The year 2023 marks Michael Ondaatje’s 80th birthday, a landmark in the author’s life and an occasion for literary critics to look back and revisit what are perhaps some of the more troubling aspects ...of his literary production. Ondaatje’s poetry and fiction have received little attention from feminist literary critics, which is due to the author’s conservative take on the figuration of female characters and representation of women. While some critics have proposed that The English Patient (1992), and therefore also by extension his novel Divisadero (2007), might signify a turning point in Ondaatje’s otherwise problematic gender politics, this article demonstrates that earlier patterns of women’s objectification, sexualization and marginalization found in Ondaatje’s poetry and fiction persist in both of these seemingly more progressive works, albeit in new forms and disguises. This article also introduces a new concept to the field of (feminist) literary theory, the so-called blazon in prose.
Mladinske delovne akcije so bile ključnega pomena za izgradnjo in ohranitev neodvisnega gospodarsko-političnega sistema in s tem družbenega prostora, kot ga je predstavljala socialistična ...Jugoslavija. V prvi petletki po drugi svetovni vojni je bila še zlasti pomembna izgradnja novih prometnih žil, ki bi novonastajajočemu industrijskemu bazenu Jugoslavije zagotovile dostop do poprej slabo izkoriščanih in večinoma le izvoženih surovinskih bogastev. Na teh mladinskih gradbiščih so delovali tudi jugoslovanski umetniki in umetnice, katerih literarni in drugi prispevki med drugim dokumentirajo potek izgradnje objektov in njihovih najtežjih udarniških trenutkov, predvsem na železniških progah Brčko–Banovići in Šamac–Sarajevo. Kot taki so svojevrsten (literarni in zgodovinski) dokument svojega časa in geopolitičnega prostora v nastajanju, ki je danes zavoljo historičnega revizionizma skorajda v celoti izgubljen in ohranjen le še v nekaterih fragmentih.
The article offers a systematic critique of identity politics and intersectionality that today dominate Western mainstream literary theory and Anglo-Saxon literary production by bringing to the fore ...a much overlooked critical intervention on the part of materialist (literary) system theorists and Western Marxist feminists. It then dissects the ways in which the trappings of identity politics and its upgraded version of intersectionality are manifested in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, with the class in the triad of class, race and gender eventually weakened and removed from view.
This contribution investigates and lays bare the ideological workings of racialized beauty myth as presented in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye by bringing together feminist theory and postcolonial ...theory of race. It demonstrates that racialized beauty norms are informed by both the constructs of gender and race, and that they serve as a tool of social positioning and social control in Western capitalist patriarchies. This kind of contextual understanding, which Morrison’s The Bluest Eye helps to foster on a number of structurally interlocked levels, is also of crucial importance for the understanding of the way beauty myth operates today in the context of globally exported Western beauty industry. Its basic tenets remain firmly rooted in the construction and perpetuation of racialized and gendered otherness, which is why The Bluest Eye remains an eye-opener and therefore a novel of lasting value for readers in general and, as this contribution demonstrates, for students of English literature in particular.
The House on Mango Street has been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide, including Croatian in 2005. The novel has secured a firm foothold in many a literature and cultural studies ...syllabus outside the USA and has served as one of central entry points for the discussion and understanding of the position of women in America’s ethnicized communities. In its treatment of women’s disadvantaged position, Cisneros’s novel relies heavily on the tenets of liberal feminism, which reduces the understanding of gendered oppression to personal relationships between individual men and women and to the attitudes of men towards women. Unlike liberal feminist literary theory, systemic feminist literary theory takes a broader social context into consideration by directing our critical gaze to the structural forces and institutional practices that shape gendered positions and defi ne the role of women inside and outside family settings. Th e paper shows that because of its subscription to the tenets of liberal feminism, the novel ends up treating gender constraints and women’s domestication as though these were phenomena limited only to ethnicized communities. As a result, women’s marginalization comes to be construed as a marker of ethnic otherness rather than a structural problem defining and permeating American society as a whole. Through translations, these constructs are inadvertently also carried over and can be uncritically disseminated in other cultural and academic environments outside the USA. The paper therefore argues for the need for a systemic literary approach, which can function as a welcome and much needed critical intervention in social milieus not yet fully acquainted with the problematic nature of liberal feminism and the ethnicization of women’s domestic entrapment.
Ideologija starostizma je bila na Zahodu institucionalno zakoreninjena v osemdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja kot sestavni del neoliberalnega napada na kapitalistični tip socialne države, ki je v ...svojem izhodišču že tako minimalna ali pa delna. Pojav in vzpon ideologije starostizma v našem prostoru je sovpaden s ponovno nastavitvijo kapitalističnega reda in razgradnjo še zadnjih ostankov socialističnega sistema države blaginje ter posledično njeno popolno privatizacijo na prehodu v 21. stoletje. Fleksibilizacija dela in znižanje prispevne stopnje za delodajalce v zgodnjih devetdesetih sta poglavitna dejavnika, ki sta v 20 letih osiromašila pokojninsko blagajno. Članek izpostavlja, da zastraševanje javnosti s staranjem prebivalstva deluje kot ideološko orodje, s katerim se odvrača pogled od strukturnih dejavnikov, ki pomenijo pravo nevarnost za obstoj javne pokojninske blagajne. Poudarja, da ideologije starostizma ne gre reduktivno zvajati na individualne predsodke, ampak jo je treba razumeti sistemsko, tj. znotraj družbenoekonomskega sistema, ki jo poraja in institucionalizira.
Ob spremembi družbenoekonomskega sistema in razgradnji socialistične države blaginje izginjata tudi sistemska skrb za starejše in pozitiven odnos do njih. Namesto tega so na delu družbenoekonomske ...silnice, ki si prizadevajo za institucionalno porajanje odklonilnega odnosa do starejših, njihovo degradacijo in prekategorizacijo v posebno skupino homogeno nezaželenih drugih takoj ali tik pred tem, ko dosežejo predpisani starostni prag za upokojitev. Ta služi kot arbitrarni kronološki mejnik, na podlagi katerega se generacija, opredeljena kot starejša, ločuje od drugih kot domnevno diametralna nasprotna in povsem drugačna skupina (ne)ljudi: po izkrivljeni neoliberalni interpretaciji naj bi upokojeni starejši bile breme, zato naj bi bili domnevno upravičeno obravnavani kot tujek, s tem pa kot nevarnost sistemu in elementarna grožnja vsem ostalim. Priča smo torej sistemskemu popredmetenju in razčlovečenju starejših z namenom, da bi tako laže ustvarili dežurnega krivca in prikrili strukturne vzroke njihovega osiromašenja in osiromašenja naslednjih generacij ob prehodu med upokojene.
The article foregrounds the importance of honing critical literacy through socially engaged literature. Dealing with literature in an engaged and critical way can help students to develop critical ...thinking skills and a systemic understanding of burning social issues that inform their own living realities. Critical literary pedagogy and socially engaged literature play a key role in developing students’ understanding of why and how institutional racism and institutional patriarchy constitute key operating mechanisms of capitalist social relations, which is why constructs of race and gender should never be looked upon as mere add-ons, let alone as a matter of mere culture and hence individual prejudice. In this sense, the article directly challenges the prevailing postmodernist approach in mainstream studies and teachings of literature. It calls instead for the restoration of socially engaged literature to school curricula and for a return to the contextually analytical and systemic (materialist) approach towards literature.
Pinter’s short dramatic piece questions the women’s rights discourse that USA-led Western hegemonic powers rely heavily upon when justifying their incursions into the territories of the Global South. ...The play blasts this posture apart by pointing to the patriarchal paradigm and gendered hierarchies that inform the structuration of Western capitalist societies and which neo-imperial Western powers in their search for bigger profits and new markets inevitably transplant into annexed territories under their direct or indirect control.
Prispevek analizira enega glavnih elementov prestrukturiranja, ki ga v visoko šolstvo vnaša predlagani osnutek novega ZViS. Nanaša se na statusno izenačevanje zasebnih fakultet z javnimi, da bi se ...tako dokončno legitimiralo njihovo javnoproračunsko financiranje, s tem pa prečrpavanje že tako okleščenih sredstev od javnih k zasebnim šolskim zavodom.
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