Literature

Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Great Silence”, takes the perspective of a parrot living in the Rio Abajo forest in Puerto Rico, sharing its habitat with the Arecibo Observatory. The story first appeared as the textual component of a video installation by Allora & Calzadilla, a piece that emphasizes the entanglement of the forest habitat and the massive structure of the telescope). Chiang’s parrot-narrator wonders why humans demonstrate such a commitment to the possibility of interstellar communication while often ignoring the voices and interests of our terrestrial cohabitants. The parrot’s critically endangered species, the Puerto Rican parrot, once filled the forests of the island, and the narrator presents his/her narrative as a sort of final plea to humans, asking us to consider the speech of the nonhumans with whom we live. Bruno Latour’s notion of “the terrestrial” provides a useful framework for approaching the parrot’s narrative, specifically in terms of the demand to come “down to earth”, engaging in the politics of human and nonhuman agents who all have something at stake. The parrot asks that we turn more attention to terrestrial concerns, in order to communicate with those who are already speaking to us. Full article

In this article, an English professor and a sophomore-level English major explicate the singular difficulties of teaching and learning Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway mid-pandemic. These difficulties arise despite the fact that Mrs Dalloway would seem an ideal novel for our historical moment in the US. Woolf offers her readers searing insights into pandemic casualties, trauma, ruinous disillusionment with political systems, and radical isolation in a fragmented society. Working together, professor and student identify potent reasons why teaching and learning from this novel can be so difficult. We unpack a serious yet widely misunderstood gap between students’ and educators’ perspectives: a gap widened since 2020 by a combination of remote learning and social media consumption. We then recommend intellectual and pedagogical strategies that illuminate Woolf in ways not required before the pandemic, while also bridging perceptual gaps in the classroom between professors and students. Studying and interpreting Mrs Dalloway, a novel invested in illuminating myriad perspectives on PTSD, pandemic casualties, and political ruination, is difficult yet uniquely vital in this historical moment—though not for the reasons this professor expected. Full article

What does it mean to mourn for the loss of lives that are rendered ungrievable by history? More importantly, with what language does one grieve the loss or despoliation of lives that are rendered ungrievable through disremembrance? This study reads such concerns as represented in two novels by Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Drawing on theorizations of the Other and the Abject in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Julia Kristeva, respectively, the readings of Morrison’s novels presented here seek to conceptualize the impacts of racial and racist oppression as the fallout from experiences of othering in the extreme. Confronting the desecration of human life and dignity engendered through racism, the study argues, is a descent into abjection. Through exploring Morrison’s narrative project, as explained in her non-fiction, this study seeks to conceptualize a possible lexicon for grieving the Abject without appropriating it or in any way diminishing its specific and radical alterity as a despoiled being. Full article

The article discusses Ghassan Chebaro’s novel 2022 and the importance of grassroots action in battling the impending climate disaster in the Middle East. The article contrasts the novel’s optimism with the disappointing reality of inaction that is exacerbating the climate crisis. It also addresses the interconnectedness of capitalism, the military industrial complex, and the climate crisis. Full article

The polarized initial reception of Philip Pullman as a “new atheist” has gradually yielded to more nuanced scholarly positionings of his work as inspired by a heterodox, even “heretical,” Christianity. But in his new series, Pullman responds decisively to both “new atheist” and “heterodox Christian” interpretations, while widening the scope of his critical representations beyond Christian—indeed, beyond Abrahamic—religion. What emerges in the completed books of the incomplete new series, The Book of Dust, is a “secret commonwealth” of supernatural beings inhabiting multiple universes. These are all manifestations of Dust, the spiritual sentience of matter itself, which provides the basis for mystical visions and shamanistic beliefs, as well as religious orthodoxies. Rejecting the latter for the former, the second book in particular, The Secret Commonwealth, suggests an endorsement of spiritual quest. To motivate acceptance of this interpretation, we begin by reviewing the critical reception of His Dark Materials, especially in relation to its theological implications. After that, we turn to the representation of reductionist positions in The Book of Dust, especially the authors presented in The Secret Commonwealth, Gottfried Brande and Simon Talbot. Then, we investigate the representation of the Abrahamic religions in that work, intrigued less by the obvious parallels between Pullman’s imaginary religions and Christianity and Islam, than by his positive representation of mysticism. Finally, we examine his representations of shamanism and animism, soul belief and hermetic doctrines, and his allusions to Zoroastrianism, before summing up. Pullman is an a-theist in the sense of being without a god, not in the post-Enlightenment sense of a rejection of the supernatural/spiritual. His imaginary universe celebrates spiritual quest and ontological multiplicity, against all forms of speculative closure. Full article

While reports of the death of literature are greatly exaggerated, reports of the decline of Aestheticism, New Criticism, and the printed word are not. Literature as a critique of society is alive today, but to survive tomorrow in any form it will need to engage environmental, climate, and pandemic public health issues. Without such engagement, there will be no civilization, and, thus, no literature. Literature can survive now, but to thrive, essays in literary criticism may have to not only (i) continue to discuss canonical and (ii) minority writing but also (iii) partner with cultural studies and/or (iv) expand the definition of literature to include “the best stories”, (v) especially multimedia stories. Critics would also be well advised to (vi) balance abstraction and theory with close, detailed readings of literature. Editors might encourage new essays demonstrating that (vii) unity in literature is compatible with the celebration of diversity, that explore (viii) the relationship of literature and science in general, and (ix) the integration of unity in literature with the search for unified theory in science. Finally, editors might encourage new essays on less trendy topics such as (x) literature focused on feelings and/or (xi) how literature helps individual readers make radical changes in their lives. Full article

In the Soviet era, Russian involvement in WWI long represented an ostracised and even forgotten event. This very attitude is reflected by Soviet literary criticism of WWI war literature. Taking into account both the studies which re-examined this part of Russian literature in a less ideologically biased manner and the stances that major writers of that period took towards the war, the aim of this paper is to investigate Russian Soldier-literature as presented in anthologies published in the wake of the First World War. The publishing of short stories, journalistic reporting and poems actually (or allegedly) composed by soldiers themselves can be interpreted as a symptomatic expression of a broader cultural discourse that was common at that time, and of which state propaganda publications often availed themselves. Full article

Jeanette Winterson’s magical realist love stories, such as The Passion, have been read by some critics in terms of a tendency to idealise romance as a transformative passion that transcends social structures. In this article, I propose that Winterson’s recent gothic novel, The Daylight Gate, critically revises a set of Romantic themes first broached in The Passion, exposing and interrogating the fantasy scenario at the centre of romantic love. This narrative about magic and the devil explores the ambivalence of passion as possession—diabolical and contractual—before using this to critique the desire for transcendence implied by “undying love”. Metaphysics becomes a metaphor for metapsychology, where the Romantic motif of undying love as connected to fatal desire is complicated by a traversal of the fantasy of the union of two immortal souls. These revisions have the effect of reversing the implications of Winterson’s earlier treatment of romantic love, turning it back from the personal towards engagement with the political. Full article

This manuscript aims to provide a nuanced study of the idea of rights and duties prevalent in ancient Védic society through Védic literature and Dharmaśāstras. This manuscript delves into the exegesis of the Védas and Dharmaśāstras to accomplish this. The archaic Védic literature and Dharmaśāstra texts are the origin and backbone of Sanskrit literature. They have a plethora of ideas that, if accepted, could be quite useful for the protection of any person’s human rights. In the Védas and Dharmaśāstras, rights and duties complement each other, and rights are integrated with duties. According to these texts, rights and duties are correlated and the relationship between rights and duties leads to the core concept of dhárma (constitutional laws). Dhárma is a systematic Sanskrit concept that includes traditions, obligations, morals, laws, order, and justice. It was a unique concept of dhárma that kept checks and balances on sovereign officials and prevented them from becoming autocratic and anarchist. It also provided the common man with a protective shield against the dictatorship of sovereign officials. Ordinary citizens had more privileges and fewer responsibilities relative to the state’s highest officials. The greater the authority, the less his privileges were, and the more extensive his responsibilities became. This research is an exegetical analysis of ancient Indian Védic and later Védic literature and is primarily aimed at deciphering some of the essential ideas about rights found in these texts, which are akin to contemporary human rights. It endeavours to discern and explain the tenets of human rights obnubilated in the pristine mantras of the ancient Védic and Smṛti texts of India. The essay further attempts to add a much-needed non-western perspective to the historiography of human rights. Full article

In contemporary literary theory, Plato is often cited as the original repudiator of literary truth, and Aristotle as he who set down that literature is “imitation,” thus himself involuntarily banning literature from truth. This essay argues that these interpretations adulterate the original arguments of Plato and Aristotle, who both believed in literary truth. We—literary theorists and philosophers of literature—should recognize this and rethink our interpretation of these ancient texts. This will, in turn, lead us to ask better questions about the nature of literary truth and value. Full article

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) created a new genre termed “science nonfiction literature.” This genre blended environmental science and narrative while ushering in a new era of awareness and interest for both. With the contemporary climate crisis becoming more dire, this article returns to Carson’s work for insight into ways to engage deniers of climate change and methods to propel action. Further, it investigates and evaluates the writing within Silent Spring by considering its past in our present. Using the corporate reception of Carson’s book as reference, this article also examines ways climate change opponents create misunderstandings and inappropriately deceive and misdirect the public. Through this analysis, connections are made that connect literature, science, and public engagement, which can engender a broader, more comprehensive awareness of the importance of environmental literature as a medium for climate awareness progress. Full article