15 research outputs found
The Holocaust as Fiction: Derridaâs \u3cem\u3eDemeuere\u3c/em\u3e and the Demjanjuk Trial in Philip Rothâs \u3cem\u3eOperation Shylock\u3c/em\u3e
This essay investigates the representation of juridical testimony in Rothâs âconfession,â Operation Shylock. Read through the theoretical lens of Jacques Derrida, specifically in terms of his Demeure, Rothâs novel suggests a new strategy for coping with the Holocaust in literature, wherein writing remains true both to the Holocaust as unspeakable and to the Holocaust as actual historical event
Improvising Chicago
d, 7(1):101-127 (provide link). Reproduced with permission
Improvising Chicago
d, 7(1):101-127 (provide link). Reproduced with permission
Nail a crow to the door
A novel of life in a west coast town and the harsh, magical and sometimes comic predicaments of its characters who try to cope with their traumatic upbringings, disease and alcoholism
Communities of Self: Mavis Gallantâs Linnet Muir Cycle
La sĂ©rie de nouvelles Linnet Muir de Mavis Gallant critique les « significations plus grandes » sensĂ©es inclure les histoires individuelles. Cette critique est particuliĂšrement observable dans la description de lâindividualitĂ© de Linnet, dont les paramĂštres sont constamment renĂ©gociĂ©s tout au long du cycle. En articulant les voix de la communautĂ© dans laquelle elle a Ă©voluĂ© pendant son enfance et lorsquâelle Ă©tait jeune adulte, Linnet suggĂšre que le moi nâest pas construit en opposition face aux pressions sociales, mais quâil en est indissociable. En mĂȘme temps, le fait dâarticuler les voix de sa communautĂ© lui permet dâĂ©chapper Ă leur logique dĂ©terministe, prĂ©cisĂ©ment parce que les voix dialoguent continuellement, nĂ©gociant une rĂ©alitĂ© sur laquelle elles sont en dĂ©saccord, et parce que leur orchestration crĂ©e toujours une variation supplĂ©mentaire quant Ă la signification premiĂšre du passĂ© et du prĂ©sent. Dans cette variabilitĂ© presque infinie, Linnet saisit son libre arbitre et Ă©chappe Ă ce que les autres voudraient quâelle soit, câest-Ă -dire Ă la signification dĂ©terministe Ă laquelle on aimerait la subordonner, elle et son histoire. Au lieu de ce dĂ©terminisme, Gallant propose un pluralisme radical, une « communautĂ© de moi ». Elle adapte la sĂ©rie de nouvelles Ă une vision politique dans laquelle le libre arbitre du sujet sâaccomplit dans et Ă travers la communautĂ© oppressante
Towards a definition of dirty realism
This thesis develops and refines a term used initially by Bill Buford to refer to works of
contemporary realism. Dirty realism characterises a strain of realism first appearing in American
and Canadian writing during the 1960s and increasing in prominence through the 1970s, 1980s,
and early 1990s. The study focuses on the scholarship surrounding both the term and the works
of particular authors, and applies the theories of Fredric Jameson and Michel de Certeau to
develop a basic critical vocabulary for engaging the fiction and poetry of Charles Bukowski,
Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Anthony Jarman, as well as other writers treated with
less intensity, such as David Adams Richards, Helen Potrebenko, Al Purdy, and Bobbie Anne
Mason. In particular, the dissertation attempts to develop a critical terminology through which
to discuss dirty realist texts. The most prominent of such terms, the "hypocrisy aesthetic," refers
to dirty realism's aesthetic of contradiction, discursive variance, and offsetting of theory against
practice. The chapters of the dissertation deal with the emergence of the hypocrisy aesthetic
through a study of literary genealogy, history, and theory.
The second chapter, "Dirty Realism: Genealogy," traces the development of major
currents in twentieth-century American realism, particularly naturalism. Arguing for dirty
realism as a variant of naturalism, the chapter traces the transmission of ideas concerning
dialectics, determinism, and commodity production from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris,
through James T. Farrell and John Steinbeck and ending with an extensive discussion of Charles
Bukowski's Factotum.
The third chapter, "Dirty Realism: History," addresses the impact of the Cold War on the
development of dirty realism. Referring to major critics on the period, this section of the
dissertation follows the development of hypocrisy as a form of discourse eventuated by Cold
War contradictions, particularly between that of democratic freedoms proclaimed abroad and the
atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia on the domestic scene (asâin the USAâin the HUAC
hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy).Arts, Faculty ofEnglish, Department ofGraduat
Improvising Chicago
Aldo Rossi's The Architecture of the City articulates how civic space intersects with collective agency: "One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated with objects and places [. . .] The collective memory participates in the actual transformation of space in the works of the collective, a transformation that is always conditioned by whatever material realities oppose it" (130). Rossi's contentionâthat the development, or "transformation," of urban space is accomplished by a collective deploying memory in its struggle with material realityâis the scene of Stuart Dybek's southside Chicago in, The Coast of Chicago. Where this short story cycle deals with musical improvisation it dramatizes Rossi's contention by showing how memory not only resists "material realities"âin this case the demolition of southside neighborhoods initiated by Mayor Daleyâand not only preserves ethnicityâespecially the Polish and Chicano diasporas Dybek writes aboutâbut also enables what Thomas S. Gladsky has called "a trans-ethnic urban America [. . .] a diverse cultural landscape where ethnicity transcends national origins but remains vital" (117). Dybek's ethnic self is a processual subjectivity, improvisatory rather than definitive, "based [less] on national origins [than] on a shared sense of ethnicity as a condition of Americanness" (Gladsky 115). In the story "Blight" characters inhabit a neighborhood where "the city was tearing down buildings for urban renewal and tearing up streets for a new expressway, and everywhere one looked there were signs in front of the rubble reading: sorry for the inconvenience / another improvement / for a greater Chicago / Richard J. Daley, Mayor" (44). Yet it is this demolition of monuments, this assault on what Rossi calls "the Locus" ("a relationship between a [. . .] specific location and the buildings that are in it" 103), this demonstration of the materiality of civic space that allows the characters to reawaken to the transformative potential of community: "It was the route we usually took to the viaduct, but since blight had been declared we were trying to see our surroundings from a new perspective" (45). Awakening to "new perspectives" as a result of civic "improvement" Dybek's characters cast off a determinate subjectivity and realize the action of the collective in the determination of civic reality. When the characters go to the viaduct off Douglas Park and begin improvising a "blues" by "slamming an aerial or board or chain off the girders, making the echoes collide and ring [. . .] clonk[ing] empty bottles and beer cans [. . .] shouting and screaming like [. . .] Howlin' Wolf" (48) they are joined by "a train [. . .] booming overhead like part of the song" (48)and by "a gang of black kids" at the other end of the viaduct who "stood harmonizing from bass through falsetto just like the Coasters, so sweetly that though at first [the characters] tried outshouting them, [they] finally shut up and listened, except for Pepper keeping the beat" (48). The fragments of the city are used to enable collectivity, to remember what the city is for. The attempt of civic authority to wrest memory from its inhabitants by making it impermanent, fragmentary, demolished, is precisely what restores agency by giving way to a subjectivity that is the scene of salvage. In this way communities become aware of their ability to define landscape, to alter "perspective" and take possession of space, to regard ethnicity as a common instrument, as if out of material destruction it might be possible to make of memory something more powerful than memorization, defying institutional permanenceâcivic or ethnicâfor a community that is elastic, responsive, aware of its relationships with and within the spaces it inhabits
Sam Shepardâs âBodyâ of Tragedy
Sam Shepardâs play, A Particle of Dread (The Oedipus Variations), is haunted by a biological inevitability pointing to Shepardâs own death from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 2017, one characterized by precisely the progressive degeneration of muscles and mobility, ultimately leading to paralysis, that guides the form of his last published play