This paper explores the representation of female monstrosity which are relied upon by two female Japanese writers to illustrate modern Japanese women’s process of reclaiming power. Hitomi Kanehara in Snakes and Earrings and Yōko Ogawa in Hotel Iris depict women involved in BDSM relationships which shape how their characters are seen, how they view themselves, and how they develop their consciousness of the world. Although the female protagonists of each novel are presented in a...

The elusive nature and the function of art occupy a highly contested territory within aesthetic philosophy since its inception. The present article also engages with the question of the nature and the function of art, though in a more narrowed and specific domain. The claim that is going to be tackled here is whether improvisation in art, in general, makes a statement against empirical science? To corroborate this claim I will look at specific artworks...

The countless interpretations of The Master and Margarita emphasize the most disturbing thought for the readers. This is an amazingly simple and moving truth: from the clutches of the Soviet Empire which destroys the Master only Satan can release him. The Master’s saviour is the spirit of evil. In this article I would like to show Bulgakov’s rich and ambiguous topography of evil, then to expand the view of the topography of good. Keywords: Master...

In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky addresses the problem of how to reconcile God’s goodness with the evil in the world by comparing the metaphysical implications of Ivan Karamazov’s and the Elder Zosima’s Euclidean and non-Euclidean epistemologies. For Ivan, the moral opposites of good and evil cannot be reconciled, just as two parallel lines cannot meet (Euclid’s fifth postulate). For Zosima, the symbol of the crucifix represents a meeting of the parallel lines and the...