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[Site Reviews Home]
Comparative Literature Site Reviews
Souffles : revue culturelle arabe du Maghreb
The journal Souffles, published between 1966 and 1971, was a cultural review devoted to literature and the arts in Morocco and North Africa. Its founder, Abdellatif Laâbi, is a Moroccan poet and writer who was imprisoned for eight years for his oppositional political views. The website for the journal gives access to online text versions of all 22 issues. The journal was important in the renewal of artistic expression across North Africa, and published work by or about poets, novelists, dramatists, filmmakers, painters, and other artists and intellectuals. The journal was published in French but included translations from Arabic. Souffles is an important source for original work by major figures in the North African cultural scene of the time, as well as for debate and discussion of questions surrounding 'third world' literature and decolonisation. The site makes this difficult to find resource available to a broad public. It will be of interest to students and researchers in French and Francophone Studies, North African Studies, and post-colonial literature.
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Banipal
The website for Banipal, a literary magazine for contemporary Arab literature in English translation, gives access to selected content from current and back issues. The magazine's three issues a year present established and new authors and poets from around the Arab world through translations of poems, short stories or excerpts from novels. The site publishes selections of poetry and fiction from each issue as well as the table of contents, contributor profiles, book reviews and events listings. The magazine was founded in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Iraqi author Samuel Shimon and has been widely involved in bringing literature from the Arab world to a broader audience. Work published is not limited to writings originally in Arabic, but includes Arab authors writing in European languages as well. The site will be a useful resource for students and others interested in Arabic literature and literature in translation.
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Kitabkhana
Kitabkhana is a literary blog site which, while it has a fairly strong South Asian focus, also looks at publishing in English generally. The site is quite idiosyncratic - it is light hearted and humourous, but nonetheless gives an interesting critique of many modern works of fiction and on bodies of work. The South Asian bias of the site can be seen in the number of Indian authors that feature on it, as well as in the references to South Asian phenomena and trends in the reviews of other works. It is well maintained, frequently updated and coherently written and provides an insight into a swathe of literature which will be covered by few other authorities - all of this while maintaining a light but authoritative tone.
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Arthur Koestler
This website is designed to provide information about the author Arthur Koestler, Hungarian born. The site, maintained by the Foundation for Research on Central and East European History and Society. There is a detailed biography and a chronology of Koestler's life together with a bibliography of Koestler’s work and their translations into Hungarian. The site also republishes several articles on Koestler' and his anticommunism which appeared in various Hungarian newspapers. The site informs Koestler papers are kept at the Edinburgh University Library, but they can be consulted in the archives of the Institute for the Twentieth Century in Budapest. The critical essays on Koestler place his work in a comparative literary context by emphasising his friendship with Orwell. An impressive picture gallery with photographs of Koestler’s life can be viewed. An international conference on Arthur Koestler took place in Budapest in 2005, and the poster, the programme, and the texts of some papers are available online. The site provides a good starting point for research on Koestler’s life and times.
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Journal of South Asian literature
Originally released as Mahfil, which published eight volumes, but continued as the Journal of South Asian literature, this is a now extinct but still useful journal offered for free in full text. Publication of the journal ceased in the 1970s, but access to the its content is now revived thanks to the creation of the Digital South Asia Library. The site is very simple to navigate, giving a list of all issues of the journal, which link through to lists of contents, By clicking on the page number at the end of each article title, users gain access to the text of the article itself. The only slight anomaly in the site is that Mahfil published eight volumes, whereas the Journal of South Asian literature title only begins in the online version on volume 11 number 3 - we must assume that there were some volumes that appeared in print only: it is to be hoped that they will soon be added to this very useful site.
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School of European Culture and Languages (SECL), University of Kent
The School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) at the University of Kent is devoted to the study and teaching of European languages, literature, film, and history. Departments are dedicated to: Italian; German; French; Hispanic Studies; Religious Studies; Philosophy; Comparative Literary Studies; and Classical and Archaeological Studies. One highlight of SECL's website is the podcasts made available of research seminars and lectures held on behalf of its Language and Literature Board (LLB). Past podcast lectures cover topics such as: Spanish anarchism; Keats versus Dawkins; Sebald's reading of Giorgio Bassani; Ernst Cassirer; Nietzsche and Yeats; the Holocaust; Foucault and Michon; and Jean Genet. Lectures are given by academics from SECL and beyond. There are three distinguished lectures by Professor Frank Cioffi available entitled Knowledge and Social Being, with the sub-headings: Interactional Life; Moral Careers and Life Trajectories; and the Holocaust and the Limits of Explanation. A calendar of upcoming lectures, which are open to all, is given. The website also outlines the events and activities carried out by the School and provides details of research undertaken by its members. News of conferences organised by SECL is given, as are abstracts of the latest publications of SECL staff; details of their research specialisms are also available on the site. Furthermore, there is information on funding opportunities for Graduate students and the courses that the school runs. This Web resource provides useful information on research being undertaken in European studies and philosophy; the podcasts are a particular highlight, enabling users to access material otherwise unavailable to them.
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Moving worlds
One of several periodicals associated with the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS), Moving Worlds is an international forum for transcultural literary writings, visual media and literary criticism. Published biannually, each issue is devoted to a particular theme. Information on the current issue is provided; tables of contents of back issues are archived here running back to 2001. The journal focuses on postcolonial studies and particularly contemporary Commonwealth Studies. Instructions for subscribers and contributors are available. The site also has a short list of links to EACLALS and its affiliated magazine Wasafiri, as well as similar organisations and publications.
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Colloquy
Colloquy: text theory critique, is a free annual electronic journal, written by postgraduates, with the aim of disseminating new work in literary and cultural studies and related interdisciplinary fields. It started in 1996 as a printed journal and is run by a committee of postgraduate students in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and the School of English, Communication and Performance Studies at Monash University, Victoria, Australia. The journal publishes articles and reviews and makes them available for downloading or reading in PDF. The archive goes back to issue one. A page of links to literary and cultural websites, that may be useful to students in comparative literature and cultural studies, is appended as is a list of relevant conferences hosted by Monash.
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Japan Foundation : London office
The website of the London office of the Japan Foundation has full English-language details of the activities and research projects of this major and long-established arts and cultural exchange organisation. There are details of current Japan Foundation activities and events in the UK. The website has details of the funding and grants on offer from the Foundation, and details of recent grants and projects funded. There is a listing of exhibitions available through the Foundation, and an archive of reviews of recent Japanese arts and culture exhibitions in the UK. There is a useful online map of Japanese art collections in the UK, and the Foundation has also placed online the full-text transcript of 'Japanese Art Collections in the UK' - a March 2006 symposium to investigate the state of Japanese art collections in UK museums. A free PDF newsletter, 'Perspectives' is available, and the website holds an archive of back-copies. Also available is a focussed and up-to-date set of external links. This website is a vital online resource for those interested in Japanese art and culture in the UK.
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Shēkusupia geki to nō
The website Shēkusupia Geki to Nō (Shakespeare's plays and Noh) introduces the work of the Japanese Noh Shakespeare group, led by actor, director and academic Munakata Kuniyoshi Ueda. Ueda's productions bring together Shakespearean poetry and Noh acting and chanting and have been widely acclaimed. The English section of the site provides biographical details of Ueda and explains how he developed his approach to uniting these two very different theatrical traditions. It also lists his publications and some of his productions. The Japanese version of the site also has commentaries by Ueda on: a production of Cleopatra; a seminar on Othello; and a Japanese adaptation of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Other links on the home page were broken at the time of cataloguing.
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Literature conferences worldwide : upcoming events in literary studies and re...
Literature conferences worldwide provide lists of forthcoming conferences related to Literature (mainly English) and related areas, including links to the conference websites. Users can add conferences to the database and subscribe to a free email alert which includes a chronology of events relevant to user-specified search terms. Conferences are listed on the site in chronological order stretching some eighteen months into the future. There are usually fifteen to twenty conference per month listed and there is a truly international and wide-ranging list of events. Entries include a brief description of the event and a usually a deadline for abstracts or proposals with a link to the conference home page. This site is part of a larger parent site (Conference alerts) which offers a similar service for many other academic disciplines. Use of the site is free.
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Yiddish web
This site, Yiddish Web, is administered by the Maison de la Culture Yiddish in Paris and gives information on the history of the language and current course schedules offered by the organisation. The subsite of the organisation's library, Bibliothèque Medem, highlights the library's history, hours, collections, recent acquisitions, publications and exhibitions. A newsletter, Tam-Tam, can be downloaded in full and is archived online going back to 1996. There is additionally a link to a radio station which hosts a show in Yiddish. Users can click on sound samples of Yiddish poems being read aloud, as well as excerpts from the radio show. There is a small gallery of famous Yiddish writers and an essay on Yiddish in cinema. Another page provides a bibliography of Yiddish books; an online bookstore offers research publications put out by the Maison de la Culture Yiddish. The alphabet is listed, alongside its script form and phoenetic descriptions of characters. Famous Yiddish phrases and relevant links are also posted. All-in-all, researchers in this field will find this site to be a useful resource, although navigation is somewhat hampered by a multi-coloured scheme on the site that makes it difficult to read.
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The Heldenplatz as an Austrian place of memory
The Heldenplatz as an Austrian Place of Memory is a subsite of the Austrian Academy of Sciences' Commission for Culture Studies and History of Theatre. The site posts an essay by Dr. Peter Stachel in which he discusses the Heldenplatz in Vienna in terms of the cultural analysis of monuments. He examines the monument as a 'text,' which also becomes the locus of rituals; together, code and ritual convey cultural memory and illustrate collective consciousness. Stachel bolsters this theoretical analysis with reference to historical examples, including: the Nazi demonstrations in the Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square) to mark the Anschluß (the annexation of Austria by Germany), in 1938; early post-war poetry that looked back to that event; and 1980s' theatre which drew from the same imagery. Stachel also provides a brief historical background on the square to contextualize the Nazi declaration. He notes the square's physical and symbolic proximity to the Habsburg palace of the Hofburg, which was part of the fortifications of Vienna against the Turks in the 17th century. Thus, the Heldenplatz was long recognized as the "symbolic centre of a multi-national state." A comprehensive discussion on the cultural history of Vienna's famous municipal architecture follows, which will be of interest for researchers in this field.
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Munich University text archive
Munich University text archive publishes electronic versions of German literary and cultural studies, primarily from the Romantic period. It invites new written pieces from students. At the time of review, the posted projects included those focussing on Schlegel and Schiller; there is also a study of a Renaissance poem by Michelangelo. The papers are presented on a DynaWeb-driven platform, which creates somewhat finicky navigation.
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The Northrop Frye centre
Founded in 1988, the Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria University at the University of Toronto, Canada, focuses on humanist scholarship and of the contribution of the famed Canadian literary theorist and critic, Northrop Frye, to that tradition. There is information on the site regarding a fellowship program to enable visiting scholars to conduct their research at the Centre. The Centre also runs an annual set of lectures and seminars. It additionally hosts a major editorial project, 'The Collected Works of Northrop Fyre.' The site provides a biographical sketch of Frye and a link to the archival guide for Frye's private papers in the E. J. Pratt Victoria University library.
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