Humanities

35 pages, 83889 KB

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Bildgespräche (Picture Conversations)—Peter Brandes and the Last Portraits of Hölderlin

by Valérie Lawitschka

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090181 - 5 Sep 2025

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The Danish artist Peter Brandes (1944–2025) visited the poet’s town of Tübingen (Germany) in 2007 and was inspired by the four portraits of Hölderlin (1770–1843) that were created during his time in the so-called tower. Hölderlin spent half of his life there. Admitted [...] Read more.

The Danish artist Peter Brandes (1944–2025) visited the poet’s town of Tübingen (Germany) in 2007 and was inspired by the four portraits of Hölderlin (1770–1843) that were created during his time in the so-called tower. Hölderlin spent half of his life there. Admitted to the University Clinic in Tübingen, diagnosed as incurable after six and a half months, he was released into the care of the carpenter Ernst Zimmer and his family in the house by the Neckar River, where he remained until his death. Based on these portraits, Brandes created over 100 works, seeking dialogue with Hölderlin. Following a brief overview of the artist Peter Brandes, we discuss the background of the four portraits that inspired his Bildgespräche: Hölderlin’s illness, his condition during his stay in the tower, and briefly, the poems he wrote during this period. A detailed discussion of the four portraits is followed by a presentation of Brandes’ “Annäherungen” (approaches) to these images in the form of his Bildgespräche. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hölderlin and Poetic Transport)

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30 pages, 1729 KB

Open AccessArticle

FiCT-O: Modelling Fictional Characters in Detective Fiction from the 19th to the 20th Century

by Enrica Bruno, Lorenzo Sabatino and Francesca Tomasi

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 180; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090180 - 3 Sep 2025

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Abstract

This paper proposes a formal descriptive model for understanding the evolution of characters in detective fiction from the 19th to the 20th century, using methodologies and technologies from the Semantic Web. The integration of Digital Humanities within the theory of comparative literature opens [...] Read more.

This paper proposes a formal descriptive model for understanding the evolution of characters in detective fiction from the 19th to the 20th century, using methodologies and technologies from the Semantic Web. The integration of Digital Humanities within the theory of comparative literature opens new paths of study that allow for a digital approach to the understanding of intertextuality through close reading techniques and ontological modelling. In this research area, the variety of possible textual relationships, the levels of analysis required to classify these connections, and the inherently referential nature of certain literary genres demand a structured taxonomy. This taxonomy should account for stylistic elements, narrative structures, and cultural recursiveness that are unique to literary texts. The detective figure, central to modern literature, provides an ideal lens for examining narrative intertextuality across the 19th and 20th centuries. The analysis concentrates on character traits and narrative functions, addressing various methods of rewriting within the evolving cultural and creative context of authorship. Through a comparative examination of a representative sample of detective fiction from the period under scrutiny, the research identifies mechanisms of (meta)narrative recurrence, transformation, and reworking within the canon. The outcome is a formal model for describing narrative structures and techniques, with a specific focus on character development, aimed at uncovering patterns of continuity and variation in diegetic content over time and across different works, adaptable to analogous cases of traditional reworking and narrative fluidity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

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22 pages, 378 KB

Open AccessArticle

Mind Wandering and Water Metaphors: Towards a Reconceptualisation of Immersion and Fictional Worlds

by Francesca Arnavas

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090179 - 2 Sep 2025

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Abstract

Mind wandering is a mental activity that occupies up to 50% of our waking time. While scientists have now started to acknowledge and to study the creative potential of mind wandering for our imaginative skills, fiction has long recognised its value. This article [...] Read more.

Mind wandering is a mental activity that occupies up to 50% of our waking time. While scientists have now started to acknowledge and to study the creative potential of mind wandering for our imaginative skills, fiction has long recognised its value. This article focuses on the depiction of mind wandering in fiction, with examples ranging from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves to Ayumu Watanabe’s movie Children of the Sea. In particular, I focus on how images related to water are employed in this respect. It appears that water-related metaphors and imagery are particularly significant for the depiction of the interlacement between mind wandering and processes of creativity connected to fiction. This article argues that the notion of fictional world per se can be enriched and better conceptualised as a less “fixed” entity if pictured as a fluid, stream-like mental construct, shaped by imaginative engagement and mind wandering. Full article

12 pages, 310 KB

Open AccessArticle

A Centrally Peripheral Publisher: The Fostering of the Hui Literary Field in Post-Mao China

by Mario De Grandis

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 178; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090178 - 1 Sep 2025

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Abstract

In recent decades, Chinese literary studies has shifted away from center–periphery models, favoring frameworks that emphasize multiplicity and decentralization. While this turn has opened space for new perspectives, it risks overlooking persistent hierarchies that continue to shape literary careers, where certain publishers remain [...] Read more.

In recent decades, Chinese literary studies has shifted away from center–periphery models, favoring frameworks that emphasize multiplicity and decentralization. While this turn has opened space for new perspectives, it risks overlooking persistent hierarchies that continue to shape literary careers, where certain publishers remain more central to an author’s advancement than others. This essay reconsiders the center–periphery framework through an analysis of Huizu wenxue, a literary journal published in Changji, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Despite its geographic distance from China’s dominant literary hubs, Huizu wenxue has long served as a key platform for Hui literature. Drawing on interviews, as well as textual and paratextual analysis, I demonstrate how the journal functions both as a launchpad for emerging Hui authors and as an institutional anchor for a nationwide Hui literary community. Through dedicated columns that showcase new Hui talent and events that foster professional networks, Huizu wenxue has, since its inception, continually played a central role in shaping Hui literary production and supporting authors’ careers. Because it operates from the margins of the People’s Republic of China’s yet wields significant influence within Hui literary circles, I argue that Huizu wenxue is best understood as a “peripheral center.” Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Literature in the Humanities)

17 pages, 264 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Prince’s Two Bodies: The Machiavellian Hero as a Literary Character Between History and Invention

by Carmelo Tramontana

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 177; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090177 - 29 Aug 2025

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Abstract

This article discusses how in De principatibus Machiavelli defines the status of the treatise main character (the Prince) through the intersection of three levels: (a) history (as a character born from the symbolic fusion of traits and characteristics of historical personalities who actually [...] Read more.

This article discusses how in De principatibus Machiavelli defines the status of the treatise main character (the Prince) through the intersection of three levels: (a) history (as a character born from the symbolic fusion of traits and characteristics of historical personalities who actually existed); (b) politics (as a character who is the sign of an abstract political function); and (c) literary invention (as a fictional character constructed according to the rhetorical and logical strategies of literary invention). This case study shows how rhetoric, historiography, oratory, and political analysis are mixed together in a coherent organism, thanks to the creation of a character (the Prince) who constantly oscillates between historical–political reality and literary fiction. The analysis, both theoretical and historical, of the status of the protagonist of De principatibus is accompanied by the study of the critical readings of Francesco De Sanctis, Antonio Gramsci, and Luigi Russo, whose reception is strongly conditioned by the ambiguous nature of the character of the Prince, both in terms of critical categories and argumentative strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interpretation of Fictional Characters in Literary Texts: History of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Formal Ontologies)

15 pages, 311 KB

Open AccessArticle

On Floods and Earthquakes: Iberian Political and Religious Readings of Natural Disasters (1530–1531)

by Marta Albalá Pelegrín

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 176; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090176 - 26 Aug 2025

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Abstract

This article explores the ways in which writing about natural disasters conveyed a fraught sense of instability and ever-changing political alliances in the early sixteenth century. It centers on a broadsheet comprising two letters and a song sent to a Castilian statesman, the [...] Read more.

This article explores the ways in which writing about natural disasters conveyed a fraught sense of instability and ever-changing political alliances in the early sixteenth century. It centers on a broadsheet comprising two letters and a song sent to a Castilian statesman, the Marquis of Tarifa, from the papal curia and the court of Portugal. The two letters, one by Baltasar del Río and another by an anonymous informant, reveal that disasters could be potentially seen as moments of political action. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the papal curia suffered several floods, the plague, factional violence, and internal divisions with long-lasting consequences. In turn, Lisbon, was hit by a major earthquake, which impacted major structures. These letters allow us to reconstruct how the concept of curiosity and that of an untamable nature came together to make sense of natural disasters, such as floods and earthquakes. I analyze the ways in which Iberian agents negotiated the supposedly natural or divine character of these events in order to advance political and religious calls for action. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Curiosity and Modernity in Early Modern Spain)

23 pages, 327 KB

Open AccessArticle

Between Analysis and Metaphor: Forms of Poetic Transport in Hölderlin’s Patmos

by Jakob Helmut Deibl

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090175 - 25 Aug 2025

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Abstract

This article identifies different forms of poetic transport—understood in the sense of metaphor, transition, transfer, crossing and translation—in Hölderlin’s poem “Patmos”. There are several motifs scattered throughout the poem that semantically express a transition using highly metaphorical language: motifs reflecting on the mediation [...] Read more.

This article identifies different forms of poetic transport—understood in the sense of metaphor, transition, transfer, crossing and translation—in Hölderlin’s poem “Patmos”. There are several motifs scattered throughout the poem that semantically express a transition using highly metaphorical language: motifs reflecting on the mediation between the divine and the human, signalling the hybridization of Greek and Christian religion, and indicating transfer from ancient to modern thought. Initially, this article examines the metaphorical quality of language in contrast to its analytical capacity and proposes that the former—by seeking forms of transitions—enables mediation between the associative-affective reading of the text and the critical-analytic method of the scientific view. Hölderlin reflects on this fundamental issue as a result of his spatial transition to Regensburg. The article will further show that various forms of transfer sustain the entire poem: motifs ranging from an epochal transfer to the transition from a topographical space into the text, the superimposition of different figures and the transformation of the biblical narrative, as well as the crossing between the different layers of the draft and the poet’s task of a creative translation of various forms of encountering the world, all describe issues central to Patmos. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hölderlin and Poetic Transport)

31 pages, 459 KB

Open AccessArticle

Translation and Power in Georgia: Postcolonial Trajectories from Socialist Realism to Post-Soviet Market Pressures

by Gül Mükerrem Öztürk

Humanities 2025, 14(9), 174; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14090174 - 25 Aug 2025

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Abstract

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process [...] Read more.

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process shaped by ideological control, cultural representation, and global power hierarchies. In the Soviet era, censorship policies rooted in socialist realism imposed direct ideological interventions; children’s literature such as Maya the Bee and Bambi exemplified how religious or individualist themes were replaced with collectivist narratives. In the post-Soviet period, overt censorship has largely disappeared; however, structural factors—including the absence of a coherent national translation policy, economic precarity, and dependence on Western funding—have become decisive in shaping translation choices. The shift from Russian to English as the dominant source language has introduced new symbolic hierarchies, privileging Anglophone literature while marginalizing regional and non-Western voices. Drawing on the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 alongside archival materials, paratextual analysis, and contemporary case studies, including the Georgian translation of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name, the study shows how translators negotiate between market expectations, cultural taboos, and ethical responsibility. It argues that translation in Georgia remains a contested site of cultural negotiation and epistemic justice. Full article

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Humanities, Volume 14, Issue 9 (September 2025) – 8 articles

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