Humanities Bulletin

Introduction: Reading to Know, Learning to Hear, and Engaging in Respect

Carla Locatelli — 2026-01-08

This “Introduction” is divided into three Sections: 1) “Opening Theoretical Remarks” i.e., a conceptual Preamble; 2) “A ‘Narrative’ of the Call for Papers” mapping the thematic ground and scope of an invitation to respond, and 3) “The ‘Happy Ending’ of the CFP: Respondents Write Back.” Indeed, the plurality of their contributions and points of view recognizes and answers the dialogical intent of our call.

Reading as a Resonant Relation between Cultural Creation and Human Universality

Freya Katharina Gerz — 2026-01-08

In this article, I claim that moral life begins not in decision or judgment but in attention, the disciplined, loving gaze through which reality becomes visible as moral. Drawing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophy of moral vision, I argue that seeing is an ethical act: a practice of perception purified from ego and illusion. By bringing Murdoch into dialogue with Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, I trace a constellation of responsiveness that unites vision, language, and emotion. Cavell reveals the moral drama of acknowledgment within the limits of ordinary language; Nussbaum uncovers the cognitive depth of emotion as a form of moral intelligence; Murdoch grounds both in a metaphysics of vision, where perception itself transforms the self. Against the abstraction of moral theory, I recover ethics as an art of seeing, a form of attention in which truth and love converge. Finally, I turn to film as the lived enactment of this moral attention: a medium that trains the eye to dwell, to discern, and to love without possession. In reframing moral perception as a discipline of vision, the article bridges epistemology and aesthetics, suggesting that to see rightly is the highest form of understanding and that art keeps this moral labor alive.

An Ethical Rupture: Brodsky’s Legacy and the Politics of Reading in a Time of Crisis

Li Haotian — 2026-01-08

In an era of sharpening polarization, critics need methods beyond “defense” versus “condemnation” when confronting works that fuse aesthetic power with ethical harm. Focusing on the Anglophone reception of Joseph Brodsky after the full-scale outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine war (2022), this article theorizes An Ethic of Agonistic Care. Synthesizing Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic politics and bell hooks’s ethics of love, the framework treats conflict as inescapable yet channels it toward reparative dialogue and responsibility. It is operationalized as a five-step protocol for ethical reading: positional examination, emotional diagnosis, agonistic engagement, reparative re-reading, and critical re-contextualization. Close readings of Brodsky (poetry, essays) and comparative cases from post-socialist and contemporary geopolitical literatures demonstrate the approach’s transferability and limits, showing how it avoids both facile decanonization and aesthetic exceptionalism. The article argues that An Ethic of Agonistic Care supplies a rigorous, practicable method for addressing controversial cultural legacies and re-anchors “respect” and “love” as scholarly virtues in post–Cold War cross-cultural understanding, offering a pedagogical pathway for critical civic education.

Reading in order to Hear: Accented Transcriptions and Compulsory Racialization in Reading “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Carolin Aronis — 2026-01-08

This essay explores the complexities and challenges of reading, hearing, and comprehending transcripts that feature “nonstandard” speech, particularly through the use of descriptive markers that convey the speaker’s accent. While scholars have critiqued biases in transcriptions, there has been relatively little focus on how readers engage with these texts. I focus on Sojourner Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”, delivered in 1851, which has become one of the most notable public addresses in U.S. history. Interestingly, its most recognized transcript showcases Truth’s English as influenced by her Dutch accent and Southern dialect. In theorizing the reader’s experience prompted by this transcript—especially for individuals who themselves speak “nonstandard” English—I investigate the entrenched mechanisms of racialization and Othering that emerge as readers navigate unfamiliar vocabulary and contextual framing. I argue that the text encourages readers to actively engage with racializing practices that reflect colonial, white, middle-upper-class societal values, discriminating against those who do not adhere to a “standard” mode of speech. Yet, through self-reflection, readers gain insights into oppressive power structures. I conclude by urging scholars and activists to refrain from proposing “fixes” to the text and instead to follow the examined reading experience, meta-framing the speech to foster critical readings.

Challenging Familiar Boundaries and Blurred Lines in Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear

Marie Jensen — 2026-01-08

Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear engages multiple fields—including Asian German studies, animal studies, postcolonial theory, and the public humanities—through the story of an unnamed polar bear writing her autobiography. The novel blurs the boundary between humans and animals, using ambiguous language and narrative perspective to examine questions of identity, agency, and the rights of both humans and nonhumans. Tawada’s polar bear, as narrator and author, challenges traditional hierarchies and compels readers to reconsider what it means to give voice and recognition to the marginalized.

At the same time, the novel aligns with postcolonial and public humanities concerns by decentering dominant narratives. By foregrounding a perspective historically excluded from both literature and society, Tawada’s work enacts a form of narrative justice, inviting readers to engage with experiences of displacement, otherness, and historical silencing. Reading the novel through these intersecting lenses illuminates how literature can serve as a tool for empathy, ethical reflection, and social critique.

Ultimately, Memoirs of a Polar Bear demonstrates the value of attending to underrepresented voices in both fiction and reality. By exploring the ethical and political dimensions of storytelling, Tawada’s work reminds us of the transformative potential of literature to foster understanding across boundaries of species, culture, and historical experience.

Intersemiotic Literacy: Reading Heart of Darkness from Serialized Fiction to Contemporary Book Publication

Chi Sum Garfield Lau — 2026-01-08

“The Heart of Darkness” was first published in 1899 as a serialized fiction in Blackwood’s Magazine. The publication of Heart of Darkness in book form and under this present title appeared three years later in the volume Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories. To understand how reading as a supposedly passive and personal experience evolves, the phenomenal success of this masterpiece written by the Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad (1867-1924) and its collaborations with different modes of publication would be investigated. This article outlines the publication story of this novella since the time of Conrad till the very present day. To enable an in-depth understanding on how the plot of the narrative interacts with various book cover designs, discussions would be made on whether the visual domain can also portray the juxtaposition of horrors in the exotic milieu with the dark side of humanity. In Re-Covered Rose (2011), the award-winning scholar and literary translator Marco Sonzogni (1971-) examines how book cover design is a form of intersemiotic translation. Being inspired by this stance, it is the aim of this article to dissect whether the contemporary book designs of Heart of Darkness enrich the interpretation of this novella and respond to its contemporary criticisms. The cover designs of Heart of Darkness from Penguin Classics will serve as a case study in understanding how a publisher addresses the rise of new critiques. In addition, 30 book cover designs of Heart of Darkness published since the new millennium will be studied to exemplify the relationships between a literary classic, its book covers and intersemiotic literacy.

Das absolute Wissen and the Dostoevskian Sobornost’. Reception and intercultural transformation between Hegel and Dostoevsky

Elisabetta Romano — 2026-01-08

This paper explores the intercultural encounter between Hegel’s concept of absolutes Wissen (absolute knowledge) and Dostoevsky’s reworking of the Orthodox notion of sobornost’. In nineteenth-century Russia, Hegelian philosophy represented both a powerful intellectual catalyst and a contested cultural paradigm, provoking divergent responses among Westernizers, revolutionaries, and Slavophiles. While Herzen, Belinsky, and Bakunin used Hegelian dialectics to justify progress or revolution, the Slavophiles opposed it but nonetheless engaged with it as a counter-model for reaffirming Orthodox tradition and communal life. Dostoevsky, situated within this philosophical and cultural milieu, absorbed and transformed Hegelian categories into his literary and existential vision. By confronting Hegel’s idea of absolute knowledge with the Orthodox concept of sobornost’, Dostoevsky reshapes the dialectic into a narrative of freedom, tragedy, and communal responsibility. The analysis highlights how sobornost’ emerges in The Brothers Karamazov not as an abstract utopia, but as a lived, fragile, and open-ended possibility grounded in love, forgiveness, and education. This comparative framework shows how philosophy and literature converge in addressing the tension between individual and community, universality and particularity, reason and faith. Ultimately, the dialogue between Hegel and Dostoevsky illustrates how intercultural reception generates creative reinterpretations that transcend national and disciplinary boundaries.

Moralising Animals in the Renaissance: A Study of French and English Emblem Books from the 16th and 17th centuries

Rareș-Christian Vasilescu — 2026-01-08

The aim of this research project is to explore and conduct a comparative study of emblem books from the 16^th and 17^th centuries during the French and English Renaissance, through an analysis of the symbolism and moralising function of the artistic representation of animals, namely A Choice of Emblems by Geffrey Whitney and Fables by Jean de la Fontaine. The study seeks to identify the ways in which the pictorial and graphic depiction of animals functioned as a medium of cultural and social transmission in both cultural contexts, by expressing and conveying messages of moral and philosophical nature. The objectives of this study are: the identification and in-depth analysis of the moral and didactic function of animal symbolism in emblem books of the English and French Renaissance, a comparative study of the artistic expression of animal symbolism in emblem books from the two cultural contexts and a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which animal allegories in emblem books influenced the moral ideologies of the wider contemporary audience. The methodology used in this paper is: qualitative analysis, consisting of both textual analysis (of the accompanying texts in emblem books) and iconographic analysis (a visual study of emblematic images), comparative study, involving thematic evaluation through the comparison of emblematic approaches in French and English cultural contexts, archival research, including the consultation of archives for the in-depth analysis of emblem texts and books in their original form and an interdisciplinary approach, integrating multiple research fields such as literary criticism, art history, and iconography.

A Comparative Reading of Positionings within Patriarchy in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and Amirhossein Allahyari’s Qorab Jendun: A Lacanian Approach

Amirreza Allahyari — 2026-01-08

Informed by the Lacanian conceptualization of the Name-of-the-Father, this research investigates Amirhossein Allahyari’s Qorab Jendun (2022) and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982). This study dialogically investigates the two authors’ orientation toward and within patriarchy. It also explores the impact of resisting/accepting the patriarchal system and its consequences, and offers insight into the reverberation of (m)Other’s presence in the process of subjectification. The central questions of this research are: How are the two works situated in the continuum of patriarchy according to Lacan’s Name-of-the-Father? How is patriarchy negotiated with or subverted in accordance with Lacan’s psychoanalytical conceptualization of the Symbolic and neurosis? And what are the two authors’ orientations toward patriarchy? This analysis draws upon thematic textual analysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis to confront Eastern and Western patriarchal systems and ideologies in terms of Symbolic, unconscious, subject, Imaginary, and the Name-of-the-Father. The analysis contextualizes Allahyari’s elegiac writing and Churchill’s prescriptive text in light of the time-space features of their lives and their attitude toward the socio-political milieu of their countries, all of which array the two works as consequential or oppositional within the patriarchy. This study demonstrates the unfeasibility of Churchill’s idealistic Symbolic solution and the necessity of having both patriarchy-oriented and matriarchy-oriented stances for a balanced psyche and a healthy society.

Constructing Identity through Children’s Literature (The Soviet Union 1938–1964)

Tamar Namgladze — 2026-01-08

Children’s literature, as a specialised text corpus, was established throughout the existence of the Soviet Union. This literature, besides its “function” as a fictional narrative, had another purpose as well – to construct the new Soviet person. Forming and shaping the new type of person was the main intention of identity politics of the Soviet Union. The study analyzes Soviet Russian and Soviet Georgian children’s literature, composed during 1938–1964 time period. The importance of the study is defined by the essence of identity politics – forming and shaping identity is a crucial part of any society. Therefore, studying already existing approaches and mediums (children’s literature, in this case) for shaping identity carries great importance. The analysis of the process of forming identity is crucial for understanding specifics of the history of the Soviet period, peculiarities of development of the Soviet culture, the role of literature in forming identity; also, the analysis is essential for defining the impact of local specifics.

Grief in Russian Émigrés’ Exilic Short Fiction: Bunin, Nabokov and Gazdanov

Justine Shu-Ting Kao — 2026-01-08

This essay focuses on the short fiction of three Russian émigré writers—Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953), Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) and Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971)—with the purpose of tracing not only their lives, but also a psychological/inner experience of exile evident within their writing techniques as related to time and space. Bunin, an exponent of the older generation of the first wave of Russian émigré writers, expressed profound emotions of nostalgia in his exilic short fiction by employing the techniques of “double exposure” and “diachronic topography,” harkening back to pre-revolutionary landscapes. Nabokov, a representative of the younger generation of Russian first-wave émigré writers as well as an all-encompassing writer of the second wave of Russian emigration, underpinned by his obsession with his childhood memories of butterflies as symbols of love and beauty, intertwined cosmic synchronization with stories of a protagonist in exile. Gazdanov, another representative of the younger generation of Russian first-wave emigration, had his protagonists disengage from the horror of the past, yet replicated feelings of suffering within their inner world and contemporary circumstances. Though Nabokov and Gazdanov, as younger voices from the first generation of Russian emigration, delved into a new world of literature and absorbed more writing techniques from literary movements of contemporary Europe, they continued to explore themes of grief and suffering in exile, much like the older generation of Russian first-wave émigré writers did.

“America, America, Blasphemous Dream”: Nietzsche’s Metamorphoses and the Immigrant’s Existential Crisis in The Fortunate Pilgrim

Sean Brown — 2026-01-08

Mario Puzo’s The Fortunate Pilgrim traces the existential and cultural dissonance that shapes the Angeluzzi-Corbo family’s struggle to reconcile inherited Italian values with the demands of American individualism. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Three Metamorphoses” from Thus Spake Zarathustra, this analysis frames Lucia Santa as the “great dragon,” a figure who enforces ancestral authority and preserves inherited values. Her children occupy various stages of Nietzsche’s spiritual transformation: Sal and Lena adopt the Camel’s burdens of duty, Gino and Vinnie charge forward as defiant Lions, and Larry and Octavia reach toward the creative autonomy of the Child. Yet none of the children actualize the Overman’s radical self-creation. Cultural inheritance and the tension between ethnic loyalty and American individualism obstruct their progression. Rather than fulfilling Nietzsche’s teleology, the narrative exposes its limitations. Puzo reframes metamorphosis not as transcendence, but as a cycle of interruption. Through this reconfiguration, the novel foregrounds the fractured subjectivity of second-generation immigrants, who must construct identity amid conflicting imperatives without ever fully reconciling them.

Habeas Corpus: How Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song exposes that corporal existence is dependent upon a hegemonic social construct

William F. Dwyer III — 2026-01-08

Habeas Corpus directly translates to showing of a body and is commonly accepted as a right to a trial; this article explores the subjective nature of what recognises a body worthy of trial within a social construct and how hegemonic influence can present or hide a body at will. The article uses the philosophical lens of Deleuze and Guattari, as their binary metaphor of “root versus rhizome” helps to define corporal subjectivity. The article is based on Paul Lynch’s novel Prophet Song as a way of explaining the philosophy, as the dystopian novel provides examples of the shifting definitions of bodies at the will of the state. Furthermore, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence are compared on a cartesian grid to explain the way a body can shift between definition or ambiguity dependent on the way it is presented to the public. The conclusion is that corporeal definition is contingent on the hegemonic interpretation of what defines a body within a social construct.

Lost in Translation: Medieval Romance, the Porous Female Body, Kingship, and Vassalage in Havelok the Dane

Lash Keith Vance — 2026-01-08

Medieval romances feature many of the same tropes: reclamation of lost or forsworn titles, martial prowess, bravery squandered, damsels in desperate need of distress or saving. Havelok the Dane participates in these conventions but is a dramatic outlier in the way the author utilizes the female body as trope, narrative plot device, and ultimately as a signifier for kingship itself. The original version, Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis, emphasizes Havelok’s supernatural and superhuman power, his kingship ordained by God, his birthmark, and his heirs. The English poet changes the source in his translation, dramatically strengthening the plotline around the visceral, physical threats to women. Instead, the increased threat of rape, the fecundity of female bodies, and the “porous” nature of females in the Lay foreground and become the story; the potential and real violence toward the women of the text create the foil to contemporary Arthurian romances.

Patriarchal and Governmental Violent Discourse: A Suppression of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Wiem Krifa — 2026-01-08

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale unfolds a violent dystopian narrative that targets women in general and more precisely a category of fertile women who are assigned by the tyrannical Gilead government to bear children for elite sterile couples. Offred, the protagonist, recounts her life in Gilead, a theocratic and totalitarian state, forced to undergo a ritualized sex with a governmental commander, while her hands are tightly gripped by Selena, in order to bear a child for the commander and his wife. The physical and psychological trauma inflicted upon Offred, the Handmaid, as well as her friends, are transmitted through the nonlinear and introspective style of narration and stand as proofs of the suppression of women’s reproductive rights and female subjectivity as a whole. Offred’s physical and psychological freedom, as a human being, are usurped due to political and religious strict pretexts. The Governmental perpetual violent discourse against Offred will be studied as a case in point of futuristic patriarchal assault towards women, unless fairer legal and social laws will be established across the globe to protect women’s reproductive rights and status within society. Though the novel is dystopian, it still bears a cautionary orientation for feminist trends and groups to move from theories to more practical actions towards ensuring women’s rights and gender equality.

‘What Was There Behind it - Her Beauty, Her Splendour?’: Femininity and Masquerade in Psychoanalysis and To the Lighthouse

Ellie Rebecca Bunker — 2026-01-08

This essay explores the correlation between femininity and absence through Mrs Ramsay in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse alongside analyses of femininity in psychoanalysis. For Freud and Klein, femininity is built upon the absence of masculinity; the transition from girl to woman is catalysed by the castration complex. In ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, Joan Riviere suggests that the true nature of femininity is a mystery by insisting that there is no difference between genuine womanliness and femininity as masquerade. I use my analysis of Mrs Ramsay to emphasise how Freud and Klein fail to construct a well-rounded definition of femininity by equating it with absence. Much of the scholarship on Woolf’s novel suggests that Mrs Ramsay performs her role as the archetypal woman and mother; however, our knowledge of Mrs Ramsay derives from other characters’ perceptions of her. I reverse the notion that Mrs Ramsay performs her femininity by proposing that womanliness is projected onto her, obscuring her true character. Woolf problematises the notion that femininity is founded upon the absence of masculinity by refusing to reveal Mrs Ramsay’s true character. Thus, she challenges us to dismantle the structures that efface woman’s subjectivity to construct a more accurate understanding of femininity.