Y T volume 24 | spring 2014

A NEWSLETTER FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE IU DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE Wertheim Lecture Series in Comparative Drama Begins by Rosemarie McGerr and Angela Pao

n fall 2013, the Department Professor Wertheim came to IUB in of Comparative Literature 1969 with a doctoral degree in English Iinaugurated a new lecture series, literature from Yale University (1965) the Wertheim Lecture in Comparative and special interests in Elizabethan, Drama, to commemorate Albert Jacobean and Caroline drama, as Wertheim’s contributions to the field well as 20th-century European and of comparative drama. Wertheim, American modern drama. Over the who passed away in April 2003, was years, the scope of his research grew to Professor of English, Comparative include a wide range of postcolonial Literature, and Theatre and Drama. literatures, with a special focus on The inaugural lecture in this series, the work of Athol Fugard. His “The Play’s the Thing: A Journey scholarly publications include over through the Drama of South Africa,” fifty articles; five co-edited anthologies was given by Prof. Dennis Walder on contemporary British, American Al Wertheim and Athol Fugard on October 3rd, 2013, in the Lilly and postcolonial drama and fiction; Library, the American Philosophical Library, with the generous support and two books—The Dramatic Art Society, the Newberry Library, the Lilly of Ted Widlanski, Martha Jacobs, of Athol Fugard: From South Africa to Endowment, the German Academic Judy Wertheim, the College of Arts the World (2000) and Staging the War: Exchange Service (DAAD), and the and Sciences, and the Department of American Drama and World War II Australian government. Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary (2004). His research was supported by One of Professor Wertheim’s Dance. fellowships and grants from the Folger major contributions to the study of comparative drama at Indiana University was his instrumental role in helping to bring the papers of Athol Fugard to the Lilly Library, where they are available to readers for enhancing both scholarship and performance. Professor Wertheim also helped arrange for Fugard himself to visit our campus and meet with faculty and students. Professor Wertheim’s distinguished career as a teacher of undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students earned him many teaching awards, most prominently the Herman Frederic Lieber Distinguished Teaching Award (1981) and the Indiana State Council for Continuing Education’s Indiana Teacher of the Year Award (2002). In 1999, he also received the (continued on page 4) Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm and the Jewish Sunflower (University of the Chair Toronto Press). Another Banner Year Contents Fr om This year I have been particularly Faculty News 5 omparative Literature once fascinated to learn more about the Faculty Profi le 7 again had a banner year and it diverse achievements of our graduate C is my great pleasure to trumpet students and alumni. I’ll just offer a news about just some of the highlights! sample. First, two IU PhD’s associated Emeriti News 10 In the fall, Eyal Peretz published with the CMLT graduate program Emeriti Profi le 11 another fascinating themed-volume of published books: Naomi Uechi, the Yearbook of Comparative Literature Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature Student News 13 (57), this one exploring the nature and Architecture (Cambridge Scholars) of “poetic thinking.” Distinguished and Ermanno Conte, Gli “anni di Student Profi les 14 scholars from around the world piombo” nella letteratura italiana contributed. His new book on Denis (Longo Angelo). Naomi, now teaching Alumnus Profi le 17 Diderot, Dramatic Experiments (SUNY in Japan, was a double Ph.D. in Press), appeared in October, and in it Comparative Literature and American Class Notes 18 he makes a powerful case for renewed Studies a few years back. Ermanno, attention to this neglected French who minored in Comparative Offi ce News 20 philosopher and writer. Some of the Literature, recently completely his recent publications of IU faculty PhD in French and Italian. Ashley Book Corner 24 members have had significant notice. Pérez just received a three-year visiting Bill Johnston received a Guggenheim assistant professorship at Ohio State, Fellowship, among other honors, beginning next fall. Ashley is already for his translation projects. Herbert a prolific author. Her third novel is Marks’s edition of the King James Bible in press, but she’s suspending work has had a glowing review by Robert on the proofs until she finishes her Alter in The New Republic. Translations dissertation. Chantal Carleton now by Paul Losensky and Bill Johnston has a tenured position at the Hautes This newsletter is published by continue to receive acclaim, and Etudes Commerciales in Paris, one the Department of Comparative scholarly studies by Angela Pao, Akin of France’s elite grandes ecoles. Austin Literature with the College of Arts and Sciences, to encourage alumni Adesokan, Rosemarie McGerr, Eileen Busch recently received tenure at interest in and support for Indiana Julien and other colleagues are steadily SUNY Purchase. Claire Sponsler is University. making their way to readers around at the National Humanities Center the world. Finally, in December, I on a fellowship. A former chair of the For activities and membership information, call (800) 824-3044 published my own book on one of the English department at the University of or visit http://alumni.iu.edu greatest of all the modern Italian poets, Iowa, Claire just gave a lecture at I.U.

Department of Comparative Literature ([email protected]) Department Chair ...... David Hertz Editor ...... Denise Lynn College of Arts & Sciences Executive Dean ...... Larry Singell Assistant Dean for Advancement ...... Tom Recker Director of Alumni Relations ...... Vanessa Cloe Newsletter Layout ...... Daniel McDeavitt

IU Alumni Association Class Notes Editor ...... Bill Elliott

Chair David Hertz meeting with a delegation from Sookmyung Women’s University in Korea in January 2014, including IU alumna Myonghee Kim.

2 In July 2013, Chair David Hertz took this photograph while attending a White House South African theater. Special kudos ceremony for President Obama’s Arts and Humanities medalists. to Rosemarie McGerr (DGS) and Angela Pao for making all this happen. Just a few weeks later, Akin Adesokan, funded by a Mellon Foundation grant, hosted a wide array of interdisciplinary scholars for a conference on media in Africa today. On precisely the same weekend, IU hosted the ALTA conference. Willis Barnstone, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, gave the keynote address after the banquet, which was attended by translators from all over the country. Breon Mitchell and Douglas Hofstadter gave a joint session on translation that was packed with intrigued listeners. We continue to welcome visitors from abroad. Salian Sylla who arrived from Paris, France this fall, has been teaching with us via the Nanterre as part of a new project, “Performing Here in the department, Angela exchange. Professor Manuela Carvalho the Middle Ages,” which is a new Pao is retiring at the end of this year. from Portugal is soon coming to consortium for Medieval Studies This is a real loss to our students and Bloomington to teach for us this among major Midwestern institutions, faculty, but I have no doubt that we spring. including IUB, and supported by will continue to hear more about her the Mellon Foundation. Claire is new scholarly achievements in the near Many of us were forlorn when working with Rosemarie McGerr on future. Also, I am delighted to report Howard Swyers left us for Economics presenting two plays and a manuscript that Jeff Johnson has been promoted to last spring. But things worked out just exhibit at IU. I was also intrigued to Senior Lecturer and that Ben Garceau fine for Comparative Literature. I’d like learn about the long, distinguished and William Nichols just received to take this opportunity to welcome career of William Slaymaker at Wayne dissertation fellowships for 2014-15. the marvelous Melinda Bristow, who State College in Nebraska. William I might add that our professors has picked up just where Howard left told me a great deal about the truly emeriti continue to enrich the off, and to also celebrate the continued amazing history of our field at Indiana intellectual legacy of comparative excellence and enthusiasm of Mary during a memorable lunch at the end literature in myriad ways. This issue Huskey and Denise Lynn. We are very of 2013. He still remembers the fine gives you just a small indication of all lucky to have them working with us. teachers he had in the original School that they do, and they continue to be a Finally, we thank all those who have of Letters, sponsored by our first vital part of the extended Comparative helped Comparative Literature with expert on literature and philosophy, Literature family and its legacy. They their generous contributions in the Newton B. Stallknecht. Then, the deserve a whole issue of Encompass all past year. Such continued generosity is intriguing career of John Thiem came by themselves. much needed and much appreciated to my attention in early 2014. John, and it will continue to assure that who taught for many years at the In the fall, we hosted another Comparative Literature will have its Colorado State University, recently Undergraduate Open House, attended important role in higher education in published Letters from Ghana 1968- by some very bright and promising the twenty-first century. 1970 (Peace Corps Worldwide, 2013). majors. I thank Akin Adesokan (DUS) I look forward to all the news that John (IU PhD, 1975) is still very active and Nate Hendershott (advisor) for will be coming in for next year. as a writer and essayist, based in the their help with this event. The new Colorado area. From the American Albert Wertheim Memorial Lecture Please send University in Sharjah, Boutheina was a highlight of the fall semester. it in! Khaldi wrote to tell us that she recently In October, Professor Dennis Walder published Egypt Awakening in the delivered a splendid lecture. “The Twentieth Century, Mayy Ziyadah’s Play’s the Thing: A Journey Through Intellectual Circles with Palgrave the Drama of South Africa,” in the David M. Macmillan (2012). Lilly Library. Endowed by close Hertz, friends of the late Albert Wertheim Professor Congratulations to all of them! and attended by Judy Wertheim, this & Chair lecture attracted a new audience for

3 Wertheim Lecture Series (cont.) “As a new MA student, I took Prof. Wertheim’s class on modern American John Ryan Award for Distinguished drama. During the semester, the Service to International Studies and whole class went on a field trip to Programs for his work with the Ford one of the theatres in Indianapolis Foundation’s South African education to watch a show. . . . He understood grant program and with the German studying drama must be firmly rooted Marshall Fund’s program for teachers in watching it on stage. I remember from Germany, as well as his extensive him speaking about his own experience contributions to fostering international of taking a trip to see a show. He said studies on the IU campus. that as a student he took a trip to New Before Professor Walder’s lecture, York to see a double bill: one [play] friends and colleagues of Professor was Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Wertheim, including Ted Widlanski, Professor Dennis Walder the other was Edward Albee’s The Zoo John Lucaites, and David Hertz, Story. When he was speaking about offered reflections on Al’s personal and the literary genre that brings together discovering Albee for the first time, he professional interactions with them. the resources of all forms of art when was so enthusiastic that I could almost Angela Pao and Rosemarie McGerr staged and crosses cultural boundaries, feel the excitement he must have felt offered the following tribute: not just through the translation then. Thank you, Professor Wertheim. “In commemorating Al Wertheim’s of words but also through the Those two memories fondly remain contributions to the field of embodiment of thoughts and feelings with me, reminding me of the comparative drama, this lecture series by actors from different cultures— excitement only theatre can present!” recognizes two defining aspects of Al’s should be the form to which Al The inaugural speaker of the life and career: his love of the drama dedicated his intellectual and teaching Wertheim lecture series, Dennis of different eras and cultures, and the talents. As a scholar, Al was always Walder, Emeritus Professor of comparative perspective that enriched concerned with the social, political Literature at the UK’s Open University, his teaching and research. and intellectual contexts that inform is the former director of the Open “A recent study on ‘comparison’ as a a play and its incarnations in different University’s Ferguson Centre for methodology notes that comparative times and places. This sensitivity African and Asian Studies, as well as analysis is a mode of relational thinking to history unifies his wide-ranging the founding director of the Post- that seeks ‘to make connections across research on Renaissance, Restoration, Colonial Literatures Research Group. traditions, boundaries, and identities’ Victorian, and 20th-century drama, A graduate of the University of Cape of all kinds. Such connections across and is exemplified by his two books Town, Professor Walder completed his linguistic traditions and art forms are The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard: from doctoral degree as Aytoun Research already evident, and perhaps most South Africa to the World (IU Press Fellow in English at the University of explicit, in Al’s earliest work. In 2000) and Staging the War: American Edinburgh. Professor Walder’s research ‘Bertolt Brecht and George Farquhar’s Drama and World War II (IU Press interests range from 19th-century The Recruiting Officer’ (Comparative 2004). fiction to 20th-century literature. His Drama 1973), Al begins his discussion “Al shared Brecht’s conviction that thesis was published as Dickens and of Brecht’s Pauken und Trompeten the serious role drama had to play in Religion (1981; reissued 2007). He and Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer the course of human events was not published the first book on South by identifying himself as an Anglo- just compatible with but essentially Africa’s best-known playwright, Athol German comparatist. In ‘The linked to theatre’s capacity to entertain. Fugard, in 1984, and he has since Presentation of Sin in “Friar Bacon For over 30 years, Al shared his serious edited three volumes of Fugard’s and Friar Bungay”’ (Criticism: a enjoyment of theatre with students, plays for Oxford University Press. In Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, colleagues, friends and fellow audience 2003, he produced a new study of 1974), Al’s analysis of Robert Greene’s members in the IU and Bloomington the playwright, Athol Fugard, in the 16th-century play draws on images communities.” series “Writers and Their Work.” He from Brueghel. In ‘Fraternity and Jungsoo Kim, a former CMLT regularly writes program notes and the Catches in Restoration Theatre graduate student who wrote her CMLT gives theatre talks for performances Productions’ (Journal of the Catch dissertation on vision and subjectivity of Fugard. Professor Walder has Society of America, 1969), Al explores in the works of Beckett, Shepard, and contextualized his research on South the uses of popular musical forms in Pinter, sent her recollections about African drama in Post-Colonial Restoration drama. Prof. Wertheim for the department to Literatures: History, Language, Theory “It seems inevitable that drama— share with the audience: (1998). His 2000 essay “The Necessity

4 of Error: Memory and Representation looking at in the New Literatures” began a series the use of of papers and journal articles on topics the Antigone linking memory, identity and narrative News myth to reflect in post-colonial contexts, leading up on military to his most recent book Postcolonial Fa cu lty dictatorship Nostalgias: Writing, Memory and Research & Highlights and political Representation (2010). dissidence in In his lecture, Prof. Dennis Walder Akin the work of reflected on personal encounters with Adesokan the Argentine playmaking during the turbulent final published playwright years of South African apartheid and the chapters Griselda Gambaro. He gave invited beyond. Focusing on the country’s “Anticipating talks at SUNY-Buffalo and Texas most prolific and well-known Nollywood: A&M, and presented work from his dramatist, Athol Fugard, and with Lagos circa current book project (“Sovereignty reference to Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1996” and Interregnum in Southern Cone Shakespeare and Brecht, Prof. Walder in Rogue Literature”) at the Latin American explored how playmaking, politics, Urbanism, Studies Association Conference in and history are inextricably entwined. co-edited Washington DC. Among the questions he addressed by Edgar Pieterse and Abdoumaliq were the following: How did popular Simone, and “A Lagosian Original: Jacob Emery and elite theatre interact under Preliminary Notes on the Speech gave papers at oppression? What are the lasting of the Street,” in Art, Parody and the Russian effects of challenging a dominant Politics, co-edited by Aderonke Modernism colonialist culture? What kind of Adesanya and Toyin Falola. He was Workshop theatre can “capture the conscience of invited to deliver the 2013 Annual (“Amor Fati: the king”? Yoruba Day lecture at the Warfield Circular The current members of the CMLT Center for African American Studies Narratives Department are deeply grateful to all at the University of Texas, Austin, and Time those who have made it possible for us in April 2013. As a member of the Traveling to honor Professor Wertheim with this new Fagunwa Study Group, he Clones”), the MLA conference lecture series. We especially wish to co-organized the commemorative (“Allobiographies: Transcribing recognize Al’s wife Judy Wertheim and International Conference on Fagunwa Humanity in Gene Wolfe and two of Al’s longtime friends, Prof. Ted (the pioneer Yoruba writer), held in Vladimir Sorokin”) and the AATSEEL Widlanski and Martha Jacobs, who are Akure, Ondo, Nigeria, August 8-10, Emerging Scholars panel (“Kinship and longtime supporters of drama in many 2013. In October, he co-organized Literature”). He also sat on roundtable ways. The department looks forward the second workshop of the New panels at ALTA (“Translation and the to continuing its commemoration of Media and Literary Initiatives in Africa Making of World Literature”) and Prof. Wertheim in future lectures on (NEMLIA) at Indiana University, ASEEES (“Is Russian Literature Ready comparative drama. featuring filmmakers and scholars for a Marxist Criticism [Again]?”) from different parts of the world. In and commented on a presentation November 2013, he participated as an by Aleksandar Hemon and Tomislav invitee in ‘Semaphores and Surfaces,’ Longinović at the “Narrating Nations” a conference on new directions in conference in Chicago. Two articles African cinema, held at Princeton are scheduled to appear in the coming University, and gave the keynote year: “Keeping Time: Reading and address at the 15th Lagos Book and Writing in Conversation about Dante” Arts Festival in the same month. in Slavic Review and “A Clone Playing Craps Will Never Abolish Chance” Patrick Dove published an article in Science Fiction Studies. The last discussing theory and politics in the article is part of a future project on context of new Left governments clone narratives for which he has been (“marea rosada”) in Venezuela, Bolivia, awarded a CAHI research grant. Ecuador and other Latin American countries, as well as a book chapter (continued on next page) Indiana University Auditorium

5 David Hertz organized an Apart ‘Then’,” in PMLA; “The at the West ACLA panel at the University Critical Present: Where Is “African African of Toronto meeting in April on Literature”?” in Critical Theory and the Research “Microbiogracriticism.” A number Production of African Literature and Center of alumni attended, some joining Cinema, edited by Harrow and Ekotto; in Dakar, Hertz on the “Deux Regards sur Boris Diop” in Senegal. panel with Des mondes et des langues: l’écriture de Julien’s presentations Boubacar Boris Diop, edited by Qader longtime of their and Diagne; “Literature in Africa,” in collaboration own. A the 4th edition of Africa, edited by with Diop distinguished O’Meara, et al. Finally, “Towards New and filmmaker scholar from Readings of Neo-Traditional Tales: Joseph Gaï Ramaka began in 2007 Finland Birago Diop Through the Prism of the when Ramaka recorded Diop reading participated Local” will appear in The Locations and his novel at the studios of WFIU. The as did one Dislocations of African Literature, edited project had the support of the African graduate by Julien and Jeyifo. Language Materials Archive (ALMA), student from the CMLT department. Thanks to the exchange between Julien’s Project on African Expressive Hertz’s work on the NEH Council CMLT and the University of Lisbon’s Tradition (POAET) and IUB’s African continues, and in July he attended a Program in Comparative Studies, Studies Program. Ramaka has since White House ceremony for President Julien taught a graduate seminar at created Ebook-Africa so as to offer a Obama’s Arts and Humanities the University of Lisbon in spring range of audio recordings to Wolof medalists. Finally, Hertz published 2013, on twentieth century artists and Poular speakers who are not Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm and and intellectuals in “Black Paris,” able to read in their mother tongues. the Jewish Sunflower at the very end of including Josephine Baker, Richard Access to the recording of Doomi Golo 2013. Certainly a career highlight! Wright, James Baldwin, Léopold Sédar (accompanied by an online version Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Jean Paul Sartre of the text) will be made available to and Jean Genêt. Wolof language students at IU. Bill In spring 2013, the audio recording Johnston of Doomi Golo [The Monkey’s Kids], In fall 2013, Julien was named was awarded a the first Wolof-language novel by Director of Indiana University’s Guggenheim Senegalese journalist and novelist Institute for Advanced Study. Fellowship for Boubacar Boris Diop, was presented (continued on next page 8) 2013 – 2014, which enabled Eileen Julien on Exchange in Lisbon, with colleagues from the University of him to begin Lisbon, during the spring semester of 2013. work on a new translation of Adam Mickiewicz’s 1834 epic poem Pan Tadeusz. He is currently on sabbatical in Nice, France working on this project. In June 2013 he served as a consulting translator at the Banff International Literary Translation Center. Then, in September-October 2013, he was the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency in Marfa, Texas. His translation of Wiesław Myśliwski’s 2006 novel A Treatise on Shelling Beans was published by Archipelago Books in December 2013.

Several articles by Eileen Julien will appear in spring and summer 2014: “How We Read Things Fall

6 produce a series of essays, to look at the technological and generic contexts Profi le behind this, so recently I’ve been reading a lot of fiction and non-fiction Fa cu lty from different African countries Akin Adesokan: A Profile produced within the continent and Interviewed by Roy Holler outside. It is amazing.

kin Adesokan is an Associate One book that I think everybody Professor of Comparative should read is The Bridge of San ALiterature. He is a writer, a Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. It’s journalist and a scholar who publishes about fate and love and usually I am novels, short stories, and scholarly not into these subjects, but in terms of works. Adesokan focuses on 20th how humans should live, I find it to be and 21st century African and African extremely interesting. Diaspora literatures and cultures. My favorite book of all time is The I am an intellectual. I think. I Essays of Montaigne. It is remarkable. write. I find that the most productive my personal yearning for aesthetic I always try to go back and read it place for me would be in the university self-expression fused with the political again. where there is academic freedom. And context. it happens to be here. In the middle of Also Bertolt Brecht, Albert Camus nowhere. In the middle of America. An African scholar or critic is a and Wole Soyinka. comparatist by default. When you In the place you’re needed grow up in Nigeria there are 150 According to Isaiah Berlin, there most, you rather not be. That is languages and 250 ethnic groups. are two kinds of historical figures: a fundamental condition of many You learn three languages apart from the fox and the hedgehog. The intellectuals. I would really like to English. You want to be a comparatist. hedgehog wants to know only one speak to Nigerians. Not because I do thing and know it well. I am more not like America, but because that The Nobel Prize is supposed to be drawn towards the fox who wants to is my primary area and what I grew the height of literary honors, but it’s know everything. To try to chase after up knowing. It is also a place where I also heavily politicized. I would like many answers. These four authors cannot really do what I really want to to teach a course about that. embody the attributes of the fox. do. So the aspiration is to always have a connection with your deeply held I am teaching a graduate Reading is very important. It is values and the place to articulate them. course in the fall called “Afro- the thing to do when you are in this cosmopolitanism.” We will try to business. As teachers, we help students Writing is about time, not form. look at the relationships between read. It helps writing and allows us to Nothing else matters but the time you the intellectual tradition of the black interpret and reflect and I think more need to really do it. I spent my first diaspora in the 19th and 20th century and more people should read. two years in graduate school writing and the formation of African nations a weekly column for a newspaper in after the First World War, through I would have a drink with Christ. Nigeria and in the last two years I have literature, cinema and political writing, Probably wine. To ask him what he been writing a monthly column. I write especially in connection with the was thinking. Why he did not just run for journals everywhere, neither fully Cuban Revolution. I will also teach a when those guys were coming. academic nor journalistic. My mode is second course about magical realism writing. Whether I do it in scholarship, where we look at how the term is a My daughter teaches me how to be fiction, journalism, it doesn’t matter. It creation of the publishing industry patient. How to be open and reflective is what I want to say, not the avenues I and relate that to narrative practices in when dealing with others. As a father, use to say these things that matters. West Africa. you have power; you can say “do this.” But the thing about power is that I am trying to write a book. About Publishing drives certain literary perhaps it is best used when you do not Lagos, where I grew up. It is an attempt forms. We really don’t have as much use it, when you don’t do this because for me to deal with the moment in poetry and drama published in new you can. my intellectual development when African writing and I am trying to

7 Paul W. W. Norton in November, with Intertextuality, and Gender” at Losensky’s an electronic version forthcoming. the International Medieval Studies translation While on sabbatical in Italy, he Congress at Kalamazoo. Later in May, (co-authored lectured on biblical literature (“Per un she will present “‘Englishing’ the with Sunil commentario letterario della Bibbia”) Bible in Defense of Orthodoxy in The Sharma) at the Gregorian University in Rome, Pilgrimage of the Soul” at a conference of selected and he began work on Ouvertures on “Transforming Scripture: Biblical poetry by the bibliques. La Bible livre par livre, to be translations and adaptations in Old and 13th-century published in 2015 by Éditions Lessius Middle English” at Oxford University. Indo-Persian in Brussels. This fall, in celebration In July, she will present “Reading, poet Amir Khusraw, In the Bazaar of the hundredth anniversary of the Judgment, and Government in the of Love, has now been published publication of Du Côté de chez Swann, Confessio amantis” at the International in the Penguin Classics series. His he presented a paper entitled“Proust’s John Gower Society Congress at the paper entitled “Vintages of the Saqi- Little Barometer Man” at I.U.; and this University of Rochester. nama: Fermenting and Blending the winter he spoke on the unanswerable Cupbearer’s Song in the Sixteenth question “How Many Books in Angela Pao participated in the Century” appeared in the journal the Bible?” to the Ancient Studies working group on “Orientalism Iranian Studies. He continued his work Colloquium. He continues his work as and Comparativism: Theory and on early modern Persian literature general editor of the monograph series Practice” at the XXth Congress of the in an article “To Revere, Revise, and Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature. International Comparative Literature Renew: Sā’ib Tabrizi reads the Ghazals Association in Paris, presenting a paper of Rumi,” published in Mawlana Rumi Rosemarie titled “Orientalism - A Diasporic and Review. He also presented papers at a McGerr was Ethnic American Perspective.” She symposium dedicated to the worldwide reappointed was invited to reception of the Persian poet and Director of contribute an polymath ‘Abd al-Rahman Jāmi in the Medieval essay, “The Paris and at the conference of the Studies Red and Association for the Study of Persianate Institute last the Purple: Societies in Sarajevo. summer, Reflections with a new on the Herbert three-year Intercultural Marks’s essay term. During the summer, she Imagination “The Ugly also completed a new essay, “The in a Baby and Judge as Reader, the Reader as Multicultural the Beautiful Judge: Literary and Legal Judgment Society,” to a special issue of Corpse: in Dante, Machaut, and Gower,” Contemporary Theatre Review that Robert which was invited for publication in will focus on issues raised by the Yarber’s a collection called Machaut’s Legacy: controversial casting of the Royal Gnostic The Judgment Poetry Tradition in Shakespeare Company’s 2012 Comedy” Late Medieval Literature, edited by production of The Orphan of Zhao. appeared as the text of Panic Pending, Machaut scholars Burt Kimmelman an art book published by Reflex, and R. Barton Palmer. Along with Anya Peterson Royce continued Amsterdam on the occasion of the medievalists at Notre Dame, the her association with the Irish World artist’s latest exhibition. His article University of Chicago, and other Academy of Music and Dance, UL, “Der Geist Samuels: Die biblische midwest universities, she has continued Limerick as External Examiner for Kritik an prognostischer Prophetie” to work on the “Performing the the MA Ethnochoreology, as an appeared in Prophetie und Prognostik, Middle Ages” project, sponsored by the international consultant for strategic ed. Daniel Weidner and Stefan Willer Andrew Mellon Foundation, which is planning, as external supervisor for (Munich: Wilhelm Fink); and a new planning presentations and conferences Breandan de Gallai, PhD, Arts Practice, essay on prophetic stammering was related to forms of performance in and as invited lecturer and panelist. included in Literature, Speech Disorders, medieval literature, arts, religion, The theme of the International Panel and Disability:Talking Normal, ed. and government in Europe, Asia, was “Performing Arts in Higher Chris Eagle (Routledge). The trade and Africa. In May, she will present Education: International Perspectives edition of The English Bible (reviewed “Walther von der Vogelweide and the on Teaching, Learning, and Research.” here last year) was published by Voice of the Nightingale: Performance, In 2013, she also gave three keynote

8 lectures: “Journeys of Transformation: could not attend on account of back and the Lowest Form of Life: Georg Isthmus Zapotec Beliefs and Rituals pain. Büchner’s Wozyeck” at the IU theater surrounding Death” (McFarland at the occasion of the production of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Johannes piece. Culture, College of the Holy Cross), Türk was “The Anthropologies of Dance and invited to Sarah Van Movement” (annual meeting of the give a talk on der Laan’s Society for Ethnomusicology, Dance “Literature essay, “Songs and Movement Research Group), and the of Experience: and “Living Language of Confessions, Change: Immunology” Penitence, and Isthmus at Princeton the Value of Zapotec in April. He Error in Tasso Culture, also contributed a talk on “Universal and Spenser” Society and History and the Theatrical Lessons of is forthcoming Politics the French Revolution in Schiller,” at a in PMLA. In the past year, she over the conference on the concept of universal contributed a paper on Milton’s Long-Term” history at IU, and co-organized a Masque and the Odyssey to a seminar (CLACS seminar on “Narration” at the GSA. on “Greek Texts and the Early Modern conference). His article “Approaching Death: Stage” at the Shakespeare Association She published “Taking the Long Way Accident, Citation, and Singularity of America annual conference. She also Around: Journeys of Transformation,” in Montaigne’s De l’Exercitation,” presented papers on Ariosto’s Homeric in Of Our Times/Comhaimseartha, resulting from an exploration of the failures at the Renaissance Society of August, Limerick: The Irish World theme of accident in western literature America annual conference, and on Academy of Music and Dance, Fall that reaches back many years, appeared the virtuous enjoyment of pleasure in 2013. She completed the Epilogue in the Yearbook of Comparative sixteenth-century English epic at the (an updating of the field) for the Literature 57 (2013), pp. 230-239. Sixteenth Century Society Conference. Polish translation of The Anthropology This was his last year as a Delegate at Her book manuscript, The Choice of of Dance, now in press with the the MLA Assembly. In February 2014, Odysseus: Homeric Ethics in Renaissance University of Warsaw Press. As part of he gave a public lecture on “Tragedy Epic, is under review. a class, Creativity and Collaboration in the Arts, Royce designed and organized a series of seven workshops and performances spanning music, dance, and visual arts featuring both local and international artists. These were part of the 2013 Themester offering and open to the public.

Kevin Tsai presented lectures on early modern drama at Reed College; on translation studies at NATSA; and on medieval fiction at the RMMLA, where he also gave a poetry reading. He delivered two respondent papers at the International Conference on Taiwan Studies on Kevin Tsai presenting at the 2014 North American Taiwan Studies Association (from contemporary poetry and fiction, and left to right, Tsai, Christopher Lupke and Joseph Allen). Photograph taken by Diana channeled a colleague in the field who Riccitelli.

9 and Rhythm: Fundamentals – History – Indiana University Emeriti on March News Analysis (Peter Lang), in which rhythm 22, 2013 on Mo Yan, the Nobel Prize is radically redefined as involving far winner in 2012. Eoyang also offered Emerits part of an iongoing project in more than accents and meters. An versions of a paper entitled “Freud in Arabic on Iraq’s contemporary additional translation of Alban Berg: Hunan: Translating Shen Congwen’s A literature, Salih J. Altoma Music as Autobiography by Constantin ‘Hsiao-hsiao’” at the American published the following works: Floros is in press and Bernhardt- Comparative Literature Association in “Sargon Kabisch is currently at work on Toronto, on April 5, 2013, and at the Boulus translating a book about the composer International Comparative Literature 1944-2007: György Ligeti Association Congress in Paris, on Highlights of Peter Boerner’s monograph Goethe. July 19, 2013. He also gave a talk on His American Life and Times, translated from the Octavio Paz at the Peace Forum in Life.” Kikah original German by Nancy Boerner, Hong Kong on UN Peace day, entitled, Journal appeared in a second edition with Haus “A Poet Named ‘Peace’,” on September of World Publishing in London. Translations 21, 2013. He presented an analysis Literature, in ten other languages came out of “Several Chinese Poems and Their London. 1:1 previously. Boerner’s essay on “Ernst Translations: A Dialogue Between Poet (summer Beutler und Amerika” was published and Translator” at Fudan University, 2013):222-233;Guide to Iraqi Writers in the Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen November 15, 2013. And he gave in Western Diasporas: An Experimental Hochstifts (Frankfurt Goethe-Haus). two versions of “The West in the Sample. Published serially in the online In the spring semester of 2013, World: Subliminal and Paradigmatic journal: al-Naqid al-Iraqi (The Iraqi Claus Clüver taught a graduate Hegemonies,” first at Changshu Critic) November, 7, 9, and 12, 2013. seminar on the international and Institute of Technology, Jiangsu, [Includes biographical notes submitted intermedial contexts of Brazilian China, November 16, 2013, and next by Iraqi writers in Western countries concrete poetry in the Department at a symposium on “The Future of Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Comparative Literature” held at the France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Berkeley. In July, he presented a paper University of Tokyo, on November 29, Sweden, United Kingdom, and USA]; on “Iconotexts . . . and Their Others?” 2013. These presentations stem from “Theodore Ziolkowski. Gilgamesh at the conference on “Ekphrasis: a chapter commissioned by Dorothy among Us: Modern Encounters with the From Paragone to Encounter” at Figuiera and Chandra Mohan for Ancient Epic. Cornell U Press, 2011.” the University of Hull, England. In a revised edition of a handbook on al-Naqid al-Iraqi December 16, 2013; October, he gave a mini-version of comparative literature to be published ‘Gilgamesh Epic in Arabic Writings.” his Berkeley seminar in Portuguese in India. al-Naqid al-Iraqi February 1 and 4, at the Centro de Referência Haroldo In addition, Eoyang co-authored, 2014 and “Salam al-Asadi 1963-1994: de Campos, São Paulo, where he with Pauline Bunce and Vaughan How Did Sam Hamill Choose Him for also participated in the symposium Rapatahana, “English Language as Poets against the War” al-Naqid al-Iraqi, “Poéticas da Reflexão” with a Governess: Expatriate English Teaching February 14, 2014. presentation on “Ideograma & Poesia Schemes in Hong Kong,” in English as Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch Concreta.” At the Universidade Hydra, edited by Vaughan Rapatahana continues to translate scholarly and de São Paulo he gave a lecture on and Pauline Bunce (Bristol: belletristic texts from the German. “Poesia Concreta: uma perspectiva Multilingual Matters), pp. 133-57. This past year, two of his translations internacional” and at two other His keynote presentation in 2011 at came out: In Front of My Door: The universities he lectured on “Encontros Otemae University, “Interculture: “Stumbling Stones” of Gunter Demnig, entre mídias e artes: Reflexões sobre A Brave New World” appeared in a ed. Joachim Roenneper (Arachne intermidialidade, transmidialidade, Japanese translation (Yuriko Yamanaka, Verlag), a collection of essays, re-midiação e adaptação.” He also translator), in Hikakushigaku to bunka fiction and poetry on the holocaust prepared twenty of his essays on the no hon’yaku [Comparative Poetics and on Gunter Demnig’s project theory, history, and critical application and the Translation of Culture], Kōji memorializing the victims of Nazi of interarts and intermedial studies for Kawamoto and Ken’ichi Kamigaitō persecution and genocide with small a volume in Portuguese to be published eds. (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 2012), pp. plaques that contain the name and in Brazil in 2014. Scattered in various 175-201. His article, “The Arrogance dates of the victims, which are then essay collections or journals, they of the Species: Humanity, Humanitas, set into the sidewalk in front of the were originally published in English, and the Chinese Notion of Ren houses where the victims once lived; German, or Portuguese. (仁)” appeared in The Canadian and Peter Petersen’s voluminous Music Eugene Eoyang gave a talk to the Review of Comparative Literature,

10 38.3 (September 2011): 337-343 and Manual to be followed by my third his 2010 presentation, “‘Sparrow on volume of short stories. Profi le a Pine Branch’: Traditional Chinese In May 2013, Sumie Jones had Poems by a Taiwan Poet in the United two Japanese lectures published in Emeriti States,” was published in: Translation the Proceedings of “Travels to Foreign Willis Barnstone: and Intercultural Communication: Lands and the Formation of Monogatari, Anecdotes of a Poet Impacts and Perspective 翻譯與跨文 a Symposium.” The first, a keynote 化交流：積淀與視角, edited by lecture titled “From Noble Travelers by Marie Papineschi Tan Zaixi, Shanghai: Shanghai Waiyu to Group Tourists: Travels Beyond the Jiaoyu Chubanshe 上海外語教育出 Borders in Literature during the Edo Although 版社, 2012, pp. 27-43. Another of his and Meiji Periods,” appears in Vol. 1 Willis talks, which he originally presented at (in memory of Herbert Plutschow), Barnstone the Foreign Language Press in Beijing pp. 19-32. The second is “The Birth spent most in 1981, was just published as 翻譯 of a Novelist: Oba Minako and of his long 漫談, in 翻譯尷尬, 郭風岭編, 北 Seattle” is in Vol. 2 (in celebration and prolific 京：金城出版社, 2013.6, pp. 142- of Oba Minako), pp. 33-40. The teaching 48, while his paper, “The Generic Proceedings were published by the career at IU, Self: Anecdotal vs. Autobiographical Institute of Comparative Culture, Josai where he References to Personal History,” which International University, Tokyo, 2013. taught in the was originally presented at the 7th In October 2013, Prof. Jones presented Comparative Literature department Biennial International Auto/Biography a paper, “Translation as Overtextual for thirty-four years, he has managed Association Conference in July 2010 Layering: The Case of Teamwork on to travel throughout his life. He first at the University of Sussex, also just a Japanese Rap Song, ‘Oppekepe’,” studied at the National Autonomous appeared in the Canadian Review of during the 36th annual conference University of Mexico, then at the Comparative Literature 39.3 (September of the American Literary Translators Sorbonne in Paris and finished up 2012): 244-56. Finally, a translation Association held in Bloomington. with a PhD from Yale. He started of a poem by Wann Ai-jen, “A Trip to In October, Oscar Kenshur teaching in Greece in 1949, has taught Hannibal,” appeared in English Island, delivered the Mary Louise White in Switzerland, Argentina, and China, a student journal published at Huaqiao lecture at SUNY Fredonia. The talk and has taught at various universities University, China, 7 (Sept. 2013): 4-5. was entitled “Saving Homer: How in the United States, including the Harry Geduld’s twenty-ninth book, Defenders of the Ancients Became universities of Texas, Massachusetts, published November 2013, is entitled More Modern than the Moderns.” and California-Riverside, among Ole ‘Arry’s Almanac of Orrors and is Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych others. dedicated to “My fellow-Cockney (NELC, Adjunct CMLT) retired from All considered, it seems that Jack the Ripper, the original cutup.” IU as Ruth N. Halls Emerita Professor Professor Barnstone has been Professor Geduld recently commented: of NELC at the end of 2013 and has everywhere and done everything: he “On clearing out my yellowing files taken up a new position as Sultan published “the first real photo book” I have come across numerous LPs for Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic on the Cultural Revolution in America which I provided the liner-notes. These & Islamic Studies at Georgetown in 1973, has translated the poetry of LPs have never been listed among my University. Over the past year she has Sappho, Mao Tse-Dong and the New publications. They include LPs of the presented “Western Colonialism and Testament, written books of poetry film score for Ben Hur (1925), William Arab Neo-Classicism: Repudiation in French, Spanish, Modern Greek Axt’s music for two Greta Garbo and Canonization” at the American and Italian (which he likes to translate films, readings by John Carradine of Comparative Literature Association, himself); he is a painter who likes to stories by Ambrose Bierce and Edgar University of Toronto, April 4-7, 2013; design and make jewelry (his father Allan Poe, the radio broadcast of and the same paper in fuller form at was a jeweler) as well as illustrate My Man Godfrey (starring William the Institute of the Humanities and his own books. He is also a critic, a Powell and Carole Lombard), and the Global Cultures, University of Virginia, short-story writer and a memoirist who movie soundtrack of Flash Gordon’s Charlottesville, VA, 12 April, 2013. describes himself as “a fast writer, slow Trip to Mars. These LP listings should In Fall 2013 she presented two papers reader”—and a Professor Emeritus who be added to my three hundred-plus on the blind 11th century Syrian poet, proclaims himself “self-taught” and has articles and reviews, mainly of film al-Maʿarrī: “The Lexical Exile of Abū won numerous awards for poetry and topics.” I am currently completing a al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī” at a conference on translation for the past fifty years. greatly enlarged version of my book, Arabic Literature: Migration, Diaspora, Professor Barnstone approaches The Geduldictionary and Self-Help (continued on page 12) (continued on page 12)

11 Emeriti News (cont.) house. painting and writing are equally Her work has been featured this important to him, and that “taking Exile, Estrangement, Middle East year in the Národní kronika (sensen. up new genres has always been a Institute, Columbia University, NYC cz, Nadace Charty 77) and Portál české liberation.” Nov. 7-9 and “Min al-Mujtamaʿ ilā al- literatury (Ministery of Culture) in Professor Barnstone has been retired Muʿjam” at the Kuwait Foundation for the Czech Republic, in Slovoto dnes for years, but has been anything but the Advancement of the Humanities in Bulgaria and in Convorbiri Literare idle—so much so that he misses Conference, Kuwait, Nov. 11-13. (Journal of the Union of Romanian having time to read novels. In Finally, her paper “Arabic Poetry and Writers) in Iasi, Romania. She is on October 2013, he gave the keynote the Invention of the Abbasid Golden the editorial board of Tahy, IJLA and address at the American Literary Age” was presented at: Baghdad: Cradle Litteraria Slavistica) Translators Association conference of Culture and Civilization, 1013- here on the Bloomington campus. 2013, Iraqi Cultural Center and The In February 2014, he was honored American Academic Research Institute Emeriti Profi le (cont.) at the Association of Writers and in Iraq (TAARII), Washington DC, his uncanny ability to move between Writing Programs’ conference in Seattle Nov. 15-16, 2013. media with humility: when I ask how (now the largest literary conference Bronislava Volková’s poetry and he ended up doing so much and in in America) with a panel paying interviews have been published this so many areas, he replies simply that tribute to his life’s work, where he was year in translation in literary journals “luck and accidents have a lot to do introduced by Yusef Komunyakaa, a in various countries: Romania (Gates of with it.” He mentions a barn fire that, Pulitzer-prize winning poet, friend, Poetry, Resita and Ziarul Actualitatea destroying his paintings, pointed the and former IU faculty member. In Literara, Lugos), Bulgaria (Slovoto way towards writing “as the main April, Professor Barnstone will give the dnes, Sofia) and Ukraine (Ukrainska arena.” A trip to Mexico with his father keynote address at Harvard Divinity literaturna gazeta, Kiev). A book of when he was a child and a Mexican School on a seminar in translating selected poems has appeared in Sofia, stepmother became the seeds of his the New Testament, focusing on the Bulgaria in translation by Dimitar future career as a Spanish literature Jewish roots of the text—a topic that Stefanov under the title Az sam tvojata professor, itself a step towards a has been dear to his heart throughout sadba (I Am Your Destiny). multilingual life and worldwide travels. his career as a biblical translator and In the spring, she has taught a For Professor Barnstone, a new place is commentator. His latest book of graduate class at IU, 20th Century an invitation to learn a new language, poetry, Moonbook and Sunbook, came Central & East European Poetry II. immerse himself in a new literature, out in March, and he is planning a In October, she has produced a and write new poems. Unexpected photo book in Argentina on Jorge Luis multimedia poetry performance situations are opportunities to explore Borges, with whom he shared a long with her collages, dance and music his art, no matter what form it takes. collaborative friendship. All in all, it at Indiana University, The Sea Deep down, Professor Barnstone is a doesn’t sound like Professor Barnstone Recalls, supported by CAHI, Jewish poet, in the Ancient Greek sense of will be curling up with Balzac anytime Studies Program, REEI and Slavic “maker.” He asserts that photography, soon. Department. The performance has been filmed and repeatedly televised by CATS of Bloomington. A DVD of the performance has been produced and is currently available. She has also traveled to the Czech Republic in the spring to give several poetry readings with music and a paper at the International Seminar of Bohemists; to Romania to an International Poetry Festival (Gates of Poetry) in Rešitsa and to Bulgaria in the fall to present her new book as well as to give an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio. Apart from that, she has participated in several art events in Bloomington and exhibited her collages and gave her multimedia poetry performance in the Emeriti

12 two poetry volumes, The Marble Faun the EASC Travel Grant for Fall 2013. and A Green Bough, and is currently News working on The Sound and the Fury (a In 2013, PhD candidate Ashley novel). Pérez published the article, “Anne StudentStudent Sexton in Search of an ‘Accident Accomplishments CMLT major Miranda Caudell has of Hope,’” in New England Review been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. 34.1 (2013). Her story,“3:17,” was Ola Agbetuyi completed two published in The Texas Observer as volumes of translations: Moremi: The Magda Dragu presented the paper the winner of the magazine’s fiction Courage of Motherhood (a play) and “A Transmedial Inquiry into the Early prize, and in November, Carolrhoda Igbokegbodo Okan Akewi. (translation Avant-Garde Collage Spatiotemporal Lab purchased her third novel, In of Christopher Okigbo’s poetry book, Distortions” at the MDRN conference Darkness, which is forthcoming in Labyrinths). Moremi earlier scheduled “Time and Temporality in European 2015. In 2014, her essay, “Against for publication last December has been Modernism and the Avant-Gardes Écriture Féminine: Flaubert’s Narrative moved forward to June 12, 2014 to (1900-1950)”, 16-18 September 2013, Aggression in Madame Bovary,” was commemorate the events that inspired KU Leuven (Belgium). published in French Forum 38.3 the translation, while Igbokegbodo is (Winter 2014). She also presented scheduled for publication later in the Lily Li, PhD candidate in research at the conferences of the year. The preface to Igbokegbodo is Comparative Literature, presented her Indiana Foreign Language Teacher scheduled to be published separately paper entitled “Beyond Chineseness: Association, the Midwest MLA, the in English in March as Prolegomena Gao Xingjian and Ha Jin” at the Indiana Library Federation, and to any Work of Translation That 2013 IUB-UIUC joint Doctoral the McConnell Center for Youth Will Present itself as Literary Art. Student Research Seminar at IUB Literature. Ola also attended an international on Sept 28, 2013 called “Reframing Comparative Literature conference at Area Studies: An East Asian and Pan Catherine A. Berry presented her the Kings College, London, United Asian Perspective;” she also presented paper “Mythologizing Autobiography: Kingdom where he presented a paper a paper entitled “Mo Yan’s Dystopic Lord Byron and the Creation of a on the translation of Labyrinths titled; Liquorland: The Mystery of The Mortal Trickster” at the American “Osirism: Cannibalism in Christopher Republic of Wine” at “Imagining Comparative Literature Association’s Okigbo’s Labyrinths.” In addition he Alternatives: A Graduate Symposium 2013 conference in Toronto, Canada. recently completed the translation on Speculative Fictions” at UIUC on Along with Dr. Leena Eilittä of the into Yoruba of William Faulkeners' Oct 18-19, 2013 and was also awarded University of Helsinki, Catherine is currently co-translating and co-editing a collection of essays to be published under the title Afterlives of Romantic Intermediality.

Holly Schreiber’s article “Journalistic Critique through Parody in Stephen Crane’s ‘An Experiment in Misery’” will appear in the Spring 2014 volume of Literary Journalism Studies. The essay is based on a conference paper she delivered at the IALJS Eighth Annual International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies in Tampere, Finland in May 2013, for which she received an award for the best graduate student research paper.

Claire Y. van den Broek presented excerpts from her dissertation at the International Conference on Romanticism in Detroit in September, Fulbright Scholar Moustapha Ndour, Chair David Hertz, Prof. Rosemarie McGerr and Fulbright Scholar Moussa Th iao at the SAB Fall picnic held on September 8th, 2013. (continued on page 16

13 with anyone, be it Nina Simone, an artist from the 70’s or a contemporary friend like Jay Z. Also fascinated by movies, television, and celebrity culture StudentUnderg Proraduatfi le e in general, Morris pinballed from the effects of 9/11 and the emasculation Paul Morris, Senior of American Culture, to the gritty and A Study in Contradictions dirty tonalities of Childish Gambino, to the explosion of experimental shows by Denise Lynn on television like Breaking Bad, Mad Men and House of Cards, without ever y first impression of losing steam. Paul Morris was that he A study in contradictions, Morris Mwas rather studious and intrigued me with his depth and range, contained. A regular visitor to the his analytical eye and the zeal that he “West Wing” of the Comparative brought to his subject matter. In fact, Literature Department, I would he explained that when something to Screen) and Jacob Emery (H233/ often see him sitting quietly at a table catches his ear, he begins researching C200: Figuring Out the Novel), but with an open laptop, surrounded it, often reading articles and watching the tipping point to actually minoring by an array of books and a deflated interviews with various artists or in comparative literature occurred backpack. It turned out that Morris groups. Not only that, but he commits, when Morris took C345: Angry Gods was waiting to meet with Dr. Johnson often becoming a diehard fan of artists with Jeffrey Johnson on literature and for an individualized reading course he finds inspiring, be it The Avett religion. the two of them had crafted to help Brothers, Kanye West, the television Morris would also take “Modern Morris prepare for graduate school. In series Chuck or the teaching style of Literature and the Other Arts: the final semester of his senior year, Dr. Jeffrey Johnson with whom he has Rebellion and the Trickster’s Art” with Morris wanted to read texts that he taken four classes. But as he explained Cassie Berry, “Literature & Film: Who thought he “would be expected to be his open and exploratory method, it is the Actor?” with Dr. Eyal Peretz and acquainted with [like] the Paradiso, struck me that he had done something “Narrative: The History and Theory of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Virgil’s similar when he chose to minor in Narrative Forms” with Dr. Rosemarie Aeneid, [as well as] literary theory from comparative literature. McGerr for a total of 30 credit hours, antiquity, the Medieval Period, and the Born in Terre Haute, Morris knew and would likely have double majored Renaissance,” given that he wanted to that he wanted to study English at in English and comparative literature, “learn some of its roots before shooting IU, as he had aspirations of becoming if not for the language requirement. off into 20th century theory.” a fiction writer. After taking three Dr. Johnson laments that Morris is But within minutes of sitting down creative writing courses, however, he one of the majors who got away and with Morris, the notion of quiet realized that he didn’t like “working the department has recently proposed containment was quickly dispelled. on creative writing in an academic a two-track alternative to the college Before I could ask a single question, setting,” as he found the process was that would preserve the language Morris was off and running, speaking either too slow or too fast. In 2010, he requirement for students who wish enthusiastically about his love of formally declared a major in English to continue their language study, music and popular culture. An avid as he absolutely loved reading, loved but would introduce a second track concert-goer and blogger for the IU talking about literature and discovered for students like Morris that would student radio station WIUX, Morris a love of literary theory in his junior focus on interdisciplinary study and revealed that he had seen The Avett year in L371—a required course for would not have the same language Brothers in concert nine times, been English Majors. Meanwhile, in the requirement. to the Bonaroo Music Festival three fall of 2011, he was introduced to Presently, Morris is working on his times and had also attended Austin comparative literature after taking Honor’s Thesis titled “Post Modern City Limits and the New Orleans Jazz Alina Sokol’s C205: “Comparative Detective Fiction,” which uses literary and Heritage Festival. Morris is also Literary Analysis: Author, Narrator, theory to explore the “triple homicide passionate about the “artistic genius” of Character.” In this way, comparative of Detective Fiction,” as it examines the Kanye West, describing him as a great literature had caught his ear and he death of the author, the death of the talent because even though he doesn’t would then take several CMLT courses subject and the death of the character. play an instrument he can build a through the Honors College with Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy is heavily song and has the ability to collaborate Margaret Gray (H233: From Page featured in Morris’ thesis, as Auster’s

14 work allows Morris to explore the Literature and Germanic studies. materials, and more.” Claire also insists de-centered subject and the nature of Claire has always been an inspiring that it is important to keep up with human conflictedness. Morris asserts instructor in the Department where current technology: “Even in academia that “we are so inherently conflicted she has successfully taught a wide array a huge number of jobs now ask for that we can’t be thought of as just one of classes. Last year, she decided to go experience in the Digital Humanities, unified being.” Morris is scheduled back to Oregon to focus on writing or teaching online courses.” to graduate in May with an Honor’s her dissertation and to get on the job Claire is enthusiastic about her Notation from the Hutton Honor’s market. “The academic job market was new job, but she hasn’t given up her College and has plans to enter the far worse than I had anticipated”, she dissertation. publishing field in Nashville Tennessee, says. “After several years of economic Her work explores proto-concepts of but is not sure if he wants to “work in strain and a significant reduction in trauma in the long 19th century. This book, magazine, music publishing, or tenure-track jobs, academia is saturated period is rife with stories about anti- something [that] I haven’t even been with highly qualified PhDs willing heroes who are haunted by their past, introduced to yet.” Morris may also to accept temporary positions with whose guilt expresses itself through attend graduate school in the future, embarrassingly low salaries.” Out of the symptoms that we now read as but currently wants to take more curiosity she applied for jobs at Apple trauma: paranoia, anxiety, nightmares, time to explore his options before he and Mendeley Ltd. Within a week and triggers a repetition compulsion. commits. she had an offer from both companies Claire says: “I expect some resistance and she accepted Mendeley Ltd’s offer to my guilt-theory, especially from in London. In deciding which job to Trauma Studies, but I feel that my take, Claire says that it: “Also didn’t theory uncovers an extensive discourse hurt that Mendeley offered Friday Beer on trauma, a full century before trauma O’Clock, free healthy meals every day, was, supposedly, on anyone’s radar.” StudentGraduat Profilee time off for charitable work, all kinds Claire and her advisor Fritz of cool benefits, and an office filled Breithaupt are working out a plan Claire van den Broek with brilliant young people; quite a few for completion. She hopes to spend PhD Candidate PhDs too.” By a strange twist of fate, a day on her dissertation each week, she actually used to live right behind so she can defend by November or by Julie Le Hégarat Mendeley’s office, in 2001 when she December of 2014. At the moment, was studying for her Master’s. Claire is Claire is working on a book chapter or many years, Claire van den really happy to be back in the English on Romanticism and the Other Broek’s life seemed destined capital: “I’ve always felt homesick for Disciplines, as well as guest-editing an Ffor a career in business. Claire London. The museums, the theaters, issue of German Quarterly. She is also grew up in the Netherlands in a the nearby English countryside. writing a translation of East-German business-oriented family. At seventeen Perhaps I’m most excited about living author Franz Fühmann’s book Saiäns she moved to America and attended in Finchley now, which is also home to Fiktschen, together with her friend the University of Oregon. Despite the Freud Museum. They have Freud’s Andrew Hamilton. An excerpt of her her initial plans to study business, original couch, you know!” work in progress was published in she received the call of Literature on Claire is now working as an December in No Man’s Land. the very first week when she met a Education Program Manager, a CompLit Professor who suggested position for which her academic she sign up for a 400-level course background was vital. Mendeley spent on Hermann Cohen and Moses six months looking for someone who Mendelssohn. Claire confesses: “My understood academia, but who also eyes have never glazed over as hard had the technical knowledge to develop as they did that semester. Still, my materials and a curriculum for the curiosity had been piqued. Soon advisors, and who could manage their after I dropped out of Business 1800+ advisors who are all researchers. Administration and never looked Claire says her PhD was an invaluable back.” training: “Hiring me is a compromise In 2001, after completing her B.A, on the management experience, but Claire moved to London where she our PhD teaches us countless valuable got a Master’s degree in Translation. skills: Writing, publishing, public She then chose Indiana University speaking, organizing events, working to pursue a PhD in Comparative independently, developing educational

15 News (cont.) Congratulations to andSt at udentthe Society for Comparative to promote Achebe’s journal African our 2013 Graduates Literature and the Arts in North Commentary in the 1980’s. She is and Award Winners Carolina in October. She will be participating in the celebrations at the contributing a chapter to a book on invitation of the Achebe family. Graduates Romanticism and the Other Disciplines in 2014, and is currently working on Karen Ya-Chu Yang works as an B.A. guest-editing a volume of the German Assistant Professor at the Department Kelsey Adams Quarterly. Over the next year, she of English at Tamkang University, Panagiota Doukas Amanda Eglen plans to complete her dissertation Taiwan. Her article “Rewriting Logan Gannis titled Schuldtrauma: Narrating Guilt as Canonical Love Stories from the Paige Henry Trauma in the Long 19th Century and Peripheries” recently appeared in Amanda Steinken she also started a new job in London the journal CLCWeb: Comparative Farrell Paules (UK) this February, managing the Literature and Culture. Her essay Sarah Larson Education Program for Mendeley Ltd., “Passionately Documenting: Taiwan’s Kristie Pladson an academic software company, which Latest Cinematic Revival” has been Colin Wagner is a subdivision of the Reed-Elsevier accepted for publication by the Journal M.A. publishing group. of Film and Video. She also presented Sarah (Sally) Morrell the paper “Fantasizing Love: Identity Tsai-yi Wu Natasha C. Vaubel (MA, 2002, PhD Hybridizations in Rushdie’s The Sheldon Dance Candidate), will present a keynote Enchantress of Florence” at the 21st address, “Travels with Obierika and Annual Conference of the English and Ph.D. Ezeulu: Personal Reflections on Chinua American Association held at National Ya-Chu (Karen) Yang Achebe” at the “Arrow of God at 50” Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, on Ju Young Jin Margot Behrend Valles symposium in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, November 23, 2013. Katalin Palinkas on April 26, 2014. The symposium Adrien Pouille is part of worldwide celebrations Margot Behrend Valles has begun commemorating the 50th anniversary teaching as an assistant professor in the Awards of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Center for Integrative Studies in the novel, Arrow of God. Natasha was Arts and Humanities at Michigan State C. Cliff ord Flanigan Colloquium Award (For best paper presented at the a student of Chinua Achebe at University in East Lansing. colloquium): Ashley Pérez UMASS— Amherst, and worked Annie Geduld Memorial Prize (Outstanding student in comparative arts): Evan Smail Gilbert V. Tutungi Award (For best M.A. thesis project): Alison Posner Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston Memorial Award (Presented on the basis of GPA, breadth of interests, originality, academic or creative achievement, and overall promise): Meg Arenberg and Ashley Pérez AI Award (For excellence in classroom teaching): Elizabeth Geballe Newton P. Stallknecht Memorial Award (For best graduate essay in a Comparative Literature course): Sally Morrell Outstanding Senior Award: Sarah Williams and Panagiota Doukas

16 Profi le Alumnus Joon Park BA ’98 Park’s Relentless Intellectual Curiosity and Giving Spirit by Denise Lynn

ndiana University alumnus Joon Park (BA ’98) was originally Iborn in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the United States with his family, settling in the Chicago, Illinois area. Currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Investment Management Division at Alyeska Investment Group, Park holds a BA in comparative literature and East Asian language from IU and an MBA from Northwestern University. Park discovered comparative literature at the end of his freshman year when he met a friend who was a comparative literature major. “He asked me to proof a paper he had written for an intro to narratives class. I was mesmerized by not only his eloquent prose but also his deep “always been attracted to working and and analyzing it from a historical analytic insight into what I thought learning from people who were smarter perspective, authoritative perspective, was a relatively simple story. I wanted than me and I noticed that many of structural perspective, post-colonial to think and write the way he did. them worked in finance. So I made perspective, etc. is very relevant I focused on Korean literature but I a plan to transition into Corporate in analyzing a business problem also studied Japanese, Chinese and Finance consulting and eventually and creating multiple solutions.” French.” Park was also impacted by his landed on Wall Street doing Equity Furthermore, “in the hedge fund work with Professor Eugene Eoyang, research. From there I wanted to keep industry we are always trying to stating that he “was instrumental learning and the smartest people I analyze a particular asset and place a in his development. His knowledge knew worked at hedge funds. So I value on it. Those who do well in our of Chinese poetry was particularly migrated to the hedge fund industry. industry can ‘see’ the true intrinsic thought-provoking because of the rich I think a role like the COO is a great value of an asset before others can. So layers of interpretation that could be fit for me because I get to use a diverse having a strong analytical and creative peeled away based on the subtle and set of skills that I’ve accumulated over mindset is crucial to what we do every unique combination of characters.” the years including the skills I learned day.” Regardless of major, however, After IU, Park took his first job studying comparative literature at IU.” Park believes that it is very difficult as an IT management consultant at So now, Park’s work includes “all to be successful in business and attain Andersen Consulting, but he “didn’t aspects of running a hedge fund a senior level position without “a have a particular career path laid out.” such as marketing, investor relations, relentless intellectual curiosity, a strong He also worked in finance during performance analysis, and business work ethic, a self-awareness of the his early years, with stints in New development.” In this role, he finds perception you convey, and the courage York, Sao Paulo and London, before that “strong communication is vital,” to continue trying after you fail.” attending the Kellogg School to “round but Park also believes that “the most Last March, Park shared his success out his general business education.” So important skill I learned from my in business with IU, giving the largest while he observes that “finance wasn’t comparative literature degree is gift to date in support of the IU exactly a conscientious choice,” he had complex analytics. Reading a book Asian Culture Center. His $10,000

17 gift, named the Joon Park Student Workshop. One of nine interns, he Asian Culture Center and the Asian Leadership Experience Awards, states that “the internship changed his American studies program, but there will provide scholarships for IU life in a couple of different ways. 1.) is more we can do,” so founding the Bloomington undergraduate students I fell in love with New York City and scholarship was Park’s “small way of to attend a conference or workshop I was convinced that the rich culture, giving back.” focused on community engagement, diversity and rhythmic pulse of NY was Lastly, Park truly understands that “it community advocacy or professional where I wanted to be after graduation. takes a special kind of student leader to development. Angie Nguyen, the first 2.) I was surrounded by peers who, commit their time to raise awareness of recipient of the scholarship said that ultimately, were more talented than I diversity and community initiatives,” she is going to use the money to attend was. They had a much deeper insight especially given that “student the Vietnamese Interacting at One into the layers of allegory within a leadership positions are not paid.” In Conference for Vietnamese Americans text, they could effortlessly construct fact, Park feels that “students take around the Midwest. Vice President succinct but deeply profound prose, on these roles as a result of whatever of the Asian American Association and and their originality of thought came drive or compassion they have in their a sophomore in Speech and Hearing much more naturally to them. So hearts.” Consequently, Park believes Science, Nguyen hopes that she will although my internship was directly that “these students deserve some extra be able to further her advocacy of related to my major, it opened my help,” and the scholarship program that Asian American issues, especially those understanding of how much talent he has created will do just that. related to Vietnamese Americans. is required to be successful as a Thus it would seem that the creation professional writer or as an academic.” of the award was heavily influenced The summer before, as a member by Park’s own experiences as an of the Student Coalition group which undergraduate, as he states that he Park co-founded, he worked to “had a very productive experience at establish the Asian Culture Center on Notes IU that was forged through student campus by writing a proposal for the organization leadership roles and great Student Initiatives Grant. The proposal ClassBefore 1960s professors.” As a junior, Park received resulted in a $50,000 award and the a scholarship from IU that enabled him Asian Culture Center was born. Since Arlene Ahlgrim Lighthall, to pursue a summer internship in New then, Park notes that “there have been MA’54, has published her first novel, York at the Asian American Writer’s terrific developments at IU through the Tomorrow, My Son, which is available as a paperback and ebook from Amazon.com. At the end of World War II, Lighthall’s family sent clothing to German and European refugees. In gratitude for a pair of galoshes, a German professor sent his wartime diary. In order to read the diary, Lighthall studied German in college and eventually visited the family of the professor. After retiring as a professor from MiraCosta College, a community college based in Oceanside California, Lighthall wrote travel articles for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and various magazines. She lives in Del Mar, California.

Margaret Meyer Irvin, BA’55, teaches memoir writing to groups at senior centers and in senior residences in the Richmond, California area. She adds that she also works with open mics and writing programs at Angela Pao with Claire Sponsler CMLT PhD ‘89 and Rosemarie McGerr before her church, and compiles an annual Sponsler’s lecture “Reading the Beauchamp Pageant” for the Medieval Studies Institute in February 2014. anthology of writing by church

18 members. Irvin is also working on Oregon. Marcet Townsend Spahr, BA’96, compiling her own writings, mostly Claire Sponsler PhD ’89 visited is a French teacher at Maconaquah poetry. She lives in Point Richmond, IU to present a lecture, “Reading the High School in Bunker Hill, Indiana. California. Beauchamp Pageant,” for the Medieval Previously, she taught French at Studies Institute on February 20th, Logansport (Indiana) High School. 1980s 2014. She is currently the chair of the Spahr is a member of the American Department of English, and a Professor Association of Teachers of French and Carol E. Harding, PhD’85, writes of Medieval Studies at the University the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers that she recently began a third three- of Iowa. Association. She lives in Peru, Indiana. year term as chair of the Humanities Division at Western Oregon University, 1990s 2000s where she is also a professor of English. She teaches courses in world literature, Nicole Wilson Denner BA In July 2013, Samantha S. Karn, comparative medieval literature, ’93, MA ‘96 went on to earn her Cert/BA’01, JD’04, became vice science fiction, Japanese literature, the PhD in Comparative Literature president and general counsel for history of rhetoric and composition, Studies at Northwestern in 2003. the University of Indianapolis. and expository writing. Harding’s Denner received a Visiting Faculty She had worked for the city of research areas include medieval prose appointment at Stetson University in Indianapolis since 2008, most recently romances, medieval lyric, Arthurian the English Department, three years as corporation counsel, reporting legend, thirteenth-century Europe, and ago and plans to remain at Stetson for directly to Mayor Greg Ballard. At science fiction. She lives in Monmouth, the foreseeable future. the University of Indianapolis, Karn represents the university in all legal matters and advises the administration and board of trustees. She is a member of the bar in Indiana and Illinois. Prior to her work for the city of Indianapolis, Karn was a litigation associate for the Barnes & Thornburg and Mallor Clendening Grodner & Bohrer law firms. She and her husband, Chad Halvorson, live in Indianapolis.

Tracy J. Lassiter, MA’03, writes that she has completed a PhD in English literature and criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation, “Crude Designs, Slick Resistance: Petrofiction in the Global Age,” examines fictional texts set in the 1920s and 1930s to discuss how the petroleum industry impacted local populations at the outset of its international reach. She demonstrate how examining such texts gives an important insight into the consequences of the industry’s dominance, and argues that the petroleum industry has replaced the nation-state as a form of neocolonial power, using both fictional and nonfictional acts of confrontation to highlight that power. Lassiter is currently on the faculty of the Department of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Homer City, Pennsylvania.

19 to Milton – but they continue to be central to his work as he regularly News revisits these authors in his classes at IU. I speak here from personal DepartmentOffice experience, as I’ve been privileged to read the three canticles of Dante’s Congratulates Divine Comedy over three consecutive Jeffrey Johnson spring semesters with Dr. Johnson. Though he originally earned a BA Faculty Profile: Portrait of a in English, for Comparative Literature Comparative Artist was not available as a major at OSU, he would later pursue a Master’s by Paul Morris Degree in Comparative Literature at Purdue University. Johnson earned ou never know what to expect his Ph.D. in this field from Indiana when taking a course with University, Bloomington, with a Professor Jeffrey Johnson. Y specialization in pre-modern Germany On any given day, he might tie in that he shows students, I am excited and Roman antiquity. Since 2004, pop culture references to the reading to know that he will continue to Johnson has served as the Supervisor material – like when he showed my encourage students to seek links of the Undergraduate Composition class an episode of the cartoon Archer, and connections between authors curriculum, and recently oversaw which made a passing reference to from various nationalities, genres, the transition from a two-semester Herman Melville’s perfect short story, and time periods. Dr. Johnson has introductory course to a single “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Or he’ll a special knack for guiding students semester. Based on this work and use irreverent humor, coupled with through critical readings of disparate other contributions to the department, his expansive knowledge of world texts, using the chalkboard to present Dr. Johnson is soon scheduled to be literature, to show the absurdities in students with a theme, motif, or promoted to Senior Lecturer, and ancient and modern texts. There seem symbol that is recurrent through the will be the first faculty member of the to be no boundaries for exploration in work and then having us explain why it Department of Comparative Literature Dr. Johnson’s courses, which convinced is significant, which then enables us to to hold this title. me to pursue a minor in Comparative build our own, personalized windows Johnson has been teaching Literature, and enroll in not one, not into the text. composition since 1991, but he is still two, not even three, but four courses What’s more, he encourages excited about his work in Freshman with him. So when I was asked to write students to search for echoes and Composition and the opportunity this this profile, I was more than happy to allusions between authors and gives him to supervise and mentor visit his “penthouse suite” in Ballantine artists; for instance, this semester in graduate students. When asked about Hall and sit down for an interview. my individualized study, Professor his work he said: During our conversation, I Johnson and I found a bridge between learned that Dr. Johnson first found Plato’s theories of forms and Jean "I like the fact that I get to teach his roots in comparative literature Baudrillard’s notion of simulations composition, because I see what [both that spans twenty-three centuries! So while studying at Oklahoma State graduate and undergraduate students] are University. It was during this time doing. It would seem very strange to me from this insight and other experiences as an undergraduate that Johnson to be in charge of a curriculum I didn’t in his classes, I have learned that the discovered the academic study of actually teach, and it would shrink my reverberations of history never settle. diverse literatures and realized that he ability to help the grad students. . . . I Instead, as Dr. Johnson once stated could find his own niche in the global couldn’t give them the optimal help if I in class, “epic poets read epic poetry,” ecosystem of world literature. There, wasn’t wrestling with the same questions as he prompted us to search for the he was first introduced to Dante and every day." continual dialogue that every new epic Virgil, authors who, like him, were creates with its predecessors. interested in the literatures of previous Furthermore, Johnson mentioned The freedom of inquiry and breadth centuries and different cultures. These that he is frequently inspired by of exposure to various genres, artistic artists not only shaped his academic graduate students and peers alike to forms, and literary traditions is a career - Virgil being one of the topics seek out more recent texts for future recurring theme that I have noted in all of his dissertation, Hatching Vain courses. of my comparative literature courses. Empires: Cultural Expansion and An admitted devotee of his teaching When I asked Johnson about this Implosion in Civil War Epic from Vergil style, especially the respect and care observation, he said:

20 Theatre (University of Michigan Award (2009). "One of the things that I appreciate Press, 2010) and The Orient of the During her teaching career at I.U., about comparative literature is that, as a Boulevards: Exoticism, Empire and 19th- Angela has served as Director of discipline, it operates the way that artists do: an artist in any medium does not Century French Theatre (University of Undergraduate Studies and Director restrict himself to just this one nationality Pennsylvania Press, 1998), and many of Graduate Studies in Comparative of literature, or this one time period, or articles on the intersection of the Literature, seeing the programs of this one genre, or this one medium of modern theater with issues of race, comparative studies through thick artistic product. An artist, by definition, gender, performance and comparative and thin, at all levels, and over many is going to arrogate to themselves the drama studies. Sumie Jones, her years. She also put much concentrated freedom to draw widely, and that’s one of the ways comparative literature does what longtime colleague, has described effort into the development of Asian- it does, and how it brings the scholar The Orient of the Boulevards, as “a American Studies. One of her former much closer to the artist." groundbreaking work on the image of chairs, Eileen Julien, praises Angela Asians in in French theater,” noting especially for her “creative, out-of-the- A comparative artist in his own right, the “breadth of her research and her box thinking about how to achieve Johnson has drawn on authors and brilliance in writing.” Professor Pao’s specific ends,” a crucial talent for works as diverse as Statius, Tennessee most recent study, No Safe Spaces, small humanities units. Melanie Williams, Philoktetes, and Walden in received the Outstanding Book Award Castillo-Cullather is particularly the classes that I’ve taken with him from the Association for Theatre in appreciative of Angela’s hard work to give you a brief survey. Just as Higher Education in 2011. She also for Asian-American Studies: “I don’t his reading lists diverge, his courses received an NEH research grant in think there would have been an Asian and style of lecturing attempt to pull 2001. American Studies program at IU if not together seemingly unrelated texts to A specialist in the interdisciplinary for Angela Pao. Angela was the first present a mosaic on a single topic, study of theater and comparative person to commit her time and energy such as isolation or the theme of the drama, she holds the Ph.D. in to working on a proposal to establish labyrinth. Comparative Literature from the a new academic program. It was not Johnson’s courses have influenced me University of California at Berkeley, an an easy endeavor, but with Angela’s and other undergraduates to become M.A. in Theater from Smith College leadership, dedication and steadfast students of art and literature, as well and also an M.A. in French from New advocacy, the program was approved. as comparative artists in our awareness York University. She earned her B.A. at What is even more admirable is that of these simultaneously different Wellesley College. Angela worked tirelessly on this project and unifying ideas. Through Dr. Angela Pao is originally a New without compensation or course- Johnson’s inviting mixture of lecture Yorker, maintaining close ties to the big release. Her motivations were pure and and discussion, he has given me the city, but she is a New Yorker who has simple, to ensure that IU students have tools for researching literature, and become part I.U.-based Hoosier along an opportunity to learn about Asian inspired me to search out and enmesh the way. Indeed, Angela might well American history and cultures and myself in the topics and themes that be described by now as a New York to make IU a much better place for particularly interest me. Even before Hoosier. A lover of theater, Angela learning.” my individualized study with him this is fascinated with New York’s varied Angela plans to retire after spring semester, Jeffrey Johnson has revealed theater life, including Broadway, Off 2014 and she will spend time in to me my own inner comparative artist Broadway, and even way-off Broadway, so I can follow in his footsteps and and she is especially fond of Lincoln find my own niche in the world of Center, with its New York Public literature. Library for the Performing Arts and the Juilliard School nearby. But I.U. has allowed her to pursue her intellectual Department and cultural interests in a variety of Celebrates a Career professional areas. In addition to her distinction as a researcher, Angela is Angela Pao Retires in Spring of 2014 a dedicated teacher of important and by David Hertz & Rosemarie McGerr adventurous classes that extend the horizons of Comparative Literature ngela Pao is the author of two and Comparative Arts Studies. Angela award-winning books, No also has a received a variety of awards ASafe Spaces: Re-casting Race, recognizing her excellent teaching, Ethnicity and Nationality in American most recently the Trustee’s Teaching

21 New York City, close to the action Th e Comparative Literature Department’s 2013 Winter Reception, held on Saturday, in the cultural capital, where she can December 14th, 2013. easily absorb the latest in theater and drama; but also she plans to keep her residence in Bloomington, where she will return to write and maintain her contacts with friends and colleagues. Comparative Literature plans to stay in close touch with Angela in the years ahead, especially when she is in town to research her latest book. This new study will bring out neglected cross-cultural and international dimensions of theater, uncovering the interrelationships of dramatists and theatrical companies with a significant connection to Asia, but based in four Western countries: the United States, Canada, Great Britain and France. Her working title is Floating Points: Theatre, as The Center for Theoretical Studies. Willis Barnstone, Deborah Cohn, Diaspora and Multiculturalism in North In addition, Melinda is the assistant to Jacob Emery, Douglas Hofstadter, America and Europe. We look forward the Chair of Comparative Literature Sumie Jones, Breon Mitchell, Samuel to seeing this work in print one day and also serves as the CMLT classroom Rosenberg, and Josep Michele soon. scheduler. Sobrer. Students and alumni of other A native of Indianapolis, Melinda departments who have studied in Department Welcomes worked as the Budget Coordinator in CMLT were also well represented by New Administrative the Fine Arts Department for many Nandi Comer, Joyce Janca-Aji, Katie years before joining our department. Moulton, and others. Assistant Melinda holds an AA in Accounting Russell Valentino, chair of the from Ivy Tech State College and a BA Department of Slavic Languages and he Department of Comparative of General Studies with minors in Literatures and president of ALTA, Literature is pleased to welcome Anthropology, History, and Religious reports: Melinda Bristow to our staff. T Studies from Indiana University. “Over three hundred translators and Melinda joined the department as scholars of translation hailing from an administrative assistant in August more than fifteen countries gathered 2013, replacing Howard Swyers who American Literary in Bloomington to take part in dozens currently works in the Economics Translators of panels, roundtables, and workshops, Department. In her new position, more than eighty bilingual readings, Melinda is responsible for the finances Association News and the celebration of various awards. of CMLT, Medieval Studies, and by Sumie Jones This year, we made a special effort to Renaissance Studies, the Center for expand opportunities for translators Study of History and Memory, as well n October 16-19, 2013, the to meet with journal editors and American Literary Translators publishers, and the highlight was the OAssociation held its 36th publisher-translator mixer, held at the annual meeting on IU’s campus. This Lilly Library, which was jam-packed is an organization whose development with enthusiastic guests. The keynote has been supported and enhanced by presentations were made by Maureen many faculty members and graduates Freely and Cole Swensen. of CMLT. This year, the presenters IU faculty, administrators, staff, and included our alumni Jessica Cohen, graduate students took an especially Wendy Hardenberg, Kristin Reed, active part in conference events, in Michelle Rosen, and Mira Rosenthal. readings, workshops, roundtables, and Alumni members Matt Rowe and evening celebrations. The Department Michael Dalton also attended. Among of Comparative Literature was one of the faculty who participated were IU’s sponsors of the conference, along

22 with the College of Arts and Sciences, and Translation): Towards a History of represented by Larry Singell, who Theatre Translation in Portugal, 1800- delivered a welcoming speech. 2010 generated the only database on As the current ALTA president, I am theatre translation in Portugal (Tetra- working with the executive board on Base - http://tetra.fl.ul.pt/base/), helping the association attain the status and several essays in the area. This of an independent arts organization, project’s results make it possible to map loosely based in Bloomington. I am out what has actually been translated hopeful that ALTA’s collaboration into Portuguese, the prevalent media with the College of Arts and Sciences of dissemination and the impact on will bring good things to IU just as the target cultural system. This core ALTA benefits from IU’s considerable information and the publications that resources in literatures, languages, and resulted from this study prove that cultures from all parts of the globe.” translated theatre requires a distinctive that will explore the significance of methodological and theoretical the body, given that the body is at approach, taking due account of the Visiting Scholar once a space of intervention and characteristics of the media and of the Manuela Carvalho self-expression, as well as an object reception context for which the plays of control and domination. As such, University of Lisbon, Portugal are translated, as well as the translator the body is located at the center of chosen for the task. This project is anuela Carvalho is visiting debates on race and gender, motivates entering a second stage, focusing Indiana University as discourses and disseminates signs about mainly on censorship and theatre Mpart of the Department the construction of identities, reveals translation and intends to promote a of Comparative Literature’s private and public spaces and becomes European network on that subject. faculty exchange program with the a means to question the limits of art Carvalho is one of the vice-directors University of Lisbon. Since 2008, and life. of CEC and is also the co-editor of two she has been a Research Fellow in She is currently the coordinator of books on theatre translation published Comparative Studies at the Centre CEC’s research group THELEME in Portugal and her articles in the area, for Comparative Studies, Faculty (inter-arts and inter-media studies) based on the descriptive analysis of of Arts of the University of Lisbon. and the principal investigator of two collected data, consider contemporary There she teaches undergraduate research projects, one of them awarded performances of Shakespeare’s plays and postgraduate courses within funding by the Portuguese Research in Portugal and identify a number the comparative arts and cultures Agency-FCT, both in the area of of recurrent patterns regarding the degree and postgraduate courses in theatre, translation and performance transfer of foreign plays into the Comparative Studies. Her research and studies. The FCT-funded project on Portuguese cultural system. teaching interests lie mainly in the field theatre translation TETRA (Theatre of theatre, translation and inter-arts studies. Before taking up her position as research fellow, Carvalho pursued post-doctoral research at the CEC, with FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) funding, and held a lectureship in Portuguese Studies at the University of Edinburgh (UK). Both in her doctoral and post-doctoral research, she considers theatre as a cultural and social product and therefore explores multiple significations of the dramatic text, looking at the history of plays in context, the presence of social codes and cultural references and elements of political propaganda. At IU she will be teaching an undergraduate course (C301: Special Topics in Comparative Literature)

23 Corner

Moonbook and Sunbook by Willis Barnstone BookWillis Barnstone’s new volume of poetry offers two sequences paired, pivoting on lunar and solar consciousness and comprised mostly of multiplying sonnets, two per page and mirrored typographically across the page-spreads. Elegant in erudition but always fluently conversational, this book is an homage to the poet’s father and moving proof of an astonishingly productive life in letters. Image and description courtesy of Tupelo Press In Front of My Door: The “Stumbling Stones” of Gunter Demnig, A Book of Contexts Edited by Joachim Rönneper, English translation by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch This collection of essays, articles, poems and short fiction in German, centers around Demnig’s Stolpersteine project and the Holocaust. “Stolpersteine” or stumbling stones are brass plaques set into the sidewalks in front of German houses and buildings from which Jews were deported to the camps, commemorating their names and dates and where they were murdered. The collection is a shorter bilingual edition of the original publication, of which Bernhardt- Kabisch is the English translator. Description courtesy of Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch, image courtesy of Arachne Verlag. Music and Rhythm: Fundamentals – History – Analysis by Peter Peterson, Translated by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch This book sets forth the first really novel theory of rhythm since Hugo Riemann: the components theory. Its approach will be of interest to musicologists and music theoreticians alike as well as to music performers, since it will enable them to describe and understand the rhythmic shape of music better and more fully than was previously possible. Instead of conceiving rhythm simply as interplay of short and long, of accents and meters, the present analysis takes its departure from secondary rhythms that are not notated but depend on specific qualities of a given sound or sound formation. Together with the basic rhythms, these components rhythms form a total rhythmic texture, whose temporal and weight structure allows a novel way of perceiving musical meter as not being primarily prescriptive but above all as the product of an overall compositional calculation of component rhythms. Image and description courtesy of Peter Lang. Goethe, Life and Times by Peter Boerner, Translated by Nancy Boerner Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is recognized as a giant of world literature; an exceptionally prolific and versatile writer. As a student, he composed pastoral plays in the style of the waning Rococo. With Gotz von Berlichingen, a drama conceived in the spirit of Shakespeare, he joined the avant-garde Sturm und Drang authors. His epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther elicited fervent responses among those who rejected the traditions of the Enlightenment, and in his tragedy Faust, which evolved over a 60-year period, he created a prototype of the Romantic hero. Furthermore, based on his studies in literary theory, he developed a concept of ‘world literature’ that he hoped would foster communication among writers of different nations. Image and description courtesy of Haus Publishing Limited.

24 Gli “anni di piombo” nella letteratura italiana by Ermanno Conti Gli “anni di piomb”o nella letteratura italiana (The “Years of Lead” in Italian Literature) explores the literary production of authors who have addressed the issue of political violence in Italy in the seventies and eighties – from Fo to Volponi, Sciascia to Arbasino, from Castellaneta, Bernari to Camon, Vassalli and Eco, all the way up to the recent work of Doninelli and Vasta. This analysis mainly considers novels but also examines plays and critical essays in which the topic is of central literary concern. Ample space is dedicated to texts produced in the new millennium. However, one of the objectives of the book is to demonstrate that even in the previous century, starting with the 1970s, Italian authors have devoted attention to the phenomenon of terrorism and have produced quite a few literary works on the subject. These works are given, as thoroughly as possible, a complete and organic consideration. The book follows a predominantly chronological order, with a breakdown by decade. Nevertheless, there are continuous intertextual references and lines of continuity and discontinuity are drawn between works that are sometimes temporally distant. Textual analysis focuses not only on the thematic issues, but also on style, highlighting the formal variety with which the issue of political violence is developed in the diverse group of works under consideration. Image and Description Courtesy of Longo Angelo Press (Translation by David Hertz). Ole ‘Arry’s Almanac of ‘Orrors by ‘Arry Geduld A day-by-day listing of the worst things that occurred so that the reader can feel happy that they happened then and not now. Each day is also provided with a memorable quotation to give the reader something to worry about or to laugh at. Image and description courtesy of CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm, and the Jewish Sunflower by David Hertz Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm, and the Jewish Sunflower uncovers one of the great hidden sagas of modern literature. During Italy’s fascist period, Eugenio Montale – winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the greatest modern poets in any language – fell in love with Irma Brandeis, a glamorous and beautiful Dante scholar and an American Jew. While their romance would fall apart, it would have literary repercussions that extended throughout the poet’s career: Montale’s works abound with secret codes that speak to a lost lover and muse. This study is the first to completely unlock the cryptic thematic link that connects many of Montale’s most important poems, which, taken together, form the most significant hidden poetic cycle of modernism. David Michael Hertz explores the intersecting poetic myth and background biography, with precision made possible through recently published archival materials. Bringing the reader into an intense experience of great poetry while telling an engaging story, Hertz vividly shows that close reading in conjunction with biographical and historical materials can be an unforgettable and rewarding experience. Image and description courtesy of University of Toronto Press. A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wieslaw Mysliwski, Translated by Bill Johnston Our hero and narrator is the ageing caretaker of cottages at a summer resort. A mysterious visitor inspires him to share the story of his long life: we witness a happy childhood cut short by the war, his hiding from the Nazis buried in a heap of potatoes, his plodding attempts to play the saxophone, the brutal murder of his family, loves lost but remembered, and footloose travels abroad. Told in the manner of friends and neighbors swapping stories over the mundane task of shelling beans—in the grand oral tradition of Myśliwski’s celebrated Stone Upon Stone—each anecdote, lived experience, and memory accrues cross-stitched layers of meaning. By turns hilarious and poignant, A Treatise on Shelling Beans is an epic recounting of a life that, while universal, is anything but ordinary. Image and description courtesy of Archipelago.

25 Egypt Awakening in the Early Twentieth Century: Mayy Ziyādah’s Intellectual Circles by Boutheina Khaldi, PhD ‘08 Through a detailed study of Mayy Ziyādah’s literary salon, Boutheina Khaldi sheds light on salon and epistolary culture in early twentieth-century Egypt and its role in Egypt’s Nahdah (Awakening). Bringing together history, women’s studies, Arabic literature, post-colonial literature, and media studies, she highlights the important and previously little-discussed contribution of Arabic women to the project of modernity. Amir Khusrau, one of the greatest poets of medieval India, helped forge a distinctive synthesis of Muslim and Hindu cultures. Written in Persian and Hindavi, his poems and ghazals were appreciated across a cosmopolitan Persianate world that stretched from Turkey to Bengal. Having thrived for centuries, Khusrau’s poetry continues to be read and recited to this day. Image and description courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan. Tomorrow, My Son by Arlene Lighthall, MA ‘54 1936 Silesia, Germany. Hitler has gained power when Hannah and Paul’s son is born. Not Party members, should they emigrate? To where? With a baby? In spite of tensions, they continue their complacent life until the Russian invasion forces their evacuation after bombings, looting, and rapes. The couple focuses on keeping their son alive as they plod rutted roads for months, pulling a small hand cart containing all their possessions. They find themselves penniless, starving, homeless, persecuted, robbed, and imprisoned. Compassion and cold contempt come from unexpected sources as the small family makes its way to freedom in the west. As they journey, each parent embarks on a mental odyssey struggling to define human nature, freedom and marriage. Image and Description Courtesy of CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau Translated by Paul Losensky and Sunil Sharma In the Bazaar of Love is the first comprehensive selection of Khusrau’s work, offering new translations of mystical and romantic poems and fresh renditions of old favorites. Covering a wide range of genres and forms, it evokes the magic of one of the best-loved poets of the Indian subcontinent. Image and description courtesy of Penguin Press. Panic Pending by Robert Yarber, Text by Herbert Marks Texan artist Robert Yarber is renowned for his dizzying large-scale paintings of figures flying in the night sky above glittering megacities. His extraordinary hallucinatory style has been credited as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and has earned him global acclaim. Combining the influence of ancient pre-Columbian cultures and Mexican art with modern-day schlock horror and comic-strip grotesque, Yarber’s work, at once disturbing and comedic, trashy and mythical, embodies an eternal contemporaneity. Image and Description Courtesy of Reflex Amsterdam. Dramatic Experiments: Life According to Diderot by Eyal Peretz Dramatic Experiments offers a comprehensive study of Denis Diderot, one of the key figures of European modernity. Diderot was a French Enlightenment philosopher, dramatist, art critic, and editor of the first major modern encyclopedia. He is known for having made lasting contributions to a number of fields, but his body of work is considered too dispersed and multiform to be unified. Eyal Peretz locates the unity of Diderot’s thinking in his complication of two concepts in modern philosophy: drama and the image. Diderot’s philosophical theater challenged the work of Plato and Aristotle, inaugurating a line of drama theorists that culminated in the twentieth century with Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud. His interest

26 in the artistic image turned him into the first great modern theorist of painting and perhaps the most influential art critic of modernity. With these innovations, Diderot provokes a rethinking of major philosophical problems relating to life, the senses, history, and appearance and reality, and more broadly a rethinking of the relation between philosophy and the arts. Peretz shows Diderot to be a radical thinker well ahead of his time, whose philosophical effort bears comparison to projects such as Gilles Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism, Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis. Image and description courtesy of the State University of New York Press. Letters from Ghana 1968-1970: A Peace Corps Chronicle Compiled and Edited by Jon Thiem, PhD ‘75 From August 1968 to June 1970, Thiem was a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in the rain forest of southern Ghana. There he taught English literature at the district secondary school. Every two weeks or so, he sent letters and audio tapes to the States, describing his day-to-day impressions of Ghana—the miseries and splendors of life in the tropics. The letters of Thiem and two other U.S. volunteers offer raw, immediate impressions of the daily routines, hard living, and cross-cultural labyrinths experienced by teachers in a rural equatorial environment. Image and description courtesy of Peace Corps Writers.

Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture: Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright by Naomi Tanabe Uechi Evolving Transcendentalism in Literature and Architecture: Frank Furness, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright demonstrates how American architects read literature and transformed abstract philosophy and literary form into physical substance. Furness, Sullivan, and Wright were inspired by such Transcendentalists as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, and attempted to embody the concepts of nature, American identity, and Universalism in their architecture. Notably, this book is the first attempt to concentrate on analyzing these architects’ works from the perspective of Transcendentalism. This is also the first time that reproductions of Wright’s copy of Leaves of Grass and several tape records of Wright’s Sunday morning talks, both held in the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive, have been published. Importantly, these Transcendentalist architects’ philosophy has been influential in the development of contemporary environmental architects all over the world, including Paolo Soleri (an Italian-American) and Glenn Murcutt (an Australian), both of whom are discussed in the final chapter of this book. Image and Description Courtesy of Cambridge Scholars Publishing

The Yearbook of Comparative Literature Co-edited by Eyal Peretz and Michel Chaouli What are poets for?” The implicit and at times explicit answer given by many philosophers to this question posed by a poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, has been: “for nothing.” Poets are good for nothing, Plato argued, since they are at the furthest remove from the highest activity to which philosophy is dedicated, namely thinking. To think is always to think some thing in a universal manner, yet poets deal only with nothings, imaginary things, falsifying images, and as such are not thinking. Yet different answers to our guiding question have been offered, both from the side of philosophers and from that of artists. While poetry and art might deal with imaginary things, it is not clear that these things are not real, nor is it clear that the activity engaged with them is not worthy of the name thinking. But what sort of thinking is it that happens in art or in our encounter with it? This volume of the Yearbook of Comparative Literature is dedicated to exploring several possible answers to these questions. Image and description courtesy of the Yearbook of Comparative Literature.

27 Nonprofi t Org. U.S. Postage PAID Bloomington, Indiana Permit No. 2

Spring 2014

A NEWSLETTER FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE IU DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE