Humanities最新文献

{"title":"Cosmopolitanism Reinvented: Intercultural Encounters between Sino–African American Intellectuals in Early and Mid-20th Century China","authors":"Xinwen Huang","doi":"10.3390/h13040103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040103","url":null,"abstract":"Against the backdrop of global decolonization, nationalist movements, and civil upheavals in the early and mid-20th century, a renewed form of cosmopolitanism emerged through the intercultural encounters between African American and Chinese intellectuals. This cosmopolitan ideal was cultivated and embodied by these two historically, culturally, and geographically distinct communities and ultimately exerted lasting influences on a global scale. Despite initially perceiving China as a distant Other, African American authors such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois made their journeys to China in search of cultural inspiration for literary creations and social endeavors. While actively promoting the works of African American authors in China, the Chinese intellectual community in turn viewed the African American people as the Other Self and potential allies in international affairs. Mutual understanding and appreciation were pursued from both sides, leading to a co-reinvention of cosmopolitan ethos. By delving into the interconnected narratives, this article seeks to elucidate the nuanced dynamics and reciprocal influences that characterized the Sino–African American intellectual relationships in the context of international solidarity, decolonization, and the quest for social justice in the early and mid-20th century.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141921809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Between Sensibility and History: The Count de Rethel (1779) by Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire","authors":"Hélène Vidal","doi":"10.3390/h13040101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040101","url":null,"abstract":"The Count de Rethel: An Historical Novel (1779) can be ascribed to Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) as a translation of Anecdotes de la cour de Philippe-Auguste (1733) by Marguerite de Lussan. The action is set at the court of Philip II of France, known as Philip Augustus, at the time of the war with King Henry II and the Crusade with Richard I, known as the Lionheart. This inspired revival of fictionalised medieval history heralding romanticism in the age of sensibility refashions the codes of chivalry according to the aesthetics of the second half of the eighteenth century. This essay focuses on the interplay between fiction and history, between the present of writing and the rewriting of history through Cavendish’s translational prism, featuring the Middle Ages as a golden age of heroism and the Count de Rethel as a paragon of ancient virtue set against contemporary men of fashion.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141798727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“Except for This Hysteria, She Is the Perfect Woman”: Women and Hysteria in An Inconvenient Wife","authors":"Nina Marie Voigt","doi":"10.3390/h13040100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040100","url":null,"abstract":"Historical fiction can be understood as a hybrid space: it represents the past and simultaneously allows a consideration of the culture it is written in. Under the assumption that novels help address cultural shifts and attitudes, this paper aims to investigate how, why, and with what implications medical discourses surrounding women are depicted in fiction. This paper explores the manifold conceptualizations of hysteria in An Inconvenient Wife written by Megan Chance in 1998, arguing that the novel presents a complex view of discourses of medicalization. Its central claim is that the novel constructs hysteria not only as a tool of oppression but also as a tool with which to escape social constraints and patriarchal control. Through understanding historical fiction as not merely commenting on the past, but as addressing contemporary issues, the text adds to discussions centering on intersections of medicine and literature.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141804076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“From Out the Portals of My Brain”: William Blake’s Partus Mentis and Imaginative Regeneration","authors":"Annalisa Volpone","doi":"10.3390/h13040099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040099","url":null,"abstract":"Partus mentis (the parturition of the mind) brings together the following two significant aspects of Romantic culture and ideology: the exploration into human generation, and the process of how imagination forms an idea and makes the mind creatively productive. This article suggests that analyzing William Blake’s portrayal of imagination through the partus mentis trope can enhance our comprehension of how he illustrates and employs this faculty in his works. In Blake’s partus mentis, the analogy between the brain and the womb is pivotal. The brain is seen as a host for ideas that are conceived through imagination, and once they are brought to life, they become art. This is a vital component of Blake’s cosmogony, tying into his personal reinterpretation of biblical Genesis and his concept of the Human Form Divine. It also includes his response to medical theories and practises regarding generation and life. This article pays close attention to the medico-cultural discourse that was contemporary to Blake, and its wide use of the ‘analogy’, which defined the episteme of the long eighteenth century. The analogy approach was later challenged by the ‘epistemology of the visual’, which emphasized the use of anatomical atlases, wax models, and dissections for direct experiential insights into bodily functions and processes, particularly of the brain and the womb. This article argues that Blake is able to transcend these two epistemologies while harnessing specific elements from each.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141813675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Agni to Agency: Sita’s Liberation in Arni and Chitrakar’s Graphic Retelling of the Ramayana","authors":"Dhruv Sinha, Zeeshan Ali","doi":"10.3390/h13040097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040097","url":null,"abstract":"The traditional interpretations of the Ramayana have been critiqued for preserving and promoting patriarchal gender structures by emphasising masculine heroism and often portraying female characters as unidimensional symbols of selflessness, purity, and honour. This paper analyses how Samhita Arni and Chitrakar’s graphic novel Sita’s Ramayana offers a retelling that foregrounds Sita’s perspective to question and reinterpret the social constructs. By analysing the text through a feminist literary lens, this paper examines how the novel adapts the traditional narrative to provide centre stage to Sita’s various encounters with instances of oppression. The findings reveal how Arni’s retelling employs unique aesthetics that combine texts and Chitrakar’s patua art illustrations to question the traditional male-centred versions, making this novel a part of a broader structure of feminist reinterpretations that aim to highlight female agency in cultural canons. This paper examines Sita’s stance against societal expectations for women, such as self-sacrifice, while also tracking her personal growth, which is symbolically represented by her reunion with Mother Earth. The novel contributes to the ongoing tradition of literary revisionism by offering a nuanced critique of the patriarchal foundations within classical myths. This is underscored by the novel’s reinterpretation of the epic in a way that points out the plasticity of the Ramayana, which can be reshaped to support more progressive views, encouraging discourse on existing gender norms present in contemporary societies.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141814479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Enduring Shadow of “Maternal Emptiness”: From Hitchcock’s Distorted Mother Image to Contemporary Cinema’s Maternal Representations","authors":"Kexin Lyu, Zhenyu Cheng, Dongkwon Seong","doi":"10.3390/h13040098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040098","url":null,"abstract":"Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, is renowned for his unique cinematic style and profound insights into the complexity of human nature. Among the various female characters in his films, the mother figure holds a particularly significant place. This article proposes the concept of “maternal emptiness” to describe the predicament of the mother figures in Hitchcock’s films, where they are often depicted as distorted, dark, and somewhat lacking in maternal essence. Drawing on psychoanalytic and feminist film theories, especially the works of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Laura Mulvey, this study aims to deconstruct Hitchcockian “maternal emptiness” and explore its deep-rooted causes. Through a systematic examination of the mother figures in Hitchcock’s filmography, this article identifies the following three main categories: the mother roles of blonde women, the mother roles of female protagonists, and the mother roles of male protagonists. Close textual analysis reveals that these mother figures, despite their apparent diversity, share a common plight—a deviation from the maternal essence of love, care, and nourishment. This “maternal emptiness” is further traced back to Hitchcock’s childhood traumas, the patriarchal ideology in the cultural context, and the changing status of motherhood in modern society. By engaging critically with existing Hitchcock scholarship, including the works of Tania Modleski, Paul Gordon, and Slavoj Žižek, this study situates the concept of “maternal emptiness” within the broader discussions of motherhood in cinema. It explores how Hitchcock’s representation of mothers both reflects and challenges contemporary understandings of maternity. Furthermore, this study examines the enduring influence of Hitchcock’s maternal representations on contemporary cinema, analyzing films such as Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!” (2017) and Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” (2018) to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of “maternal emptiness” in modern film discourse. The study concludes by considering the legacy of Hitchcock’s maternal representations in contemporary cinema, demonstrating the ongoing relevance of the concept of “maternal emptiness” in film analysis and its potential for reimagining maternal subjectivity in cinematic representation.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141814533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chinggis Khan, Women, and the West: Literary and Cinematic Remakes of the Secret History of the Mongols","authors":"Benedetta De Bonis","doi":"10.3390/h13040096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040096","url":null,"abstract":"The name of Chinggis Khan and the women who contributed to the rise of his empire have long been associated with barbarism in the West. However, the rediscovery of the Secret History of the Mongols, a medieval Mongolian epic chronicle, in 1866, and its numerous translations circulating since the mid-20th century has led Western scholars to a total revaluation of these figures. This paper analyses the representation of Chinggis Khan and his queens in the literary and cinematic adaptations of the Secret History of the Mongols produced in Europe and the United States, specifically in English, French, and Italian. It critically engages with E. W. Said’s works, and with postcolonial and gender studies. The article argues that the portrayal of the Mongols has become increasingly positive in 20th and 21st century remakes of the epic chronicle, highlighting how the West reconsiders its relationship with cultural and gender otherness in an era marked by decolonisation and feminist claims.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141826229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Frail Warrior’: Stevenson as Manly Invalid at Saranac Lake","authors":"Christy Rieger","doi":"10.3390/h13040093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040093","url":null,"abstract":"Although “frail warrior” appears a contradiction in terms, the epithet captures how Robert Louis Stevenson’s admirers sought to reconcile a late-nineteenth-century ideal of physical manliness with the reality of the adventure writer’s debilitating illness. This construction of the writer’s public image is evident in accounts of his stay at the Saranac Lake, NY, tuberculosis sanatorium during the frigid winter of 1887–1888. The institution’s distinctive wilderness setting for medical treatment enabled a heroic model of disabled masculinity, one that is framed by American national identity. This archetype informs the author’s posthumous reputation and shows how gender and nationality shape metaphoric thinking about illness and authorship.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141831433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Heavens of Knowledge: The Order of Sciences in Dante’s Convivio","authors":"Anna Pegoretti","doi":"10.3390/h13040095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040095","url":null,"abstract":"The essay focuses on Dante’s divisio scientiae presented in the second book of his Convivio. As a first step, it offers a fresh reading of Dante’s description of knowledge and the cosmos, emphasizing its deeply visual nature. The article then presents an overview of the Medieval tradition of the divisio scientiae, culminating with divisions that are geographically and chronologically close to Dante’s Florence. In relation to Brunetto Latini’s Rettorica and Tresor, new evidence is provided to elucidate his peculiar division of logic. Ultimately, Dante’s divisio and its objectives are reassessed in light of their historical background, underscoring their cosmological and totalizing scope. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the findings consider cognitive practices, such as diagrams, and examine a wide array of sources within their historical and institutional context, highlighting their transmission and dissemination.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141829436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Lady on the Sofa: Revisiting Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Illness","authors":"Isadora Quirarte-Ruvalcaba","doi":"10.3390/h13040094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13040094","url":null,"abstract":"If there is one poet who has been widely represented under a legendary light, it is Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), mostly through the figure of a secluded invalid. Barrett Browning’s illness and death have been romanticised ever since her own time, with multiple rumours and theories mostly focusing on the fact that her illness was ‘miraculously dispelled’ by ‘love’ and only reappeared gradually to take the poet’s life. This article proposes yet another and quite different diagnosis for Barrett Browning’s illness, theorising on the possibility that Barrett Browning’s ailment was a pulmonary congenital malformation, which remained misdiagnosed due to the lack of medical technology at the time. Several of the diagnoses given to Barrett Browning by her medical practitioners, contemporary and posthumous biographers and other scholars are presented and compared, alongside my own hypothesis. In addition, Barrett Browning’s arguable morphine dependency is reassessed in order to explore its impact on her illness, with the possibility that it exacerbated or even caused some of her symptoms. This reassessment also explores the role that morphine played in Barrett Browning’s death, suggesting an accidental overdose possibly overlooked by Robert Browning.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141831502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}