the volume 31 : may 2007 CC omparatist Contents Editor’s Column: Continuing Traditions and New Beginnings 1 Dorothy M. Figueira essays acla: International Forum Comparative Literature: Where We Started and What We Have Become 4 Dorothy M. Figueira Comparative Literature in Hong Kong 8 Eugene Chen eoyang Literary Studies in The Netherlands 12 Hans Bertens Where Are We Going and Who Will We Teach? Conjectures about Comparative Literature and the Humanities 15 Ross shiDeler The iCla and Disciplinary Renewal 21 Steven P. sonDruP On Comparative Literature in Korea 25 CHON young-ae Japanese Encounters with Latin America and Iberian Catholicism (1549–1973): Some Thoughts on Language, Imperialism, Identity Formation, and Comparative Research 27 INAGA shigeMi Collecting and/as Cultural Transformation Introduction: Collecting and/as Cultural Transformation 36 Janet a. Walker, helen asquine Fazio, anD v. g. Julie raJan “I have put all I possess at the disposal of the people’s struggle”: Pablo Neruda as Collector, Translator, and Poet 40 Kelly austin Photographic Appropriation, Ethnography, and the Surrealist Other 63 LinDa M. steer Van Gogh, Collector of “Japan” 82 Janet a. Walker New Comparative Readings Borges’s Translations of German Expressionist Poetry: Spaniardizing Expressionism 115 Laura sager eiDt I Call That Patriotism: Leopold Bloom and the Cosmopolitan Caritas 140 BenJaMin Boysen The Fiction of the Castrating Power of America 157 AhMeD Farouk elBeshlaWy Masks of Authenticity: Failed Quests for the People in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove by Andrei Belyi 175 Irina anisiMova revieW essays Franco Moretti, ed., The Novel, Volume I: History, Geography, and Culture; Volume II: Forms and Themes 193 John Burt Foster, Jr. Michael D. Garval, “A Dream of Stone”: Fame, Vision, and Monumentality in Nineteenth-Century French Literary Culture 199 Marie-Pierre le hir revieWs Philip Cranston, Tones/Countertones: English Translations, Adaptations, Imitations and Transformations of Short Poetic Texts from the Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and German 206 Mary ann Frese Witt Alain Montandon, Le Baiser des Lumières Alain Montandon, Le Baiser: Le corps au bord des lèvres 208 AnCa Sprenger Zahi Zalloua, Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism 211 DaviD laguarDia Alain Robbe-Grillet and Jasper Johns, The Target, Translated and with an essay by Ben Stoltzfus 213 Lynn a. higgins Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Matthew Tiews, eds., Crowds 215 Martha kuhlMan Lois Parkinson Zamora, The Inordinate Eye: New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction 216 ChristoPher Johnson Ronald Bogue, Deleuze’s Way: Essays in Transverse Ethics and Aesthetics 219 Paul Fox Gail Pool, Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America 220 Jeffrey r. Di leo Book notes Marta Petreu, An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania 225 Otilia BaraBoi Michael Hrebeniak, Action Writing: Jack Kerouac’s Wild Form 226 Keith CaveDo Colleen Glenney Boggs, Transnationalism and American Literature: Literary Translation 1773–1892 228 Leslie Eckel Books reCeiveD 230 The Rutledge Prize 233 Editor’s ColuMn Continuing Traditions and New Beginnings It is with great pleasure that I assume the editorial responsibilities of The Com- paratist, the official organ of the Southern Comparative Literature Association. I assume the tasks of editor also with a great sense of dedication. This journal is one of a handful of publications devoted to Comparative Literature in the United States. It has a fine tradition of mentoring the work of young scholars in our field. This commitment is highlighted by the yearly publication of the best graduate stu- dent paper from the preceding year’s Scla conference. Under the able hands of its past editors, The Comparatist has done much to foster the work of scholars in the initial stages of their careers. I have a personal fondness for this journal since it was here, under the able editorship of John Burt Foster, Jr. that I published my own first articles. Although I then lived and worked in the North, I knew that the Scla and The Comparatist were the places to go if one needed mentoring and feedback on one’s fledgling steps in the profession. It was my experience with the Scla and The Comparatist that has so endeared me to this organization and this journal. I hope to continue this editorial dedication to helping and mentoring young scholars during my tenure as editor. The Comparatist, however, is also a journal that senior scholars hold in esteem and seek as a congenial site for their work. I am committed to upholding the custom of publishing senior contributions alongside the work of junior colleagues. With the encouragement of the Board of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, I plan in the coming issues to dedicate space in each volume to inno- vative clusters of articles. These clusters will in no way replace the open submis- sion content of the journal which has, I am happy to say, increased exponentially in recent years. These cluster groupings will take various forms. In this issue, for example, I have included a forum sponsored by the International Comparative Lit- erature Association last year at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference in Puebla, Mexico (April 19–24, 2007) where a number of representa- tive scholars from the United States, Europe, and Asia gathered to discuss the field of Comparative Literature in their respective countries. Although our discipline is presumably global in scope, we can be as provincial as any national language and literature group. It was for this reason that I organized this forum at the American national association’s meeting with the goal of facilitating discussion concerning what was happening in our discipline internationally. I introduced the forum in 1 my then capacity as President pro tempore of the International Comparative Lit- erature Association. Taking off my sober top-hat of Editor and putting on the more comfortable cloche of cynic and polemicist, I reproduce this introduction here to present this collection. Eugene Eoyang offers his thoughts on the state of Compara- tive Literature in Hong Kong. Hans Bertens discusses how recent developments in European university reform have impacted on the discipline in The Netherlands. Ross Shideler discusses the health of the field, as it is currently configured in the United States and Steven Sondrup outlines the role the international association plays in the discipline. Chon Young-Ae gives a brief analysis of the past and future of Comparative Literature in Korea. Inaga Shigemi offers a history of Japanese encounters with the West as a point of departure for his discussion of how Com- parative Literature might develop in the future. An expanded version of Professor Inaga’s comments in Puebla is presented in these pages and they provide an ideal bridge to the next grouping of articles appearing in this issue. At the aCla Conference of 2004 a panel was devoted to the topic of collecting. Several papers from this panel have been expanded and appear herein. Kelly Austin argues that Neruda, a material collector of shells and a metaphorical collector of Walt Whitman, recast the American poet as a character in the narrative of the Latin American and, specifically, Chilean, attainment of a classless society—as a commu- nist supporter of the pueblo. Linda M. Steer sheds light on how Western photogra- phy and surrealist writing collected the colonized Other to create new identities for the West in the era of colonialism. In the third essay of this cluster, Janet A. Walker analyzes Vincent van Gogh’s act of collecting Japanese woodblock prints and the relation of this collecting to his construction of an image of Japan. This issue is then rounded out with several articles of a more traditional com- parative nature. Laura Sager Eidt investigates the role of Borges as a mediator be- tween Spanish and German literary traditions. She shows how Borges’s translations transform German Expressionist poetry and impact upon subsequent Spanish re- ception of Expressionism. Benjamin Boysen looks at the character of Bloom in Joyce’s Ulysses as offering a message of love and non-violence. He brings to this investigation expertise in ancient and medieval literature. In particular, he shows the relevance of a thinker such as Augustine and casts new light on Joyce’s anti- nationalism, pacifism, and socialism. Ahmed Farouk Elbeshlawy looks at the image of America as a stereotype and a symbol in the French and Chinese imaginaire as well as through a reading of Kafka’s Amerika. Finally, this issue concludes with an expansion of the Rutledge Prize essay. Irina Anisimova investigates the point of intersection in Russian and African-American literary representations of the folk as a site of racial authenticity. As this volume attests, The Comparatist fills an important niche. It provides a venue for varied scholarly contributions from all over the world. The Editorial 2 the Comparatist 32 : 2008 Board vetted some forty-odd submissions last year! Unlike Europe, Asia, and South America, the United States has a dearth of small scholarly presses. I foresee this journal being able to publish what elsewhere would appear in such presses. In the coming years, I also hope to dedicate clusters of articles, mini-Festschriften, dedi- cated to the work of senior scholars, soldiers in our field, who have contributed in their scholarship and as citizens in the discipline, to the contours of Comparative Literature in America. We are a regional journal with a national and international readership, per- spective, and mandate. I am fortunate to be able to build on the hard work of my predecessors in this job, most recently Mary Ann Frese Witt. I am ably assisted by Edward Donald Kennedy, the Associate Editor; Roxana Verona, the most able Review Editor; and Jenny Webb of Webb Editorial Services, my editorial assistant and Managing Editor.