DACOROMANIA LITTERARIA FONDATOR: SEXTIL PUŞCARIU CONSILIUL DIRECTOR THOMAS HUNKELER (Fribourg), LAURENT JENNY (Geneva), KAZIMIERZ JURCZAK (Cracovia), MARIELLE MACÉ (Paris), WILLIAM MARX (Paris), NICOLAE MECU (Bucureşti), VIRGIL NEMOIANU (Washington), ANTONIO PATRAŞ (Iaşi), LAURA PAVEL (Cluj-Napoca), OVIDIU PECICAN (Cluj-Napoca), ION SIMUŢ (Oradea), T. SZABÓ LEVENTE (Cluj-Napoca), CĂLIN TEUTIŞAN (Cluj-Napoca), GISÈLE VANHÈSE (Calabria), CHRISTINA VOGEL (Zürich) COMITETUL DE REDACŢIE EUGEN PAVEL – director ADRIAN TUDURACHI – redactor-şef MAGDA WÄCHTER – redactor-şef adjunct COSMIN BORZA, DORU BURLACU, ALEX GOLDIŞ IOAN MILEA, DORIS MIRONESCU, MAGDA RĂDUŢĂ, ANDREI SIMUŢ, ADRIANA STAN, LIGIA TUDURACHI (secretar ştiinţific de redacţie), LAURA ZĂVĂLEANU © Institutul de Lingvistică şi Istorie Literară „Sextil Puşcariu” ISSN 2360 – 5189 ISSN–L 2360 – 5189 COMITETUL DE REDACŢIE ACADEMIA ROMÂNĂ 400165 Cluj-Napoca, Str. Emil Racoviţă, nr. 21 Filiala Cluj-Napoca Tel./ fax: +40 264 432440 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Str. Republicii, nr. 9 e-mail: [email protected] Tel./ fax: +40 264 592363 web: http://www.dacoromanialitteraria.inst- e-mail: [email protected] puscariu.ro ACADEMIA ROMÂNĂ Filiala Cluj-Napoca Institutul de Lingvistică şi Istorie Literară „Sextil Puşcariu” DACOROMANIA LITTERARIA Vol. II 2015 SUMAR • SOMMAIRE • CONTENTS Libre accès : circulation des idées théoriques dans la culture littéraire contemporaine Free Access: The Circulation of Theoretical Ideas in Contemporary Literary Culture Dossier coordonné par / Edited by Oana Fotache, Magda Răduţă Oana FOTACHE, Magda RĂDUŢĂ, Comparative Theory: Chronotopes and Circulation Practices / 5 Trajets théoriques / Theoretical Travels Didier COSTE, “Power failure in Paris”: Detheorization of the Centre / 11 Nicholas O. PAGAN, Thing Theory and the Appeal of Literature / 28 Caius DOBRESCU, Why the Center-Periphery Divide Makes No Sense: Modernity as a Traveling Sphere of Options / 43 Laura PAVEL, Reenactments of “the Secondary” – Within and Beyond the “Literary Turn” / 56 Romaniţa CONSTANTINESCU, L'identité de rôle – l’histoire discontinue d'une idée transatlantique / 66 Révisiter les Empires / Revisiting Empires Anca BĂICOIANU, Is the ‘Colonial’ in ‘Post-Colonial’ the ‘Soviet’ in ‘Post- Soviet’? The Boundaries of Postcolonial Studies / 90 Dumitru TUCAN, The Adaptability of Theory: Postcolonialism vs. Postcommunism in Romanian Literary Studies / 101 Ioana ZIRRA, Is Romanian Postcommunist Identity Hyphenated in the Same Way as the Poststructuralist, Postcolonial and Post-Traumatic Hyphenated Identity? / 117 Théories de l’Ouest, pratiques de l’Est / Western Theories, Eastern Practices Liviu PAPADIMA, Literary Reception Theories: A Review / 134 Antonio PATRAŞ, Towards a Rehabilitation of the Commonplace. Notes on the Romanian Readings of Jean Paulhan's Les Fleurs de Tarbes / 163 Ioana BOT, Sans temps, ni lieu. Innover en théorie littéraire au temps du communisme / 174 Robert CINCU, Localizing Postmodernism in Mănăştur / 187 Roxana PATRAŞ, A Diary of Wild East: Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru’s Creative Localism / 195 Documents Scrisorile americane ale lui Liviu Petrescu (noiembrie 1981-februarie 1982). Prefaţate de Ioana Bot şi editate de Andra Juhasz / 207 Comptes rendus / Book Reviews Laura Albulescu, Sfinxul. Pierre Bourdieu şi literatura. [Le Sphynxe. Pierre Bourdieu et la littérature], Bucureşti, Art, 2014 (Magda Răduţă) / 231 Caius Dobrescu, Plăcerea de a gândi, moştenirea intelectuală a criticii literare româneşti (1960-1989), ca expresie identitară într-un tablou cultural al culturilor cognitive [The Pleasure Of Thinking. The Intellectual Heritage of Romanian Literary Criticism (1960-1989), as an Identity Marker within a Global Map of Cognitive Cultures], Bucureşti, Editura Muzeului Naţional al Literaturii Române, 2013 (Iulian Bocai) / 233 Oana Fotache, Moşteniri intermitente. O altă istorie a teoriei literare [Des héritages intermittents. Une autre histoire de la théorie littéraire], Bucureşti, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2013 (Adrian Tudurachi) / 235 Alex Goldiş, Critica în tranşee. De la realismul socialist la autonomia estetică [Criticism in the Trenches. From Socialist Realism to Aesthetic Autonomy], Bucureşti, Cartea Românească, 2011 (Roxana Eichel) / 238 Andrei Terian, Critica de export. Teorii, concepte, ideologii [Export Criticism. Theories, Concepts, Ideologies], Bucureşti, Editura Muzeul Literaturii Române, 2013 (Andreea Mironescu) / 240 Eugen Negrici, Iluziile literaturii române [The Illusions of Romanian Literature], Bucureşti, Cartea Românească, 2008 (Cosmin Borza) / 242 Mihaela Ursa, Identitate şi excentricitate. Comparatismul românesc între specific local şi globalizare [Identity and Eccentricity. Romanian Comparative Studies Between Local Specific and Globalization], Bucureşti, Editura Muzeului Naţional al Literaturii Române, 2013 (Constantina Raveca Buleu) / 244 Vasile Mihalache, Noli me tangere”? Despre legitimitate şi autonomie în literatură [„Noli me tangere?”. Sur la légitimité et l'autonomie dans la littérature], Bucureşti, Tracus Arte, 2013 (Alex Goldiş) / 248 Contributeurs / Contributors / 250 OANA FOTACHE, MAGDA RĂDUŢĂ COMPARATIVE THEORY: CHRONOTOPES AND CIRCULATION PRACTICES ARGUMENT Contrary to its origins and areas of applicability, always “very” local and localized, literary theory aimed at reaching the status of a universal discourse on literature, a discourse that would identify and showcase in a display box the invariants beyond the cultural, historical, and geographical variables. As the anthropologist James Clifford ironically acknowledged in his article/ manifesto “Notes on Travel and Theory” (Inscriptions, 5), “Localization undermines a discourse’s claim to ‘theoretical’ status.” The very history of literary theory as a (still) recent human science has incorporated and disguised local heritages while also highlighting in the process their transferable virtue, their mobile and generalizing capacity. The various narratives that accounted for theory’s beginnings, from the organicist ones such as R. Wellek’s History of Modern Criticism to those that value the breaking point as the constitutive motive of evolution (such as the introductions signed by Jonathan Culler, Terry Eagleton, or Antoine Compagnon, to name but a few), they all discreetly unify the variables of theoretical reflection into the apparently glorious perspective of a knowledge that makes its way through accumulating and filtering its data; a knowledge that is dubiously similar to the “hard” scientific one. First, theoretical discourse had to become more and more preoccupied with the theme of its own crisis for the motives of circulation, travel, and the unavoidable alteration of ideas to open up new lines worth investigating. This also happened thanks to the rebirth of comparative literature over the past two-three decades. * Romanian literary theory has never quite fared on the major routes of theoretical discourse. The field’s tradition has rather been passed on from one individual to another, often at a distance, without consistent interaction and exchange that could enable a proper debate on the status of the discipline. Later on, in the golden age of structuralism – the age when theory reached its public climax which, at least in this lateral region of Europe, was to be taken for the very possibility of the discipline –, the attempts to revive and found at the same time a local tradition of theoretical discourse have brought to light marginal figures from the field of interwar literary studies (Mihail Dragomirescu, Dimitrie Caracostea). In other cases, they have stubbornly looked for traces of theoretical underpinnings in the discourse of literary critics or historians. It is not surprising at all that in a culture dominated for decades by a deep respect for the “big names”, critical doubts weren’t welcomed. This doesn’t mean there were no important theorists in DACOROMANIA LITTERARIA, II, 2015, pp. 5-10 6 COMPARATIVE THEORY: CHRONOTOPES AND CIRCULATION PRACTICES Romania after the Second World War who developed an autonomous discourse without being significantly indebted to the centers of symbolic power (among which Paris occupied the most prominent place). Discursive autonomy was conquered by paying the price of a radical break from the dominant critical- historical trend, which was almost exclusively legitimized in the field (see the cases of Tudor Vianu or Adrian Marino). Theory came thus to occupy an isolated position in the field of Romanian literary studies, a fact that had long-term consequences on the field’s equilibrium. When the balance was nevertheless searched for and attained, as in the case of Ioana Em. Petrescu, it was not without a problematic recognition. On the other hand, in the mainstream literary criticism, references to the fashionable themes and concepts of the same golden age were quite frequent, sometimes being even put to work, as in some critical studies by Nicolae Manolescu or Eugen Simion, the representative names for that period. However, these attempts did not question or engage in a strong dialogue with their sources. The crowned queen of Romanian literary studies, criticism – often including a historical perspective – contented itself with borrowing from the echoes of the theoretical debates taking place in different parts of the world, putting them only to a peripheral use. There were however some important exceptions: the debate space provided by the journal Cahiers roumains d’études littéraires, the theoretical enclaves hosted by the