Politics and Literature

O Cultivo da Liberdade em "A Montanha Mágica"

by Kaio Felipe

Artigo escrito entre Novembro de 2010 e Janeiro de 2011. Publicado em versão integral pela Revista Estudos pela Liberdade (1ª ed., Maio/11) e em versão resumida pela Revista Política Democrática (29ª ed., Março/11).

Este artigo discutirá a questão da Liberdade a partir do romance “A Montanha Mágica”, de Thomas Mann. Para isso,... more Este artigo discutirá a questão da Liberdade a partir do romance “A Montanha Mágica”, de Thomas Mann. Para isso, procurará demonstrar como as concepções sobre “o que é ser livre” defendidas pelos três personagens principais (Hans Castorp, Settembrini e Naphta) podem ser comparadas às perspectivas de cinco autores da Filosofia Moral e Política: Berlin, Mill, Arendt, Nietzsche e Humboldt. Por fim, a partir das noções de
Bildung e Bildungsroman, procurará explicitar o Humanismo defendido por Mann ao longo da obra, e como a ênfase nessa visão de mundo se relaciona com o contexto histórico e político do autor.
Palavras-chave: Liberdade, Bildung, Formação, Ética, Modernidade.

Os Filhos Enfermos de Goethe e Mann: A Bildung em "Os Anos de Aprendizado de Wilhelm Meister" e "A Montanha Mágica"

by Kaio Felipe

Artigo escrito em Setembro de 2011. A ser publicado na Revista Noctua (5ª ed., Abril/12).

O propósito deste artigo é, por meio da comparação entre os romances “Os Anos de Aprendizado de Wilhelm Meister”... more O propósito deste artigo é, por meio da comparação entre os romances “Os Anos de Aprendizado de Wilhelm Meister” (Goethe) e “A Montanha Mágica” (Thomas Mann), compreender de que maneira as trajetórias de Wilhelm e Hans Castorp, seus respectivos protagonistas, podem ser entendidas como representações da “Bildung” (auto-cultivo, formação). Além disso, pretende-se entender qual o papel de seus pedagogos nesse processo, e como as diferenças de contexto histórico explicam os contrastes – mas também semelhanças – de ideais dos personagens. Desta forma, pretendemos compreender qual foi a contribuição de ambos os escritores para se pensar a “Bildung”.
Palavras-chave: Humanismo, Bildung, Bildungsroman.

Political Initiation in the Works of Philip Roth

by Claudia Franziska Brühwiler

NACIÓN Y CLASE EN EL COMUNISMO BRITÁNICO. INTERNACIONALISMO, ANTIFASCISMO Y DEMOCRACIA EN LA CULTURA POLÍTICA DEL PERÍODO DE ENTREGUERRAS (1919-1939)

by Adrià Llacuna

III Encuentro Jóvenes Investigadores, 13 - 16 de Septiembre 2011 (Vitoria-Gasteiz)

El marco interpretativo del período de entreguerras nos ofrece la oportunidad de examinar cuáles fueron los elementos... more El marco interpretativo del período de entreguerras nos ofrece la oportunidad de examinar cuáles fueron los elementos predominantes de los grupos políticos que pasarán a formar el incipiente Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) en 1919/20 y como éstos evolucionan en el tiempo condicionados tanto por el contexto nacional, como por la situación internacional. Partiendo de este modelo, se pretende analizar las manifestaciones políticas y culturales socializadas entre los grupos afines al partido. Principalmente, se debe prestar atención tanto a sus órganos de prensa, como a sus declaraciones públicas en forma de mitin político, discurso, panfleto o celebración conmemorativa. Por otro lado, esta base ideológica propia, formada con los años y heredera de los partidos fusionados en el CPGB (el British Socialist Party o el Socialist Labour Party entre otros), se verá en constante contraste con los análisis y directrices del comunismo internacional (a través del Comintern) y tendrá una traducción práctica en su línea o campañas políticas. Por tanto, siguiendo este esquema, se examinarán de forma contextualizada las campañas a favor de la lucha antiimperialista (Irlanda, la India, Egipto, entre otros) contra “su propia” nación (o contexto nacional), así como la lucha contra el fascismo y la defensa de la democracia en España.

Les modèles royaux dans la poésie anglaise de la fin du Moyen Âge

by Aude Mairey

dans Vérité poétique, vérité politique : mythes, modèles et idéologies politiques au Moyen Âge, éd. J.-C. Cassard, E. Gaucher et J. Kerhervé, Brest, CRBC, 2007, p. 297-315.

Dans l’État monarchique anglais de la fin du Moyen Âge, le roi joue un rôle essentiel, à la fois moteur et garant du... more Dans l’État monarchique anglais de la fin du Moyen Âge, le roi joue un rôle essentiel, à la fois moteur et garant du gouvernement et de la société, mais dans un contexte politique souvent difficile, où les dépositions ne sont pas rares ? Dans ce cadre, il est important de comprendre ce que représentait le roi pour ses sujets, de comprendre comment ils ont pu composer avec l’importance de la personne royale en prenant en compte la réalité des faits, par exemple les changements de dynasties. La littérature politique de la période, abondante, consitue une porte d’entrée privilégiée en la matière ; si la figure royale y est essentielle, elle connaît cependant des évolutions importantes, qui témoignent aussi de la volonté de dialogue de la société politique anglaise.

Dis/simulation in the Instruttione to Cardinal Montalto

by Simone Testa

« Fuggire la mutatione del volto e ritenere la vista solita ». Dis/simulation in the Instruttione to Cardinal Alessandro Peretti da Montalto, in Bruniana e Campanelliana, 15 (2009), pp. 445-462

This article, which cuts across history and literature, analyses the Instruttione al cardinal Montalto – a private... more This article, which cuts across history and literature, analyses the Instruttione al cardinal Montalto – a private instruction not intended for publication. It connects with current research about the blurred territory between manuscript and printed culture, and the history of information. My analysis also sheds light on the literary context of the writing, which appeared in the anonymous Thesoro politico (1589), later to be put on the Index of Forbidden Books also because of this Instruttione. I shall argue that this writing uses the discourse on dis/simulation as prudential practice in such a way that it was considered liable to censure by the Congregation of the Index of forbidden Books.

Alcune riflessioni sul 'Thesoro politico' (1589)

by Simone Testa

‘Alcune riflessioni sul Thesoro politico (1589)’, in Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 64 (2002), pp. 679-687

An overview of the texts contained in 'Thesoro politico' (1589), and their relevance as a description of the... more An overview of the texts contained in 'Thesoro politico' (1589), and their relevance as a description of the international political order of the late 16th c.

Les identités dans la totalité-monde

by Silyane Larcher

Quand la littérature signe l'impasse du politique. Identité et existence au monde selon P. Chamoiseau

by Silyane Larcher

Présentation d'un entretien avec l'écrivain Patrick Chamoiseau, in Cités, 29, PUF, 2007 (dossier spécial : Les nations, renouvellement ou déclin ?")

Václav Havel dans le miroir de Samuel Beckett

by Llewellyn BROWN

A short study of Beckett's play "Catastrophe", dedicated to Václav Havel.

Beckett's play "Catastrophe" is not simply a denunciation of soviet-style despotism: both Protagonist and... more Beckett's play "Catastrophe" is not simply a denunciation of soviet-style despotism: both Protagonist and Director are facets of a single subjective structure. Thus the play explores the notion of resistance insofar as the latter concerns the way a subject faces up to his own fundamental solitude.

Debating 'The Role of the Writer in John Howard's Australia': Literature and the Mainstream

by Julieanne Lamond

Local Global 3, 2007, pp. 82-93.

Dad Rudd, M.P. and the making of a national audience

by Julieanne Lamond

Studies in Australasian Cinema 1.1, 2007.

This article contextualizes Ken G. Hall’s 1940 film Dad Rudd, M.P. with the history of Dad Rudd, a fictional character... more This article contextualizes Ken G. Hall’s 1940 film Dad Rudd, M.P. with the history of Dad Rudd, a fictional character who pervaded Australian popular culture throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that the fiction, theatre, film, cartoon and radio narratives in which he appeared have been instrumental in the creation of the idea of a popular Australian audience that can be defined in relation to a particular set of national symbols. Addressing Hall’s film as well as the promotional material and public debate surrounding it, the article demonstrates that conceptualizations of an Australian national audience have been influenced by the genres and narratives of popular culture, historical circumstance and American cultural production.

Dos Passos, The Big Money, and the Pluralist Novel

by Douglas Duhaime

Paper presented at the University of Chicago in November of 2011

Reading Female Readers: The Female Quixote and Female Quixotism

by Marta Kvande

The Outsider Narrator in Eliza Haywood's Political Novels

by Marta Kvande

The Art of Citizenship: Suffrage Literature as Social Pedagogy

by Maggie Rehm

This study examines the largely forgotten literary tradition that emerged as part of the women’s suffrage movement in... more This study examines the largely forgotten literary tradition that emerged as part of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, exploring through these texts and their history the relationship between literature, pedagogy, and social change. It argues that suffrage literature and its performances constituted what I have labeled “social pedagogy,” or pedagogy as social action, a project that included both intentional and unintentional educational aspects. The study focuses on the genres of suffrage literature that could be performed at suffrage meetings and elsewhere (the plays, pageants, poems, and songs) because the claiming of public spaces that occurs in such performances reinforces the lessons about women’s rights and roles to be found in the texts themselves, thus adding another dimension to their pedagogy. It also considers the larger rhetorical context within which this literature existed, examining the forms of criticism suffragists faced and the ways suffrage writers engaged with this criticism. In part, the study is an archival project, a continuation and extension of earlier feminist recovery work that reclaims women’s literary texts and women’s history. It significantly expands the currently known body of suffrage literature, much of which was written and performed by women, by examining many texts that have not at this time been reprinted or collected in anthologies. The study is also an exploration of the ways suffragists understood and theorized gender, performance, and pedagogy, often anticipating the ideas and theories of second and third wave feminists and proponents of critical pedagogy. It argues that in their efforts to gain enfranchisement for women, suffrage writers and their writing played a pedagogical as well as an aesthetic role, offering images of female enfranchisement as logical and natural, challenging notions of separate spheres, and generally inviting discourse about women’s rights and roles. In doing so, they negotiated normative gender patterns in order to ensure that their words could find an audience, yet also invited American men and women to consider alternative possibilities for gender identity and expression.

The Answer is in Translation

by Tomislav Longinovic

conversation with Boris Buden about "Fearful Asymetries: A Manifesto of Cultural Translation"

The process of cultural translation “lays bare” the mechanisms that naturalize existing asymmetries and inequalities,... more The process of cultural translation “lays bare” the mechanisms that naturalize existing asymmetries and inequalities, since most of the agents of cultural translation perceive the shortcomings of monolingual fantasies due to their in-between position on the border between different national discourses. It is true that I find myself speaking “in the name of” those who may not choose to speak themselves, hoping to manifest the very possibility of a new type of transnational/translational political horizon beyond the binaries of global/local, capitalist/communist, cosmopolitan/provincial etc. This kind of political motivation is also the starting point of my research project The Secret of Translation: A Manifesto of Border Cultures, which has taken up most of my thinking in the past decade. Using the tools of translation theory, I try to extend its reach into the realm of the politics of representation and de-naturalize hierarchies offered to the contemporary consumer of news, images and sounds. So, hopefully, my writing “in the name of” will neither turn into the hypocrisy of the latter-day commissars nor into the apathy of the latter-day yogis, to use Arthur Koestler’s metaphor. The passage to politics based on a common ecological platform would therefore be a very desirable outcome of cultural translation, since humanist-based thought needs to confront the limits of its planetary survival and move away from the myths promoted by both the nationalists and the globalists in the current simulation of politics without a proper subject.

Geometries of Force in Homer's Iliad: Two Readings

by Ronald Osborn

Humanitas, Vol.21, No.1, 2008: 168-178

At the outbreak of World War II, two French Jewish intellectuals--Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff--wrote responses to... more At the outbreak of World War II, two French Jewish intellectuals--Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff--wrote responses to Europe's unfolding catastrophe in the form of literary essays on Homer's Iliad. Their explorations of violence, power, fate, freedom, and the machine of war, as seen through the lens of ancient Greece's founding epic, have themselves achieved the status of classic political and philosophical texts. In this article explore Weil's and Bespaloff's contrasting readings of the Iliad, recently published together for the first time by New York Review Books. How does each writer re-imagine the poem to make sense of the human condition and the harsh realities of warfare? In the shadow of totalitarianism and genocide, what moral and political resources do they find in Homer? Does either of the two writers offer a more compelling interpretation of Homer's epic? What might Weil and Bespaloff--and Homer--have to teach us about the geometries of force today?

Ezra Pound

by Byron Kaldis

ABC-CLIO History Books Publications

The Ghost of Dad Rudd, On the Stump

by Julieanne Lamond

JASAL 6.1, 2007

This paper examines the cultural and political legacies of Dad Rudd, a fictional character who first appeared in short... more This paper examines the cultural and political legacies of Dad Rudd, a fictional character who first appeared in short stories by “Steele Rudd” (A.H.Davis) in the Bulletin in 1895 and has since appeared in popular fiction, theatre, film, television and radio adaptations throughout the twentieth century. It traces a set of national tropes – particularly that of the battler - through stump speeches made by Dad Rudd in On Our Selection! (1899), Dad in Politics (1908), the stage melodrama On Our Selection (1912), and Ken G. Hall’s film Dad Rudd, M.P.(1940), and considers how they have continued to be used to create both political and cultural constituencies in Australia.