{"title":"The Complicated Selves of Transcolonialism: The Triangulation of Identities in the Alternative Peripheries of Global Post/Colonialism","authors":"B. Ștefănescu","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.04","url":null,"abstract":"The paper argues that twentieth-century (post)coloniality was a multi-centric and poly-peripheral space and as such calls for a different, more complex geo-cultural and historical portrayal than the one provided by mainstream postcolonialism. Conventional postcolonialist critiques are ill equipped to address the historical interactions and the conceptual migrations between the discourses of the Second and Third Worlds, or with their “dual dependencies” because, with notable exceptions, postcolonialist studies only focus on the relations between the West and its (former) colonies. I argue that Eastern Europe and the (post)colonies of the West are alternative peripheries in the convoluted field of global (post)colonialism and that there were protracted two-way exchanges between these subaltern discourses in their interconnected experiences of (post)colonialism. This interplay, together with their vacillation between the two power centres during the Cold War, complicated not only the global power games, but also the processes of (post)colonial identity formation, and the ideological genealogies of repression and resistance","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47576526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Misfits and Troubled Men. Masculinity and Violence in Romanian Socialist Cinema","authors":"Mădălina Pojoga","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.11","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is part of an ongoing research project that aims at identifying types of masculinities in Romanian socialist cinema, by using gender studies and other contributions on the topic of masculinity in order to provide a sociological reading of Romanian films made during the communist regime. I will look at the way in which Western understandings of masculinity have been transferred to Eastern European categories of masculinity in cinema and I will establish a critical framework for my analysis, with an introduction to studies on masculinity, and expand on elements of sociological and psychoanalytical works, namely major contributions from Connell (1987), Segal (2007) and Horrocks (1994, 1995). Two defining concepts in masculinity studies are hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1987) and homosociality (Bird, 1996), theories which will constitute the basis for my case studies in order to see if male characters in Romanian socialist cinema fit into this categorization. The last part of this paper will be an analysis of three films, Reenactment (Reconstituirea, Lucian Pintilie, 1968), 100 Lei (100 de lei, Mircea Săucan, 1973) and At the End of the Line (La capătul liniei, Dinu Tănase), in which the male characters exist outside society, they cannot conform to what is being required of them as socialist subjects. The purpose is to see how gender performativity plays a role in the relationship between men, with a focus on violence and how it is connected to a search for a father figure and male friendships.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45651294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Rhizomatic: A Spatial Form in Contemporary Romanian Poetry","authors":"Marius Conkan","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.10","url":null,"abstract":"Using geocritical methods and exploring the spatiality of texts, this study aims to demonstrate that the rhizomatic, the well-known Deleuzian concept, constitutes one of the spatial forms in contemporary Romanian poetry. In this sense, rhizomatic poetics transgress unitary semantics through interferences, disorders and (constantly rearranged) connections of forms and images to ultimately signal new perceptions of reality. As global meanings are pulverized, within some networks that capitalize mainly on the trace and the semantic transgressivity, these poetics end up generating a continuous reassembly of real elements, akin to a system which, through juxtaposition, multiplicity and nomadism, creates its own formal and affective space.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46643583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Unseen Faces of Translation. Insights into the English and Spanish Translations of Norman Manea’s The Hooligan’s Return","authors":"Mihaela Vancea","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.12","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to determine the strategies of adapting the translated content to a specific context based on a study case of Norman Manea’s The Hooligan’s Return. An exclusive interview with the author reveals the lesser debated prospect of the ghost translator. At a closer look, the translation of a text in various languages and spaces reveals certain truths and aspects specific to the community that embraces the translated text. Therefore, besides the role of cultural mediators, translators also need to possess certain anthropological qualities, so as to transplant the fragile human experience of a text to the foreign reader. According to Lawrence Venuti, this exchange can happen through a phenomenon explained in terms of foreignization and domestication, characterized by combating racism or ethnocentrism. Starting from these two approaches, we will examine how the mechanisms of translation are applied in our case study.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45891781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Romanian Women Writers and the Literary Profession during the First Half of the 20th Century: Exclusion, Feminisation and Professionalisation of Writing","authors":"Ioana-Claudia Moroșan","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.06","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper aims to analyse the evolution of the writing profession in case of women writers during the first half of the 20th century and especially during the inter-war period. In this respect, the present research mobilises three main methodological frameworks mainly consecrated by Pierre Bourdieu and his later followers: the sociology of professions, the sociology of gender, and field theory. The professionalisation of the literary occupation is also analysed from three main perspectives in front of the backdrop against which it occurred: firstly, the evolution of the literary profession is related to the feminisation of the literary field that allowed a wide insertion of women therein; the practices of exclusion, insofar as the literary occupation remained capitalised by male dominants; and, finally, the professionalisation of writing in the case of women is correlated to the development of the literary infrastructure during the inter-war period that contributed to the dislocation of the established criteria of the co-optation of newcomers.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49348806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Life of a Literary Network – A Quantitative Approach to Sburătorul Literary Cenacle","authors":"Daiana Gârdan","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2022.13.09","url":null,"abstract":"Investigated mostly in a co-dependent relationship with its titular figure – E. Lovinescu (1881-1943), the Romanian literary circle Sburătorul has achieved a paradoxical position in the field of Romanian critical inquiry. On one hand, this particular group is an ever-present reference in research dedicated to the interwar Romanian literary modernist scene. On the other hand, only a few monographic works explore the actual dynamic of this group, and while they are well documented and multi-layered a lot of material remains yet to be explored. The Sburătorul Literary Journals (Sburătorul: Agende literare), kept by E. Lovinescu and subsequently edited and published posthumously by his daughter, Monica Lovinescu, are one of the most valuable yet underestimated bibliographical instruments in Romania. Owing much to this particular instrument, my paper aims to investigate the human resource of Sburătorul literary circle. The methodology of my paper stands at the intersection between network studies, distant reading, and sociology and within these theoretical frameworks I intend to explore the relationships and dynamics between the most active members of the group, in order to “measure” the symbolic capital of the group.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45327955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Translations of Novels in the Romanian Culture during the Interwar Period and WWII (1918-1944): A Quantitative Perspective","authors":"Ș. Baghiu","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.02","url":null,"abstract":"This article continues the quantitative analysis of translations of novels in Romania for the 1918-1944 period. Baghiu discusses the decay of the French novel (from almost 70% of the total of translated novels during the long 19th century to almost 43% during the interwar period), and the case of two competitors in the second line of translations (American and Russian). The article turns then to the European and Global peripheries from the perspective of the colonial ‘20s and ‘30s, and discusses the eco narratives of the Nordic novel, and the identity function of the Asian novel within this translationscape.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43522763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cosmopolitan Theory: Examining the (Dis-)location of Imagology","authors":"Brigitte le Juez","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.01","url":null,"abstract":"Being interdisciplinary, reflexive and analytical, theory has practical effects, questioning assumptions such as those related to discourse, meaning or identity, and exploring the circumstances in which texts are produced. It offers new conceptual tools and provides an argumentative method. Fields such as imagology have benefitted from the outset from the variety of theories reflecting the intellectual progress of their times, in particular in connection with the study of the relationship between Self and Other, thus providing new perspectives on the uses of preconceived ideas in artistic, written and visual, representations. In view of the current context of migratory flows and societal upheavals, it seems topical to examine the theories feeding the field of imagology today. Traditionally, history, psychology and sociology have proved instrumental in the building of essential notions pertaining to the sphere. More recently, studies have drawn on new approaches connected to reception, translation, gender and education studies, widening the imagological scope and its range of methodological tools. This article examines the nature of the imagological undertaking, its current spread worldwide, and shows how this comparative literary field upholds a cosmopolitan ethos.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49427869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenging the Roma Structural Discrimination: Deterritorialization Practices in Romanian Cinema","authors":"Simona Mitroiu","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.03","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the cinematographic reworking of memory spaces associated with power relations and structural injustice. The way in which space is represented and used as a medium that reflects power relations allows to question the space itself in cultural productions from Central-Eastern Europe when associated with Romani people (space and power relations, memory of slavery and discrimination, space and freedom, territoriality, space and its inhabitants, non-belonging, segregation, etc.). The paper focuses on motion pictures produced in the last decade in Romania, a prolific period due to the increasing interest for memory activism and to the multiplication of the cultural exploration of challenging topics. It aims to identify narrative, visual, and aesthetic expressions used as deterritorialization practices to stimulate relational remembrance and engagement with ongoing social inequality and structural injustice. Two short films – Alina Șerban’ s Bilet de iertare (Letter of forgiveness) and Adrian Silișteanu’s Scris/Nescris (Written/Unwritten) – and a western type film – Radu Jude’s Aferim!, winner of the Silver Bear for Best director at Berlinale in 2015, are analysed here.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43632251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shaping the Canon. The International Profile of Viața Românească (1906-1916)","authors":"Daiana Gârdan","doi":"10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.12.05","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper aims to investigate the circulation of foreign cultural input in one of the most important Romanian literary periodicals of the prewar era. The main focus of the present research revolves around the means by which the editorial group of Viața Românească (The Romanian Life), have managed to create an international dialogue oriented towards Western models that helped shape the modernization of both the autochthonous literary production and the critical or theoretical national systems. Generally considered a rather reactionary community, with nationalistic tendencies, the aforementioned literary group has engaged in many occasions into transplanting foreign theoretical and critical models. The amplitude of these communications and its quite remarkable effects on the Romanian cultural scene may still come as a surprise. By means of quantitative and digital methods, the present proposal attempts to measure and investigate this very particular process.","PeriodicalId":36476,"journal":{"name":"Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45392584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}