Michael Backes: Experimentelle Semiotik in Literaturavantgarden: über die Wiener Gruppe mit Bezug auf die Konkrete Poesie (2001) [German]
Filed under book | Tags: · avant-garde, concrete poetry, history of literature, literary criticism, literature, poetry, semiotics, visual poetry
“Mit einem beispiellosen theoretischen und praktischen Aufwand versuchte die Wiener Gruppe, etablierte Werte und realitätskonstitutive Symbolordnungen in ihren Grundfesten zu erschüttern. Die Mittel reichten von seriellen Formzerstörungen über die Dezentrierung “diskursiver Ordnungen” (Derrida, Foucault) bis hin zur aktionistischen Fiktionalisierung von Situationsdefinitionen. In einiger Hinsicht kann man also von einem Poststrukturalismus avant la lettre sprechen. Mit ihm hebt sich die Wiener Gruppe nicht nur von tradierten Literaturmodellen, sondern auch von jener Ästhetik der Selbstidentität ab, die Autoren wie Gomringer oder S.J. Schmidt vertreten. Am Leitfaden von exemplarischen Mikroanalysen entwickelt Backes ein Begriffsinstrumentarium, mit dem sich die experimentelle Semiotik der Wiener Gruppe im Verhältnis zur Konkreten Poesie adäquat erschließen und historisch situieren läßt.”
Publisher Wilhelm Fink, Munich, 2001
Das Problempotential der Nachkriegsavantgarden series, 1
ISBN 3770534506, 9783770534500
345 pages
Darren Wershler-Henry: The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting (2005)
Filed under book | Tags: · history of literature, literature, media archeology, typewriter, writing
“The Iron Whim is a history of writing culture and technology. It covers the early history and evolution of the typewriter as well as the various attempts over the years to change the keyboard configuration, but it is primarily about the role played by this marvel in the writer’s life. Darren Wershler-Henry populates his book with figures as disparate as Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Norman Mailer, Alger Hiss, William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Northrop Frye, David Cronenberg, and David Letterman; the soundtrack ranges from the industrial clatter of a newsroom full of Underwoods to the more muted tapping and hum of the Selectric. Wershler-Henry casts a bemused eye on the odd history of early writing machines, important and unusual typewritten texts, the creation of On the Road, and the exploits of a typewriting cockroach named Archy, numerous monkeys, poets, and even a couple of vampires. And by broadening his focus to look at typewriting as a social system as well as the typewriter as a technological form, he examines the way that the tool has shaped the creative process.”
Publisher McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 2005
ISBN 0771089252
331 pages
Reviews: Joshua Glenn (New York Times, 2007), Christine Mitchell (Canadian Journal of Communication, 2009), Karl Jirgens (Canadian Literature, 2011).
PDF (3 MB)
Comment (0)Roberto González Echevarría: Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative (1990–) [EN, ES]
Filed under book | Tags: · anthropology, archive, christianity, city, history, history of literature, latin america, law, literary theory, literature, myth, narrative, rhetoric, violence, writing
“This book offers a theory about the origin and evolution of the Latin American narrative, and about the emergence of the modern novel. It argues that the novel developed from the discourse of the law in the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth century, while many of the early historical documents concerning the New World assumed the same forms, furnished by the notarial arts. Thus, both the novel and these first Latin American narratives imitated the language of authority. The book explores how the same process is repeated in two key moments in the history of the Latin American narrative. In the nineteenth century, the model was the discourse of scientific travellers such as von Humboldt and Darwin, while in the twentieth century, the discourse of anthropology – the study of language and myth – has come to shape the narrative. Professor González Echevarría’s theoretical approach is drawn from a reading of Carpentier’s Los pasos perdidos, and the book centres on major figures in the tradition such as Columbus, Garcilaso el Inca, Sarmiento, Gallegos, Borges and Garcia Marquez.”
Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1990
ISBN 0521023998, 9780521023993
245 pages
Review (Terry J. Peavler, Latin American Research Review, c1990, EN)
Review (Margarita Zamora, Hispanic Review, 1992, EN)
Review (Adriana Gordillo, Fronteras de la historia, 2003, ES)
Publisher (EN)
WorldCat (EN)
WorldCat (ES)
Myth and Archive (PDF), PDF (English, 1990)
Mito y archivo: una teoría de la narrativa latinoamericana (Spanish, trans. Virginia Aguirre Muñoz, PDF, 77 MB, via Academia.edu)