Kate Chopin's (1850-1904) short stories have become the cornerstones in the field of short fiction writing. Mainly influencing the feminist writing of her epoch, Chopin's short stories like "The Story of an Hour", "D & eacute;sir & eacute;e's Baby", "The Storm" and many others have established her as one of the most prominent short story writers. Another distinguished short story writer of the same period was Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), a famous Russian author, whose short stories make the readers smile and, at the same time, question themselves. His most popular short storiesA-"The Man in a Case", "Gooseberries", "A Woman's Kingdom" and many others-depict a simple life but present the author's richness of articulation and narration. This study will analyse Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" (1894) and Anton Chekhov's "The Man in a Case" (1898) in terms of the processes that lead the protagonists to their deaths. The comparative study of these two short stories will show that the protagonists in both works go through three main temporal-psychological dimensions: suppression, freedom (change of state), and death. Mrs. Mallard and Belikov, suppress their true selves until a particular point in their lives. After they eventually experience a sense of vague and short freedom and a radical change of state, they suddenly die. This study will analyse the tools of suppression, the ways to freedom and transformation, and the processes that lead the main characters to death. The study will conclude that the close temporal paradigm of the authors paved the way for Chopin's and Chekhov's similar understanding of the concept of freedom.
The study examines the narrative's multifacetedness and how it represents the cognitive unreliability of the nameless narrator in Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. Haruki Murakami, in his renowned Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, known as & horbar;Wall and Egg,& Vert; poignantly critiques the powerful political system of the world, linking it to a formidable stone wall, and representing individuals as fragile who inevitably collide with unyielding forces like corporate, governmental, and quasi-governmental organisations. This metaphor underscores the vulnerability of individuals in the face of oppressive societal structures.It is a novel which is fragmented with a first-person narrative, which constantly shifts from the present to the past. And later, it gets entwined with the history of sheep in Japan, and metaphysical elements. Cognitive unreliability is a blend ofnarrative unreliability and cognitive narratology of the narration. It focuses on cognitive dissonance, genre conflict, and intratextual conflict present in the narrative. It tries to further explore the perception, memory and emotion manifested within the narrative.The inconsistencyrepresented in the narrative shows the psychological distortion created by Murakami to dissonate the reality of the characters.
This study investigates the lived experiences and criminological dimensions of online gambling among Filipino individuals in Zamboanga del Sur. Guided by a qualitative phenomenological approach, the research explored four key areas: (1) the participants' experiences with online gambling, (2) its effects on their quality of life, (3) how they coped with its consequences, and (4) the policies that may be proposed to mitigate its impact. Informants were purposively selected from police reports, barangay referrals, and school guidance offices, ensuring that only individuals with verified gambling-related issues were included. Thematic analysis of interviews revealed fifteen emergent themes. Online gambling typically began through social and digital influences, with Facebook ads, vloggers, and peer recommendations as key exposure points. Initial emotional highs and perceived rewards sustained their engagement, eventually evolving into habitual and unstructured gambling routines. As financial losses accumulated, awareness of addiction increased, but many remained trapped due to platform accessibility, false hope, and mental strain. Participants experienced emotional instability, relationship conflicts, and disruption of work or school performance. Financial instability forced some to pawn personal items, borrow excessively, or neglect basic needs. While recovery efforts were often self-initiated, professional help was rarely sought. Coping strategies included deleting apps, shifting to new routines, reconnecting with family, and relying on faith. The study's findings were anchored in Routine Activity Theory, General Strain Theory, and Social Learning Theory, highlighting how environmental exposure, emotional strain, and peer influence contribute to gambling behavior. It is recommended that interventions include digital platform regulation, financial literacy programs, school-based prevention efforts, and community-based counseling services that are accessible and affordable. Ultimately, this study points out that it takes a multi-sectoral response to address the rising harm of online gambling and safeguard vulnerable individuals.
In a time when the National Education Policy 2020 emphasizes value-based education and learning from our tradition, the English syllabus of B. Tech students in most of the Engineering colleges in India, including IITs and NITs, includes only Communicative English. The literary portion is generally missing in the syllabus, with no trace of folktales. This paper explores the scope of folktales in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms of Engineering colleges, where if the teacher dexterously uses these tales, will not only make the class interesting and learner-centered, but could also impart values like non-violence, love, compassion, empathy, spirit of service, respect for others, liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice which are essential in addition to the technical knowledge to aid holistic growth of students. After critically analyzing a tale from A.K. Ramanujan"s Folktales from India, and by suggesting application of a few tasks and activities to it during the pre-, while-, and post-teaching stages, the paper concludes with the demonstration of intensity and extent of a short tale in imparting value-based education in the language classroom of B. Tech students in technical institutes.
This study examined the lived experiences and resilience of sexually assaulted victims in Zamboanga del Norte via a descriptive-qualitative phenomenological methodology. Seven survivors engaged in comprehensive interviews, providing firsthand accounts of trauma and rehabilitation. Data analysis followed Braun and Clarke's thematic framework, revealing nine emergent themes clustered into three major areas: (1) experiences of sexual abuse, including emotional and psychological effects, diminished trust, and damaged self-worth; (2) coping mechanisms such as social support, avoidance, and self-healing practices; and (3) aspirations involving justice, emotional closure, and personal growth. The findings underscored the essential importance of familial support, communal resources, and personal resilience in the rehabilitation trajectories of survivors. The study underlines the significance of trauma-informed treatment, legal protection, and accessible psychosocial assistance to help victims recover their self-worth and regain their identities. This research underscores that cultivating resilience involves both individual fortitude and systemic interventions customized to the needs of survivors.
This article aims to investigate the perdurable presence of shamanic archetypes across world literatures with a particular emphasis on English and Turkic narrative traditions. As a manifestation of the primordial spiritual practice, shamanism provides a solid framework for understanding the tenacious engagement of humanity with transcendental experiences, healing rituals, the search for ultimate meaning, and cosmological order. In English literature, shamanic elements are instantiated through symbolic journeys, nature mysticism, as well as magical mediation, while core shamanic concepts of liminal passage and spiritual transformation are reflected in the recurrent motifs of a wise magician, sacred landscape, and heroic descent into supernatural realms. Although these elements oft appear transformed by the Western cultural lens, they, nevertheless, retain their fundamental connection to the original shamanic cosmology. Turkic literary traditions, in their turn, present a more direct embodiment of shamanic practice, especially in their epic narratives, in which the shaman appears as a central protagonist, personified by a healer/ seer/ guide of souls, whose rituals and spirit communications structure the narrative itself. Turkic literary works preserve all-inclusive accounts of ceremonial practices, spirit associations, and cosmic journeys, which reflect existing shamanic traditions of Central Asia. As a consequence, this article employs comparative analysis to reveal how shamanic consciousness persists as a vital literary force across varying cultures: English literature oft adapts shamanic motifs metaphorically, while Turkic traditions maintain their ritual authenticity. Both approaches validate the capacity of literature as a cultural construct to preserve and reinvent ancient spiritual paradigms that offer insights into the timeless search of humanity for meaning beyond material existence. At the same time, this article brings to the fore the enduring relevance of shamanism in the contemporary world as an indispensable element of cultural heritage and a universal symbolic language in world literature.
Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior (2012) presents a powerful literary response to the complexities of climate change, social inequality and human vulnerability. Kingsolver is one of the supreme predominant writers in American literature. Most of her novels are considered as semi-autobiographical works. This novel set in Rural Appalachia, centres on the accidental discovery of a displaced colony of monarch butterflies and the transformation it triggers in Dellarobia Turnbow, an intelligent woman but stifled housewife. This paper explores Flight Behavior through the lens of ecoprecarity, a theoretical framework that foregrounds the entangled vulnerability of both human and nonhuman life in the face of environmental degradation and socio-economic marginalization. Through the character of Dellarobia demonstrates that climate change is not merely a global crisis but a deeply personal and domestic one, playing out in kitchens, barns and backyards. The novel suggests that effective environmental communication must include empathy, local knowledge and the capacity to listen across class and cultural divides. The monarch butterfly becomes a central symbol of ecological dislocation and aesthetic wonder, while also reflecting Dellarobia's personal transformation and the broader fragility of life under climate stress. The paper investigates how the novel bridges the gap between scientific knowledge and rural experience, revealing how class, gender and geography shape access to and trust in climate discourse.
In line with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, this qualitative research "keywords" basic terminologies as enlisted from Philippine policies regarding ethics and accountability in public service for use in governance. Although "keywording" usually searches for words or terms on the internet and/or in any platform for both online and non-online engine, this paper strategizes the selection of basic terminologies that is rationally sorted and/or lifted from the policies regarding ethics and accountability in public service based on judgement and/or expertise in the scholarship. Results show that varied terminologies derived from policies can be used in familiarizing cases and/or situations that will help, aid and/or operationalize governance. Cases that manifest violation thereof exemplify that no public servant is above the law and should serve accordingly for public interest. The enlisted governance terminologies can serve as basis and/or guide in the design and formulation, for both scholars and practitioners in public administration, especially in the day-to-day public affairs, leadership by upright example, agenda setting and planning, administrative services, critical-decision-making, conflict resolutions, consultancies and discussions, exchanges for policy and organizational development in governance and the like. Sorting out terminologies from policies all the more prove that public service and/or duty is good governance in ethics and accountability.
Chora, according to Julia Kristeva, is the pre-lingual stage of a child. It is a chaotic space of the psyche where the child fails to distinguish its subjective existence from its mother. In Anvita Dutt Guptani's 2022 movie Qala, the eponymous protagonist questions the very subjectivity of her own existence. Connecting Julia Kristeva's concepts of `Chora' and `abjection,' the paper aims to highlight how the identity of Qala remains enmeshed with her mother, owing to which she fails to untangle her own `self' with that of the (m)Other. The leitmotif of flight, reiterated through various imageries of wings and butterflies, emphasizes Qala's innermost desire to break free. Pertaining to this, the paper accentuates Qala's constant endeavour to escape from incarceration at the cost of her inner destruction of self and the eventual catastrophe of her personal life. It showcases how Qala's concealed and repressed emotions are transformed into anxiety, leading to a tragic turn in the course of the story, captured through the dark visual artistry, the bleak colour palette, and the snowy setting of the movie reflecting the repressed layer of the human psyche, the `Id,' the unconscious, accentuating the character's inner pessimism, abjection, hopelessness, disorientation, and anomic disconnection.
This paper explores the concept of cultural alienation in the Eating People Is Wrong and Bekir Y & imath;ld & imath;z's T & uuml;rkler Almanya'da. Bradbury's studying in England in the 1950s, highlighting their struggles with cultural clashes and social acceptance. Y & imath;ld & imath;z's novel, on the other hand, focuses on Turkish workers in Germany in the 1960s, examining their experiences of alienation due to language barriers, cultural differences and societal discrimination. Through the lens of postcolonial theory and concepts of Fanon and Homi Bhabha, this study explores the psychological and social impact of migration on individual identity and cultural integration. The study also highlights how both groups experience feelings of estrangement and dislocation within their host societies, ultimately leading to a sense of alienation. By comparing these two novels, the paper sheds light on the persistent issues of cultural alienation in the context of migration and offers insights into the wider implications for contemporary society.
This article aims to address the universal phenomenon of suffering in literature. From the vicious circle in which good and evil counter each other as distinct entities, in principle suffering emerges as a product of the latter. The subject of widespread and profound discussion throughout the history of human thought, the notion of suffering still may provoke significant questions. This article will strive to offer a perspective on the nature of suffering in literature, which will enable a discussion around the perception of suffering in different phases bound up with human consciousness and the human condition, and thereby dig deep into its true meaning. On this level, the chief question has to do with the meaning of suffering in terms religious, philosophical and aesthetic. The discussion will go on to develop a thesis that art in the end is not simply individual, because it channels the fate of others, and will conclude with a concrete illustration of suffering in literature, in the shape of Xhevdet Bajraj"s poetical work L & euml;ngu i tr & euml;ndafilave (Rose Water).
The film Joker (2019), directed by Todd Phillips, has generated a major cultural and social impact, becoming an object of critical reflection on marginalization, mental health and systemic violence. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary analysis that combines a sociological perspective on cinematic narrative with a bibliometric investigation of international academic reception. The study utilizes a mixed-method approach, consisting of a qualitative sociological analysis of the movie content and a bibliometric analysis assisted by VOSviewer software. For the bibliometric analysis, 87 English-language scholarly articles were selected from the Scopus database, published between 2019 and 2025, using the keywords "Joker" and "movie". Sociological analysis reveals major themes such as alienation, structural inequality, stigmatization of mental illness, institutional collapse and symbolic violence. These have been interpreted through the theories of Marx, Durkheim, Foucault and Becker. The bibliometric analysis highlights six distinct thematic clusters: translation and language, mental health and stereotyping, narrative archetypes, urban culture and media, the psychology of character and phenomenological representation. The co-occurrence map reflects the deeply interdisciplinary nature of the research and provides empirical support for sociological interpretation. The Joker functions as a cultural artifact that reflects contemporary social crises and generates a plural academic reception. The integration of sociological and bibliometric analyses validates the relevance of the film as a source of critical knowledge and as a tool for the symbolic representation of deviance, marginalization and fragility of social systems.
This paper discusses Four Reincarnations by Max Ritvo as a poem of death, memory, and disintegration of self under terminal illness. The research is placed in the framework of the theory of trauma, the philosophy of illness and memory studies and offers an interdisciplinary approach to the interpretation of how the work by Ritvo reinvents identity in crisis states. Trauma theory sheds light on the recursivity and fractured quality of his voice, in which traumatic experiences reappear in fragmented ways. The philosophy of illness emphasises the intrusion and vulnerability of the body that explains why Ritvo makes pain and decay disruptive and transformative. Memory studies and concept of narrative identity, position the poems as recursive interactions with the past which disrupt linear time but facilitate the ongoing reorganization of self. Close reading reveals that the article uses reincarnation, memory looping, and self-splitting as poetic devices that both dissolve and resist. It is argued that Ritvo makes dying a poetics of survival and creative reconstruction, in which fragmentation itself becomes a survival strategy. The article is an addition to the modern literature on illness and literature, which introduces the work by Ritvo as an influential intervention in the trauma, mortality and power of art to recreate identity discourses.
This article examines the functions of religion in political governance within authoritarian regimes through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Situated in the broader context of comparative politics, the study aims to understand how religious discourses contribute to regime durability beyond symbolic legitimation. A systematic review identified that most research is concentrated in the Middle East and Asia, with Islam emerging as the most frequently analyzed tradition. Using quantitative meta-analysis, the study finds that religious discourses enhance regime legitimacy (pooled effect = 0.42), reinforce bureaucratic integration (0.36), and contribute to restricting opposition (0.51). Meta-regression further reveals that these effects are stronger in the Middle East and Islamic contexts, and panel designs produce more robust associations compared to cross-sectional studies. A risk-of-bias assessment indicates low measurement bias, moderate risks of reverse causality and selection bias, and a high level of publication bias; nevertheless, complementary tests such as Egger's test, funnel plot, and trim-and-fill confirm the reliability of the findings. Overall, the results suggest that religion in authoritarian regimes functions not only as a symbolic source of legitimacy but also as an instrumental mechanism that consolidates institutional stability and strengthens political control.
This paper offers a kinopolitical interpretation of Nuruddin Farah's Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship trilogy-Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardines (1981), and Close Sesame (1983)-set against the backdrop of postcolonial Somalia to examine how authoritarian regimes regulate motion, silence voices, and expel dissidents, while simultaneously enabling new forms of resistance. Drawing on Thomas Nail's theory of kinopolitics', which reconceptualises societies as regimes of motion, the study argues that Farah's fiction situates the Somali migrant not as a marginal victim but as a central political and epistemic agent. Farah's exilic consciousness, informed by his own forced displacement, illuminates how dictatorship permeates both familial and state structures to immobilize bodies, memories, and discourse, yet also reveals how counter-flows emerge through exile, feminist defiance, and memory-work. By foregrounding exile as both rupture and resource, the paper demonstrates how Farah's trilogy envisions movement itself as the enduring condition of identity, critique, and survival in the Somali context.
In this article, we examine the significance of the Picasso effect from a multidisciplinary perspective and its impact on contemporary art through the example of Christian Jankowski. The renowned artist Picasso, constantly focused on his entelechy in the Aristotelian sense, often captured in his emerging art the essence of a moment within the chaos of his era. These genuine masterpieces transformed visual styles and infused aesthetics with artistic innovations that became models for future artists, as well as benchmarks for experimentation and performance from new angles that challenge the laws of formal logic. This phenomenon, known as the Picasso effect, is evident across all areas of human activity. Through his cultural cubism, visual artist Christian Jankowski is a prominent and distinctive exponent of the Picasso effect. His exhibition "NEUE MALEREI: Cultural Cubism", at the Suprainfinit Gallery in Bucharest, is part of the artist's third series of conceptual paintings and offers an inverted perspective on Picasso's conceptual approach. The curatorial team from Quote-Unquote and the Suprainfinit Gallery showcases the German artist's ability to create unique visual artworks that embody his collaborative Cultural Cubism style.
This paper presents a re-examination of W.B. Yeats's & horbar;Sailing to Byzantium" (1927). The poem has been analyzed in various ways, mainly in terms of historical and biographical references. This study attempts to unravel the language through a close reading. With the focus on the semiotics of the & horbar;old men," & horbar;singing school," and & horbar;drowsy Emperor," in my invesgiation, I will decode the philosophical riddles in Yeats's work. Eventually, the analysis will show the concept of shifting power and its integration to space and history, which evokes the essence of theories related to cultural hegemony (Antonio Gramsci) and power relations (Michel Foucault) within historical context, but also throughout the act of reading the text.
The accelerated aging of the population generates increased pressures to ensure long-term care (LTC) services for the persons in need. The aim of this article is to analyse the adequacy of long-term care services to the needs of older persons based on a qualitative approach. A special focus of the article is dedicated to the analysis of the barriers that limit access to care, as well as to explore how these challenges shape the expectations of beneficiaries. Socioeconomic factors, geographical factors, limited supply in terms of LTC services, the quality of services, negative image with regard to long-term care services, especially in case of residential one, are the main barriers that limit the access to long-term care services. The study contributes to a better understanding of the correspondence between policy frameworks and the needs of older adults in Romania. Ultimately, the findings are expected to inform the development of more responsive and person-cantered long-term care models that can effectively meet the demands of an aging population.
While considered a distinctive genre, multiple elements can be indigenous African culture. However, there is limited research on the African roots of African American culture. Additionally, there is still scope left in exploring how African indigenous practices can lead to sustainable living. The main objective of this comparative study is to highlight the indigenous African connections of African American culture and to explore the applications of African indigenous wisdom on global issues through Jesmyn American culture is rooted in the African indigenous cultural practices. Moreover, with the concepts of oral tradition, spirituality, Ubuntu, and ecobio-communitarianism, African indigenous wisdom can help resolve various contemporary complications, such as communal friction, irreligiosity, diasporic trauma, and environmental issues, including biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion, and climate change, leading to a sustainable future.
George Eliot in Silas Marner portrays the protagonist as a heroic character who is brave, generous and intelligent. Through this novel, Eliot expresses her desire to create sympathy for the wounded humanity. This is a reflection of the altruistic view of the world proposed by Auguste Comte. This study examines Comte's view of philanthropy in Silas Marner. In doing so, this article goes through Auguste Comte's altruism philosophy to analyse Silas Marner. This study evaluates the contest of the nineteenth-century European society and the author's intention to depict an ideal physiological state of mind. The characters and plot have been monitored from a very close view to examine each and every move in order to get a clear picture of the society. The findings highlight that 19th century Europe was povertystricken, engulfed by socio-economic crises and at the same time however, it was the time of new thought and technologies. In this regard George Eliot in this novel, desires to show a path for humanity to get rid of the sufferings.
