177,932 research outputs found

    The Relationship Between Ethics and Literature in Light of Levinas’s Work

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    In my paper I intend to uncover the relationship between ethics and literature. The aforementioned issue is connected to ’ethical turn’ — new orientation in literary studies, which was introduced in the nineties of 20th century. In order to uncover its source of inspiration, I refer to LĂ©vinas’s works, such as Reality and its Shadow, The poet’s vision, Totality and Infinity, Otherwise than Being. I advocate the view that not only LĂ©vinas’s concept of language, but also his account of poetry and responsibility underlie ethical criticism. Therefore, they are regarded as crucial to understand this new approach to literary studies. To illustrate my thesis, I attempt to interpret literary works, i.e. Wordsworth’s and Coetzee’s in light of LĂ©vinas’s concepts.Numer zostaƂ przygotowany przy wsparciu Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa WyĆŒszego

    What Is Ethical Literary Criticism? Some Reflections on the Lady Called Filosofia in Dante Alighieri and the Following

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    At the end of 2012, a new international association of literary scholarship was founded in China on the initiative of Chinese scholars, especially Professor Nie Zhenzhao of Wuhan Normal University, editor of the journal Forum for World Literature Studies. The main aim of the new International Association of Ethical Literary Criticism was to initiate a new trend of international literary scholarship that would form a certain counterweight to Western literary studies, which at least since the last quarter of the 20th century have indeed oscillated between two extremes: on the one hand, linguistic-formalistic research (including narratology, cognitivistics, language philosophy applied to literature, etc.) and, on the other hand, sociological approaches (discourses on power relations, postcolonial scholarship, gender studies, etc.). As Nie Zhenzhao puts it in his pivotal speech (largely coinciding with Nie 2010), there was very little hope that big or small “peripheries”, if they continued to follow the main fashionable trends proceeding from Western “centers”, could ever contribute to universal literary scholarship or world literature studies with their own, original points of view, reflecting realities beyond “centric” Western literary currents and criticism and their faithful imitations in the “periphery”.The following is a reflexion about the possible origin of western ethical literary criticism (in the following abbreviated as ELC) in Dante Alighieri’s philo sophical treatise Convivio. My main claim is that the formation of a theory / philosophy of ethical literary theory ran in parallel with ethical practice in the first great European literary masterpieces of the budding new era – Dante’s own monumental Commedia and the following creation of the early Italian Renaissance writers. On the other hand, I will try to show that ethics in literature in the Western tradition has been from its very beginnings till our days essentially conditioned by the presence in literary works of an aesthetic dimension, sensual beauty and arts

    The Ethics of (Fictional) Form: Persuasiveness and Perspective Taking from the Point of View of Cognitive Literary Studies

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    The persuasive power of narratives, which has been demonstrated in a host of psychological experiments, offers a rewarding field of research for literary studies in general and ethical criticism in particular. If fictional as well as factual narratives can change the beliefs of readers, then they are ethically meaningful to disseminate values, emotional dispositions, and cognitive practices. Building on recent research in psychology and literary studies, this article explores in three steps the ethical value of fictional narratives. First, the persuasive power of narratives is discussed from a cognitive perspective, which includes consideration of the ethical consequences of taking the perspectives of others. Second, these insights are connected to a delineation of narrative conventions, which can foster the kind of deeper understanding associated with altruistic behavior. In the third part, pertinent narrative strategies are discussed from an ethical perspective. A brief conclusion summarizes the most important results and sketches some fields that merit exploration in future studies of ethical criticism

    Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

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    The contributions to this volume address conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics and investigate the ethics and aesthetic of representing poverty and precarity across the postcolonial world.; Readership: All interested in poverty and precarity studies in literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics, specifically in representations impacting affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects

    A 'novel' approach to leadership development : using women's literary fiction to explore contemporary women's leadership issues : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

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    The central aim of this thesis is to investigate how women’s literary fiction can be harnessed for the purpose of exploring contemporary women’s leadership issues. This thesis argues that literary fiction is a valuable source of interdisciplinary and ‘artful’ consciousness-raising material for proactively addressing at the interpersonal level a wide range of critical concerns related to women’s leadership experiences. Having identified a significant ‘gap’ in the extant literature – the underutilisation of women’s novels, short-stories and plays in leadership studies – this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate how literary works can be used to examine women’s contemporary leadership issues. For this research project I adopted an interpretive qualitative research paradigm informed by critical leadership studies and a multiplicity of feminist perspectives. I developed a systematic method for long listing and short listing appropriate texts and analysed selected works in response to a five-point conceptual framework of critical concerns arising from a review of the women and leadership literature. I also kept a reflective blog to track the iterative nature of the research process and to record my learning during this study. The findings demonstrate that women’s literary fiction offers a rich repository of thought-provoking illustrations of women’s leadership concerns, including gender binaries, power-play, socially constructed perceptions and gendered expectations, and women’s diverse range experiences as both leaders and followers. The extended analysis provides a number of in-depth examples and reflective questions, revealing myriad opportunities for critical theorising, illustrative analysis and critical reflection. Subsequently, this thesis argues that fictional stories are a viable and potentially transformative ‘artful’ intervention for addressing complex leadership issues concerned with gender within the context of women’s leadership development programmes. My recommendations for future studies include a focus on ethical leadership, the evaluation of participant ‘book club’ interventions and an extension of the reading lists to include more culturally relevant New Zealand authors. To my knowledge, there are no studies that utilise women’s literary fiction for the purpose of exploring contemporary women’s leadership concerns and questions. Consequently, my thesis makes an original contribution to the leadership and humanities field, as well as providing an innovative and creative product that can be used for critical and interdisciplinary approaches to women’s leadership development

    Inside the American Stratification System: Imageries from the Black Writers

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    The following paper was given at a seminar, Teaching African-American Literature, at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies of Harvard University in April 1991. The paper addresses several questions. If social science, as a matter of scientific principle, must choose to avoid ethical conclusions, do black novelists, poets, and essayists help fill the ethical void? But then, are they objective enough

    Translation Impossible: : The Ethics, Politics and Pragmatics of Radical Translation in South Asian Literatures

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    Since the growth of translation studies, translators and literary scholars have increasingly come to acknowledge the intense ethical and political, as well as practical, issues involved in preparing, producing and circulating translations of literature

    Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

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    The contributions to this volume address conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics and investigate the ethics and aesthetic of representing poverty and precarity across the postcolonial world.; Readership: All interested in poverty and precarity studies in literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics, specifically in representations impacting affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects

    The Functions of Literature: A Diachronic Perspective on the British Novel on Terrorism from the Victorian Fin de SiĂšcle to the Present

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    Modern terrorism emerged over 150 years ago. It not only wreaked havoc on individuals and societies and inspired widespread fear of future attacks, but also triggered a myriad of fictional responses by writers and film-makers, whose relevance for cultural production and meaning-making has drawn a lot of attention in Cultural and Literary Studies in recent years. The present study focuses on narrative fiction, and, more precisely, the British novel. From the 19thcentury anti-colonial Irish Fenians to the homegrown Jihadists of the 21st century, Britain’s experience of terrorism is long, varied and replete with actions and ideologies. Considering aspects such as the mentality, literary, cultural and political history of Britain, this work strives to illustrate how the representations have processed British terrorism discourses throughout history. Informed by a diachronic perspective, novels dealing with terrorism from the fin de siùcle to the early 21st century are discussed and the continuities and differences of the novelistic representations of terrorism are elucidated. One of the key questions underlying this analysis concerns the potential literary functions that British novels dealing with terrorism may fulfil. That is, which literary strategies have been applied to realise cultural, mnemonic and ethical functions. Therefore, this study draws on contemporary theories of Cultural Studies, Memory Studies and Ethical Criticism

    Science Communication as Communication about Persons

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    All science communication, even the most formal research paper, is ultimately communication about persons (at the very least, the projected persona of the writer). This paper draws insights from philosophy, sociology, and literary studies to explore what is at stake in communication about persons in science, and to articulate some general ethical principles
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