Search Results (13)

The first half of the 19th century witnessed the rise of Romantic poetry, which focused in depth on individual consciousness, inner worlds, and metaphysical inquiries. This poetic orientation became particularly evident in works centred on themes such as solitude, alienation, and existential quests. Within this context, the present study aims to examine the archetypal and poetic resonances of the poetic voice in Mihail Lermontov’s poem The Demon, based on its sixth and final version dated 1841, in relation to Nikoloz Baratashvili’s poem Secret Voice. Lermontov’s poem is analyzed through the English translation by Charles Johnston, published in 1983, while Baratashvili’s poem is discussed based on the 24-line version included in the fifth edition (1895) of the anthology Poems and Letters (Leksebi da Tserilebi). This study explores the thematic and structural similarities between the two poems within the framework of comparative literature and psychoanalytic criticism, focusing on Romantic archetypes, the uncanny, the shadow figure, and ontological solitude. Furthermore, the dialogue established between Lermontov’s demonic narrator and Baratashvili’s introspective poetic voice reopens discussions on the boundaries of cultural memory, oral narrative patterns, and poetic identity. Ultimately, this comparative analysis reveals the implicit influences of The Demon on Georgian poetry and discusses the intercultural resonances of themes such as voice, self, and archetype in Romantic poetry. Full article

In the wake of post-truth politics, neo-oral media, and epistemic fragmentation, qualitative researchers face intensified pressure to justify the legitimacy of our methods. This essay explores the idea that writing itself can be a form of research—not merely an act of representation, but an epistemic, institutional, and affective method. Structured in two voices—one stylized and poetic, the other scholarly and conceptual—the piece moves through five acts to examine writing as a form of border-crossing. It argues that voice-rich, situated writing is not indulgent; it is a way of thinking, navigating complexity, and holding space for uncertainty. Drawing on traditions of performative autoethnography, collective biography, data feminism, and more-than-human inquiry, the essay considers how writing can generate insight, foster civic resonance, and resist epistemic conformity. A heuristic table offers readers practical entry points for approaching writing as method. This essay is for those moments when something in the sentence feels off, but we write it anyway. It asks what becomes possible when we write not to comply, but to inquire. Full article

Between the late-nineteenth and the early-twentieth centuries, Beatrice and Laura, as literary characters and beloved women of Dante and Petrarch, were at the centre of a vigorous scholarly debate, which gained traction in Romagna’s literary circles. Offering a comparative analysis of two key case studies—La vita di Beatrice Portinari (1904) by Giovanni Federzoni, and Laura’s biographical profile from Femminismo storico (1901) by Sfinge (Eugenia Codronchi Argeli)—this article reconstructs the popularising turn of this debate and its effect on medieval female characters’ reception as poetic inspirers. While Federzoni is motivated by didactic aims, seeking to facilitate readers’ access to the Commedia by deconstructing Beatrice’s abstraction, Sfinge elevates Laura as a model for contemporary women. Through an accessible structure and a hybrid methodology blending historical inquiry with literary imagination, both authors challenge allegorical readings and reclaim Beatrice and Laura as historically grounded figures. Full article

In this article, we share our findings on patients’ experiences creating digital stories about living with advanced cancer, represented through found poetry. Over a period of 12 months, patients from the program “Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully” (CALM) completed digital stories about their experiences living with cancer. Digital stories are short, personalized videos that combine photographs, imagery, narration, and music to communicate a personal experience about a topic of inquiry. Patient interviews were conducted about the digital storytelling process. Found poetry guided the analysis technique. It is a form of arts-based research that involves using words and phrases found in interview transcripts to create poems that represent research themes. This article begins with a brief overview of the psychosocial intervention CALM, arts in healthcare, and found poetry, followed by the project background. The found poems represent themes of emotional impact, legacy making, and support and collaboration. Findings also indicate the inherently relational aspect of digital storytelling as participants emphasized the integral role of the digital storytelling facilitator. What follows is a discussion on digital storytelling, which considers the role of found poetry in representing patient voices in the research process. Full article

The issue of suicide has garnered considerable attention in refugee scholarship, where research examines how unique forced migration and resettlement challenges exacerbate risks and vulnerabilities to suicide. However, there are gaps in understanding the social and cultural factors shaping the lived experience of suicide in refugee communities. Using the example of young people of African backgrounds in Australia, this paper presents a collaboration among two academics and two South Sudanese youth advocates to explore the sociocultural factors impacting suicidality through reflexive discussions and collaborative poetry. This combined approach offered a unique and nuanced conceptual and methodological framework to contribute culturally specific narratives to critical suicide studies and challenge western-centric and biomedical perspectives on suicide. The process highlighted (i) the lack of dialogue about suicide in the South Sudanese community and (ii) the absence of community-based support structures to address suicide. This paper provides useful insights into the culturally specific context of suicide, adding refugee perspectives to the discipline of critical suicide studies. Full article

This article explores the issues of phenomenon and genesis in Early Buddhist thought through a comparative analysis with the Eleatic tradition, aiming to enrich the understanding and dialogue between these philosophical and religious traditions. By examining the comparability of Buddhist thought and Parmenidean philosophy, the study challenges the notion that these traditions are fundamentally alien to each other. The focus is on the concept of genesis, not as creation from nothingness—rejected by both the Buddha and Parmenides—but as the manifestation of the world to the human observer. The article argues that the world reveals itself in particular forms and appearances, which are intimately linked to the phenomenon and its perception by humans. This process is not solely a domain of rigid logical propositions but can be expressed through mythological and religious narratives. The study posits that the poetic expressiveness found in archaic philosophies of both India and Greece provides a valid medium for engaging in philosophical discourse. By adopting this comparative and dialogical perspective, the article aims to generate new philosophical insights and inspire future philosophical inquiry. The reflection on phenomenon and genesis, framed through this comparative lens, highlights the nuanced ways in which different traditions address the nature of reality and human perception, ultimately advocating for a broader, more inclusive understanding of philosophy that transcends conventional boundaries. Full article

The topics of intergenerational trauma, resilience, and wellbeing as they relate to forced migration are receiving more attention in the arts and health literature. Yet, we know very little about how refugee-background young adults manage their psychosocial wellbeing when they grow up surrounded by stories of conflict, loss, and trauma. Achol has been writing poetry to represent and amplify the narratives of those around her (parents, family, and the South Sudanese community in Sydney, Australia). These stories are central elements of her lived experience and the diverse experiences of her community. Using collaborative poetic inquiry, this paper identifies key themes in one of her poems, My dad was, is a soldier, to illustrate how poetry is an important artistic mode of expression that can improve our understanding of intergenerational trauma, resilience, and wellbeing. Rather than conveying interview data through research poems, we place Achol’s poem at the centre of our collaborative poetic inquiry to gain new insights into refugee lived experiences. This paper contributes to contemporary debates on how artistic means enrich our knowledge of psychosocial wellbeing through trauma-informed, culturally safe, and decolonial research methods. Full article

Ethical considerations in social research tend to focus on data collection rather than data interpretation and representation. The tendency of qualitative research to limit ethical concern to confidentiality and anonymity in the representation of data, combined with the academic convention of maintaining an objective distance from the object of study, creates tensions for the reflexive researcher. On the one hand, they must meet academic expectations to communicate findings with demonstrable reliability and validity. At the same time, there are deontological obligations—to protect study participants (and groups they represent) from harm, to honour their contributions accurately and to report with integrity. This article argues for the use of poetic ‘re-presentation’, both as a form of inquiry and unique mode of data representation and as a means of obtaining a deeper understanding of the experience of migration and homelessness. By integrating insights from Critical Race Methodology, the article deploys the concept of ‘counter-storytelling’ through poetic inquiry. The article concludes that this approach enables a nuanced, insightful approach, allowing the authentic voice of migrant groups negotiating the complexities of homelessness to be clearly articulated and heard. Full article

Healing is the basis of belief in San Lázaro, a popular saint among Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and other Latinx peoples. Stories about healing, received through faith in San Lázaro, are typically passed on through family members, rendering them genealogical narratives of healing. In this photo essay, the author draws on her maternal grandmother’s devotion to San Lázaro and explores how other devotees of this saint create genealogical narratives of healing that are passed down from generation to generation. These genealogical narratives of healing function as testaments to the efficaciousness of San Lázaro’s healing abilities and act as familial avenues through which younger generations inherit belief in the saint. Using interview excerpts and ethnographic observations conducted at Rincón de San Lázaro church in Hialeah, Florida, the author locates registers of lo cotidiano, the everyday practices of the mundane required for daily functions and survival, and employs arts-based methods such as photography, narrative inquiry, and thematic poetic coding to show how the stories that believers tell about San Lázaro, and their experiences of healing through faith in the saint, constitute both genealogical narratives of healing and genealogical healing narratives where testimonies become a type of narrative medicine. Full article

In this autoethnographic essay, the author argues for the use of poetic inquiry as a feminist methodology by showing her use of poetry as research method during the past 13 years. Through examples of her poetic inquiry work, the author details how poetry as research offers Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies scholars a means of doing, showing, and teaching embodiment and reflexivity, a way to refuse the mind-body dialectic, a form of feminist ethnography, and a catalyst for social agitation and change. The author uses examples of her ethnographic poetry that critique middle-class White motherhood, address the problems of White feminism, and reflects the nuances of identity negotiation in research and personal life to show the breadth of topics and approaches of poetic inquiry as feminist research practice and feminist pedagogy. Full article

This autoethnographic research examines the legacy of Roberts Settlement, a mixed-race settlement in Indiana that became one of the largest rural communities of free people of color in the state before the 20th century. As a Roberts descendent, the researcher uses Black feminist thought and poetic inquiry to investigate the gendered and racial family narratives that constitute the genealogy of the Roberts family. Utilizing present and past narratives to analyze the lived experience of being a black hoosier woman, the researcher finds that dominant male narratives marginalize the stories of Black women in the Roberts family genealogy. Full article

This essay develops and performs a theory of intertextual memory; and uses this concept as a heuristic to re-conceptualize identity for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. This work emerges from three key sites of personal and cultural inquiry. At the center is my engagement with my matrilineal ancestry; which is haunted by the specter of memory loss: my mother’s mother (my Nanny) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in 2002 when she was 73; and my mother was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s in 2012 when she was 51. By telling stories about my mother and my Nanny which rely on intertextual memory; I hope to broaden the poetic space of remembering and to challenge the Western humanistic conception of identity as inherent; atomistic; and highly dependent on successful memory performance. Secondly; I examine the rhetorical discourse circulating Alzheimer’s disease in the popular cultural imaginary; where illness metaphors deleteriously situate the forgetting body within narratives of failure; fear; and loss of personhood. I argue that an intertextual approach to memory performance can help us reimagine Alzheimer’s patients outside the stigmatizing parameters of these broader cultural stories. Lastly; I draw on empirical research related to communication failure in AD in order to consider the ways caregivers might approach Alzheimer’s patients with the kind of linguistic and interactional flexibility subtended by an intertextual approach to identity; in order to forge improved relationships both with Alzheimer’s patients and with the disease itself. Full article

In his seminal work The Principles of a New Science of the Common Nature of Nations (Principii di una scienza nuova d’intorno alla natura delle nazioni, published in 1725 then again in 1730 and posthumously in 1744), Giambattista Vico (Born in 1668) wrote to qualify the scientific to include the humanities and their complexity beyond the popular Cartesian circumscription within the laws of physics—divinely instituted and set in motion—in describing its phenomena. The work is, for one, a manifesto of the essential complexity inherent in universal order, and against a reduction of scholarship to the pure sciences, in which elimination is key. Vico proposed a structure that afforded the organic integration of the humanities within the laws of physics as parts of “a tree of knowledge” whose trunk branched out into a progression toward certainty, drawn out of the most fluid humanities at the roots, in an order of premise and conclusion. The tree metaphor is the juncture of early moments of disparity and interdependence between complexity, on the one hand, and certainty on the other. Starting at the unknown, the immeasurably immense ultimate uncertainty, perception is shaped through fear, self-protection and subject to survival instincts. And so, crude metaphysics makes the trunk rooted in “poetic wisdom” with a natural mixture of limited sensuous cognition and unlimited imagination—or one striving beyond the fetters of immediate reality, logic, ethics, economics and politics which are all poetic sciences to Vico—branch out. On the other side of those branches, physics extends into chronology and geography—the most certain—in agreement that the faculties of the human mind, including imagination, may not be outside of physics: the trunk from whence all knowledge cometh, and by the laws of which life is governed. Past validating human uncertainty as a measure of complexity—not lack of knowledge—in scientific inquiry, key concepts in Vico’s The New Science, such as imagination, reason, creativity and science, maintain pressing relevance to examining complexity today, enabling consideration of their relevance between Vico’s time and today, while maintaining that the uncertainty of imagination and the pragmatism of physics are but facets of the equally plausible constitution of a universal order. Full article