Goethe and Literary Studies After 1800

Prof. Stefan Uhlig

Kings College, Cambridge

4-6 PM

912 Sproul

January 16, 4 PM, 912 Sproul

Prof. Cesar Dominguez. University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain

“Reception in Medieval Contact Zones. The Case of Outremer”

César Domínguez is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of  Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain, where he holds the Jean Monnet Chair “The Culture of European Integration”. His teaching and research focus upon theory of comparative literature, comparative literary history, comparative European literature, and comparative studies in medieval literatures. In addition to numerous articles and books on these topics, he is co-editor of the International Comparative Literature Association Coordinating Committee’s two-volume Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula. His two most recent books are World Literature: A Reader (Routledge, 2013) and Literatura europea comparada (Arco/Libros, 2013). As for professional services, he is Vice-President of the Spanish Society of General and Comparative Literature, Chair of the ICLA Research Committee, member of the ICLA Coordinating Committee, member of the Academia Europaea, General Coordinator of the European Network of Comparative Literary Studies, and Fellow of the Stockholm Collegium of World Literary History. He is now working on the project Crossing Medieval Boundaries.

Friday, November 15, 4 PM, 126 Voorhies

Dr. Uwe Vagelpohl

The Imprisoned Translator: Reading and Commenting on Aristotle’s Rhetoric in Arabic

The strange and fascinating reception history of Aristotle’s Rhetoric could be described as a tale of failure and frustration. To a modern reader, its translation must seem flawed, its commentaries misguided: the Rhetoric is too deeply rooted in ancient Greek culture to be understood without knowing about contemporary literature and the political and legal system of the day.

Attracted by Aristotle’s reputation as the final authority on virtually everything, Arabic translators and commentators still mounted a vigorous effort to decode this enigmatic text. The talk surveys this reception tradition and argues that, in spite of their frequent failure to grasp Aristotle’s meaning, the work of Arabic translators and commentators became a tremendous success story.

This talk will present the influence Latin America politics -Che Guevara, Castro, Cuba, Allende, Chile, Sub Marcos, Chiapas- and its literature – Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Juan Rulfo- had on the contemporary Tamil literature through the English translations and the traces it leaves in the writings of Tamil writers.

About the Speaker

M.Kannan is researcher and Head of the research program on Contemporary Tamil at the French Institute of Pondicherry. He is the author and editor of various books, articles, essays, and poems, both individually and in collaboration. He has organized various conferences and workshops involving contemporary Tamil literature and its place in the contemporary social milieu, and its links with Classical Tamil literature. He has published translations of literary works from Tamil into both English and French, and from English into Tamil. He has guided the research of many doctoral students from India and abroad, and established a large collection of books, articles, and manuscripts in the IFP library’s Contemporary Tamil section, working toward building a Centre for Contemporary Tamil at the IFP.

Reception Studies, Friday, April 5 2013, 1230-2 pm 912 Sproul

Prof. Olga Stuchebrukhov

Crimes Without Any Punishment at All:Dostoevsky and Woody Allen in LIght of Bakhtinian Theory.

Separated by more than a decade, Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Match Point (2005) are similar not only in their recourse to Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment, but in their anti-Dostoevskian artistic method. I attempt to challenge the entrenched view of Allen’s style as polyphonic. My main concern is not to privilege the novel over the films, or Dostoevsky over Allen, but to show the fallacy of applying the terms polyphony and dialogism, in their true Bakhtinian meaning, to Allen’s oeuvre. Bakhtin defines polyphony as all-inclusive and profoundly life affirming; as such, it is incompatible with existentialist nihilism, despair, or hollow playfulness.  In the broader sense, Allen’s reading of Dostoevsky and modern critics’ application of Bakhtin to Allen expose the problem of dialectical reception of dialogic authors.

Next Reception Studies Meeting:

March 1, 2013 12:30-2:00 p.m, Andrews Conference Room, Social Science & Humanities Bldg

We have several talks lined up for the 2014 Winter and Spring quarters.

January 16, 4 PM

Prof. Cesar Dominguez. University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain

“Reception in Medieval Contact Zones. The Case of Outremer”

February14, 4 PM

Prof. Stefan Uhlig, Cambridge University

“Goethe and Literary Studies after 1800”

March 6, 4 PM

Prof. Timon Screech, School of Oriental and African Studies

“Art Exchanges between Japan and England, 1613-16”

April 18, 6 PM

Prof. Lisa Owen, University of North Texas

“Caves, Monks, and Brahmacarins: Seeing Ellora through its Jain Monuments”

May 6, 4 PM

Prof. Zhang Longxi, City University of Hong Kong

“Meaning, Reception, and the Use of Classics: Theoretical Considerations in a Chinese Context”

Prof. Barbara Mittler, University of Heidelberg

Monday, Feb. 11, 4:10-6:00 pm, 53A Olson

‘Reception and…’: Reception in Comparative Perspectives

Provost Ralph Hexter

Friday, Oct. 26th, 410-600 pm, 912 Sproul