Literary Tradition Research Articles

Comparable yet distinct: a systematic review of social and small and medium-sized enterprises growth trajectories

Purpose This study aims to expand the concept of business growth by incorporating sustainability demands, particularly in the context of the Anthropocene era. It explores the growth trajectories of social enterprises (SEs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), examining how SEs integrate social and environmental objectives into their growth process. Through a systematic literature review (SLR), this study compares these approaches with traditional SME growth paradigms, highlighting the need for a holistic understanding of business growth that addresses contemporary socioenvironmental challenges. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative SLR was conducted, using a structured search algorithm to identify and evaluate research on growth and scaling in SMEs and SEs. The search of the Web of Science database with specific growth-related keywords yielded 5,362 articles, which were narrowed to 194 after filtering by journal relevance. Content analysis, guided by an inductively developed codebook, examined growth definitions, operationalizations, and methodologies. This paper focused on key growth dimensions (economic, social and environmental) and identified whether growth was addressed as an outcome or process, along with its enablers and barriers. Findings While there are areas of intersection between the literatures, the findings reveal that traditional SME growth frameworks do not entirely align with SEs growth conception and management. Furthermore, SE’s growth barriers and facilitators, as well as growth trajectories more broadly, emerge as distinct from those of traditional SMEs. The results distill insights from SE growth paths that can be valuable for traditional SME managers, particularly in terms of managing stakeholders and the institutional environment. Social entrepreneurs commonly use strategies for reshaping business norms, influencing consumer culture and raising social issues awareness, leveraging the values of stakeholders to secure essential support. Originality/value As SMEs confront escalating pressure to align with the sustainable development agenda, the findings underscore the critical significance of drawing insights from the burgeoning SE growth literature. This suggests that traditional SME growth literature stands to gain invaluable insights from recent SE research, fostering a more nuanced comprehension of sustainability-centric SME growth trajectories.

Plucking Heartstrings: Guqin, Aesthetic Attunement, and TCM Music Therapy

In the Chinese cultural context, music is deeply intertwined with the human heart and plays a central role in both healing and governance. Guqin, an ancient Chinese zither, exemplifies holistic care throughout history, embodying heart-based empathy and resonance. This study draws on insights from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), classic philosophy, literature, and aesthetics to trace a lineage of thinking that continues to inform contemporary music therapy. We examine the Chinese notion of xin/heart and the interdependent self, and how music facilitates individuals’ aesthetic attunement toward the natural and social orders. Our approach transcends limitations of Euro-American psychological paradigms centered on the psyche, by adopting a holistic perspective that emphasizes the interconnectedness of the heart, the body, and the cosmos. We argue for the necessity of moving beyond reductive biomedical treatment models to explore alternative ways of living and alternative care that highlight relational, moral, and aesthetic approaches to well-being.

Research on the Relationship Between The Outsider and Existentialism

Abstract: As a masterpiece of existentialist literature, The Outsider occupies an important position in the literary genre and offers profound insights into the nature of human existence. Based on the literature review and qualitative analysis, this article explores the existentialist qualities of loneliness, alienation and free choice shown in The Outsider. The article affirms the work's inheritance of the existentialist literary tradition, by emphasizing the meaninglessness of individual existence, the weight of free choice, and the portrayal of a dystopian world. It also delves deeply into the evolution and innovation of existentialism, with a particular focus on narrative techniques and characterization. For example, it challenges traditional morality through the protagonist Meursault's indifference and employs a minimalist style to reinforce existentialist themes and enhances the communication of existentialist ideas within the text.

The Image and Representation of Scheherazade in Edgar Allan Poe’s Story The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade

The study aims to examine and investigate how Scheherazade was represented to the English reader in the nineteenth century. The significance of the study displays that Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade endowed The Thousand and One Nights with new images and allusions. Based on André Lefevere’s notion of rewriting, the selected story is analyzed, emphasizing the new image of Scheherazade, her death, and her disappearance from the scene in the nineteenth century. The research shows how Poe depicts Scheherazade as a political damsel who reveals the truth and how she becomes a mesmerist lady who dies and disappears from the plot at the end of the story. The author implements a critical discourse analysis to analyze Poe’s story and to uncover the socio-cultural, ideological, and poetical relations of the text. After unfolding the new images of Scheherazade, the study concludes that rewriting a literary work enriches the source text with new imagery and allusions, hence the massive acclaim of such texts among new generations. In addition, the journey of such literary works across borders and cultures creates cultural interactions among people and literary traditions.

Alfonso Nitti’s Inertia or Impotentiality: Reconsidering Ineptitude in Italo Svevo’s Una Vita

Abstract The term ‘inetto’, on which Italo Svevo’s entire critical and literary tradition has been based, is mostly absent from Svevo’s texts with a few exceptions. Despite this low frequency, ‘inetto’ has become the adjective most used to define his characters. Surprisingly, Svevo scholarship has not yet focused, intensively and extensively, on those terms that the author did use to describe his protagonists: ‘inertia’ and ‘inert’. The goal of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to reconsider the veil of negativity that still saddles the category of ineptitude. At the same time, in order to achieve this aim, it rethinks this category by means of the neglected concept of inertia. By so doing, it not only rectifies the idea that the term ‘inetto’ is the primary correlative to describe Svevo’s characters, but also allows us to reimagine forms of impotentiality in a positive light.

Development and Validation of Yoga Program for Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a widespread health issue impacting millions globally. Recognizing the potential benefits of yoga in enhancing physical and mental well-being, this research aims to develop and validate a yoga module tailored for CKD patients, with a specific focus on improving their general health. The yoga module was meticulously crafted through an extensive review of traditional and contemporary literature, incorporating postures, breathing techniques and meditation practices deemed safe and beneficial for CKD patients. Content validity was established through input yoga experts with over 7 years of experience. The study spanned from January 2020 to December 2021. The final version of the yoga module retained 83.33% of the proposed yoga techniques, incorporating modifications suggested by experts. The content validity index for the entire yoga module averaged 0.83. This work establishes the viability, validity and practicality of a yoga module designed for CKD patients. With 35 out of 42 items retained, the module exhibited significant health improvements after 12 weeks of practice. The findings position yoga therapy as a potentially effective complementary treatment for CKD patients, offering improvements in general health and quality of life and potentially slowing disease progression.

Corpus－Based Study on the Translation Methods of the Figures of Speech in Zhuang’s Folk Songs of Napo

The figures of speech in Zhuang’s Folk Songs of Napo exhibit distinct cultural characteristics compared to mainstream Chinese folk songs or Western literary traditions, and their translation requires careful attention not only to the figures of speech but also to the effective transmission of Zhuang culture. Based on a self-built bilingual corpus, this paper examines the translation methods of figures of speech in the English translations of Zhuang’s Folk Songs of Napo. The study reveals that translators predominantly use literal translation to preserve the cultural features of figures of speech while also incorporating free translation and imitation to align with the target language and cultural norms. By analyzing the figures of speech in Zhuang’s Folk Songs of Napo, this study explores their unique cultural characteristics and the challenges in the translation, contributing to a better understanding of Zhuang culture among the target readers and fostering cultural exchange and dissemination.

Erasmus’ Encomia

Abstract Erasmus praised contemporaries in books, letters, prefaces, and adagia. His public career was launched with an ostentatious work of praise, the Panegyricus ad Philippum Austriae (1504), in which he satisfied court expectations and literary tradition. He titled five works Encomium; one of them—the Moriae Encomium (Praise of Folly)—is by far his most popular book. This article examines his encomia and his interest in writing them. It identifies the models and conventions Erasmus inherited and recounts the trouble he took to make his encomia unique.

How the Music Machine Makes Myths Real: AI, Holograms, and Ashley Eternal

Since ancient times, music has been instrumental in giving life to the stories we build our identities and cultures around. I will examine how, in our time, music creates new myths by creating its own heroes and heroines through capital and the star system. In traditional literary and cultural analysis, a distinction was drawn between the natural and the supernatural when discussing literary mythology; in the twentieth century, an equivalent distinction was made in works of art that, in Baudrillard’s terminology, make use of the realms of the real and the “hyperreal” (1981). In today’s mythmaking, the supernatural has been largely replaced by the technological, and recent developments blur the line between science fiction and fantasy; tech has become megalotech. A recent episode of the television series Black Mirror, “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too” (2019), explores these concepts with an examination of the pros and cons of replacing human performers with AI simulacra.

Literary geography and the problem of the formation of geo-cultural texts (using the example of the Black Sea texts of Russian literature)

The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of geo-cultural texts within the framework of literary geography. An important part of literary and geographical studies is the study of geographical images presented in literary works. The concept of a geo-cultural text makes it possible to typologize literary and geographical images in relation to different geo-cultures. Local geo-cultures with a developed literary tradition usually have a number of representative geo-cultural texts that characterize the landscape and figurative features of the development of a given territory. The evolution of the Black Sea text is considered using the concepts of geo-culture and geo-cultural text. Images of the South, exoticism, and antiquity are explored as key images determining the development of the Black Sea text. Special attention is paid to the formation of interrelations between the images of the Crimea and antiquity. The marine “exoticism,” combined with the “atmosphere” of antiquity, the marginal antiquity of European culture, turned out to be the strongest emotional stimulus for the formation of both southern and Black Sea images in Russian literature. In the geo-cultural context, the “crystallization” of the Black Sea text of Russian literature takes place by the end of the 19th–beginning of the 20th century (I. Bunin, A. Kuprin). This is due to the rich landscape descriptions, which make it possible to talk about the “Black Sea aura” of these texts and the emergence of a kind of “Black Sea ontologies.” Further, the substantial core of the geo-cultural Black Sea text in the 20th century is determined by the works of M. Voloshin, O. Mandelstam, I. Babel, A. Green, K. Paustovsky, V. Kataev. Through the “crystallization” of the Crimean and Black Sea texts and the modern re-creation of its own image of “Black Sea antiquity” throughout the 20th century, Russian culture created its geo-cultural “antiquity” within the framework of the European geo-cultural space. Thanks to the work of I. Brodsky (“Roman” and “imperial” loci), the Crimean and Black Sea texts expand their semantic field, turning out to be a “node” of metaphorical assimilation, uniting the Mediterranean geo-cultural area and geo-cultural zones of influence of Russian literature.

Weapon of Assault: Combat, Protective Magic, and the Fatal Throat Bite in Icelandic Sagas

Abstract Icelandic sagas contain a literary motif little known in other pre-modern literary traditions: the throat bite. There are 10 scenes in the sagas in which one character bites, almost bites, or contemplates biting the throat of another character. The throat bite was used by saga authors strategically and purposefully, whether to resolve conflict, similar to a more conventional murder; to signify paranormal characteristics – or lack of paranormal characteristics; or to denote interpersonal power dynamics within a saga narrative. Due to the prevalence of the throat bite in extra-narrative contexts, including its use as hunting technique among non-human animals and the documented use of human teeth as a weapon among human populations, the saga writers of medieval Iceland accurately recognized that human teeth can serve as a weapon of assault and they craftily integrated the throat bite into the composition of select sagas.

Literature cartographies

If traditional literature reviews in academia tell stories of what is known about a topic, this article proposes a way to engage in this knowing differently through cartography, geography, and poetry, informed by Baradian theory. This writing details the creative method developed to think-with literature using geography as a mapping strategy, called ‘literature cartographies’. Through affective engagement with literature, geographical found-poems are presented that tell stories of how place shapes identity in arts therapy across the globe. The creative method of literature cartographies disrupts traditional literature review writing by inviting us to consider expanding how we tell and are affected by literature stories.

Poetic Alchemy: the Rise of Romance from a Persian Perspective

Abstract The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed either the rise or revival of long-form amorous narratives in at least four courtly language traditions across the southwestern flank of Eurasia: Persian, Georgian, Greek, and French. This coeval occurrence of the “rise of romance” offers fruitful grounds for considering broad literary-historical questions about genre, poetics, and interconnectivity in a comparative fashion. The aim of this article is to give an account of this phenomenon in the early Persian context, with special attention to the role of poetry in transforming popular tales into elite literature. Understanding the implications of this practice may shed some light on possible factors contributing to the romance’s (re-)emergence in other twelfth-century literary traditions. As a coda, this article suggests twelfth-century Anatolia and Syria as significant contact zones where all four of the courtly languages mentioned above would have had some opportunity to interact.

Mythological Figures in Garo Lores

Oral literature can be considered the earliest form of literature in any literary tradition, preceding the written form. It signifies originality, adaptability, and fluidity, thereby contributing to the evolution of literature. The Garos possess a diverse collection of oral narratives that have been passed down through generations. This oral tradition is deeply ingrained in the communal consciousness, serving as a reflection of the community's ethos. Within these oral compositions lie ancient and authentic lexicons that are meticulously preserved in their traditional sayings, songs, legends, proverbs, rituals, and incantations. This paper endeavors to examine the mythological entities present in Garo folklore, meticulously preserved through oral traditions by the ancestors. Myths, as repositories of communal history, chronicle the vicissitudes of kingdoms and encapsulate the essence of a community's past. They not only mirror the people but also foster unity, continuity, and coherence within a cultural milieu.

Developing a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan for Organization's Strategic Objectives Using the Design Thinking Approach

The objective of this study was to develop a theoretical framework tailored for managers of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as project managers. Design thinking is human centered approach that involves stakeholders at different levels of its application in the development of innovations. Originally as an engineering method, it has been applied in diverse fields, including entrepreneurship. This paper presents an extended version of the double diamond framework used in design thinking. The double diamond framework was developed in 2005 as a graphical approach for achieving project design process. The author’s in-depth analysis of the model indicates that it can be applied to formulating business strategic objectives, a use case not previously discussed in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims contribute to the scientific body of knowledge by extending the double diamond model for strategic objective formulation. A normative conceptual methodology was used to develop this framework. The development of a monitoring and evaluation plan for businesses or projects, based on a traditional literature review methodology, illustrates how design thinking can offer a new perspective on these processes, helping to address key challenges. This paper demonstrates how each of the five stages in the design thinking process can be employed during the development of a monitoring and evaluation plan. Although this development process can be tedious and complicated, applying the design thinking approach can simplify and streamline it, ensuring active involvement from all stakeholders through the introduced extended framework. Recommendations for future research include applying the proposed extended framework in empirical studies involving large organizations. For practical implications, managers of small and medium businesses are encouraged to apply this model when developing strategies or incorporate it into project management to enhance the development of a project's monitoring and evaluation plan.

Using Artificial Intelligence-Based Tools to Improve the Literature Review Process: Pilot Test with the Topic “Hybrid Meat Products”

Conducting a literature review is a mandatory initial stage in scientific research on a specific topic. However, this task is becoming much more complicated in certain areas (such as food science and technology) due to the huge increase in the number of scientific publications. Different tools based on artificial intelligence could be very useful for this purpose. This paper addresses this challenge by developing and checking different tools applicated to an emerging topic in food science and technology: “hybrid meat products”. The first tool to be applied was based on Natural Language Processing and was used to select and reduce the initial number of papers obtained from a traditional bibliographic search (using common scientific databases such as Web Science and Scopus) from 938 to 178 (a 87% reduction). The second tool was a project based on the interplay between Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and LLAMA 3, which was used to answer key questions relating to the topic under review (“hybrid meat products”) but limiting the context to the scientific review obtained after applying the first AI tool. This new strategy for reviewing scientific literature could be a major advance on from the traditional literature review procedure, making it faster, more open, more accessible to everyone, more effective, more objective, and more efficient—all of which help to fulfill the principles of open science.

Discourse-Level Communication Success in Aphasia: Unveiling Its Significance through Observer's Ratings.

Audrey Holland (1982) compared test scores to observers' ratings of conversational communicative success in people with aphasia (PWA). This springboarded a body of evidence employing observers to rate discourse. We review the utility of those ratings for assessing PWA's communication success. A traditional literature review identified 16 articles involving naive or trained raters assessing PWAs' communicative success across discourse genres. Another 10 articles reported ratings over time. Collectively, these studies evaluated 349 PWAs. Four studies utilized observers to rate the success of PWA's conversations. Eight studies that reported observers' ratings on other discourse genres found that multimodal communication and facilitative contexts improved success, and ratings of informativeness and comfort related to objective discourse analysis measures. Nine of 10 studies examining treatment effects found that communicative success ratings captured improvements. Observers' ratings provide social validity by reliably assessing the discourse-level communicative success of PWA. Ratings correlated with standardized diagnostic and objective discourse metrics but provided a window into factors that affect communicative success, including the degree to which communication is interactive, multimodal, and contextual. Integrating observers' ratings of discourse success at pretreatment may help identify supports or barriers to successful communication, facilitate individualization of treatments, and offer social validity of change.

Running out the digital clock: transatlantic privacy politics and veto points in time

ABSTRACT Why does the European Commission continue to sign onto unstable international data flow agreements with the United States? After two agreements were struck down by the European Court of Justice, and clear signals that a new one could meet a similar fate, the European Commission agreed to the Data Privacy Framework. To make sense of this behavior, we connect traditional work on veto points with work on historical institutionalism to highlight an international negotiation strategy – running out the clock. While traditional veto points literature suggests multiple institutions with varying preferences will limit the set of potential policies or their adoption, we highlight how these dynamics change when considering veto points in time. We showcase our argument by building three historical narratives detailing the negotiation of the successive data flow agreements. Our findings have important implications for the future of the transatlantic privacy regime as well as negotiation dynamics.

Etymology, History and Development of the Semantics of Food Names in Ukrainian Chronicles of the End of the 17th and the Beginning of the 18th Century

The article examines the etymology, history and semantic development of food names found in late 17th- and early 18th-century Ukrainian chronicles, including those by Samovydetsia, S. Velichko, and H. Hrabianka. Taking a synchronic-diachronic approach, the author analyzes these food nominations within the lexical-semantic domains of generic food names and dish names, establishing semantic relationships such as polysemy, synonymy and variation. This analysis traces the evolution of the Ukrainian language’s lexical composition and reveals its nationally distinct characteristics. By following these food nominations from their earliest written attestations through the period depicted in the chronicles, the study clearly illustrates the semantic development of the given food terminology. The author notes that words of Proto-Slavic origin comprise a significant portion of the food terminology used in late 17th- and early 18th-century Ukrainian chronicles. Borrowings from various languages are also used, including Polish, Old Slavic, Turkic, Russian, and German (occasionally by way of Polish), as well as Italian via German. The presence of these loanwords is explained by key historical events in Ukraine across different periods that shaped the development of the language. Taken together, the linguistic evidence across these chronicles illustrates the codification of a fledgling Ukrainian literary tradition firmly rooted in popular verbal traditions.

Application of Kaempferia parviflora: A Perspective Review

Kaempferia parviflora, also known as black ginger, is a popular medicinal plant among the Southeast Asian community. Recently, there has been increased interest in further exploring the potential health benefits and therapeutic applications of K. parviflora in Malaysia, Thailand's neighboring country. This review provides an overview of current literature regarding K. parviflora's traditional use and literature on efficacy and safety. We found that, traditionally, K. parviflora was used for gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, as sexual stimulants, and body nourishment. K. parviflora demonstrated antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiobesity, anticancer, vascular relaxation, and antimicrobial effects. In humans, there is evidence of its general benefits on physical fitness. In conclusion, K. parviflora is a plant with significant potential for various pharmacological applications. The rhizome is most popularly used and investigated, with polymethoxyflavones as the main bioactive phytoconstituent.