The Conradian Narrator

By Shaadi Baylor

 

         In recent months, there has been no greater exemplification of the Western world’s perception of Uganda as a stagnant and ahistorical nation than the launch of Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign. That the effort to end the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) attack on civilians is nearly twenty years overdue does not appear to confound the multitudes who support the organization’s efforts. A decade’s delayed response to the conflict suggests that the enslavement and murders of hundreds, if not thousands, of children by the LRA in the 1980s and 1990s did not exist, and perhaps do not even matter, to a Western world too comfortable overlooking Uganda. Granted, it is difficult for young, Western consumers of information to envision the continent outside a Conradian framework. 

Stephen and The Stringing of The Bow

By Santiago Sanchez Borboa

Stephen Dedalus is a prick - conceited, immature, and annoying. He even spends a large part of a chapter "prov[ing] by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father" (1: 555-7), although he does not believe this grand theory (9: 1065-7). If this were not enough, just as the reader thinks she is getting the hang of things after "Telemachus" and "Nestor," she gets smacked with the stupendously difficult yet surprisingly irrelevant, "Proteus," a chapter of Ulysses inside Stephen's mind that everyone struggles with and that makes a good number of people put down the book forever. Despite this, I think that Stephen has many admirable qualities and that he is an often unappreciated character. I hold that opinion despite the fact that I did not succeed in becoming (or like to think I did not) an intellectual egotist. I should note that I am not trying to establish that Stephen is beyond serious criticism or that he is a full-fledged hero. I only think that we can (and should) deepen our understanding of Stephen, and his importance by focusing on his often-overlooked value.

Contractual Relations in Kafka's Metamorphosis

By Justin Hunte

 

            

Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, awakens one morning transformed into a large insect. The troubled commercial traveler never figures out how or why he undergoes this unusual metamorphosis, especially since everything around him remains unchanged—his bedroom maintains its original décor and he can still gaze at his prized portrait of a lady sporting fur apparel. On the other hand, his new dome-shaped belly and numerous sticky legs hinder him from physically rolling out of his bed. When first reading The Metamorphosis, it is easy to get caught up on the outward characteristics that burden Gregor, but a close reading will also identify the enormous debt that weighs down the pockets of Gregor and his family. Unfortunately, even a close reading will still leave us asking one major question—what or who initiates Gregor's metamorphosis?

Shakespeare and Politics: Prodigal Son or Machiavellian "Prince"

By Jack Fitzhenry

Part of what keeps Shakespeare in modern classrooms is not his saintly status, but that quality of his work which seems to withhold something from the reader, yielding it up only when new modes of interpretation become available. Shakespeare is timeless precisely because his work can respond to new schools of criticism and thought, thus providing something unique for successive generations of scholars. It is important to note that Shakespeare is not just for the english nerds but can be appreciated by a variety of disciplines should they be sensitive to its virtues.  Not least among these are political scientists and historians, and this is of course especially true for his historic plays.  Shakespeare is as adept a political and social commentator as any modern incarnation, a David Brooks, Paul Krugman, et al.