Elektronni Spisanija na SU (Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski")
Not a member yet
215 research outputs found
Sort by
Вариации на дистопичното: Уилям Джеймс, Урсула Ле Гуин и Бърнард Улф
Full text linkFor over a century now, dystopian visions of the future have been an integral part of the strategies through which literature reacts to changes in the world. However, dystopia is not always an entirely new world. Sometimes, it is an element in a world born from a utopian impulse. The article explores the variations of the dystopian in two such worlds influenced by the works of William James: Bernard Wolfe\u27s Limbo and in Ursula K. Le Guin\u27s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The analysis adopts the concept of dystopia as utopia’s shadow, and traces the moments when the world, the body, and the language of the Utopian begin to waver and transform into the voice of the Dystopian.
Keywords: Ursula K. Le Guin; Bernard Wolfe; William James; dystopia; utopi
Happiness as an Impossible Horizon: On Andrei Platonov and Michel Houellebecq
Full text linkThis article offers an analysis of the short story Dzhan by Andrei Platonov written in the early 20th century, and the novel The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq penned in the early 21st century. Genre-wise, both works navigate between utopia and dystopia. The text explores the potential for happiness in conditions of a primordial, pre-modern society (in Dzhan) and in the context of hypermodernity (The Possibility of an Island). The article questions: What happens to the perfect utopian machine and the pursuit of happiness today? Or, how does the absence of desire and imagination, the lack of a lasting yearning for future horizons, as an essential existential aspect of humanity, undermine even the inhuman itself?
Keywords: Andrei Platonov; Michel Houellebecq; Dzhan (Soul); The Possibility of an Island; utopia; dystopia; happiness; eternal lif
За книгата: Калин Михайлов. Християнство и литература. Фигури на (не)благородното.
No full textBook review: Калин Михайлов. Християнство и литература. Фигури на (не)благородното. София, УИ „Св. Климент Охридски“, 2023, ISBN: 978-954-07-5726-1.[Kalin Mikhaïlov. Christianisme et littérature. Figures du noble et de l’ignoble. Éd. de l’Université de Sofia, 2023, ISBN : 978-954-07-5726-1 ; Christianity and Literature. Figures of the (Ig)Noble.
2084: la fin du monde de Boualem Sansal, une dystopie voltairienne
Full text linkRooted in the dystopian tradition, 2084 : la fin du monde [2084: The End of the World] by Algerian author Boualem Sansal stands out for its inclusion of elements reminiscent of the philosophical tale, particularly Voltaire’s Candide ou l’Optimisme [Candide, or Optimism], such as the use of descriptive intertitles in the form of completive propositions, the schematic nature of the characters and the use of irony. It is this second generic affiliation that we will focus on in this article.
Keywords: Boualem Sansal; Voltaire; dystopia; philosophical tale, generic hybridit
The Myth of the Artist – from Birth to Collapse: Notes on the Lithuanian Present-Day Novel
Full text linkThe article based on the comparative principle seeks to introduce to a wide audience two novels by Lithuanian writers Kęstutis Navakas (Vyno kopija [“The Wine Copy”], 2016) and Marius Ivaškevičius (Tomas Mūras, 2022), whose authors wish to reflect on the status of the artist in the current era of excess and prosperity. The myth of the artist began taking shape in the 19th century and remained at its height throughout the 20th century, even though art itself underwent many changes. Is the artist still the representative of the elite in society in a post-modern age, when the line between art and pop, between personality and promotional image is almost blurred? These are the questions the authors ask and try to answer, joining inevitably those European authors who placed the creative person at the centre of their fictional world over the last two centuries. Anyone who writes on this subject almost inevitably becomes an author of World literature, as we have understood it since Goethe. The study seeks to reveal the diversity of literary associations, sometimes unconsciously touched upon by the authors, and the tradition of the European novel in dealing with questions of art, man, and his meaning on Earth.
Keywords: modern Lithuanian novel; intertextuality; myth of the artis
De la consommation à la consomption. Ignis (1883) de Didier de Chousy ou quand la maison Terre brûle
Full text linkThis article deals with an underrated novel by Didier de Chousy, Ignis (1883), published during the craze for scientism and positivism. This anticipation novel, fraught with grating irony, went against the optimism that defined the craze, as the author used the boundless technical possibilities flaunted by the industrial age to imagine a robot-assisted “augmented humanity”. Utopia was thus turned into scathing social dystopia and, a few years before Jules Verne’s novel, a “topsy-turvy” world on the brink of self-destruction was depicted. This ground-breaking work, which tackled both social criticism and the need for environmental awareness, heralded many of the themes that inspired H. G. Wells and the “brave new world” Chousy imagined was just as relevant as the ones of our modern dystopias: the model of development that largely remains ours found itself relentlessly questioned, as a call for immediate change was issued.
Keywords: Chousy (Didier de; social dystopia; whistle-blowing literature; Capitalocene; Anthropocene; progress (criticism of
За книгата: Балканските култури: диалог, трансфер, метаморфози. Под ред. Орлин Събев, Лора Тасева, Антоанета Балчева.
Full text linkBook review: Балканските култури: диалог, трансфер, метаморфози. Под ред. Орлин Събев, Лора Тасева, Антоанета Балчева. София, ИБЦТ – БАН, 2023, 234 с., ISBN 978-619-7179-38-5 [The Balkan Cultures: Dialogue, Transfer, Metamorphoses. Ed. Orlin Sabev, Lora Taseva, Antoaneta Belcheva. Sofia, IBSCT – BAS, 2023]
Третият Рим: дистопия и архаика като история на настоящето в Пътешествие до Елевсина на Виктор Пелевин
Full text linkThis article is an introduction to the close reading of Victor Pelevin’s novel Journey to Eleusis (2023) as a paradigmatical example of the Russian dystopian literature from the beginning of the 21th century. Journey to Eleusis is the final part of a trilogy whose previous installments include the collection of short novels Transhumanism Inc. (2021) that set the dystopian universe, and the sequel KGBT+ (2022) taking place already in the wartime sociopolitical reality. I argue that starting with Vladimir Sorokin’s Blue Lard (1999) the contemporary Russian dystopia intertwines idiosyncratically futurism and archaism into a retro-dystopian frame, which I discern in Pelevin’s trilogy. As I view it, this specific dystopian blend aims at the representation of a history of the present of the Putin era with its neo-totalitarian version of the Russian imperial concept of the “Third Rome” which is crucial to Journey to Eleusis.
Keywords: Russian dystopian literature; 21th century; archaism; retro-dystopia; The Third Rome; Victor Pelevi