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1976 | |
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semiannually | |
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English | |
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literary and cultural studies |
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1729-6897 | |
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Editor
Editorial Board
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1. Manuscripts should be submitted in English. Please send the manuscript, an abstract, a list of keywords, and a vita as Word-attachments to . Alternatively, please mail us two hard copies and an IBM-compatible diskette copy. Concentric will acknowledge receipt of the submission but will not return it after review. 2. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the latest edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Except for footnotes in single space, manuscripts must be double-spaced, typeset in 12-point Times New Roman. 3. To facilitate the Journal’s anonymous refereeing process, there must be no indication of personal identity or institutional affiliation in the manuscript proper. The name and institution of the author should appear on a separate title page or in the vita. The author may cite his/her previous works, but only in the third person. 4. The Journal will not consider for publication manuscripts being simultaneously submitted elsewhere. 5. If the paper has been published or submitted elsewhere in a language other than English, please make available two copies of the non-English version. Concentric may not consider submissions already available in other languages. 6. One copy of the Journal and fifteen off-prints of the article will be provided to the author(s) on publication.
7. It is the Journal’s policy to require assignment of copyrights form by all authors.
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Concentric Editor
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Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies
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Emerging as one of the best journals of its kind produced outside of West, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies is, in the words of Professor Ronald Bogue, “one of the most vibrant and innovative vehicles of transcultural exchange active today.” Its history traces back to 1976 when the journal was published as a joint study of the English language and literature. Starting from 1999, it has become a medium devoted to exclusively literary and cultural studies. It is now published biannually in March and September by Bookman Books, Ltd. for the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, in Taipei, Taiwan. A peer-reviewed journal, Concentric is dedicated to offering innovative perspectives on literary and cultural issues, as well as to initiating the transcultural exchange of ideas. While foregrounding Asian—and particularly Taiwanese—points of view, Concentric encourages all perspectives and approaches including comparative and interdisciplinary ones, and welcomes original contributions from diverse national and cultural backgrounds, which address any of the many dimensions of literatures and cultures. Concentric is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography; the Taiwan Humanities Citation Index (THCI); and in PerioPath: An Index to Chinese Periodical Literature. |
Who Speaks for the Human Today?, Volume 32, Number 2
In the context of the “Crisis of the Humanities,” this issue of Concentric takes up the problem of the “human.” Revisiting the history of “human nature,” guest editor Wlad Godzich calls for a theory of “ohominization” to contest the Mighty Man syndrome— man’s assumption that he, being (in) the center f the world, can infinitely perfect himself—which Immanuel Kant helped to establish in his Anthropology in 1798. The Enlightenment science of Man is called into question by the animal-centered research of German biologist Jacob von Uexküll, whose study of the “Umwelt” influenced Lacan and Canguilhem and revised neo-Kantian Gestalt psychology. If anthropology fails to speak for the human, perhaps the art of storytelling can do so; Nietzsche’s and Wilde’s narrative self-creation echoes Godzich’s discussion of Pico’s idea of man as “indeterminate creature” who must therefore “form himself.” We also find the human invested in financial speculation: in 17th-century Amsterdam’s stock market the fragments of shares become the basis of an “economic theology,” and the allegorization of human contingency is also a “de-centering” of man. Kafka in his animal parables deconstructs the Great Chain of Being myth discussed by Godzich by “speculating” on the human condition. Of course, any account of the “human” must take into con- sideration the problem of gender: while the “gay gene” debate’s focus on the implications of the biological determinism of gender identity may seem to presuppose a human (male) universal, both French and American feminists have argued for a female “singular” universal. Finally, Concentric 32. 2 includes an interview with Elaine Scarry, who talks about the human body’s experience of pain in wartime and under torture, and a personal essay by Donna Haraway, in which she contributes to the redefinition of the human: this involves our becoming aware of our own infinitude, of our vital reliance on “companion species.”