MR Stoneking Essay Assignment on Jorge Luis Borges's Collected Fictions

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FRST 101: Freshman Studies II (2012) Instructor: M. R. Stoneking Essay Assignment on Jorge Luis Borges’s Collected Fictions: Submit a MS Word file (.doc or .docx) via email to [email protected] by Wednesday 7 March 2012 at 11:00 AM. Be sure to keep a copy for your records. The paper should conform to the following format and style expectations: 3 – 5 pages, double-spaced, 10-12 point font with approximately 1 inch margins Number and put your last name on each page. All citations should be in MLA style (see Diana Hacker’s A Pocket Style Manual for details). Reaffirm the honor code at the end of the paper. This reaffirmation assures me that the paper is your own work and none of it was written by another person except for those parts that are properly cited as quotations from Milgram’s book or other sources. Also acknowledge (in a note at the end of the paper) the assistance of the writing tutor(s) who helped you craft the paper. The paper should have a title, but does not need a separate title page. You are strongly encouraged to work with a CTL writing tutor (preferably Melissa Zheng [email protected] or Joia Miller [email protected], our section’s writing tutors) at least once in the writing process as you shape your ideas, write the paper, and revise your drafts. You may not be able to schedule a meeting if you wait too long to contact a tutor. Examine the first sentence of one of the following Borges stories: Man on Pink Corner The Circular Ruins Death and the Compass The South The Aleph The Book of Sand Formulate an original thesis that explains how Borges establishes significant elements of the story with the opening sentence. Draw on specific details from the rest of the story to support your reading of that opening sentence. You might also use other Borges stories as points of comparison (regarding for example, narrative voice), but make sure your essay reflects a close reading and careful analysis of that one sentence. .

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In “Death and the Compass” Borges Presciently Anticipates De
SYMMETRY OF DEATH w Adrian Gargett n “Death and the Compass” Borges presciently anticipates de- velopments in contemporary physics and scientific thought, I constructing a literary environment that systemically gives the lie t o the dream of rational determinism, suggesting instead some- thing like a “primordial disorder” out of which the shifting, provi- sional orders of culture and science emerge. In constructing a subtle and complex argument via the parallel in- teractions of a Deleuzo-guattarian mechanism, this project artfully attempts to weave the principal discursive strands into an animated investigative framework. The first strand is a close analysis of sections from “Death and the Compass”. The second is the articulation of the critical concepts from the Deleuzo-guattarian scheme. The third is the embedding of the issues of chance and causality within the work of Borges. J (NORTH) The first murder occurred in the Hotel du Nord – that tall prism which dominates the estuary whose waters are the colour of the de- sert. To that tower (which quite glaringly unifies the hateful white- ness of a hospital, the numbered divisibility of a jail and the general Variaciones Borges 13 (2002) 80 ADRIAN GARGETT appearance of a bordello) there came on the third day of December the delegate from Podolsk to the Third Talmudic Congress, Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky, a grey-bearded man with grey eyes. (Labyrinths 106) Deleuze and Guattari cast literature as an exemplary mode to demonstrate systems of machinic functioning; how litera- ture/books/writing operates in terms of such functioning – in terms of a “rhizomatic” analysis as presented in “A Thousand Plateaus”.1 Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic conceptual vehicle maps a schizoanalytic application to Borges disseminating literary texts.
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Edna Aizenberg Postmodern or Post-Auschwitz Borges and the Limits of Representation he list of “firsts” is well known by now: Borges, father of the New Novel, the nouveau roman, the Boom; Borges, forerunner T of the hypertext, early magical realist, proto-deconstructionist, postmodernist pioneer. The list is well known, but it may omit the most significant encomium: Borges, founder of literature after Auschwitz, a literature that challenges our orders of knowledge through the frac- tured mirror of one of the century’s defining events. Fashions and prejudices ingrained in several critical communities have obscured Borges’s role as a passionate precursor of many later intellec- tuals -from Weisel to Blanchot, from Amery to Lyotard. This omission has hindered Borges research, preventing it from contributing to major theoretical currents and areas of inquiry. My aim is to confront this lack. I want to rub Borges and the Holocaust together in order to unset- tle critical verities, meditate on the limits of representation, foster dia- logue between disciplines -and perhaps make a few sparks fly. A shaper of the contemporary imagination, Borges serves as a touch- stone for concepts of literary reality and unreality, for problems of knowledge and representation, for critical and philosophical debates on totalizing systems and postmodern esthetics, for discussions on cen- ters and peripheries, colonialism and postcolonialism. Investigating the Holocaust in Borges can advance our broadest thinking on these ques- tions, and at the same time strengthen specific disciplines, most par- ticularly Borges scholarship, Holocaust studies, and Latin American literary criticism. It is to these disciplines that I now turn.
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The Enigmas of Borges, and the Enigma of Borges
THE ENIGMAS OF BORGES, AND THE ENIGMA OF BORGES Peter Gyngell, B.A. Thesis submitted to Cardiff University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2012 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go to my grandson, Brad, currently a student of engineering, who made me write this thesis; to my wife, Jean, whose patience during the last four years has been inexhaustible; and to my supervisor, Dr Richard Gwyn, whose gentle guidance and encouragement have been of incalculable value. Peter Gyngell March 26, 2012 iii CONTENTS PREFACE 1 INTRODUCTION 2 PART 1: THE ENIGMAS OF BORGES CHAPTER 1: BORGES AND HUMOUR 23 CHAPTER 2: BORGES AND HIS OBSESSION WITH DEATH 85 CHAPTER 3: BORGES AND HIS PRECIOUS GIFT OF DOUBT 130 CHAPTER 4: BORGES AND HUMILITY 179 PART 2: THE ENIGMA OF BORGES CHAPTER 5: SOME LECTURES AND FICTIONS 209 CHAPTER 6: SOME ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 246 SUMMARY 282 POSTSCRIPT 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY 292 1 PREFACE A number of the quoted texts were published originally in English; I have no Spanish, and the remaining texts are quoted in translation. Where possible, translations of Borges’ fictions will be taken from The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 [Borges, 1971]; they are limited in number but, because of the involvement of Borges and Norman Thomas di Giovanni, they are taken to have the greater authority; in the opinion of Emir Rodriguez Monegal, a close friend of Borges, these translations are ‘the best one can ask for’ [461]; furthermore, this book contains Borges’ ‘Autobiographical Essay’, together with his Commentaries on each story.
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The Unconscious of Representation ("Death and the Compass"
Svend Østergård The Unconscious of Representation (“Death and the Compass”) Representation n the ordinary interaction between man and the world, in per- ception and communication for instance, the conceptual struc- I ture stabilizes the relation between objects and events and their representation in a linguistic or logical form. Contrary to this sta- ble situation, we can say that the fictions of Borges are dealing with singular circumstances in which the relation between representation and the represented dissolves, that is, situations in which representa- tion as such becomes impossible. We then have the following two pos- sibilities. Either the fictions are splendid constructions, and yet they belong to the fantastic in the sense of the impossible and therefore have no bearing on the reality of human cognition. Or they are fantastic and yet they are realistic, but not on the macrolevel of reality where cogni- tion and representation works. On a fine-grained level of representa- tion, on a microlevel so to speak, a reality appears which is not sub- jected to the linguistic and logical form of everyday life. If this reality appears on the macrolevel it causes a destabilization. In the following we will work under the latter assumption. As the mi- crolevel-reality can not be represented through the conceptual struc- ture of language (it can only be represented mathematically), we could call this reality the unconscious. The fictions of Borges can then be called realistic in the sense that they are analytical descriptions of the effects of the unconscious. Variaciones Borges 1/1996 102 Svend Østergård 1.
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Death and the Compass Jorge Luis Borges
New Mexico Quarterly Volume 24 | Issue 3 Article 3 1954 Death and the Compass Jorge Luis Borges Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq Recommended Citation Borges, Jorge Luis. "Death and the Compass." New Mexico Quarterly 24, 3 (1954). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol24/ iss3/3 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by the University of New Mexico Press at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Mexico Quarterly by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Borges: Death and the Compass Jorge Luis Borges DEATH AND THE COMPASS F THE MAN Y problems which exercised the daring perspicacity of Lonnrot none was so strange-so harshly O strange, we may say-as the staggered series of bloody acts which culminated at the countryhouse of Triste-Ie-Roy, amid the boundless odor of the eucalypti. It is true that Erik LOnnrot did not succeed in preventing the last crime, but it is indisputable that he foresaw it. Nor did he, ofcourse, guess .the identity of Yar molinsky's unfortunate assassin, but he did divine the secret mor phology of the vicious series as well as the participation of Red Scharlach, whose alias is &harlach the Dandy. This criminal (as so many others) had sworn on his honor to kill Lonnrot, but the latter had never allowed himself to be intimidated. LOnnrot thought of himself as a pure thinker, an Auguste Dupin, but there was something of the adventurer in him, and even of the gamester.
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Crime and Detection in a Defective World: the Detective Fictions of Borges and Dürrenmatt
Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 3 Issue 1 Article 5 8-1-1978 Crime and Detection in a Defective World: The Detective Fictions of Borges and Dürrenmatt Tamara Holzapfel The University of New Mexico Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the German Literature Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Holzapfel, Tamara (1978) "Crime and Detection in a Defective World: The Detective Fictions of Borges and Dürrenmatt," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 5. https://doi.org/10.4148/ 2334-4415.1059 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Crime and Detection in a Defective World: The Detective Fictions of Borges and Dürrenmatt Abstract The debt of contemporary writers to detective fiction, both in theme and technique, has been noted in recent criticism. However, studies of a comparative nature are virtually nonexistent. This article attempts to show some remarkable parallels in the approach taken by Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Jorge Luis Borges to a genre which, as yet, has not acquired recognition as literary art form. The similarities of the two authors are striking both with respect to their world view and to their transformation of the genre through poetic treatment. Detective fiction, which lends itself eadilyr to innovation and parody, is used by these writers to meditate and comment on the reaches and limitations of human reason and on its implications for a genre that has spent itself.
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Borges and the Jews By Ilan Stavans Introduction The Author Ilan Stavans is a Mexican-American, essayist, lexicographer, cultural commentator, translator, short-story author, TV personality, and teacher known for his insights into American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures. Life Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico to a middle-class Jewish family from the Pale of Settlement, his father Abraham was a popular Mexican soap opera star. Living in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, he ultimately immigrated to the United States in 1985. Upon completing his graduate education in New York City, he settled in New England where he lives with his wife, Alison, and his two sons, Joshua and Isaiah. His journey is the topic of his autobiography On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (2001). He received a Master’s degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Letters from Columbia University. He was the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans, which ran from 2001 to 2006. He is best known for his investigations on language and culture. His love for lexicography is evident in Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion (2005). Stavans's work is wide-ranging, and includes both scholarly monographs such as The Hispanic Condition (1995) and comic strips in the case of Latino USA: A Cartoon History (with Lalo Alcaraz) (2000). Stavans is editor of several anthologies including The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998). A selection of his work appeared in 2000 under the title The Essential Ilan Stavans. In 2004, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pablo Neruda’s birth, Stavans edited the 1,000-page-long The Poetry of Pablo Neruda.
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Mathematics in Literature
ISAMA BRIDGES The International Society of the Mathematical Connections Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture in Art, Music, and Science Mathematics in Literature A Continued Exploration of the Use of Mathematical Concepts In the Works of Jorge Luis Borges LornaB Hanes Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Western New England College 1215 Wilbraham Road Springfield, MA, 01351, USA E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The fiction of the great Argentinean writer, Jorge Luis Borges, lies at one of the rare points of intersection between classical literature and mathematics. Several of Borges' short stories have a structure that is based on a mathematical concept, such as the infinite, recursion, duality or chance. Through these stories, Borges allows the same beauty that the mathematician experiences through her understanding these concepts, to be experienced by a larger nonmathematical audience. In my first paper on Borges' fiction, The Poetry of Infinity (Bridges, 2(01), I examined Borges' use of mathematical ideas as metaphors in his fiction. I looked at four of his most famous stories, The Ubrary of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths, The Book of Sand and The Circular Ruins. This current paper is a continuation , of my exploration of Borges work, and in it I examine several more of his stories and the mathematics they contain. The mathematical concepts discussed will include duality, recursion, probability, as well as more basic ideas like the consistency of the laws of arithmetic, the use of variables and the need for mathematical abstraction. Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges is one of the most important and influential of all Latin American writers.
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Programa De Barman En Buenos Aires, Argentina
Semester Program in Buenos Aires, Argentina Course Name: Jorge Luis Borges: Visions of Culture and Knowledge Hours of Instruction per Week: 4 Total weeks: 15 Total Hours of Instruction: 60 Courses transferable to ECTS Courses transferable to U.S. System Recommendation: Advanced written and spoken English Course Description: Borges’ vision of the world as a Library of Babel and Aleph anticipated the information age and the development of the Internet by several decades. However, although Borges can be regarded as the least representative Latin American writer, not all his fictions address universal problems. This course shows how many of his short stories, essays and poems are embedded in and have contributed to the Latin American and Argentine literary traditions. The course also considers Borges’ precursors (Poe, Marcel Schwob and Kafka) and his followers (Donald Barthelme, Leonardo Sciascia, Danilo Kis and Umberto Eco, among others). Finally, it looks at Borges’ presence in visual culture: film, architecture and art (PFA). Attendance policy: Students need a minimum of 75% of attendance to be in good standing for the final exam. Students are expected to do close readings, participate in class, and do at least one oral presentation. During the semester, students will write two short position papers. The requirements also include a midterm and a final exam. In addition to this, each student will be expected to make a significant contribution to the classroom dialogue. Evaluation Methods: In-class Participation 10 % Oral Presentation 20 % Position Paper (2 page long) 20 % Midterm Exam 25 % Final Exam 25 % Mente Argentina Guardia Vieja 3346 4F Tel Argentina (5411) 3968.7861 Tel USA (858) 926.5510 Email: [email protected] || www.MenteArgentina.com Semester Program in Buenos Aires, Argentina Academic Calendar Week 1 Introduction to the course.
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Borges and Popular Culture
This is a repository copy of Borges and popular culture. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/130384/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Swanson, P. (2018) Borges and popular culture. Hispanic Research Journal, 19 (3). pp. 250-264. ISSN 1468-2737 https://doi.org/10.1080/14682737.2018.1467855 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Hispanic Research Journal on 20/06/2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14682737.2018.1467855 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Borges and Popular Culture PHILIP SWANSON University of Sheffield, UK Abstract The ‘greatness’ of Jorge Luis Borges is something of an invention of the 1960s and after, based on the reception, often through translation, of a relatively small body of work from the 1940s (most notably the stories collected in Ficciones and El Aleph [1944 and 1949]).
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Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges
FICCIONES Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley ALLEN LANE THE PENGUIN PRESS Published by the Penguin Group Contents A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INIQUITY (1935) Preface to the First Edition Preface to the 1954 Edition The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro The Widow Ching—Pirate Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette --- Kôtsukéno Suké Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv Man on Pink Corner Etcetera Index of Sources FICTIONS (1944) THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS (1941) Foreword Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote The Circular Ruins The Lottery in Babylon A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain The Library of Babel The Garden of Forking Paths ARTIFICES (1944) Foreword Funes, His Memory The Shape of the Sword The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero Death and the Compass The Secret Miracle Three Versions of Judas The End The Cult of the Phoenix The South THE ALEPH (1949) The Immortal The Dead Man The Theologians Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874) Emma Zunz The House of Asterion The Other Death Deutsches Requiem Averroës' Search Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths The Wait The Man on the Threshold The Aleph Afterword THE MAKER (1960) Foreword: For Leopoldo Lugones The Maker Dreamtigers A Dialog About a Dialog Toenails Covered Mirrors Argumentum Ornithologicum The Captive The Mountebank Delia Elena San Marco A Dialog Between Dead Men The Plot A Problem The Yellow Rose The Witness Martín Fierro Mutations Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote Paradiso, XXXI, 108 Parable of the Palace Everything and Nothing Ragnarök Inferno, 1, 3 Borges and I MUSEUM On Exactitude in Science In Memoriam, J.F.K.
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Jorge Luis Borges a Minor Collection of Works Contents
Jorge Luis Borges A Minor Collection of Works Contents : The Library of Babel Death and the Compass Theme of the Traitor and Hero Three Versions of Judas The Babylon Lottery Funes, the Memorious The Secret Miracle The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim The Garden of Forking Paths The Sect of the Phoenix An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote The Circular Ruins The South The Form of the Sword Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius The End Borges/ Various -2- Jorge Luis Borges The Library of Babel By this art you may contemplate the variation of the 23 letters . - The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 2, Sect. II, Mem. IV. The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle, encircled by very low railings. From any hexagon the upper or lower stories are visible, interminably. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves - five long shelves per side - cover all sides except two; their height, which is that of each floor, scarcely exceeds that of an average librarian. One of the free sides gives upon a narrow entrance way, which leads to another gallery, identical to the first and to all the others. To the left and to the right of the entrance way are two miniature rooms. One allows standing room for sleeping; the other, the satisfaction of fecal necessities. Through this section passes the spiral staircase, which plunges down into the abyss and rises up to the heights.
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