Germania de Tácito: en los límites del género literario

This article proposes a new generic label for Tacitus’ Germania as “frontier ethnography”. Our reading is supported by Germania’s textual instability, due to its topical originality and compositive innovation. Although these features place Germania in a disruptive positioning face of historiographical tradition of Monography, it is consistent with the particular rhetorical situation of the late first century AD, traversed by the mixture of genres and the inversion of center-periphery relationships, and with the rise of a new dynasty as well. These characteristics are found in the two main text features of Germania. On the one hand, Ethnography, which was traditionally relegated to the excursus, is used here as the text’s main narrative device, whereas historical discourse is relocated to the digression. On the other hand, Barbaric periphery beyond the frontier becomes the central narrative matter of the text. Therefore, these textual features allow us to state that Germania insinuates a discourse move towards the limits of Roman generic and geographical space. Hence, Tacitus’ Germania can be interpreted as a literary exercise representing a new space within its sociopolitical context: the frontier.

Spectators and Spectacle in Quintus’ Posthomerica

Quintus’ literary reputation is on the rise, in the wake of a general reappreciation of late antique literature. In my article I discuss Quintus’ use of embedded focalization: when we look at events through the eyes of one of the characters. Quintus uses this narrative device both in the same way as Homer, but also in original new ways. One such new way is the serial use of embedded focalization at the moment of arrival of a champion. The ample use of embedded focalization can be added to the list of stylistic features which contribute to the well-known visual aesthetics of late antique poetry, such as ekphrasis, miniaturization, enumeration, and the juxtaposition of episodic scenes. But I also argue that Quintus through the ubiquitous presence of spectators frames the action of his story as a spectacle, a race or gladiatorial show, which gods and characters and hence his narratees, watch as if sitting in an amphitheatre or circus.

Fragmented Narratives: Exploring Storytelling approaches for Animation in Spatial Context

Animation is considered a prevalent medium in contemporary moving image culture, which increasingly appears across non-conventional surfaces and spaces. And while storytelling in animation films has been extensively theorized, narrative forms that employ physical space as part of storytelling have been less explored. This paper will examine the narrative aspect of animation works which are screened outside the traditional cinematic venues. It will look at how these animation works tell stories differently - using the full potential of the space, as a narrative device, a tool, and a stage where the narratives unfold. This paper will look at the historical perspective and the state of the art in animation installation today, exploring the relationship between the space and narrative in pre-cinematic, cinematic and post-cinematic conditions. It will examine how narrative structures in animation have changed over time, on their way from the black box of the cinema to the white cube of the gallery and even further, where they became part of any space or architecture. Through case studies of works by Tabaimo, Rose Bond, William Kentridge and other relevant artists, the interdependency of the narrative and the space where it appears will be explored, in order to identify new strategies for storytelling in animation. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the storytelling novelty that animation installations offer, which goes beyond the narrative structures that we are used to see on a single flat surface.

To Live is to Devour Others

This paper studies how Ishida Sui’s Tokyo Ghoul creates its typical sense of “tragedy,” by stressing the injustice inherent in every act of eating, and by generalizing the model of nutrition to every ethically laden act. Ishida undermines the Kantian principle that “ought implies can,” depicting a twisted world which forces us into wrongdoing: we have to eat, but there is no Other we can eat with moral impunity. Still, his characters provide some ethical models which could be implemented in our everyday food ethics, given that the tragicality spotted by Ishida is not that alien to our food system: food aesthetics, nihilism, amor fati, living with the tragedy, and letting ourselves be eaten are the options Ishida offers to cope with the tragedy, to approach the devastation our need for food brings into the world in a more aware and charitable way. The examination of Ishida’s narrative device, conducted with the mediation of thinkers such as Lévinas, Ricoeur, Derrida, and other contemporary moral philosophers, shall turn the question: “how to become worthy of eating?” into the core problem for food ethics.

The Horse behind the Text: Animal Agency in Early Medieval Historiography

Early medieval authors frequently used horses as narrative devices. Therefore, when working with historiographical sources, one is confronted with a vital question: how can we reconstruct the horses’ agency without knowing whether their depiction is a mere narrative device? Combining praxeological approaches with the analysis of narrative structures, this paper offers a glance “beyond the text.” It shows how analysing the underlying knowledge of the medieval reader contributes to reconstructing a contemporary image of early medieval horses and their (perceived) agency in human society and thereby develops a new perspective for the future of historical human-animal studies.

Una ripetizione straniante

Repetition and estrangement The fixed idea in a tale of I. U. Tarchetti The article aims to investigate the process of estrangement through the tale La lettera U, by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti. By adopting the point of view of a madman, Tarchetti stages an estrangement that affects the entire discourse of the character. The fixed idea, a symptom of monomania (the psychiatric definition of this type of delirium at the time) gives rise to a narrative device with a strong alienating potential, able to highlight the differences between the notion of Šklovskij's ostranenie and estrangement as presented in fantastic literature.

Sonja: The White Swan: Music as narrative device

Anne Sewitsky’s biopic Sonja (Sonja: The White Swan) (2018) is an example of authorial intervention that prioritizes a character-centred narrative rather than historical context. The article focuses on the musical score and the contemporary pop songs that contribute to building the psychological–emotional portrait of Norwegian-born Sonja Henie, champion figure skater and Hollywood star. In Sewitsky’s narrative strategy, non-diegetic music, sometimes deployed anachronistically, is used both to comment on the protagonist’s motivations and behaviour and to express her inner states of mind. By foregrounding Henie’s psyche through music, the film balances her negative and positive sides and presents her as complex and sometimes contradictory individual.

The Impossible Spaces: A Commentary on Gen. 2:8–15

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8–15, pertaining to the Garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data provided by the Bible to locate paradise are merely a narrative device meant to dissipate all doubts as to the existence of a garden where God put human beings. Similar to other spaces that appear in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is, in fact, an impossible place. Throughout the centuries, however, recurring proposals have been made to locate paradise. As time went by, those proposals were progressively modified by the intellectual ideas dominant in any given era, thus leading the representations of the location of Paradise to be further and further away from the information provided by the biblical text.

The Impossible Spaces

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8-15, pertaining to the garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data provided by the Bible to locate paradise is merely a narrative device meant to dissipate all doubts as to the existence of the garden where God put human beings. Similarly to other spaces that appear in the Bible, the garden of Eden is but an impossible place. Throughout the centuries, however, recurring proposals have been made that aim to find paradise. As time went by, those proposals were progressively modified by the intellectual ideas dominant at any given era, thus leading the representations of the location of Paradise further and further away from the information provided by the biblical text.

Remembering Late Socialism in Autobiographical Novels and Autofictions form Central and Eastern Europe: Introduction

Since the fall of communism in 1989 and 1990/91 literature has dealt with this epochal societal change, trying to come to terms with the past and assessing its influence on the present. In the last years the focus has turned towards the era of late socialism, that is the 1970s and 1980s. Many writers who attempt to present and reevaluate these decades and their ongoing influence on biographies and societies today grew up or came of age in this era. Our main contention is that different forms of life-writing, especially autofictions and autobiographical novels, have become the dominant narrative device for addressing and narrating the socialist past. Accordingly, the contributions to this cluster explore the era of late socialism, examining its different and often contested meanings not only from the perspective of the past but also from the perspective of today. Thus, we explore the role of autobiographical writing in commemorating the past as well as in demonstrating the demise of socialism, as represented in contemporary literatures in Czech, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.