{"title":"“A Worthless Reptile”","authors":"G. Quigley","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 During the 1960s and 70s, direct invocations of Beckett’s texts began to appear in works by writers belonging to a Turkish literary movement called bunalim edebiyati, or Literature of Despair. These writers were critical of the Turkish republic; their productions also coincided with the formation of social movements that sought to address the sociocultural effects of the Turkish language reforms. This paper argues that Beckett’s method and thematic engagement with self-translation informed how Turkish writers negotiated language reforms in their own writing. Writers examined include Adalet Ağaoğlu and Ferhan Şensoy as well as Beckett productions by Barbara Hutt.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75687413","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":"Emancipatory Aesthetics in Beckett’s Theatre of Affect","authors":"C. Einarsson","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article uses Beckett’s directorial comments on the screened version of What Where (1982), as a point of departure for teasing out the poetic logic of Beckett’s attention to the formal aspects of the stage image. By having formal aspects take precedence over linguistic expression, Beckett refuses closure on the level of language and makes more authentic acts of judgment possible. Such ‘emancipatory aesthetics’ promotes intellectual freedom, a liberating aspect of Beckett’s work sometimes neglected.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81278214","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":"From Waiting for Godot to Andrzej Stasiuk","authors":"T. Wisniewski, Katarzyna Kręglewska","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Beckett’s importance for Polish culture was established by the first production of Waiting for Godot in 1957. Since then, his significance has evolved in aesthetic, social and political terms. This may be illustrated by a model that focuses on: 1) the post-war sense of frustrated expectations (Waiting for Godot); 2) the approaching fall of the Iron Curtain (Catastrophe); and 3) a contemporary search for a new geo-political identity (“neither”). Direct and indirect parallels between Beckett and Polish artists are discussed (Jerzy Kreczmar, Antoni Libera, and Andrzej Stasiuk).","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84432544","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":"Beckett as Muse for Egyptian Playwrights","authors":"A. ElHalawani","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 1962, Beckett’s theatre debuted in Egypt and, ever since, it has inspired Egyptian playwrights. This paper examines how two Egyptian writers engaged with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, as an example of both Beckett’s work and so-named absurdist theater, revealing it to have more potential for political and social engagement than traditionally understood. Masir Sursar [Fate of a Cockroach] by Tawfiq Al-Hakim and Musafir Layl [Night Traveller] by Salah Abdul Saboor make a good case study of these effects.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89239295","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":"Une Catastrophe de Rien du tout ou De “l’ anarchie de l’ imagination”","authors":"C. Taban","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Au début de 2006 les artistes Maya Schweizer et Clemens von Wedemeyer ont tourné le film Rien du tout avec la collaboration des élèves d’ un lycée local, dans une banlieue parisienne semblable à celles que des émeutes ont ébranlées en novembre 2005. Employant un riche réseau de références artistiques et culturelles, parmi lesquelles Catastrophe de Beckett et les films de Fassbinder sont les plus saillantes, Rien du tout raconte l’ histoire d’ une réalisatrice autoritaire et de son dispositif cinématographique dont la domination est finalement détournée par des figurants rétifs. L’ image éphémère d’ une société hybride et égalitaire est offerte au spectateur pour qu’ il l’ examine et la compare avec la sienne propre.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86126957","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":"“Nothing is Left to Tell”","authors":"Hania A. M. Nashef","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the Arab world, Beckett’s plays or their adaptations have not only been popular with audiences and directors but have also inspired other literary and media genres. The Beckettian wait itself has become synonymous with the condition of the Arab person. It is a wait that offers an unrealized potential of hope that reverberates with the diminishing prospects of the Beckettian protagonist. In this paper, I discuss how in times of war, migrations, and despair, performances of Beckett’s plays abound.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90069801","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":"Cybernetic Syntax","authors":"Hunter Dukes","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article unfolds what J.M. Coetzee terms “the rhythm of doubt” in Watt—a procedure that parallels cybernetic ideas about feedback and control. A careful reading of Coetzee’s doctoral dissertation, a stylostatistic analysis of Beckett’s English fiction, reveals what the young scholar and novelist labels the syntax of “A against B,” which he puts to use in his early novels. The rhythm of doubt ultimately takes on a political slant in these works, as it becomes associated with (potentially) violent actions performed in the service of perceived rationality.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82703627","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":"Written in Sand","authors":"Neil Doshi","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03102004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03102004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article reinterprets the Algerian writer Mohammed Dib’s 1992 novel Le désert sans détour through the analysis of its reference to Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot. I argue that for Dib, Beckett offers an important model for a post-revolutionary politics that expresses extreme skepticism over clichéd notions of historical progress and universal humanism. Recuperating this ignored Beckettian strand in Dib’s novel, I revise the critical reception that has read the text as apolitical and focused on spirituality. I offer a better understanding of Dib’s aesthetic as one emerging out of a dialectical tension between discourses of Sufi illumination and a Beckettian politics radically enmeshed in the world.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"2016 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83413200","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":"Éluard en résidu surréaliste dans l’ œuvre de Samuel Beckett","authors":"Bernard-Olivier Posse","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03101008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03101008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Cet article analyse les relations de Samuel Beckett avec l’ un des poètes phares du surréalisme français : Paul Eluard. Malgré de nombreux rapprochements entre l’ auteur irlandais et le mouvement d’ avant-garde dans la critique beckettienne, l’ appréhension systématique de cette position n’ a jamais été entreprise. Cet article se donne donc pour objectif de tracer un rapide regard sur l’ échange et le dialogue esthétique entretenu par Beckett avec Paul Eluard. Seront mises en avant les traductions du poète français effectuées par Beckett pour la revue This Quarter, ainsi que leurs relations avec certains des textes critiques écrits par Beckett durant les années trente au sein desquels le poète français apparaît, soit en filigrane, soit textuellement.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84066806","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":"“To talk alone”","authors":"Xander Ryan","doi":"10.1163/18757405-03101012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03101012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article gives a close-reading of Beckett’s letters to Barbara Bray, focusing on the years between their first meeting in 1956 and Bray’s move to Paris in May 1961. In this correspondence Beckett grappled with the difficulties of “human conversation”, as the letters raised questions regarding the construction of the self in dialogue and the (in)ability of language to bridge distance between two individuals. I propose that Happy Days, written between October 1960 and June 1961, emerged from this fraught epistolary process, and that the play can be read as a dramatization of the letter writer’s address to their absent interlocutor. The connection is supported by Beckett’s use of draft fragments of the play-text within the letter exchange itself.","PeriodicalId":53231,"journal":{"name":"Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd''hui","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87988015","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}