Intersections Spring 2013 We’Re Hosting the ACLA 2014 Convention! by Ozen Dolcerocca
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Department of Comparative Literature New York University Intersections Spring 2013 We’re hosting the ACLA 2014 Convention! by Ozen Dolcerocca ty of these questions is rooted from a local to a global sense panel will focus on the Diction- in the semantic density of the of capital, and vice versa? How ary of Untranslatables, co- term ‘capital’ itself. can we trace effects of the edited by Emily Apter, Jacques movement from a local to a Lezra and Michael Wood. The Unpacking these diverse va- global sense of capital and vice tentative plenary session will lences, in turn, points to the versa? be organized by the Center for Our department is very excit- capital importance of the term Ancient Studies. ed to announce that it will host for the critical projects in Possible topics falling under the annual meeting of The which Comparative Literature this heading include, but are Special thanks to Carlos Aguir- American Comparative Litera- is engaged. Marx has pointed to not limited to: The Metropolis re and Sonia Werner for their ture Association in Spring 2014 the hegemonic configurations and the Metropole; Empire and contribution to the CFP and to at NYU Washington Square that emerge around capital; the (Post)Colonies; Cultural the ACLA Organization Com- Campus. What hegemonic configura- Capitals; Capitalization; the mittee! tions/configurations of power Persistence of Capital; Econo- The theme of next year’s con- and privilege emerge around my of Translations; the Center We welcome and encourage ference is “CAPITALS”. The capitals? What constitutes a and the Periphery; Canons and everyone’s involvement. Stay 2014 ACLA meeting in New capital? What institutes a capi- Capital and The Capital and the tuned for more information on York City offers a singular op- tal? How does capital move? Corporeal. this exciting event! portunity to interrogate the How do we move a capital? city’s tenuous reputation as a How do we spend (political, In addition to a plenary session, global capital. As other cities economic, cultural) capital? workshops, and other events in Ozen Dolcerocca is a 5th year Ph.D are gradually overtaking New How do we accumulate it? and around the New York Uni- student and is coordinating the de- York as a political, cultural, and How do we understand the versity campus, the ACLA partment’s side of ACLA 2014. financial hub, in what sense can fragmentation of capitals and 2014 conference is centered we still speak of New York capital? How do competing around 8-12 person panel/ City as a global capital? In what capitals negotiate their spheres seminars meeting for either sense do we speak of capitals of influence or dominance? two or three days and intended (and capital) at all? The difficul- What happens when we shift to foster discussion. One such Inside the Issue: Speaker Series: New Directions in Comparative Literature ACLA 1 by Anastasiya Osipova Speaker Series 1 Grad Colloquium 2 With funding from the Arts and Science deans, Comp Lit launched a special Speaker Series this year to explore cutting-edge New Directions Political Concepts 111 3 in Comparative Literature. To guide us in this exploration, we invited Poetics and Theory 4 exciting scholars at the forefront of such new comparative, interdiscipli- nary directions – Roberto Dainotto (Duke), Karen Pinkus (Cornell), Eyal Place & Sanders Perform! 4 Peretz (Indiana), Jennifer Bajorek (NYU/London), and Lynn Enterline Alumni Highlight Wang Ping 5 (Vanderbilt). First up: Roberto Dainotto. Brio Undergraduate Journal 6 In October of 2012, the Depart- Place, Literature, he continues to Grad News 8 ment of Comparative Literature investigate the questions of the at NYU was delighted to wel- national and place in literature, Alumni News 9 come back its own graduate, while sustaining rigorous atten- Roberto Dainotto. Since de- tion to the problems of history fending his dissertation, All Re- and politics. gions Do Smilingly Revolt: Region, (cont on page 2) Page 2 Speaker Series cont... Dainotto is now professor of Ital- culture and ideology, (II) the issue perspective of marginalized south- traced a variety of Western theo- ian at Duke University. With his of the metaphysics of place as ern writers – such as an eighteenth ries of the novel and focused a lively and witty writing style, something that does not allow an -century Spanish Jesuit Juan An- great deal on Erich Auerbach’s “localized” expertise of Italian account for history and lacks ideo- drés. This book is an exciting Mimesis to evaluate the historical culture and a truly comparativist logical dimension. attempt to theorize Europe both conditions that gave “rise” to this rigor, he never loses sight of histo- from the southern margins and genre. Present in the audience ry and ideology in favor of geogra- from the center, borrowing much were Kristin Ross, Ana Dopico, His dissertation was eventually phy. He is a wonderful example of of its strategies and discourse from Gabriela Basterra, Jacques Lezra as developed into Place in Literature: a scholar who manages to wear postcolonial and subaltern studies well as several students whose Regions, Cultures, Communities both “national” and “comparatist” and was awarded the 2010 Shan- research is tightly connected with (Cornell UP, 2000). He followed non Prize in Contemporary Euro- theories of the novel. Both the hats with elegance. this work with Europe (in Theory) talk and the Q&A session that (Duke UP, 2007), which offers a pean Studies. followed were lively, rigorous, and The following problems have occu- genealogy of Eurocentrism. In this engaging. It was a great honor to pied a central place in Dianotto’s text, Dainotto sets out to reveal The talk that Roberto Dainotto have Professor Dainotto return to work since his days at NYU: (1) Eurocentrism’s underlying dialecti- gave at NYU, titled “History and his Alma Mater, and both students the extent to which notions of the cal nature by addressing not only the Novel”, was an excerpt from and faculty are looking forward to national and the regional can be the commonplace theories of Eu- his forthcoming book concerning useful in representing and theoriz- rope (Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mad- the theory of the novel and its further dialogue in the future. ing the heterogeneous and shifting ame de Stael, Hegel), but also the relationship to history. Dainotto Anastasiya Osipova is a 6th year PhD student in Comp Lit, whose work focuses on the rhetoric of vitality in Soviet literary theory and the novels of production of the 1920s and 1930s. Speaker Series Scholars—Roberto Dainotto (Duke University), Karen Pinkus (Cornell), Eyal Peretz (Indiana), Jennifer Bajorek (NYU/London), and Lynn Enter- line (Vanderbilt). Notes on the Colloquium by Nienke Boer Looking through the archives of world, is a wonderful reminder of mester, we’ll come up with a new Our first event for the Spring se- the Comp Lit Graduate Student the varied and interesting group of strategy – until then, look out for mester was a presentation by Ilya Colloquium website (http:/ com- friends I have met since starting tasty, hearty catering! Kliger, a faculty member in the paratorium.wordpress.com/), I’m here almost four years ago. department of Russian and Slavic struck by an inappropriately strong Studies, speaking on “Untimely tide of nostalgia – inappropriate The final event at the end of last Community: Tragic Nationalism in both because the events listed But I digress (quite unforgivably). semester was a discussion of a pre Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.” Stay there happened in the recent past, Stepping into the almost unfillable -distributed paper by new depart- tuned for more Spring semester and also since, as this article void left by Sage Anderson’s de- mental faculty hire Jay Garcia on programming! parture to Berlin at the end of last "Richard Wright's Comic Correc- proves, the colloquium is very much alive and kicking and in no semester, we very quickly realized tive." We followed up on this suc- Nienke Boer is a 4th year PhD student in danger of fading into departmental that her (metaphorically, just to be cessful model by starting off this Comparative Literature. Her dissertation is legend. clear) enormous shoes could only year with other new faculty hire on the narratives produced by large group be filled by a committee of dedi- Emma Bianchi’s pre-distributed displacements between South Africa and cated organizers (the secret: a paper, “Becoming Mythological: South Asia in the 19th&early 20th Centu- Looking back at past events does, group of people who respond Barthes with Butler and Aristotle.” ries. however, evoke exactly that sense promptly to emails, and a goog- Our second event last semester of departmental community that legroup to coordinate them). Our comprised of presentations by our funding applications stress recipe for this year has been: few- current Ph.D. candidates Liang- every year – I remember attending er events; more lavish catering Hua Yu and Bilal Hashmi (special one of these as an accepted candi- (something that appeals to the thanks to Bilal, who came all the date in Spring 2009, and in my first graduate student mentality, and way from Toronto for the collo- week here as a student in the Fall. perhaps also that of many a faculty quium.) They presented on, re- Colloquia have marked other im- member…) We’ve been assisted in spectively, “Locked in the Present: portant milestones, but, even this regard by a generous Student Time Travel Romance, Neoliberal more importantly, reading the Life Grant from the Graduate Governance and the Rise of a Digi- names of student presenters, most Student Government. When we, tal Sinosphere” and “Naturalism of whom are now gainfully em- somewhat inevitably, run out of Redux” both papers distilled from ployed and/or elsewhere in the funds towards the end of the se- chapters of their dissertations.