clcweb contents 4.1 (2002)

Eric DICKENS
Literary Translation in Britain and Selective Xenophobia
Abstract: In his article "Literary Translation in Britain and Selective Xenophobia," Eric Dickens discusses the fact that fewer translations of works of contemporary prose, poetry, and essays appear in Great Britain than perhaps anywhere else in Europe. Dickens attributes this shortfall to various factors, including poor language teaching and an indifference to foreign languages in general, but also to a degree of smugness with regard to literature written in English being "the best in the world." In his study Dickens covers such areas as the availability of literary translations in bookshops, the attitudes of publishers, and the effect of prizes on the selection of authors translated. He also attempts to demonstrate that postcolonial studies has remained an exclusively English-language enterprise, rather than becoming a methodology for global liberation.

A. Robert LAUER
A Revaluation of Pasolini’s Salò
Abstract: In his study, "A Revaluation of Pasolini's Salò," A. Robert Lauer argues that in his last film, Salò o Le centoventi giornate di Sodoma, Pasolini deals specifically with Fascism as substance and system, as well as -- structurally and intentionally -- with the Sadeanism of Les 120 Journées de Sodome. Morever, as a self-consuming artifact, in Salò Pasolini condemns simultaneously the excesses and failures of the postmodern state and advances the concept of a new peratology based on a greater sense of personal and historical responsibility. To demonstrate his points, Lauer refers to four cinematographic techniques that Pasolini uses in this film, all of which serve to enclose the characters in ever more confining spaces. This claustrophobic effect connects the viewer with the final enclosure of the Socialist Republic of Salò and with Sade's concept of the solitaire. The viewer is likewise engulfed in the final cinematic angle, which reverses the perspective of the gazer and its victim, making one into a kinophiliac of sorts, no different indeed from the notables of the film Salò.

Examples of the Motif of the Shrew in European Literature and Film
Abstract: In her paper, "Examples of the Motif of the Shrew in European Literature and Film," Louise O. Vasvári discusses the shrew-taming story, a masterplot of both Eastern and Western folklore and literature concerned with establishing the appropriate power dynamic between a married couple. Based on her work published previously, Vasvári first reviews briefly the comparative groundwork of the story. Next, after tracing the bundle of motifs that make up the shrew story from medieval Arabic and European versions to the present, Vasvári interrogates how the Shrew's cultural capital has been appropriated and repackaged (or "transadapted") and made topical as a cinematic commodity, tracing its development from the earliest silent film versions to a recent pornographic film. In her discussion of the motif, Vasvári pays particular attention to its adaptation in two Hungarian films, both produced in l943, Makacs Kata (Stubborn Kate), and A makrancos hölgy (Unruly Lady). The films combine elements of the shrew story with the influence of earlier Hungarian genre films, as well as some borrowed conventions of 1930s American screwball comedy. The two films are good examples of the repackaging the old battle of the sexes into seemingly the lightest escapist farce while at the same time they appear to promote the pre-war values of Hungarian gentry life and the supposedly purifying effect of harmonious life on the land.

Dalbir S. SEHMBY
Wrestling and Popular Culture
Abstract: In his paper, "Wrestling and Popular Culture," Dalbir S. Sehmby investigates a phenomenon of television culture. Wrestling has been for a long time now a main feature of television with a sizable audience. However, scholars in popular culture, audience studies, or television studies have paid little attention to this phenomenon and Dalbir argues that the study of wrestling in popular culture ought to be of interest to scholars of culture. In his discussion, Dalbir addresses notions of high art versus low art along with notions of high television versus low television. He continues with a discussion of the recent history of professional wrestling in order to illustrate how wrestling developed a fraudulent reputation. In Dalbir's view, television wrestling is considered an uncomfortable activity, a performance, and a television feature located between sport and drama, between masculine narrative form and feminine narrative form, between a sexual and non-sexual display of the human body, and between documentary reality and creative fiction. In his study, Dalbir also explores aspects of the spectacular excesses of wrestling along with its media-hybrid form.