• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.347-370
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• 2018

This paper proposes a new direction for Comparative Literature which has been deeply Eurocentric and even colonial ever since its birth. 'Comparison' in Comparative Literature has been in fact the ideological mechanism for containing, classifying, and eventually controlling all differences in the world. Literature has naturally served as a national institution of the West at epistemological and discursive level with hidden adjective "comparative". To re-conceptualize the discipline and practice of "Comparative Literature", we need to revolutionize methodology itself based on Wai Chee Dimock's idea of "Weak Theory", Foucault's "disappearance of author", and Clifford Geertz's "thick description". "Thick description" as a methodology of comparative literature re-establishes the discipline as a field of "weak theory", defusing the centrality of linguistic identity and re-making it as a "long network" of loose and missed connections. "Thick description" poses the publicness of nation-state within "confusion of tongues", problematizes the legitimacy of modern knowledge, and puts (the western) nationalism in question. With this idea as a starting point, we can re-imagine Comparative Literature anew as a field of ceaseless discourse of longer, weaker, and thicker networks of interpretation and re-interpretation of differences.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.34
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• pp.201-236
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• 2014

Juan $Mars{\acute{e}}$ was born in 1933 in Barcelona. Being the son of a City cleaner, he was able to watch, from a very early age, all the films he desired, as many times as he wished. This privilege meant a great help in future years, when having to develop the plots and characters of his works. In his last (latest) novel, Caligrafía de los $sue{\tilde{n}}os$, published in 2011, as he has done in his previous works he uses a cinematographic frame again. The explicit references to Hollywood's Golden Age -such as John Ford's Stagecoach and Cecil B. DeMiller's The Plainsman- bring very specific and vivid images to the reader's mind, leading to clear physical and psychological associations. The aim is achieved: the reader's attention is caught immediately. However, characters, plot and cinematographic structures are actually distracting mirages. They make the reader expect a predictable ending which, in fact, will be very different. Therefore, the surprised reader must step back, in order to approach the main topics of the novel from a certain distance. Doing so, he's following the Theory of the Distancing Effect. He becomes aware of the need of a new perspective on social problems that he had considered as familiar justo a few moments before. Thus, he is getting prepared for a more objective interpretation, such as the futility of war and the ideological differences that led to the (Spanich) Civil War and all its devastationg effects.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.81-100
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• 2011

The term of world literature is now becoming an issue and lens through which we need to rethink the value of literature on a more universal dimension so as to imagine newly the location of the local or regional literature that has been alienated from the field of world literature. This kind of recognition leads us to consider the term world literature in relation to globalization and universality and to locate it on a problematical territory rather than to understand it in the traditional and Western way. Therefore the concept of world literature is now given to us as a task to resolve from our particular, or more precisely, peripheral context. The peripheral context could best operate as a possibility of reforming the West-centered order of world literature particularly in the way in which world literature obtains a more universal value. When we discuss world literature we need to consider the way of practice to re-highlight the possibility of periphery and pre-modernity without neglecting the 'light' of modernity and center. In this respect, the discourse of 'East Asia' may be useful for a transnational approach to world literature which focuses on the criticism of all kinds of centrism by foregrounding the concepts of othering and de-homogenization. For this I emphasize the attitude and methodology of 'post' which includes the power of othering and de-homogenization. The 'posty' theories such as post-colonialism, post-structuralism, post-nationalism and post-humanism allow us to indicate properly and acutely our aim by means of freer play of thought and at the same time more just definition and practice of our thought; that is, only by embracing both indication and play can we maintain the universal value of world literature. Here we can say that the global and local enterprise of ethics is the fundamental basis of world literature.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.35
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• pp.7-34
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• 2014

This essay explores how Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and Storyteller encourage human's sympathetic relationship with the nonhuman animal-Other, paying attention to her posthumanist voices against anthropocentric mistreatment of animals which is inseparable from white Americans' environmental and racio-ethnic subjugation of nature and Natives in the colonialist history of the United States. As a way of dissolving the problematic anthropocentrism and embracing the animal-Other as a fellow creature, Silko employs and transforms Native American oral tradition in her own idiosyncratic posthumanist storytelling. In order to highlight the ethico-political examination of the animal issue in her storytelling, this essay refers to contemporary posthumanist thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, and Gilles Deleuze who are all in their own ways critically engaged with Western metaphysical anthropocentrism. Arguably, in a similar vein with the posthumanist critics, Silko disrupts the mischievous hierarchical opposition of humans/animals that have directly or obliquely warranted violence against the animal-Other. In order to demonstrate Silko's ethico-politicality concerning the animal issue, this essay inquires her critical perception of humans' misunderstanding (or misbehavior) toward animals in terms of the suffering and death of animals. Besides, Silko's posthumanist storytelling of the animal's gaze (as Derrida notes as an event of revealing human aporia and vulnerability) and "in-between" (as a reification of crossing the boundary of humans/animals) is discussed with the exemplification of Tayo's encounter with a mountain lion and a bear-man Shush. The posthumanist approach to thinking about the animal-Other in Ceremony and Storyteller would shed light on the ethico-political significances of Silko's storytelling in our time in peril of losing the tie between humans and nonhuman animals.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.51-77
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• 2016

In February, 2012, three members of the Russian Feminist Rock group 'Pussy Riot' were accused of staging a 'Punk Prayer' in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and were imprisoned for two years. This case, which sparked widespread enthusiastic support from those in the West, was viewed in Russia in quite a different way. The Pussy Riot affair very effectively shows the historic base of contemporary Russian gender discourse and gives an explanation as to why Putin's very conservative and masculine-centered nationalistic agenda works in Russian society with such great success. In this article, we introduce the Pussy Riot case and compare the reactions to the case published in the Russian and Western press; we then examine the historic causes of the masculine-centered nationalistic agenda of Putin's government.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.51
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• pp.133-160
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• 2018

The films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming Liang expose one of the main features of modern Asian cinema: corporality. In their films, the various emotions of characters are expressed and exchanged through the body, not the language, so their film world is a world in which language has lost its function and symbolic order has collapsed. In Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming Liang movies, body language plays a more important role than general language. t=The body performs semiosis, pointing to wildness, anti-civilization, rite, alienation, illusion, etc. At the root of this variety of semiosis is the common denial of Western material civilization which has been rapidly transplanted in modern Asian countries. In addition, while the body of the two directors' films are seen as a sign of wildness, or anti-civilization that contains the intention of escaping from the oppressive and inhuman modern civilization, the body as a sign of illusion, and embraces the will of resistance to civilization. The illusion of experience in their films is ultimately a manifestation of the will to resist the physical and emotional pressures of reality and to continue the irrational persistence.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.33
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• pp.241-262
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• 2013

Nietzsche in the early 20th century, many Western thought came to China pushed the time, who want to reform the Chinese young intellectuals was a great welcome. Around 5.4 times writers representing China Journalism Guo Mo ruo Mao Dun and social needs of the times according to the spirit, according to their ideology, no tubes and four optional understand Nietzsche. Was acceptable, in the process, Nietzsche was transformed hem into various forms. In this paper, two Guo Mo ruo Mao Dun accept Nietzsche as Nietzsche socreated their own awards and also looked at these similarities and difference. Nietzsche Guo Mo ruo the remnants of the old feudal ideas and traditions were to break down and accept only select perspective. Nietzsche's self-discovery and individual liberty, and against the reality and accept the terms of loan 5.4 seconds, an ideal Nietzsche award was created. However Guo Mo ruo particular aspect of the acceptance of Nietzsche, whereas Nietzsche regarded as an extreme pessimist history, and his extreme caution and idealistic form of individualism was often criticized. Mao Dun the core ideas of Nietzsche 'Superman' and 'will power' noted. 5.4 All time view of life, a new morality must re-evaluate the need for a practical, based on the old tradition of Nietzsche completely against the spirit of rebellion was to have especially appreciated. But this was different Mao Dun Nietzsche and moral beliefs. What is the old morality Nietzsche corrupt, bourgeois morality and ethics, and was negative for democracy and freedom, Mao Dun dark realities facing the old Chinese feudal and traditional idea ofrevolution as a democrat were negative for. Guo Mo ruo Mao Dun optional for Nietzsche's acceptance was 5.4 times that contemporary needs can be met.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.29
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• pp.257-285
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• 2012

The theme of Caucasus in Russian literature stemmed from A. Pushkin's The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1820) became expended when it reached to writer Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. The writer's magnum opus, Allamat-Bek (1832), was based on a real historical event. Being proponent to the side of Russian ideology, this work strongly presents that the primary task the Russian Imperialist government paused in this region at the time was civilization of the Caucasus through diplomatic and humanistic ways. There are three main protagonists in this work, but Berkhovsky and Sultan Akhmet-Khan are the characters who stand for the contradictory views toward the "war between Russia- Caucasus." While the former, Berkhovsky, thinks that the conflict between the two parties might be solved by means of communication and cooperation, the latter, on the other hand, is opposed to any of peaceful completion of this war. Allamat-Bek, the main hero of this work, however, passes away, going back and forth between loyalty and renegation. The author goes on to describe that Berkhovsky considers the Caucasus as Eden, the land of fruits, unlike Russia which appears as the land of labor. Yet, for Berkhovsky the Caucasus is presented as the land which needs enlightenment. This is the transformation of the so-called typical Western Orientalism. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky does not take side of either evil or good between the Russian Orthodoxy and the Islam, that is the conflict between the two opponent parties. The writer, instead, argues that this is just difference between the familiar and the strange, that is, the svoi and the chuzhoi. What is the very picture the writer wants to show the reader, then, is that it is petty and sad to see the unavoidable violent progress which happened and experienced by the indigenous people during the civilization of the Caucasus by the Russian Imperialist government.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.46
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• pp.281-296
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• 2017

Andrei Amalrik's plays are a unique phenomenon in the 70 years' history of Soviet drama. Half a century after the Soviet theater had intentionally forgotten its own achievements of avant-garde dramaturgy in the early 20th century, his bizarre plays suddenly emerged in the Soviet theater environment, completely separated from contemporary Western practices of the experimental theater. Surprisingly even now, Amalrik's plays have almost been forgotten not only in Russia but also by foreign Russian literary scholars. Amalrik's autobiographical essay is his only book published in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet regime. There is no collection of his works, and reevaluation of his work is not found even in Russia. However, Amalrik is a writer who should get a proper evaluation. The purpose behind studying his plays is to restore the tradition of Russian grotesque-absurd dramaturgy, which has been inherited from Gogol, Khlevnikov, Mayakovsky, and Oberiu. In this paper, we will analyze the mechanism of composition in Amalrik's plays.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.87-109
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• 2019

In the Iranian epic $K{\bar{u}}shn{\bar{a}}ma$, there is a rather interesting story that recounts how the inhabitants of $B.s{\bar{i}}l\bar{a}$ cross-breed their domesticated horses with a magical horse living in the sea in order to obtain fine-bred ones. What is even more interesting is that similar accounts are also seen in many of other classical Perso-Arabic works and Chinese sources. The regions that such events took place in mainly spread over Central Asia and western China while in $K{\bar{u}}shn{\bar{a}}ma$, the story happens in $B.s{\bar{i}}l\bar{a}$, a legendary kingdom with its historical prototype being Silla. By sorting out certain records of how ancient people sought fine horses by cross-breeding domesticated horses with wild horses that inhabited mountains and waters within Chinese sources and classical Muslim works, and comparing these accounts with similar plot lines as depicted in $K{\bar{u}}shn{\bar{a}}ma$, this paper attempts to elucidate that the story in $K{\bar{u}}shn{\bar{a}}ma$ is a result of flourishing land and maritime exchanges between East Asia and West Asia during ancient and medieval times, rather than a purely literary fiction. It was not only influenced by the horse culture that thrived over the Eurasian Steppe, but the story is also coincidentally in accordance with the fact that the nomadic zone which lies within the central Eurasian continent extends as far as the Korean Peninsula in northeast Asia.