Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies (COPAS - E-Journal)
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Re-writing ‘Woman’: New Woman Hybridity in Araki Iku’s “The Letter” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Turned”
Get PDFTurn-of-the-century (1890-1920) short fiction in Japan and the United States portrays the New Woman as a figure of hybridization subverting the legitimacy of binary gender codes. This article outlines how Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “Turned“ and Araki Iku’s “The Letter“ exemplify and interrogate the hybrid nature of the New Woman concept. The concept of hybridity serves to reveal female identity as negotiable and permeable, simultaneously disclosing the New Woman as a transnational figure, which enables a broad set of cultural interpretations
The Blithedale Neuromance
Get PDFCrossread with Hawthorne’s 1852 tale “The Blithedale Romance,“ mankind is in for “an era that would link soul to soul,“ i.e. an age where humans via the neurotechnical device of the biochip turn into Gibsonian neuromancers, and “melt into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood.“ Despite all its technological feasibility, however, the idea of a United State of neuronally interconnected communitarians has as yet remained mere theory, and thus mirrors the essay’s own dilemma: lofty (media) theory here, questions of practicality there.  
Stories of Female Initiation: Two 19th-Century Examples of Female Professional Success
No full textStories of female initiation that lead to self-realization and independence have seldom been approached. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward’s "The Girl Who Could Not Write a Composition" (1871) and Sarah Orne Jewett’s "Farmer Finch" (1885) are discussed with regard to the causes of this neglect and the generalizing patterns of Elaine Ginsberg\u27s "The Female Initiation Theme in American Fiction" (1975)
Susan Sontag: Photocritic
No full textSusan Sontag\u27s book On Photography“ from 1977 marks an important point in the reception of photography. In Regarding The Pain of Others“ from 2003 she revisits some of the statements she made 26 years earlier. This essay is comparing the main theses of those two works by looking at two pictures that were made on 11 September 2001 and exhibited in the Here is New York“ exhibition
"There is Music in Every Sound": Thoreau\u27s Modernist Understanding of Music
No full textWhat is music to Thoreau? This question is at the core of the paper at hand. Music in Thoreau\u27s understanding appears to differ immensely from the conventional definition of music during the nineteenth century. This paper will outline Thoreau\u27s concept of music, his idea of its effects on the listener, and the functions music can potentially fulfill
Hans J. Massaquoi’s Destined to Witness as an Autobiographical Act of Identity Formation
No full textIn his autobiography, Hans J. Massaquoi describes the discrimination he encountered in Nazi Germany and Liberia because of his mixed racial background. Throughout his life Massaquoi had to cope with identity crises. Through the self-therapeutic discourse in the form of his autobiography, however, Massaquoi developed his hybrid transatlantic African American and African German identity
“Stuff That Happened to Me”: Visual Memory in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005)
No full textThe article examines the use of graphic images for mnemonic purposes in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close“ (2005). It argues that through the combination of photographs with magical realist and fantastic passages, the novel provides a commentary on the role of visual representations in the construction of a collective memory of 9/11
"This Book Changed My Life": \u27Oprah\u27s Book Club\u27 and The Poisonwood Bible
No full textLiterary production, distribution, and consumption seem to become more intricately entwined as readers engage in new forms of literary criticism on the Internet. This article analyzes the entries on Barbara Kingsolver\u27s The Poisonwood Bible“ on \u27Oprah\u27s Book Club\u27 online discussion board and shows how these both challenge and confirm academic literary criticism of the novel
Don DeLillos Bilder
No full textThe American author Don DeLillo is a master of creating powerful images, which want to be discovered, read and interpreted. To have a closer look at his novel Mao II“ from the Visual Studies\u27 point of view reveals the complexity of literary images and the diverse references that are evoked. DeLillo plays with the reader\u27s memory of perception, asks fundamental questions about our society ruled by mass media and simply delights with a picturesque style of narration. The central aspects in his novel are photography in general, the visual arts especially by Andy Warhol and the visual representation of mass media, particularly television