Eger Journal of American Studies
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EGER JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES VOLUME XVI. 2020 EDITOR: ANDRÁS TARNÓC EDITOR EMERITUS: LEHEL VADON INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES ESZTERHÁZY KÁROLY UNIVERSITY EGER EGER JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES VOLUME XVI. 2020 EDITOR: ANDRÁS TARNÓC EDITOR EMERITUS: LEHEL VADON INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES ESZTERHÁZY KÁROLY UNIVERSITY EGER Readers Zoltán Peterecz (Eszterházy Károly University) Gabriel Melendez (University of New Mexico) Kenneth Stevens (Texas Christian University) ISSN 1786-2337 HU ISSN 1786-2337 COPYRIGHT © BY EJAS All rights reserved A kiadásért felelős az Eszterházy Károly Egyetem rektora Megjelent az EKE Líceum Kiadó gondozásában Kiadóvezető: Nagy Andor Felelős szerkesztő: Domonkosi Ágnes Műszaki szerkesztő: Líceum Kiadó Készítette: az Eszterházy Károly Egyetem nyomdája Felelős vezető: Kérészy László CONTENTS ___________________________________________________________ EJAS CONTENTS Contributors ...................................................................................................... 5 A note from the editor ........................................................................................ 7 Ágnes Bodnár The Impact of the Confinement Motif on Selected Works of American Literature ....................................................................................... 9 Enikő Bollobás Behavioral Paradigms in the Short Fiction of Henry James: An Intersubjective Approach ............................................................................21 Péter Csató Inconvenient Truths and Comforting Fictions: Cognitive Dissonance in Philosophical Interpretations of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors ...........................................................................................35 Makhdokht Hajighasemi American Society in Popular Imagination: Frank Baum’s Fairy Tales .................53 Rita Nándori Akutaq1: The Impact of Colonialism on Inuit Religiosity and Literature...........61 Zoltán Peterecz Vienna and Budapest in American Secret Diaries in Early 1919 ...................................................................................................79 3 Bianka Szendrei “I’m not America’s nightmare / I’m the American dream:” The Spiritual and Emotional Journey from Anger to Love in Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer ..................................................................89 András Tarnóc ”The war goes on behind bars:” The prisoner of war narrative as a building block of the American myth of origination ...............................113 Zsolt Virágos Hungarian—Jewish Writing out of Southern California: A Look at Two Recent Prose Volumes: The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eva Eger, New York: Scribner, 2017, and Memento Park by Mark Sarvas. New York: Farrar, 2018. ......................................................131 BOOK REVIEWS Fatma Chenini Lynn, Thomas Jay. Chinua Achebe and The Politics of Narration: Envisioning Language. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. ......................................145 Zoltán Peterecz Paul Hanebrink. A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo- Bolshevism, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. .........................................................149 András Tarnóc Zoltán Peterecz trans. ed. Forradalmi időkben Budapesten és Bécsben. Egy amerikai katona-hírszerző-diplomata feljegyzései 1919 első feléből. [Witness of revolutionary days: notes of an American intelligence officer-diplomat from the first half of 1919.] Eger. 2019. .........................................................................................155 Renáta Zsámba Martina Vranova, Zénó Vernyik and Dávid Levente Palatinus (eds.). Crime and Detection in Contemporary Culture. Szeged: Americana eBooks, 2018. ...............................................................................161 4 CONTRIBUTORS Ágnes Bodnár, Doctoral candidate at ELTE Doctoral School, American Studies Program Enikő Bollobás, DSc, Full professor at Department of American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Fatma Chenini, PhD, student at the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, Debrecen University Péter Csató, PhD, Associate Professor at the Department of North American Studies, Debrecen University Makhdokth Hajighasemi, PhD, student at ELTE Doctoral School, American Studies Program Rita Nandori, PhD, student at the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, Debrecen University Zoltán Peterecz, PhD, Associate professor at the Institute of English and American Studies, Eszterházy Károly University, Eger Bianka Szendrei, PhD, student at the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, Debrecen University András Tarnóc, PhD, Full college professor at the Institute of English and American Studies, Eszterházy Károly University, Eger, Hungary Zsolt Virágos, DSc, Full professor (ret) at Department of North American Studies, Debrecen University Renáta Zsámba, PhD, Lecturer at Institute of English and American Studies, Eszterházy Károly University, Eger, Hungary 5 A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR We are pleased to present the 16th issue of the Eger Journal of American Studies, which at the same time marks the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of American Studies at the Eszterházy Károly College, the predecessor of the Eszterházy Károly University. Following the path hewed out by the founders, this scholarly periodical continues to be a forum for the publication of essays and book reviews on North American civilization in English. The articles of this volume cover a variety of disciplines including cultural and literary studies, history, and popular culture. Ágnes Bodnár explores the manifestations of the captivity motif in American culture and literature while Enikő Bollobás takes a scholarly look at intersubjectivity in the short stories of Henry James. Péter Csató discusses the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in one of Woody Allen’s films, Makhdokth Hajighasemi reveals the social and cultural foundations of Frank Baum’s fairy tales and Rita Nándori examines the impact of Christianity on Inuit culture and religion. Zoltán Peterecz provides a historical analysis of the diaries of American intelligence officers and diplomats involved in the peace process concluding World War One, Bianka Szendrei investigates the art of Janelle Monáe and András Tarnóc presents a genre-specific investigation of the prisoner of war narrative and Zsolt Virágos’ review study analyzes works of Hungarian-Jewish fiction. The present issue also contains book reviews by Fatma Chenini, Zoltán Peterecz, András Tarnóc, and Renáta Zsámba. We are especially pleased to disseminate the works of authors representing virtually the full spectrum of the American Studies community in Hungary. The contributors range from PhD students via mid-career scholars to senior researchers. We are proud to enter the fourth decade of the history of American Studies in Eger and we welcome manuscripts of scholarly essays and reviews from the Hungarian and international American Studies community. 7 The impact of the confinement motif on selected works of American Literature Ágnes Bodnár I In my essay I am focusing on three different aspects of confinement in the case of women victimized by physical or metaphysical captivity. The reason for choosing these stories was the actual description of physical captivity or the restrictions and restraints on one’s movement. My inquiry is primarily guided by Enikő Bollobás’ theory of the performative, along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s and Emanuel Levinas’ views on intersubjectivity. In addition to applying these theoretical models to the selected texts I will identify potential parallels with the given plots and the main motifs of Indian captivity narratives. Bollobás asserts that the subject can be performed in two ways, either theatrically, replaying the existing scripts, thus projecting a performance according to the expectations of power while reproducing the ruling ideologies. The other approach is to create new identities, or promoting agency in the form of what she calls the radical performative. The concept of intersubjectivity, implying the recognition of the Other, is a fundamental motif or trope of any multicultural encounter including the confinement of the white woman in the hands of Native Americans. The recognition of the Other in the subject implies affective intersubjectivity, while antagonistic intersubjectivity is based on objectification. Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) provides a glimpse at how slavery is coupled with sexual exploitation, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) shows how a woman turns to destructive behavior to rebel against her submissive status within the institution of marriage reflecting patriarchal domination, and Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) reports on the forms of culture shock she suffered in a Quaker boarding school in Schooldays of an Indian Girl (1900). II Born to mulatto parents, Jacobs was protected from the brutal reality of slavery until age six when her mother died. Subsequently, she was forced to realize by overhearing the conversation of others that she was in fact a slave. Eventually, she DOI: https://doi.org/10.33036/EJAS.2020.9 9 was assigned into household slavery at the plantation of Dr. Flint, a local doctor, whose main goal was to seduce her. Although she repeatedly refused his advances, he would not relent in his pursuit. In order to escape the fate of becoming his concubine, she started a relationship with a neighboring