the iafor journal of arts & humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 Editor: Alfonso J. García Osuna ISSN: 2187-0616 The IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue – 1 IAFOR Publications IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Editor Dr Alfonso J. García Osuna, Hofstra University, USA Editorial Board Rodolfo González, Nassau College, State University of New York, USA Anna Hamling, University of New Brunswick, Canada Sabine Loucif, Hofstra University, USA Margarita Esther Sánchez Cuervo, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Minni Sawhney, University of Delhi, India Er-Win Tan, Keimyung University, Korea Nour Seblini, Wayne State University, USA Published by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan Executive Editor: Joseph Haldane Editorial Assistance: Nick Potts IAFOR Publications Sakae 1-16-26 – 201, Naka Ward, Aichi, Japan 460-0008 IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2018 ISSN: 2187-0616 Online: ijah.iafor.org IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 Edited by Alfonso J. García Osuna Table of Contents Introduction 1 Alfonso J. García Osuna Notes on Facing The Biographical Illusion Without Getting 3 Lost in the Process Alex Pereira The Indivisibility of Change: The Challenge of Trauma 13 to the Genre of Coming-of-Age Narratives Nicole Frey Buechel Verbally Constructed Reality and Alternative Realities through 23 Communication – An Exploration Paul Rastall The Past is Present and Future: Recurring Violence and 35 Remaining Human in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series Alaa Alghamdi Locating and Relocating Cultural Engagements in a 59 Transnational Age David Bell W. B. Yeats’ “September 1913” as an Elegy: Generic Deviation 77 Lamia Jaoua Sahnoun The In-Between 93 Cedric van Eenoo Wallace Stevens’s “Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds”: 113 Poeticizing the Imperfect? Ikram Hili New Naturalism of Herzog and Deleuze 121 Mehdi Parsakhanqah IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 Introduction Welcome to Volume 5 Issue 1 of the IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities. The articles in this issue make exceptional new contributions to the analysis of contemporary and well-established works of art and literature. In his article, Alex Pereira claims that biography is a specific area of knowledge. The argument is formulated by examining the epistemological gaps identified by Pierre Bourdieu in his harsh criticism of this genre. It also analyzes the conceptual and methodological arguments that defenders of biography (such as Franco Ferrarrotti, François Dosse, and Giovanni Levi) have made to place the genre at the heart of innovative trends in the humanities. Nicole Frey Buechel analyses Evie Wyld’s novel All the Birds, Singing (2013), drawing attention to the interrelation of personal history, trauma narratives, and coming-of-age stories. Particularly, Wyld’s novel is considered with reference to two bodies of theory: Bergson’s model of the “indivisibility of change”, which re-conceptualizes the past as part of a “perpetual present”, and Pederson’s revised literary theory of trauma, which deviates from crucial tenets of traditional literary trauma studies. Paul Rastall explains that much of our everyday reality is constructed verbally or by other semiotic means – not just perceptually. His article proposes answers to the questions: What can our knowledge of language tell us about the language/reality relation? Can we conceive of different experiences of reality constructed by verbal or other semiotic means? How can such thought experiments help us to understand language as it exists? Alaa Alghamdi studies the Harry Potter novels, stating that although the series does not deal directly with the events of 9/11, their storyline provides a powerful psychological representation of both the accelerating threat of violence and the intergenerational trauma. These themes are expressed and explored both through a variety of symbols and themes within the novels as well as through metanarrative elements. David Bell asks how Japanese visual phenomena live in transnational communities today, how they embrace international tropes while retaining the distinctly local sensibilities of Yamato-e “Japanese picture”, cursive kana calligraphies, or ukiyo-e “floating world pictures”. He examines the apparent paradox of these questions through the divergent projects of Katsushika Hokusai, Kusama Yayoi, and Masami Teraoka. Lamia Jaoua Sahnoun consults recent views on genre and genre modelling in an effort to elucidate how W.B. Yeats’s “September 1913”, by embodying prominent generic features of poetry and elegy, can be read as a model of compound generic deviations. In his article, Cedric van Eenoo declares that when the focus diverts from elements that are present in the artistic composition to those that are absent, a new dimension in the aesthetic experience can emerge. By concentrating on what is missing, the mind experiences an atypical perception of the work of art; that absence activates an indirect, implied message that promotes freedom of interpretation. Ikram Hili charts the course of the tension generated between politics and poetry, between an imperfect, bitter reality and the delightful poetic release that is a core component of Wallace Stevens's poetic output. Hili assess the antagonistic pulls of consciousness and imagination, 1 IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 perfection and imperfection that take place within what Stevens describes as “the never-resting mind”. This is primarily achieved through a reading of “The Poems of our Climate”. Mehdi Parsakhanqah reviews distinctive elements of Werner Herzog’s naturalism and endeavours to analyse it within a philosophical framework that has Gilles Deleuze’s ideas as primary referent. Deleuze’s discussion of Stoic philosophy, specifically the concept of quasi- causality, is the critical mainstay for this reading of Herzog. The vibrant dynamism evident in this collection of essays will interest artists and humanists, especially those who are most concerned with the continuing debate regarding the future of the humanities as a field of research. Dr Alfonso J. García Osuna Editor 2 IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 Notes on Facing The Biographical Illusion Without Getting Lost in the Process Alex Pereira The City University of New York, USA Abstract This article claims that biography is an area of knowledge. The argument is formulated by examining the epistemological gaps identified by Pierre Bourdieu in his harsh criticism of this genre. It also analyzes the conceptual and methodological arguments that defenders of biography (such as Franco Ferrarrotti, François Dosse, and Giovanni Levi) have made to place this genre at the heart of innovative trends in the humanities. The goal of this study is to show both the epistemological and hermeneutic potential of biography without risking the centrality of the individual’s freedom in constructing historical analysis. Keywords: biography, epistemology, hermeneutics, biographical illusion 3 IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2018 Introduction Of the influential social scientists of the twentieth century, Pierre Bourdieu was perhaps the one who most emphatically denounced the epistemological problems of biography. His criticisms of the practice were so acute that there is hardly a researcher who engages in this kind of study that can afford to overlook them. Even those of them who do not share his theoretical perspectives have to take his criticisms into account. This is because, ironically, in Bourdieu’s supposed refutation of biography we can find ways out of the epistemological pitfalls that have forever hindered the discipline. Hence, while Bourdieu denies biography any relevance, this article attempts to discuss his objections in order to explore alternatives that enable us to overcome them. That is, it seeks to create a balance of the criticisms that he has raised in order to show alternative approaches that can make the biographical genre a field with greater heuristic and hermeneutic possibilities. To develop these ideas, this article is divided into four parts, followed by a brief conclusion. The first describes the objections that Bourdieu expressed towards biographical research. The second and third parts, which are supported using other authors, examine a series of responses to such objections and at the same time outline some methodological alternatives for biographical practice. In the fourth part, a didactic exercise is conducted which describes the research of an imaginary biographer in order to demonstrate how we might deal with the biographical illusion without getting lost in the process. Biography: A Genre Under Suspicion? In several passages of his work, Pierre Bourdieu refers to biographical studies, but it is undoubtedly his article “The Biographical Illusion” (2004) which best consolidates his views on the subject. There, Bourdieu rejects any analytical relevance to biography or autobiography and affirms categorically that because it is based on an artificial creation of meaning, it is an absurdity. Bourdieu claims that biography suffers from a dangerous problem of subjectivism that leads biographers into a series of illusions with no escape. Thus, he denounces the ambiguous relationship established between the biographer and the biographical subject, in the sense that the former, in an attempt to give an interpretive