Toward a Cosmopolitan Ethic in Debt Restructuring

Corrales discusses the sovereign debt restructuring process. Process -- or the series of actions, actors, and influences involved in a transaction -- is rarely examined in law. But the dynamics of process and the unspoken codes that affect it are, nonetheless, key to complex transactions and sovereign debt restructuring

The sentimental tourist in rural France : Henry James’ pictures of history in A Little Tour in France (1884, 1900)

Henry James' travels in France: history, memory, the architectural past. Roman, Medieval, Enlightenment legacy. Revision. Picturesque scenes. Renovation

Guardare Venezia: la citt\ue0 come dispositivo visuale

This essay develops a previous paper (Parmeggiani, 2010) with the issues of Venice as a visual apparatus (Foucault, 1980), of the tourists as fl\ue2neurs (Benjamin, 1991), of their sightseeing and dynamic gazing at the urban landscape, and of their searching for the backstage (Goffman, 1959) and looking for icons to achieve cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2011). It analyzes how tourists relate to icons of a globalized visual culture where Venice has produced many other simulacra (Baudrillard, 1994), and it focuses on how social activists have tried to remediate (Bolter & Grusin, 1999) some icons of Venice to protest against the mass tourism and the loss of local identity . The identity of the city, as represented by tourist images, is the result of a long cultural process that has taken place since the Renaissance and continues to exert its effects even today. The author uses visual sociology to analyze both a corpus of mass media images (photographs on websites, postcards, brochures, stock photography) and a visual documentation of the practices of tourists visiting Venice. Following this methodology, the article describes how pictures of the city have become one of the key drivers of mass tourism there, which is considered unsustainable by a portion of the resident community. The first part of this approach (analysis of the images) concerns the urban icons, those that become standard generative models for other visual representations. Some pictures are used to describe the genesis of the icons as well as their reproduction, distribution, and remediation throughout time. The second part of the methodology (analysis with the images) concerns some documentation (photographs and videos) observing the performances of tourists in Venice. Mass tourism is described by its social practices of looking, gazing, photographing, and acquiring images. The focus is on the cycle of the production and consumption of cultural capital and icons through visual practices. The article uses a selection of photographs as an integral part of research. Photographs, postcards, and artwork that have influenced the process of creating Venetian icons help in the investigation of the tourists\u2019 relationships with the urban space and its residents, and they also help to explain the visual identity of the Serenissima in our collective imagination

Roth’s Humorous Art of Ghost Writing

In her article Roth\u27s Humorous Art of Ghost Writing Paule Lévy analyses Philip Roth\u27s Exit Ghost, the last novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman, in which Roth reassesses his favorite alter ego\u27s itinerary while exploring the troubled relation between writing and aging. Lévy considers Exit Ghost as an ironic sequel to The Ghost Writer and posits that in the light of Derrida\u27s theories of writing and hauntology the central motifs of ghosts and spectrality in the novel are a means for Roth to reflect anew on the ambiguous relation between autobiography and fiction. Lévy asks whether Exit Ghost should be read as an expression of Roth\u27s pessimism, as a ghost novel predicting its own disappearance as a cultural artifact, or whether it should be read as an assertion of Roth\u27s indefatigable vitality and faith in the priceless value of art. Lévy\u27s study is a textual analysis and a close examination of the dialogic links between the storyline and its haunting multifarious intertext—in particular Joseph Conrad\u27s partly autobiographical novel The Shadow Line, a central reference in Exit Ghost

Touristischer Geschichtsgebrauch. Über einige Merkmale neuer Vergangenheiten im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert

Es ist zumindest erstaunlich, dass die deutschen Forschungsdebatten über Gedächtnis- und Erinnerungskultur eine prominente Form modernen Geschichtsgebrauchs fast vollständig ignorieren: Tourismus. Dieser ist am Beginn des 21.Jahrhunderts aber keine Randerscheinung, sondern einer der wachstums- und umsatzstärksten globalen Dienstleistungssektoren. Tourismus ist eine rosa Fabrik; eine Bildermaschine, die aus Imaginationen buchstäblich ökonomische Wirklichkeiten erzeugt. Tourismus produziert auch neue Inanspruchnahmen von historischem Material, von Monumenten, Entwicklungen und Ereignissen aus der Vergangenheit; und die unterscheiden sich deutlich von ihren älteren nationalstaatlichen und religiösen Vorläufern. Einmal als touristische Attraktionen etabliert, beginnen sich die Überreste der Vergangenheit zu verändern, plastisch zu werden - und ein neues Eigenleben zu entwickeln. In dieser Postproduktion von Vergangenheit spielen die Verbindungen zu Affektbildern aus anderen Medien (Historienmalerei, Romanen und Filmen) offensichtlich eine wichtige Rolle. Für touristische Geschichtsnutzung, so scheint es, ist Artifizialität kein Hindernis, sondern ein Möglichkeitsreservoir. Welche neuen Erscheinungsformen von Vergangenheit entstehen dabei, und wie lassen sie sich beschreiben

The Englishness of English Landscapes in the Eyes of Two American Artists: Henry James’s English Hours, Illustrated by Joseph Pennell

English Hours, recueil de récits de voyage à travers la Grande-Bretagne publié en 1905 par Henry James et regroupant divers essais parus antérieurement, est illustré de dessins exécutés par le graveur Joseph Pennell, autre expatrié américain. S’attachant à la peinture de villes de province et de paysages ruraux qui, pour l’écrivain, affichaient au plus haut point leur caractère anglais, cet article analyse en quoi réside celui-ci aux yeux de deux étrangers et comment il est traduit dans leur art respectif. Tout d’abord, le paysage anglais se distingue par sa capacité à se constituer d’emblée en un véritable tableau, qui répond aux exigeances esthétiques de composition, cadrage, éclairage et disposition harmonieuse. Il était donc approprié que l’attrait romantique en soit reflété par l’esthétique du pittoresque qui faisait la réputation de Pennell à l’époque et qui effectivement régit les illustrations des essais. Le sentiment dominant d’harmonie provient de l’heureuse fusion entre la nature et la civilisation humaine de même qu’entre le passé et le présent. Par là, le paysage anglais révèle son identité, celle d’une terre de traditions et de coutumes, symbolisée par le légendaire village anglais, où l’ordre social a été préservé durant des siècles par la double autorité du châtelain et du pasteur, dont témoigne l’omniprésence des châteaux et des clochers. Le paysage anglais se fait alors image du conservatisme et ne manque pas d’évoquer la grandeur de la nation et la gloire de l’empire. En dernier lieu le pays s’affirme comme une forme aboutie de civilisation, qui intègre l’héritage du passé dans le présent et dans la vie quotidienne des plus humbles.English Hours, the 1905 collected edition of Henry James’s earlier separate accounts of his travels around Britain, is interspersed with illustrations by another American expatriate, the engraver Joseph Pennell. Focusing on the portrayal of provincial towns and rural scenery, regarded by the writer as highly emblematic of the English character, this article examines what Englishness consists of in the eyes of two outsiders and how it is conveyed by their respective media. The first outstanding feature of the English landscape is its capacity to form a perfect picture meeting the aesthetic requirements of composition, framing, lighting and harmonious arrangement. It was therefore appropriate that its romantic appeal should be captured by the picturesque style which Pennell was known for in his day and which proves to be the dominant note in his illustrations of the essays. The overwhelming sense of harmony stems from the happy blend of nature and human civilization as well as of past and present. The English landscape then reveals its identity as a land of traditions and customs, most visible in the remarkable English village, where social order has been preserved over the centuries by the joint rule of the squire and the parson reflected in the ubiquitous castles and church steeples. The English landscape thus turns out to be the picture of conservatism, which inevitably recalls the greatness of the nation and the glory of Empire. Finally the country has achieved a highly evolved form of civilization, as it has managed to integrate the past heritage into the present as well as into the daily lives of humble people

Henry James, Novels 1903-1911 – The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, The Outcry

Review of James, Henry. Novels 1903-1911 – The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, The Outcry. Ed. Ross Posnock. New York: The Library of America, 2011. Print. Recensiamo il libro Henry James, Novels 1903-1911 – The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, The Outcry. Ed. Ross Posnock. New York: The Library of America, 2011