Ecology and Literature

Digital technology enables new forms of textual communications, linguistic creativity, and cultural empowerment for many local language communities (Li, Brar, and Roihan 2021). This study uncovers how Nuosu people, a thriving minority ethnic group in southwest China, choose to use digital technologies for reading and writing their traditional script. The data, part of a larger qualitative study that revealed how Nuosu people conceptualize and practice literacy (Walters 2021), were collected utilizing semi-structured interviews with 22 Nuosu adults. Findings show that the Nuosu primarily use digital language technologies for Nuosu literary and artistic expressions, which carry knowledge crucial to their identity. They also use these technologies for teaching and learning their script, not for interpersonal communication or majority-language domains. The use of digital Nuosu in literary domains aligns with their centuries-old practice in
which religious specialists (bimo) use Nuosu script for ritual writings and preserving traditional oral literature in the form of epic poems and proverbs. The Nousu case suggests that literacy patterns once established are deeply held and not easily influenced by changes in modality.

Chenjerai Hove's novel of 1996 called Ancestors is intriguing because of its wide variety of methods of narrating that operate side by side in one novel. Sometimes the story is told by a realistic male character called Mucha. He is the immediate and major narrator who tells us his story and the story of his family from a personal and realist point of view. At another level, Mucha narrates the family story from the point of view and spiritual instruction of Miriro and to a less extent, Tariro. Then the reader fi nds out that Miriro, who remained deaf and dumb throughout her short life occasionally tells us directly from the grave about what she 'heard' during her lifetime! She even remembers the sounds of birds and animals, people's songs and conversations. Miriro remembers all the things that are normally not available to those who are deaf and dumb. Therefore, a mathematical and accurate reading of this novel by one of Zimbabwe's internationally acclaimed writers is not quite possible. To read it is an exercise akin only to moving towards an estimation of meanings. Who is Chenjerai Hove? Chenjerai Hove is one of the more prominent voices in Zimbabwean Literature who burst onto the literary scene after Independence in 1980. Hove shares that Memory Chirere is one of the more visible contemporary Zimbabwean writers. Chirere writes mainly short stories and some of his are published in No more Plastic Balls (1999),

An important moral quality that should be continuously developed is environmental awareness. Using examples of the practices stated in the literary resources has been proven to influence the quality of environmental awareness in the lives of people who read literature. Since 2016, the Language Development Center under the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, has been actualizing the procurement of literary reading sources to support the primary national literacy movement and the use of these resources as media to transfer good moral-character, including environmental awareness. Ideally, literacy materials that have been proven to effectively encourage good behaviors should be designed and published in multimodal format. The multimodality has potential to strengthen the understanding of primary messages and later influence the practices in actions. This paper uses a thematic and multimodal analysis approach to examine the representation and visualizations of ecological themes in literacy reading materials published from 2016 to 2021.

At the intersections of eco-poetics and queer family-building, Ardor moves across the political and natural landscapes of Alaska, Colorado, and the deep American South. These poems meditate on love and motherhood in the context of environmental crisis, foregrounding the domestic in a quest to continually re-imagine a hopeful future.

"I was supposed to be wiser, " Alyse Knorr writes in Ardor, her capacious meditation on lesbian love, marriage, motherhood, domesticity, and vocation. Who hasn't felt the same? In this collection, brimming with deftly rendered landscapes, deep reckoning with our zeitgeist, and rich literary allusions, Knorr's wisdom is continuously revealed through her speaker's questions. This speaker asks, "What am I minding but stillness? What have I grown except loss?" She asks, "When did we last surprise each other, in this yard or any other?" She asks, "What gained and what risked by changing the terms?" And when she asks, "What delights will transfigure you today?" I answer, This book. It seems impossible to read Ardor any way but ardently.  --Julie Marie Wade

Alyse Knorr's Ardor is without guile. Rarely does one find a poetry of such candor, enthusiasm, and keen compassion. At times funny, at times heartbreaking, the poems remind us that delight, joy, and passion remain ours to claim, to celebrate, even in the face of the dim future we have helped create on this planet. Confronted with the inevitable that at times separates them, the lover and the beloved, the parent and the child, the neighbor and the neighbor, the stranger and the stranger somehow keep and sustain each other. With each book, Alyse Knorr surprises us with a new voice, a new vision, a new possibility for the art of poetry. --Eric Pankey

Concerned with naming, at once investigative and celebratory, Alyse Knorr's wonderful fourth collection speaks of queer love and mothering, of a "world metered in motion, in sound, / constant and enveloping. " Whether the speaker is listening to the archives, debating Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, or charting a personal epistemology of the closet, Knorr's eye is tender, her voice generous. --Siwar Masannat

Compte rendu de Literature for a Changing Planet (Princeton UP, 2022) de Martin Puchner.
Dans Literature for a Changing Planet, Martin Puchner accuse la littérature mondiale de s’être systématiquement trouvée du côté de la défense d’un mode de vie ayant conduit à l’extraction des ressources et, dès lors, à la crise environnementale actuelle. Cette accusation s’accompagne néanmoins d’une défense de la littérature et, plus encore, des études littéraires. M. Puchner réaffirme le rôle que celles-ci ont à jouer dans la lutte contre le changement climatique : d’une part en produisant des relectures des œuvres du passé susceptibles de mieux nous faire comprendre comment les êtres humains en sont arrivés à la situation actuelle ; d’autre part en favorisant le développement de nouvelles histoires mobilisant le public. M. Puchner insiste en particulier sur le besoin, à ses yeux, d’un nouvel « agent collectif » capable d’emporter l’adhésion collective des humains en tant qu’espèce. Convaincu de la nécessité de « dézoomer », M. Puchner en profite pour défendre en particulier la littérature mondiale comme objet d’étude, à ses yeux particulièrement apte à offrir une vue d’ensemble.

This article first reconstructs the presence and functions of ornithological figures in Volponi's entire oeuvre, and then focuses on the character of the "Imitator of the Songs of All Birds", from Il pianeta irritabile (1978), offering a meta-artistic interpretation of his role, supported by the comparison with potential literary models (from St. Francis to Leopardi) and philosophical sources (particularly Marcuse). After having formulated such hypotheses, I analyze the dialectic between language and the body in Il pianeta, that is, the oscillation between the rejection of verbal communication and the goal of its refoundation, already partially achieved by the author through a 'materialistic writing', innovative both stylistically and thematically. In an effort to elude (political) repetition, Volponi thus creates a narrative text that experiments with literary structures and genres-an uncanny, 'unthinkable', and highly relevant ecological romance.

In the first half of the 19 th century, in the context of crisis of Christian beliefs an intensive formation of revolutionary intelligentsia began in Russia. Ivan Turgenev, one of the most penetrating writerspsychoanalysts, was the first who showed the nature of "new people" and predicted their historical mission of a revolutionary rebuilding of the country. The writer portrayed them in types of "Turgenev's girl" and "Turgenev's character". In the strict sense of the term, "Turgenev's girl" is a flapper, who rejects a traditional idea about the role of a woman in society. (The beginning of this understanding was shown in the story "Conversation" (1844-1854)). She is looking for a hero, a man who will show her the highest truth of existence and she is ready to sacrifice her life. She considers the ideas of social revolution to be this kind of the highest truth. In his works of fiction ("Rudin" (1855) and "Virgin Soil" (1876)) Turgenev showed that the way which characters choose will lead them and Russia to a "sophisticated suicide". The character types, which were discovered by Turgenev, were analyzed as evocation of abnormal psychology. The classic couple of characters, which were anticipated by Turgenev, are Nadezhda Krupskaya and Ulyanov-Lenin. Meanwhile both in school curricula and in Russian literary studies the type of "Turgenev's girl" is very vague, not clearly defined and still presented as romantic. The aim of this article is to show the "Turgenev's girl" type out of this kind of mythology. The results of it-the scientific description of the above mentioned psychological types-can be used in teaching the history of Russian and world literature, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural studies.

The Yoruba of Nigeria have some rich cultural heritages which have been impacted by Western acculturation. Two Yoruba communities, Ado and Igede-Ekiti with such valuable cultural heritage were used for this study. The effects of Western acculturation and modernization which may be through Christianity and formal education were examined. It was discovered that these cultural elements and activities have negatively been impacted on. Some cultural practices are either going or have gone into extinction while others are gradually abandoned. This research highlighted some of the traditional activities of the people of Ado and Igede-Ekiti, and examined the impacts of westernization on them. Findings from the research indicated that modernization has both beneficial and adverse effects on the entire tradition of the people but the negative impacts are more pronounced. This research suggested some solutions to the problems facing cultural activities and recommended that, in this contemporar...

Orientarsi nella vastissima bibliografia su Primo Levi è un’impresa ardua. Il volume indica una possibile sintesi, avvalendosi del contributo di studiosi già affermati che, insieme a giovani esordienti, offrono un primo bilancio su quanto è stato fatto e quanto ancora resta da fare per illuminare un prisma complesso. Accanto all’analisi di singole opere, sono stati enucleati i nodi problematici intorno ai quali persistono interpretazioni contrastanti: dal rapporto con l’ebraismo e lo Stato d’Israele alla funzione di Dante; dal ruolo del testimone – cioè la figura del superstite esaminata nell’arco di un mezzo secolo di scritture, da Se questo è un uomo a I sommersi e i salvati – fino all’uso delle fonti classiche, della Bibbia e dei miti.

chemicals that humans are using io increase the agricultural production ':d therefore, the per capita income. These elixirs of death are used rdiscriminately throughout the *orro rrri.t has chatenged the whoie-':cle of survival. Anthropocentric and androcentric visions have becorne ' ihreat to the symbiosis and kinship un,ong utt forms of rife. The hurnan

Ecological problems in Russian literature. From Anton Chekhov to Andrei Bitov
The author of the paper, powered by Polish researcher’s (Ian Debowski) belief that Eastern Orthodox Church’s mentality had long ago spelled out some ideas which are nowadays considered crucial among ecological movements, performs an overview of Russian literature from the end of XIXth century to the end of the XXth century. Presented speculations prove that Russian writers had promoted a pro ecological attitude, pleaded for respect for Mother Earth, constructed a model of ecological thinking, which states a foundation of modern movement for animals’, plants and general nature’s rights.

The article analyzes texts by two authors from Central Asia: Chingiz Aitmatov (1928–2008), from Kyrgyzstan, and Andrei Volos (b. 1955), born and raised in Tajikistan in an ethnically Russian family. Kogda padajut gory (Aitmatov 2007) and Palang (Volos 2008) each explore a profound crisis of the Central Asian region, from a socio-cultural, political, and ecological perspective, addressing the issues arising from the denaturalized post-Soviet environment. Following the lead of postcolonial ecocriticism (Huggan and Tiffin 2015) my reading brings to light a peculiar feature that these authors share, namely an emphasis on the profound interconnectedness of human and animals and the entanglement of species and landscape. I argue that each of these texts overturns the hierarchical and anthropocentric perspective that is more familiar to Western tradition, through the use of non-human animal characters. These characters – called into being by the specifics of Central Asian space and
history – allow our two authors to criticize the abuse and exploitation of Others perpetrated by dominant authorities. More generally, anthropomorphism, or the adoption of a point of view of an “other-than-human” character is very close to ostranenie, a technique that enables
these writers to address moral and philosophical questions linked to the overarching narrative of post-Soviet trauma. The response of these authors to the pressures of different discourses of dominance creates a common thread running through their works.

Das Sonderheft der Zeitschrift "literatur für leser:innen" fragt nach literarischen Potenzialen der Taxonomie als Thema, Form wie Verfahrensweise, nach ästhetischen Operationen und inhaltlichen Schwerpunktsetzungen, die sich in Anlehnung an Marion Poschmann als poetische Taxonomien diskutieren lassen. Es versammelt verschriftlichte und überarbeitete Vorträge, die im Panel "Poetische Taxonomien" auf dem 27. Deutschen Germanistentag 2022 in Paderborn gehalten wurden. Die Beiträge erproben und diskutieren exemplarisch poetische Taxonomien in Lyrik, Prosatexten und Theater vom 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Dabei kommen ästhetische Funktionalisierungen botanischer Ordnungs- und Benennungspraktiken genauso in den Blick wie literarische Versuche einer Ver-Unordnung der trennscharfen Klassifikationen von Mensch, Tier und Pflanze. Ironisch-ästhetische Brechungen taxonomischer Zugriffe auf Flora und Fauna in der Erzählliteratur werden poetologisch ausgedeutet und der Bogen zum multimedialen Aufgreifen linnéscher Klassifikationssysteme in Theaterinszenierungen der Gegenwart geschlagen. Die Erprobung methodischer Potenziale eines spielerisch-taxonomischen Zugriffs auf Gegenwartslyrik im Unterricht gibt schließlich einen Ausblick auf die didaktische Funktionalisierbarkeit poetischer Taxonomien.

An important moral quality that should be continuously developed is environmental awareness. Using examples of the practices stated in the literary resources has been proven to influence the quality of environmental awareness in the lives of people who read literature. Since 2016, the Language Development Center under the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, has been actualizing the procurement of literary reading sources to support the primary national literacy movement and the use of these resources as media to transfer good moral-character, including environmental awareness. Ideally, literacy materials that have been proven to effectively encourage good behaviors should be designed and published in multimodal format. The multimodality has potential to strengthen the understanding of primary messages and later influence the practices in actions. This paper uses a thematic and multimodal analysis approach to examine the representation and visualizations of ecological themes in literacy reading materials published from 2016 to 2021.

The Yoruba of Nigeria have some rich cultural heritages which have been impacted by Western acculturation. Two Yoruba communities, Ado and Igede-Ekiti with such valuable cultural heritage were used for this study. The effects of Western acculturation and modernization which may be through Christianity and formal education were examined. It was discovered that these cultural elements and activities have negatively been impacted on. Some cultural practices are either going or have gone into extinction while others are gradually abandoned. This research highlighted some of the traditional activities of the people of Ado and Igede-Ekiti, and examined the impacts of westernization on them. Findings from the research indicated that modernization has both beneficial and adverse effects on the entire tradition of the people but the negative impacts are more pronounced. This research suggested some solutions to the problems facing cultural activities and recommended that, in this contemporar...

referanslı ve yazarın doktora tezinden üretilmiş olan makalede, ilgili doktora tezinde de tekrar eden kavramsal bir hata yapıldığı fark edilmiştir. Yazar, gerek bu makalede (birinci link) gerekse de kendi doktora tezinde (ikinci link) yer alan bu hatadan dolayı okuyuculardan özür dilemektedir. Makalede yer alan hatalı kavramsal atıfın ve tezden kaynaklı karışıklığın giderilmesi amacıyla yapılan düzeltme ve açıklamalar gövde metinde sunulmuştur.

Cooperative organization is a business model that has some significant potential towards economic development of Nigeria. Some of these potentials include employment generation poverty reduction; enhance gross domestic product (GDP); as well as rural development. But, before cooperative could be able to play these roles they need capacity building that will enhance their performance effectively. As such the study examined the effect of capacity building on the organizational performance of multipurpose cooperatives in Osun central federal senatorial district of Osun state, Nigeria. Data were obtained from 529 purposively selected management committee members across the study area. Data obtained were analyzed and evidence from the study revealed that, capacity building activities were well established among the cooperatives across the study area (Osun central district). The finding also revealed that the opinion of the respondents unanimously agreed to the indicators used in measurin...

Indeed, appreciable number of researches has been conducted to facilitate relevant insights about the aetiology of child sexual offending in Nigeria; however, the understanding of the origins and causes of sexually abusive behaviour perpetrated against minors in the country remains rudimentary. This present study examined the psychosocial and psychosexual histories of offenders and presented the accounts, excuses and apologies of child sexual offenders. Drawing on the Integrated Theory of Sexual Offending (ITSO), explanations of adults' sexual attraction towards the underage, mode of operation and events leading to sexual abuse of the children were investigated. Qualitative analysis of official demographic and offence history data, and in-depth interviews of 29 purposively selected offenders in Ikoyi, Kirikiri Medium and Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Lagos revealed that a combination of developmental experiences, biological processes, cultural norms, emotional arrest, psychological vulnerability, and sociological inadequacies are responsible for onset of abusive behaviour towards children. The excuses of the offenders for their abusive behaviour hinged on unfulfilled sexual needs, drug influence, ignorance of the law, impulse disorder, alcohol, senility, the urge to feel in control and powerful or the identification with young children as a result of arrested emotional development. The study concludes that the factors that accounts for child sexual abuse in Nigeria are multidimensional, hence, singular factorial theories may fail to effectively expose the aetiology of sexual abuse of the underage in the country. There is need for concerted efforts to be directed towards addressing the problem of objectification and sexual violence against children in the country.

The world is no longer a lonely place. All living and non-living organisms are interconnected. Especially global
crises like climate change alarm people to be united and make them realise that the world is one despite the existence of
individual nations. Thus, the climate crisis needs to be tackled through global solidarity. If not, the earth will dwindle and
diminish soon. The Anthropocene is a critical crisis that needs to be tackled soon. This literature paper examines the
ecological poems of the Indo-Canadian writer Rupi Kaur and her ecological poems are taken as they are not only aesthetic
in nature but easily accessible, and any common man can understand the poems. It is analysed through the theoretical
framework of eco-cosmopolitanism, and how they contribute to a deeper understanding of the Anthropocene and
environmental sustainability is seen. By analyzing Kaur's use of language, imagery, and themes in her poetry, this paper
argues that her work fosters an eco-cosmopolitan perspective that acknowledges the interconnectivity between human and
non-human entities, and the need for collective action towards ecological preservation. Moreover, this paper explores how
Kaur's poetry challenges dominant anthropocentric narratives that have led to environmental degradation, and instead
highlights the agency and subjectivity of the natural world. Through this analysis, this paper seeks to engender a renewed
sense of eco-cosmopolitanism that can inspire a more sustainable future for all.

Key Words— Anthropocene, Earth, Eco-cosmopolitanism, Rupi Kaur, Ecological poems.

The study examined the effects of frauds on the liquidity position of banks in the Nigerian banking sector using time series data for the period 1994 to 2015. The study used unit root test to determine the stationary state of the variables. It also employed the Johansson co-integration and error correction model (ECM) statistical techniques to establish both short-run and long-run dynamic relationships between the endogenous and exogenous variables. The findings revealed that total number of fraud cases, actual amount involved in the fraud and the loss associated with it negatively affect banks liquidity position in the long- run, though the effect is not as strong as in the short run. The paper concluded that fraud is a key variable that depletes the banks’ ability to meet up with short term obligation as well as impinge on the ability to effectively maximize the wealth of the shareholders. The study therefore suggested that the services of the forensic accountants should be given ...

This paper investigated the role of youths in effective implementation of security and social development intervention in Nigeria. The Evolutionary Theory of Social Development and Human Development Theory were used to explain the role of youths in effective implementation of security and social development intervention in Nigeria, but the latter was adopted in the study due to its adequacy in addressing the problem and linking the variables under study (youths, security development and social development intervention). The study found that the role of youths in effective implementation of security and social development intervention in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. This is because youths have been deeply involved in various self-help projects in various Local and State Governments in Nigeria. Their areas of interventions cover projects involving trade, commerce, security, Home Economics, small and medium term enterprises and agriculture, anti-corruption, counterterrorism, community policing and drug-free clubs among others. The paper concluded that youths have many means of contributing to the development of their societies. Many local and international NGOs are either initiated by the Nigerian youths or co-opt our youths to intervene in the above mentioned areas. Some of them are backed by the government to execute their activities or pressurise the government to be responsive to the citizens in the area of security and social development. This is conditioned by the youths' social and psychological disposition and level of productivity. However, the productivity of the youths and their role in the security and social development of Nigeria depends on the government's willingness to empower the youths in social, economic and political terms.

African literature is considered literature from the continent of Africa. However, when it comes to critiquing african literature, rarely is reference made to literature works authored by african women. It is not a deliberate act to ignore African women writers, it is that it is "so natural" according to a certain critic to neglect to mention African female writers. This paper is written with the intention of tracing the evolution and involvement of francophone women in shaping what is today considered Francophone African literature. The paper will focus on some of the challenges faced by francophone African women writers, their thematic focus and give some recommendations on ways to improve the lot of African women writers. By focusing on Francophone women writers, we do not aim to neglect the struggle of other women writers in Africa, but to draw attention to works of women writers from across Africa. In truth, the experience of Francophone women writers differs little from that of women in other regions of Africa.

“Summer Break” (Natsu yasumi), the second story in Kawakami Hiromi’s 1998 collection The God of Bears (Kamisama), is narrated by a young person who spends a summer working as a laborer in a pear orchard. Like the other stories in The God of Bears, “Summer Break” operates according to the logic of magical realism, which is perhaps why the owner of the orchard tells the narrator not to worry about the small talking creatures that run through the trees and devour fallen fruit. The narrator nevertheless forms a bond with one of these pear spirits, whose panic attacks mirror the narrator’s own dissociative episodes. At the end of the story, both the pear spirit and the narrator grapple with anxiety and suicidal ideation, but the story’s conclusion embraces self-acceptance.

From the first publication of the award-winning title story of The God of Bears in 1994 to the appearance “Summer Break” in the complete collection in 1998, various public figures attempted to address the social malaise that characterized Japan’s economic recession. Several highly influential public intellectuals, including the clinical psychologist Kawai Hayao and the cultural critic Saitō Tamaki, viewed mental illness as a symptom of broader cultural forces. In “Summer Break,” however, Kawakami portrays the experience of mental illness as embodied and personal instead of abstract and societal. This paper analyzes how the fantasy elements of “Summer Break” render its treatment of mental illness as sympathetic and relatable, an aspect of the story that is enhanced by its use of magical creatures that externalize the narrator’s psychological state. I will place this analysis within in the context of recent narratives in Japanese fiction and popular culture categorized as ijinkei (“about nonhuman characters”), as well as critical discussions of the folkloric qualities of this period of Kawakami’s writing.

This article explores biophilic consciousness in Kiran Desai’s novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, from the perspective of Eco-criticism. The prime concern of this study goes to present the prevalence of biophilia representing through its main character, Sampath Chawla who escapes from the modern sense of materialism and human’s relationship with nature and others species, and comes up to the lap of nature where he gets complete happiness. Nature provides what he dreams to achieve in life. The orchard provides him shelter, animals become his friends, and nature provides him knowledge, freedom and peace putting forward the urgent need of maintaining harmonious relation between human, animals and nature. His dream of being a part of nature and its preserver gets symbolically fulfilled as he lives in the orchard with the monkeys, refusing every offer of his family. The study shows ultimate freedom, joy and happiness come from blending of human life with the nature suggesting us to ...

Children’s literature is a useful resource for transforming society for the better. In this study, I pay attention to Stephen Alumenda’s ideological commitment to disadvantaged children. I undertake a literary analysis of his works that focus on marginalised children in order to establish how he puts forward a proposal for a new society. The study examines how Alumenda’s children’s stories address disability and albinism. It critiques Alumenda’s approach, while appreciating his commitment to marginalised individuals and groups. The study highlights his sensitivity towards children living with disability and albinism. However, it questions his tendency of granting happy endings to his children’s stories. Overall, the study appreciates Alumenda’s willingness and cour­age to address neglected individuals and themes.

Some time ago I wrote a text for an art magazine. Later, in a revised draft of that text, I included a comment-annotated as such-from the editor of the magazine. I thought I was being very clever. By way of this rather infantile gesture I was trying to expose the invisible hand of the editor and how a text can be transformed into something other than what the writer had intended. Perhaps more idealistically, I wanted to be able to juxtapose my own sense of what I wanted to say against how an informed reader (the editor) might read the same text and then let the reader decide what to make of that disjuncture. In the end, the stunt didn't yield quite the subversion I wanted.

Beckman explores the ways that some of J. G. Ballard’s works can be seen as exemplifying a “dark ecology,” a critique of the universalist concept of “Nature” that keeps animals and the nonhuman world distinct and separate from “the human”. Instead, Ballard’s surreal novels can be seen as resisting a fetishized representation of birds in particular, while calling into question the literary tropes of metamorphosis and allegory that have often served to keep nonhuman animals at a distance, “locking them up” discursively, rather than deconstructing the line between “the human” and “the animal.” Beckman prioritizes questions of form and representation in order to track changes in the development of Ballard’s novels over the course of his career. For Beckman, a different form of potential advocacy can be found in Ballard’s work in which postmodern allegory can be aligned with Timothy Morton’s dark ecology, refusing to hold up Nature as an ideal form.

In the field of postcolonial Taiwanese literature, a literary tradition that an author follows often consists in contextualising issues of political identity, historical representation or social struggle via the narrative account of a human protagonist. This paper examines Wu Ming-yi’s postcolonial ecological novels, Shuimian de hangxian 睡眠的航線 [Routes in a Dream] (2007) and Danche shiqieji 單車失竊記 [The Stolen Bicycle] (2015), which not only break with this literary norm, but further invite readers to pay attention to the involvement of non-human agents in Taiwan’s colonial history. With an ecocritical reading of Wu’s works, the paper investigates the significant role of these non-human agents—including butterflies, elephants, a bird, fish–men and a bamboo forest—and further demonstrates that a non-anthropocentric narrative offered by these non-humans is also powerful in the shaping of historical representations and political identities of Taiwan.

Body, spirit and creative word are significant elements in David Malouf\u2019s work: his imaginative and poetical language gives voice to the subtleties of life, revealing both their spiritual and physical dimensions. My analysis is based on the work of the anthropologist and macro-historian Riane Eisler and on Raimon Panikkar\u2019s theory of the creative word versus scientistic term. I will use the intercultural and partnership perspectives of Panikkar and Eisler\u2019s work as a philosophical and critical background to show how in his work Malouf gives form to a world of spiritual epiphanies, with the realities of everyday life transmuted into a spiritual dimension through the intensity of the creative imagination

This essay applies Riane Eisler’s biocultural partnership-dominator model as a relevant testimony of how transdisciplinary approaches to literature can broaden our critical scope, methodology and understanding when examining different types of texts. This comprehensive methodology for the study of literature draws upon different fields of knowledge and scientific investigation, such as quantum physics, biology and systemic science, ecosophy, ecoliteracy and contemporary studies on plant life. With the aim of rekindling the fundamental relationship between humans and nature, Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory (2018) is analysed as a powerful denunciation of the current dominator, destructive, violent world-view pervading our planet. If the Earth and its inhabitants are portrayed as being controlled and exploited, the novel also unmistakably reinforces the fundamental values of the partnership cultural paradigm, which focuses on the caring potential of human love and reciprocity

In this research, the viable impact of scholarly research on trade liberalisation by a bibliometric approach from 1980-2015 is examined. The paper analysed 886 academic articles extracted from the ISI Web of Science Core Collection database. Trade liberalisation research is notably interdisciplinary, with articles principally in journals for economics, international relations, and planning development. This study found that the field became evidently viable with more than ten articles per year from 1990-2015. The proportion of articles with at least one citation from 1980-2015 is 56.43%. The top 100 articles have a minimum of 25 citations. Given this, this study created a citation matrix trend to determine two decade's total citation per year. The data are statistically analysed. Furthermore, the study produced a cloud map showing the Web of Science research categories. Based on the results of this study, insight into citation forecast for future research to advance knowledge on trade liberalisation is provided.

The problem in the relationship between man and woman as free beings, has been that of understanding the place of other, the desirability of being in objective terms, and the value of reconciling gender differences in the politics of necessary interaction. Further to the above thrust in Simone de Beauvoir's The second sex, this paper also indulges the radical theoretical position in Barbara Johnson's "Nothing fails like success" which anchors thought on the function of the disruption in the interpretation of the identity of the sexes, especially as this inclination avails a complementary theoretical threshold to Beauvoir's aforementioned approach. Based on the foregoing framework, this paper has analytically examined the intricate contradictions inherent in the practice of levirate system among the Etsako people of Nigeria, re-enacted in Julie Okoh's Our Wife Forever, exposing the fact that blinded by tradition, the people of this community derive values from their cultural mindset which regards human right in relation to patriarchal order, at the expense of the female gender. Regarding such a cultural backdrop, this paper revealed that failure to reciprocate the recognition of gender differences between the sexes is a function of contending contradictions; the failure on the part of people to experience their ignorance concerning the otherness of the sexes, by their individual actions, explain the lack of consciousness to recognize the need for the complementarity of the sexes based, on the failure to apprehend the differences of the sexes as aspects of identical classification.

Elizabeth Bishop and W. S. Merwin have become some of the most renown poets of the twentieth century, and they frequently incorporated animals in their poetry. Merwin’s work develops around themes such as learning, exile, desolation, and nature conservation, while Bishop’s poetry immerses itself in the reality that is observed and draws reflections upon it. The examples on animals in their poetry are the starting point to support a comparison based in the poetics of the bestiary. In the poems “The Bight” and “Leviathan”, the authors include images of maritime animals. “The Bight” is a poem written by Elizabeth Bishop, it is part of the collection A Cold Spring (1955) and it is a meditation upon the poet’s current geographical space and the precise observations she makes about it. “Leviathan”, written by W. S. Merwin and published in the collection of poetry Green with Beasts (1956), deals with themes of dominance and destruction of nature. It is through poetry that messages can be transmitted, and this essay aims to explore the way in which the two poems are connected by their use of imagery in order to transmit a message. By using imagery based on a maritime semantic field, the poems “The Bight” and “Leviathan” display and meditate upon the human impact in nature.

Ancestors: A background In this article, which will run in segments, we will discuss Chenjerai Hove's novel of 1996 called Ancestors. In doing that we realize that Ancestors is currently a set book on the Zimbabwean Advanced Level Literature syllabus. I have had opportunity to chat widely with teachers and students of Literature, establishing various ways of reading and interpreting Ancestors. Some students were sad that their teachers were asking them 'to do such a strange novel!' They wanted to know if anyone in his or her right senses could ever understand Ancestors? Why were we not asked to do Bones, they complained. At least Bones is easy, they reasoned. The more subtle ones wanted to know if I understand Ancestors at all. Was there a plot in Ancestors? Could I identify the major themes in Ancestors for them? I told them: Let us read the novel first and talk later. We realize that, to date, there is no commentary or study guide to Ancestors. That is indeed a setback. Teachers and their students usually need ready-made critical material to augment their own criticism. But sometimes the absence of ready-made notes is a blessing in disguise! We should be prepared to 'open up a new path in the forest.' We must not be afraid to be the very first voices on the meaning of literary texts from our own authors. Study guides should not be worshipped. They are written by people like us who have their own subjective views on literary texts. We must read the text and develop our own ideas. In one interview with the local press, Chenjerai Hove revealed that Ancestors "is the nearest to a family biography that I have written." And in a poetic introduction to his latest poetry collection called Blind Moon, Hove volunteers that he once developed fears and dreams akin to Mucha's in Ancestors. His actual words are: "I used to dream that I was flying. And my father used to think that I needed a traditional healer to cure me of that. I refused the attention of the healer. Young as I was, I said, 'Why should I not dream like that? It is so beautiful to fly." It might mean that some aspects of Ancestors are the author's own 'fictionalised history'. In saying that, care should be taken to stress that Ancestors is not necessarily Hove's life story and history, blow by blow.

I have had opportunity to chat widely with teachers and students of Literature, establishing various ways of reading and interpreting Ancestors. Some students were sad that their teachers were asking them 'to do such a strange novel!' They wanted to know if anyone in his or her right ...

Chenjerai Hove is one of the most prolific writers in Zimbabwe in the English language. Hove has written novels, poetry and some critical essays. He has also written in the Shona language. Although, Hove"s creative ouvre has received some important critical evaluation, most of these evaluations are on his novels. However, recently, critics have taken an interest in Hove"s poetic works. In 2009, Chenjerai Hove completed a collection of poems called Love and Other Ghosts (2009) which has remained unpublished to date. Sadly, Hove passed away on the 12th of July, 2015 while on self-imposed exile in Norway. This article is a tribute to Hove"s poetic ingenuity and an exploration of the poetic shift registered in Hove"s poetic creativity from poetry that defines itself as committed to issues of social justice and whose contradictions would be openly resolved through armed, class and gender struggles towards poetry that celebrates life through the trope of love. In Love and Other Ghosts (2009), the poet"s voice appears less critical of bad governance as is openly registered in his Blind Moon (2003). This article argues that the subversive power of Love and Other Ghosts (2009) is precisely its refusal to conceive of protest politics in terms of slogans against the ruling elites as one can see in Palaver Finish (2002). Instead, in Love and Other Ghosts, Hove carves out an alternative site where contradictory voices temper with official narratives of Zimbabwe"s post-independence dispensation. Hove"s Love and Other Ghosts (2009) creates its own fictional and poetic context that shows that even in the most hostile circumstances, ordinary people can still organise their lives around those values that are lifesustaining. Instead of merely protesting against betrayal of the masses, Love and Other Ghosts affirms the inevitability of change through the archetypal image of love.