Comparative Literature Commons^™

The Gift: Synesthesia In Translingual Texts, Natasha Lvovich

Publications and Research

This article explores the relationship between multilingualism and synesthesia (neuro-psychological blend of senses). In the absence of research in any of the related fields, the author (a multilingual, a L2 scholar, a writer, and a synesthete all at once) views synesthesia through the lens of “translingual texts” written in L2 by multilingual authors and takes an interdisciplinary perspective, fusing L2 scholarship, cognitive theory, neuroscience, literary theory, and semiotics to investigate the complexities and subjectivities of the multilingual mind. ‘Translingual synesthesia’ appears to represent an idiosyncratic form of language emotionality and creativity, allowing translingual authors to transcend cognitive and linguistic realms …

Review Of Zazie Dans Le Metro, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Louis Malle's 1960 French New Wave film.

“Globalized Philomels: State Patriarchy, Transnational Capital, And The Femicides On The Us-Mexican Border In Roberto Bolaño’S 2666”, M Laura Barberan Reinares

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Trauma And The Representation Of The Unsayable In Late Twentieth-Century Fiction, Katina Rogers

Publications and Research

This dissertation explores the ways in which several fiction writers from France, the U.S., and Latin America experiment with the form of their works in writing about traumatic experience, as they navigate the tension between a propulsion toward expression and toward silence. Some of these traumas are vast, as in Edmond Jabès’ Le livre des questions (1963-1973), which addresses not only the Holocaust, but also questions of exile and identity. Others are on a smaller scale, such as Jacques Roubaud’s Quelque chose noir (1986), Julio Cortázar's Los autonautas de la cosmopista (1983), and Macedonio Fernández’s Museo de la Novela de …

“I Could Still See Her In My Mind’S Eye”: Water And Maternal Imagery In Uwe Johnson’S Anniversaries: From The Life Of Gesine Cresspahl, Caroline Rupprecht

Publications and Research

This article analyzes the writings of East German author Uwe Johnson (1934-84) in terms of his experimental style—specifically transitions between descriptive passages—in conjunction with maternal imagery, as discussed through reference to Susan Suleiman’s concept of a “1.5 generation” of Holocaust survivors. A non- Jewish German author, Johnson addresses German history from the position of the perpetrators, yet born in 1934, he experienced National Socialism from the point of view of a child. In his tetralogy, Anniversaries: From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (1970-83), feelings of guilt and attempts to understand the German past are negotiated through the maternal figure. This …

Latin America Translated (Again): Roberto BolañO'S The Savage Detectives In The United States, Sarah S. Pollack

Publications and Research

This essay addresses the cultural and political agendas that influence the selection of Latin American novels to be translated by U.S. publishers and the reception of these novels by U.S. readers. Focusing on two Latin American writers who have had enormous success in the U.S., the author traces the shift from the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, to the gritty realism of Roberto Bolaño, and asks what these different paradigms can tell us about stereotypical U.S. notions of Latin American cultural and political realities. Although Bolaño's work ostensibly realigns the coordinates of the …

Tintoretto And James: Exposing The Shattered Subject, Phyllis E. Vanslyck

Publications and Research

Though “influence” may be too strong a word, the compositional affinities between James and Tintoretto are pervasive and worthy of comparative analysis, especially because both artists capture the moment when wonder gives way to the lonely and final uncertainty of our knowledge—of self, of others, of secular or spiritual truth.

Separated by three centuries, these two artists both stage a forceful assault on the conventions of their medium and engender in the viewer or reader (as well as internal “perceivers”) a kind of vertigo—a visual and psychological dislocation that is the basis of a new kind of insight. In Tintoretto, …

Science Fiction And Postmemory Han In Contemporary Korean American Literature, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this essay, Seo-Young Chu explores representations of a specifically Korean American type of postmemory that she calls "postmemory han."

Review Of The Conformist, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/01/the-conformist.html

The Violence Of Merging: Unica Zürn 'S Writing (On) The Body, Caroline Rupprecht

Publications and Research

This article is about the work of German Surrealist Unica Zürn (1916-1970), known for her autobiographical text about madness, Der Mann im Jasmin: Eindrücke einer Geisteskrankheit (1977). The problem with Zürn's text, as this article demonstrates, is that it becomes nearly impossible to be distinguished from the author's life. Unlike conventional autobiographies, this text raises doubt oyer the sanity of the author who was not only diagnosed with schizophrenia but also made madness the subject of her writing. Zürn's companion, the artist Hans Bellmer, accused her of indulging in madness for the sake of being able to write about it; …

Literary Reference Into The New Century, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Changes in providing reference services for academic research in literature are examined, with the emphasis on the effects of new technologies.