Author：João Cezar de Castro Rocha

Abstract: The study of the introduction of powerful new means of communication has been largely confined to the Social and Human Sciences and in the History of Technology. From Elizabeth Eisenstein’s classic book, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change,1 to Marshall McLhuan’s extensive work on the global village announced by the emergence of a planetary system of media, understood as an authentic electronic nervous system, which produces fundamental transformations in our ways of perceiving the world and relating to one another,2 there is a myriad of fundamental research undertaken on the topic, the discussion of which naturally is not the scope of this introduction. Rather, we want to highlight a dimension sometimes overlooked, namely, the anthropological changes brought upon by radical shifts in the communicative circuit.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Abstract: In this interview, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht visits some of his groundbreaking theoretical contributions, providing an ample archeological gaze towards the emergence of Digital Humanities. The key concepts proposed by Gumbrecht are discussed as well as the new theoretical framework he developed over the past two decades towards an understating of Humanities not primarily focused on the semantic attribution of meaning.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Jeffrey Schnapp

Abstract: In this interview, Jeffrey Schnapp conceptualizes Digital Humanities, Knowledge Design and Experimental Humanities, seen as innovative frameworks, aimed at propitiating a radically new understanding of the current challenges of the contemporary world. The overwhelming presence of digital media and artificial intelligence is scrutinized by Schnapp in order to produce theory literally at the edge.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Rejane Rocha

Abstract: The Atlas of Brazilian Digital Literature is the first and the only digital archive of digital literature in Brazil to date. It reunites the documentation (taxonomic description, images, videos, interviews with the authors, and critical fortune) of 150 works and counting. This article reports the challenges related to th...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Yanfang Jia, Si Lai

Abstract: This study aims to explore the impact of neural machine translation (NMT) post-editing on metaphorical expressions from English to Chinese in terms of productivity, translation quality, and the strategies employed. To this end, a comparative study was carried out with 30 student translators who post-edited or translated a text rich in metaphors. By triangulating data from keystroke logging, retrospective protocols, questionnaires, and translation quality evaluation, it was found that: (1) processing metaphorical expressions using NMT post-editing has significantly increased the translators’ productivity compared to translating them from scratch; (2) NMT was perceived to be useful in processing metaphorical expressions and post-editing produced fewer errors in the final output than translation from scratch; ...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Lili Ma, Daoxian Zhong

Abstract: This paper examines the non-human actants in Brian Castro’s novel The Garden Book, including nature, the human body, and human artifacts in light of Jane Bennett’s theory of vibrant matter and Castro’s own arguments about the status of objects. Castro subverts the life-matter binary in this novel, giving attentiveness and respect to material powers, as well as affect and empathy to objects, thus undermining anthropocentrism. In a pandemic era in which humans and non-humans are seen as more interconnected than ever, such empowerment and understanding are not only significant, but also necessary to build a harmonized community.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Ana Regina Falkembach Simão, Roberto Rodolfo Georg Uebel

Abstract: The construction of the concept of Latin America has been through different processes regarding its structure and acceptance, from the colonial period to the automatic realignment to the United States, with rare exceptions, and a reorganization with the emergence of multilateralism and the multipolar world. The abstraction, hitherto almost an axiom in the subcontinent, that it is a western region, leads us to the elaboration of this article, which seeks to present Latin America’s post-western and de-westernized character in an environment of restructuration of its political economy, its actors, scenarios and, finally, theories. Thus, we present here a review of the state of the art political economy of Latin America and its perspectives in this shifting world, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Evelyn Amarillas Amaya

Abstract: This essay analyzes the Mestizo consciousness in Borderlands: The New Mestiza, by Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa, together with the short story “Olhos d’Agua” by the Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. In both works, there is an attempt to return to the indigenous tradition...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Ning Wang

Abstract: Raymond Williams, the eminent British Marxist literary theorist, was introduced to China in the late 1980s, and his theories have since been increasingly attractive to China’s literary and cultural studies. He not only touched upon some of the fundamental issues of Marxist literary theory, such as ideology, culture, hegemony and aesthetics, but also developed it with his dynamic construction of a sort of cultural materialism, thus bridging between Marxist socio-historical and aesthetic criticism and cultural and linguistic factors. While literary and cultural theory is in decline in the West, Williams’s legacy is still appreciated in international circles, which ought to be cherished and inherited by us Chinese scholars in our studies of world literature and culture.

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation

Author：Jia Zhang

Abstract: Known as the representative figure of black minstrelsy, Bert Williams’s revolutionary success on Broadway and in the Ziegfeld Follies created a landmark opportunity for black voices to be heard in high-profile setting in a white world. The performance most notably preferred by his white audiences was Williams’s minstrel song “Nobody,” which from Williams’s perspective was also an irreplaceable piece. Visually echoing his minstrel song, Williams’s cakewalk performance success in the 1890s laid the basis for the song’s popularity. Both the song and Williams’s carnivalesque performance blurred the color line and transcended black minstrel stereotypes by taking African Americans’ voices in the Jim Crow and lynching ...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022 Time：2023-01-03View Citation