Alan Ali Saeed | University of Sulaimani (original) (raw)
Papers by Alan Ali Saeed
rEFLections
This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP... more This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It is a stand-alone volume, unlike many EAP books that have become a series differentiated by stages of student ability (for example, the Oxford EAP series or Longman Academic Writing). The advantage is that Bailey's textbook accompanies the student through their courses, from beginner to advanced, rather than requiring several separate books. The book is systematic and thorough, with varied examples of material, and it is broken into logical sections and subsections like a science or engineering textbook. The emphasis is on students practicing and completing writing throughout, rather than a more theoretical approach.
Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter, 2022
First published in July 1828, The Spectator is the world’s oldest weekly magazine. It focuses on ... more First published in July 1828, The Spectator is the world’s oldest weekly magazine. It focuses on current affairs, politics and culture and is well worth a subscription for the cultural and literary discussions alone, write Steven Barfield, London South Bank, and Alan Ali Saeed, Sulaimani University, Iraqi Kurdistan.
New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory., 2023
Within networks of British modernist writing, Katherine Mansfield appears to be located on the fr... more Within networks of British modernist writing, Katherine Mansfield appears to be located on the fringes of literary modernism. She is principally a short story writer whose work does not exhibit explicit modernist narrative strategies such as stream of consciousness or linguistic experimentation, her politics are elusive (she was sceptical of feminism), and her writings, mostly published in magazines and appreciated by a popular readership, do not present the difficulty/complexity usually associated with modernist works. As a New Zealander living and writing in England, Mansfield was seen as not belonging to the traditional Anglo-American understanding of modernism. For example, Michael Levenson does not mention her in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (1999). However, Mansfield was a member of modernist networks, especially female ones. She was an influential reviewer and despite stylistic differences regarded as a competitor and rival by figures such as Virginia Woolf.
REFLections, 2022
This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP... more This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It is a stand-alone volume, unlike many EAP books that have become a series differentiated by stages of student ability (for example, the Oxford EAP series or Longman Academic Writing). The advantage is that Bailey's textbook accompanies the student through their courses, from beginner to advanced, rather than requiring several separate books. The book is systematic and thorough, with varied examples of material, and it is broken into logical sections and subsections like a science or engineering textbook. The emphasis is on students practicing and completing writing throughout, rather than a more theoretical approach.
The Bosphorus Review of Books, 2023
In-depth Interview
The Modernist Review, 2021
In Part I of this interview, published in our October issue, Steven Barfield and Alan Ali Saeed d... more In Part I of this interview, published in our October issue, Steven Barfield and Alan Ali Saeed discussed the students of Sulaimani University’s interactions with Mrs Dalloway and with modernism more broadly. In this second and final part of the interview, the pair discuss the wider contemporary resonances of identity in Mrs Dalloway with transcultural perspectives and the pedagogical methods that inform this.
ZANCO Journal of Humanity Sciences (ZJHS), Salahaddin University-Erbil, 2023
This article explores two stylistically very different texts of the modernist period, T.S. Eliot'... more This article explores two stylistically very different texts of the modernist period, T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow, through the comparative perspective of satire. It argues that they have more in common that may be at first supposed. The article argues in particular that the figure of Prufrock, the speaker of Eliot's poem, provides the model for Denis Stone, the poetic protagonist of Crome Yellow as it is shown in a comparative reading of the two texts, seen in terms of their modernist historical context. Satire is often thought of as too didactic a literary mode to be amenable to modernism which places its emphasis instead on aestheticism and artistic experimentation and not providing lessons on how human being can be better. However, this is not always the case and Eliot's self-satirising character Prufrock has important attributes that struck a chord with the generation, who like Huxley, lived through the horrors of World War One. The character of Prufrock with all his neurotic procrastination, failed romantic yearnings and doubts about his own masculinity came to inform Huxley's own perspective on his protagonist Denis Stone in his novel and the article draws on Freud's psychoanalytic explanation of neurosis to establish this. In conclusion, the article proposes that this comparative reading of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Crome Yellow in terms of satire requires us to see modernist satire as a novel, innovative, non-didactic form of satire, which in its tragi-comedy can be seen as directly implicated in British attitudes to both modernity and World War One.
Prairie Schooner, 2021
Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2021) Reviewed by Alan Ali... more Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2021)
Reviewed by Alan Ali Saeed, University of Sulaimani.
Journal of festive studies, Feb 23, 2023
This interview with Hemn Hussein presents a history of the Slemani International Festival from it... more This interview with Hemn Hussein presents a history of the Slemani International Festival from its inception to the present. The interview looks at the practical issues of funding and running the festival. Attention is focused on its particular context of being a Kurdish yet international festival and its significance within Kurdish cultural aspirations.
Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Neoliberal ideology immensely celebrated individual and collective freedom, yet fell short of rea... more Neoliberal ideology immensely celebrated individual and collective freedom, yet fell short of realizing that freedom itself can sometimes be the cause of fear and anxiety. In seeking to “liberate” the processes of capital accumulation, neoliberalism essentially created a form of hypercapitalism: a relatively new form of capitalism marked by the advancement in technology, media, and virtual reality. This economic system lead to a fragmentation of social life by allowing commercial or business interests to penetrate every aspect of human experience, leading to, what Jean Baudrillard called, a hyperreal mode of existence. In Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991), the notorious Wall Street banker, Patrick Bateman follows an apparent decline from a cynical misanthrope to a psychotic serial killer within the free-market hyperreal environment of the Reagan era. The novel portrays a nightmarish vision of freedom, the unbearable anxiety it creates, and individual’s psychological urge to ...
Anbar University Journal of Languages & Literature
Journal of University of Human Development
This research paper explores how and why the existing tradition of supernatural stories about gho... more This research paper explores how and why the existing tradition of supernatural stories about ghosts and other fantastical creatures, which located terror as an external factor in these unnatural and malignant beings, was transformed in the early to mid-Nineteenth Century into tales that are instead focused on fear in terms of the internal psychology of the narrator and the protagonist. It investigates two well-known examples of psychological horror, E.TA. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” (1816) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843). The research paper deploys a contextual historical approach examining the impact of Romanticism as a philosophy focusing on the individual’s mental state and extreme psychological situations, as well as developing scientific ideas about psychology in the period. In my argument it is “madness” (which could affect anyone in society) that became the new fear that haunted and fascinated society, replacing the explicitly external supernatural. I also us...
Brunel University London, 2015
This thesis reconsiders in detail the connections between a selection of innovative female modern... more This thesis reconsiders in detail the connections between a selection of innovative female modernist writers who experimented variously with stream-of-consciousness techniques, May Sinclair, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. It describes in this context the impact of the philosophy and thoughts of both William James and Henri Bergson upon these women writers' literary work. It also argues for a fundamental revision First and foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor and supervisor Professor Philip Tew of Brunel University London for the continuous support of my doctoral research and in that process for his patience, motivation and immense knowledge. Philip truly is the best supervisor for whom I could have hoped, being variously wise, encouraging, and thoroughly professional. He has been supportive throughout the entire process, making the PhD experience as enjoyable as it has been fruitful. I would also like to thank my cosupervisor Dr Nick Hubble, for his inspiring questions, insightful comments, and particularly for his constant support. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with both of them. I also like to thank the School of Arts of the Brunel University London for funding my research trip to France, the volunteering experience and the access I have been given to the research facilities. My appreciation as well goes to the Kurdistan Regional Government & Ministry of Higher Education with their unfailing support. Special thanks goes to my mentor and family friend Steven Barfield for his thoroughness and engaging interest in my thesis and for his brilliant comments, advice, help and suggestions. Last but not least, I want to thank my parents, my brothers and my friends for their continuous support and love, without which I would never have come this far. My sincere gratitude also extends to both my parents who inspired me to undertake a PhD in the first place. Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..…5 Chapter One Memory, Élan Vital and Stream of Consciousness in May Sinclair's Philosophical Writings and Mary Olivier……………………………………………63
Orwell Society Journal, 2021
Saeed, Alan Ali and Hisên, Rewşen (in conversation) Journal 19 Autumn 2021 / November 2021 ... more Saeed, Alan Ali and Hisên, Rewşen (in conversation)
Journal 19 Autumn 2021 / November 2021
Animal Farm in Kurdistan: A Conversation with Rewşen Hisên, translator of Orwell’s Animal Farm (Zeviya Ajelan) into Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Journal of Literature and Aesthetics. (University of Sydney, Australia), 2021
Accounts of the relations between British and French literature are comparatively unusual and the... more Accounts of the relations between British and French literature are comparatively unusual and the assumption is that these traditions of fiction are therefore separate and exclusive. In contrast, Adam Guy's methodical, systematic monograph argues that in the late 1950s until the end of the 1960s, there was a tangible, significant relationship between the two traditions shaped by aesthetic debates about the novel's form and modernism's continuing legacy. The experimental nouveau roman and its key romanciers such as
The Bosphorus Review of Books, 2021
This new graphic novel Temple of Refuge attempts something unusual for the medium, in telling the... more This new graphic novel Temple of Refuge attempts something unusual for the medium, in telling the story of a refugee from a refugee's point of view and it does so as a science-fiction fable. If you are interested in innovation in the subject matter of graphic novels then you will find something to enjoy in this work. If as an educator or
The Modernist Review (British Association for Modernist Studies), 2021
Reflections on Teaching Mrs Dalloway in Iraqi Kurdistan: An Interview with Steven Barfield (Part 1)
Tinakori: Critical Journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society., 2021
Several critics address the relationship between the philosopher Henri Bergson and the work of Ka... more Several critics address the relationship between the philosopher Henri Bergson and the work of Katherine Mansfield to situate her work in the field of Bergson’s impact on literary modernist writing more generally. The consensus has been that Bergson’s work on aesthetics and personal insight was enabling and positive for Mansfield and other modernist writers. This essay specifically examines Bergson’s social and political thought and Mansfield’s critical response to this with a reading of her 1922 story ‘A Cup of Tea’. Modern critics read this work as a satire about an upper-middle-class Bohemian woman. This article posits an alternative reading of the story developed from Mansfield’s engagement with Bergson’s political concept of ‘love’, which resulted in her questioning Bergson’s philosophy as praxis to suggest that it poses significant difficulties for women framed in a patriarchal paradigm.
Technium Social Sciences Journal
This paper focuses on the two contradictory themes of feminism and victimizing women in Disney Cl... more This paper focuses on the two contradictory themes of feminism and victimizing women in Disney Classics, a series of films which are based on famous fairy tales and the development of the changes undergone by these stories over time. The study is carried out through an analysis of the themes of the stories with a critical feminist approach in three chronological stages. Previous studies have explored these themes, but no report to date has used a chronological approach to compare the significance of the mentioned themes with the stages of feminism. These stories develop in line with developments in society and widen their perspective when examined through a feminist lens, and this change is also reflected in the Disney treatments of these tales. Despite the similarities in the plots of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Little Mermaid, the representations of the voice and agency of the female characters in these films differs significantly, especially in the case of Snow White.
rEFLections
This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP... more This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It is a stand-alone volume, unlike many EAP books that have become a series differentiated by stages of student ability (for example, the Oxford EAP series or Longman Academic Writing). The advantage is that Bailey's textbook accompanies the student through their courses, from beginner to advanced, rather than requiring several separate books. The book is systematic and thorough, with varied examples of material, and it is broken into logical sections and subsections like a science or engineering textbook. The emphasis is on students practicing and completing writing throughout, rather than a more theoretical approach.
Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter, 2022
First published in July 1828, The Spectator is the world’s oldest weekly magazine. It focuses on ... more First published in July 1828, The Spectator is the world’s oldest weekly magazine. It focuses on current affairs, politics and culture and is well worth a subscription for the cultural and literary discussions alone, write Steven Barfield, London South Bank, and Alan Ali Saeed, Sulaimani University, Iraqi Kurdistan.
New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory., 2023
Within networks of British modernist writing, Katherine Mansfield appears to be located on the fr... more Within networks of British modernist writing, Katherine Mansfield appears to be located on the fringes of literary modernism. She is principally a short story writer whose work does not exhibit explicit modernist narrative strategies such as stream of consciousness or linguistic experimentation, her politics are elusive (she was sceptical of feminism), and her writings, mostly published in magazines and appreciated by a popular readership, do not present the difficulty/complexity usually associated with modernist works. As a New Zealander living and writing in England, Mansfield was seen as not belonging to the traditional Anglo-American understanding of modernism. For example, Michael Levenson does not mention her in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (1999). However, Mansfield was a member of modernist networks, especially female ones. She was an influential reviewer and despite stylistic differences regarded as a competitor and rival by figures such as Virginia Woolf.
REFLections, 2022
This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP... more This is the latest edition of a stalwart textbook for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It is a stand-alone volume, unlike many EAP books that have become a series differentiated by stages of student ability (for example, the Oxford EAP series or Longman Academic Writing). The advantage is that Bailey's textbook accompanies the student through their courses, from beginner to advanced, rather than requiring several separate books. The book is systematic and thorough, with varied examples of material, and it is broken into logical sections and subsections like a science or engineering textbook. The emphasis is on students practicing and completing writing throughout, rather than a more theoretical approach.
The Bosphorus Review of Books, 2023
In-depth Interview
The Modernist Review, 2021
In Part I of this interview, published in our October issue, Steven Barfield and Alan Ali Saeed d... more In Part I of this interview, published in our October issue, Steven Barfield and Alan Ali Saeed discussed the students of Sulaimani University’s interactions with Mrs Dalloway and with modernism more broadly. In this second and final part of the interview, the pair discuss the wider contemporary resonances of identity in Mrs Dalloway with transcultural perspectives and the pedagogical methods that inform this.
ZANCO Journal of Humanity Sciences (ZJHS), Salahaddin University-Erbil, 2023
This article explores two stylistically very different texts of the modernist period, T.S. Eliot'... more This article explores two stylistically very different texts of the modernist period, T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow, through the comparative perspective of satire. It argues that they have more in common that may be at first supposed. The article argues in particular that the figure of Prufrock, the speaker of Eliot's poem, provides the model for Denis Stone, the poetic protagonist of Crome Yellow as it is shown in a comparative reading of the two texts, seen in terms of their modernist historical context. Satire is often thought of as too didactic a literary mode to be amenable to modernism which places its emphasis instead on aestheticism and artistic experimentation and not providing lessons on how human being can be better. However, this is not always the case and Eliot's self-satirising character Prufrock has important attributes that struck a chord with the generation, who like Huxley, lived through the horrors of World War One. The character of Prufrock with all his neurotic procrastination, failed romantic yearnings and doubts about his own masculinity came to inform Huxley's own perspective on his protagonist Denis Stone in his novel and the article draws on Freud's psychoanalytic explanation of neurosis to establish this. In conclusion, the article proposes that this comparative reading of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Crome Yellow in terms of satire requires us to see modernist satire as a novel, innovative, non-didactic form of satire, which in its tragi-comedy can be seen as directly implicated in British attitudes to both modernity and World War One.
Prairie Schooner, 2021
Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2021) Reviewed by Alan Ali... more Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2021)
Reviewed by Alan Ali Saeed, University of Sulaimani.
Journal of festive studies, Feb 23, 2023
This interview with Hemn Hussein presents a history of the Slemani International Festival from it... more This interview with Hemn Hussein presents a history of the Slemani International Festival from its inception to the present. The interview looks at the practical issues of funding and running the festival. Attention is focused on its particular context of being a Kurdish yet international festival and its significance within Kurdish cultural aspirations.
Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Neoliberal ideology immensely celebrated individual and collective freedom, yet fell short of rea... more Neoliberal ideology immensely celebrated individual and collective freedom, yet fell short of realizing that freedom itself can sometimes be the cause of fear and anxiety. In seeking to “liberate” the processes of capital accumulation, neoliberalism essentially created a form of hypercapitalism: a relatively new form of capitalism marked by the advancement in technology, media, and virtual reality. This economic system lead to a fragmentation of social life by allowing commercial or business interests to penetrate every aspect of human experience, leading to, what Jean Baudrillard called, a hyperreal mode of existence. In Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991), the notorious Wall Street banker, Patrick Bateman follows an apparent decline from a cynical misanthrope to a psychotic serial killer within the free-market hyperreal environment of the Reagan era. The novel portrays a nightmarish vision of freedom, the unbearable anxiety it creates, and individual’s psychological urge to ...
Anbar University Journal of Languages & Literature
Journal of University of Human Development
This research paper explores how and why the existing tradition of supernatural stories about gho... more This research paper explores how and why the existing tradition of supernatural stories about ghosts and other fantastical creatures, which located terror as an external factor in these unnatural and malignant beings, was transformed in the early to mid-Nineteenth Century into tales that are instead focused on fear in terms of the internal psychology of the narrator and the protagonist. It investigates two well-known examples of psychological horror, E.TA. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” (1816) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843). The research paper deploys a contextual historical approach examining the impact of Romanticism as a philosophy focusing on the individual’s mental state and extreme psychological situations, as well as developing scientific ideas about psychology in the period. In my argument it is “madness” (which could affect anyone in society) that became the new fear that haunted and fascinated society, replacing the explicitly external supernatural. I also us...
Brunel University London, 2015
This thesis reconsiders in detail the connections between a selection of innovative female modern... more This thesis reconsiders in detail the connections between a selection of innovative female modernist writers who experimented variously with stream-of-consciousness techniques, May Sinclair, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. It describes in this context the impact of the philosophy and thoughts of both William James and Henri Bergson upon these women writers' literary work. It also argues for a fundamental revision First and foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor and supervisor Professor Philip Tew of Brunel University London for the continuous support of my doctoral research and in that process for his patience, motivation and immense knowledge. Philip truly is the best supervisor for whom I could have hoped, being variously wise, encouraging, and thoroughly professional. He has been supportive throughout the entire process, making the PhD experience as enjoyable as it has been fruitful. I would also like to thank my cosupervisor Dr Nick Hubble, for his inspiring questions, insightful comments, and particularly for his constant support. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with both of them. I also like to thank the School of Arts of the Brunel University London for funding my research trip to France, the volunteering experience and the access I have been given to the research facilities. My appreciation as well goes to the Kurdistan Regional Government & Ministry of Higher Education with their unfailing support. Special thanks goes to my mentor and family friend Steven Barfield for his thoroughness and engaging interest in my thesis and for his brilliant comments, advice, help and suggestions. Last but not least, I want to thank my parents, my brothers and my friends for their continuous support and love, without which I would never have come this far. My sincere gratitude also extends to both my parents who inspired me to undertake a PhD in the first place. Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..…5 Chapter One Memory, Élan Vital and Stream of Consciousness in May Sinclair's Philosophical Writings and Mary Olivier……………………………………………63
Orwell Society Journal, 2021
Saeed, Alan Ali and Hisên, Rewşen (in conversation) Journal 19 Autumn 2021 / November 2021 ... more Saeed, Alan Ali and Hisên, Rewşen (in conversation)
Journal 19 Autumn 2021 / November 2021
Animal Farm in Kurdistan: A Conversation with Rewşen Hisên, translator of Orwell’s Animal Farm (Zeviya Ajelan) into Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Journal of Literature and Aesthetics. (University of Sydney, Australia), 2021
Accounts of the relations between British and French literature are comparatively unusual and the... more Accounts of the relations between British and French literature are comparatively unusual and the assumption is that these traditions of fiction are therefore separate and exclusive. In contrast, Adam Guy's methodical, systematic monograph argues that in the late 1950s until the end of the 1960s, there was a tangible, significant relationship between the two traditions shaped by aesthetic debates about the novel's form and modernism's continuing legacy. The experimental nouveau roman and its key romanciers such as
The Bosphorus Review of Books, 2021
This new graphic novel Temple of Refuge attempts something unusual for the medium, in telling the... more This new graphic novel Temple of Refuge attempts something unusual for the medium, in telling the story of a refugee from a refugee's point of view and it does so as a science-fiction fable. If you are interested in innovation in the subject matter of graphic novels then you will find something to enjoy in this work. If as an educator or
The Modernist Review (British Association for Modernist Studies), 2021
Reflections on Teaching Mrs Dalloway in Iraqi Kurdistan: An Interview with Steven Barfield (Part 1)
Tinakori: Critical Journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society., 2021
Several critics address the relationship between the philosopher Henri Bergson and the work of Ka... more Several critics address the relationship between the philosopher Henri Bergson and the work of Katherine Mansfield to situate her work in the field of Bergson’s impact on literary modernist writing more generally. The consensus has been that Bergson’s work on aesthetics and personal insight was enabling and positive for Mansfield and other modernist writers. This essay specifically examines Bergson’s social and political thought and Mansfield’s critical response to this with a reading of her 1922 story ‘A Cup of Tea’. Modern critics read this work as a satire about an upper-middle-class Bohemian woman. This article posits an alternative reading of the story developed from Mansfield’s engagement with Bergson’s political concept of ‘love’, which resulted in her questioning Bergson’s philosophy as praxis to suggest that it poses significant difficulties for women framed in a patriarchal paradigm.
Technium Social Sciences Journal
This paper focuses on the two contradictory themes of feminism and victimizing women in Disney Cl... more This paper focuses on the two contradictory themes of feminism and victimizing women in Disney Classics, a series of films which are based on famous fairy tales and the development of the changes undergone by these stories over time. The study is carried out through an analysis of the themes of the stories with a critical feminist approach in three chronological stages. Previous studies have explored these themes, but no report to date has used a chronological approach to compare the significance of the mentioned themes with the stages of feminism. These stories develop in line with developments in society and widen their perspective when examined through a feminist lens, and this change is also reflected in the Disney treatments of these tales. Despite the similarities in the plots of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Little Mermaid, the representations of the voice and agency of the female characters in these films differs significantly, especially in the case of Snow White.
Sugar House Review, 2024
‘Review: Women’s Voices from Kurdistan: A Selection of Kurdish Poetry’
New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory, 2024
Public speaking, or as the Ancient Greeks called it rhetoric, is probably as old as civilisation ... more Public speaking, or as the Ancient Greeks called it rhetoric, is probably as old as civilisation itself. As Lucas (4) points out, the Ancient Athenian statesman Pericles reputed assertion2,500 years ago, is just as true now, as it was then: "One who forms a judgment on any point but cannot explain" it clearly "mightas well never have thought at all on the subject."Public speaking is often thought of as a subject limited to politicians, for example, in Mark Antony"s famous speech in Shakespeare"s Julius Caesar (Act III, scene ii): "Friends,
British Association for Modernist Studies: The Modernist Review, 2024
Book Review: The Intelligent Unconscious in Modernist Literature and Science
REFLections, 2024
Books on English language business communication often emphasise practicality. While the range of... more Books on English language business communication often emphasise practicality. While the range of tasks that such books equip learners for, have altered over the years (for example, Zoom and Skype video conversations have recently soared in popularity), their basic structure of vocabulary building with respect to communicative genres, organised around the specific duties of the workplace has not changed that much. What makes Chan's book distinctive is that it seeks to add to this model by being research-led, discussing our current understanding and theorisation of these distinct forms of communication. The 11 chapters cover all the typical genres of business communication (and a few less common ones like 'appraisal') and follow a similar structure. Each chapter's topic content is introduced with questions for reflection. Then, the significance in business of each mode of workplace communication is explored, and the mode is analysed to bring out generic elements of structure and content, drawing upon relevant research literature. Finally, real-world texts are provided and learners are then invited to complete post-reading tasks which deepen and extend their knowledge through reflection on practical work.
Image text Journal, 2021
Originally published in French in 2019 by Dargaud, Christin's and Verdier's acclaimed ORWELL (cap... more Originally published in French in 2019 by Dargaud, Christin's and Verdier's acclaimed ORWELL (capitals in original), has made a welcome appearance for English readers. It is ably translated by Edward Gauvin. As a graphic biography it is a serious work, ready to take on the considerable challenges of depicting its peculiarly complex, often paradoxical subject, who was: "Old Etonian, copper, vagrant prole, dandy, militiaman, journalist, rebel, novelist, eccentric, socialist, patriot, gardener, hermit, visionary" (5). Author Christin's description only scratches the surface of the contradictions of Eric Blair (1903-1950), the writer better known by his pen name, George Orwell (after the English river he fished). To date it is estimated some forty million odd copies of Animal Farm and 1984, in English or in translation, have been sold or otherwise circulated.