<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> This paper analyses the depiction of the main female protagonists of Catherine Temma Davidson’s novel The Priest Fainted (1998) in the context of the symbolic formation of the hybrid identity of the main female character and narrator which is close to Bill Ascroft’s concept of the transnation. The author of this paper analyses Davidson’s depiction of three generations of female protagonists with a Greek cultural background and the way they symbolically represent the transition from a traditional diasporic identity (the narrator’s grandmother), through multicultural and transnational identity (her mother) up to the identity close to the concept of the transnation as defined by Bill Aschroft (the narrator herself). At the same time, the formation of such a cultural identity is understood as a symbolic formation of female independence and the rejection of a patriarchal society, religious bigotry and conservative values as represented, in the narrator’s and her mother’s view, by contemporary Greece.</abstract>

From the diasporic to the transnation: Catherine Temma Davidson’s The Priest Fainted

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The coexistence of different cultures in specific pluralistic settings not only has positive but also negative impacts. Besides exchanging cultural contents within a multicultural environment, societies use humour as a form of social interaction, which reinforces cultural interrelationships as well as ethnical differences. However, humour differs from culture to culture and from individual to individual. On the one hand, it develops social cohesion, fosters positive relations and increases the self-identification of the individual in relation to other ethnic groups, but on the other hand, it functions as an acceptable and tolerated form of aggression in a particular society. The bipolar character of humour stems from its status and functions. It serves both as a social unifier and a social separator. The most common paradigms of humour in social discourse are ethnic jokes or cartoons that are often built on fixed ethnic/racial stereotypes leading to social categorization but also to fast and correct decoding of semantic information by an audience. Ethnic jokes are social thermometers, recording and measuring the level of sensitivity towards specific cultural groups. The main aim of this paper is to introduce ethnic humour and its key functions in the context of ongoing cultural interactions and changes.</abstract>

Ethnic humour in a multicultural society

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> In the postcolonial context, language represents one of the crucial tools of cultural communication and is therefore often a subject of heated discussion. Since language constitutes the framework of cultural interaction, postcolonial authors often challenge the privileged position of Standard English within their writing by modifying and substituting it with new forms and varieties. The Trinidad-born writer Sam Selvon belongs to a handful of Caribbean authors who initiated linguistic experiments in the context of Caribbean literature and is considered one of the first Caribbean writers to employ dialect in a novel. His 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners reflects the possibilities of vernacular experimentation and thus communicates the specific experience of a particular cultural group in an authentic way.</abstract>

Communication across cultures: ideological implications of Sam Selvon’s linguistic inventiveness

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The text presents some of the unusual features of Alexander McCall Smith’s popular African detective stories, in which cultural elements convey humanity and thus lower tension, the characteristic sign of detective fiction. Culture, in particular the African collectivist culture included in the core of these stories, creates a milieu that enables the writer to avoid murders, which are usually basic conflict-conveying vehicles in this genre. Although McCall Smith’s African books contain the conventional formal elements of detective stories, they also display a very low level of tension together with other peculiarities. This text tries to compare the structure and elements of classic detective stories with those from McCall Smith’s books to disclose their true essence.</abstract>

The humanistic aspect of Alexander McCall Smith’s African detective fiction

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The following article shows why Henry Miller’s novel Tropic of Cancer should not be labelled as a pornographic nor dehumanizing novel through the prism of a scientific and nonsentimental approach. The author of the article argues that even though Henry Miller creates in his novel a certain project of dehumanization, the article explains how usage of poetic language prevents Tropic of Cancer being a sexist insult to woman as often claimed by the feministic discourse of the 1980s and 1990s. Reacting to the popular and standardized interpretational traditions, the article contributes to the discourse about the dehumanizing aspects of Henry Miller’s novel by analysing the code of obscenity present in the materia of literary text. The code of obscenity is put into context with other features of materia of Miller’s text in order to explain how its specific “energy” functions. The author of the article applies the thinking of influential Russian literary scholars such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman on the autonomous world of a literary text.</abstract>

On the dehumanizing universe of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer: the code of obscenity and its interaction with other elements

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Volume 15 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2023)

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Volume 6 (2014): Issue 2 (December 2014)

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Ars Aeterna

 Ars Aeterna is a literary peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the questions of literature and art and their importance in the contemporary world for the development of culture, mutual understanding, and the human self. It invites international contributions in the field of literary studies, concerning primarily the Anglophone world. The journal is seeking submissions on English, American, Irish, Scottish, Canadian, Australian and other English literary traditions. Its aim is to provide up-to-date and innovative critical and theoretical approaches to the study of literary text. The journal accepts studies on literary relations which include the Western tradition, but we encourage contributions which deal with world literature as well. General and comparative literature studies are also appreciated and we are open to a broad variety of methods and theories. While the journal primarily focuses on the study of literary texts, contributions related to art and film which address the text are also welcome. Submissions in English should offer international perspectives on specific themes and subjects and the journal’s thematic scope wants to provide a stimulating platform for scholarly discussions and dissemination of original research on literary history, theory, literary criticism and related matters. The content of the journal consists of high quality research articles and its target audience includes scholars and researchers in the field of literature and the study of art.  Rejection Rate   30-40%   Visit our Facebook  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 