Lost in Transit - Waseda University · The case of Murakami Haruki ... Lost in Transit ......
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2012/3/5 1 Lost in Transit Considering Representation in the Contemporary Lim Yiru Nanyang Technological University 1 Representation and Mimesis: Art as symbolic re-presentation Presupposes a direct relationship; or in order words an untroubled way of knowing, and hence representing, reality The 19 th Century Realists and Naturalists: accumulation of detail; seeing reality as through a clear glass (unimpeded vision) Representation 2 Honoré de Balzac “A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.” (1799 – 1850) 3 Modernism and the Crisis of Representation “The First World War destroyed for ever the self-evident superiority of traditional Western thought and defeated the doctrine of social Darwinism.” Fokkema and Ibsch p.25 Modernist Conjectures: A Mainstream in European Literature 1910 – 1940 (1988) 4 Modernism and the Crisis of Representation Nobody indeed can read much modern literature without being aware that some dissatisfaction, some difficulty, is lying in our way. On all sides writers are attempting what they cannot achieve, are forcing the form they use to contain a meaning which is strange to it. Virginia Woolf “The Narrow Bridge of Art” (1927) (1882 – 1941) 5 Modernism and the Crisis of Representation Fragmentary vision or perspective An emphasis on the intellect and consciousness A turning away from the material and social environment or condition as a way of explaining the individual and his reality A loss of belief in the ability to know the essence of truth or beauty and life or reality in its entirety – only subjective knowledge 6
Transcript of Lost in Transit - Waseda University · The case of Murakami Haruki ... Lost in Transit ......
2012/3/5
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Lost in TransitConsidering Representation in the Contemporary
Lim YiruNanyang Technological University
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Representation and Mimesis: Art as symbolic re-presentation
Presupposes a direct relationship; or in order words anuntroubled way of knowing, and hence representing, reality
The 19th Century Realists and Naturalists: accumulation ofdetail; seeing reality as through a clear glass (unimpededvision)
Representation
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Honoré de Balzac
“A woman knows the face of the man sheloves as a sailor knows the open sea.”
(1799 – 1850)
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Modernism and the Crisis of Representation
“The First World War destroyed for ever the self-evidentsuperiority of traditional Western thought and defeated thedoctrine of social Darwinism.”
Fokkema and Ibsch p.25
Modernist Conjectures: A Mainstream in European Literature 1910 – 1940(1988)
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Modernism and the Crisis of Representation
Nobody indeed can read much modern literature without being awarethat some dissatisfaction, some difficulty, is lying in our way. On allsides writers are attempting what they cannot achieve, are forcing theform they use to contain a meaning which is strange to it.
Virginia Woolf“The Narrow Bridge of Art” (1927)
(1882 – 1941)5
Modernism and the Crisis of Representation
Fragmentary vision or perspective
An emphasis on the intellect and consciousness
A turning away from the material and socialenvironment or condition as a way of explaining theindividual and his reality
A loss of belief in the ability to know the essence oftruth or beauty and life or reality in its entirety – onlysubjective knowledge
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The Contemporary and the Crisis ofRepresentation
John Banville
(born 1945)
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The Contemporary and the Crisis ofRepresentation
“I think it is important that people should continue to readto deal with this, this strange world, this strange...you seehow I’m becoming inarticulate because I don’t knowreally...I don’t know why I do it for instance. I meanit’s...it’s...I certainly don’t do it for the money....umm...butit’s an obsession and I have to do it.”
John Banville
Transcribed from “John Banville” [Video] (2008) Retrieved May 20, 2011, Youtube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pOCJsUv-Q&list=PLF658FD26E40CA981
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The Contemporary and the Crisis ofRepresentation
“So the world is puzzling – I keep looking in the thesaurusfor other words for ‘puzzled’. All the narrators of my bookstalk about how baffled they are. Puzzlement, bafflement,this is my strongest sensation, my strongest artisticsensation.”
John Banville
“John Banville and Derek Hand in Conversation” p. 206
Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies
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Representation as the transformation ofreality into art.
Depiction and creation
Artist as medium; direct gaze
Artist as creator; indirect gaze
Representation and theContemporary
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Asian Regional Integration
The blurring of boundaries and limits
Representation and identity
Roots versus Routes
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Representation and Identity
The case of Murakami Haruki
“Murakami’s prose style […]carries with it astrikingly international ambience.”
Matthew C. Strecher
“Beyond ‘Pure’ Literature: Mimesis, Formula,and the Postmodern in the Fiction of
Murakami HarukiThe Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 2 (May
1998): 356
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Representation and Identity
“Part of the difficulty in understanding and classifying HarukiMurakami is that he may represent a new cultural plurality thatcannot be easily fit into common historical conceptions ofnational identity or literary canons. To this end, […] scholarNaomi Matsuoka advocated for Murakami to be canonicallygrouped with others of stylistic similarity instead of by Japanesenationality…”
Matthew Richard Chozick
“De-exoticizing Haruki Murakami’s Reception” p. 65
Comparative Literature Studies, Vol.45, No. 1, 2008.
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Sputnik Sweetheart (2002)Vintage Edition
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Representation and Identity: SputnikSweetheart
“Sumire was absolutely nuts about Kerouac. […] She carrieda dog-eared copy of On the Road or Lonesome Traveler stuck inher coat pocket, thumbing through them every chance shegot.” (p.5)
“Sumire wanted to be like a character in a Kerouac novel –wild, cool, dissolute.” (p.6)
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Representation and Identity: SputnikSweetheart
“According to her father, her mother had chosen the nameSumire. She loved the Mozart song of the same name andhad decided long before that if she had a daughter thatwould be her name.” (p.19)
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Silk (1997)Canongate Books
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Representation and Identity: Silk
"In those days Japan was, in effect, on the other side of theworld. It was an island made up of islands, and for twohundred years had existed in complete isolation from therest of humanity, rejecting any contact with the continentand prohibiting any foreigner from entering.” (p.17)
“‘And where, exactly, might it be, this Japan?’
‘Straight that way.’
He said.
‘At the end of the world.’” (p.16)19
“Suddenly,
without moving at all,
that girl
opened her eyes.
Hervé Joncour did not pause but instinctively lowered hisgaze to her, and what he saw, without pausing, was that those eyesdid not have an Oriental shape, and that they were fixed, with adisconcerting intensity, on him: as if from the start, from under theeyelids, they had done nothing else.” (p.28)
Representation and Identity: Silk
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Lost in Transit
Iain Chambers – idea of losing ourselves
Concept of travel
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Identity
“I use ‘identity’ to refer to a meeting point, the point ofsuture, between on the one hand the discourses and practiceswhich attempt to ‘interpellate’, speak to us or hail us intoplace as the social subjects of particular discourses, and onthe other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities,which constructs us as subjects which can be ‘spoken’.”
Stuart Hall, Introduction to Questions of Cultural Identity, pp.5–6
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Identity
Doreen Massey’s concept of space/time and “powergeometry”
Us versus Them mentality
Space (Identity) as a meeting place; a story
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Representation: The Present and theFuture
“My provisional theme here: On a day-to-day basis I usewriting to work out who I am.” (p.144)
“Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in Russian? ‘Travellingcompanion’.” (p.108)
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Thank You.
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