Rocky Mountain Review 
of Language and Literature

Volume 70, Number 1 
Spring 2016 | Rocky Mountain Review

Articles

Articles are published in alphabetical order according to the name of the author.

YouTube Video Parodies and the Video Ideograph

 Tom Ballard, Iowa State University

The ideograph as originally defined by McGee (1980) has been explored by several rhetoricians as a recurring ideological device. Notably, Edwards and Winkler (1997) explored how the ideograph can function visually. YouTube Video Parodies and the Video Ideograph explores how the ideograph has manifested itself in the form of videos in recent years, particularly on the popular website YouTube.

 

Marital and Ethical Problems at Court: Pontus und Sidonia by Eleonore of Austria: A Late Medieval Contribution to Austrian Literature

  Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona

This article investigates how a late medieval female author, Duchess Eleonore of Austria, dealt with fundamental questions of love and marriage in her German-language novel Pontus und Sidonia. In essence, the work is a translation of the French version, and yet it is a significant and innovative contribution to German literature. Arguably, this work contributes to the body of Austrian literature. Since Eleonore addressed her husband explicitly, while also making a strong appeal to her audience, this novel may be studied as a literary work characteristic of the culture at the Austrian court of Tyrol. Moreover, it is a model case for ideal lovers who are destined to become partners in marriage. While Pontus und Sidonia has attracted only limited interest within modern scholarship, this piece argues that the novel deserves considerable recognition both in comparison with other prose novels of its time and as a literary work that signals a major paradigm shift in late medieval discourse on marriage, political leadership, and courtly ethics.

 

La literatura como recurso existencial en el neopolicial latinoamericano: La neblina del ayer y Adiós Hemingway de Leonardo Padura Fuentes

 José Juan Colín and Christina Miller, University of Oklahoma

El acercamiento a las dos novelas de Padura Fuentes es por medio del papel que juega la literatura como punto de referencia del personaje central. La propuesta del neopolicial como la nueva narrativa realista y la posición del género en la literatura actual se lleva a cabo a través de los estudios sobre la intertextualidad de Linda Hutcheon, entre otros, y la relación con la posmodernidad por medio de las ideas de H. Rosi Song, entre otros. Se quiere probar que en ambas novelas la literatura es el medio idóneo para la crítica de la realidad en cuanto a que es lo único que logra rescatar al personaje central.

  

 Ai Weiwei, Jackie Chan and the Aesthetics, Politics, and Economics of Revisiting a National Wound

Frederik H. Green, San Francisco State University

Frederik H. Green discusses a set of historic Chinese bronze zodiac statues that inspired an installation by Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei and a movie by filmmaker Jackie Chan. By exploring their significance as symbols of historical memory and trauma and their contemporary reincarnation as art objects located at the intersection of politics and commerce, he reveals the complex relationship between art, politics, and cultural consumption in contemporary China. Drawing upon on the work of both Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière, the author further elucidates the degree to which these works need to be understood as symptomatic of post-socialist art and cinema in contemporary China and beyond.

  

Keith Moser, Mississippi State University

This essay delves into the complex, interdisciplinary philosophy of Pierre Rabhi. Unlike the dominant strains of humanism, inherited from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and which permeate the work of others, Rabhi’s decentered, ecocentric humanism goes beyond by his inclusion of the entire biotic community of life. Moreover, Rabhi’s engaged humanism redefines the term “consciousness” to include concrete actions in defense of an imperiled planet. Deriving inspiration from the Amerindian legend of the hummingbird and the armadillo in La Part du Colibri, the philosopher convincingly asserts that true change occurs when all of us “do our small part.”

 

In Agésilan de Colchos (1635), Jean Rotrou (1609-1650) embraces the rare complexities of a tragicomic plot in which the eponymous character (both male and king) cross-dresses. Rotrou transforms an initially frivolous motivation for this highly transgressive act and demonstrates how a performance of cross-dressing develops into a profound experience that ultimately defies expectations of early modern gender. In so doing, within the confines of a play created at a controversial moment in the development of tragicomedy, Rotrou fully re(de)fines both masculinity and monarchy.

 

Reviews

Reviews are published in alphabetical order according to the name of the author reviewed.

 

Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: René Girard and Literary Criticism, by Pierpaolo Antonello and Heather Webb, eds.

 Reviewer: John Herda

 

Parabolas of Science Fiction, by Brian Attebery and Veronica Hollinger, eds.  

Reviewer: Geoffrey Wright

 

The Madonna on the Moon. A Novel, by Rolf Bauerdick.

Reviewer: Albrecht Classen

 

Growing Up in an Inhospitable World: Female Bildungsroman in Spain, by Olga Bezhanova.

Reviewer: José Luis De Ramón Ruiz

 

Sonora: harter klang/harsh words, by Albrecht Classen.

Reviewer: Marilya Veteto Reese

 

Collage in Twentieth-Century Art, Literature, and Culture: Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O’Hara, and Bob Dylan, by Rona Cran.

 

Reviewer: Sarah Nolan

 

Contemporary Chicana Literature: (Re)Writing the Maternal Script, by Cristina Herrera.

Reviewer: Dorsía Smith Silva

 

Soon After Rain, by James Hoggard.

Reviewer: Michelle Villanueva

 

Central American Avant-Garde Narrative: Literary Innovation and Cultural Change (1926-1936), by Adrian Taylor Kane

Reviewer: Manuel Saine

 

Interdisciplining Digital Humanities: Boundary Work in an Emerging Field, by Julie Thompson Klein.

Reviewer: Louise Stoehr

 

Education and Racism: A Primer on Issues and Dilemmas, by Zeus Leonardo and W. Norton Grubb.

Reviewer: Dorsía Smith Silva

 

Modern Poetry in China: A Visual-Verbal Dynamic, by Paul Manfredi.

Reviewer: Dian Li

 

Ethics and Children’s Literature, by Claudia Mills, ed.

Reviewer: Thomas P. Fair

 

On Biology, History and Culture in Human Language: A Critical Overview, by Juan-Carlos Moreno and José-Luis Mendívil-Giró.

Reviewer: Ingo R. Stoehr

 

The Spirit Bird, by Kent Nelson.

Reviewer:  Loreen Nariari

 

Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town, by Mirta Ojito.

Reviewer: Louise Stoehr

 

Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic’s Border Campaign against Haiti, 1930-1961, by Edward Paulino.

Reviewer: Joy Landeira

 

 

El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI, by Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo.

Reviewer: Samuel Manickam

 

Apology to a Whale: Words to Mend a World, by Cecile Pineda.

Reviwer: Louise E. Stoehr

 

Theory Aside, by Jason Potts and Daniel Stout. eds.

Reviewer Christa Albrecht-Crane.

 

Identity in Latin American and Latina Literature: The Struggle to Self-Define in a Global Era Where Space, Capitalism, and Power Rule, by Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez

Reviewer: María Isabel Martín Sánchez

 

Berlin Now: The City After the Wall, by Peter Schneider.

Reviewer:  Daniel C. Villanueva

 

Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi.

Reviewer:  Mouloud Siber Mammeri

 

Picturing Argentina: Myths, Movies, and the Peronist Vision, by Currie K. Thompson.

Reviewer: Shelli Rottschafer

 

Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art, by E. R. Truitt.

Reviewer: Albrecht Classen

 

Bulletproof Vest: The Ballad of an Outlaw and His Daughter, by Maria Venegas.

Reviewer: Whitney Laycock

 

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