Literary Theory Research Articles

Nikolai Leskov’s Eccentric Wanderers and the Tradition of Religious Wandering in Russia

The motif of travel has always been popular, and the metaphor of life as a path remains extremely powerful. Both seem to be especially important within Christian culture because of the image of Christ the Wanderer, who “has no place to lay his head”, an image that influenced the growing popularity of pilgrimages and religiously motivated wandering. The latter became particularly widespread in Russian culture and resulted in numerous representations of wandering people in Russian art and literature. In my article, I focus on literary representations of wanderers in the oeuvre of Nikolai Leskov, whose works are abundant with these types of characters. I argue that the writer portrays his wanderers as ambivalent eccentrics who combine elements characteristic of diverse types of travelers, both religious and secular. To prove my hypothesis, I combine traditional literary analysis of Leskov’s texts with the examination of cultural and religious practices of Russian wandering. As I demonstrate, the complexity and multifacetedness of the writer’s wanderers correspond with Russian reality, where the boundary between pilgrims and vagrants was also blurred.

Managing the risk of program failure: Propositional Evaluation as a tool for risk management

Public policy and programs fail for a range of reasons, some preventable and some much harder to treat. Program administrators require methods for managing risk. This article argues that evaluation can be a useful tool for identifying and managing risk. It offers Propositional Evaluation as a cost-effective, risk-based approach to the evaluation of any policy, program, initiative, or simply, plan of action for the public good. Propositional Evaluation treats programs as propositions for action and focuses on developing sound, that is, valid and well-grounded propositions. It begins in the design phase and continues through delivery to provide a means for identifying and managing risks to achieving intended outcomes. This article situates Propositional Evaluation approach in the evaluation theory literature. It reflects on common causes of program failure and identifies those evaluators may help program administrators identify and mitigate. It provides a description of five critical and five residual risks that derive from the propositional approach. Evaluating these risks provides a structure for evaluation and adaptive management. The intended audience is program administrators, and evaluators working to support them who require prospective evaluation and adaptive management or rapid and cost-effective evaluation for program design and re-design.

Ending Neoliberalism

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new round of obituaries for neoliberalism, with some declaring that we have entered the stage of “postneoliberalism.” Rather than weighing in on the debates about whether neoliberalism has or has not ended, this article reflects on the theoretical framework in which neoliberalism's end has come to be posited. The article calls this framework “ending,” which allows the theorist to make “imaginative investments in coherent patterns” (Frank Kermode) with beginnings, middles, and ends. By drawing on Kermode's literary theory, the article lays out three key features of ending as a theoretical framework: a teleological vision of history; a Euro- and Anglocentric view of neoliberalism; and a distinction between a neoliberal policy paradigm and modes of subjectification. The article then goes on to explore the political limitations of ending, especially for the left, through a reading of Gary Gerstle's The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022). To finish, the article seeks to resurrect ending as a metatheoretical device in which ending as a framework becomes the subject of theorization. Doing so, the article proposes, helps the left to reflect on the position from which it analyzes neoliberalism, as well as to better connect such reflection to concrete political projects that seek to actively end neoliberalism.

Archtypology of the Figural Antagonist in Classical Fairy Tales and Other Culture-Forming Stories

The present study focuses on the semiotic profile of a literary character acting as a villain/antagonist (Propp) as one of the central factors of the existential problem situation (the de facto “originator” of problems), which represents a general theme in the folk fairy tales and/or culture-forming stories. The aim of this paper is neither to cover all the principles and manifestations of antagonists exhaustively, nor to present a complete typological description of antagonistic characters, but to cover those basic forms and most frequent or otherwise essential attributes that canonically standardize and significantly universalize the archetype of an antagonist in the selected range of narratives. The issue is approached from the perspective of literary theory (with an emphasis on the morphological, structural, and thematic analysis of the literary characters), and it is materially and argumentatively based on the representative sets of folklore and culture-forming narratives (Aarne-Thompson-Uther’s international catalog of fairy tale types, world myths, canonical texts, etc.), as well as on their national (Slovak) variants.

Innovative Teaching Research on Literary Theory and Criticism

Innovative Teaching Research on Literary Theory and Criticism

Operationalizing responsible AI principles through responsible AI capabilities

AbstractResponsible artificial intelligence (RAI) has emerged in response to growing concerns about the impact of AI. While high-level principles have been provided, operationalizing these principles poses challenges. This study, grounded in recent RAI literature in organizational contexts and dynamic capability theory, and informed by literature on RAI principles and expert interviews in organizations deploying AI systems, (1) problematizes the high-level principles and low-level requirements and underscores the need for mid-level norms by adopting dynamic capability as a theoretical lens, and (2) develops five themes to capture firms’ RAI capability, including (i) understandable AI model, (ii) bias remediation, (iii) responsiveness, (iv) harmless, and vi) common good. As our contribution to the field of information systems (IS), this study extends the emerging literature on operationalizing RAI and dynamic capabilities, empirically elucidating the capabilities needed by firms. For IS practice, we provide organizations deploying AI with novel insights to aid in the responsible implementation of AI.

“I Know Well and Appreciate the Repose and Delight to Be Found in Gardening”: Class, Gender, and “Garden Elements” in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son

ABSTRACT Drawing upon Michael Waters’s and Sarah Bilston’s studies of Victorian literary representations of gardens, this article delves into scenes, activities, and imagery related to gardens and gardening in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son. Examining these “garden elements” in the novel, it explores how seemingly apolitical garden scenes and gardening activities were embedded in Victorian schemas of gender and class configuration. Specifically, it analyses how Dickens skilfully exposes the unjust exploitation of women and the working class by a capitalist economy that prioritised the bourgeois male elite. The article argues that through his depiction of the transformative changes taking place in Staggs’s Gardens, Dickens expresses a cautious optimism towards the emerging railway economy, subtly suggesting that it has the potential to benefit the working class and supplant the out-dated mercantile economy symbolised by Dombey.

“It Began with Naming Things”: Mzungus and Other European Colonizers in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives

ABSTRACT To trouble internalist narratives of Europe, it is necessary to consider the “external” vectors that went into its making. This paper reads Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives (2020) as representing a telling instance of such decentering, which warrants particular attention due to the mass mainstream visibility guaranteed by the author’s being awarded the Nobel Prize in 2021. It takes the novel’s tracing of German colonialism as particularly instructive, because German colonial ventures have long remained in the peripheral vision of examinations of European colonialism more broadly, in anglophone postcolonial studies and literary representation. This prompts the article’s intervention in making this other European colonialism its focus. Via an examination of two facets of the novel’s engagement of knowledge-making – naming and recording – I argue that it enacts subversive interruptions of colonial epistemologies. The narrative’s delineating of the journeys of two characters from the colonial “periphery” of East Africa to the colonial “centre” of Germany sees these external Others becoming internal Others on European soil, and requires readers to think German colonialism with what came after. I propose, finally, that in (re)naming and (re)reading archives against the grain, the novel configures ambivalent alternatives to eurocentric knowledge-making, delineating the contours of what colonial archives excise, and gesturing toward what literary fiction can do to sketch flickering presences into some of those absences.

Examining the Tale of Keloğlan and Giant Mother Using Psychoanalytic Method: Transition from the Preoedipal Stage to the Oedipal Stage

Psychoanalytic literary theory is one of the frequently used analytical approaches. The theory tries to understand the unconscious motivations and desires of characters in literary works, as well as subjects in real life. This theory, founded by Sigmund Freud and developed by his followers, suggests that the words, behaviors and actions in a literary text can be interpreted through a psychoanalytic lens in order to reveal the repressed desires and anxieties of the characters and the author alike. In the psychoanalytic approach, the oral stage, one of the psychosexual stages, is the period when strong bonds between the mother and the child are at the forefront, and competition with the father has not yet emerged. This period can also be called the pre-oedipal period. At this stage, as sexual differences begin to be perceived, the child turns towards the opposite-sex parent. This phase, which includes the phallic period, is referred to as the oedipal period. During this period, the father, whom the child perceives as positive or negative, is also included in the child's life. Fairy tales have been passed down through generations and have survived until today, both orally and in writing. The effects of situations such as fear and violence that can be found in fairy tale on children and how the child perceives and assimilates this content have attracted the attention of psychoanalytic literary theorists. It is assumed that the language of fairy tale can be effective in solving some unconscious issues of the child in the pre- and post-oedipal periods. In this text; In terms of psychoanalytic theory, the tale of Keloğlan and the Giant's Mother, which is thought to include the issues of the child's pre-oedipal period, has been tried to be interpreted in the light of 'psychoanalytic literary theory'.

Analisis Struktur Narasi dan Nilai Religius Pada Novel “Cinta Dalam Diam” Karya Shineeminka

Literary works are created as a result of experiences, thoughts, and cultural recordings of things that happen to the author. While the novel is one of the literary works, which plays an important role in providing possibilities to address the secrets of human life. In general, what attracts readers in reading a novel is the story. This study aims to describe and explain: (1) The structure in the novel Cinta Dalam Diam Karya Shineminka (2) The religious value in the novel Cinta Dalam Diam Karya Shineeminka. This research uses literary psychology. The approach used in this research is descriptive qualitative research. The data in this study are words, sentences in the form of expressions, and dialog between characters that are the focus of research. The data sources in this research are source documents, such as literary theory books, literary psychology, and the novel Cinta Dalam Diam Karya Shineeminka. The technique used in this research uses data collection through literature study and note-taking techniques and uses the theoretical framework of structural and pragmatic approaches.

The labyrinth of marginality: a critique of theorising literary representation of marginality in indian english literature

In his work After Amnesia, G.N. Devy rightly points out a gap, a void created by our collective “cultural amnesia” in literary theory and criticism. Foregrounding this insight, the research on “Marginal Literature” has crucial ontological and epistemological questions ahead of itself. The question: “What is Marginal Literature?” becomes more pertinent and complex when assessed in the context of the plurality of Indian society and culture. The exercise of creating a structured and organised theoretical point of view that is comprehensive enough to address and acknowledge the diverse and multifaceted marginal experience as expressed by contemporary writers is a challenge for all scholars working to define, hypothesise, analyse the phenomenon of marginality in the form of a question, a vista, an enigma or a mere tributary in the canon of Indian Literature written and translated in English. As a doctoral candidate working in this area, in this paper, I intend to discuss the various theorists, thinkers, and perspectives that have informed and the lacunas that have restrained the discussion of marginality in my thesis.

THE VISION OF STYLE WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE LITERARY GRAMMAR DISCOURSE

In the proposed article, we turn to one of the directions in the modern academic theory of literature — personalist discourse, which gravitates towards metalinguistics, that studies the word (or the language), in its concrete and living entirety, and not the language as a specific subject of linguistics. The purpose of the research is to indicate the features of this discourse and to explain what the vision of style is within the framework of the personalist discourse. The object of research is the personalist theory of literature, the personalist discourse; the subject of research is style within the limits of personalist discourse. The following methods were used to achieve the goal: information analysis method, synthesis method, descriptive method. In contrast to literary grammar, which strives for accuracy and specificity and personalist constituted on the border with linguistics, personalist discourse is constituted on the border with metalinguistics. For the personalist theory of literature, style becomes a way of being of creative individuality, or more precisely, a way of being of a person-author in his work. Personalist discourse gives style a "unifying energy". Within the personalist discourse style becomes a formative center that concretizes the relations. To understand the essence of style, personalists distinguished between compositional and architectural forms. It is characteristic that architectural forms are not forms in the personalist discourse, but are the "content of aesthetic activity" and understood as purely meaningful. So, equating "aesthetic" and "meaningful" in the artistic style, M. M. Bakhtin defines it as "a set of techniques for the formation and completion of a person and its world". In the artistic style, the "internal style" and the content revealed in the images are interconnected. For personalism, "artistic style works not with words, but with moments of the world, values of the world and life", it is a "way of processing" a person and its world, a way of "aesthetic completion". The author of the article concludes that "aesthetic completion" is impossible without the finalizing ability of the image. In the personalist discourse, all problems related to the perception and interpretation of the artistic text are transferred to the sphere of intersubjective relations. The object in personalism is precisely the relations between the subjects of the statement — dialogical relations. In the personalist theory of literature, the constitutive moment of artistic creativity is the author-creator. But personalism deprives the artistic style of its main essence — inner core, the image, that is why the idea of style in the personalist discourse is post-aesthetic. The relevance of the research is determined by the need to clarify the multiplicity of style concepts in their originality in modern literary theory and modern linguistics. One of the fundamental features of artistic creativity is denoted by the concept of "style". First of all, style is a defining way of revealing the aesthetic essence of poetic art. But there are quite different understandings of style. The perspective of further research is to reveal the semantic content of the category of style within the limits of various theoretical and literary discourses.

Object-control and human-control in the development of sustainable innovation: exploring the interactions among epistemic objects, Guanxi network and knowledge integration of “who knows what”

Purpose This study aims to explore how coworkers leverage epistemic objects and guanxi (a Chinese term defining relationships based on mutual dependence) network to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation. Design/methodology/approach This study used a mixed-methods research approach, including quantitative questionnaires, social network analyses and a qualitative ethnography, all of which were collected from a large enterprise in China. Findings Epistemic objects can promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” among coworkers during their innovation development process. In addition, structural holes in a coworker network will impede knowledge integration of “who knows what,” but guanxi can turn this impeding effect into a facilitating effect. Research limitations/implications First, the focus on the role of epistemic objects in eliciting knowledge generates implications for creating employee identity and coordinating knowledge heterogeneity. Second, by demonstrating how epistemic objects trigger both affective and cognitive trust to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what,” the authors complement existing studies of knowledge management (KM). Third, by presenting how coworkers fill their structural holes in their collaborative innovation, the study reveals the nature of connecting the appropriate resources with the appropriate needs, which generates implications for social capital integration and innovation enhancement. Fourth, by showing how “structural hole controllers” become “structural hole fillers” under different conditions, the authors recognize the different ways in which brokers leverage their structural holes and highlight the unique role of Chinese guanxi culture in triggering a structural hole filling behavior, thereby contributing to the literature of structural hole theory and culture management. Fifth, by creating a full picture of how coworkers strategically leverage their knowledge of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation, the authors identify the influential factor that stimulates innovation, adding to the literature on the interaction between KM and innovation. Sixth, the emphasis on the independent role of epistemic objects produces an implication for the interplay between object-control and human-control in innovation work. Practical implications This study supports organizational leaders to make optimal decisions in their innovation development process by suggesting them to invest in developing an integrated knowledge of “who knows what.” To achieve it, the authors suggest managers make good use of non-human artifacts to gain the identification with the knowledge of not only themselves but also the whole team, and award the “integrator” an honor for filling structural holes that may trigger the creation of more structural hole fillers. Furthermore, the focus on the independent role of epistemic objects as knowledge elicitors and trust triggers in innovation work generates another practical implication for managers to rethink the controlling role of objects and humans in the organization and modify their managerial practices accordingly. Originality/value By exploring how coworkers leverage epistemic objects and guanxi network to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation, this study reveals the role of object-control and human-control in facilitating knowledge practices for stimulating innovation, thereby contributing to the literature of KM and innovation.

Hadamard products and BPS networks

We study examples of fourth-order Picard-Fuchs operators that are Hadamard products of two second-order Picard-Fuchs operators. Each second-order Picard-Fuchs operator is associated with a family of elliptic curves, and the Hadamard product computes period integrals on the fibred product of the two elliptic surfaces. We construct 3-cycles on this geometry as the union of 2-cycles in the fibre over contours on the base. We then use the special Lagrangian condition to constrain the contours on the base. This leads to a construction that is reminiscent of spectral networks and exponential networks that have previously appeared in string theory literature.

Addressing autistic unemployment through autistic owned and led social enterprise

Purpose To address the high level of autistic unemployment it has been recommended that autistic individuals be supported to own and lead social enterprises. This paper aims to discuss what is required to create an enabling environment for autistic social entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach By referring to the autism, entrepreneurship and complexity theory literature, it is argued in this conceptual article that to create the required enabling environment for autistic social entrepreneurship, business advisors need to adopt a business development approach that aligns with autistic ways of thinking. It is also agrued that a place-based autistic social enterprise support ecosystem based on a landscape of practice approach is required to bring together diverse support individuals and organisations who have different approaches to practice. Examples including personal reflections are used to support these claims. Findings Challenges and barriers to creating the required enabling environment are identified. Two theories of change, one focused on creating integrated service delivery and one focused on enabling the landscape of practice to transition to a more effective state, are proposed for addressing the identified challenges and barriers. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, for the first time this article identifies what is required to address the challenges and barriers in creating an enabling environment for autistic social entrepreneurship. Without addressing these challenges and barriers there is a risk that nascent autistic social entrepreneurs will be set up for failure.

Theory as a way of life: Sissako, filmmaking, and the postcolonial interview

ABSTRACT Cinema, said Abderrahmane Sissako in an interview, is a form of communication that affords him the opportunity “to tell my story, to tell the story of my country”. While much emphasis has been placed on examining his films as vehicles of social and political communication, much less effort has been afforded to examining the many interviews he has given over the years regarding those films as a complementary form of social and political communication. This article will give an overview of his cinematic oeuvre, and examine the role that interviews have played in Sissako’s formation as a major postcolonial theorist, exploring how these interviews mediate his postcolonial theory as compared to their mediation in his major films. For Sissako, postcolonial theory is a way of life, which is a specific approach to literary and cultural theory that is on full view in his films and in his interviews about them.

Black bodies in phenomenological bioethics: cultural othering, ‘Corporeal Uncanny’ and ethical quandaries of black nurses in Take My Hand and Small Great Things

The aims of the present article are twofold. First, it attempts to theorise the thematic and ontological intersection between phenomenological and black bioethics and proposes ‘Ontic-Black Bioethics’, a neologism to...

“A Most Important Instrument”: Women, Literature, and the Social Good in 1790s Dublin

ABSTRACT This essay addresses distinctions between Irish and British literary theory and writing on education to sketch an intellectual tradition in which women’s education and public roles were accepted, even promoted. This tradition informs Lady Morgan’s representation of intellectual women, particularly in her later writings, as “instruments” of social change. Eighteenth-century Irish arguments for women’s intellectual equality, at least one so prominent that it was repeatedly republished and excerpted in periodicals, aligned with nationalist arguments at the end of the century which prioritized widespread education as a foundation for progress, peace, and self-government. Irish literary theory around 1800, particularly in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, resonated with such concerns about the collective rather than the individual, stressing community and collaboration on terms consistent with Dublin circles’ practices. The social function of literature was also understood in collective rather than expressive terms and thus those who shape events are characterized by Morgan, Preston, and others as “instruments” rather than leaders. These intellectual trends and cultural practices provide a key context not only for Morgan’s later writings about women as politically active but also for a distinctive feature of Irish Romanticism more broadly: the centrality of women writers.

Redefining Our Climate Future: New Approaches to Writing Climate Fiction

The genre term climate fiction (‘cli-fi') refers to fiction in which climate change is a major theme. When situated at the intersection of Anthropocene and literary studies, its usage raises questions on how writers might depict a just and representative climate future through storytelling, especially when contemporary publishing grapples with which voices get published and read at all. Rooted in a writing experiment conducted with five UK-based writers of colour, who were instructed to write climate fiction stories over the course of a month, this article explores how a redefinition of climate fiction as a genre – and, in turn, the imagination of possible futures – might begin by closely studying writers' creative processes, and how their lived experiences in a warming world translate into text. By weaving together literary and geographical theories concerning storytelling and the creative writing process, it suggests how more urgent, topical, and relatable climate stories might be told via the use of embodied testimonies of climate change considering race, place, religion, and an intersectional awareness of global warming’s disproportionate impacts.

Remarks on the Poetics of Leopoldo Marechal

Upon reading Adam Buenosayres, by Leopoldo Marechal, various metapoetic reflections can be found on the essence of poetry, inspiration, the mode of literary representation. However, some sections provide a greater condensation of these reflections. A hermeneutical analysis is presented of two sections of this book in which Marechal’s poetry is explained with clarity, order and condensation: the «Prólogo indispensable» and the episode of Ciro Bower (chapter I, book IV). In addition, the «Claves del Adán Buenosayres» are reviewed. This analysis is completed with comments about Marechal’s poetry taken from specialized literature.