This study aims to examine the extent and limits of the comparison between Holland and China in French travel Literature of the 19th century. We particularly intend to comprehend the nature of the...Show moreThis study aims to examine the extent and limits of the comparison between Holland and China in French travel Literature of the 19th century. We particularly intend to comprehend the nature of the precise comparison: of which elements it consists, why she is made and in which manner. In order to answer this question, we analyse a corpus of multiple travel journals from different writers. We apply a method of Imagology, together with concepts as Orientalism and exoticism. From the analysis of the corpus results three research tracks: the material aspect of the comparison, the cultural aspect and the limits of Chinese Holland. The comparison between Holland and China has proved to be a complex structure, resulting from a long tradition as well as (erroneous) stereotypes based on different types of images.Show less
This thesis argues that fiction and eventually play, accumulating into the interactive fiction of video games, can offer a toolset to help cultivate familiarity and understanding between cultures....Show moreThis thesis argues that fiction and eventually play, accumulating into the interactive fiction of video games, can offer a toolset to help cultivate familiarity and understanding between cultures. In a world where cultures are living closer together than before, tensions between cultures are sure to rise. These tensions stem from a lack of shared context causing misinterpretations of the other. I will refer to the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Robin Collingwood, who have both developed theories of hermeneutics that emphasise the importance of context as meaning-giving. Similar contexts provide similar meaning between people and vice versa. A lack in familiarity thus constitutes a lack in understanding, which poses a problem for the cross-cultural encounter. They suggest a hermeneutic method based on empathy in order to increase our understanding of others. In the second chapter, I will illustrate how fiction functions as both a tool to impart knowledge and as an exercise in empathy, which aids the hermeneutic process, drawing on Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy. When engaging with fiction, audiences temporarily abandon their own context in order to step into the alternate world of fiction. This encourages open-mindedness and empathic understanding of others, which both are of vital importance to the hermeneutic process. In the third chapter, I’ll move on play, showing how it, like fiction, demands a certain openness of mind from the player so they can step into the play-world, which makes play very well-suited to learning by doing. This section on play will be largely informed by Johan Huizinga and Miguel Sicart’s work on play and playfulness respectively. In requiring participation from its audience, they are absorbed into the other, the strange, and the new, and provided with tools to make sense of it. As an immersive and interactive medium, video games thus allow players to gain an intuitive understanding of other cultures on their own terms.Show less
This research considers Ellsworth Kelly’s Red Green as an artistic disruptive practice that contributes to the deconstruction of some of the hidden structures that form society as a group of...Show moreThis research considers Ellsworth Kelly’s Red Green as an artistic disruptive practice that contributes to the deconstruction of some of the hidden structures that form society as a group of individuals with a shared identity and common history. Ludwig Jäger’s approach to disruption has been the trigger to believe that the colours red and green could be unveiling the raw medium that relies under Kelly’s final message. However, the problem arises when realising that the message depends on the individual who reads it and their concepts of colour. For this, the paper has elaborated on colours’ faculty to evoke emotions by focusing on their cultural associations, which might have shaped those feelings like collective experiences with coloured objects or different definitions of colours. Here language becomes of great importance for the investigation. Besides, for the purpose of narrowing the context of disruption, imagined scenarios of disruption have been taken into account, allowing the concept of imagination to support the research. For this, the notions of the colours red and green have been explored in order to provide a deeper understanding of Ellsworth Kelly’s Red Green while considering the extent to which imagination plays a role in disruption. Then, the paper evidences the reciprocal relationship between language and imagination and reaches the conclusion that language ensures the continuation of society’s power structures. Nonetheless, it is suggested that language could be, at the same time, the tool that allows the creation of new imagined scenarios.Show less
The thesis is discussing enhanced e-books in the realm of new media. Enhanced fiction novels as a literary genre of narrative still have low acceptance in the market of digital publishing. The...Show moreThe thesis is discussing enhanced e-books in the realm of new media. Enhanced fiction novels as a literary genre of narrative still have low acceptance in the market of digital publishing. The present thesis is focusing on two aspects which might account for the low popularity of reading enhanced fiction novels: the thesis questions first if enhanced e-books and their additional embeddings neglect the tradition of linear storytelling, a defining feature of the literary genre of narrative. Second, the thesis analyses if and to what extent enhanced e-books restrict imaginative freedom of narratives. These two characteristics, the linearity of storytelling and the power of imagination, are the raison d'être of narratives and might suffer from the enhanced form of fiction novels. The paper analyses these two aspects with a look at the precise nature of enhanced e-books and what function digital amplifications fulfill within them. Above the thesis raises the questions if enhanced fiction novels still follow the traditional idea of narrative in the sense of a story embedded in a narrative discourse and, finally, how digital enhancement influence the interpretation of the narrative.Show less
