Teaching English Literature in the Digital Era

Not many students (and teachers) like to study (andteach) literature. Reading, analysing and interpreting a literarywork may be a time-consuming and exhausting task especiallyfor those who are not bookworms. How can teachers motivatestudents to read literary works and make them develop criticalthinking? In the age of digital natives where everything startsand ends with a “click” on the swift keyboard, this seems to be afar-fetching undertaking. However, the use of audio-visualdevices and various online educational tools in teaching both –foreign language and literature – might trigger motivation andencourage the learning process. The aim of this paper is toidentify, explore and analyse innovative approaches to foreignlanguage acquisition, more precisely, the English languageteaching and learning, by using literature (prose and poetry) asan unconventional teaching tool. Apart from the works ofclassical literature, the creative works of pop culture such asfilms, TV series, video games and songs will be used as apowerful means of breaking boundaries, learning andintegrating, studying and having fun

MANIFESTATIONS OF ‘NEW AGE’ RELIGIONS IN GATED COMMUNITIES OF J. G. BALLARD’S COCAINE NIGHTS AND KINGDOM COME – AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH

The aim of this paper is to identify different manifestations of ‘new age’ religions within the gated communities of James G. Ballard’s urban violence novels Cocaine Nights (1996) and Kingdom Come (2006), using an ecocritical approach elaborated within the works of Stacy Alaimo, and to show that the entwining of the human body and the ‘more-than-human’ world also pertains to that of the human mind and soul and the environment. In other words, one’s mental, religious and spiritual tendencies are also shaped and transformed within the environment; man’s ability to go beyond the limitations of anthropocentrism make the binary oppositions of the body and mind/soul, like that of body and nature, fluid and as such suitable to be considered in a different light. Keywords: ecocriticism; human and more-than-human; body/soul and nature; urban environment; new age religions