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The Narrative Mediterranean: Beyond France And The Maghreb, Claudia Esposito

Claudia Esposito

The Narrative Mediterranean: Beyond France and the Maghreb examines literary texts by writers from the Maghreb and positions them in direct relation to increasingly querulous debates on the shifting identity of the modern Mediterranean. This book argues that reading works by writers such as Albert Camus and Tahar Ben Jelloun alongside authors such as Fawzi Mellah and Mahi Binebine in a transnational rather than binary interpretive framework transcends a colonial and postcolonial bind in which France is the dominant point of reference. While focusing on works in French, this book also examines Maghrebi authors who write in Italian.

The texts …

From Philosopher To Cultural Icon: Reflections On Hu Mei's "Confucius" (2010), Joseph Lee, Ronald Frank, Renqiu Yu, Bing Xu

Joseph Tse-Hei Lee

No abstract provided.

Imperial Inheritances: Lapses, Love And Laws In The Colonial Machine, Leila Neti

Leila Neti

This essay examines eighteenth- and nineteenth-century inheritance laws in India in order to analyse the intersections between state power, heteronormative reproductivity and colonial structures of race. In particular, I focus on the case of Troup et al. v. East India Company, which involves the estate of Begum Sumroo, one of the wealthiest women in colonial India. I explore the ways in which the normativization of western notions of inheritance, allied with reproductive heterosexuality, worked to undergird the racialized expansion of Empire. I argue that, by law, inheritance and gain came to be reinforced as heteronormative (in its definition, procreative) and …

Empires Of Love: Europe, Asia, And The Making Of Early Modern Identity, Carmen Nocentelli

Carmen Nocentelli

Winner of the 2014 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies Awarded the 2014 Roland H. Bainton Book Prize in Literature by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference

Anti-Haitian Rhetoric And The Monumentalizing Of Violence In Joaquin Balaguer's Guía Emocional De La Ciudad Romántica, Medar Serrata

Medar Serrata

This essay compares four editions of the book Guía emocional de la ciudad romántica, by the Dominican author and politician Joaquin Balaguer. The book, a celebration of Santo Domingo’s monumental architecture, evokes the topos of the romantic poet who strolls down the streets of an ancient city admiring the remnants of the past. A closer examination, however, reveals a text deeply invested in the monumentalizing of violence—a text that portrays the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo as the savior of the nation. Moreover, the metaphorical stroll that the reader is invited to take reenacts the movement of history in order to …