Author：Wen Pan

Abstract: There is a divergence of interpretation since the second wave of the western feminism: the divergence between “the racial discourse” and “the gender discourse”. Comparing the interpretations made by bell hooks and Judith Butler to the same literary texts, we can see vividly this divergence. In deeper analysis, this is the divergence between “the social politics” and “the personal politics”. Before the 2008 economic crisis, “the personal” has always overshadowed “the social”. However, the more “personal” side of interpretation has gradually shown two main problems: west-centrism and banality and discursive exhaustion. Today such a divergence still exists, though in somewhat different discourses.

Column：Literature and Culture Studies   001-013   Details

Author：Jue Wang

Abstract: The trial and execution of the king of England, Charles I, by the Independents led by Oliver Cromwell, is considered to be one of the most stunning events in the European history of the 17th century. The German dramatist Andreas Gryphius wrote the tragedyCarolus Stuardus, based on this regicidal event. In this tragedy, Charles was shaped as Christ-like figure, which made an analogy between Charles’s martyrdom and Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, Gryphius created Charles as a virtures monarch and Cromwell as morally despicable tyrant in this martyr drama. As matter of fact, Gryphius’ concept of monarchial power was fully demonstrated in his depiction of the monarch.

Column：Literature anc Culture Studies   014-023   Details

Author：Xueying Zhou

Abstract: Diverging from traditional interpretations, the Decadents fashioned the image of the Mona Lisa in a modern light. Following Gautier's discovery of Satanism in Mona Lisa's smile, Pater not only fashioned her as sinister, but also proposed to see her as a representative of Decadents. Wilde, as well ...

Column：British Literature Studies   024-035   Details

Author：Xiuli Zhang

Abstract: In English plague literature, human sentiments and frames of mind are represented by either moral preaching or by jubilation and wine. On the one hand, plague was a metaphor for moral corruption in order to persuade people to behave well, while on the other it offers a picture of moral collapse in wine and pleasure. The apparent conflict between the moral preaching and sensual revelry in the plague literature actually points to the underlying anxiety of the mass. The balance of the two indicates the effort to confront collective anxiety with laughter.

Column：British Literature Studies   036-045   Details

Author：Meiqun Wu

Abstract: The fashioning of state imagery was inseparable from scholars’ literary imagination and discourse construction in early modern England. Ben Jonson, one of the most famous playwrights in the English Renaissance, actively takes part in the fashioning of English state imagery and national consciousness imaginatively portrayed in...

Column：British Literature Studies   046-054   Details

Author：Wenzhong Fu

Abstract: Indra Sinha's novel Animal's People may be rated as an outstanding text on toxic discourse. Analysis of this novel under the lens of material ecocriticism reveals that during and after Khaufpur chemical disaster, toxic material, possessing agency, constantly traverses, traffics and transits between humans and non-human beings, finally not only constituting the toxic bodies of Khaufpuris represented by Animal, but also constituting the toxic bodies of flora, fauna and other non-human natural beings in Khaufpur. Human beings are just a part of the material community, but if they have no material ethics and ignore the constant material traffic between human and non-human beings, similar ecological disasters may happen again.

Column：British Literature Studies   055-064   Details

Author：Minmin Xie

Abstract: George Santayana was one of the most renowned and reputable intellectuals during the 20th century. He had multiple personas as a philosopher, novelist, and poet, which made his ideological system rich and diverse. Taking Santayana's poems and the novel The Last Puritan as the text, this paper analyzes how Santayana expressed h...

Column：American Literature Studies   065-074   Details

Author：Lin Fu, Shidan Chen

Abstract: In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy reexamines the discourse of American identity in the mid-19th century. Constructed from the perspectives of racism, sexism and civilization, the ideology of Manifest Destiny helped shape American identity in the mid-19th century, provided legitimate discourse for west...

Column：American Literature Studies   075-083   Details

Author：Bethania Mariani

Abstract: This article aims to discuss conceptually the distinctions between diversity, inequality and difference in relation to the Portuguese language of two nations that underwent processes of linguistic colonisation. To do so, it intends to present shifts in the meaning of the Portuguese language during the colonisation process and the post-independence process in Brazil and Mozambique.

Column：Brazilian Literature and Culture Studies   003-013   Details

Author：João Cezar de Castro Rocha

Abstract: Shakespearean cultures are the ones whose self-definition heavily relies on the determination of a foreigner’s gaze. Their self-perception originates in the gaze of an Other. Thus, in such circumstance, the centrality of the other demands the prominence of the mimetic impulse in the shaping of national identity, which cannot but evoke a paradoxical constellation, based upon a constant oscillation between the own and the foreigner. For a start, Latin American cultures emerged in the shadow of the Other, an (almost) absolute model.

Column：Brazilian Literature and Culture Studies   014-024   Details