Articles

Marko JUVAN
On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory
Abstract: In his article, "On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory," Marko Juvan argues that the question of literariness concerns the very identity and social existence of not only literature per se but of literary theory as a discipline. A literary theorist is not only an observer of literature; he/she is also a participant who -- at least indirectly, via the a priori systems of science and education -- is engaged in constructing both the notion and the practice of literature as well as the study of literature. Literariness is neither an invariant cluster of "objectively" distinctive properties of all texts that are deemed literary nor is it merely a social, scholarly, and/or educational function. Rather, it can be defined as the effect of a text in the literary system, which is only possible on the basis of paradigms and conventions derived from the literary canon itself.

Bart KEUNEN
Bakhtin, Genre Formation, and the Cognitive Turn: Chronotopes as Memory Schemata
Abstract: In his article, "Bakhtin, Genre Formation, and the Cognitive Turn: Chronotopes as Memory Schemata," Bart Keunen proposes a new reading of Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope. Bakhtin is widely taken to be a pioneer of genological thinking, but one of his key concepts -- the chronotope -- is still subject to highly divergent interpretations. Moreover, the epistemological implications of his genology have not yet been fully realized. In this article, a methodological grounding in schema theory is proposed. Bakhtin’s concept can be used to study the way in which literary communication functions through what the psychologist Frederic Bartlett first called memory schemata. These schemata can be seen to operate on two levels: The level of textual motifs (the thematological dimension of texts) and that of fictional world models (the genological dimension). The development of Bakhtin’s writings shows that genre distinctions are to be considered a fundamental instrument for literary communication and that this instrument is to be understood as working implicitly by means of mnemonic associations made by text producers and readers. The distinction between the thematological and genological aspects of the construction of fictional worlds can be clarified by linking them respectively to the concept of action schemata and to that of textual superstructures. Such an adaptation of the chronotope concept can be further linked to methodological tendencies within current interpretation theory, genology, and literary historiography.

Johan HOORN
How is a Genre Created? Five Combinatory Hypotheses
Abstract: In his article, "How is a Genre Created? Five Combinatory Hypotheses," Johan F. Hoorn discusses that in genre theory, the creation of a genre is usually envisioned as a complex selection procedure in which several factors play an equivocal role. First, he advances that genre usually is investigated at the level of the phenomenon. For instance, questions may drawn on the effects of social status, education, or "intrinsic values" on forming a genre, on an author's decision with regard to in which genre to express his/her creativity. Second, Hoorn attempts to formulate a general mechanism that explains the forming of groups of genres. His hypotheses of genre formation includes the notion that if one hypothesis fails, the next would come into operation. Hoorn's proposal includes the notion of how to construct and to employ set theoretical and combinatory principles for word-frequency distributions as a mathematical representation of human behavior in the selection process of genre formation. Because the five hypotheses are strictly quantitative and not dependent on particular factors, they are open to testing under any experimental condition.

Sabine MILZ
Comparative Cultural Studies and Ethnic Minority Writing Today:
The Hybridities of Marlene Nourbese Philip and Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Abstract: In her article, "Comparative Cultural Studies and Ethnic Minority Writing Today: The Hybridities of Marlene Nourbese Philip and Emine Sevgi Özdamar," Sabine Milz examines and compares strategies with which the Caribbean-Canadian woman writer Marlene Nourbese Philip and the Turkish-German woman writer Emine Sevgi Özdamar "de-colonise" ethnocentric Canadian and German discourse respectively and thus create their own spaces of hybridity. She argues that both Philip's and Özdamar's writings -- by going beyond cultural-national categories and boundaries -- display vital stimuli for multi-cultural and inter-national dialogue in a manner that facilitates cultural co-existence in spaces of hybridity. Responding to this stimulus, Milz's study in the mode of comparative cultural studies makes a critical contribution to the opening and broadening not only of the German and Canadian literary canons. In addition to the theoretical premises and the analysis of the writers' work, the study includes attention to and the discussion of the position of the scholar and critic in the context of cross-culturality, inter-nationality, and inter-disciplinarity of academic hybridity.

Randy MALAMUD
The Culture of Using Animals in Literature and the Case of José Emilio Pacheco
Abstract: In his article, "The Culture of Using Animals in Literature and the Case of José Emilio Pacheco," Randy Malamud argues that the animal poetry of Mexican writer José Emilio Pacheco, compiled in his 1985 collection Album de zoología (trans. 1993 by Margaret Sayers Peden as An Ark for the Next Millennium) embodies a vast literary account of a range of animals. This book represents one of the most extensive treatments of animals by any modern poet, and one of the most sensitive and ambitious attempts to craft a discourse that facilitates an approach to animals on their own terms -- representing their authentic existence and consciousness, in a poetic that assumes and preserves the integrity and dignity of the subjects, and unlike most representations in culture and literature which clearly exploit or coopt animals in the service of our own aesthetic agendas. Malamud situates Pacheco's poetry against an unrelated but provocative strain of Mesoamerican spirituality, one that embodies a fervent conviction in the integrity and the importance of animals and "animal souls," suggesting a template for a potentially compelling trope that will allow people to regard animals in ways that transcend our cultural preconceptions.

Book Review Article

Lieven TACK
Word, Image, and Sound from Comparative Points of View:
A Review Article of New Work Edited by Joret and Remael