Comp Lit News Spring 08.Pub

New York University Comp Lit News Department of Comparative Literature Spring 2008 Department of Co mpara tive Litera ture Graduate Student Conference: “Age of Comparison?” by Sage Anderson The annual Comparative Literature graduate student conference, jointly hosted this year with the departments of East Asian Studies and Mid- dle Eastern & Islamic Stud- ies, took place March 27-29. From our department, the organizing committee included Sage Anderson, Linda Bonvini, Ellen Xiang He, Lucy Ives, Daniel Lukes, Tara Mendola, and Pu Wang. After months of behind-the- scenes logistical struggle, the Prof. Xudong Zhang gave opening remarks: “...there is no innocent comparison.” event came off without a hitch. remarks Thursday evening, self-identity and the absolute Kevorkian Center there were The conference – entitled striking the tone for active persistently invade compara- two panels, “Variations on the “Age of Comparison?” – discussion to come. Taking tive thought. He concluded by Other,” and “Opening Eurocen- grew out of a seminar on off from the position that pointing towards Benjamin’s tric Concepts to Comparative Comparison & Comparabil- “there is no innocent com- translation theory as a model Critique.” Paper topics ranged ity, taught last spring by Pro- parison,” he established coor- for actualization of the for- widely, from Levinasian ethics fessor Xudong Zhang. Appro- dinates with passages from eign in more provisional, less to Indonesian modernity, Arabic priately, Professor Zhang was Nietzsche and Hegel, whose totalizing terms. respective obsessions with- on hand to give the opening Friday morning at the (CONFERENCE, continued on page 8) Inside: Graduate Student Colloquium Series by Patrick Gallagher New Faculty Spot Lights 2,3 John Hamilton and Beginning in the fall The idea for the series should, and/or does work as a Jacques Lezra 2007 semester, graduate stu- emerged during meetings of cohesive discipline, the com- dents organized a monthly the four representatives mittee decided to invite Profes- A seminar by Timothy 2 colloquium series that pro- elected by graduate students sors Timothy J. Reiss and Reiss vided graduate students and of the department at the end Daniel Javitch to talk about the faculty with a forum in which of the Spring 2007 semester, history of the department and New Faculty Books 3 to present their new work. Sage Anderson, Magali Ar- how it fits into the community The goals of the series were millas-Tiseyra, Michiel Bot, of literature departments Faculty Sound Bites 4 to promote interdisciplinary and Patrick Gallagher. After worldwide. Entitled “What learning and social interaction work on the colloquium se- We Were Thinking: Two Dec- Student Awards 4 for this most unusual of de- ries began in earnest, Daniel ades of Comparative Literature partments—a department the Hoffman-Schwartz soon at NYU,” the event attracted a Jobs of Recent Grads 4 members of which are united joined to help get the series considerable number of audi- by that which they do not moving. ence members as well as Pro- Alumna Spotlight: 5,6 have in common. The ses- fessors Xudong Zhang and Because one of the goals Jessie Labov sions were well attended and Richard Sieburth, who contrib- of the series was to reach a the colloquium will continue uted numerous observations of Alumni News 7 better understanding of how next year. comparative literature can, their own to the discussion. Our Faculty 9 (COLLOQUIUM, continued on page 8) Spring 2008 Page 2 New Faculty Spotlight: John T. Hamilton by Diana Hamilton Graduate Studies, a position seven albums and touring the ness can either signify human that has enabled him to meet country (which, he points out, debasement or a mystical everyone within the depart- provides a great opportunity to relationship with the divine. ment more quickly than he get a lot of reading done). His “The academic’s lifestyle,” may have otherwise, making wife Donna, who is also a Hamilton says, “is not so his transition here from Har- visual artist, was in the band different from a musician’s”. vard (where he had been too on the electric violin, and Professor Hamilton’s fu- since 2001) that much his other band members in- ture projects include a study smoother. cluded Jane Scarpantoni, a of security as a metaphysical Though his undergradu- cellist who would go on to subject as much as a political ate work was completed in play with the likes of Lou reality, where security can be German and Classics—in Reed, and Dave Dreiwitz, the seen as the negation of con- January of 2009, he will be bassist of Ween. cern or fear. He will be teach- Professor of German Lan- ing a graduate seminar on this Experience as a musician guages and Literature at topic in the spring, a course helps him in the classroom, he NYU as well—he developed that will examine the correla- says, because both require a an interest in foreign lan- tion between political and This may be John Hamil- certain ability to maintain an guages very early on. Be- intellectual understandings of ton’s first year as Professor of audience’s attention. Professor tween his broad knowledge security. Though Hamilton Comparative Literature at Hamilton also studies the of languages and his commit- reminds us that to secure a ProfessorNYU, but Johnhe is Hamiltonin no way new intersection of music and lit- ment to interdisciplinary place for oneself always runs to the school: he completed his erature, and says that their study, Hamilton’s work the risk of self-confinement, BA in German and Classical relationship is necessarily could represent the scope of we can only hope this studies at NYU in 1985, and metaphorical, if only because the field. As Hamilton says: “intellectual claustrophobia” his PhD in 1999 in this very it is necessary to use language “If Comp. Lit. always asks, he diagnoses does not get in department. Like so many here, in order to understand or begin ‘What is literature?’, it’s the way of his sticking around Professor Hamilton attributes to talk about music. His book important to ask what is not.” awhile. his returns to NYU as much to Music, Madness, and the Un- Professor Hamilton spent the city as to the school itself: working of Language (just the ten years between earning he is also a musician, and for published by Columbia Uni- his BA and entering graduate Diana Hamilton graduates with that the city is essential. He is versity Press) deals with this school playing guitar for the a Comp Lit Honors B.A. this also this year’s Director of relationship, and the way mad- band Tiny Lights, recording May. A Seminar by Professor Timothy Reiss: Toward Rethinking the Renaissance: Metaphor, Creation and Subversion by Lucy Ives shorthand as, “The Metaphor enacted in these locations is of Bird Islands.” These couched in literary accounts in “Bird Islands” are quite softening terms, as a conquest close to what their name of a metaphorical island popu- suggests: they are islands lated by birds. surrounded by ocean on These themes are entered which birds live. Along th into through 15 century narra- with their winged denizens, tives of conversion or trade: for these islands give shelter to a running alongside the explica- number of associations: they tion of this repeated scene, and are restorative islands, is- sometimes entering into it, is lands of undivided suste- an elaboration of literature nance, lacking in economies written in the vernacular in of language and violence. In early modern Europe. In a Professor Reiss speaking on “The Metaphor of Bird Islands” the account Professor Reiss large public lecture in October, undertakes in his lecture and “A Metaphor of Bird-Islands: In spring of 2008 Pro- tled, Toward Rethinking the seminar, these islands ap- Columbus Counts His Chick- fessor Timothy Reiss Renaissance: Metaphor, proach islands of fact; for ens(Colonization & Subver- (Professor Emeritus and Creation and Subversion. they are also the sites of sion)”, Professor Reiss de- Distinguished Scholar in At the center of this course European ‘contact’ with scribed a writing Columbus, a Residence) continued an is a scene, repeated in nu- alterity in the form of, yes, Columbus who “fully controls on-going seminar, begun in merous locations, to which tropical birds, but also hu- the fall of 2007 and enti- Professor Reiss refers in man beings. The violence (REISS, Continued on page 8) Spring 2008 Page 3 New Faculty Spotlight: Jacques Lezra by Sarah O’Hare con included in the class sylla- grad. But after just three vernacular dictionary. Alongside bus, the course caught the months there, he left. Georgina Dopico Black an NYU attention of more than a few “I hated it, so I dropped faculty member, Lezra began edit- students. “It’s obviously a out and sort of thumbed ing the text in 1997, which he de- topic you can come at from a around.” Lezra eventually scribes as part dictionary, encyclo- number of different angles,” arrived at Deep Springs Col- pedia and an autobiography of Lezra said. lege, an alternative two-year Sebastian de Covarrubias, a Span- Lezra found himself at humanities school where he ish church official in the late 16th NYU after his wife, Susanne learned to be both a scholar and early 17th centuries. Lezra and Wofford, was offered a posi- and a rancher, spending his Dopico Black are now working on tion as Dean of NYU’s time reading and milking a more comprehensive biography Gallatin School last year. To- cows, earning himself both an of Covarrubias. gether, the couple relocated to education and a set of Lezra also just completed Wild New York City where Lezra “forearms like Popeye,” he Materialism: The Ethic of Terror in accepted a position in both the claims.

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