War diaries are often written under duress, and are attempts at documenting events as they unfold, or narrating stories of how people survive under trying circumstances. She argues that conditions of war under which authors produce their work dictate the form itself. When an author’s life is under threat, when safety is compromised, m…[Read more]

In Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s As Intermitências da Morte (2005) and in Mahmoud Darwish’s epic poem Mural (2000), the authors contemplate the nothingness that accompanies death, a concern that increasingly permeates their later writings. Although ‘death’ is depicted differently, the authors fear that with death “the universe wo…[Read more]

The glocal scale offers a more productive frame for analyzing the transculturation of theatre, particular Brechtian theory and practice, than either the singularly local or the generalized global. Glocalization brings into focus networks of imaginative representation that may be missed in overbroad applications of global frameworks, particularly…[Read more]

This memorial tribute for the late Ciaran Carson (1948-2019), Irish creative writer extraordinaire, was commissioned three years ago for inclusion in a special number of “Reading Ireland” which has not yet materialised. It is now archived in and by Humanities Common on the third anniversary of his funeral rites and burial in Belfast, Northern…[Read more]

The depiction of women of East Asian descent in science fiction films reveals how racial hierarchies are mapped onto, and used as justification for, mistreatment of women—and misogynistic prejudices inform racism. Contributing to the patterns that dehumanize Asian women are multiple sci-fi films that feature cyborgs and androids in Asian female b…[Read more]

The screen as an interface immerses audiences in an alternate universe. As a result, that interface seems transparent. Through analyses of performances that call attention to filmic genres, such as Edgar Wright’s parody film, Hot Fuzz (2007), and the Wooster Group’s multimedia production, Hamlet (2007), as well as (meta)theatrical operations on…[Read more]

The Connections between ancient approaches to rhetoric, as found in Plato and Aristotle, the prime ancient theorists of rhetoric, and modern linguistic approaches to register and genre theory, as in Hallidayan linguistics, show continuity of thought across the centuries. They also suggest that there may be such things as universal rhetorical…[Read more]

Abstract of my full article published on disability and masculinity in the Global South.

This article explores the tradition of Bacha Posh in Afghan culture as depicted in Afghan-American Nadia Hashimiʼs debut novel The Pearl that Broke its Shell (2014). In this novel, Hashimi shows how Afghan girls are obliged to cross-dress and live dual lives as boys for several years to lay claim for their rights to education and freedom of…[Read more]

In The Night Watchman (2020), Louise Erdrich continues to blur the lines between history and fiction as she has done in several of her novels. Erdrich introduces the reader to several magical elements that appear to be entirely real: two ghosts, a dog that talks, and an unearthly powwow with Jesus as one of the dancers. The main objective of this…[Read more]

In The Night Watchman (2020), Louise Erdrich continues to blur the lines between history and fiction as she has done in several of her novels. Erdrich introduces the reader to several magical elements that appear to be entirely real: two ghosts, a dog that talks, and an unearthly powwow with Jesus as one of the dancers. The main objective of this…[Read more]

In The Night Watchman (2020), Louise Erdrich continues to blur the lines between history and fiction as she has done in several of her novels. Erdrich introduces the reader to several magical elements that appear to be entirely real: two ghosts, a dog that talks, and an unearthly powwow with Jesus as one of the dancers. The main objective of this…[Read more]

Examines the intersection between Chan Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism during the Southern Song dynasty period (1126-1279) in China.

Abstract in English :::

Shakespeare adaptations share an intimate relation with global studies, because Shakespeare – as a cultural institution – registers a broad spectrum of practices that generate productive dialogues with world cultures.

Global studies enables us to examine deceivingly harmonious images of Shakespeare’s works. This…[Read more]

Even though Shakespeare’s plays were initially performed by all-male casts, they were designed to appeal to diverse audiences. Many modern adaptations reimagine those plays as expressions of gender nonconformity. Over the past decades, prominent films and theater works have fostered new public conversations about the politics of appropriating g…[Read more]

Compounding and derivation are frequent in many language families. As a consequence, words in different languages are often only partially cognate, sharing only a few but not all morphemes. While partial cognates do not constitute a problem for the phonological reconstruction of individual morphemes, they are problematic when it comes to…[Read more]

In discussions of the history of American Sign Language (ASL), a village sign language—Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL)—has been identified as a possible contributor to ASL and to its differentiation from French Sign Language (LSF; cf. Groce 1985: 73-74, Lane et al 2011: 76, Poole Nash 2015: 611). On this account, MVSL contributed to ASL t…[Read more]