how, for overseas Indians, Bollywood offers the possibility of accessing the home culture in a globalised world. Bollywood as an industry is synonymous with the genre of family melodrama, and when Mehta uses this term it represents, not just the Bombay Film Industry, but also the cultural iconicity of the genre, which in turn represents the film sensibility of the entire ‘mass’ of Indians located within the country and in the diaspora. At one level, the film is a lighthearted comic portrayal of the Indo-Canadian community in Toronto and its strong connection with “our magnificent Indian culture” (B/H) through the Hindi movies churned out by Bollywood. At a closer look at a number of scenes, light is cast on the way Deepa Mehta emphasizes the cultural divides through interesting narrative and visual constructions. The actual argument of the film emerges in a dialectical reading and recognition of the oppositional forces operating within and without the narrative world. What is particularly striking about this film is its self-reflexivity. It announces itself as a Bollywood melodrama and celebrates this identity. Bollywood is thus positioned as both a subject and an object of contemplation—a world of Cinema that is a part of our memory and a vehicle of history. The critique of the formula also comes from within the formulaic narrative itself. Deepa Mehta constantly uses the genre and also plays around with it in interesting ways

Singing the News of Punishment

Abstract This article explores the pan-European phenomenon of the execution ballad, songs that told the news of true crimes and their punishment by public execution. Looking at examples across nine languages, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, this comparison reveals that these ballads share multiple features in textual content and format: a recognisable, formulaic narrative; sensationalist and emotive language; and a conservative perspective that confirms that the condemned is guilty and that ‘justice’ is being served. We also note key regional differences, such as in the use (or not) of contrafactum, the setting of new lyrics to familiar melodies, in the use of the first versus third person voice, and in the depiction of graphic violence, both of the crime committed and the execution. Ultimately, we argue for the existence of an almost universal tradition in Europe of how to sing the news of punishment.

A Sui Dynasty (581-618) Iron Buddha: The Tale of Two Filial Sons

This article aims to ascertain the date and significance of what appears to be a Sui Dynasty (581-618) Iron Buddha by closely examining the artifact and the inscription on it. After a preliminary attempt to determine the ‘style’ of the Iron Buddha, more in-depth comparative analyses of it are carried out that focus on reconstructed dynastic calendars and the sexagenary dates in them, Buddhist iconography from the same period and the formulaic narrative and prayer-like entreaty passages found on them, and a companion Stone Guanyin piece located in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Summing up the results, in addition to substantiating the inscribed date found on the Iron Buddha, these analyses demonstrate that the Iron Buddha and Stone Guanyin were part of a larger story, one that was being played out during the Northern & Southern Dynasties period, when Chinese social order and the Confucian ideology supporting it were declining, replaced in many areas by the growing influence of Daoism and Buddhism. This story centers on the tale of two filial sons who commissioned these pieces, hoping, in still following the centuries-long Confucian tradition, to honor their deceased Father, while doing so within the context of a rising Buddhist worldview, one in which they wished him freedom from pain and re-birth in a better place.

An Oasis in Europe: Hollywood Depictions of Portugal during the Second World War

In the early 1940s, the wave of North American fiction films dealing with the Second World War devoted unprecedented attention to Portugal, then a neutral nation under a fascist-inspired dictatorship led by António de Oliveira Salazar. This article analyses the underlying discourse about Portugal in the stories filmed by Hollywood during this period. It focuses on three key motifs, namely the portrayal of the country as an escape point for refugees, as a gathering ground for spies and as a safe haven from European war and oppression. Besides identifying common patterns in the narratives, the article seeks to contextualize them by taking into account the evolution of the scripts, as well as the feedback from the Production Code Administration and the Office of War Information. It also briefly contrasts the portrayal of Portugal with that of Spain, where a similar political regime was in place. It concludes that the combination of Hollywood’s formulaic narratives and Washington’s propaganda strategy resulted in a depiction of Portugal that was patronizing yet mostly benevolent, romanticizing local living conditions and dissociating the Salazar dictatorship from its fascist origins and practices.

Hunting and Gender as Reflected in the Central Negev Rock Art, Israel

There are thousands of panels with hundreds of thousands of petroglyphs that occupy the rock outcropping of the Negev Highlands in southern Israel. These include abstract, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements, which are sometimes presented as hunting scenes. In this paper we will define hunting scene, review the themes and relate these figures to the economy, mundane, and spiritual realms of the artist. We argue that a clear panel grammar is in operation whereby the artist is creating a formulaic narrative that conveys a number of underlying messages that include the subsistence strategies and the success of the hunt. There is also subtle gender encoding that accompanies such imagery.

Saints, Sages, and Victims: Endorsement of and Resistance to Cultural Stereotypes in Memoirs by Parents of Children with Disabilities

Memoirs written by parents of children with disabilities are a significant recent genre. Most are problematic: through their use of grief, their emphasis on a medicalized model, and their framing of the child's disabilities, these memoirs represent the child not as a person but as a problem with which the parents have had to grapple. Many memoirs, however, simultaneously work to humanize and value the children and reframe our cultural view of "typical" personhood through the lens of disability. This complex, popular genre reveals the powerful hold that formulaic narratives have, but also offers glimpses of ways in which formulaic narratives can and should be resisted and overturned. The books I examine demonstrate that the family can be a site that both bolsters oppressive cultural models of disability and profoundly challenges them.Keywordsmemoir, children with disabilities, parents, grief, dehumanization, pleasure, resistance

Contagious: cultures, carriers, and the outbreak narrative

How should we understand the fear and fascination elicited by the accounts of communicable disease outbreaks that proliferated, following the emergence of HIV, in scientific publications and the mainstream media? The repetition of particular characters, images, and story lines—of Patients Zero and superspreaders, hot zones and tenacious microbes—produced a formulaic narrative as they circulated through the media and were amplified in popular fiction and film. The “outbreak narrative” begins with the identification of an emerging infection, follows it through the global networks of contact and contagion, and ends with the epidemiological work that contains it. Priscilla Wald argues that we need to understand the appeal and persistence of the outbreak narrative because the stories we tell about disease emergence have consequences. As they disseminate information, they affect survival rates and contagion routes. They upset economies. They promote or mitigate the stigmatizing of individuals, groups, locales, behaviors, and lifestyles. Wald traces how changing ideas about disease emergence and social interaction coalesced in the outbreak narrative. She returns to the early years of microbiology—to the identification of microbes and “Typhoid Mary,” the first known healthy human carrier of typhoid in the United States—to highlight the intertwined production of sociological theories of group formation (“social contagion”) and medical theories of bacteriological infection at the turn of the twentieth century. Following the evolution of these ideas, Wald shows how they were affected by—or reflected in—the advent of virology, Cold War ideas about “alien” infiltration, science-fiction stories of brainwashing and body snatchers, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Contagious is a cautionary tale about how the stories we tell circumscribe our thinking about global health and human interactions as the world imagines—or refuses to imagine—the next Great Plague.

Extreme Makeover

This article examines the representation of gender, class, and cultural identity in the Extreme Makeover series, the most widely circulated American cosmetic makeover show that coexists on Western European television with national/regional adaptations of the format. Even though a cross-national analysis of the Dutch, Flemish, and British version alerts us to cultural differences, particularly in terms of generic inflections and aesthetic allegiances, the formulaic narrative structure of this television format ultimately transcends local culture and perpetuates normative gender and class regimes, particularly in combination with other popular reality shows aimed at female spectators.

Indian Modernity and Tagore's Dance

Abstract Rabindranath Tagore's invention of an entirely new dance style liberated dance from the formulaic choreography and narratives of classical Indian dance. Tagore advocated naturalistic rather than stylized expression, with the stated purpose of creating an aesthetic vehicle for conveying the drama of human emotional experience. This style, Rabindra-nritya, the first ‘modern dance’ of India, was and has remained entirely uncodified, relying on the creative impulse of the individual dancer interpreting poetical compositions. This flexibility, however, has tended to be accompanied by a lack of formal rigour and codification, which may help explain why Rabindranath's dance style has never gained acceptance in India as a serious art beyond the Bengali cultural domain.

Nation, identity and the fascination with forensic science in Sherlock Holmes and CSI

Although the popular television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation presents cutting-edge images and laboratory techniques, it reiterates the reassuring ideological message and the glorification of the man of science that typify Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. While the Holmes stories use reassuring, formulaic narratives to consolidate a normative national identity and counter increasing disenchantment with empire, CSI replays a similar sort of procedural detective story to reassure viewers with the fantasy that the United States can be secured amidst threats of violence and terrorism, that individual identity, as well as national identity, can be fixed and scientifically assured.

Heavy Hero or Digital Dummy? Multimodal Player–Avatar Relations in Final Fantasy 7

This article analyses the player–avatar relation in Final Fantasy 7, drawing on multimodality theory to analyse textual structures both in the game and in the discourse of player–interviews and fan writing. It argues that the avatar is a two-part structure, partly designed in conventional narrative terms as a protagonist of popular narrative, and partly as a vehicle for interactive game-play. The former structure is replete with the traditions and designs of Japanese popular narrative, oral formulaic narrative and contemporary superhero narratives, and is presented to the player as an offer act – a declarative narrative statement. The latter is a construct of evolving attributes and economies characteristic of role-playing games; and is presented to the player as a demand act – a rule-based command. Though these two functions separate out in the grammar of player and fan discourse, it is their integration which provides the pleasure of gameplay and narrative engagement.

The Flâneur and the Aesthetic

The article reinterprets the sources of Parisian flânerie with the view of exploring 19th-century understandings of cultural and aesthetic modernity. It distinguishes between two separate though interconnected formulaic narratives about the flâneur. The first is the popular flâneur, associated with a new type of urban commercial culture characteristic of the 1840s; while the second is the avant-garde flâneur, embodied in Baudelaire's critical texts of the 1850s and 1860s. Juxtaposing these two different narratives of flânerie allows us to draw two conclusions. The first is that the 19th century's evaluations of cultural modernity were considerably more optimistic than later interpretations would lead one to believe. The second is that the realms of popular and avant-garde cultures were far more porous and inter-dependent than canonical literary criticism has contended.

Awakening the Inner Light: Elizabeth Ashbridge and the Transformation of Quaker Community

Of the many Protestant sects that emerged from the Reformation, the Society of Friends ?commonly known as the Quakers?was one of those most aware that living language could ossify when formalized in rote prayers, tired rituals, or formulaic narratives. At least in principle, they relied wholly upon the spontaneous illumination of the Inner Light to prompt their members to speak, and to give those speakers a fresh and vital language with which to break their silence, and then to preach or pray.1 In doing so, they rejected the liturgical and homiletic practices of churches whose reformations had settled into administrations, whose fiery critiques had droned into worn refrains, and whose prophecy itself had become uni vocal with the culture it set out to reform. In both Catholic and Protestant

Men, women, and chain saws: gender in the modern horror film

Do the pleasures of horror movies really begin and end in sadism? So the public discussion of film assumes, and so film theory claims. Carol Clover argues, however, that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero, who suffers fright but rises to vanquish the forces of oppression. Clover, a medievalist, had written extensively on the literature and culture of early northern Europe, especially the Old Norse sagas. From her expertise in formulaic narrative grew her interest in contemporary cinema, which is, after all, yet another form of oral storytelling. Men, Women, and Chain Saws investigated the appeal of horror cinema, in particular the phenomenal popularity of those low genres that feature female heroes and play to male audiences: slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Such genres seem to offer sadistic pleasure to their viewers, and not much else. Clover, however, argued the reverse: that these films are designed to align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the female tormented--with the suffering, pain, and anguish that the girl, as Clover calls the victim-hero, endures before rising, finally, to vanquish her oppressor. The book has found an avid readership from students of film theory to major Hollywood filmmakers, and the figure of the final girl has been taken up by a wide range of artists, inspiring not just filmmakers but also musicians and poets.