Javascript must be enabled to continue!
A brief plea for East-West literary bridge-building
View through CrossRef
Stories are not important: they are vital. Stories are how humans make sense of the world. Their creators are recognised, as they should be. People with high levels of skill in storytelling are top players in the creative industries, and literary novels are often considered to be the pinnacle of intellectual achievement, celebrated by annual awards. Yet the main international prizes exclude most of the world’s authors, as they use US and UK publishers as gatekeepers. Furthermore, the literary novel itself is arguably a predominantly Western format of long-form fiction. Some 60% of the world’s population lives in Asia and people are accustomed to different stories in other formats. Training courses around the world offer MFAs which teach students Western narrative structures based on ideas from Aristotle, and focus on psychological elements associated with European thinkers such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Clearly, the differences between East and West in narrative structure and related factors would repay closer examination. Authors should be able to learn about stories with global rather than local appeal. This paper gives a brief overview of these issues and suggests avenues for further academic exploration.
Title: A brief plea for East-West literary bridge-building
Description:
Stories are not important: they are vital.
Stories are how humans make sense of the world.
Their creators are recognised, as they should be.
People with high levels of skill in storytelling are top players in the creative industries, and literary novels are often considered to be the pinnacle of intellectual achievement, celebrated by annual awards.
Yet the main international prizes exclude most of the world’s authors, as they use US and UK publishers as gatekeepers.
Furthermore, the literary novel itself is arguably a predominantly Western format of long-form fiction.
Some 60% of the world’s population lives in Asia and people are accustomed to different stories in other formats.
Training courses around the world offer MFAs which teach students Western narrative structures based on ideas from Aristotle, and focus on psychological elements associated with European thinkers such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Clearly, the differences between East and West in narrative structure and related factors would repay closer examination.
Authors should be able to learn about stories with global rather than local appeal.
This paper gives a brief overview of these issues and suggests avenues for further academic exploration.
Related Results
Categorisation of the length of bowhead whales from British Arctic whaling records
Categorisation of the length of bowhead whales from British Arctic whaling records
British whalers were the first and last from Europe to hunt bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) commercially from the Arctic whaling grounds of the Greenland Sea (East Greenland-Sv...
Strategies for connecting whole-building LCA to the low-carbon design process
Strategies for connecting whole-building LCA to the low-carbon design process
Abstract
Decarbonization is essential to meeting urgent climate goals. With the building sector in the United States accounting for 35% of total U.S. carbon emission...
EVALUATION OF THE AIR KANYUT BRIDGE CONDITIONS, BANGKA REGENCY, BANGKA BELITUNG PROVINCE USING THE BRIDGE INSPECTION METHOD DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF BINA MARGA
EVALUATION OF THE AIR KANYUT BRIDGE CONDITIONS, BANGKA REGENCY, BANGKA BELITUNG PROVINCE USING THE BRIDGE INSPECTION METHOD DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF BINA MARGA
Bangka Regency is one of the regencies in Bangka Belitung Province, which has several potentials for improving regional economies, such as agriculture and plantation, fisheries and...
Maailmakirjanduse mõõtmisest meil ja mujal / Conceptualizations of World Literature in Estonia and Elsewhere
Maailmakirjanduse mõõtmisest meil ja mujal / Conceptualizations of World Literature in Estonia and Elsewhere
Teesid: Artikkel käsitleb maailmakirjanduse mõiste mahu ja sisu muutumist alates selle esilekerkimisest 19. sajandi algupoolel kuni tänapäeva käsitlusviisideni ja dilemmadeni, mill...
Excavations at Sparta, 1926: §2.—The Theatre
Excavations at Sparta, 1926: §2.—The Theatre
The main results of the work in 1926 may be summarised as follows: (1) The completion of the uncovering of the stage-buildings, and the location of the street running east and west...
REVISITING THE MARGINS OF LITERARY CRITICISM: MEDUSA REPLICATED
REVISITING THE MARGINS OF LITERARY CRITICISM: MEDUSA REPLICATED
Literary criticism’s deep-rooted history, effortlessly traceable back to Plato, might be challenging to grasp without comparing the historical sequence of distinctive periods along...
Alexander Helios and the Golden Age
Alexander Helios and the Golden Age
Vergil's fourth Eclogue, foretelling a child whose coming would usher in the golden age, has often been supposed to be based upon eastern material; and it has even been suggested t...
The “Double Exposure” of History in Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge
The “Double Exposure” of History in Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge
Evan S. Connell's Bridge novels, Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969), are products of a post-World War II culture set in a prewar Kansas City of the 1920s and 1930s. In this p...
Recent Results
NOISE POLLUTION : THE UNSEEN STORM OF HEALTH ISSUES
NOISE POLLUTION : THE UNSEEN STORM OF HEALTH ISSUES
Noise is an unwanted and disharmonic sound pollutant which has a direct and indirect effect on human
health. It is an environmental pollutant but does not affect the air, soil or w...
Christmas Stars and Stripes
Christmas Stars and Stripes
An American bestseller version of the New Testament has caused some confusion among Danish theologians. - And then it was that three mighty sheikhs from one of the eastern states ...
Pacific Seascapes of the Anthropocene: Changing Human-Nature Relationships in Jeff Murray’s Melt
Pacific Seascapes of the Anthropocene: Changing Human-Nature Relationships in Jeff Murray’s Melt
Melt (2019), Jeff Murray’s debut novel is set in the near future of 2048. It depicts how the Anthropocene has wrought massive changes to seascapes, islandscapes, and landscapes, es...