Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Entretien Avec Vatché Boulghourjian, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Interview with Vatché Boulghourian, director of the movie Tramontane (Rabih), 2016, around the difficulties of representing the memory of civil war through the trials of a blind orphan.

Résumé

Entretien avec Vatché Boulghourian autour de son film Tramontane (Rabih), 2016, et des défis de traiter la mémoire de la guerre à travers les tracas bureaucratiques d'un orphelin aveugle.

الفنون المعاصرة من خلال أعمال ربيع مروة, Hana Kaaki

Regards

The article deals with the works of Rabih Mroué and its place in contemporary artistic practices in the Middle East region. The question of the study centers on the specificity of contemporary practices and the creative process of the artists in question, and the redefinition of Aesthetics – at least the traditional meaning of the concept – in light of the transformations of artistic thought and achievements.

Résumé

L’article traite des travaux de Rabih Mroué et de la place qu’il occupe dans les pratiques artistiques contemporaines au Moyen-Orient. Cette étude se concentre sur les spécificités du processus créatif de l’artiste, …

Entretien Avec Ziad Doueiri, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Entretien avec Ziad Doueiri, réalisateur du film L’Insulte (2017), sur les défis de la mise en scène et de la production d’un drame libanais à forte teneur politique.

La « Mimèsis » Dans Le Théâtre Et La Peinture, Joanna Raad

Regards

Le terme mimésis vient du verbe mimisthai qui signifie imiter, ou plus précisément suivre un exemple ou faire une « représentation ». Ainsi, l’imitation, ou mimésis, est un principe académique qui impose un culte de la représentation fondé sur la reconnaissance. Cet article voudrait discuter la manière dont la mimésis et l’illusion au théâtre interagissent avec l’art, et plus particulièrement la peinture.

La Prédominance Des Techniques Audiovisuelles Et Numériques Au Théâtre, Marcel Ghosn

Regards

The evolution of technologies in the audiovisual and theatre fields has succeeded in breaking the separation between actors and digital bodies. What is an actor today? Is he still essential on stage or in film? And what about digital bodies and their ability to produce and convey emotions and performances in the same way as a human actor?

Résumé

L'évolution des technologies dans les domaines du théâtre et de l’audiovisuel a permis d’effacer la frontière entre le corps de l’acteur et les corps numériques. Cela nous amène à poser la question : qu’est-ce qu’un acteur aujourd’hui ? Est-il toujours central …

Entretien Avec Le Producteur Georges Schoucair, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Interview with Georges Schoucair, producer of the movie Tramontane (Rabih, 2016).

فسيفولد إيميلوفيتش مايرخولد العبقري المشاغب, Michel Jabre

Regards

Meyerhold, dubbed “the people’s artist” by the Soviet regime, led a tumultuous artistic life and carried out provocative experiments in unconventional theatre settings. After cofounding the Moscow Art Theatre with renowned colleagues such as Stanislavski and Danchenko, he left the company to regain his independence as an actor and stage director. He then developed his theoretical concept of “conditional theatre,” reinterpreting classical plays in innovative ways and reimagining them within a renewed contemporary theatrical context.

Résumé

Meyerhold, surnommé « l’artiste du peuple » par le régime soviétique, a eu une vie artistique tumultueuse et a mené des expérimentations provocantes dans …

Éditorial, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

Le cinéma libanais s’illustre par son dynamisme manifeste dans le nombre de films tournés. Des comédies légères épinglent quelques caractéristiques et travers de la société et des mœurs libanaises. Des feuilletons télévisés engourdissent une frange importante de la population, avide de romantisme et d’aventures rocambolesques.
De ce lot de productions émergent des œuvres qui méritent considération et encouragement, surtout quand il s’agit de premiers films [...]

مسـرح شـوشـو للأطفال, Rana Azzaz

Regards

Theatre for children is grounded in imaginative creativity and forms an educational, intellectual, and aesthetic tradition that refines a child’s spirit while developing taste, a sense of beauty, and openness. In Lebanon, plays designed for children began appearing in professional theatre venues in the late 1960s. The “Chouchou Children’s Theatre” was among the earliest and most significant initiatives, drawing a strong response from young audiences. In this article, I examine this phenomenon – which emerged spontaneously and without a clear methodology – with particular attention to audience reception.

Résumé

Le théâtre pour enfants est une tradition éducative, intellectuelle et esthétique …

The Futures Of Comparative Literature Envisioned By Chinese Comparatists, Sheng Meng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Futures of Comparative Literature Envisioned by Chinese Compara­tists" Sheng Meng and Yue Chen discuss the future of Comparative Literature from the perspective of Chinese comparatists. They argue that in response to the latest rhetoric around the crisis and death of Comparative Literature as a discipline, Chinese comparatists have fallen into four major repre­sentative groups. While the first one advocates restoring of international literary relations study of the French School, the second and the third camp see the future of the discipline lying in both the turn to translation and world literature respectively. However, the most ambitious …

Selected Bibliography For The Study Of The "Death" Of The Discipline Of Comparative Literature, Peina Zhuang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Significance Of The Variation Theory In Cross-Cultural Communication, Yi Wan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Significance of the Variation Theory in Cross-Cultural Communication" Yi Wan analyzes some problems that East-West Comparative Literature, as a discipline, has encountered and discusses the significance of the development of the Variation Theory, proposed by Shunqing Cao. The author aims to explore two important points of this new platform, namely, heterogeneity and variation, and compares this new perspective to the French School, which is based on "influences" and the American School which is based on "analogies." By investigating the variations of literary texts or theories during the course of cross-civilization communication from the perspectives of imagology …

Black Australia ‘Writes Back’ To The Literary Traditions Of Empire, Danica Čerče

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

I In her article "Black Australia 'Writes Back' to the Literary Traditions of Empire" Danica Čerče discusses the verse of Australian Indigenous authors Romaine Moreton and Alf Taylor, notable for the overt objection to the institutional and historical processes. These have enabled and maintained the dominant position of those identified as white on the one hand, and the concomitant political, economic, and cultural subordination of Indigenous Australians on the other. Focused on strategies and poetic devices used by the two poets to engage non-Indigenous readers in the experience of their writing, the article examines how the rhetoric of their critique …

The Maze Of Shanghai Memory In Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Maze of Shanghai Memory in Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans" Biwu Shang analyzes the memory writing of the novel by combining current memory studies with narratology. The paper pursues three major goals. First, it delves into the maze of Shanghai memory embedded in this novel, which is typically formulated by two contrasting aspects: Christopher Banks's naïve and beautiful childhood memory of Shanghai, and his unhappy adulthood memory of it. Second, it explores how memory plays a dual function of deception and decoration. That is to say, Christopher deliberately uses his memory to create positive …

A Comparative Minoritarian Study Of Language Poetry Of Iran And The United States, Sama Khosravi Ooryad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "A Comparative Minoritarian Study of Language Poetry of Iran and the United States" Sama Khosravi Ooryad analyses Language poetry of the United States (1970s) and Language poetry of Iran (1990s) through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concepts of minor literature and rhizomic text. The argument of the article is that the two movements, in both their poems and theoretical passages, carry potentialities to be related to Deleuzian concepts. The practice of minor literature, rhizomic text and book as machine is more evident in the works of U.S. language poets. Moreover, Iranian language poetry, while being analyzed alongside …

Curricular Requirements, Critical Traditions, And Adaptation In The Paratext Of Chinese And American School Editions Of Robinson Crusoe, Haifeng Hui

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Curricular Requirements, Critical Traditions, and Adaptation in the Paratext of Chinese and American School Editions of Robinson Crusoe" Haifeng Hui analyses a Chinese new curricular edition and an American common core edition of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to reveal how the paratext can be utilized to reveal different ways of understanding in different educational cultures. He argues that the paratext powerfully exerts the publisher's authority over the text and the reader, thus shaping readers' interpretation of the story in the service of fulfilling specific national curricular needs. The Chinese edition aims more at how Crusoe's story should …

Agency And Political Engagement In Gide And Barrault's Post-War Theatrical Adaptation Of Kafka's The Trial, Yevgenya Strakovsky

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Agency and Political Engagement in Gide and Barrault's Post-war Theatrical Adaptation of Kafka's The Trial" Yevgenya Strakovsky considers the political themes of André Gide and Jean-Louis Barrault's Le Procès (The Trial, 1947), the first theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka's Der Prozess (The Trial, 1914). Strakovsky demonstrates that Le Procès, written and staged in the immediate aftermath of World War II, levels a critique against the passive complicity of citizens in unjust persecution in both its script and its staging. The paper also considers the elements of Kafka's prose that lend themselves to …

Theatre Translation As Historiography: Projections Of Greek Self-Identity Through English Translations During The European Crisis, Maria Mytilinaki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project focuses on theatre translation from Modern Greek into English through the examination of three plays translated in the early years of the ongoing Greek crisis (2012-2014). Currently Greek culture is received internationally through two important frames of reference: Hellenism, the admiration for the ancient Greek spirit, and the more recent negative associations with modern Greece provoked by the Eurozone crisis. The three translations I examine challenge these dual external projections onto Greek culture by promoting a more nuanced image that recontextualizes the Greek past. In their capacity to travel between cultures, often in bilingual iterations, these theatrical translations …

A Comparative History Of Resurrection Plants, John Charles Ryan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "A Comparative Literary History of Resurrection Plants" John Charles Ryan assembles a comparative history of resurrection plants through textual analysis of early botanical commentaries, herbal references, prose, poetry, and other sources. Resurrection plants include a diverse range of botanical species, typically of arid regions, that appear to come back to life after complete desiccation. Historical and contemporary observers—from sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard to contemporary Australian poet John Kinsella—have expressed an abiding fascination for resurrection plants' capacity to survive harsh environmental conditions. The plants court their own deaths by paring down—then restoring—physiological processes in relation to shifting ecological …

Urhobo Folklore And Udje Aesthetics In Tanure Ojaide's In The House Of Words And Songs Of Myself, Mathias I. Orhero

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Urhobo Folklore and Udje Aesthetics in Ojaide's In the House of Words and Songs of Myself" Mathias Orhero argues that Ojaide's poetry incorporates Urhobo folkloric contents and Udje style. Using African New Criticism as its theoretical anchor, this paper reveals that Ojaide amply deploys Urhobo folkloric contents and Udje aesthetics in both the form and contents of his poetry and thus, he continues as a modern Urhobo Udje maestro of the hybrid tradition. This paper also brings Ojaide's recent collections to critical lenses, especially as masterpieces of his Urhobo folkloric and Udje adaptations. Orhero concludes by …

The Representation Of Instinctive Homosexuality And Immoral Narcissism In Gide’S The Immoralist (1902) And Mann’S Death In Venice (1912), Louise Willis

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Representation of Instinctive Homosexuality and Immoral Narcissism in Gide’s The Immoralist (1902) and Mann’s Death in Venice (1912)" Louise Willis examines two early literary representations of homosexuality in André Gide's The Immoralist (1902) and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1912). She reads them with fin-de-siècle sexological theory, mainly Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Willis argues that the texts reflect the reconception of homosexuality as a latent instinct with pathological expression, rather than a sinful act of free will. The article explains that visual imagery conveys homoerotic desire, by incorporating Nietzsche's concept of …

The Indian Empire And Its Colonial Practices In South Asia, Yubraj Aryal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The India, Empire and its Colonial Practices in South Asia" Yubraj Aryal claims that Bharatiya discourse supports colonization in South Asia. This discourse justifies oppression of institutions, practices, of the non-Bharatiya colonized. The article examines Indian Empire's colonialism toward the weaker, smaller nations along its border and the Bharatiya ideology at the heart of the repressive empire, which is taken to represent the South Asian subcontinent. The article looks at the way in which Bharatiya is perhaps a more oppressive ideology than Orientalism and gives a glimpse into how society, culture, history, and textuality work around power …

Adoption, Cynical Detachment, And New Age Beliefs In Juno And Kung Fu Panda, Fu-Jen Chen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Adoption, Cynical Detachment, and New Age Beliefs in Juno and Kung Fu Panda" Fu-Jen Chen situates his study within today's prevailing climate of global consumption to argue that the 2007 film Juno—featuring an unconventional portrayal of the adoption triad and a cynical detachment from public values—not only trivializes and depoliticizes the practice of adoption but also serves as an ideological supplement to today's global capitalism. Furthermore, Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2 (2008; 2011) provide two ideological messages of contemporary New Age spirituality—"the belief in nothing" in part I, and "the attitude of inner peace" …

Memory And Identity-Focused Narratives In Tănase's 'Lived Book', Nicoleta D. Ifrim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Memory and identity-focused narratives in Tănase's 'lived book'" Nicoleta Ifrim analyses România mea (My Romania), Virgil Tănase's first book published after the fall of Ceausescu's regime, a collection of interviews in which personal history is fictionalized according to the narrative rules of a "spoken book." The text is representative for the Eastern intellectual travelling to the West, carrying out his own personal post-totalitarian traumas now mirrored in a self-oriented narrative.

The Dramatization Of Cultural Hybridity And The "In-Between" Turkey In Fazıl's Künye, Önder Çakırtaş

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Dramatization of Cultural Hybridity and the "In-Between" Turkey in Fazıl's Künye" Önder Çakırtaş addresses Turkey's historical context and exposes how political, social and cultural changes were expressed in Turkey's public sphere. Using Niyazi Berkes's theory of secularism as proceeding of modernism Çakırtaş discusses different examples of stylistic strategies of cultural hybridity in the playwright's historical-based play, Künye. He investigates how political changes in pre-Turkey times signify Turkey's national striving, and how the Ottoman-conservative past metamorphoses into Turkic-secular. The study juxtaposes the perceptions of 'introduction to Westernization' and 'departure from Islamic past' in a period …

Anarcho-Feminist Melodrama And The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Claire T. Solomon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Anarcho-Feminist Melodrama and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (1929-2016)" Claire Solomon analyzes the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope as an apparatus of capture (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand). More precisely, her article models how such tropes imply modes of reading anachronistically and metafictionally that decontextualize gestures of resistance and conflate female writers, performers, and characters across time and place. Solomon offers a situated formalist reading of Argentine playwright Salvadora Medina Onrubia's 1929 drama, Las descentradas, revealing an avant-garde counterpoint of melodrama and metafiction as an ambiguous alternative to capture.

Approaching The Value And The Future Of The Novel: A Book Review Article On Boxall's Scholarship, Yili Tang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Fashion And Female Beat Identity In The Writing Of Jones, Johnson, And Di Prima, Raven J. See

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Fashion and Female Beat Identity in the Writing of di Prima, Johnson, and Jones" Raven J. See discusses how the women writers of the Beat Generation have become iconically defined by their fashion choices. Clothing and accessories offer Beat women a means to construct and express their identity and Diane di Prima, Joyce Johnson, and Hettie Jones write about fashion in their narratives of self-creation. Like their male contemporaries, Beat women make style choices that allow them to reject mainstream culture and identify within Beat subculture. However, these women write about their decisions to accept or reject …

Tangier And Kerouac's Oriental Experience In Liminality, Peggy Pacini

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Tangier and Kerouac's Oriental Experience in Liminality" Peggy Pacini discusses Kerouac's production derived from his Tangerian experience. Since the Tangier narratives have no existence of their own in the Duluoz Legend and are included in larger volumes about traveling and passing through, Pacini examines how this production cohered within the entire Legend and the terminology and world vision Kerouac had already fashioned. Focusing on two texts, "Big Trip to Europe" and "Passing through Tangiers, France and London," Pacini considers Kerouac's and his alter ego Duluoz's visions of Tangier and their journey to Tangier as many thresholds or …

Bowles's Up Above The World As Beatnik Murder Mystery, Greg Bevan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Bowles's Up Above the World as Beatnik Murder Mystery" Greg Bevan discusses Paul Bowles's fourth and final novel, which at the time of its publication was met with mixed reactions from reviewers and its creator alike, and has seen relatively scanty critical attention in the years since. Gena Dagel Caponi perceives in the novel a reflection of Bowles's struggle for control, during the time of its writing, in the face of his wife Jane's terminal illness. Building on this insight, the current essay notes the same tension in the writings of the Beats—a movement with which Bowles …