Destruction,Narrative and the Excess of Uniqueness: Reading Cavarero on Violence and Narration

In this article, I critically engage Adriana Cavarero’s account of uniqueness via an analysis of her work on narrativity and violence. I suggest there is an ambivalence in Cavarero’s account of uniqueness: Cavarero argues both that uniqueness is susceptible to destruction, and that it cannot finally be annihilated. To make this clear I use Cavarero’s account to read a narrative offered by Miklós Nyiszli, of a woman who survived an Auschwitz gas chamber. I contrast this to Cavarero’s reading of Eurydice and Orpheus, arguing that the ambivalence in Cavarero’s account can be resolved by thinking an excess proper to uniqueness.     

Vulnerability,Agency and the Ambivalence of Place in Narratives of Rape in Three High-Profile Swedish Cases

For decades, the media have frequently been instrumental in framing rape cases by linking the deed with the place. This study demonstrates that law courts are not innocent of such social framing; on the contrary, they are significant agents. We argue that courts, by shaping the plot in rape cases, participate in an ongoing cultural production of meaning, although in a more subtle and ambivalent way than the media. In a narrative analysis of three contemporary rape cases in Sweden, we bring together feminist research on place with the concepts of vulnerability and agency. We argue that place is framed as ambivalent in relation to vulnerability and agency, and dependent on the positioning of plaintiff and defendant. In court narratives, geographical places are made relevant, including the locations where the alleged rapes took place. Court narratives of rape include highly ambivalent connotations with place in relation to vulnerability and agency, distinguished by different narratives and outcomes in the various instances. The legal and social implications of our work should include an awareness of the relevance of place in relation to rape.     

双重取向—主体性神话—献媚——潘金莲故事的重述中发生的价值姿态变异

叙事文学文本是把一种价值姿态编制在一个故事之中。潘金莲故事的三个文本的不同叙述 ,就展现了三种完全不同的价值姿态     

Psychological Boundaries and Ethnic Conflict: How Identity Constrained Choice and Worked to Turn Ordinary People into Perpetrators of Ethnic Violence During the Lebanese Civil War

Why do ordinary people commit ethnic atrocities? To understand the psychology of ethnic violence we constructed a pilot project based on narrative interviews with five ordinary people who participated in acts of ethnic violence during the Lebanese Civil War. The interviews present striking evidence that identity constrains choice for all individuals, regardless of their particular ideological or socioeconomic demographic background. Our findings challenge both the rationalist approaches of realistic conflict theory and rational choice and the institutional claims of consociational democracy and suggest the tremendous power of identity and perceptions of self in relation to others to constrain political actions.     

王安忆小说的叙事建构及读解

王安忆是个高产作家,其创作不仅高产而且有质量,因而吸引了许多评论者的目光,但对王安忆小说创作进行总体研究难度甚大。将王安忆小说文本的叙事修辞与作家的叙事理念相结合,在对其小说文本的叙事探究中注入修辞分析的元素,从修辞对话的层面阐释其小说创作,不失为一个新的视角。     

地方·颓废·返魅：台湾“新乡土小说”研究

台湾“新乡土小说”延续了“乡土文学”反思现代化的社会批判功能。它通过描绘地理地景、乡土风俗等书写策略来积极建构“地方性”,以分割“现代化”话语的整体性;塑造了“废人”形象系列,用颓废者的否定姿态传递对现代社会的反叛意识;同时以奇谭浪漫、神秘鬼魅的后现代审美意识疏离主流论述、质疑历史正典和文化正统。但其疏离现实的消极立场、悬置价值判断的保守态度以及解构叙事的书写策略又消耗了其社会批判的针对性与批判强度,导致失焦、乏力的空虚状态。     

Painful Pleasure: The Politics and Aesthetics of Psychosocial Trauma in Impunity

Abstract

Continuous trauma syndrome (CTS) is the foundation for the characters in the film Impunity. The aesthetic choices in the narrative structure are an exploration of the discursive nature of violence and trauma in contemporary South African society. The theorising of continuous stress trauma provides the necessary challenge to the more conventional understanding of post-traumatic stress syndrome and informs the underlying analysis of the film. This analysis is offered in an interlocutory manner with psychology theorist Garth Stevens who provides a hermeneutic reading of Impunity that draws directly from his own research and others in the field of psychology. The paper is offered as an examination of an artistic research, film practice. The practice itself constitutes a theoretical expression which connects the aesthetic and structural choices of the film with the disciplinary observations made by Stevens. It suggests two theoretical approaches from different disciplines brought in conversation with each other to inform the reading of Impunity as artistic expression. The paper puts at its centre the discursive approach to the study of violence and trauma to suggest how the film’s structure and its aesthetics may be connected to research in the field of psychology.     

Charlie Hebdo’s controversial cartoons in question: stances,translational narratives and identity construction from a cross-linguistic perspective

ABSTRACT

Charlie Hebdo, a synonym for the universal cause of liberty and freedom of the Press, gained international attention after the terrorist attack of January 2015. However, Charlie Hebdo through its particular humour, which is both culture-bound and ideology-oriented, triggered anger and indignation, mainly after the publication of cartoons portraying little Aylan, the symbol of refugees’ tragedy, and in particular, the one which depicted him as “an ass groper”. This article sets out to investigate from a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural viewpoint reactions that the most controversial cartoon triggered, while considering both the socio-political context of the event and examining the crisscrossing and competing narratives it gave rise to. In doing so, the study draws heavily on the narrative theory of translation [Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London: Routledge, Baker, Mona. 2007. “Reframing Conflict in Translation.” Social Semiotics 17 (2): 151–169, Baker, Mona. 2010. “Narratives of Terrorism and Security: ‘Accurate’ Translations, Suspicious Frames’.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 3 (3): 347–364] and uses concepts and methods from Critical Discourse Analysis, and semiotic approaches to cartoon translation. Working with a trilingual corpus composed of articles from various French, English and Greek online newspapers and blogs, it first delineates the theoretical framework, the methodological approach applied and then it proceeds with the analysis of stancetaking as deployed in headlines and examines from a contrastive viewpoint the competing translational narratives in English and Greek data.     

张爱玲与台湾文学史书写

张爱玲与台湾文学史书写有着复杂而又密切的关系,半个世纪以来,诸种台湾文学史或书写,或缩写,或不写张爱玲,都有其内在的深层原因。作为"文学/文化"的"张爱玲符号",已经成为一种亟待思考的文学现象,本文通过对张爱玲文本在东亚的后殖民和冷战秩序构筑当中被台湾接受的一些脉络,以及在台湾本土意识高扬的背景下台湾新文学史要怎样处理张爱玲的考察,阐述文学制度介入到国族想象后,对作家阐释也出现了较大的位移。而且,也要阐释台湾"独派"人士在处理文化上的身份认同和政治上的身份认同之间的理论困境。     

反本质主义语境下的后现代主义

实用主义对本质主义的批判,揭开了哲学上后现代性取代现代性的序幕.海德格尔既反对本质主义又反对实用主义.他关于实用主义与本质主义之间具有深层关联的观点,成为后现代哲学家激进批判现代性的理论起点.利奥塔通过对科学知识与叙事知识两个不同方面的拆解,成功点破了本质主义成为现代人生活的一种普遍模式的奥秘.福柯则揭示出,在现代性条件下,文本和权力关系怎样通过话语对社会和它的文化生产行使着一种有效的控制.德里达把文本看作是与外在权力无关的东西,既表明了他与福柯之间的重大分歧,也推进了海德格尔对本质主义的批判,同时还把哲学拓展到文学领域.本文试图在所有这些方面建立起联系,并且把追溯的源头引向古希腊哲学的理论特质.