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74eszter KraKKóGyőri Zsolt and Gabriella Moise, ed. Travelling around Cultures: Collected Essays on Literature and Art. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. xii + 280 pages. ISBN 9781443809962. Hb. £52.99.ReviewPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.75A CentrAl-europeAn Journey in english And AmeriCAn studiesPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.Introduction Although the subtitle humbly suggests that this volume is a “mere” collection of  essays, on reading the book, one immediately notices that it undertakes a challenge of  thematic coherence that exceeds the usual aims and scope of  “regular” conference proceedings – and meets this self-imposed requirement perfectly. The common denominator that connects the individual essays and the various chapters alike is the theme of  journey. As co-editors Zsolt Győri and Gabriella Moise (both affiliated with the University of  De-brecen, Hungary) claim, the chapters of  the volume undertake “a temporal and/or spatial journey – already hinted at in the title – crossing historical and geographical borders but reaching beyond the frontier between them, as well as linking classical literary studies with a culturally sensitive approach” (10). But what makes this journey Central European and one in English and American Studies? The answer to both questions lies in the “publication history” of  the book: its idea was conceived during the 12th Biennial Conference of  the Hungarian Society for the Study of  English (HUSSE), which was organized by the Uni-versity of  Debrecen in January 2015. HUSSE, founded in 1993, serves as the umbrella association for those Hungarian scholars whose fields of  interest lie within the scope of  English and American Studies in the broadest sense (although there also exists a Hungarian Association for American Studies – HAAS, functioning independently from HUSSE), gathering established and in-ternationally renowned professors, junior scholars, as well as doctoral students. Currently, it has almost two hundred members, all of  whom are automatically members of  the Eu-ropean Society for the Study of  English (ESSE) as well and thus, belong also to a larger, international community of  scholars devoted to a more thorough understanding and the advancement of  English Studies in Europe (more information is available at www.husse-esse.hu). Traditionally, HUSSE Conferences are major international events dedicated to the celebration and promotion of  English and American Studies within the borders of  Hungary and beyond, with presenters from several European countries and even from overseas. The 2015 Conference was no exception either: linguists, historians and scholars of  literature and of  cultural studies, representing countries from Spain and Poland to South Korea, gathered to present the results of  their scholarly research and to initiate and participate in intellectual dialogues. There was, however, a radical diversion from the tradition of  previous Conferences in the sense that instead of  adhering to the customs and preparing one gigantic volume of  conference proceedings that one would only reluctantly take off  the shelf, the orga-nizers (rather sensibly) decided to publish several smaller, but thematically more coher-ent collections of  essays – the present volume is one of  them. As the co-editors state 76 EsztEr KraKKóPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.right at the beginning of  their complex and insightful Introduction (which serves also as Chapter One), the idea of  bringing together the concept of  journey and that of  artistic accomplishment came quite naturally, since “[a]rt shares a lot in common with traveling as the artist, in the quest for heightened experience, often finds himself  or herself  on un-familiar terrain following signs, in search of  causes, recognizing hidden correlations, and […] exploring the human sphere” (1). But embarking on an intellectual journey is by no means the privilege of  the artist. According to Győri and Moise, as “[t]he experience of  traveling is hardly ever grounded in perceptions of  distances covered but in networks of  conscious and unconscious associations” (1), so are the readers and audiences invited by artists (including authors) either consciously or unconsciously to take part in the creative process (or processes of  creation) and “to consider the often invisible mechanisms at work in social systems, be they gender, class, or ethnic conflicts, stereotypes, and cultural discourses that solidify hegemonies” (1). One finds that references to the mechanisms mentioned above are also present in the thematic arrangement of  the essays (each of  which makes up an individual chapter); furthermore, this arrangement is carefully, as well as creatively combined with spatial, social and temporal metaphors of  travelling that are represented in the titles of  the main parts. In this manner, cultural and social discourses, together with the social constraints that possibly frame the route of  the text from authors to readers (who, in turn, may become authors themselves) come to the forefront in the four essays comprising Part I entitled “Censorship, Readership, Fanfiction.” Conversely, (re)visiting the (in)glorious past constitutes the central theme of  the four texts belonging to Part II, “Traversing Victorian Culture.” In the two essays of  “Her Ways” (Part III), past and present questions of  gen-der (politics) are interpreted through the lens of  Post-Modernism and popular culture. In “Lyrical Wanderings” (Part IV), another two texts provide analyses of  selected poems and a poetic oeuvre from the perspective of  memory politics and (gay) identity construction. Finally, the four essays of  Part V, bearing the title “Intermedial and Interartistic Journeys,” examine images and visual practices that contribute to a more nuanced understanding of  past and present cultural discourses. This list is already convincing enough, but one should also note that the interre-latedness of  the individual chapters, which are to be mentioned later in detail, extends the constraints of  this classification. For instance, Andrea Kirchknopf ’s essay on recent TV adaptations of  Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes-stories, which is included in “Her Ways,” could just as well be part of  the “Traversing Victorian Culture” section. Conversely, the chapter on the subversion of  Victorian ideals of  femininity in Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop by Rudolf  Nyári (in “Traversing Victorian Culture”) or Nóra Séllei’s “Whose Cup of  Tea? Katherine Mansfield in Post-1956 Hungary” and Judit 77A CentrAl-europeAn Journey in english And AmeriCAn studiesPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.Kónyi’s “Emily Dickinson and Her Readers” (presently both in “Censorship, Readership, Fanfiction”), as texts dealing with idea(l)s and idols of  feminism, could easily find their places in “Her Ways.” The editors also reflect on this multifarious nature of  the essays and point out their ability to offer resistance to the arbitrariness of  any kind of  classification (an inevitable imperative of  any compilation of  contributions by multiple authors) by stat-ing that the themes “tackled by the authors of  the present volume are pieces of  a puzzle to be assembled by the prospective reader” (10). One could extend the puzzle-metaphor and say that the texts resemble pieces of  a mosaic or snapshots taken on a journey, which then one can either contemplate separately or assemble into collections or montages of  variable elements, thus attributing them with new meanings. Another shared characteristic feature of  the essays is their ability to stand in their own right. According to the editors, the “[i]ndividual chapters […] have lives of  their own and serve as plausible illustrations of  how texts […] can be explored as products or criti-cal reflections of  cultures” (10). This claim is also supported by the editors’ rather unusual decision not to present the essays in the introductory chapter in the order according to which they are arranged in the volume but rather, offer another possible chain of  thought (out of  the many) on which they can be strung. In the same manner, Győri and Moise characterize the leading theoretical approach of  the volume as “culturally sensitive.” This critical approach, in the wake of  Michel Foucault, entails “explorations into the dynamics of  power which have their resonances in the artistic and cultural artefacts and styles of  various eras” (1); a perspective that provides a common theoretical background for the texts represented. The intellectual journey, for which the point of  departure was provided by the Intro-duction, reaches its first point of  junction with the essays grouped under the title “Cen-sorship, Readership, Fanfiction.” In the opening essay, Nóra Séllei aptly demonstrates how, “[d]ue to the changes in the dominant aesthetic values, the framing and conceptu-alization of  oeuvres and authors can also fluctuate” (12) through an insightful and infor-mative interpretation of  Katherine Mansfield’s changing reception in post-1956 Hungary. This is followed by Judit Kónyi’s elaborate study on a segment of  Emily Dickinson’s poetry, aiming “to discuss the reader’s role in the process of  interpreting Dickinson’s po-ems and the poet’s expectations of  her audience” (31). Following the two case studies on established figures of  Anglo-American literature, Larisa Kocic-Zámbó’s theoretically well grounded, as well as highly engaging “Resounding Words: Fan Fiction and the Pleasure of  Adaptation” focuses on the relatively undervalued, yet rapidly emerging field of  fan fiction studies, which she discusses from the pertinent but largely unexplored aspect of  “the repetitive nature of  fan fiction plotlines” (53). Part I concludes with “British Nov-elists on Censorship: A Historical Approach” by Alberto Lázaro, who elaborates on the 78 EsztEr KraKKóPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.repressive nature of  censorship and on how authors have (un)successfully fought against it from Jonathan Swift to the present day. Artistic practices of  the Victorian period and their Post-Modern interpretations come to the forefront in the texts belonging to the theme “Traversing Victorian Culture.” Balázs Keresztes explores how the artistic oeuvre of  19th-century author and craftsman-archeol-ogist William Morris can be re-evaluated through considering how “the interlacement of  architecture and book design” (85) contributed to his views about the ideal relationship between “design and craft” (98). Eszter Ureczky presents a much bleaker picture of  the Victorian era in her insightful analysis of  Matthew Kneale’s 1992 neo-Victorian novel, Sweet Thames, “the fictional recreation of  the devastating 1849 London cholera epidemic” (103). In “Cultural Subversiveness in Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop,” which is yet another example of  an effective close reading, Rudolf  Nyári investigates the poten-tials a fatherless Victorian household with an empowered female figure entails – nothing but grim prospects. The Victorian cycle becomes complete with Bożena Kucała’s “The Myth of  Paradise in Graham Swift’s Ever After” (published in 1992), which she reads as “a secularized version of  the overarching grand narrative of  the loss of  paradise” (133). Both “Her Ways” and “Lyrical Wanderings” present two essays with shared the-matic foci. The underlying theoretical background for the first pair of  texts is provided by feminism and Gender Studies. Dóra Vecsernyés addresses in “Voicing Silence: Music and Language in Janice Galloway’s Clara” how, even though via “the indirect mode of  the narrative itself ” (180), contemporary Scottish writer Galloway still manages to give “voice to the often suppressed and forgotten female genius of  Clara Schumann” (165), while Andrea Kirchknopf  narrates a much bleaker story when picking a BBC and a Russian serialization of  Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes-stories for a parallel analysis. Her overall conclusion is that “Irene Adler’s character becomes increasingly flat in the two ad-aptations” (159) due to the “consolidation of  conventional gender boundaries strength-ening patriarchy” (161); but these are not, as one would think, the boundaries of  the 19th century, but those of  today. Similarly, István Rácz’s “Experience in Thom Gunn” focuses on a by-and-large marginalized figure when choosing to reflect on the elegies of  excellent 20th-century gay poet Thom Gunn, while Kristóf  Kiss provides insight into the workings of  memory in yet another parallel analysis: that of  a poem by W. B. Yeats and of  another one by William Wordsworth. In Part V, entitled “Intermedial and Interartistic Journeys,” each text emphasizes “the critical relation that exists between artistic practices and the social reality in which they take place” (8) from the Middle Ages until the present. For instance, Zita Turi deals with instances of  (at times commercialized) re-enactment of  “Medieval and Early Modern Pageantry in Contemporary British Culture,” while Efterpi Mitsi analyzes early 19th-cen-79A CentrAl-europeAn Journey in english And AmeriCAn studiesPro&Contra 1 (2017) 74-79.tury British travel writing as a manifestation of  “colonial identity politics” (4). Perhaps it is not by chance, and it shows yet another sign of  thoughtfulness on the editors’ part that the last two essays of  the volume take the reader back to its opening with addressing questions of  text, authorship and readership either through interpreting “Novelization as ‘image X text’” (Emma Bálint) or through investigating texts in which “visual elements interrupt the narrative and the reading process” (259) and therefore, they create moments of  “connection between reader, character and author” (274), in other words, involvement (Eszter Szép). Providing a circular structure of  interpretations, however, does not mean that the compilation closes up the possibility of  future interpretations. On the contrary, it invites its readers, let them be established scholars or only novices in the field of  English and American Studies, to follow the route paved by the close readings in/of  literary and cul-tural studies it provides and to embark on new intercultural journeys, opening up new vistas and exploring into yet unvisited terrains – this book will serve as a perfect itinerary along the way. A perfect itinerary that has two limitations as a scholarly volume: including an Index at the end would help those having special scholarly interests (a minor lim-itation), while listing the contributors according to their surnames instead of  their first names would facilitate finding more information about them (a diminutive one). These minute things not considered, the compilation aptly fulfils the role it was destined for and “illustrates the diversity of  cultural products and phenomena while bringing to view the way texts emerge, engage with real life, and become consumed” and at times also “com-modified” (10). Perhaps the editors agree with the hope that this excellently edited volume of  cutting-edge scholarship will be consumed by many but never commodified.

A Central-European Journey in English and American Studies

http://publikacio.uni-eszterhazy.hu/4451/1/5_ProContra_Eszter-Krakk%C3%B3.pdf

A Central-European Journey in English and American Studies

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