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The present article discusses recent developments in American crime fiction, namely the so-called Amish mysteries by Linda Castillo and Jodi Picoult. The aim is to show that although Castillo’s and Picoult’s fiction has been termed ethnic crime writing, the way these writers make use of the Amish setting does not serve the primarily educational purpose of raising awareness of a specific ethnic group as was the case with the older generation of ethnic crime writers (such as Tony Hillerman and P.L. Gaus). Employing Bakhtin’s idyllic chronotope (a concept most often critically applied to classic works1 but shown here as a versatile instrument for discussing genre literature as well) as a point of reference, the paper further analyses how the narratives invoke this familiar spatial model and initiate its violation. It is argued that the writers’ narrative strategies serve to achieve the sharpest contrast between the idyllic place of love, family and labour and the hideous crimes committed there, implying that idyllic rurality is either too fragile to be attainable or that its existence is a mere deception.
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The destruction of the idyll: Linda Castillo’s and Jodi Picoult’s Amish crime fiction

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In his last published novel, <italic>The Marble Faun (Hawthorne, 1974)</italic>, in spite of his seeming sympathy for Miriam’s plea for friendship, Hawthorne’s narrator relates to Miriam as a “guilty” and “bloodstained” woman, who similarly to the female Jewish models portrayed in her paintings, carries misery, vice and death into the world. The narrator’s ambiguity vis-àvis Miriam’s moral fibre, on the one hand, and his infatuation with the beautiful and talented female artist, on the other, stands at the heart of the novel. The goal of this paper is mainly addressed at examining Miriam’s position in Hawthorne’s fiction, through an analysis of his treatment of his other “dark” and “light” women. Furthermore, I enquire whether Miriam is to be perceived in terms of the popular stereotypical representations of Jewish women (usually, Madonnas or whores), or whether she is granted more original and idiosyncratic characteristics. Next, I discuss Hawthorne’s treatment of Miriam’s artistic vocation, discerning her distinctiveness as a female Jewish 19th-century artist. Finally, Hawthorne’s unconventional choice of Rome as the setting for his novel unquestionably entails reference to the societal, cultural and political forces at play.
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Hawthorne’s Miriam – a female enigma: A seductive <italic>femme fatale</italic> or a victim of abuse?

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This study explores the self-nature relationship through tracing the key role that the weather conditions in Arab American Laila Lalami’s novel <italic>The Other Americans</italic> (2019) play in narrating the protagonist’s story. It highlights how the weather conditions echo Nora’s deep emotions and reflect her inner thoughts and feelings in the light of her relationships with other characters. The study focuses on Nora’s journey of becomingness and reveals that through depicting the changes in the weather, the story of Nora’s self-actualization and settlement can be narrated. It considers presenting how reading the weather conditions informs the reader about Nora’s self-perception, love affairs, career development and aspirations. It also explores how Lalami employs weather description to show the ways in which Nora ends up achieving self-reconciliation. As the events unfold, Nora is transformed from a person who comments on the clouds and winds and describes the fogs and rains to a fully-fledged character who, figuratively, is able to conjure up thunderstorms and hurricanes. Hence, by paying closer attention to the weather conditions, one can arguably witness Nora’s metamorphosis. In other words, Lalami’s novel is a site in which discourses on identity, ethnicity, multiculturalism and environment converge.
</abstract>

The weather as a storyteller in Lalami’s <italic>The Other Americans</italic>

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Postcolonial criticism offers a radically new platform for the interpretation of science fiction texts. Mostly preoccupied with the themes of alien other and interstellar colonization, the genre of sci-fi breaths with colonial discourse and postcolonial tropes and imagery. Although Margaret Atwood rejects the label of science fiction writer, her dystopian novel <italic>The Handmaid’s Tale</italic> (1985) explores similar ethical concerns to the anti-conquest narratives of postcolonial authors. Atwood’s identification of Canadian identity as a victim of the former British Empire is challenged by her introduction of a female character rejecting their postcolonial subjugated identity in a patriarchal society. Her variation on dystopian concerns is motivated by sexuality, and her characters are reduced to objects of colonial desire with no agency. The protagonist, Offred, endures double colonization from the feminist perspective; yet, in terms of postcolonial criticism, Attwood’s character of Offred is allowed to reconstruct her subaltern identity through her fragmented narration of the past and speak in an authoritative voice. The orality of her narration only confirms the predisposition of the text to interpretation in the same terms as postcolonial fiction.
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A postcolonial feminist dystopia: Margaret Atwood’s <italic>The Handmaid’s Tale</italic>

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Written by the Irish author Morgan Llywelyn in 1993, <italic>The Elementals</italic> focuses on the four powerful elements of nature that are essential to life: namely Water, Fire, Earth and Air. Consisting of four parts divided in accordance to these elements, the novel connects four stories which raise universal ecological awareness and present the danger of a future collapse in nature. Depicting the adventures of Irish-origin characters and the striking realization of their deep connection to nature at the end of each part, the novel awakens the reader to their inner relation to other humans, animals, plants, rocks and all parts of nature. Of Irish origins herself, through her novel Llywelyn displays the agency of nonhuman bodies in relation to human bodies, or in other words, Irish-origin human bodies, and the innate connection of all humans to the natural elements. Hence, this study aims to analyse <italic>The Elementals</italic> from the perspective of the new materialism theory underlining the interaction of all beings in the universe through the constant recalling of Ireland as a significant part of the natural culture.
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Back to Nature and Ireland: Morgan Llywelyn’s <italic>The Elementals</italic>

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Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman (2017) is a play about the Carney family living in 1980s Ireland during the period of insurgency of the Irish Republican Army (IRA – also known as the Provisional IRA) and its efforts to end British rule in Northern Ireland, a period known as “the Troubles”. This paper focuses on Jez Butterworth, one of the most distinctive voices of the contemporary British theatre scene and a typical representative of the 1990s cultural trend, and his tragedy <italic>The Ferryman</italic>, which portrays the struggle and conflicts between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists in Northern Ireland in the last decades of the 20th century. The second major point of the study is that the power of the Irish Republican Party has a heavy impact on the play. The paper also discovers how Sean Carney and other members of his family both embody and apply the story of Eugene Simons and other members of “the Disappeared”. Like other young men, Seamus Carney became a victim during the Troubles and the campaign of political violence. The discovery of his body symbolizes how political violence created the Disappeared and shows that re-victimization and retraumatisation continue in the aftermath of the Troubles.
</abstract>

Political violence and re-victimization in <italic>The Ferryman</italic>

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 15 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2023)

Volume 15 (2023): Issue 1 (June 2023)

Volume 14 (2022): Issue 2 (December 2022)

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Volume 13 (2021): Issue 3 (December 2021)

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Volume 13 (2021): Issue 1 (June 2021)

Volume 12 (2020): Issue 2 (December 2020)

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Volume 8 (2016): Issue 2 (December 2016)

Volume 8 (2016): Issue 1 (June 2016)

Volume 7 (2015): Issue 2 (December 2015)

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Volume 6 (2014): Issue 2 (December 2014)

Volume 6 (2014): Issue 1 (June 2014)

Ars Aeterna

 Ars Aeterna is a literary peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the questions of literature and art and their importance in the contemporary world for the development of culture, mutual understanding, and the human self. It invites international contributions in the field of literary studies, concerning primarily the Anglophone world. The journal is seeking submissions on English, American, Irish, Scottish, Canadian, Australian and other English literary traditions. Its aim is to provide up-to-date and innovative critical and theoretical approaches to the study of literary text. The journal accepts studies on literary relations which include the Western tradition, but we encourage contributions which deal with world literature as well. General and comparative literature studies are also appreciated and we are open to a broad variety of methods and theories. While the journal primarily focuses on the study of literary texts, contributions related to art and film which address the text are also welcome. Submissions in English should offer international perspectives on specific themes and subjects and the journal’s thematic scope wants to provide a stimulating platform for scholarly discussions and dissemination of original research on literary history, theory, literary criticism and related matters. The content of the journal consists of high quality research articles and its target audience includes scholars and researchers in the field of literature and the study of art.  Rejection Rate   30-40%   Visit our Facebook  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

Ars Aeterna

Volume 13 (2021): Issue 1 (June 2021)

The destruction of the idyll: Linda Castillo’s and Jodi Picoult’s Amish crime fiction

Hawthorne’s Miriam – a female enigma: A seductive femme fatale or a victim of abuse?

The weather as a storyteller in Lalami’s The Other Americans

A postcolonial feminist dystopia: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Back to Nature and Ireland: Morgan Llywelyn’s The Elementals

Political violence and re-victimization in The Ferryman

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