Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination

Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination PDF Author: María Odette Canivell Arzú
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498536964
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
In Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination: King Arthur and Don Quixote as National Heroes the author examines traditional Arthurian and Cervantine literary narratives to discuss how the two literary figures became paladins of their respective nations. Whereas the former bestows upon the homeland a positive image of Britain, based on military might, a glorious past and a promise of return, the latter contributes to a negative image of Spain based on a narrative of defeat and faded glory. In the analysis of the political intentions behind the literature that gave wings to the rise as paragons of these very famous literary characters, a semblance of the national imaginaries of the countries of their birth appears. Indeed, the tradition of Waterloo and the tradition of La Mancha are polar opposites in their Weltanschauung, and they only have in common that both heroes, Arthur and Quijote, are depicted as paladins of justice, benefactors, and redeemers of their land of birth. It is this idealized view of what is possibly the figment of a writer’s (or many different writers) pen that astonishes the reader, for behind it lies an intention to market (for internal and external consumption) both literary creations, exceeding the boundaries of the creative fiction that invented them to transform them into myths and political symbols of their respective nations.

Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination

Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination PDF Author: María Odette Canivell Arzú
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498536964
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book

Book Description
In Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination: King Arthur and Don Quixote as National Heroes the author examines traditional Arthurian and Cervantine literary narratives to discuss how the two literary figures became paladins of their respective nations. Whereas the former bestows upon the homeland a positive image of Britain, based on military might, a glorious past and a promise of return, the latter contributes to a negative image of Spain based on a narrative of defeat and faded glory. In the analysis of the political intentions behind the literature that gave wings to the rise as paragons of these very famous literary characters, a semblance of the national imaginaries of the countries of their birth appears. Indeed, the tradition of Waterloo and the tradition of La Mancha are polar opposites in their Weltanschauung, and they only have in common that both heroes, Arthur and Quijote, are depicted as paladins of justice, benefactors, and redeemers of their land of birth. It is this idealized view of what is possibly the figment of a writer’s (or many different writers) pen that astonishes the reader, for behind it lies an intention to market (for internal and external consumption) both literary creations, exceeding the boundaries of the creative fiction that invented them to transform them into myths and political symbols of their respective nations.

Teacher Education and the Cultural Imagination

Teacher Education and the Cultural Imagination PDF Author: Susan Florio-Ruane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113568944X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Making culture a more central concept in the texts and contexts of teacher education is the focus of this book. It is a rich account of the author's investigation of teacher book club discussions of ethnic literature, specifically ethnic autobiography--as a genre from which teachers might learn about culture, literacy, and education in their own and others' lives, and as a form of conversation and literature-based work that might be sustainable and foster teachers' comprehension and critical thinking. Dr. Florio-Ruane's role in the book clubs merged participation and inquiry. For this reason, she blends personal narrative with analysis and description of ways she and the book club participants explored culture in the stories they told one another and in their responses to published autobiographies. She posits that autobiography and conversation may be useful for teachers not only in constructing their own learning about culture, but also, by doing so, in participating in the transformation of learning within the teaching profession.

Ruins in the Literary and Cultural Imagination

Ruins in the Literary and Cultural Imagination PDF Author: Efterpi Mitsi
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030269051
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
This book focuses on literal and metaphorical ruins, as they are appropriated and imagined in different forms of writing. Examining British and American literature and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the book begins in the era of industrial modernity with studies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Daphne Du Maurier. It then moves on to the significance of ruins in the twentieth century, against the backdrop of conflict, waste and destruction, analyzing authors such as Beckett and Pinter, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Leonard Cohen. The collection concludes with current debates on ruins, through discussions of Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht, as well as reflections on the refugee crisis that take the ruin beyond the text, offering new perspectives on its diverse legacies and conceptual resources.

Narratives of Place in Literature and Film

Narratives of Place in Literature and Film PDF Author: Steven Allen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351013815
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Narratives of place link people and geographic location with a cultural imaginary through literature and visual narration. Contemporary literature and film often frame narratives with specific geographic locations, which saturate the narrative with cultural meanings in relation to natural and man-made landscapes. This interdisciplinary collection seeks to interrogate such connections to probe how place is narrativized in literature and film. Utilizing close readings of specific filmic and literary texts, all chapters serve to tease out cultural and historical meanings in respect of human engagement with landscapes. Always mindful of national, cultural and topographical specificity, the book is structured around five core themes: Contested Histories of Place; Environmental Landscapes; Cityscapes; The Social Construction of Place; and Landscapes of Belonging.

The Bride in the Cultural Imagination

The Bride in the Cultural Imagination PDF Author: Jo Parnell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793616140
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
This essay collection examines the cultural and personal world of girls and women at a time when their lives, their person, their realities, and their status are about to change forever. Together, the chapters cleverly create an in-depth study of the subject, and look at several cultural forms to offer a different approach to the popularly-held views of the bride. The critical essays in this edited collection are thematically driven and include global perspectives of the portrayals of the bride in the films, stage productions and pop-culture narratives from Nigeria; Kenya; Uganda; Tanzania; Spain; Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; Tajikistan; India; Egypt; and the South-Eastern Indian Ocean Islands. This multinational approach provides insight into the intricacies, customs, practices, and life-styles surrounding the bride in various Eastern and Western cultures.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination PDF Author: Anna Abraham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108429246
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 865

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Book Description
The human imagination manifests in countless different forms. We imagine the possible and the impossible. How do we do this so effortlessly? Why did the capacity for imagination evolve and manifest with undeniably manifold complexity uniquely in human beings? This handbook reflects on such questions by collecting perspectives on imagination from leading experts. It showcases a rich and detailed analysis on how the imagination is understood across several disciplines of study, including anthropology, archaeology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. An integrated theoretical-empirical-applied picture of the field is presented, which stands to inform researchers, students, and practitioners about the issues of relevance across the board when considering the imagination. With each chapter, the nature of human imagination is examined - what it entails, how it evolved, and why it singularly defines us as a species.

Locating Imagination in Popular Culture

Locating Imagination in Popular Culture PDF Author: Nicky van Es
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000223876
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Locating Imagination in Popular Culture offers a multi-disciplinary account of the ways in which popular culture, tourism and notions of place intertwine in an environment characterized by ongoing processes of globalization, digitization and an increasingly ubiquitous nature of multi-media. Centred around the concept of imagination, the authors demonstrate how popular culture and media are becoming increasingly important in the ways in which places and localities are imagined, and how they also subsequently stimulate a desire to visit the actual places in which people’s favourite stories are set. With examples drawn from around the globe, the book offers a unique study of the role of narratives conveyed through media in stimulating and reflecting desire in tourism. This book will have appeal in a wide variety of academic disciplines, ranging from media and cultural studies to fan- and tourism studies, cultural geography, literary studies and cultural sociology.

The View from the Masthead

The View from the Masthead PDF Author: Hester Blum
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469606550
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
With long, solitary periods at sea, far from literary and cultural centers, sailors comprise a remarkable population of readers and writers. Although their contributions have been little recognized in literary history, seamen were important figures in the nineteenth-century American literary sphere. In the first book to explore their unique contribution to literary culture, Hester Blum examines the first-person narratives of working sailors, from little-known sea tales to more famous works by Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Henry Dana. In their narratives, sailors wrote about how their working lives coexisted with--indeed, mutually drove--their imaginative lives. Even at leisure, they were always on the job site. Blum analyzes seamen's libraries, Barbary captivity narratives, naval memoirs, writings about the Galapagos Islands, Melville's sea vision, and the crisis of death and burial at sea. She argues that the extent of sailors' literacy and the range of their reading were unusual for a laboring class, belying the popular image of Jack Tar as merely a swaggering, profane, or marginal figure. As Blum demonstrates, seamen's narratives propose a method for aligning labor and contemplation that has broader applications for the study of American literature and history.

Storying Humanity: Narratives of Culture and Society

Storying Humanity: Narratives of Culture and Society PDF Author: Richard Wirth
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1848884400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description


Gandhi in India's Literary and Cultural Imagination

Gandhi in India's Literary and Cultural Imagination PDF Author: Mythili Ramchand
Publisher: Routledge Chapman & Hall
ISBN: 9780367702847
Category : Curriculum change
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This book looks at education reforms, planning and policy through an exploration of the Yash Pal Committee Report (1993) in India, which made recommendations to improve the quality of learning while reducing cognitive burden on students. It analyses the wide-ranging impact the Report had on curriculum, pedagogy, teacher education reforms and the national policy on education. The book examines the legacy of the Report, tracing the various deliberations and critical engagements with issues around literacy, language and mathematics learning, curriculum reforms and classroom practices, assessment and evaluation. It reviews contemporary developments in research on learning in diverse disciplines and languages through the lens of the recommendations made by the Learning without Burden report while engaging with challenges and systemic issues which limit inclusivity and access to quality education. Drawing on extensive research and first-hand academic and teaching experience, this book will attract attention and interest of students and researchers of educational policy and analysis, linguistics, sociology, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to policy makers, think tanks and civil society organisations"--