Dorothy Figueira

Goethe and Günderrode: German Poetic Readings of Indian Fatalism

This essay examines Germany’s appropriation of Indian imagery and metaphysical concepts. It looks at how Sanskrit literature provided German authors with poetical inspiration as well as an alibi for despair. It investigates the positive and negative implications of this influence by focusing the discussion on the long relationship Goethe had with Indian poetry and the refuge Karoline von Gunderrode sought in her readings of Vedantic philosophy.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?

Presentation of “What Comparatists do in the United States,” in response to the question that motivated the issue: “What do Comparatists around the world do?”

Kwestia religii i literatury: "Narzeczeni" i recepcja katolicyzmu Manzoniego

The essay examines the phenomenon of negative reception of religious thematics in the field of Comparative Literature in the US and the difficulties in interpreting I promessi sposi as a reflection on human accountability and its relationship to the idea of theodicy, both in American and Italian academe. Particular attention is paid to the problem of methodological and practical introduction of religion into the dyadic system of interdisciplinary studies in Comparative Literature.

Doing God’s Work: The Missonary’s Task of Translation or Who Makes the Best Jesuits: Comparatists, World Literature Scholars, or Real Jesuits?

This paper takes as its point of departure the sixteenth-century Jesuit construction of Confucianism and the manufacture of the figure of Confucius in the form of translations of the Chinese classics. In examining the Jesuit policy of accommodation in Asia, I ask whether we might not view these efforts as precursors for the tasks we seek to perform as Comparatists and World Literature scholars. Like the Jesuits in China who sought to package Confucius, we seek to package the world by contextualizing form and argument, canonizing a body of work, producing creative readings sand projecting a vision onto the foreign Other. I focus in particular on the work of Matteo Ricci and his catechism, the Tianzhu shiyi , as a work of cultural mistranslation. I ask to what degree are our current critical readings of the Other not also failures. I question the purposes for which one “misreads”.

A Swarm of Butterflies

Abstract: This essay examines and compares the various renditions of the story of Madame Butterfly, ranging from the narrative found in Pierre Loti’s Mme. Chrysanthème, the John Luther Long short story (Mme. Butterfly), David Belasco’s play (Mme. Butterfly), Puccini’s opera (Madama Butterfly), and finally David Henry Hwang’s dramatic subversion of this story of ill-fated love and betrayal in M. Butterfly. In recent years, Hwang’s play has become a canonical work in the canon of multicultural literature in the US. The author investigates how Hwang’s treatment of race and gender supports this pedagogy and the identity politics currently fashionable in literature departments in American academe.

Editor's Column: Intertextualities, Cosmopolitanisms, and Comparative Literature

This issue brings together the best of the SCLA, with contributors representing long standing members and former officers, junior newcomers to the organization, mid-career newcomers to our conferences, students (some as early in their career as masters students), and junior scholars. No less significant, it shows the extent to which the SCLA has fostered a diverse membership--senior scholars whose attendance at our conferences serves to mentor younger scholars, young scholars who travel great distances to participate within a constructive ambiance, and students who come to the SCLA in order to learn how to present a conference paper as well as (at times) bring them to the point of publication. SCLA conferences are enhanced by regional, national, and international scholars; students, independent scholars, and professors. Although I have had considerable experience in both national and international comparative literature associations, I am always astounded by how the SCLA serves such a varied population. I began my publishing career with The Comparatist. The editor at that time, John Burt Foster, carefully nursed my initial work into publishable form. I presented one of my first papers at the SCLA (even though I was based in the North at the time) because it was an environment in which a young scholar could actually receive constructive feedback. It has been a great pleasure to give back to this organization during these last four years. This issue is the last that I will produce as Editor. I wish to take this opportunity to thank the Advisory Board for all the support they have given me during my tenure, and especially for their letters of support for continued funding of this journal during these difficult economic times. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with my book review and managing editors as well as the production team from the University of North Carolina Press. In addition to its book reviews, this issue includes a series of articles dealing with the interrelated themes of intertextuality and cosmopolitanism. Essays span the cross-cultural and inter-arts influences in Cuban, French, Belgian, Turkish, American, British, Spanish, Russian, and German works. The volume also includes two clusters of conference papers. One cluster, dealing specifically with intertextuality, was organized by SCLA members and presented at the 2009 ACLA Conference in New Orleans. The other cluster, in keeping with The Comparatists commitment to publish graduate students and junior scholars, focuses on the international reception of the work on Edgar Allan Poe. This cluster also originated in a panel presented at the ACLA 2009. The organizers of these panels introduce these clusters and their contributors in separate introductions. The issue opens with an article written by Alfred Lopez who examines Jose Martis reading of Walt Whitman. Lopez brings Marti and Whitman together at Madison Square Theater in 1887, where the Cuban author went to hear the iconic American poet speak on Abraham Lincoln. He juxtaposes the international and interdisciplinary breadth of Martis learning with the monolingual Whitman as a backdrop for a larger discussion of Martis posthumous reception as a political and ideological writer, first at the hands of Battista and Castro and later by postcolonial and New American Studies scholars, who tend to view him as anti-nationalist and as a Pan-Caribbean revolutionary--an odd persona, Lopez notes, for Cubas most famous nationalist revolutionary. Lopez examines the paradox of how Marti admired Whitman, a writer who celebrated what he feared and hated most about America: its status as a rising empire. The author questions whether Martis praise of Whitman is really the critique of the American poets imperialistic rhetoric, as many recent scholars claim, or an effort to build a Marti to fit critical agendas. John Pizer investigates the use of Haiti as a trope in German literature from the early eighteenth century to the present day. …

Celebrations, Clusters, and Comparative Literature

In this issue of The Comparatist, I decided that we might try something different. I have had the occasion, as I grow older and my colleagues grow even older, to participate in various Festschriften offered in their honor. This is a charming custom, where colleagues join together to celebrate the career of one of their own. It is a custom that does not occur often enough in the States. On too many occasions, a scholars retirement is feted in the seminar room after hours with some punch and cookies or worse, with a dinner of glorified cafeteria food where administrators make lame jokes. When I first learned that Michael Palencia-Roth had retired after many years at the University of Illinois, I thought it reasonable to use my editorial discretion to collect a number of articles in honor of his work. Prof. Palencia-Roth is an eminent comparatist and a valiant soldier in our field. His work, both scholarly and pedagogically, exemplifies the best of our discipline. The Board of the Southern Comparative Literature Association supported my decision to frame this issue as a Festschrift to him. This year, Palencia-Roth took part in a keynote forum at our annual meeting at Auburn University, announcing this volume. The Board of the SCLA recognizes the unique position of its journal, the only regional American journal of Comparative Literature with a national, and even international, readership. I appreciate their encouragement as we venture forth with such alternative clusters of articles. Working with this perspective has brought forth unexpected connections: for example, David Damroschs article in this issue anticipates next years cluster on the relationship between comparative literature and world literature (this future cluster stems from an ACLA panel I organized devoted to this topic) while simultaneously recalling a cluster presented last year (the ICLA panel on the state of the discipline, which also took place at the ACLA). In coming years, we are also planning guest-edited topics and clusters that are comparative in scope culled from the SCLA annual meeting. Michael Palencia-Roth, the Emeritus Trowbridge Scholar in Literary Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois, was born and raised in Colombia. He taught at Illinois for thirty years, where he directed the program in Comparative and World Literature for six years (1988-94). He has published books and monographs on Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, the conquest period in Latin America, the Holocaust, Comparative Literature as a discipline, and comparative civilizational analysis. His approximately 80 other publications include major encyclopedia articles on Latin American authors, as well as essays on Germanic subjects, English literature, the Spanish colonization of the New World, and theoretical issues in cross-cultural analysis. Palencia-Roths role as a teacher, mentor, and administrator bears particular note. He has molded a generation of comparatists, instilling in them a sense of what it means to work together both professionally and collegially. It is, therefore, both his scholarship and his work as a citizen in the profession that the SCLA honors in these pages. A number of scholars have written articles devoted to topics that Palencia-Roth has touched upon in his work. We begin this issue with an interview with Professor Palencia-Roth in which he discusses his peregrinations within Comparative Literature. He examines the nature of the discipline and the changes he has seen in it since his days at Harvard as a graduate student. He also offers a prognosis for its future, noting the possibilities and pitfalls that might occasion the transformation of Comparative Literature into World Literature. Palencia-Roths concerns (and celebration of Comparative Literatures potential) nicely establish a framework that the essays in his honor will engage, beginning with David Damroschs comments on the American institutionalization of World Literature. …