Book Reviews

Narmtive Discourse: An Essay in Method (Gérard Genette) (Reviewed by Wendy Steiner, University of Pennsylvania)Critical Assumptions (K. K. Ruthven) (Reviewed by Hazard Adams, University of Washington)Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the Divine Comedy (Giueseppe Mazzotta) (Reviewed by Andrea di Tommaso, Wayne State University)The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare\u27s Tragedies (Susan Snyder) (Reviewed by Leonard Tennenhouse, Wayne State University)Interpreting Interpreting: Interpreting Dickens\u27 Dombey (Susan R. Horton) (Reviewed by Roy Roussel, State University of New York at Buffalo)Virginia Woolf (Michael Rosenthal) (Reviewed by Mark Spilka, Brown University)The Language of Puritan Feeling: An Exploration in Literature, Psychology, and Social History (David Leverenz) (Reviewed by Karl Keller, San Diego State University)Home as Found: Authority and Genealogy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Eric I. Sundquist) (Reviewed by Michael Davitt Bell, Williams College)The Creation of Nikolai Gogol (Donald Fanger) (Reviewed by Frank J. Corliss Jr., Wayne State University)Enlarging the Temple: New Directions in American Poetry During the 1960s (Charles Alteri) (Reviewed by Robert Kern, Boston College)Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature (Frank McConnell) (Reviewed by John Harrington, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

A Theory of Genre Formation in the Twentieth Century

In his article "A Theory of Genre Formation in the Twentieth Century" Michael Rodgers explores the relationship between Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and magical realism in order to theorize about genre formation in the twentieth century. Rodgers argues not only that specific twentieth-century narrative forms are bound intrinsically with literary realism and socio-political conditions, but also that these factors can produce formal commonalities

Russian Spirituality and the Theology of Negation

Toward the end of the twentieth century Russian culture found itself at a crossroads which cannot be ascribed to any political election but which rather presupposed a radical change in its religious and social orientation. Two somewhat opposing theses will be developed in this article. First I will discuss the processes of secularization in Russian culture and the necessity of a third, neutral zone between the sacred and the profane. Next, the dangers of social neutralization in culture and the necessity of retaining elements of the dual model along with the introduction of intermediate elements will be presented. We will hope that these theses are but partly contradictory; that is, when combined they will not cancel each other out, but will rather produce a ternary model of a cultural symbiosis between the extreme and the median, despite their apparent incongruity

Klavirski duo i mogućnosti njegovogproširenja

The subject of research for this doctoral art project is piano duo and the possibilities of its expansion. With this research in the field of chamber music, I will attmpt to show the challenge of playing on two pianos, with the progression of adding percussion to the piano duo and thus creating a non-standard composition of contemporary sound. Works for piano duo (two pianos) can be found in music literature as early as the 17th century. Since then (especially later), many works for two pianos were composed with great artistic value. In this doctoral project, the focus is on performing the works for two pianos composed in the 20th century by two Russian composers who lived and worked during the Soviet era, namely Dmitri Shostakovich and his musical successor Alfred Schnittke. From their compositional opus, the choice for this doctoral project consists of three significant and distinctive works: Shostakovich's Suite for Two Pianos, Op. 6 (a four-movement work from the early phase of the creator's work), and Concertino for two pianos op. 94 in A minor (a one-piece work, also from the compositional opus of Dmitri Shostakovich). The third choice is Gogol Suite, composed by Alfred Schnittke and originally written for the orchestra, but also known and performed in Borovik's arrangement for two pianos. As a part of this doctoral art project, Gogol Suite will be performed in a non-standard, unusual arrangement for two pianos and percussion, which is a special contribution to this project. The percussion part, according to the orchestral score, is written by percussion professor and composer Marijan Lincmajer. A special challenge of performance with two equal instruments is the need for harmonization of the piano keyboard velocity and interpretation. I will address the topic from different angles: historical origin of the piano duo, background of each composition for the concert performance, multi-layered analysis of the selected works, biographies of composers. Also, I will attmept to contribute to a new rethinking of playing with two pianos and understanding the role of the piano in chamber music in general. The process of rehearsals and preparation will be analyzed and described through individual and joint preparations respecting the identity of the other pianist, and merging two individuals into one in order to achieve a supremely unique performance. One of the challenges is also the unique preparation and the performance of Gogol Suite, where the ensemble of two instruments with the same sound colors is expanded by a combination with percussion. My intention is to draw attention to the challenge of nonstandard chamber ensembles and the specificity and diversity of the preparation of the program in which opuses are dedicated to classical and non-classical sound sources by merging and adapting these instruments.Predmet istraživanja ovog doktorskog umetničkog projekta je klavirski duo i mogućnosti njegovog proširenja. Istraživanjem na ovom području kamerne muzike imam nameru da pokažem izazove sviranja na dva klavira, uz progresiju dodavanja udaraljki klavirskom duu te stvaranju nestandardnog kamernog ansambla za koji su pisane kompozicije savremenog zvuka. Dela za klavirski duo (dva klavira) mogu se naći u muzičkoj literaturi još od 17. veka. Od tada (a posebno kasnije kroz stoleća), nastala su važna dela za dva klavira s velikom umetničkom vrednosti. Stoga je u doktorskom umetničkom projektu fokus na izvođenju dela za dva klavira koja su u 20. veku komponovala dva ruska kompozitora koja su živela i radila tokom sovjetske ere – Dmitrij Šostakoviča i njegovog muzičkog naslednika Alfred Šnitkea. Izbor dela za doktorski projekat njihovog kompozicionog opusa čine tri značajna i prepoznatljiva dela: Šostakovičeva Svita za dva klavira, op. 6, četverostavačno delo iz rane faze stvaraočevog dela, i Končertino za dva klavira op. 94 u a-molu, jednodelno delo, takođe iz kompozicionog opusa Dmitrija Šostakoviča. Treća kompozicija je Gogoljeva svita Alfred Šnitkea, originalno napisana za orkestar, ali veoma poznata i izvođena u Borovikovoj transkripciji za dva klavira. Poseban doprinos doktorskom umetničkom projektu daje interpretacije Gogoljeve svite u nestandardnom i neklasičnom aranžmanu za dva klavira i udaraljke. Deonicu udaraljki, aranžiranu prema originalnoj orkestarskoj partituri, potpisuje profesor udaraljki i kompozitor Marijan Lincmajer. Poseban izazov zajedničkog muziciranja, čitanja i tumačenja kompozicija koje su pisane za dva ista instrumenta je potreba za usklađivanjem klavirskog tušea, tehnike, zvučnog balansa i interpretacije. Temu ću sagledati iz različitih uglova: istorijsko poreklo klavirskog dua, pozadina svake kompozicije za koncertno izvođenje, višeslojna analiza izabranih dela, biografije kompozitora. Nastojaću da doprinesem novom promišljanju umetničkog rada u sastavu klavirski duo i razumevanju uloge klavira u kamernoj muzici uopšte. Proces proba i priprema biće analizirani i opisani kroz pojedinačne i zajedničke pripreme, poštujući identitet drugog pijaniste, radujući se spajanju dva senzibiliteta u jedno kreativno tumačenje, kako bi se postigao krajnje jedinstven nastup. Jedinstvena priprema i drugačiji izazov biće izvođenje Gogoljeve svite, gde se kombinacija dva instrumenta istih zvučnih boja proširuje dijapazonom udaraljki. Namera mi je da spajanjem, tonskim prilagođavanjem i usaglašavanjem ovih instrumenata skrenem pažnju na izazov nestandardnih kamernih sastava, kao i specifičnost i raznovrsnost pripreme programa u kojem su opusi posvećeni klasičnim i neklasičnim izvorima zvuka, odnosno kompozicionim sadržajima koji oni nude

Towards the Physical: Theatre in the 21st Century

This thesis examines physical theatre and its current usage in the West through improvisation, training and festival as well as in the East. For the Western example, techniques used in popular improvisational schools and companies such as Frantic Assembly are analyzed. For the Eastern counterpart, the post-modern Japanese theatre practitioner, Suzuki Tadashi, and his acting techniques are investigated. This study pays particular attention to how both Western physical theatre and Eastern example via Suzuki Tadashi have been integrated into the contemporary American theatre practices in an effort to further its dissemination into contemporary American conservatory theatre training. This thesis seeks to answer why Western theatre and the appeal of its theatre goers is beginning to move away from the method acting techniques taught and practiced for decades and into the physical. The thesis adopts the perspective of young people, Millenials, students in the conservatory sector, to suggest the people who are being taught need to learn physical theatre. In researching the successes of prominent physical theatre works a movement towards a prosperous livelihood for American theatre productions and teaching emerges. This thesis highlights the strong move towards the physical theatre practice by way of interculturalism as a way to free the overly analytical actor, connect and compete with his peers and strengthen contemporary American conservatory training.California State University, Northridge. Department of Theatre.Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-112

Reviews of recent publications

Culture and Theory Conley, Verena Andermatt, ed. Rethinking Technologies by Laurence M. Porter Leitch, Vincent B. Cultural Criticism, Literary Theory, Poststructuralism by Merry M. Pawlowski French Studies Bersani, Leo and Ulysse Dutoit. Arts of Impoverishment: Beckett, Rothko, Resnais by Thomas Trezise Boldt-Irons, Leslie Anne. On Bataille: Critical Essays by Walter A. Strauss Deleuze, Gilles. Negotiations. Trans. Martin Joughin by Charles J. Stivale Fisher, Dominique D. Staging of Language and Language(s) of the Stage: Mallarmé\u27s poëme critique and Artaud\u27s poetry-minus-text by Maryse Fauvel Goodall, Jane. Artaud and the Gnostic Drama by Claudine G. Fisher Lydon, Mary. Skirting the Issue: Essays in Literary Theory by Carol J. Murphy German Studies Barnouw, Dagmar. Critical Realism: History, Photography, and the Work of Siegfried Kracauer by Florence Martin Pfandl-Buchegger, Ingrid. David Lodge als Literaturkritiker, Theoretiker and Romanautor by Charles A. Grair Samuels, Clarise. Holocaust Visions: Surrealism and Existentialism in the Poetry of Paul Celan by Francis Michael Sharp Stefan, Verena. Shedding and Literally Dreaming. Shedding. Trans. Johanna Steigleder Moore and Beth E. Weckmueller; Literally Dreaming. Trans. Johanna Albert and Tobe Levin; Euphoria and Cacophony. Trans. and Afterword Tobe Levin by Miriam Frank Stern, J.P. The Dear Purchase: A Theme in German Modernism by Theodore Ziolkowski Russian Studies Berry, Ellen E. and Anesa Miller-Pogacer, eds. Re-Entering the Sign: Articulating New Russian Culture by Rolf Hellebust Erlich, Victor. Modernism and Revolution: Russian Literature in Transition by Henry Elbaum Hohne, Karen and Helen Wussow, eds. A Dialogue of Voices: Feminist Literary Theory and Bakhtin by Laura Beraha Masing-Delic, Irene. Abolishing Death: A Salvation Myth of Russian Twentieth-Century Literature by Rolf Hellebust Paperno, Irina and Joan Delaney Grossman, eds. Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Modernism by Constantin V. Ponomareff Spanish Studies Cardenal, Ernesto. The Doubtful Strait. Trans. John Lyons by Juan Carlos Galeano Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Of Love and Other Demons by John Cussen Lindstrom, Naomi. Twentieth-Century Spanish American Fiction by Norma Helsper Meyer, Doris, Ed. Reinterpreting the Spanish American Essay: Women Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries by Judy Maloof and Fernando Unzueta Nantell, Judith. The Poetry of Francisco Brines: The Deconstructive Effects of Languages by Anita M. Hart Taylor, Diana and Juan Villegas, Eds. Negotiating Performance: Gender, Sexuality, & Theatricality in Latin America by Anne M. Paser

Authorial Cameos in Post-Romantic Russian Literature

This dissertation examines representations of authorship in Russian literature from a number of perspectives, including the specific Russian cultural context as well as the broader discourses of romanticism, autobiography, and narrative theory. My main focus is a narrative device I call "the figured author," that is, a background character in whom the reader may recognize the author of the work. I analyze the significance of the figured author in the works of several Russian nineteenth- and twentieth- century authors in an attempt to understand the influence of culture and literary tradition on the way Russian writers view and portray authorship and the self. The four chapters of my dissertation analyze the significance of the figured author in the following works: 1) Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Gogol's Dead Souls; 2) Chekhov's "Ariadna"; 3) Bulgakov's "Morphine"; 4) Nabokov's The Gift. In the Conclusion, I offer brief readings of Kharms's "The Old Woman" and "A Fairy Tale" and Zoshchenko's Youth Restored. One feature in particular stands out when examining these works in the Russian context: from Pushkin to Nabokov and Kharms, the "I" of the figured author gradually recedes further into the margins of narrative, until this figure becomes a third-person presence, a "he." Such a deflation of the authorial "I" can be seen as symptomatic of the heightened self-consciousness of Russian culture, and its literature in particular. By examining figured authors across these works, I explore authorship in Russia as a self-questioning, and potentially self-erasing, practice

Subversive narrative techniques and self-reflexivity in Vladimir Nabokov's the real life of Sebastian Knight, Lolita, Pnin, Pale Fire and Ada, or Ardor: A family Chronicle

This dissertation has three aims. First, the establishment of the theoretical foundations of deconstruction and its appropriation by literary criticism. Second, the application of deconstruction to the novels of Nabokov; it has to be stressed that this application is not itself a deconstructive reading, rather that deconstruction offers the interpretative horizon for an analysis of the inner logic of self-reflexivity in the novels in question. which is defined with de Man and against Derrida as a procedure of textual self-deconstruction. The procedure, evident in the proliferation of textual strategies in Nabokov's work, marks the point at which literary modernism transforms itself through the radicalisation of the critique of narrative, subject and meaning into a postmodern aesthetics of deconstruction. The interpretation of the novels then serves thirdly to pose the question of the value of the theory of deconstruction for the task of interpretation, or more generally. the value of deconstruction for literary theory. The interpretation of Nabokov's novels reveals a paradox: selfdeconstructive literature does not require a deconstructive reading. On the contrary, the textual deconstruction of meaning and reference requires the non-deconstructive standpoint of a coherent literary analysis for its demonstration. Comparably and conversely, a deconstructive reading presupposes a text and/or an author committed to the intention of a meaningful whole (however ambiguous). The author's distinction between deconstruction as a method of interpretation and as a literary theory thus points to the limitations of deconstruction as interpretative method in relation to modern and postmodern texts precisely because of their metafictional affinity to deconstruction. Beyond this, however, deconstruction's treatment of the text as pretext for its own operations, taken to its logical conclusion, would dissolve the very cognitive object and interest of literary studies

The unknown tongue : postponing language and the anonymous

in the following thesis, I argue for an interpretation of relationality on the basis of the opacity that separates perceiving subjects. Although a great deal has been written about relationality, my own project tries to demonstrate that paying close attention to the role of language and time in the explication of separation can provide us with further insights into the conditions upon which relationality is based. The structure of the thesis directly supports, at a formal level, my interpretation of subjectivity as that which, because it revolves around the absence of a unified identity "I" could call its own true self, is always in the process of arriving out of obscurity. The link between the structure of the thesis and its thematic development is inscribed in the question that guides my interpretation of relationality: How to name the anonymous? My invocation of this long-standing and recurring question in the disciplines of philosophy and the practice of narrative is intended to highlight the important role signification plays in the explication of opacity as itself a name appropriate to the discussion of relationality. In the first section I provide an introduction to terms that will figure prominently throughout the thesis against the background of Emmanuel Levinas' critique of the Other and Jean-François Lyotards critique of the sublime. In the Interlude I provide an argument supporting the inclusion of a number of Latin American authors in the thesis (namely, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo and Octavio Paz) on the basis of their relation to absence. It is this relation that helps to clarify the terms introduced in the first section and which provides a close analysis of duplicity in the explication of the separation of relation. Finally, in section five, I take the reader back to the middle, to the very temporality of the between, the separation which conditions relationality, in an explication of postponement, a term I employ in varying degrees throughout the thesis. My critique of postponement is based on Carlos Fuentes' reading of Denis Diderot and Nikolai Gogol and Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth's Sequel To History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time, both of which provide us with a language by which to conceptualise the role of postponement in the approach to the question 'How to name the anonymous'. In this way, I hope to construct, through the tight linkage between form and content in the thesis itself, the very thing which the language and the temporality of the thesis are seeking to name