http://hdl.handle.net/11089/27751 2026-04-08T23:06:14Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/28013 The Vivified Sacrificial Rites as the Site of Conflation of Man and Animal in Adele Wiseman’s "The Sacrifice" Tazbir, Jędrzej The article juxtaposes two explanations of the ancient phenomenon of sacrifice, one of which, formulated by René Girard, emphasizes the aspects of scapegoating and transference of people’s violent inclinations, while the other, developed by Jonathan Klawans and focused on the ancient Israeli sacrificial customs, attributes chief significance to the notions of purity, defilement, and achieving the state of imitatio Dei by the offerer. Though these explanations are at odds in many respects, with Klawans being vocally critical of Girard’s approach, the article seeks to present both of them as applicable to the context of a contemporary sacrifice depicted in Adele Wiseman’s novel, The Sacrifice. Its protagonist, the article argues, finds a way of blending these two orders together largely by the use of the mental figure of the animal, the projection of which onto his victim allows him to perceive her in dualistic manner, as simultaneously sacred and wicked. In the light of this, the ostensibly morally sanctioned practice of ancient Abrahamic sacrifice is shown to contain an unaccounted for potential to instigate ruinous acts, and the figure of the animal, within a situation characterized by the blurring of boundaries and distinctions, with which a sacrificial crisis is unalterably associated, attains an ambiguous, if not sinister, significance. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/28012 Ethnography, Translation of Cultures and History in V. S. Naipaul’s India Trilogy, „The Loss of El Dorado” and „A Way in the World” Roy, Satarupa Sinha The genre of travel writing is not only informed by an interdisciplinary aesthetic but also involves the description of peoples and the translation/re-presentation/re-interpretation of cultures. This article provides important clues as to how ethnography can be made to function as a legitimate mode of cultural and literary criticism. In doing so, this article seeks to establish that just as the ethnographer’s systematic study of the Other entails the possibility of gaining knowledge about the self, the travel writer’s knowledge of the Other, too, can often lead to a veritable gain in consciousness. Representation of the past or of history so to speak, as well as of the present which springs from that history, form a major preoccupation in Naipaul’s travel writing. To construct the present which, as a temporal category, is fairly problematic insofar as it is ephemeral and ever-fleeting and cannot be described without referring to what was or has been, one must begin with what one believes to be an understanding of the past – of history, per se. This study demonstrates how intensely emotional encounters with pastness inform the ways in which history is developed and narrativized within the discursive field of travel writing. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/28010 Drunken Language, Elliptical Politics: Caryl Churchill’s Oblique Protest Theatre Jones, Matt Can “political theatre” exist in today’s political climate? In the last few decades, our understanding of politics and theatre has undermined the basis on which prior generations of artists conceived of both politics and theatre. Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? sits at the intersection of critiques of dramatic theatre and new forms of post-dramatic, non-representational performance. The play tells the story of a man, Guy, who falls in love with a country, Sam, and critics have largely seen the play as an allegory for the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. But while the play riffs on that metaphor, it also includes aspects that work against a political reading. Churchill’s depiction of the relationship as a sincere gay love affair raises questions about what it means to say that politicians are “in bed together.” As the play develops, the political critique and the personal relationships seem to work against each other, and the play becomes an elliptical invitation to think political theatre anew. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/28009 Reality in the Margins, Pseudo-Reality in the Main Frame: The Posthuman in Steven Hall’s "The Raw Shark Texts" Guenther, Shawna I contend that, at its core, Stephen Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts is an allegory of reading that illustrates how composite realities exist in the increasingly electronically-dominated world of posthumanism. Hall succinctly identifies how words act upon readers intellectually and psychologically. Readers take the written words from the page and turn them into actual people, places, things, and events within their minds, bringing their own past narratives to create their versions of the text’s pseudoreality. However, the text’s main character, Eric, is disabled by his repeated episodes of complete amnesia – his reality is constantly being erased and rewritten, just like computer memory, leaving Eric with no past narrative to inform his present and future. Hall, very much aware of the conflict between reality and pseudoreality, conflates the worlds of written and digital text, and of human and computer memory in ways that both celebrate their coexistence and warn of one’s potential to eliminate the other. Thus, the allegory of reading exemplifies the potential destruction of reading and the end of electronic posthumanism. As digital text and the mainframe threaten to destroy the act of reading in the twenty-first century, the death of the reader looms large. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z