Previous Issue
Volume 13, October
 
 

Humanities, Volume 13, Issue 6 (December 2024) – 26 articles

Cover Story (view full-size image): Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787) is a peer-reviewed, scholarly, open access journal focused on the meaning of cultural expression and perceptions of human existence as seen through different interpretative lenses. It publishes articles and reviews as well as Special Issues on particular subjects. The journal’s core focus surrounds the question of human cultures and their narratives as expressed  in writing, speech acts, art, architecture, music, dance, and other ways of exploring human experience that involve telling a human story. Humanities provides an advanced forum for studies related to humanities, and a variety of perspectives are welcome—including interdisciplinary approaches—as long as they focus on narrative modes of human experience as outlined above.
  • Issues are regarded as officially published after their release is announced to the table of contents alert mailing list.
  • You may sign up for e-mail alerts to receive table of contents of newly released issues.
  • PDF is the official format for papers published in both, html and pdf forms. To view the papers in pdf format, click on the "PDF Full-text" link, and use the free Adobe Reader to open them.
Order results
Result details
Section
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
14 pages, 6843 KiB  
Article
‘The Figure of the Old with the Pathetic Tenderness of the New’: An Early Reading of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey (1768)
by Daniel Reed
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 166; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060166 - 3 Dec 2024
Viewed by 466
Abstract
This essay introduces the Reed ASJ as a new primary source for the early reception of Laurence Sterne’s second novel, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) and draws on recent developments in marginalia studies to locate it within its contemporary historical [...] Read more.
This essay introduces the Reed ASJ as a new primary source for the early reception of Laurence Sterne’s second novel, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) and draws on recent developments in marginalia studies to locate it within its contemporary historical context. This framework informs discussion of the reader’s possible identity, their use of annotation, and wide-ranging responses to the novel such as comparative readings with Tristram Shandy (1759–1767), assessments of Sterne’s religiosity, and the depiction of French society and customs. Also explored are the reader’s strong interventions with passages in the novel that were beneath their expectations. And so, the recovery of the Reed ASJ suggests fresh possibilities for the reinvestigation of ASJ’s inherent paradoxes, its disputed sincerity in the sentimental mode and relationship to genre that fuel the novel’s ongoing popularity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Eighteenth-Century Novel and History)
Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 249 KiB  
Article
Bloody Transformations: Reinventing the Werewolf Through Explorations of Gender and Power in the Ginger Snaps Trilogy
by Megan Kenny
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060165 - 26 Nov 2024
Viewed by 751
Abstract
The wolf has stalked human society for centuries, becoming a figure of fear and reverence. It is unsurprising that such a figure would infiltrate culture via folklore, myth, and legend, most notably in the form of the werewolf. A review of historical references [...] Read more.
The wolf has stalked human society for centuries, becoming a figure of fear and reverence. It is unsurprising that such a figure would infiltrate culture via folklore, myth, and legend, most notably in the form of the werewolf. A review of historical references reveals that the figure of the ‘she-wolf’ also shadows human culture, providing an outlet for fears around women’s power, desire, and sexuality. As storytelling has shifted from oral traditions to cinematic portrayals, the she-wolf has been left to the sidelines. This paper seeks to explore how the Ginger Snaps trilogy (2000–2004) reset this imbalance, providing three distinct narratives centered on the female werewolf, intertwining the stories of the Fitzgerald sisters and their lycanthropic transformation. This trilogy served to reinvent the stereotype of the werewolf, using traditional lycanthropic tropes to explore issues of feminine monstrosity, the painful transitory period of adolescence, and enduring social anxieties under patriarchal societies. This paper argues that the Ginger Snaps trilogy is an integral set of texts for understanding how the werewolf motif has transitioned into contemporary society and how it continues to act as a release point for wider social anxieties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Re-imagining Classical Monsters)
24 pages, 349 KiB  
Article
“Settler Maintenance” and Migrant Domestic Worker Ecologies of Care
by Rachel C. Lee, Abraham Encinas and Lesley Thulin
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 164; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060164 - 25 Nov 2024
Viewed by 352
Abstract
Oral histories of Latina domestic workers in the United States feature hybrid narratives combining accounts of illness and “toxic discourse”. We approach domestic workers’ illnesses and disabilities in a capacious, extra-medical context that registers multiple axes of precarity (economic, racial, and migratory). We [...] Read more.
Oral histories of Latina domestic workers in the United States feature hybrid narratives combining accounts of illness and “toxic discourse”. We approach domestic workers’ illnesses and disabilities in a capacious, extra-medical context that registers multiple axes of precarity (economic, racial, and migratory). We are naming this context “settler maintenance”. Riffing on the specific and general valences of “maintenance” (i.e., as a synonym for cleaning work, and as a term for the practices and ideologies involved in a structure’s upkeep), this term has multiple meanings. First, it describes U.S. domestic workers’ often-compulsory use of hazardous chemical agents that promise to remove dirt speedily, yet that imperil domestic workers’ health. The use of these chemicals perpetuates two other, more abstract kinds of settler maintenance: (1) the continuation of socioeconomic hierarchies between immigrant domestic workers and settler employers, and (2) the continuation of (white) settlers’ extractive relationship to the land qua private property. To challenge this logic of settler maintenance, which is predicated on a lack of care for care workers, Latina domestic workers have developed alternative forms of care via lateral networks and political activism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Care in the Environmental Humanities)
13 pages, 257 KiB  
Article
Finding Justice in Memory: Exploring Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Cosmopolitan Ideals in His Novels
by Yingxue Zhang
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 163; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060163 - 22 Nov 2024
Viewed by 404
Abstract
In the realm of literary criticism, cosmopolitanism research provides a fresh perspective for evaluating literary works, highlighting the importance of respecting individual specific identities while linking personal destinies to broader global narratives. Against the backdrop of the current rise in cosmopolitan thought, this [...] Read more.
In the realm of literary criticism, cosmopolitanism research provides a fresh perspective for evaluating literary works, highlighting the importance of respecting individual specific identities while linking personal destinies to broader global narratives. Against the backdrop of the current rise in cosmopolitan thought, this article explores the cosmopolitan themes in The Sympathizer and The Committed by Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s cosmopolitan ideals. As the first writer of Vietnamese descent to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Nguyen reflects on the Vietnam War through his works by constructing dual identities, critiquing power structures, and reshaping the Vietnamese national character. These themes are explored within the context of globalization, offering profound reflections on colonial history and the recognition of personal identity. Nguyen’s contributions provide an important literary and cultural perspective for understanding the complex issues in today’s world. Full article
13 pages, 341 KiB  
Article
Dr. Cinderella and the Bronze Artifact, Cardinal Napellus and the Copper Globe: Was Gustav Meyrink an Early Adopter of M.R. James’s Ghostly Fiction?
by Martin Voracek
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060162 - 21 Nov 2024
Viewed by 483
Abstract
Hitherto unnoticed similarities between two short stories by Gustav Meyrink and two of the most renowned and widely read ghost stories of M.R. James are detailed through comparative literary analysis. Specifically, one early occult horror tale of Meyrink, The Plants of Dr. Cinderella [...] Read more.
Hitherto unnoticed similarities between two short stories by Gustav Meyrink and two of the most renowned and widely read ghost stories of M.R. James are detailed through comparative literary analysis. Specifically, one early occult horror tale of Meyrink, The Plants of Dr. Cinderella (1905), shows no less than about 15 congruences beneath the plot level (concerning specific story requisites) with M.R. James’s ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ (1904), as does, to the same extent, a later, widely known Meyrink tale (The Cardinal Napellus, 1914) vis-à-vis M.R. James’s Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911). Although direct, conclusive evidence is unavailable, a nexus of circumstantial evidence, building on extensive biographical and bibliographical inquiries, convergently attests to these assumed literary influences on Meyrink: for both cases, the chronology is intact and thus possible; Meyrink was expertly fluent in English and well-connected to England and English literature; and, these borrowings are reminiscent of other, already known originality issues surrounding Meyrink’s work. Altogether, these new discoveries shed fresh light on idiosyncrasies of Meyrink’s creative process, imagination, and literary production; on his still under-researched literary inspirational sources; as well as on the early reception of M.R. James’s ghostly fiction beyond the anglophone sphere. Full article
15 pages, 265 KiB  
Article
Mass Observation, Counterculture and the ‘Art of Living’
by Jill Marsden and Rebecca Harris
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060161 - 21 Nov 2024
Viewed by 346
Abstract
Mass Observation was the most ambitious and controversial investigation into cultural life in Britain in the twentieth century. Buoyed by a democratic spirit yet riven by eclectic intellectual allegiances, the project, in its inception, revelled in contradictions, many of which have endured in [...] Read more.
Mass Observation was the most ambitious and controversial investigation into cultural life in Britain in the twentieth century. Buoyed by a democratic spirit yet riven by eclectic intellectual allegiances, the project, in its inception, revelled in contradictions, many of which have endured in its legacy. This paper revisits the early countercultural aspirations of Mass Observation in order to reflect on the significance of these contradictions for the fate of popular writing. It is argued that the tensions between art, philosophy and science, as articulated in the inaugural statements of Mass Observation, are illuminated by the anti-elitist agenda of the founders. Building on these insights, the paper revisits controversies in the use of Mass Observation data for research and calls upon the findings from a recent recreation of Mass Observation Diary Day (12 May 2024) to argue that Mass Observation’s ‘science of ourselves’ be reconsidered as creative cultural production and a contribution to the ‘art of living’. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Transdisciplinary Humanities)
14 pages, 278 KiB  
Article
Revisiting Charles Perrault’s Iconic “Bluebeard” Serial Killer in Modern French Variants
by Christa Catherine Jones
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060160 - 19 Nov 2024
Viewed by 443
Abstract
“Bluebeard” (ATU 321: Maiden-Killer), a fairy tale about a wealthy noble man and serial killer, is the most gruesome of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales. Bluebeard epitomizes evil and horror. In Perrault’s tale, Bluebeard’s evilness is linked to patriarchy and power, as symbolized [...] Read more.
“Bluebeard” (ATU 321: Maiden-Killer), a fairy tale about a wealthy noble man and serial killer, is the most gruesome of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales. Bluebeard epitomizes evil and horror. In Perrault’s tale, Bluebeard’s evilness is linked to patriarchy and power, as symbolized by the villain’s iconic blue beard. Historically linked to Henry VIII (1491–1547), King of England, Bluebeard has also been associated with Breton commander Gilles de Rais who was hanged for sorcery and satanic abuse. This article examines how contemporary francophone “Bluebeard” variants refashion and redefine evil and whether they contain any new morals linked to evilness. Do they depict Bluebeard as a satanic, intrinsic force of evil or do they portray him in a less Manichean manner, as contemporary tales tend to do with monsters? Starting with Perrault’s famous tale, this article reveals how Bluebeard, the evil mass murderer figure and polygamist, is recast in a variety of contemporary francophone texts from Morocco, Belgium and France, with retellings by Michel Tournier (1981), Marie Darrieussecq (2002), La Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard) (2009), Amélie Nothomb (2012), Tahar Ben Jelloun (2014), Jacqueline Kelen (2014), and Cécile Coulon (2015). These modern variants illustrate Elliott Oring’s ideas about comparison and cultural context (see Oring 1986). A discussion of various French contemporary versions with a special emphasis of Ben Jelloun’s Moroccan retelling of “Bluebeard” open avenues for cross-cultural dialogue, highlighting how this tale evolves to fit different cultural contexts and continues to resonate today. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Depiction of Good and Evil in Fairytales)
10 pages, 234 KiB  
Article
Gloria Anzaldúa’s New Mestiza Consciousness Through Kristevan Female Writing and the Re-Shaping of Divine Maternal Archetypes
by Yuanjiang Wang
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060159 - 18 Nov 2024
Viewed by 440
Abstract
Faced with the hegemony of racial superiority, the oppression of gender dominance, and the demands of religious homogeneity, Mexican American Gloria E. Anzaldúa proposes a New Mestiza Consciousness that seeks to achieve a multifaceted transcendence of La Frontera (Borderlands). Using Krsiteva’s semiotics and [...] Read more.
Faced with the hegemony of racial superiority, the oppression of gender dominance, and the demands of religious homogeneity, Mexican American Gloria E. Anzaldúa proposes a New Mestiza Consciousness that seeks to achieve a multifaceted transcendence of La Frontera (Borderlands). Using Krsiteva’s semiotics and mythology-based feminism as a theoretical guide, this paper will analyze the cultural, gender, ethnic, and religious manifestations of New Mestiza Consciousness and the logic behind this consciousness in terms of women’s writing in the Chicana women’s literary community and the re-shaping of the maternal mythological archetype in indigenous culture. Full article
19 pages, 346 KiB  
Article
Is Your War over Now? Nationalism, Nostalgia, and Japan’s Long Postwar from Gojira (1954) to Godzilla Minus One (2023)
by William M. Tsutsui
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060158 - 15 Nov 2024
Viewed by 955
Abstract
This essay explores the political dynamics of the Godzilla film franchise over the past 70 years, arguing that critical and scholarly characterizations commonly oversimplify the movies’ complicated messages, which reflect the complex, often contradictory responses of Japanese filmmakers and audiences to the experiences [...] Read more.
This essay explores the political dynamics of the Godzilla film franchise over the past 70 years, arguing that critical and scholarly characterizations commonly oversimplify the movies’ complicated messages, which reflect the complex, often contradictory responses of Japanese filmmakers and audiences to the experiences of war, the atomic bombings, defeat, occupation, lasting subordination to the United States, and a seemingly endless postwar period. The analysis focuses on Honda Ishirō’s Gojira (1954), in which pacifist sentiments are tempered by depictions of military weaponry and patriotic pride, and Yamazaki Takashi’s Godzilla Minus One (2023), where ahistorical narratives, misty-eyed nostalgia, and ultranationalist tropes co-exist with strong anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment themes. By contextualizing these two films within the contested history of early postwar Japan and the polarized politics of the early twenty-first century, this essay suggests that the Godzilla series has shown remarkable continuities over time and has captured the profound ambivalence with which the Japanese people have negotiated memory, nationalism, and the charged relationship between Japan and the United States since the end of World War II. Full article
17 pages, 290 KiB  
Article
Bad Shakespeare: Performing Failure
by Anna Blackwell
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060157 - 15 Nov 2024
Viewed by 444
Abstract
The Shakespearean actor is a readily recognisable figure within the transatlantic cultural landscape. They may move regularly between the theatrical environs, which garnered them the appellation and more mainstream fare in television or film, but they are always, somehow, Shakespearean. However, if [...] Read more.
The Shakespearean actor is a readily recognisable figure within the transatlantic cultural landscape. They may move regularly between the theatrical environs, which garnered them the appellation and more mainstream fare in television or film, but they are always, somehow, Shakespearean. However, if easily identified, the Shakespearean actor is harder to define. For example, the multi-volume Great Shakespeareans shortlists individuals who, in editors Peter Holland’s and Adrian Poole’s words, have had ‘the greatest influence on both the interpretation, understanding and reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally’). But such scholarly endeavours consistently stop short of describing any social or cultural function which the Shakespearean may fill or any implicit ideological work at hand in the naming of actors as Shakespeareans. These omissions are all the more curious because, while its attribution is inherently positive in the examples above, popular culture also abounds with rather less illustrious Shakespeareans. Consider, for instance, how Niles and Frasier Crane watched, appalled, while their childhood icon, Jackson Hedley (Derek Jacobi), gurned and groaned on stage. Playing a caricature of himself in Extras, meanwhile, Ian McKellen confides that he knew what to say in The Lord of the Rings because ‘the words were written down for me’. Welcome to bad Shakespeare: a trope that has existed for as long as there has been the potential for ‘good’ Shakespeareanism. For evidence, one needs only consider Hamlet’s stubborn insistence that actors deliver their lines ‘trippingly on the tongue’. Bad Shakespeare has no such luck, however. From Mr Wopsle in Great Expectations to Alan Rickman’s frustrated thespian-turned-science-fiction-star in Galaxy Quest (‘How did I come to this? I played Richard III. There were five curtain calls’), these Shakespeareans are hammy, self-congratulating and embarrassing; they exhibit what David McGowan calls ‘visible acting’. Reversing a more typical focus on prestige and skill, this article will reflect on what it says about our relationship to Shakespeare that we take such evident and knowing pleasure in watching highly respected performers apparently fail at their jobs. Building on film studies and scholarship on badfilms, I will consider whether these fictional performances of failure only reify existing norms of ‘good’ performance or if they offer more subversive possibilities. Full article
26 pages, 351 KiB  
Article
The Five Serizawas and the Practice of Sacrifice: Reframing the Stereotypes of Scientists in Godzilla Media
by Rachel L. Carazo
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 156; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060156 - 11 Nov 2024
Viewed by 579
Abstract
With the growing popularity of Godzilla and kaijū media, scholarship on these topics is also increasing. While science themes (i.e., nuclearism, genetics, and environmentalism) are regular aspects of these publications, a research gap on the scientists themselves exists. Therefore, this article focuses on [...] Read more.
With the growing popularity of Godzilla and kaijū media, scholarship on these topics is also increasing. While science themes (i.e., nuclearism, genetics, and environmentalism) are regular aspects of these publications, a research gap on the scientists themselves exists. Therefore, this article focuses on the five Serizawas (Daisuke, Eiji, Ishirō, Ren, and Shigeru) of Godzilla media (namely films, novelizations, and a webtoon) to examine their significance. Haynes’ six scientist stereotypes and Frayling’s considerations of how scientists are disconnected from laypeople provide frameworks for the analysis. Yet the complexities of the Serizawas ultimately suggest that interpreting them through a lens of sacrifice (of their families, loves, creations, and lives) provides a more solid thread by which to understand these men and their utilization of what can be deemed ‘Godzilla science’—a method to (re)assert the natural order of the world on (and in) which humans and kaijū must learn to live. Full article
14 pages, 293 KiB  
Article
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the Arctic Cultural Circle in Three Ethnographic Works from China, Russia, and Canada
by Yang Mu and Di Ma
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 155; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060155 - 8 Nov 2024
Viewed by 476
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) within the Arctic Cultural Circle by comparing three influential texts: the Russian travelogue Dersu, the Trapper (1923); the Canadian memoir People of the Deer (1952); and the Chinese novel The Last Quarter of the Moon [...] Read more.
This paper analyzes the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) within the Arctic Cultural Circle by comparing three influential texts: the Russian travelogue Dersu, the Trapper (1923); the Canadian memoir People of the Deer (1952); and the Chinese novel The Last Quarter of the Moon (2005). By examining these texts, which depict the Indigenous cultures of the Nanai, the Ihalmiut, and the Ewenki, the study identifies shared ecological perspectives. These include an emphasis on the sacredness of nature, as seen in their animistic worship and spiritual connection to the environment; a holistic relationship between humans and nature, characterized by a wise and sustainable use of resources and a minimal sense of ownership; and a sense of reciprocity among all living beings, fostering mutual care and respect within the natural world. The paper further contends that the TEK of the circle offers valuable reference for addressing contemporary environmental and social challenges posed by climate change and biodiversity loss, particularly in the context of modernization and globalization. Full article
15 pages, 297 KiB  
Article
Mind the Gap: On the Absence of Writing Women in German-Language Literature of the Czech Lands
by Veronika Jičínská and Anna-Dorothea Ludewig
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 154; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060154 - 7 Nov 2024
Viewed by 541
Abstract
The absence of female writing forms a particularly striking gap in the historiography of German-language literature in the Czech Lands during the decades around 1900. Women participated significantly in the literary scene of the period but were largely forgotten. Our article will discuss [...] Read more.
The absence of female writing forms a particularly striking gap in the historiography of German-language literature in the Czech Lands during the decades around 1900. Women participated significantly in the literary scene of the period but were largely forgotten. Our article will discuss the conditions and discourses that enabled women to be active in the public space but later led to their absence in literary history. Approaches are sought that make future inclusion possible again. The first step for (re-)establishing a female presence in this area is to reconstruct biographies with a focus on female-specific social realities at the time and on the interaction of cultural, social and historical factors. In the next step, attention is brought to the “minor” or “simple”, rather non-canonical literary genres that were often used by women authors at the fin de siècle. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prague German Circle(s): Stable Values in Turbulent Times?)
26 pages, 6944 KiB  
Article
Artifacts of Glory and Pain: Evolving Cultural Narratives on Confederate Symbolism and Commemoration in a New Era of Social Justice
by John H. Jameson
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060153 - 6 Nov 2024
Viewed by 646
Abstract
The American Civil War has been commemorated with a great variety of monuments, memorials, and markers. These monuments were erected for a variety of reasons, beginning with memorialization of the fallen and later to honor aging veterans, commemoration of significant anniversaries associated with [...] Read more.
The American Civil War has been commemorated with a great variety of monuments, memorials, and markers. These monuments were erected for a variety of reasons, beginning with memorialization of the fallen and later to honor aging veterans, commemoration of significant anniversaries associated with the conflict, memorialization of sites of conflict, and celebration of the actions of military leaders. Sources reveal that during both the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras, many monuments were erected as part of an organized propaganda campaign to terrorize African American communities and distort the past by promoting a “Lost Cause” narrative. Through subsequent decades, to this day, complex and emotional narratives have surrounded interpretive legacies of the Civil War. Instruments of commemoration, through both physical and digital intervention approaches, can be provocative and instructive, as the country deals with a slavery legacy and the commemorated objects and spaces surrounding Confederate inheritances. Today, all of these potential factors and outcomes, with internationally relevance, are surrounded by swirls of social and political contention and controversy, including the remembering/forgetting dichotomies of cultural heritage. In this article, drawing from the testimony of scholars and artists, I address the conceptual landscape of approaches to the presentation and evolving participatory narratives of Confederate monuments that range from absolute expungement and removal to more restrained ideas such as in situ re-contextualization, removal to museums, and preservation-in-place. I stress not so much the academic debate but how the American public is informed about and reacts to the various issues related to Confederate memorialization. My main point, where my premise stands out in the literature, is that, for the sake of posterity, and our ability to connect and engage with a tangible in situ artifact, not all Confederate statues should be taken down. Some of them, or remnants of them, should be preserved as sites of conscience and reflection, with their social and political meanings ongoing and yet to be determined in the future. The modern dilemma turns on the question: In today’s new era of social justice, are these monuments primarily symbols of oppression, or can we see them, in select cases, alternatively as sites of conscience and reflection encompassing more inclusive conversations about commemoration? What we conserve and assign as the ultimate public value of these monuments rests with how we answer this question. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 316 KiB  
Article
Motions in Pictures: From Habermas’s Informal Political Sphere to Formal Politics in the Films Footloose, Land and Freedom and The Beguiled
by Jane Thomas and Sean Tunney
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060152 - 4 Nov 2024
Viewed by 391
Abstract
This article analyses three historical fiction films, Footloose, Land and Freedom and The Beguiled, to help illuminate aspects of politics and political theory. We study them to explore the relationship between Habermas’s concepts of the lifeworld and political spheres, which analysts have [...] Read more.
This article analyses three historical fiction films, Footloose, Land and Freedom and The Beguiled, to help illuminate aspects of politics and political theory. We study them to explore the relationship between Habermas’s concepts of the lifeworld and political spheres, which analysts have critiqued as opaque. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, we debate prevailing understandings of the implications of his work for deliberative democracy via an exploration of the films. By expanding the definition of the term ‘motion’ (otherwise known as ‘draft resolution’), we relate this concept to these Habermasian themes. Thus, this paper analyses feature film case studies as they incorporate motions into fictionalised accounts. We suggest that focusing on these movies’ motions, embedded in unfolding narratives, can help reconceive Habermas’s work to illustrate fluidity in how people and ideas may move between informal and more formal spheres. Ultimately, by showcasing the importance of motions in political participation, via these movies, we advance the idea that motions may be seen as part of a ladder of involvement, providing further opportunities for encouraging participation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Politics in Literature and Film)
23 pages, 416 KiB  
Article
Gadamer, Descartes, and the Problem of Method
by Michel Dalissier
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 151; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060151 - 1 Nov 2024
Viewed by 661
Abstract
In this paper, I demonstrate that, beyond the notion of prejudice, it is the whole Cartesian framework that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics seems to reject in Truth and Method. I buttress this argument by addressing a gamut of central concepts, namely doubt, evidence, history, [...] Read more.
In this paper, I demonstrate that, beyond the notion of prejudice, it is the whole Cartesian framework that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics seems to reject in Truth and Method. I buttress this argument by addressing a gamut of central concepts, namely doubt, evidence, history, life, subjectivity, language, and, most importantly, method itself. In the course of the discussion, I emphasize many fine details of Gadamer’s approach to Cartesianism. I further ask whether Gadamer really succeeds in disentangling himself from a methodical demand that is fundamental for Descartes but that he also underscores in the works of other philosophers, such as Hegel and Heidegger. I suggest that Cartesianism thus appears enlightening to point out the complexities of Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Full article
11 pages, 260 KiB  
Article
Between Emptiness and Enslavement: The Role of Interpersonal Relationships in the Work of Ernst Weiß, Hermann Ungar, and Ludwig Winder
by Michal Smrkovsky
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060150 - 1 Nov 2024
Viewed by 576
Abstract
This article explores the complex struggle for identity in the works of three prominent Moravia-born Prague German writers of the early twentieth century: Ernst Weiß, Hermann Ungar, and Ludwig Winder. It delves into the recurring motif of fear of intimacy and the paradoxical [...] Read more.
This article explores the complex struggle for identity in the works of three prominent Moravia-born Prague German writers of the early twentieth century: Ernst Weiß, Hermann Ungar, and Ludwig Winder. It delves into the recurring motif of fear of intimacy and the paradoxical actions of their characters, who often view affection as a threat to their autonomy. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theories of Ronald Fairbairn and Harry Guntrip, the study examines how these authors depict this schizoid dilemma—the wish for interpersonal relationships, contrasting with the fear that love will lead to the destruction of the self. By analyzing selected works, the article identifies various coping mechanisms employed by the characters, such as emotional detachment, withdrawal into fantasies, and the creation of safe but ultimately hollow relationships. Through a comparative analysis, the paper reveals how these literary figures navigate their need for interpersonal connections while grappling with the terror of their own desires. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prague German Circle(s): Stable Values in Turbulent Times?)
8 pages, 199 KiB  
Editorial
Co-Implications: Rethinking the Relationship Between Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Philosophy
by Isabelle Alfandary, Michael Levine and Alessia Ricciardi
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 149; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060149 - 31 Oct 2024
Viewed by 792
Abstract
Psychoanalysis, literature, and philosophy—these practices and disciplines are linked by a dual paradigm of affinity and asymmetry [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis)
11 pages, 278 KiB  
Article
Shattering Reality: Monsters from the Multiverse
by Kristine Larsen
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060148 - 29 Oct 2024
Viewed by 489
Abstract
Kaijū media frequently features dangerous scientific experiments as a central theme, invented by scientists who are falsely convinced that they both completely understand and control their advanced technology. In the past few decades, this has included the introduction of high-energy physics (HEP) experiments—especially [...] Read more.
Kaijū media frequently features dangerous scientific experiments as a central theme, invented by scientists who are falsely convinced that they both completely understand and control their advanced technology. In the past few decades, this has included the introduction of high-energy physics (HEP) experiments—especially mammoth particle accelerators—that, among other destructive results, allow for the entrance of equally large and dangerous creatures into our world from parallel dimensions. Public concerns voiced about the safety of the creation of two groundbreaking energy accelerators—the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe—in the early 21st century are tied to related science fiction media that capitalize on such fears (including Godzilla vs. Megaguirus [2000], Pacific Rim [2013], The Cloverfield Paradox [2018], The Kaiju Preservation Society [2022]). Particular attention is paid to the Netflix original series Stranger Things (2016–) as a detailed case study. This study concludes with an analysis of scientists’ attempts to embrace the popularity of Stranger Things in their communication with the general public, and suggests that ongoing issues with conspiracy theories have been fueled in part by such attempts, coupled with long-standing issues with the HEP community and their peculiar scientific naming conventions. Full article
11 pages, 209 KiB  
Article
Revising Gerty MacDowell’s Identity and Agency: An Intersectional Feminist Disability Perspective
by Maria Gallego-Ortiz
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 147; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060147 - 29 Oct 2024
Viewed by 843
Abstract
Gerty MacDowell’s initial, albeit brief, appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses has sparked debates regarding her identity and agency. In the critical literature, there are interpretations that characterize Gerty as a woman and disabled person whose actions conform to patriarchal beauty standards that objectify [...] Read more.
Gerty MacDowell’s initial, albeit brief, appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses has sparked debates regarding her identity and agency. In the critical literature, there are interpretations that characterize Gerty as a woman and disabled person whose actions conform to patriarchal beauty standards that objectify her. This paper argues for revising such readings by applying an intersectional feminist disability perspective attuned to the interconnections between her womanhood and disability. Rather than positing Gerty’s identities as inherently conflicting, I illustrate how her disability and feminine social position co-constitute and transform one another. Her self-care practices aimed at securing a husband, though partly conforming to norms, also foster confidence and counter pervasive cultural assumptions of disabled women as ugly, useless, and asexual. Gerty’s exhibition of sexual desire and pursuit of pleasure likewise contest views of disabled women as unsuitable for romance or unable to be agentic sexual subjects. Furthermore, conceptualizing agency beyond neoliberal notions of rational autonomy acting against all constraints upholds Gerty’s agentic power. She makes strategic use of available discourses and resources to expand her precarious options given material and ideological limitations. Overall, analyzing Gerty’s intersectional experience denaturalizes the reductive models of identity and agency that have dominated Ulysses criticism. Applying fresh perspectives opens new symbolic interpretations of embodied identity and sexuality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)
15 pages, 279 KiB  
Article
Slanting the Holocaust in the Fairy Tale Form: Jean-Claude Grumberg’s The Most Precious of Cargoes
by Kristin Rozzell Murray
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 146; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060146 - 28 Oct 2024
Viewed by 594
Abstract
This article analyzes Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 2019 Holocaust fairy tale, The Most Precious of Cargoes, translated from French. This fairy tale adds to Grumberg’s oeuvre of Holocaust fiction, including plays and children’s stories. His fairy tale may be his most personal attempt to [...] Read more.
This article analyzes Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 2019 Holocaust fairy tale, The Most Precious of Cargoes, translated from French. This fairy tale adds to Grumberg’s oeuvre of Holocaust fiction, including plays and children’s stories. His fairy tale may be his most personal attempt to process his own Holocaust experience, as he includes an appendix with facts about his father and grandfather who died in Auschwitz. Specifically, the fairy tale is approached through an analysis of the fairy tale genre’s pairing with the subject of the Holocaust. The article also examines possible readings of such a pairing through a close reading of the tale that analyzes the role of good vs. evil. Published interviews with Grumberg, theory on the fairy tale, and other Holocaust fairy tales establish a view that The Most Precious of Cargoes is unique in Holocaust fiction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Depiction of Good and Evil in Fairytales)
23 pages, 415 KiB  
Article
Godzilla at 70: Time for Kaijū Studies
by Steven Rawle
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 145; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060145 - 26 Oct 2024
Viewed by 1205
Abstract
This article contextualises the history of kaijū scholarship and looks particularly at the swell of publishing that has emerged in the last decade. It argues that the release of a series of new Godzilla films has led to a greater focus on the [...] Read more.
This article contextualises the history of kaijū scholarship and looks particularly at the swell of publishing that has emerged in the last decade. It argues that the release of a series of new Godzilla films has led to a greater focus on the kaijū film, but that there is recurrence of critical themes that have persisted throughout scholarship on giant monster movies since the 1960s. This provides a literature review to understand how kaijū media has been critiqued, defined and challenged in response to the near three-quarter century history of kaijū cinema to consider if studies of the kaijū media provide the impetus to look at the kaijū as deserving of its own field of study. If zombie studies and vampire studies can occupy their own emerging fields of study, why not the kaijū? If the figure of the kaijū asks the biggest questions of our cultures, then do the giant monsters not deserve their own field? But, if this is an emerging field of study, the article poses, it needs to be more than kaijū film studies. Full article
12 pages, 280 KiB  
Article
Musicians, Chariot Bearers, and Ghost Characters: The Spectrality of Black Slavery in Early Modern Mediterranean Drama
by Sabine Schülting
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060144 - 24 Oct 2024
Viewed by 532
Abstract
The article discusses early modern English plays from the 1590s to the 1610s, set in or referring to the Mediterranean, which feature Black African characters in marginal roles. These characters are ‘spectral’ in that they have no speaking part but appear briefly as [...] Read more.
The article discusses early modern English plays from the 1590s to the 1610s, set in or referring to the Mediterranean, which feature Black African characters in marginal roles. These characters are ‘spectral’ in that they have no speaking part but appear briefly as attendants, servants, musicians, or indeed slaves. The article argues that their spectrality evokes the presence of Black African slaves in the Mediterranean, which has often been ignored in Early Modern Studies. However, through these characters Black slavery is turned into a mere spectacle, performed for the gaze of the theatre audience in early modern London. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Early Modern Literature and the Mediterranean Slave Trade)
17 pages, 1971 KiB  
Article
Bungen—An East Asian Philosophy of Culture in Terms of Intercultural Interactions and a Reinterpretation of Watsuji’s Concept of Aidagara
by Andrew Ka Pok Tam
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 143; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060143 - 23 Oct 2024
Viewed by 621
Abstract
Influenced by Hegel, modern Chinese philosophers (e.g., Mou Zong-San, Lao Sze-Kwang, etc.) and Japanese philosophers (e.g., Nishida Kitaro) were inclined to narrate Chinese or Japanese culture in terms of the Hegelian concept of ‘spirit’. Nevertheless, the Hegelian philosophy of culture assumes the existence [...] Read more.
Influenced by Hegel, modern Chinese philosophers (e.g., Mou Zong-San, Lao Sze-Kwang, etc.) and Japanese philosophers (e.g., Nishida Kitaro) were inclined to narrate Chinese or Japanese culture in terms of the Hegelian concept of ‘spirit’. Nevertheless, the Hegelian philosophy of culture assumes the existence of an unchangeable cultural spirit and was therefore criticised by Watsuji Tetsuro. Watsuji denies the existence of an unchangeable cultural spirit and argues that cultures arise from the aidagara (interactions) between Ningen (human society) and Fudo (nature). Yet Watsuji’s narration of culture overemphasised the aidagara between Ningen and Fudo but disregarded that culture may also arise from the aidagara among cultures. Therefore, by reinterpreting Watsuji’s concept of aidagara, this paper proposes the concept of Bungen to explain the formation of cultures in terms of intercultural interactions and therefore highlight the diversity of East Asian cultures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Space Between: Landscape, Mindscape, Architecture)
Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 14405 KiB  
Article
Mediating Monstrosity: The Threat of the (In)Visible in the MonsterVerse
by Linda Kopitz
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060142 - 22 Oct 2024
Viewed by 817
Abstract
Drawing on Susan Sontag’s understanding of the anxieties about contemporary existence lurking beneath the surface of science fiction films, this article argues that the focus on media monitoring, mapping and materializing the giant monster in the MonsterVerse functions as a negotiation of the [...] Read more.
Drawing on Susan Sontag’s understanding of the anxieties about contemporary existence lurking beneath the surface of science fiction films, this article argues that the focus on media monitoring, mapping and materializing the giant monster in the MonsterVerse functions as a negotiation of the limits of visibility of catastrophe. Hiding, waiting, lurking underneath the surface in the “Hollow Earth”, the giant monsters are—paradoxically—invisible and hypervisible, absent and present at the same time. Throughout and across the films and series in the narrative universe, media in the MonsterVerse are charged with “proving” the threat of the (in)visible, while at the same time challenging mediated registers of truth and trustability. Making the monster is simultaneously presented as the promise and problem of technological mediation. With the emphasis on flashbacks to different time periods—including the 1940s in Kong: Skull Island (2017), the 1950s in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023) and the 1990s in Godzilla (2014)—this not only appears to be about the mediatization of the monsters but rather their analogization. Captured in hand-drawn maps, grainy images and static sound recordings, proving the existence of the monstrous threat becomes a question of materiality as well. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 317 KiB  
Article
Reaffirming Loyalty and Legitimacy: Representations of Hui Multi-Layered Identity in Bai Lian’s “Mountain Pass”
by Mario De Grandis
Humanities 2024, 13(6), 141; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060141 - 22 Oct 2024
Viewed by 449
Abstract
In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) left many writers severed from their cultural roots. Starting in the 1980s, literary authors sought to address this disconnection by turning their attention to rural communities. This tendency is exemplified by the [...] Read more.
In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) left many writers severed from their cultural roots. Starting in the 1980s, literary authors sought to address this disconnection by turning their attention to rural communities. This tendency is exemplified by the emergence of two significant trends: root-seeking literature and new fiction from Tibet. Root-seeking authors focused on local customs, marginalized cultures, and minority groups to reinvigorate Chinese literature and fill the perceived cultural void. Around the same time, new fiction from Tibet featured diverse responses to post-Mao changes, with some idealizing Tibet as a repository of “authentic” traditions, while others criticized its perceived backwardness. Both trends have been interpreted in scholarship as responses, often critical, to state policies. The short story “Mountain Pass” (1985) by Hui writer Bai Lian intersects with these movements temporally and thematically. However, unlike them, Bai Lian’s portrayal of rural communities emphasizes the Hui’s historical role in resisting the Qing empire, pivotal to the emergence of the PRC, while also highlighting the group’s Arab and Persian origins. This three-layered identification with the local, national, and transnational enriches our understanding of the 1980s literary landscape, challenging the notion that this era was solely characterized by resistance to the central state. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)
Previous Issue
Back to TopTop