The paper offers an imagological analysis of Thomas’s debut novel The Hate U Give (2017) with the aim of showing that the cultural image of the Black race is a firmly rooted construct in the United States. The analysis is based on the ideas proposed by Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (2006) and suggests that despite the well-established theoretical ideas of American-ness and the greatness of the American nation, there is no single nation to speak of in the US society. Anderson suggests that the society has preconceived beliefs on members of certain (racial, ethnic) groups, which the novel clearly depicts through the novel’s protagonist, Starr Carter, who engages in code switching in order to get a better education and, thus, a chance for success outside of the black ghetto. The pre-established notions and stereotypes, often promoted via populist discourse of the dominant group, prevent unification of people into a nation and at the same time give rise to nationalism, racism, and hatred.

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Written in 1965, Stoner, the recently re-discovered academic novel by John Williams (1922-1994) deals with a variety of intriguing issues such as the role of literature in the personal growth of an individual, the tension between private desires and social customs, and the role of family in an individual’s life.1 By some, it was read as “an all-American success story …[about] socio-economic mobility through hard work, individual effort, and merit” (Wald 2). Our paper, however, will focus on the portrayal of issues such as academic integrity and the perception of academics and academic work. Williams’s novel, not only through the story it tells, but also as an object, as a work of art, seems to reflect on the worrying idea of the irrelevance of the humanities, the humanist way of thinking, and humanist preoccupations, and does this in a way that is rather untypical of most campus novels.

In 1996, Samuel Huntington argued that the end of the Cold War Era marked the end of global instability based on ideological and economic differences and preferences. However, he did not predict any kind of a peaceful future for humankind but maintained that future conflicts will arise from cultural differences. The clashes are inevitable, he claims, as long as one side (usually the West) insists on imposing universalism to other civilizations whose cultural awareness is on the rise. Ever since the Vietnam War, American military tacticians have believed that the knowledge and understanding of the enemy's culture will lead to victory, and American military academies and schools are dedicating more attention to cultural studies within their general strategy. This paper is based on the reading and analysis of several American fiction and non-fiction novels from the Vietnam and the Iraq Wars. Since all of these works are first-hand accounts of war experience and soldiers' cultural encounters with their 'adversaries', the research is focused on the (im)possibility of soldiers' true understanding and appreciation of different cultures/civilizations during wartime. It also suggests that knowing the enemy is to no avail if wars are fought with the goal of Westernizing other cultures. Keywords: Culture; West; United States of America; war; American literature Mi proti njim: Kulturna srečevanja na vojnih območjih skozi branje ameriške vojne književnosti POVZETEK Leta 1996 je Samuel Huntington predstavil tezo, da konec hladne vojne pomeni tudi konec globalne nestabilnosti, ki temelji na ideoloških in ekonomskih razlikah oziroma preferencah. Hkrati je napovedal, da prihodnost človeštva kljub temu ne bo mirna, pač pa da bodo prihodnji konflikti izhajali iz kulturnih razlik. Zapisal je, da so spopadi neizogibni, dokler ena od strani (običajno Zahod) vztraja na vsiljevanju univerzalizma civilizacijam, katerih kulturna zavest se krepi. Vse od vietnamske vojne so ameriški vojaški taktiki prepričani, da poznavanje in razumevanje sovražnikove kulture vodi k zmagi, zato ameriške vojaške akademije in šole v svojih strategijah vse bolj poudarjajo kulturne študije. Pričujoči prispevek temelji na branju in analizi več ameriških leposlovnih in neleposlovnih romanov o vietnamski in iraški vojni. Ker vsi predstavljajo neposredne izkušnje in kulturna srečevanja vojakov z njihovimi »nasprotniki«, se raziskava osredinja na njihovo (ne)zmožnost resničnega razumevanja in spoštovanja različnih kultur oziroma civilizacij v času vojne. Prispevek pokaže tudi, da je poznavanje sovražnika zaman, če je cilj vojne preoblikovanje drugih kultur po zahodnem zgledu.

The Symbolism of the Sword in Yoshikawa's MusashiIn his masterpiece Musashi (1935), the author Eiji Yoshikawa depicts the birth of an ingenious swordsman and his spiritual evolution towards the final awakening ( satori ). While constructing the character of Miyamoto Musashi, Yoshikawa uses the elements of Zen Buddhist philosophy and describes Musashi's progress on his way of enlightenment through a series of direct personal insights ( kensho ) that precede satori. The paper aims to discuss and analyze Musashi's use of different types of swords that metaphorically suggest his personal and spiritual transformation from an untamed and uncultivated person to his ultimate enlightenment. Initially, Musashi fights with a wooden sword ( bokken ), which symbolizes his animalistic, rampant nature. As he progresses on the way of enlightenment, Musashi embraces the steel sword ( katana ), though he still uses bokken at times. The struggle between his wild and civilized nature culminates at the moment of kensho , when he starts fighting with two steel swords, which represents a true evolution that elevates him to the level of the Nietzschean Übermensch . The final birth of Musashi as a Rinzaian "man of no rank" is the moment of his ultimate awakening, symbolically depicted when he again reaches for the wooden sword. This act unmasks his true Buddhist nature, thus suggesting Musashi's return to "oneself."