Graduate Symposium: Ecos y Sombras: Resonancias Literarias y Culturales en Los Mundos Luso e Hispanoparlante
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Global Pathos and Telepathy in Roberto Bola帽o
Telepathy in literature touches on search and surveillance technologies and ways of relating to the dead, to each other, and, as I argue in this talk, to the readership of the so-called global novel. A quick revisit of Aristotle鈥檚 Rhetoric explores the potential divides between speaker and audience, especially challenging when passions intervene. Pathos, through the strategic use of psycho-physical means and the interpersonal realm of language, seems to attune these two sides. In Bola帽o鈥檚 writing, global pathos gestures toward the pathos of the global, of distance and its malleability. The literary genre that expresses the multiple contradictions and tensions of world-making processes struggles to compensate for the increasing anonymity of its readership. Telepathy, in turn, imagines the broadcasting of pathos in the light of the developing techno-telecommunications in the early 20th century. In a nutshell: it is not 鈥減ity鈥� that is being transferred in telepathy. It is rather that contents can be smuggled using the same conduits, now loosely detached from the rhetoric of compassion. In this talk, I examine the variety of reasons for which Bola帽o鈥檚 treatment of telepathy is noteworthy. I ponder the early stages of his writing career when Bola帽o took a 鈥淪panish鈥� or European detour into Gothic themes (telepathy being one of them). A few decades later, Samanta Schweblin, for instance, could鈥攚hich does not mean that she should鈥攋ust as easily be inspired by Silvina Ocampo, Horacio Quiroga, Julio Cort谩zar, Amparo D谩vila or Roberto Bola帽o to prefer telepathy as a narrative strategy creating and recreating the environmental novel with planetary, regional, national, and intimate chambers of resonance.
Voix 茅puis茅es, corps 茅puis茅s : la migrance et les arts visuels br茅siliens
L'immigration n'est pas une th茅mathique nouvelle dans l'historiographie et la production artistique au Br茅sil. Depuis la premi猫re moiti茅 du XIX猫me si猫cle, elle a su s'adapter aux principales transformations socio 茅conomiques et culturelles du pays int茅grant un r茅cit identitaire commun autour d'une suppos茅e fraternit茅 nationale. Or, la crise actuelle de la migrance tend 脿 mettre en 茅chec cette dynamique. En suivant la pens茅e des philosophes fran莽ais Gilles Deleuze et David Lapoujade, cette communication vise 脿 interroger la pr茅sence du corps migrant 茅puis茅 dans la production artistique br茅silienne depuis le modernisme. Nous verrons comment les oeuvres de Lasar Segall, de Regina Parra et de Maur铆cio Lima refusent un regard fataliste sur la condition migrante, tout en se concentrant sur les causes qui produisent la souffrance sociale. Dans le travail de ces artistes, nous observons la pr茅sence d'un regard qui invoque la coresponsabilit茅 sociale comme dispositif pour inhiber l'indiff茅rence du spectateur face 脿 la mis猫re du monde. L'茅nonciation visuelle refuse ici la repr茅sentation factuelle d'une situation (des personnes en souffrance) afin de neutraliser toute 茅motion asym茅trique, moralement acceptable, mais politiquement perverse, telle que la piti茅. Si dans ces oeuvres les corps des migrants n'en peuvent plus, ils sont, n茅anmoins, les seuls 脿 faire encore appel 脿 notre aptitude 脿 r茅sister.
