The Great Irish Famine in history-writing and prose fiction : "the mutual interplay of two narrative genres"

Denna tvärvetenskapliga studie kontextualiserar den skönlitterära framställningen av hungersnöden i Irland i mitten av 1800-talet i förhållande till tre olika faser av irländsk historieskrivning ‒ den nationalistiska, den revisionistiska, och den postrevisionistiska ‒ med syfte att granska i vilken mån prosafiktionen antingen återspeglar eller motsäger historikernas tolkningar. År 1845 drabbades landet av en dittills okänd potatispest som förstörde skörden helt eller delvis under de följande fem åren. Missväxten ledde till utbredd svält och epidemiska sjukdomar som dödade åtminstone en miljon människor, medan ytterligare en och en halv miljon flydde, huvudsakligen till Förenta Staterna, England, och Kanada. I sina försök att hitta en rationell förklaring till hur potatispesten kunde utvecklas till den värsta svältkatastrofen i Europa under modern tid, har historiker påvisat ett antal bidragande faktorer, till exempel överbefolkning, de fattigaste jordlösa småbrukarnas och lantarbetarnas beroende av potatisen som sitt baslivsmedel, underutveckling inom jordbruket, det rådande jordegendomssystemet, och den dåvarande brittiska regeringens misslyckande att tillhandahålla effektiv och tillräcklig nödhjälp. Historiska förklaringar är naturligtvis nödvändiga för att vi skall kunna bilda oss en uppfattning om hungersnödens orsaker och konsekvenser, men svårigheten med att skildra offrens situation i en historiografisk analys baserad på fakta är uppenbar då deras egna vittnesmål till största delen saknas i källmaterialet. Följaktligen finns det en risk att historieskrivningen förmörkar det som onekligen var centrala realiteter för de värst drabbade, nämligen svält, vräkning, sjukdom och död. Här kan skönlitteraturen bidra till att komplettera historien. Genom att fokusera på ett specifikt (fiktivt) samhälle och dess (fiktiva) individer, kan skönlitterära verk ge en inblick i hur hungersnöden inverkade på olika samhällsskikt, vad människorna gjorde för att överleva, hur nöden och fasorna påverkade deras psyke, och vad eller vem de höll ansvariga för katastrofen. Å andra sidan kan denna fokusering innebära att författaren misslyckas med att ge en helhetsbild av hungersnödens enorma omfattning och att redogöra för alla faktorer som orsakade och förlängde den. Paul Ricoeurs teori om samspelet mellan historia och fiktion (the interweaving of history and fiction) är därför ett nyckelbegrepp för att bättre förstå denna traumatiska period i Irlands historia. Avhandlingen omfattar en textanalytisk, komparativ kritik av ett antal historiska och skönlitterära verk. Genom närläsning av dessa texter granskar jag vilka aspekter av hungersnöden (politiska, ekonomiska, sociala) de olika författarna valt att behandla, och på vilket sätt, samt hur deras synvinklar har format tolkningarna i sin helhet. I detta sammanhang tar jag också upp skillnaderna mella fakta och fiktion, och speciellt de etiska problem som är förknippade med skildringen av traumatiska händelser och mänskligt lidande. Samtidigt undersöker jag, med hänvisning till Roger D. Sells kommunikationsteori, huruvida vissa författare anslår en påstridig ton i sina verk och hur detta påverkar dialogen mellan författare och läsare. Med utgångspunkt i Ricoeurs teori argumenterar jag för att historia och fiktion inte bör ses som ömsesidigt antitetiska diskurser i skildringen och tolkningen av det förflutna, och att skönlitteraturen genom fokuseringen på offren, som ofta tenderar att reduceras till statistik i historieskrivningen, kan förmedla en bättre förståelse och en djupare känsla för den mänskliga dimensionen av den tragedi som utspelades under hungeråren.

Napalm and After: The Politics of Grace Paley's Short Fiction

Comparatively few contemporary writers have accompanied American POWs home from Hanoi, been arrested on the White House Lawn, or been dragged off in shackles to serve time in the Greenwich Village Women's House of Detention. Paley's pacifist, socialist politics are also deeply rooted in a family past where memories were still fresh of Tsarist oppression - one uncle shot dead carrying the red flag, and parents who reached America only because the Tsar had a son and amnestied all political prisoners under the age of twenty-one. At this point, Paley's father (imprisoned in Archangel) and her mother (in exile) took their chances (and all their surviving relatives) and very sensibly ran for their lives. Her grandmother recalled family arguments around the table between Paley's father (Socialist), Uncle Grisha (Communist), Aunt Luba (Zionist), and Aunt Mira (also Communist). Paley's own street-wise adolescence involved the usual teenage gang fights, between adherents of the Third and Fourth Internationals. This article is copyright MHRA 2001, and is included in this repository with permission.

Adapting to change in contemporary Irish and Scottish culture: fiction to film

Abstract available: p. [ii]-[iii].

Expérience précaire du monde et représentation de la poésie dans La fissure de la fiction et Désâmé de Patrice Desbiens

Diverses œuvres de poésie moderne et contemporaine mettent en scène le rapport à l’écriture d’un sujet lyrique. Une telle problématique trouve une incarnation particulièrement intéressante dans l’œuvre de Patrice Desbiens, notamment dans certains de ses textes des années 1990 et 2000, où elle apparaît avec plus d’acuité. Pourtant, sa pratique auto-réflexive a fait l’objet de très peu de recherches. Afin d’éclairer le rapport qu’entretient Patrice Desbiens avec l’écriture et avec la poésie, ce mémoire s’intéresse à deux de ses textes, soit La fissure de la fiction (1997) et Désâmé, (2005) en accordant davantage d’espace au premier, que je considère comme un texte-charnière dans la production poétique de Desbiens. Dans un premier temps, mon travail présente ainsi la précarité qui caractérise le protagoniste de La fissure de la fiction et, sous un autre angle, le sujet lyrique de Désâmé. Dans cette optique, la figure du poète est étudiée dans La fissure de la fiction à la lumière de la reprise ironique du mythe de la malédiction littéraire et du sens que la réactualisation de ce mythe confère au personnage dans ce récit poétique. Dans un second temps, ce mémoire s’attache à montrer que la cohérence et la vraisemblance des univers mis en scène dans La fissure de la fiction et Désâmé sont minées. C’est à l’aune de ces analyses que peut ensuite être envisagé le rôle d’une poésie qui, en dernière instance, comporte malgré tout un caractère consolateur, en dépit ou en raison de l’esthétique du grotesque, tantôt comique, tantôt tragique, dans laquelle elle s’inscrit et que nous tâcherons de mettre en lumière.

Kapuściński non-fiction – próba analizy debaty publicznej

Artykuł stanowi próbę analizy debaty publicznej wywołanej publikacją na początku marca 2010 roku biografii Ryszarda Kapuścińskiego zatytułowanej "Kapuściński non-fiction". Debata ta była pod wieloma względami zjawiskiem bez precedensu. Jak wskazywano, być może po raz pierwszy od roku 1989 zawiodły w jej trakcie proste osie predykcji - nie był to konflikt lewica/prawica, starzy/młodzi czy III RP/IV RP. W debacie wokół książki Artura Domosławskiego głos zabrali ludzie, którzy często traktowali Ryszarda Kapuścińskiego jako swojego mistrza i guru zawodowego, koledzy i koleżanki po piórze, adepci tzw. polskiej szkoły reportażu, publicyści i dziennikarze najważniejszych tytuł prasowych oraz mediów elektronicznych, ale także pisarze, politycy oraz duchowni. Przedmiotem szczególnie wnikliwego namysłu były zwłaszcza trzy kwestie: proporcja faktów i fikcji literackiej w twórczości Kapuścińskiego, jego młodzieńcze heglowskie ukąszenie i późniejsza wieloletnia identyfikacja z Polską Ludową, oraz ewolucja ideowa po 1989 roku. W niniejszym artykule pominięto pierwszy wątek i skupiono się na dwóch kolejnych, traktując je jako szczególnie interesujące przy rozważaniu związków między polityką a kulturą.

Sacrum w drodze. Moskwa-Pietuszki Wieniedikta Jerofiejewa i Pulp Fiction Quentina Taranino w kluczu montażowego czytania

The aim of this monograph is the attempt of reading the poem Moscow-Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev and the film Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino using the comparative approach, in which we go beyond the range of factual relationships, historical influences or similarities functioning in the structure of the presented world. The purpose of the book is to see both works of art from the angle of the montage theory of Sergei Eisenstein – the outstanding and highly regarded Russian director and film philosopher – which means studying cultural phenomena in their mutual intertextual relationships. The book focuses on the interpretation of the selected Tarantino’s and Erofeev’s texts of culture, in which the subject of the city, the search for the concept of the body at the end of 20th century and the problem of addictions constitute the dominant thematic issues. The monograph also offers the insight into the nature of the phenomenon of postmodernism and treats Eisenstein’s philosophy as the specific type of anticipation of postmodern tendencies in cinematography.

Le plaisir pris aux représentations violentes et cruelles dans la fiction policière

Il s’agit ici d’explorer le plaisir pris à la lecture des romans policiers, lecture qui implique la participation du lecteur à des représentations violentes et cruelles. Dans son récit autobiographique Les Mots, Jean-Paul Sartre déclare en conclusion d’un passage consacré à ce qu’il appelle les «vraies lectures de son enfance» – ces lectures lui sont données par les livres d’aventures et les magazines pour enfants, il les oppose aux lectures savantes –: «Cette double vie n’a jamais cessé: aujourd’hui encore, je lis plus volontiers les “Série Noire” que Wittgenstein».

Post-Revolutionary Post-Modernism: Central American Detective Fiction by the Turn of the 21st Century

Contemporary Central American fiction has become a vital project of revision of the tragic events and the social conditions in the recent history of the countries from which they emerge. The literary projects of Sergio Ramirez (Nicaragua), Dante Liano (Guatemala), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Ramon Fonseca Mora (Panama), are representative of the latest trends in Central American narrative. These trends conform to a new literary paradigm that consists of an amalgam of styles and discourses, which combine the testimonial, the historical, and the political with the mystery and suspense of noir thrillers. Contemporary Central American noir narrative depicts the persistent war against social injustice, violence, criminal activities, as well as the new technological advances and economic challenges of the post-war neo-liberal order that still prevails throughout the region. Drawing on postmodernism theory proposed by Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon and Brian MacHale, I argued that the new Central American literary paradigm exemplified by Sergio Ramirez’s El cielo llora por mí, Dante Liano’s El hombre de Montserrat, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s El arma en el hombre and La diabla en el espejo, and Ramon Fonseca Mora’s El desenterrador, are highly structured novels that display the characteristic marks of postmodern cultural expression through their ambivalence, which results from the coexistence of multiple styles and conflicting ideologies and narrative trends. The novels analyzed in this dissertation make use of a noir sensitivity in which corruption, decay and disillusionment are at their core to portray the events that shaped the modern history of the countries from which they emerge. The revolutionary armed struggle, the state of terror imposed by military regimes and the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, are among the major themes of these contemporary works of fiction, which I have categorized as perfect examples of the post-revolutionary post-modernism Central American detective fiction at the turn of the 21st century.

Making the Men of Tomorrow: American Science Fiction and the Politics of Masculinity, 1965 – 1974

Suggesting that the political diversity of American science fiction during the 1960s and early 1970s constitutes a response to the dominance of social liberalism throughout the 1940s and 1950s, I argue in Making the Men of Tomorrow that the development of new hegemonic masculinities in science fiction is a consequence of political speculation. Focusing on four representative and influential texts from the 1960s and early 1970s, Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, this thesis explores the relationship between different conceptions of hegemonic masculinity and three separate but related political ideologies: the social ethic, market libertarianism, and socialist libertarianism. In the first two chapters in which I discuss Dick’s novels, I argue that Dick interrogates organizational masculinity as part of a larger project that suggests the inevitable infeasibility of both the social ethic and its predecessor, social liberalism. In the next chapter, I shift my attention to Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress as a way of showing how, unlike Dick, other authors of the 1960s and early 1970s sought to move beyond social liberalism by imagining how new political ideologies, in this case market libertarianism, might change the way men see themselves. Having demonstrated how the libertarian potential of Heinlein’s novel is ultimately undermined by its insistent and uncompromising biological determinism, I then discuss how Le Guin’s The Dispossessed uses the socialist libertarianism of the moon Anarres to suggest a more egalitarian form of masculinity, one that makes possible, to some extent at least, a future in which men might embrace not only the mutual aid of socialism, but also the primacy of individual rights that is at the heart of all forms of libertarianism and liberalism.

THE INTERTEXTUALITY OF OPERA IN THE FICTION OF NELIDA PIÑON

This article examines how Nélida Piñon builds a feminist reader in the novel A força do destino (1978). This work highlights the role of the contemporary writer to read the classics from the post-modern and feminist places. Post-modern because it decentralizes the structural elements of the text, feminist because it opposes to any kind of women oppression. In this novel, the narrator reconstructs the trajectory of the characters Alvaro and Leonora, homonym protagonists of the opera by Giuseppe Verdi, based on her devotion by them, because of this, it becomes a passionate and original reporting. The narrative of Piñon is built from a parodist and irreverent place that updates the plot of Verdi. This is a metanarrative in which the narrator dialogues with her characters and reader. In this case, the reference to the opera by Verdi is, actually, the exploration of artistic and cultural archives in accordance with the interests of the narrator. Methodologically, this paper is guided by the exploitation of intertextuality present in this work and in gender studies to enhance the speaking place of the writer as a real part of contemporary feminist culture.

FICTION OF THE SELF: A GLANCE AT NANCY HUSTON’S MARCAS DE NASCENÇA

This paper analyzes two works of the canadian writer Nancy Huston: Marcas de nascença and A espécie fabuladora. The main idea is to support the reading of the former work based on the reflections raised by the latter, especially regarding the aspect concerning issues such as the Meaning and the (re) invention of the self. The relevance of these concepts will be effective in an immersion in the universe of the four main characters of the novel Marcas de nascença: Sun, Randall, Sadie and Kristina. The paper focuses on seeking the essence of Meaning in the life of each one of these characters, always considering two vital and non-discernible ​​aspects: time and space in each of them. Therefore, literature and culture concepts will be considered such as the concept of Americanness as well as the Americanization, Identity, Fiction and Recognition. Thus, this assay is divided into two parts. The first one envisions the idea matter expressed by Huston in A espécie fabuladora - the ceaseless quest for Meaning culminating in identity shaping – in order to seek understanding from this point of view the occurrence of certain cultural phenomena of which some characters from Marcas de nascença are an expression. The second part observes each of the four main characters and strengthens the suggested initial idea (that the book's characters are constituent parts of a behavioral matrix vital to human existence), then filling the gaps of the two themes developed: the birthmarks transmitted throughout four generations and how these marks are recorded over fifty-six years of history.