Copyright (c) 2010 University of Pennsylvania All rights reserved. http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml Recent documents in Working Papers in Romance Languages en-us Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:51:30 PDT 3600 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/4 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/4 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:10:14 PDT Welcome to the third Working Papers roundtable discussion. In this issue, devoted to myths, gods, and heroes, our contributing authors analyze the rewriting of religious myths, the confrontation of conflicting conceptions of nationality and belonging, and the intertextual nexus through which Greco-Roman mythology meets Modernism. To complement their analyses, we asked experienced scholars who have devoted their careers to the study of myth to further interrogate these notions with us. In the space below, John Ebert, John Izod, and Samuel Brunk give us their definitions of, and thoughts on, myths, religion, and heroes. The juxtaposition of their answers allows for a diverse and multi-faceted understanding of myths that cuts across disciplines and media. Ultimately, their responses emphasize our need to shape stories that define us and help us deal with our own mortality. http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/3 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/3 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:44:24 PDT Bernard-Marie Koltès has remained nearly as enigmatic almost 20 years after his death as in the early 1980s, when his plays routinely challenged and confused contemporary audiences and critics. Koltès' writing, which combines lyric elegance with biting social commentary, has gained in popularity over the past two decades, but analysis of his work has concentrated primarily on his critique of the French bourgeois lifestyle. [1] Recent studies, however, have made significant gains in our understanding of postcolonial minority identities and questions regarding national belonging in the Koltesian theatrical project. Donia Mounsef, in her analysis of Koltès' last play, Le Retour au désert, analyzed the role of the body as a site of mediation for concerns about the interplay between France and Algeria. Catherine Brun, also studying Le Retour au désert, has developed the link between the Algerian War and the break down of a provincial bourgeois family. Building on these ground breaking observations, I wish to take the question of postcoloniality in Koltès' work one step further by exploring the ways in which his characters interact with the concept of the nation. Beyond simply challenging racial and social constructions, I argue, Koltès reveals a fundamental ambivalence regarding the value of nationality as a tool for identification. As we will see, he breaks down traditional understandings of French national identity by questioning its foundational philosophies yet also calls for a new, reinvigorated solidarity through interracial mixing and dialogue. Kathryn Kleppinger http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/2 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/2 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:36:11 PDT La Tentation de Saint Antoine is "un livre qui fait peur," according to Flaubert scholar Jeanne Bem (13). Indeed, it is a monstrous text that presents us with multiple characters and an amalgam of heresies and temptations. Confusion further stems from the difference in versions: one version of the text was written in 1848, a second version was partially published in 1856, and the final version appeared in 1874. The monstrosity resides lastly in the form of the text: we wonder how to define the genre of La Tentation. Flaubert first conceived of it as a play, perhaps even a puppet play, but the didascalies read more like descriptions in a novel and are impossible to act out.[1] Willemijn Don http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/1 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol2/iss1/1 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:22:23 PDT El epígrafe con el que comienza este acercamiento a De sobremesa contiene varios motivos empleados por José Asunción Silva en su narración póstuma. Además de la mención al fallecimiento de un poeta inglés cuya inclinación por los clásicos y honda sensibilidad comparte con Silva, destaca la contaminación de diversos tejidos narrativos y la inclusión de un universo grecolatino dentro de una línea repetida a lo largo de la narración. Quien lo firma así mismo sintetiza los elementos anteriormente mencionados, y como se verá en este estudio, de presencia constante en De sobremesa. Pablo Martínez Diente http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/5 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/5 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:07:02 PDT Welcome to our second Working Papers roundtable discussion. In this issue our papers explore representations of violence and the violence of representation in literary media. The questions these papers propose, and the answers they venture, involve a complex nexus of issues. To what extent are textual practices violent acts? How are violent images deployed to undermine some identities and create others? What role does violence play in the proliferation of national, historical, ethnic, sexual and philosophical discourses? These are just a few of the problems under consideration in this issue. http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/7 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/7 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:45:51 PDT Welcome to the first Working Papers roundtable discussion. Our field of inquiry in the inaugural issue of our graduate journal is online publishing. A number of questions spring to mind when one considers the role of online publishing in academia. First, is it a relevant vehicle for academic writing? How will it affect the way we read, write and pursue our professional interests? Will current publishing practices become obsolete, and if so, when can we expect to read the last words of offline print culture? Indeed, our roundtable topic is not so far removed from the title of the current issue: "Last Words", the selected proceeding from the annual graduate student conference hosted by the Graduate Romanic Association at the University of Pennsylvania. The issues we encounter as we consider the potential and realized effects of online publishing are pertinent to an issue where many of the papers engage with the notion of boundaries, genre, and new (textual, psychological, geographical, political) spaces. http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/4 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/4 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:04:51 PDT Existe un pensamiento que plantea que la obra de arte es tal en la medida en que pertenece a un cierto orden de las cosas, en la medida en que pertenece, por ejemplo, a una categoría llamada arte. Sin embargo, podemos proponer que la obra de arte, en vez de pertenecer, actúa su especificidad justamente al crear un rompimiento dentro de lo que existe en el orden de la representación (y no sólo en el orden de las representaciones que suelen adscribirse al orden de "lo artístico"). Siguiendo a Peter Hallward podemos decir que el arte es específico (manifiesta su autonomía relativa) sólo en el momento en que se des-especifica, se desprende de sus determinaciones o rompe con la distribución de lo sensible[1]. Y lo es, en este recuento, desde una dinámica de la des-inscripción y no de la inscripción. La obra de arte es entonces un proceso y es un proceso violento. Irreductiblemente violento. La narrativa de César Aira es, de varias maneras, una reflexión en torno a esta violencia epistémica propia del arte. La literatura, y el arte en general, son para Aira pura acción: "Lo más sano de las vanguardias –dice Aira- es devolver al primer plano la acción" ("La nueva escritura"). En lo que sigue leeré una novela de Aira, La prueba, como la exposición de un camino hacia la transformación total; como una reflexión acerca de lo que puede significar esta imbricación entre arte y acción. La prueba puede ser leída como el camino recorrido por su protagonista, Marcia, desde la quietud de lo que es hacia la ruptura total que conlleva su devenir-sujeto; desde el mundo de las opiniones, los semblantes y las determinaciones ideológicas hacia la acción creadora y subjetivadora. Ese recorrido, como pretendo mostrar, puede ser interpretado como un pensamiento acerca de la especificidad estética en su relación con el orden de las representaciones del cual pretende des-especificarse... César Barros http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/3 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/3 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:04:49 PDT Apenas treinta años separan Pascual Duarte (1976) Los santos inocentes (1984) y El 7° día (2004), películas que sirven tanto de ejemplo de representación artística de la violencia en el mundo rural como de reflejo socio-político. En un país envuelto en un proceso inquietante, a la vez que esperanzador[1], a su modo estas obras deben ser consideradas más allá de su labor testimonial dentro de la historia. El propósito de este estudio es analizarlas como tropo de las posiciones políticas imperantes en el momento de su lanzamiento, estableciendo un diálogo entre sociedad, gobierno y cinematografía... Pablo Martínez Diente http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/2 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/2 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:03:40 PDT The unabashed "literariness" of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities makes it an easy target for critics who claim that "wholly literary" worlds cannot be moral ones. Alessia Ricciardi believes that Calvino's late career represents an abandonment of his earlier sense of duty as an intellectual: "Sadly," she explains "Calvino the mature postmodernist became exactly what he feared as a young man, that is to say, a solipsistic thinker removed from the exigencies of history […] his writings uphold an idea of literature as a formalist game that avoids any costly or serious 'human' association." (Ricciardi 1073-1074, emphasis mine). While it is certainly true that Invisible Cities—with its combinatorial, "geometric" structure - can be read as a literary game, it is important to consider the possibility that it may be a very serious game... John Welsh http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/1 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss2/1 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:03:37 PDT En 1918, Casímir Malévich pintó el controvertido Cuadrado blanco sobre fondo blanco. Según Alain Badiou, esta obra es "el origen de un protocolo de pensamiento sustractivo que difiere del protocolo de la destrucción" (El siglo 79), por lo que sería errado interpretarla como el símbolo de la 'destrucción' de la pintura. Para el filósofo francés, la singularidad de la obra de Malévich radicaría en que "en vez de tratar lo real como identidad, se lo trata desde el principio como distancia" (79). Así, el Cuadrado blanco sobre fondo blanco evidencia en su blancura indefinida la distancia misma de lo real, la imposibilidad de aspirar a su depuración[1]. Este gesto es diferente al acto de la destrucción, el cual intenta captar la identidad de lo real por medio de su desenmascaramiento: la destrucción se apasiona por lo auténtico, intenta tener certeza de lo real y anular su sospecha[2]. Por este motivo, la destrucción o "la lógica de la depuración" como la denomina Badiou, tiende a la nada o a la muerte, que se presenta como el "único nombre posible de la libertad pura" (77). Así Badiou se explica por qué en un siglo "arrebatado por la pasión de lo real", haya sido la lógica de la depuración el protocolo dominante: la destrucción aparece entonces, como el signo del siglo XX en la política, en el arte, en todo ámbito[3]... Ángeles Donoso http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/2 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/2 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:26:07 PDT El cine español ha sufrido durante las últimas décadas cambios generacionales que se han dejado notar en el producto final de muchos directores. Estos directores a los que aludo son un grupo bastante nutrido al cual haré referencia más adelante que han trabajado en la elaboración de un cine que, tras unos años de búsqueda direccional marcados por el fin de la dictadura y el comienzo de la transición democrática, parece haber encontrado un camino con personalidad que lo diferencia de otros cines por la variedad de estilo y de técnicas dentro de su consonancia, y que le ha valido para dar el salto definitivo al reconocimiento internacional... Joaquin Florido Berrocal http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/6 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/6 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:04:15 PDT Au cours du mois de novembre 1947, Fernand Pouey, le directeur des émissions littéraires de la Radiodiffusion française, sollicite Antonin Artaud – revenu à Paris en mai 1946 après une période d’internement psychiatrique de neuf ans à l'asile de Rodez – pour qu'il prépare une performance radiophonique en vue d'une émission pour le cycle La Voix des poètes, prévue le 2 février 1948. Le choix des textes et des acteurs est laissé à la discrétion de l'auteur. Artaud accepte la proposition : il collecte quelques fragments dans un recueil qu'il intitule Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu, et convoque Maria Casarès, Roger Blin et Paule Thévenin pour les réciter. L'annonce de l'émission provoque un tapage médiatique qui conduira le directeur général de la radio Wladimir Porché à en interdire la diffusion. Cette décision suscite un vif débat dans la presse et dans le monde intellectuel parisien; cependant l'interdiction est maintenue et la performance ne passera sur les ondes que vingt ans plus tard, en mai 1968.[1]... Nicolas Valazza http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/5 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/5 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:44:17 PDT How does one state in words the impossibility of writing? How does one translate an author who has depicted herself as silent in the very text? The Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector dares to do so. From Agua viva, one of her first novels, to Un soplo de vida, her posthumous work, Lispector enters into an egotistic self-referential movement. She dares to speak from her work, from herself, from art, and from literature, thus mixing realities of different dimensions and erasing borders between life and letter. In Agua viva Lispector interrogates the causes and effects of the writing process in order to know it, to govern it. There, she begins to experience revelatory and joyful epiphanies that later, in Un soplo de vida, become mystical. However, the tone of this later text is quite different. There, her writing presages a forthcoming silence, and because of that the illusion of apprehending knowledge by language fades as it becomes certain of the impossible... Elena Deanda http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/4 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/4 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:34:46 PDT The protagonist of Sergio Chejfec's 1999 novel Los Planetas (known only by the initial S.), claims to have made the decision to become a writer only because of the disappearance of his friend from adolescence (known by the initial M.) who he declares was much more apt than he at telling stories. The stories, says S., "took on ample and diffuse subjects … that came to him from who knows where, acquiring a new dimension through his voice" (104). S. the writer, by contrast, is uncomfortable with his own voice, and with "[his] inclination towards the replacement, the substitute." In other words, S. is torn between the desire for conserving and the fear of converting, and of symbolizing... Noble Novitzki http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/3 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/3 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:23:19 PDT In the process of post-colonial nation-building, the State often attempts to impose its own discourse as the sole source of national identity in order to homogenize the nation. In his influential work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson notes the discrepancy between 'official' discourse, which supports the conception of a unified State, and the reality of a diverse people artificially grouped within the same political entity. To account for their disparity, Anderson argues that the nation is primarily a discursive phenomenon, i.e. a fiction supported by narratives. Based on his concept of imagined communities, literary works come to light as essential tools for nation-building, and writers emerge as key figures called upon to embrace the official model of the nationalist narrative. A new nation's literary production can rely on heavily codified structures of the novel to promote and preserve the fiction of a homogeneous national identity, defined here as an imagined community that shares the same collective values, a common understanding of History, and a profound commitment to the State. Such a propaganda-oriented mindset led Rachid Mimouni to challenge nationalist narrative in his first novel, Le printemps n'en sera que plus beau. This text, all too often disregarded as an early work that shows less aesthetic maturity than Mimouni's later writing, merits further analysis as an initial attempt to challenge national narrative. In its closing lines, Mimouni contests not only the attempt to fix literary boundaries, but also the official discourse used in nationalist texts... Alexandra Gueydan-Turek http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/1 http://repository.upenn.edu/wproml/vol1/iss1/1 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:13:21 PDT Last words, the theme for this series of articles that comes out of last spring's graduate conference of the same name, are somewhat disconcerting for a philologist. Philology's traditional obsession has usually been with first words - those first and originary scribblings which initialize a culture's, and a nation's, textual history. Last words from a linguistic-philological perspective usually imply language death. In comparative Romance philology there is a famous instance of last words that all graduate students learn about; it is invariably told as a cautionary tale, and is meant to remind us of two things: (1) that we always must play the hand we are dealt, that is, often we have less than perfect data; and (2) that we must temper our conclusions in light of this less than ideal data. The setting is the Istrian peninsula at the end of the 19th century. The two characters are the Italian linguist, Matteo Giulio Bartoli, and his informant, Antuone Udaine. Bartoli was born in 1876 in Albona d'Istria and raised within the cultural and linguistic mosaic of pre-World War I Austria-Hungary in present day Croatia. He studied historical linguistics at the University of Vienna in a rigidly neogrammarian program and in 1907 assumed the chair of linguistics at the University of Turin, a position which he held until his death in 1946. Bartoli's early scholarly interest was the Romance language known as Dalmatian, a bridge language between the north-eastern Italian and Istro-romance dialects to its west and the Romanian dialect group in the east. At the time of Bartoli's writing, Dalmatian was thought to be extinct, having been replaced through several waves of immigration and subsequent language contact by the more Italian-like dialects of neighboring Venezia-Friuli-Giulia in the north and west and Croatian in the south... Anthony P. Espòsito