MADE IN CANADA, READ IN SPAIN IS NOW ONLINE IN OPEN ACCESS!

You can now redited my recent edited collection of essays (Made in  Canada, Read in Spain: Essays on the Translation and Circulation of English-Canadian Literature)  on the following webiste:

http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/212518

Made in Canada, Read in Spain: Essays on the Translation and Circulation of English-Canadian Literature

Made in Canada, Read in Spain is forthcoming!

In a few days  this edited collection of essays, which is the outcome of the research of over 4 years by myself and other Spanish Canadianists (Nieves Pascual, Belén Martín, Eva Darias, Isabel Alonso, Marta Ortega and Eva Darias) will be out!

It will be the first book about the reception of English-Canadian Literature in Spain.

It will be published in Open Access, so everyone in the world will be able to read it for free.
There will also ba a print edition.

The publisher is Versita, London, a branch of De Gruyter who is launching this innovative initiative.

See the link: Made in Canada, Read in Spain by Pilar Somacarrera (ed.)

ABOUT THE MADRID MASTER OF ENGLISH STUDIES AT THE UAM

Here is the recently issued pamphlet for the Madrid Masters Degree of English Studies at the UAM.
I hope you find it interesting:

UPDATE ON THE INFO ABOUT THE CANADIAN LIT COURSE

COURSE: Language, Power and Hybridity in the Literatures of Canada and Australia

 

Madrid Master of English Literature and Culture (UAM, Department of English Studies,
2013-14, starting mid-September 2013)

More information: pilar.somacarrera@uam.es

Registration taking place now! Registration periods:

1^st: From June 10 until July 29

2^nd: From September 19 until September 27

Please go to: Pilar's CanLit Master course UAM

 

Canada and Australia, as former settler-invader colonies of the British Empire, provide interesting models to study the co-existence of languages and cultures and their role as victims of colonialism and agents of oppression of the indigenous communities

 This course will provide an introduction to the main theoretical issues of postcolonial theory, as well as an overview of literary texts of different genres by Australian and Canadian authors, through the reading and commentary of literary texts and theoretical essays. It will also contain a module about the translation and reception of English-Canadian literature in Spain. Authors that will be dealt with include: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Ann-arie MacDonald, Alistair McLeod and Gail Jones.

If you are interested in news about Canadian studies activities taking place in Spain, please visit the Fundación Canadá Facebook site: Fundación Canadá

CANADIAN WRITERS ARE BACK TO THE SPANISH PRESS AND BACK TO UAM!

Recently, we have been reading again about Canadian women writers in the Spanish press. There have been absent for almost two years, since Munro was shortlisted for the Prínce of Asturias Award in 2011, which eventually went to her compatriot Leonard Cohen.  Atwood had always been hidden away since the fanfare of the Prince of Asturias Award in 2008 and the publication of her poetry collection The Door in 2009. Lumen has recently incorporated her to the prestigious gallery of women authors-

In my forthcoming books about the reception of Canadian writers in Spain, I have expressed my conviction that Canadian writers are here to stay. Alice Munro has recently made it to the cover of El Cultural (22 March 3013), just as Atwood did when she won the Prince of Asturias Award. Nuria Azancot summarizes an interview Munro held The New Yorker about the publication of her latest collection of stories Dear Life.

Margaret Atwood visited Spain in the second week of April for the occasion of Gutun Zuria, the festival of International Literature Festival of Bilbao. She has, as a result,  appeared again in the cultural pages of most Spanish newspapers.

The good news is I will be teaching a course about Canadian (and Australian)  writers this autumn. The course’s title is “Language, Power, Hybridity in the Literatures of Canada and Australia." The course will feature authors like Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Ann-Marie MacDonald and Sally Morgan.

I will soon be publishing links where you can find more information about it. Feel free to ask me about it at pilar.somacarrera@uam.es

EMILY DICKINSON: A GOTHIC GIRL OR A MYSTIC?

In her recent review about the Collected Poems (Poesía completa) by Emily Dickinson, translated by Enrique Goicolea, Ainhoa Sáenz de Zaitegui (El  Cultural 8-3-2013) writes "she was a woman with a mission"; "If the had lived in the Twenty-First Century, she would have been a Gothic poet, dressed in black, her lips in black lipstick."

I am afraid that Zaitegui does not quite understand Emily Dickinson and she is committing the usual mistake of reading authors from the past  through the lens of twenty-first century. At the end of her life, Dickinson dressed in white, she was known as "The Lady in White." Was the colour of her garment an allusion to the crowd dressed in white  mentioned in the Book of Revelations by Saint John? Was her white dress the colour of her shround, reminiscent of one "of the meek members of the Resurrection," who await patiently the day thet will risen from the dead.  The cultural journalist forgets that Emily Dickinson had a deep knowledge of religion and lived during the Second American Religious Revival.

Therefore, my view is that Dickinson is more a mystic thatn a gothic poet. Death is the substance of  her poetry, but was death a part of the everyday life of people  of nineteenth century and present in the poetry in English from both sides of the Atlantic (Tennyson, Rossetti, Browning...). For Cristina Rossetti, death was a liberation ("Sleeping at last, trouble & tumult over/Sleeping at last, the struggle & horror past/Cold & white out of shigth of friend & of lover/Sleeping at last." C. Rossetti, 1896)

Rossetti clearly believed in the Afte- Life but did Dickinson? There are volumes of criticism written about this. Int the introduction about her in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, the critic writes that "she was fully capable of moving within the same pome from religious consolotation to rejection of doctrinal piety." And so she did, but, in my opinion, Emiy Dicksionson dd believe in God and in Immortality, despite her doubts. Here are some lines which point in this direction:

365 (368)
I know that He exists.
Somewhere -in silence-
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes

'Tis and instant's play -
'Tis a fond Ambush-
Just to make Bliss
Earn her own surprise!

But -should the play
Prove piercing earnest -
Should the glee -glaze-
In Death's -stiff -stare -

Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest -
Have crawled too far!     (1862)

In the the first line, Dickinson seems to be echoing the words of Job, which are beautifully sung in Haendel's oratory "Messiah": "I know that my Redeemer liveth, " and, therefore I shall live too.
When she says "He had hid his rare life/From our gross eyes," it reminds me Pope Bendedict the 16th when he said, just before abdicating, that "sometimes God seemed to be asleep." The reality of death, says Dickinson, is cruel, but the inextistence of a Beyond would be an even crueller joke.

And what do you think? Do you thinks Emily Dickinson believed in God and immortality?

To end this entry, I would like to thank the group of enthusiastic and innovative students (Elena, Álvaro, Georgiana, Olga and Mª José)  from my English Literature class (Languages & Commnication degree) for the amazning presentation they have delivered today about Emily Dickison!! Elena's impersonation of Emily Dickinson, has  confirmed my idea of the American poet as a kind of mystic, a St Theresa living in the US during the nineteenth century.
Here is the link if you would like to enjoy it:

PRESENTATION ABOUT EMILY DICKINSON

WHY DOES "BARTLEBY" BOTHER ME?

"Barleby," again.  I have to confess that I don't like this story. It's dark and oppressive, it leaves us with no anwers. Why does Bartleby refuse to write?  Is the story a reflection of Melville's own disillusionment with wrting after when, after he published his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851, he was ignored by the public until his death? The story is one of the most nihilisitic literary texts, nihilism being, according to the OED,  " a total rejection of current religious beliefs or moral principles, often involving a general sense of despair and that life is without meaning-" Doesn't this sound familiar? This is exactly what our society is going through at the moment: we find no sense in life, many people feel they have nothing to live for, when they are being expelled from their houses for not paying their mortgages. Bartleby also lets himself die: he refuses to care about money, food or drink. Is he thus subverting the conventions of Calvinistic capitalism of the Wall Steet setting of the story?  It might be worth noting that the equivalent of the 15-M Spanish movement is called "Occupy Wall Street. Bartleby stubbornely rejects any kind of authority: "I would prefer not to," an enigmatic formula: he neither refuses, nor does he accept; his phrase is intriguinly ambiguous. Many people act and speak in similar ways nowdays.
The text with its open ending puts forward doubts and different intepretations. Melville introduces a mysterious passage which provides certain biographical information about Bartleby. What do these letters have to do with Bartleby's behaviour? What is the meaning of his last words in the story (Ah Barleby! Ah humanity!) And you, what do you think about Barleby? And about the narrator-lawyer? What is your own interpretation of the story?

BRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY GURINDER CHADHA

 Because it is the 200 anniversary of the publication of  Jane Austen’s novel  Pride & Prejudice and you will have read much about the novel on the internet. In April 2003 the BBC Big Read began to search for the “nation’s best-loved novel.” The reader could submit their nominations and famous personalities championed for the great novels by presenting them on BBC. The Lord of the Flies would obtain the most votes. Surprisingly, a classic came in position two, and it was Pride & Prejudice, which has often been adapted into film and television. One of the most popular was the mini TV series by the BBC with Colin Firth as the tenebrous Mr Darcy. This connection between the actor and the s character was exploited in another film which is a version of Austen’s classic, Bridget Jones’ Diary, in which Colin Firth starred again as another Mr Darcy, this time a contemporary one, but with multiple connections with the Austen’s arrogant character.

 

The novel has been turned into two interesting movies, one of the classic sort, directed by John Wright and realized in 2005, presenting the then rising star Keira Knightley. The other, the one we are going to show now, was released in 2004 and is a mesmerizing Bollywood adaptation, which promoted the taste for transculturation, starring Miss Universe, the Indian actress Aishwarya Rai as Lalita Bakshi (the Indian Elizabeth Bennet) and the equally handsome actor Martin Henderson  as the American Will Darcy. The film was directed by Gurinder Chadha, the director of the successful film, Bend it Like Bechkam.. Austen’s social prejudice is read in terms  against Western imperialist prejudice against developing nations like India.  The film also criticizes how Indian culture (its food, clothing, dances, music, traditions) is marketed for Western consumption,  although Western. But most of all, The film is very funny and is full of dance and music, and captures very sell  the essence of Austen’s movie, translating it to our contemporary world of travel, email communication and internet dating. So enjoy!!     See an appetizar! Dance Scene

Did you like the film? Please publish your comments here!

LINCOLN (AND WHITMAN)

As I mentioned in my classes a couple of weeks ago one of the films running for the Oscars this year is Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, with Daniel Day Lewis starring as President Abraham Lincoln. Why would the director of such spectacultar films as E.T. , Jurassic Park or Indiana Jones: Riders of the Lost Ark have made such a dark, austere film as Lincoln?
I think it is because Lincoln is an American hero.  But, unlike other books and films about him, in Spielberg's movie  he is  a "normal hero," not a Superman. He is a man with his weaknesses and doubts, like most leaders are,like and all of us, no matter what position we occupy in life.

The film shows how Lincoln was not even sure what the consequences of abolishing slavery were; and in the film he admits that he does not know enought about black people , but his moral intuition told him that it was morally right and that he had to fight for it, no matter the personal and political costs. You also learn that this self-evident truth "that all men are created equal," proclaimed in The Gettysburg Address" was even worth having to bribe some members of the Democratic party in order to obtain the votes to pass the 13th Amendment.

The popularity of the film has also motivated National Geographic to produce a documentar ("Killing Lincoln")y about Lincoln's death -a scene which is, interestingly, omitted from the film.  L
See the links:

Lincoln trailer

Gettysburg Address YouTube video

Killing Lincolm

Walt Whitman wrote a poem dedicated to Lincoln's death titled “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

 

You may read the entire poem here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174748

NEW TOPICS:
Did anybody go and see the film "Lincoln"? And what were you reactions to "Leaves of Grass"?
Did you like it? Did you think it was a great bore?

Thank you to those of you who published your responses on Emerson's essays. "Self-Reliance" has clearlu become the favourite of the two. Now keep up with the next entries and do encourage other people to join our blogging community!

TRANSCENDENTALISM FOR TIMES OF CRISIS

I am kind of ashamed to say that when I was a student of Filología Inglesa years ago now, I never had a chance to read the American Transcendentalists.
 It was later during a stay abroad in the US that I started to become acquainted with 19th century American Literature. But I really got to enjoy them as I had to teach a course about this subject in the new Modern Languages and Literatures Degree.
My colleagues had warned me that it was a impossible to make students read these texts, yet I discovered that they -and I- enjoted them immensely!. But this year , as I face a new position as Head of Department, they even make more sense to me. Obviously, Transcendentalism makes more sense for people who are believers -of whatever faith-´who think that everything does not end in this world and that there is "a Beyond," but they appeal to everybody at these times of crisis when we need to believe that there is a sense in doing what we have to do in life. Anyway, I here are some of my favourite sentences:

From "Self-Reliance" by R.W. Emerson: 

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think."

"Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself."

"Whoso would be a man, must be a non-comformist."

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages."

"Live ever in a new day. Trust your emotion."

"Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life."

From "The American Scholar":

"The one thing in the world of value is the active soul"

...genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of Dei


And so on... and also see how much in current American culture and politics comes from the thought of these philosophers, writers, lovers of Nature who dreamed about creating a new Nation and a new Man. See for example, Steve Job's Stanford University Address and you will see abundant connections with The American Scholars.

Read  Emerson's  essays on the Gutenberg Project Site:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-h/16643-h.htm#SELF-RELIANCE