VOLUME 9 | ISSUE 1 | 2024 | Crossings - Concept, Discourse, Practice
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"Introduction: Crossings – Concept, Discourse, Practice", Janine Hauthal, Arvi Sepp, pp. 1-13.
"Profile-Based Works on Social Media", Alexandra Saemmer, pp. 14-29.
"Redefining the Paratext 2.0: Social Media and Amanda Gorman's Translator Debate", Guillerma Sanz Gallego, pp. 30-44.
"L’exil comme fil conducteur: dynamiques mémorielles transnationales dans l’adaptation de Gott ist nicht schüchtern au Berliner Ensemble", Alice Lacoue-Labarthe, pp. 45-62.
"Tableaux Vivants and Incarnated Portraits: Constructing Literary Territories", Atinati Mamatsashvili, pp. 63-78.
"Whimsical Satire and the Crossing of Humorous and Ironic Targeting: An Analysis of May Kendall’s 'The Philanthropist and the Jelly-Fish' (1887)", Anthony Manu, pp. 79-103.
"D’après Google, vous êtes poètes: Street Poetry and Publishing in Brussels", Timotéo Sergoï, David Giannoni, Rachele Gusella, pp. 104-114.
"Interview with Patrick McGuinness: Writer of Crossings", Patrick McGuinness, Michael David Rosenfeld, pp. 115-127.
Janine Hauthal, Arvi Sepp, "Introduction"
Alexandra Saemmer, "Profile-Based Works on Social Media"
Over the past few years, contemporary literature has featured various profile experiments. The research project presented in this article focuses on digital-native profile-based works. The ‘profile’ on social platforms is a fundamental component of contemporary identity. Profile-based works merit our attention as a new form of literature deeply intertwined with today’s digital technologies. They represent the contemporary subject corrupted by digital capitalism but also attempt to “tinker” with the latter, in the sense Michel de Certeau described. None of the works discussed in this article aim to overthrow the power and strategies of major commercial platforms; rather, the tactics employed by the authors aim to offer a reflexive counterpoint. After outlining four fundamental characteristics of these works and discussing the main methodological challenges they represent for analysis, I analyse two profile-based works: “Jean-Pierre Balpe” by the author Jean-Pierre Balpe, and “Profile: Sudeten German” by myself. The main idea I wish to defend in this article is that the hybrid, connected nature of profile-based works, their reactivity to the upheavals of real life, but also their ability to embody and reveal fundamental aspects of contemporary “narrative identity” (Ricoeur), open up unexplored paths for literary writing.
Keywords: social networks, profiles, narrative identity, digital subject, self-narration
Guillermo Sanz Gallego, "Redefining the Paratext 2.0: Social Media and Amanda Gorman's Translator Debate"
The emergence of digital media has had a strong influence on settled theories within Translation Studies. Yet, the Genettian perspective on the paratext (1987/1997) was challenged only by Batchelor, who argues that Genette’s focus should be broadened to any material with “the potential to influence the way(s) in which the text is received” (2019, 142).
Drawing on Batchelor, this piece aims at exploring digital paratexts arising from social media in the case of the Catalan translation of Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb. Unlike Batchelor, who believes that the paratextual corpus depends on the research questions of a study, this case shows that social media posts can only be included in the paratextual material in cases in which they have had an impact in mainstream media. Additionally, the redefinition of the paratext has an influence on the framework of agents of translation, including the reader as an agent of translation.
Keywords: Translation Studies, Paratexts, Social Media, Agents of Translation, Amanda Gorman
Alice Lacoue-Labarthe, "L’exil comme fil conducteur: dynamiques mémorielles transnationales dans l’adaptation de Gott ist nicht schüchtern au Berliner Ensemble"
This article examines the stage adaptation of Gott ist nicht schüchtern by Olga Grjasnowa, directed by Laura Linnenbaum and Sibylle Baschung at the Berliner Ensemble in 2020. The story follows Amal, Youssef, and Hammoudi, three Syrians whose lives are upended by the repression of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, forcing them into exile in Germany. In an intermedial approach that notably incorporates visual and auditory archives, the play critiques European indifference to recurring narratives of destruction and displacement. This study explores how the stage adaptation transcends traditional boundaries: historically, by offering a diachronic perspective on human rights; geographically, by highlighting transnational and global dynamics. By weaving connections between collective memory and contemporary tragedies, Gott ist nicht schüchtern emerges as a powerful reflection on exile within a transgenerational and transnational framework.
Keywords: intertextuality, intermediality, exile, palimpsest, transnational memory.
Atinati Mamatsashvili, "Tableaux Vivants and Incarnated Portraits: Constructing Literary Territories"
This paper examines the works of French and Luxembourgish writers, including Légion (1939) by Jean Cassou and À la recherche de l'amour perdu (1940) by Willy Gilson. These texts belong to a similar literary genre, namely the novel, and were composed prior to the Second World War or the Nazi occupation. In both cases, the depictions of artists – whether invoked (Velasquez) or suggested (Expressionist painters) – play a pivotal role in shaping the fable, which focuses on the devastating contemporary events that led to the Shoah. In light of intermedial perspectives, the article proposes to approach the concept of ‘transfers’ or ‘transgressions’ through literary texts in the specific context of the persecution of Jews and Nazi ideology in the setting of the Second World War.
Keywords: Second World War, intermediality, Jews, French literature, Luxembourgish literature
Anthony Manu, "Whimsical Satire and the Crossing of Humorous and Ironic Targeting: An Analysis of May Kendall’s 'The Philanthropist and the Jelly-Fish' (1887)"
This article explores the whimsical satire in the poem “The Philanthropist and the Jelly-Fish” (1887) by Victorian poet, novelist, and essayist May Kendall (1861-1943). It has two central objectives. Firstly, it aims to conceptualise Victorian whimsical satire as presenting a crossing between, on the one hand, the bitingly critical English satire that had experienced a golden age in the eighteenth century, and, on the other hand, the whimsical, convivial humour typical of the Victorian era. Secondly, it strives to demonstrate that, when analysing whimsical satire, it is useful to consider irony and humour, including whimsical humour, as distinct yet often co-occurring phenomena that each offer specific ways to criticise a society or culture. My reading of Kendall’s poem highlights how its whimsical humour adds psychological depth to its criticism of the Victorian anthropocentric view of society. The poem suggests that the affective desire to justify hierarchies leads anthropocentrists to think irrationally.
Keywords: satire, humour, irony, poetry, Victorian culture, May Kendall
Timotéo Sergoï, David Giannoni, Rachele Gusella, "D’après Google, vous êtes poètes: Street Poetry and Publishing in Brussels"
On the occasion of the 13th annual study day of the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC), entitled “Brussels in the Literary and Artistic Landscape”, an artistic panel dedicated to street poetry and publishing in Brussels took place. PhD candidate Rachele Gusella moderated an interview on the subject with Timotéo Sergoï and David Giannoni. Timotéo Sergoï is a poet and interdisciplinary artist, mostly active in Belgium and France. In 2021 he released D’après Google, vous êtes poètes, a book documenting his poetic actions in the streets of Brussels. David Giannoni is a poet, editor and founder of the Belgian publishing house maelstrÖm reEvolution. He edited Timotéo’s book, which was published in Bruxelles se conte, a specific editorial series dedicated to Brussels in all its imaginative variants. This inspiring and irreverent exchange of ideas covered the notion of poetic activism, its functions and features, as well as its development from the streets to the page.
Keywords: contemporary poetry, street poetry, street art, publishing, Brussels
Patrick McGuinness, Michael David Rosenfeld, "Interview with Patrick McGuinness: Writer of Crossings"
Born in Tunisia from a British father and a Belgian mother, crossings are at the core of Patrick McGuinness a poet, novelist, essayist and professor of comparative literature at the University of Oxford. In this interview, he discusses how the crossings in his life inspired his literary work and shaped his research on French and Belgian literature. As he grew up in various places, Belgium is the one place to which he always returns and inspires the poems that are quoted throughout the text, as Patrick takes us on a voyage of discovery across his motherland and through the variety of literature at the centre of his research.
