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Marxist Realism: Kobayashi Takiji and the Politics of Representation
Issue:
Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2023
Pages:
56-64
Received:
20 January 2023
Accepted:
17 February 2023
Published:
3 March 2023
Abstract: This paper explores the cross-cultural dynamics and contradictions that surface when attempting to apply the universal claims of Marxist literary aesthetics to the particular case of a non-Western national tradition. More specifically, the key work of 1930s proletarian writer, Kobayashi Takiji (“The Factory Ship”) and his mentoring relationship to Marxist critic, Kurahara Korehito, will be analyzed by examining the tensions in trying to remain faithful to the universal, international claims of global Marxism, while also respecting Japanese historical and cultural particulars and conditions. Broadly speaking, the issues that surface in the Kobayashi/Kurahara relationship reflect inherent difficulties in maintaining metanarrative dimension of orthodox Marxism that belies its Western framework regarding world historical movements. The tension between the universal and particular poles of Marxism’s global vs Japanese context also frames parallel tension between the literary/aesthetic realm of art and its political content; remaining true to the former may bracket the assumed-to-be applicable state of the latter. In short, the question of the viability of a particular work of fiction’s realism (namely, its literariness) vs its fidelity to political orthodoxy, often articulated in terms of its form versus content. Finally, this tension between the universal global and particular national culture setting of Marxist literature and Marxist politics also may indicate a tension inherent within the revolutionary ambitions of idealist philosophy, namely Hegelianism. Stated differently, is Marxist philosophy itself a work of art/fiction – the utopic impulse of the classless society and worldwide revolution – at odds with the realities of specific historical and cultural conditions ‘on the ground’?
Abstract: This paper explores the cross-cultural dynamics and contradictions that surface when attempting to apply the universal claims of Marxist literary aesthetics to the particular case of a non-Western national tradition. More specifically, the key work of 1930s proletarian writer, Kobayashi Takiji (“The Factory Ship”) and his mentoring relationship to ...
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The African as Compared to European and American Film Adaptation: Some African Techniques of Film Adaptation from Novels
Jean Bernard Mbah,
Mofor Nkwette Zita Pierrette
Issue:
Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2023
Pages:
65-71
Received:
14 November 2022
Accepted:
7 December 2022
Published:
15 March 2023
Abstract: Adaptation study is a sub-branch of comparative literature that makes the bond between literature and cinema. Both literature and cinema are two different media and each has its own language to convey meaning. This article studies the African techniques of film adaptation from novels such as Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Biyi Bandele’s film in 2013 with the same title. With the advancement of technology, people are gradually shifting from the culture of reading novels to that of watching adapted films, which becomes a problem, as it tends to affect their knowledge of that particular text. Thus, how does the African filmmaker, as compared to other European and American filmmakers, leave from the novel to the film? The hypothesis to this question is that there is a number of pure African techniques that the filmmaker uses in the adaptation of the novel such as editing, sound, modified scenes, excluded scenes and invented scenes. The elements of this study are analysed using the Film Adaptation Theory based on Linda Hutcheon approach and the Film Analysis Method, which is a pure qualitative method. The findings of this study show that, the visual and aural techniques used by the filmmaker are all involved to create a film with a new vision having specific effects on the audience. There is therefore a difference between a novel and a film so; depending solely on the film adaptation to get the meaning embedded in the novel is erroneous.
Abstract: Adaptation study is a sub-branch of comparative literature that makes the bond between literature and cinema. Both literature and cinema are two different media and each has its own language to convey meaning. This article studies the African techniques of film adaptation from novels such as Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Biyi ...
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Julian Barnes' Novel “The Man in the Red Coat” in the Context of Intermediation
Issue:
Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2023
Pages:
72-78
Received:
2 January 2023
Accepted:
14 March 2023
Published:
24 March 2023
Abstract: In the proposed article, the analysis of the novel by J. Barnes serves as a tool for raising the question of the prospects for the development of intermediality in the study of the relationship between verbal and musical literary texts. In the novel, manifestations of intertextuality are clearly expressed in the form of a genre synthesis of a novel and an essay, dialogicity, a significant saturation of the text with facts and events of contextual historical origin, isomorphism in the construction of the novel and the object of its reflection - the belle époque-style. Intermediality can be considered as a special case of intertextuality, since the main object of consideration within its limits are manifestations of the recoding of semantic and structural elements of the text into a system of consistent patterns and lexical units of a different kind of artistic expression. A broader understanding of intermediality can serve as a starting point for the formation of a concept aimed at exploring general patterns in the production of meanings in the art text. In this perspective, intermediality goes beyond the understanding of the facts of the transformations of different art forms in line with the general trend towards synthesis. The ontological foundations of artistic thinking manifest themselves in the desire to create heterogeneous artistic forms in the process of synthesizing elements of different types of art. In Barnes's “The Man in the Red Coat” the intermedial properties are reflected in the structure and dramaturgy of the work. Fragmentariness of the text, paradoxicality as a method of its organisation, polyphony in the unfolding of various plot lines can serve as grounds for parallels between the structures of literary and musical works. The development of intermediality as a promising direction in contemporary art history will enable the development of a methodology for the analysis of artistic texts, based on general ontological patterns.
Abstract: In the proposed article, the analysis of the novel by J. Barnes serves as a tool for raising the question of the prospects for the development of intermediality in the study of the relationship between verbal and musical literary texts. In the novel, manifestations of intertextuality are clearly expressed in the form of a genre synthesis of a novel...
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Ethno-Religious Crises and Terrorism as Bane of Economic Development and Good Governance in Contemporary Nigeria
Adams Peter Akpo,
Gabriel Ajor Eneji
Issue:
Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2023
Pages:
79-90
Received:
12 July 2022
Accepted:
15 August 2022
Published:
10 May 2023
Abstract: The history of Nigeria is replete with ethno-religious crises and diverse acts of violence that have characterized its existence as a nation. Nigerian’s crises have taken an exponential dimension, from ethnic clientelistic tendencies to religious bigotry and now the new terrorism-killer herdsmen who go about as armed bandits and are kidnapping for ransom, sacking and uprooting communities, seizing farmlands from the autochthonous occupants who hitherto use to cultivate such farmlands for subsistent and commercial purposes. The main objective of this paper was to examine how ethno-religious crises and terrorism in Nigeria have hampered economic development and good governance and to show how the new terrorism originated, its causes and effects that have retarded economic growth and good governance and advance possible measures that could address the menace of these killer herdsmen/armed bandits. Giving the socio-historical nature of the theme, qualitative research methodology was used. This involved content analyses of available secondary sources and focus group discussions. From the data collection and technique of data analysis, the researchers were inspired to anchor the research on the attachment theory. From the non-statistical data gotten through personal communication and in various focus group discussions, the results revealed the starkest truths. It was revealed that religious fundamentalist jihadists lack childhood attachment to good parental upbringing, thus lending credence to the attachment theory discussed in the paper. The study also revealed that these jihadists have over the years been planning to overthrow the secular Nigerian government and that these new religious expantionists are bent on Islamizing the Nigerian state and that as conquering and apocalyptic warriors, they have links with other Fulani who share same Fulanization ideology and vow to enshrine Sharia law at whatever cost-including meaningful economic development and good governance. The paper concluded and recommended among other things that the restructuring of the Nigerian state to reflect true federalism is one of the surest ways of arresting the present insecurity situation in Nigeria.
Abstract: The history of Nigeria is replete with ethno-religious crises and diverse acts of violence that have characterized its existence as a nation. Nigerian’s crises have taken an exponential dimension, from ethnic clientelistic tendencies to religious bigotry and now the new terrorism-killer herdsmen who go about as armed bandits and are kidnapping for ...
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