Category Archives: Comparative literature

Tender is the Translation

Posted on June 20, 2012 by wcd2

June 20, 2012 Because of my online lectures on Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, I’ve been getting inquiries about these authors from Asia, Europe, South America – many viewers of the Open Yale Courses are outside the US. This week I … Continue reading →

Posted in Americas, Arabic, Asia, Brazil, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Global South, Latin America, Media, Middle East, Portuguese, print medium, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Asia, Beckett, Cosac Naify, Danish literature, Europe, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Flaubert, Fru Marie Grubbe, Gyula Krúdy, Hemingway, Jens Peter Jacobsen, Lady Chatterley's Lover, New York Times, Open Yale Courses, Sinbad;s Youth, South America, Tender is the Night, The Arabic Nights, The Wishing Tree, Tolstoy | 2 Comments

All Saints Bookstore, Beijing

Posted on June 13, 2012 by wcd2

June 13, 2012 We were in Hong Kong on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. A candlelight vigil had been held in Victoria Park for the past 23 years. This year, 180,000 people showed up. There … Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, Boostores, China, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Diaspora, Dissidents, Educational institutions, literary magazaines, macro politics, Media, Nobel Prize, print medium, public universities, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged All Saints Bookstore, Beijing, Beloved, candlelight vigil, Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway, Hong Kong, Liu Suli, Liu Zaiobo, Mark Twain, Nobel Prize, Peking University, Richard Powers, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Steve Jobs, Strand, The Echo Maker, The Road, Thinkers Cafe, Tiananmen Square crackdown, Toni Morrison, Tsinghua University, Wansheng Bookstore, World Literature Institute, Zhao Baisheng, Zora Neale Hurston | 9 Comments

Literature to Film, Sydney 2012

Posted on May 30, 2012 by wcd2

May 30, 2012 May 28, 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Patrick White. Many of us from the conference went down to a special screening of The Eye of the Storm, directed by Fred Schepisi, featuring Charlotte Rampling … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, architecture, Arts communities, Australia, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary Art, Diaspora, Educational institutions, film festivals, film medium, Global South, Interdisciplinarity, Media, Modern art, museums, Music, Remediation, Rock music, Theater, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Antony Waddington, Bob Dylan, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Chekhov, England, France, Fred Schepisi, Geoffrey Rush, Howl, I'm not There, James Franco, John Gaden, Judy Davis, MOMA, Patrick White, Russia, Seattle Film Festival, Sydney, Sydney Opera House, The Cherry Orchard, The Eye of the Storm, Vivid Lights Festival | 10 Comments

Jazz in Australia: Yusef Komunyakaa, Charlie Parker

Posted on May 22, 2012 by wcd2

May 22, 2012 I’m heading there later today, so I’ve been doing a bit of homework. Komunyakaa, of course: it’s so strange that I should be talking about his play adaptation of Gilgamesh at the University of Sydney, when there … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Arts communities, Australia, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Educational institutions, epic, Ethnicity, Global South, Handwritten script, lyric, Media, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Music, Near Eastern poetry, peripheral networks, planet, print medium, Remediation, twentieth century art | Tagged " Charlie Parker, "Testimony, Austraiia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dexter Gordon, February in Sydney, Gilgamesh, jazz poetry anthology, Louis Armstrong, Mandy Sayer, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, Miles Davis, Sand Evans, Sydney Opera House, Thieves of Paradise, University of New Orleans, University of Sydney, Yusef Komunyakaa | 8 Comments

Wallace Stevens, amigo of Cuban writers

Posted on April 18, 2012 by wcd2

April 18, 2012 Wallace Stevens and Cristina García? Not the most obvious pairing. Yet it is Stevens’s poems that remained on García’s desk throughout the writing of Dreaming in Cuban, giving the novel its epigraph. And for Stevens, Havana is … Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean literature, Comparative literature, Cuba, Global South, Latin America, Letters, Modernist poetry, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged " José Rodríguez Feo, "Academic Discourse in Havana", "Someone puts a Pineapple 'Together", Antillean, Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban, El Sol, Hartford, Havana, Key West, Madrid, Secretaries of the Moon, Wallace Stevens | 2 Comments

Moving Modernisms: Oxford 2012

Posted on March 28, 2012 by wcd2

March 28, 2012 I missed a whole day of the conference (had to teach, there was no getting around it). What did Paul Saint Amour say about slowness; Maud Ellmann about bi-location; Enda Duffy about high energy modernism; Ato Quayson … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Educational institutions, film medium, globe, Media, Modernist poetry, print medium, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged Ato Quayson, cognitive science, emotional intelligence, Enda Duffy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Julian Murphet, Maud Ellmann, modernism, Morocco, New College, Nigeria, Oxford University, Paul Saint-Amour, Route 66 TV series, Samuel Beckett, Tangerine Dream, Wole Soyinka | 6 Comments

Edwidge Danticat: French, English, Creole

Posted on March 14, 2012 by wcd2

March 14, 2012 Her first languages were Creole and French. At 12, she spoke almost no English. At 26, her collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was nominated for the National Book Award. It’s mind-boggling to think of that trajectory … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Gender, Global South, Igbo, Latin America, Media, mixed races, peripheral networks, print medium, Radio, Remediation, Translation | Tagged Chinua Achebe, Creole, Edwidge Danticat, French, Haiti, Igbo language, Joseph Conrad, Krik? Krak!, literacy, mediascape, National Book Award, Paris Review, Polish, Radio Lumière | 82 Comments

The Global South: Miami 2012

Posted on March 7, 2012 by wcd2

March 7, 2012 From where we were sitting, we could see the different kinds of palm trees. Brian Breed, David Borman, Carolina Villalba, Izabella Zieba — fourth year, third year, and second year students in the English Department. There … Continue reading →

Posted in collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Global South, Islam, Israeli literature, Latin America, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Palestinian film, Palestinian literature, peripheral networks, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged A. B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Anton Shammas, Columbia, Cuba, Daniella Carmi, David Grossman, Dominican Republic, Edwidge Danticat, Escobar, Faradis, Ghassan Kanafani, Haiti, Miami, Mutiny Hotel, Ranen Omer-Sherman, Sahar Khalifeh, Sayed Kashua, University of Miami, Yayha Yakhlif, Yehuda Amichai | 42 Comments

World, Globe, Planet: UCLA

Posted on February 29, 2012 by wcd2

February 29, 2012 I’ve always loved the big white buildings of Berkeley, but the brick buildings of UCLA (russet and ochre, so different from the plain red of the east coast) must be more habitable? Royce Hall, with its twin … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, collaboration, Comparative literature, Global South, globe, peripheral networks, planet, public universities, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Ahmed Sékou Touré, Bandung Conference, Berkeley, Cesar Vallerjo, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Richard Wright, Sino-African alliance, UCLA, W B Yeats | 42 Comments

Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia, Gilgamesh

Posted on February 22, 2012 by wcd2

February 22, 2012 I’ve never given a talk at UCLA. Caltech, yes, in nearby Pasadena; also the Huntington Library. But never at the famed Royce Hall, 405 Hilgard Avenue. So I’m a bit anxious about tomorrow: a graduate student … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Classics, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Dance, epic, Handwritten script, Mesopotamia, Near Eastern poetry, Remediation, Theater, Translation, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged Caltech, Chad Gracia, Cunieform, Enkidu, epic, Gilgamesh, Huntington Library, Ode to the Maggot, Our Oriental Heritage, Pasadena, Sumeria, UCLA, Will Durant, Yusef Komunyakaa | 67 Comments