Teoría del campo literario y subalternidad. Perspectivas metodológicas para el estudio de la poesía en el espacio literario ibérico

Abstract

La teoría del campo literario ha constituido una referencia importante para el estudio de literaturas definidas por su carácter subalterno o dependiente, y ha conocido interesantes desarrollos teóricos y aplicados en campos académicos como el gallego, el belga o el quebequés. Los modelos resultantes tienen varios elementos comunes, resultado de la crítica y de los ajustes metodológicos realizados sobre el marco teórico de partida. Entre estos últimos, destacan la consideración de una lógica nacionalista; la expansión de la idea de autonomía, entendida ahora en los sentidos estético, discursivo, e histórico-nacional; la identificación de especificidades en la estructura y el funcionamiento de este tipo de campos, así como la complementariedad con otras teorías del entorno empírico-sistémico. Los objetivos del artículo son el repaso de estos modelos y de las aplicaciones correlativas, la proyección de su rentabilidad en el espacio literario ibérico y, especialmente, el avance de pautas metodológicas para el estudio de la poesía. En relación con este último aspecto son estudiados determinados asuntos vertebrales: la identificación de habitus y principios de distinción; la inestabilidad de las relaciones entre canonización, subcampo de producción restringida, consagración, y vanguardia; o el papel asumido por la poesía en el reparto de funciones y capitales.     

Sobre l’essència del gènere líric: una reflexió teòrica a l’entorn de la paraula poètica en el llindar de l’experimentació

Abstract

Aquest article defensa que la impossibilitat de definir el gènere líric deriva del mateix caràcter experimental de la praxi poètica, que indaga en els signes amb què opera en un context de màxima expressivitat, i amb independència de la conjuntura històrica i de les actituds deliberadament rupturistes. Així doncs, per bé que s’hi analitzen algunes de les pràctiques d’experimentació habituals – com l’acostament de la poesia a la pintura, la música, o la matemàtica –, el que es resol és que la mateixa tradició poètica suscita ja una fèrtil activitat exploratòria: promou, per una banda, la revisió de tipologies estereotipades; i per una altra, la indagació en la capacitat de la llengua d’expressar el no conscient, i de conceptualitzar la realitat tot reinterpretant-la. L’estudi para esment, però, en el territori català, i sobretot en el vessant poètic d’Albert Ràfols-Casamada, i en els poemes Uh, d’Enric Casasses, i Bratislava o Bucarest, de Manel Ollé.     

Modern Arabic fiction in english translation a review article

Heinemann's Arab Authors series:

Naguib Mahfouz, Miramar (transl. by Fatma Moussa‐Mahmoud; ed. and revised by Maged el‐Kommos and John Rodenbeck; notes by Omar el‐Qudsy; introduction by John Fowles. Arab Authors 9, London, 1978).

Tayeb Salih, The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories (transl. by Denys Johnson‐Davies and illustr. by Ibrahim Salahi. Arab Authors 13, London, 1978).

Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun and Other Stories (transl. with an introduction by Hilary Kilpatrick. Arab Authors 11, London and Washington, D.C., 1978).

Egyptian Short Stories, selected and transl. by Denys Johnson‐Davies (Arab Authors 8, London and Washington, D.C., 1978).

Sonallah Ibrahim, The Smell of It and Other Stories (transl. by Denys Johnson‐Davies. Arab Authors 10, London, 1978).     

Entre la pampa del lenguaje y el alambrado de la escritura: la mancha roja como síntoma de la ambigüedad de lo real en La ocasión de Juan José Saer

La presencia recurrente del color rojo en La ocasión de Saer desempeña una función desestabilizadora en relación a la representación figurativa. En el artículo se establecen analogías entre esta función y el elemento voluble, no mimético de la pintura que el pensador e historiador de arte, Georges Didi-Huberman, denomina como “pan” en contraste con el detalle, categoría asociada con el carácter icónico de la pintura. Al igual que el “pan”, las manchas rojas en la novela apuntan a la dimensión de lo real que se resiste a la legibilidad y señala los límites de la narrativa realista. Saer se vale de contrastes cromáticos para aludir a tensiones políticas y epistemólogicas y a las paradojas de escribir una novela situada en el siglo diecinueve pero incorporando la experiencia literaria del siglo veinte.     

Lascasianismo (y lucha de clases) en Tungsteno de César Vallejo

Tungsteno (1931) de César Vallejo es un texto “puente” entre el indigenismo tradicional y la novela proletaria emergente en la zona andina. El “problema del indio” y la “lucha de clases” están ligadas por una perspectiva “lascasiana” que reduce a los personajes a comportamientos binarios que se excluyen mutuamente: buenos o malos, víctimas o explotadores. Tungsteno es eficaz cuando – siguiendo el esquema lascasiano – muestra cuadros aislados de explotación e injusticia. Pero su ideología y estrategia textual tienen limitaciones para ser considerada la obra revolucionaria que muchos pretenden. Por un lado, porque el indio sólo es “indio,” falla en la construcción de una identidad indígena contestataria y alternativa basada en diferencias culturales y étnicas. Y, en el caso de la representación de los mineros, al resaltar la figura de Servando Huanca subsume la lucha de clases al comportamiento de un individuo ejemplar. Este sesgo narrativo determina la ausencia de la acción colectiva de los obreros de la Mining Society construidos como una mera “presencia” y, sobre todo, sin una conciencia de clase, la agenda privilegiada del marxismo ortodoxo de la época.     

Fora de l'umbracle,de Joan Brossa: una petita revolució personal del maig del 68

Avui dia Joan Brossa és conegut sobretot per la seva poesia visual, però abans dels anys setanta poca gent sabia que el poeta i dramaturg català, tot i conrear-la des de 1941, tenia també una obra plàstica. El 1963 es produeix el primer transvasament de poesia visual dins un llibre de poesia literària: El saltamartí. Uns anys després, el 1968, Brossa compon Fora de l'umbracle, un autèntic aiguabarreig de poemes visuals i literaris que es converteix en el preàmbul de les publicacions visuals de l'any 70. L'article tracta d'aquest poemari, que romangué inèdit fins al 2012 i constitueix un autèntic reflex de l'esperit del maig francès del 68. El llibre és revolucionari perquè (a) inicia la revolució lletrista tipogràfica brossiana; (b) es fa ressò de la revolució política i social que el maig del 68 significà per a tota Europa; i (c) en gran mesura sintetitza la revolució poètica conceptual que Brossa havia començat el 1950 amb Em va fer Joan Brossa BrossaJ.1951. Em va fer Joan Brossa. Barcelona: Edicions Cobalto [Google Scholar]. D'una manera desprotegida (fora de l'umbracle) Brossa ens mostra la realitat despullada de l'Europa del 68 des de perspectives que van més enllà de les avantguardes europees de postguerra.1^?1. Aquest treball forma part del projecte “La poesia experimental catalana des de 1959 a 2004,” subvencionat pel Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación: FFI2010-18880 (subprograma FILO) i també ha rebut un ajut de l'Agrupació de Recerca de Ciències de l'Educació de la Universitat de Barcelona.     

Una aproximació bourdieuana a tres plataformes de difusió de poesia a Mallorca (1974–1990)

Abstract

En aquest article em propòs analitzar tres plataformes de difusió de poesia sorgides en el context mallorquí dels anys 70, 80, i 90, aprofitant l’aportació del sociòleg francès Pierre Bourdieu al voltant de la teoria del camp literari. La pretensió és establir un diàleg amb aquesta proposta teòrica i il·lustrar-la amb casos com el dels quaderns de poesia Domini Fosc (1974–1975), la revista L’Ombra Vessada (1979–1981), i les Edicions Atàviques (1985–1990), tenint en compte, per una banda, que els productes literaris que examinaré s’inscriuen en una línia experimentalista i, per l’altra, que la literatura catalana és institucionalment deficitària – a diferència de la francesa, en la qual es basa Bourdieu.     

Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra (1898–1974) on international relations: the discourse of a contemporary mainstream Islamist

The literature on Political Islam has not devoted ample space to the intellectual contributions of contemporary moderate Islamists. This article attempts to rectify this by examining the international relations discourse of a twentieth-century Egyptian religious scholar: Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra. Despite Abu Zahra's prominence in the Islamic world, his writings have received scant attention from academics. The article provides a close reading of his three principal works on international relations: al-?Alaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam and al-Wihda al-Islamiyya; as well as a fourth work with a significant bearing on the subject: al-Mujtama? al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam. It contends that Abu Zahra's international relations discourse is part of a more than a century-old tradition of theorizing on international relations that dates back to the religious reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu. Accordingly, Abu Zahra is treated here as an exemplar of what I refer to as the moderate and reformist school in contemporary Islam, in contradistinction to the radical school that is associated with salafi-jihadist figures and movements. A close analysis of Abu Zahra's international relations discourse thus provides penetrating insights on one pivotal, albeit understudied, dimension of this reformist/moderate current in contemporary Islam: its perspectives on international relations.     

Playing the Vertical Power Game: The Impact of Local Authorities in Cantonal Parliaments on the Financing of Special Schools

This study analyses the effect of local authorities in the Swiss cantonal parliaments on the allocation of special school costs. The empirical findings show that a higher share of local authorities in the cantonal legislature leads to a higher share of special school costs borne by the cantonal authorities. The effect is stronger for mayors compared to all members of local governments. Hence, mayors have a strong connection with their home municipality and use the political power of the accumulation of mandates for shifting undesirable costs from the local up to the cantonal level. This specific finding does not depend on the overall national constitutional framework, as the introduction of the NFA (Neuer Finanzausgleich) – in the course of which the federal state fully withdrew from financing special schools ‐ has not changed the magnitude of this effect.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue Francisco E. González, Creative Destruction? Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America. Tina Hilgers, ed., Clientelism in Everyday Latin American Politics. Daniel E. Levine, Politics, Religion, and Society in Latin America. Cas Muddle and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, eds., Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? Natasha Borges Sugiyama, Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil. María de los Angeles Fernández Ramil and Eugenio Rivera Urrutia, eds., La trastienda del gobierno: el eslabón perdido en la modernización del estado chileno. Marc Becker, ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. Rafael de la Dehesa, Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies. Barry S. Levitt, Power in the Balance: Presidents, Parties, and Legislatures in Peru and Beyond. George Ciccariello‐Maher, We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution.     

INHERITING “JAPANESE-NESS” DIVERSELY

The late twentieth century saw a rise of global discourse about heritage. Research on heritage politics, however, has shed little light on heritage practices in schools, especially regarding language, that is, how heritage language is constructed and how it is “inherited” by students of various backgrounds. Heritage language education is often viewed as a means to empower heritage language speakers or to address the diverse needs of students in language classes. In existing works, the individual’s link to “heritage” is assumed as given and stable. More recent works show that the processes and effects of heritage language education are complex and nuanced due to diverse personal backgrounds and changing political economy and cultural politics. The role of schooling in the process of “inheriting” language, however, has not attracted much attention: how students are grouped or tracked into a particular class, for example. After ethnographically investigating various views and practices at a weekend Japanese language school in the northeastern United States throughout 2007 and 2008, the authors of this article argue that heritage language school is not merely a place to reproduce “heritage” by passing it on to students, but it is also a productive site where ways to imagine “heritage” and “inherit” it proliferate. The article analyzes the processes by which what would be considered as merely “speaking Japanese” and “being Japanese” outside heritage language school are differentiated into diverse ways of being Japanese. It suggests a need to investigate school as a site of heritage politics as well as a need for researchers and practitioners to view heritage language education not only as a way to teach language but also as a means to gain an understanding of heritage politics.     

Soviet boarding schools as a forge of national professionals and intellectuals in Soviet Tajikistan in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACT

The study focuses on the institution of boarding schools (Russian: internat) in Soviet Tajikistan in the 1950s and 1960s and its role in the education and training of the new national generations of skilled professionals in the fields of industry, science, culture, art and healthcare, which in turn contributed to the development of their country. Along with the de-Stalinization of education and subsequent polytechnization, as well as flexibility in the use of Soviet institutions, the internats were transformed from a purely Soviet project into a more inclusive Soviet-Tajik project at the national level for the training of new young national-Sovietized professionals. These professionals combined the qualities of Sovietized and local (national), with their distinctive norms, traditions and values, into a totally new form. The boarding school system turned into a factory for bringing up national-Sovietized specialists and cadres.     

Introduction to dalit poems

Abstract

The word dalit in Marathi, the language spoken by 50 million people in the state of Maharashtra in Western India, means “downtrodden,” “ground down,” or “depressed.” A caste-less word which ex-Untouchables have chosen for the new school of literature they have created, it includes all those who have suffered from the religio-social system. Short stories by ex-Untouchables began to appear in the 1950s, but the great swelling of creativity — poetry, novels, short stories, plays — appeared only in the late 1960s. The school is acknowledged by the Marathi literary establishment as a new and important development in the long history of Marathi literature. It represents a new voice, and its themes are protest, grievance, pride — and often revolution.     

Urban change in China. Politics and development in Tsinan,Shantung, 1890–1949

Abstract

Over the last decade, in response to the metropolitan, heavily political concerns of the “China's response to” school in Western research on modern Chinese history, there has been a move toward local (regional, provincial, county and urban) studies. A focus on localities has meant increased emphasis on social and economic change and their linkages with political events. A new sub-field has emerged—Chinese cities. David Buck's ambitiously titled Urban Change in China is the first monograph to appear from the urban history sub-field. Its publication should, therefore, be an occasion for assessment of the parameters it assumes for the sub-discipline.     

The office of Seyh ül‐Islâm and the Tanzimat— a prosopographic enquiry

Imperialism and Nationalism in the Sudan, a study in constitutional and political development 1899–1956 by Muddathir ‘Abd al‐Rahim. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Pp. 275 + xv, Appendixes: i‐ix, Index, Bibliography; £3·15.

The Politics of Stratification: a study of political change in a South Arabian town by Abdalla S. Bujra. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Pp. xvi + 201; 5 plates; £2·75.

Economic Development in Iran, 1900–1970 by Julian Bharier. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Pp. xviii + 314; £3·75.

The Ways of the Desert by General E. Daumas, with commentaries by The Emir Abd‐el‐Kader; translated by Sheila M. Ohlendorf; foreword by Robert A. Fernea. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1971. Pp. 193; $6·75.

The Children of Israel: The Bene Israel of Bombay by Schifra Strizower. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971. Pp. xiv + 176; £1·25.

Tajribati fi‐th‐thawra (My Experience in Revolution), Vol. I by General Muhammad Umran. Beirut, 1970.

Sayyid Jamal ad‐Din ‘al‐Afghani’: A Political Biography by Nikki R. Keddie, University of California Press. Pp. xvii + 479, frontispiece, bibliography, index; £9 ·00.     

Drugs,Violence, and Corruption: Perspectives from Mexico and Central America

Robert J. Bunker, ed., Criminal Insurgencies in Mexico and the Americas: The Gangs and Cartels Wage War. New York: Routledge, 2013. Tables, figures, index, 210 pp.; hardcover $160, paperback $56.95. Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, Studies in Gangs and Cartels. New York: Routledge, 2014. Tables, figures, index, 232 pp.; hardcover $168, paperback $54.95. Michael Deibert, In the Shadow of Saint Death: The Gulf Cartel and the Price of America's Drug War in Mexico. Guilford: Lyons Press, 2014. Map, bibliography, index, 336 pp.; hardcover $24.95, paperback $16.95. Alfredo Nateras Domínguez, Vivo por mi madre y muero por mi barrio. Significados de la violencia y la muerte en el Barrio 18 y la Mara Salvatrucha. Mexico City: Instituto Mexicano de la Juventud (IMJUVE)/Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL), 2014. Figures, bibliography, 493 pp.; paperback. Sala Negra de El Faro, eds., Crónicas negras desde una región que no cuenta. Mexico City: Aguilar, 2014. 350 pp.; paperback $17. Héctor Silva Ávalos, Infiltrados: crónica de la corrupción en la PNC (1992–2013). San Salvador: UCA Ediciones, 2014. 312 pp.; paperback $10.     

Imperialism and Chinese nationalism: Germany in Shantung,By John F. Schrecker

Abstract

Professor Schrecker's book is basically a defense of Qing foreign policy during the 1895-1911 period. He demonstrates a concern of nationalism in late Qing with protecting the legal sovereignty of the Chinese state by showing how turn-of-the-century governors Yuan Shi-kai, Zhou Fu, and Yang Shi-xiang labored to defend the territorial integrity of Shandong [Shantung] province against German imperialism. The book's strength lies in Schrecker's conceptual analysis of Chinese foreign policy and its intellectual roots in the late nineteenth century. He argues cogently and with originality that in their concern for defending “sovereignty,” officials like Yuan Shi-kai combined the militant conservative qing-i school of the 1880s with the internationalist approach after 1895 of radical reformers like Kang You-wei. But Schrecker also argues that Qing foreign policy succeeded in stopping German imperialism in Shandong by 1911 and in terms of the empire as a whole that “in the last decade of the dynasty the Chinese government made considerably more progress in its struggle against imperialism than has generally been believed.” (p. 254) In such judgments about the success of late Qing foreign policy, he betrays the bias of what Bulletin readers have come to know as the Harvard school of apologetics for Western and Japanese imperialism. Schrecker deserves credit for drawing attention to the nationalist posture which the late Qing took after 1901 but he goes too far in his defense of the dynasty and the “progress” actually made against Western and Japanese imperialism.     

Book reviews

Canache, Damarys and Kulisheck, Michael (eds.) (1998), Reinventing Legitimacy: Democracy and Political Change in Venezuela. Mauceri, Philip (1998), State under Siege: Development and Policy Making in Peru. Ruth Berins Collier (1999), Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and Soth America. Sommer, Doris (ed.) (1999), The Places of History: Regionalism Revisited in Latin America. Rodr1Hguez‐Luis, Julio (ed.) (1999), Re‐Reading JoseHMartiH: One Hundred Years Later. Taylor, William B. (1996), Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth‐Century Mexico. Purnell, Jennie. (1999), Popular Movements and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico: The Agraristas and Cristeros of Michoacan. Evans, Sterling (1999), The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica. Arthur, Charles and Dash, Michael (eds.) (1999), A Haiti Anthology: Libete. Sheahan, John (1999), Searching for a Better Society: The Peruvian Economy from 1950. Lesser, Je4rey (1999), Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil. Hanchard, Michael (ed.) (1999), Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil. Brooke, Larson (1998), Cochabamba, 1550–1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia. Gilderhus, Mark T. (2000), The Second Century: U.S.+Latin American Relations Since 1889. Palermo, Vicente and Novaro, Marcos (1996), Pol1Htica y poder en el gobierno de Menem. Tedesco, Laura (1999), Democracy in Argentina: Hope and Disillusion. Owensby, Brian P. (1999), Intimate Ironies: Modernity and The Making of Middle‐Class Lives in Brazil. Field, Les W. (1999), The Grimace of Macho Raton Artisans, Identity and Nation in Late 20th Century Western Nicaragua. Pichon, Francisco, Uquillas, Jorje and Frechione, John (eds.) (1999), Traditional and Modern Natural Resource Management in Latin America. Wilson, Fiona (ed.) (1999), Violencia y Espacio Social: Estudios Sobre Conflicto y Recuperacion. Koonings, Kees and Kruijt, Dirk (eds.) (1999), Societies of Fear. The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America.