Comparative Literature Newsletter Fall 2010-2011

UNC Comparative Literature 2010-2011 NEWSLETTER

Letter from the Director

Dear Comparatists:

Greetings to you during this holiday season. We

have not sent a newsletter out for some time, so

you will find many new tidings in this edition, both

glad and sad.

First the sad news: For those who have not already

heard, Dr. Lilian R. Furst, long-time Professor and

Bataillon Chair of Comparative Literature, and

author of 24 books, passed away on September 11,

2009. This edition features a memorial tribute to

her, along with testimonials from her students and

colleagues, as well as news about the Student and

Faculty Forum named in her honor.

Despite the difficult economic times, you will find

news here about our many successes as well.

Comparative Literature continues to attract and

train excellent, multi-lingual students at both

the undergraduate and graduate level. Our

undergraduate program has grown rapidly, and

we now have over 60 undergraduate majors in

two tracks. While our graduate program has

been reduced in size, it has not been reduced in

quality, and our graduates continue to place

very well in academic positions.

In this edition, you will also find features

about recent graduates of our undergraduate

program, current student stories, and updates

from some of our annual programs. Please

send your news to us as well, so we can include

it in future newsletters.

Best wishes for 2012 from Inger Sigrun Brodey,

Associate Professor and Director

Comparative Literature Program

Graduate Student

Achievements

Recognizing graduate student

awards and publications

Page 3

Remembering Dr. Lilian Furst

Two associates celebrate

Dr. Furst’s life and work

Page 10

Recent CMPL

Graduates

Keep up with alumni Tom

McElwee and Bill Dworsky

Pages 8 and 16

Comparative Literature Newsletter 2 Fall 2011

The Department of English and

Comparative Literature congratulates Sarah Morris and

Elizabeth Benninger on their recent

inductions into Phi Beta Kappa. Benninger, a double major in

Spanish and Comparative Literature, was inducted into the prestigious organization in the Fall of 2011,

shortly after receiving a grant from the university to pursue research for her honors thesis. For Morris, a

Comparative Literature major, her induction into the society in the

Spring of 2011 follows a series of

undergraduate awards, which include

the award for best Undergraduate Essay in Comparative Literature in the Fall of 2011 and a competitive scholarship to participate in the Carolina Southeast Asia Summer

Program, which she received in the in

the summer following her first year at

UNC. Former students Catherine

Cappelari, a senior German and

Comparative Literature major, was also inducted into the society in the Fall of 2010 as was Jody Smith, also

a Comparative Literature major, in the Spring of 2011.

CMPL Phi Beta Kappa Inductees

Hanes Chair: Past and Present

Dr. Eric Downing currently holds the Frank Borden Hanes and Barbara Lasater Hanes Chair for

Distinguished Term Professor. Below is a brief

description of Frank Borden Hanes’ contribution to the university.

History of the Hanes Chair In 1985, a new building for the art department was completed and named the Frank Borden and

Barbara Lasater Hanes Art Center. Frank Hanes, a

1942 graduate of Chapel Hill, was the first chairman of the university's Arts and Sciences

Foundation, which generates private support for the College of Arts and Sciences. He also helped establish and raise funds for professorships and for the library. He is also an author and active in arts

and philanthropic organizations. Barbara Lasater Hanes was a civic leader in Winston-Salem and

worked for health care campaigns and arts organizations.


Our doctoral program continues to thrive, with three new students (Anna Levett,

Lindsay Starck, and Nate Young) who

entered the program in fall 2010, and three more students entering in fall 2011 (Lina

Kuhn, Hannah Palmer, and Rachel

Norman). Eight doctoral students

completed their dissertations in the 2010-11

year: Sarah Cantrell, Rania Chelala,

Catherine Clark, Sarah Clere, Kevin

Eubanks, Jennifer Flaherty, Will Kaiser, and Anna Panszczyk.

Our current doctoral students have been

researching, publishing, and presenting their work in a diverse variety of formats.

Becka Garonzik’s article, “‘To name that

thing without a name’: Linking Poetry and the Child’s Voice in Sandra Cisnero’s The

House of Mango Street,” was accepted for

publication by Letras Femeninas.

Pablo Maurette, who is completing his

dissertation on the sense of touch in

classical and Renaissance literature and

philosophy, published, “A Possession for Everlasting: Thomas Hobbes traductor de Tucidides” in Deus Mortalis (Cuaderno de

Filosofia Politica); this past May, Pablo

attended the LINKS conference at

University College, London, on

Comparative Literature Beyond the Crisis.

Sarah Parker, a 2010 recipient of a MEMS

dissertation fellowship, was also awarded an Evelyn S. Nation Fellowship to conduct research on French and English

Renaissance medicine at the Huntington

Library in Pasadena, California in the

summer, 2011. Professor Jessica Wolfe is

directing her dissertation.

Samantha Riley, who is writing a

dissertation on representations of AIDS in contemporary global cinema, was awarded four fellowships this past year: a UNC

Graduate School Summer Research

Fellowship, a Future Faculty Fellowship, a HASTAC Scholar Grant, and an MLA

Travel Grant, which she used to present a paper entitled “(In)Tolerance in Queer Cinema.” Sam also has two forthcoming

publications in 2011: “Unmasking Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in Patrick Süskind’s

Das Parfum” will be appearing in a volume

entitled Monstrous Deviations in Literature and

the Arts, and her “Fantastical Cinematic

Disavowals of War-Fantasy as Coping Mechanism” will appear in volume 56 of the

West Virginia University Philological Papers.

Jonathan Risner, who is completing a

dissertation on the Argentine horror industry, published his “‘This city is killing

me’: The circulation of Argentine horror

cinema and Buenos Aires in Pablo Parés

and Daniel de la Vega’s Jennifer’s Shadow

(2004) and De la Vega’s Death Knows Your

Name (2007)” in Hispanic Cinemas this past

February; Jonathan was also awarded a

dissertation completion fellowship from the Department of English and Comparative Literature for summer 2011.

Paul Stapleton, a doctoral student

specializing in medieval and Renaissance literature, published “The Fall of Punicea” in the 2011 edition of J Journal: New Writing

on Justice, and he presented new work at

several conferences, including SAMLA and

the Southeastern Renaissance Conference.

Graduate Student Achievement


Dr. Federico Luisetti’s latest work is Una vita: Pensiero selvaggio e

filosofia dell’ intensità (A Life: The Savage Mind and Philosophy of

Intensity), published through Mimesis Press in 2011. The book

takes on questions such as: What is the legacy of Gilles

Deleuze's thought? Is it possible to separate his transcendental vitalism from the naturalist vitalism of Henri Bergson and Friedrich Nietzsche? Through a dialogue with these authors and

a discussion of biopolitics, the historical Avantgardes and contemporary art, the book describes the contest between a "wild" thought of life and a post-Kantian philosophy of intensity.

Dr. Luisetti’s work for his Pogue Research Fellowship concentrates mostly on Gilbert Simondon and is entitled

Technologies of Life: The Thought of Gilbert Simondon. Gilbert

Simondon (1924-1989), one of the most significant philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, is still relatively unknown to the English-speaking world. A disciple of the

epistemologist Georges Canguilhem, Simondon is the author of many books, including L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information, a decisive influence on the

thought of Gilles Deleuze. The latter has appropriated extensively Simondon’s ideas on individuation.

Keeping up with Dr. Federico Luisetti

The Comparative Literature Organization for Undergraduate Discussion (CLOUD) has

held a short story series each semester since the fall of 2010. These series allow an

intimate group of undergraduates who are passionate about literature to delve into a variety of works from around the world. At

each meeting a graduate student or professor

speaks on a short story of his or her choosing. We have read Andrei Sinyavsky’s "Pkhentz,"

W.G. Sebald’s "Campo Santo," Anton

Chekhov’s “Misery,” Jorge Luis Borges’

"The Garden of Forking Paths," Franz

Kafka’s "The Artist," and more. Speakers

have included Pablo Maurette, Shayne

Legassie, Greg Flaxman, C. Elise Harris, and

Kevin Reese. Along with the Short Story

series, CLOUD has helped the Comparative Literature Program organize the UniVarsity film series on “Roman Polanski and on the

Cold War Uncanny.” In the spring of 2012 we plan to co-host the UniVarsity series on

“Film and Nature,” as well as continue with

the Short Story discussions. For more

information, please see the CLOUD website: http://cloud.k-mod.com/ or find us on

Facebook!

Tiffany Johnson, Co-President

Student Activities in C.L.O.U.D.


Welcome Back

Reception

The Comparative Literature Program hosted its first annual Welcome Back Reception to tremendous success on October 6, 2011 in the Anne Queen Room of the Y-Building. Students

from both the graduate and undergraduate colleges mingled with faculty members over a decadent array of autumnal foods. Numbering nearly eighty in all, the assembled faculty and

students created the largest gathering of comparatists since the university hosted the ACLA in 2001.

Of the Comparative Literature faculty, Professors Inger Brodey, Marsha Collins, Rebecka Fisher, Shayne Legassie, Diane

Leonard, Erika Lindemann, Federico Luisetti, John McGowan,

William Race, and Alicia Rivero were all in attendance.

Toward the end of the evening, the Comparative Literature Program presented prizes for the best graduate and undergraduate essays and unveiled its spring 2012 course list. The evening’s company and conversation combined with its ceremony to make the whole event a pleasure and a success.


The Lillian R. Furst Forum

Sed et tellus at quam sagittis pharetra. Donec faucibus sagittis justo.

The Furst Forum in Comparative Literature

has enjoyed a rich and diverse spread of speakers over the past year and a half. Faculty

speakers across departments included:

• Dr. Richard Langston, German Languages

and Literature, “Mapping and Coring:

Orientation as the Filmification of Literary

Knowledge” (2010)

• Dr. Richard Cante, Communication Studies,

“Post-Cinematic Theatricality, Post-

Theatrical Cinema, and Other Enactments

of Circuitry” (2010)

• Dr. Shayne Legassie, English and

Comparative Literature, “Hollywood Horror

and the Gothic Fly” (2011)

• Dr. Juan Carlos González Espitia, Romance

Languages and Literatures, “A Cronista, an

Intellectual Nun, and their Syphilis” (2011)

• Dr. Jessica Wolfe, English and Comparative

Literature, “Winged Words: a chapter in the

history of a trope" (2011)

• Dr. Gabriel Trop, German and Slavic

Languages and Literatures, “Attraction and

Perturbation: Towards a Theory of Aesthetic Intensity” (2011)

The Department of English and Comparative Literature congratulates Elizabeth Benninger and

Anna Levett on winning the 2010-2011 essay prizes in comparative literature.

Benninger received the award for Best Undergraduate Essay for her "Reliving Ancient Greece in Antarctica: Myth and Politics in Oresteia and Orestiada de los pingüinos," which she composed for

Inger Brodey’s CMPL 250 course Approaches to Comparative Literature offered in the Fall of 2010. Anna Levett received the prize for Best Graduate Essay in Comparative Literature for her essay "The Function of Beauty in Neoplatonism and Sufism," which she composed for two classes in combination: Dr. Eric Downing's CMPL 841 course Ancient Literary Criticism and

Dr. Omid Safi's RELI 480 course Modern Muslim Literatures offered in the Spring of 2011.

Comparative Literature Essay Prizes

Advanced graduate student speakers included:

• Michael Rulon, Comparative Literature,

“Healing the Wounds of War in Women's

Writing of the Algerian Revolution” (2010)

• Pablo Maurette, Comparative Literature,

“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

of Touch" (2011)

• Allison Bigelow, English, “‘hallandome

como me hallo yndefensa': The Translation

of Gender into the Colonial Sciences of the

Americas" (2011)

• Rebecca Nesvet, English, “Mary Shelley’s

Gothic ‘Life of Pascal’” (2011)

• Sarah Parker, Comparative Literature, “The

Bones of the Skull: The Subtlety of Early

Modern Anatomy” (2011)

We would like to thank co-organizers Rebecca Garonzik, Samantha Michele Riley, and

Sarah Parker for their hard work, as well as

Med Deli and Marcel’s Catering for their

culinary delights. Finally, we pay homage to Marcel Bataillon Professor of Comparative Literature Lilian R. Furst (1931- 2009), whom

the Furst Forum lecture series honors.


The biggest news of 2010 was the

inauguration of the Univarsity Film Series, the

brainchild of assistant Professor Shayne

Legassie. The series, which was awarded a generous grant by the Parents' Council this

past March, screened six films during the 2010-11 academic year at the Varsity Theater in downtown Chapel Hill, free to students and to the general public, and each one introduced by a UNC faculty member. The fall season

was a retrospective of three films by Roman Polanski (Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, and The

Pianist) and the theme for the spring season

was "Cold War Uncanny," featuring Doctor

Strangelove, The Innocents, and The Manchurian

Candidate. Professor Legassie and the many

students who assisted him did a beautiful job

designing stunning posters and programs for

each screening, and welcoming audiences to

the Varsity.

Three undergraduate majors in Comparative Literature completed honors theses this past spring: Rachel Horres, Corynn Loebs,

and Sarah Booker. All three were invited

to present their work at the annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research.

Sarah Booker was awarded four grants for her honors research, including a Sarah Steele

Danhoff Undergraduate Research Award and

an Award for Undergraduate Research from

the Center for Global Initiatives. This funding allowed Sarah to travel to Ecuador in summer

2010, where she attended Inti Raymi, or the

Sun Festival, to study indigenous music as a form of resistance. Her thesis, directed by

Professor Eric Downing, compared the work of a theater and its performances, which reacted to the Argentinian government's Dirty War of

1976-83, to the use of indigenous music as

a form of resistance in present-day Ecuador.

A double major in Spanish and Comparative Literature, Sarah will be teaching English in

Spain during the 2011-12 academic year.

Charlotte Lloyd, who completed an honors

thesis on the politics of language and literature in Namibia, was awarded the William W. and

Ida W. Taylor Mentored Research Fellowship to do archival work at the Cinémathèque Française related to the translation of four

French and Italian selections on film theory.

Caroline Kirby, a rising senior in autumn 2011,

was also awarded several grants, including an

Honors Thesis Research Grant and a SURF

grant to travel to France to research her honors

thesis, entitled "Memorialization of Defeat in

Democracy: The Algerian War in Paris.”

We received exciting news from several recent

graduates of the program in Comparative Literature. Eric Fonke started at Tulane Law

school this past fall, while Patrick Dowd spent

the past year in Chiang Mai, where he has been

teaching English at Payap University with the Princeton in Asia fellowship program (Patrick turned down a Fulbright in order to take up this fellowship). David van Dokkum, a sound artist,

had two of his pieces performed in Europe: "Brasse 3444" played at London's SoundFjord

gallery in May, 2010, and "Sitting on Solitary Hill" featured as part of the Sonic Art Program at the Dragonfly Festival in Asarp, Sweden, August 20-23, 2010.

by Jessica Wolfe

2010 in Review


I took a lot of different courses freshman

and sophomore year, ranging from

chemistry, to economics and Spanish to literature. I was fortunate enough to

participate in two international UNC programs during these two years - the first

being Carolina SEAS program where students study in Singapore and Southeast Asia for a summer, and the Phillips Ambassador program, which funded a research project in Vietnam, Hong Kong and China.

Returning my junior year, I was still

interested in a variety of subjects, but

knew I wanted to maintain an

international angle on whatever I did. As I

learned more about comparative literature, I realized it was perfect for me. I was drawn to comp lit because (1) it requires students to study literature in a different language and (2) there is great flexibility in the types of courses you can take. What I mean by number two is that, unlike

an English or economics major, comparative literature allows you to explore other art forms besides just "literature" - choosing comparative literature suddenly opened up a variety of music, art, architecture and other classes that I could

take and use towards completing the curriculum.

The highlight of my time in the department was getting to use the complex analytical techniques I learned in the Comp. Lit. core curriculum to

create and carry out an unorthodox honors thesis. The thesis was entitled "Cultural Tourism

and Tragic Pleasure: Uncovering the Appeal of the Tango and the Blues," and it looked at how the modern tourism industries that have sprung up around tango and blues music use the complex histories of each music form to present tourists with a tragic but rewarding experience comparable to Aristotle's discussion of tragedy. The research included traditional in-depth study of the history and lyrics of each music form, as well as on-site experiential research of the

tourism industries today in the Mississippi Delta and Buenos Aires, Argentina. In terms of

internationalism and bringing together different disciplines, it was exactly the type of experience that I wanted my senior year in college, and the

type that comparative literature, by its creative nature, encourages. A shortened version of the thesis was selected for publication by Culture and

Tradition, the Canadian Graduate Student Journal of

Folklore and Ethnology at Memorial University in

Canada.

Continued on page 9

Alumni Feature: Thomas McElwee

Tom is pictured here with his family. His

father double majored in Chemistry and English at UNC before attending Medical

School at Tulane. His mother went to

Vanderbilt for her BA and then UNC Law

School. And his brother John was a

Comparative Literature and English double major with Honors in Fiction. John is now

working in publishing in New York.

Family Ties


After graduation, I moved to Buenos Aires,

Argentina. I worked first in consulting and then in a position in finance because I wanted to gain some business experience in Latin America. I lived in Buenos Aires for

two years, then moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2011. I have taken a job here, and plan to stay for at least one to two years.

Majoring and writing a thesis in

Comparative Literature encouraged me to think outside the box and seek out

connections that other people may not have thought of. Where many other majors will

tell you "no," comparative literature, in my opinion, wants its students to reach across disciplines and cultures when pursuing their studies. Finally, the multilingual, international side of the major spurred my decision to move abroad after graduation -

which has been a great experience.

Recently, as a senior majoring in Comparative Literature, I received a grant

from the Honors Research Office toward my

Senior Honors Thesis. I am lucky to be writing a Honors Thesis on two works that

I’ve loved since I watched their musical

adaptations in middle school: Gentlemen

Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos and Gigi by

Colette. Now I hum questions along with the catchy lyrics, asking what is the nature of

“glamour” in the texts and how is it tied to

the female as a spectacle or the female as an agent. Believe it or not, this is great fun,

especially when such questions lead me to

Harvard’s library in Cambridge to track down a rare libretto with notes from the

original cast of Blondes.

The grant I received funded this literary

adventure and alleviated the costs of supplies needed for research—books, printing money, and DVD’s that individually cost little but together equal groceries for a poor student like me. I am deeply thankful for the aid.

I became a Comparative Literature major for two reasons: I love literature and I love

languages. It has always seemed to me to be

a logical choice and a pure delight to pursue where they intersect. Later, those two

reasons were supported by many others that I

could never have anticipated: the small and personal department, the committed and caring faculty, the exciting flexibility that

allows for student creativity, my fascinating

peers. Under the Comparative Literature Department, I was able to study not only the major English poets that I love, but also Cicero, Turgenev, Proust, Ruskin, Voltaire, Defoe, Mayakovsky, Welty, and more. I

have been able to witness and contribute to

the conversation about literature as it

reverberates around the globe.

Continued from page 8

Student Story: Sarah Morris

Naturally, perhaps, for

one who hopes to be a part of these conversations forever,

after graduation, I

want to teach.

For four years I have

worked with adult

students who are pursuing their GEDs. It is the greatest joy to watch them

begin to take confidence in their reading skills,

to delight in the power of narrative. My goal is eventually to teach Literature and Basic

English at a community college, working with

students as they navigate the intersection of

literature and literacy.

*Since writing this essay, Sarah Morris has accepted a position

with Teach for America to teach English at a public high school in Alabama after she graduates in spring 2012.

Morris, right.


Speech delivered by doctoral candidate Sarah

Cantrell at the Furst Forum on September 15, 2009.

Good Afternoon. My name is Sarah Cantrell. I had both the privilege and the challenge of being Dr. Furst’s research assistant, week-end driver, helper and friend for some years. Like all of us, Dr. Furst was complicated: she could be a delightfully warm and generous friend. Visitors to her home at Arbutus Place will

remember the sign that said, “Please do not feed the bears. They are already stuffed.” At the same time, she could

also be devastating in criticism that brooked no quarter.

In the last months that I knew her, Dr.

Furst lived in such pain and loneliness that I was relieved to hear she began her new journey last weekend. Perhaps Dr. Furst didn’t realize we needed a way to thank her; but we did. And we do.

So here is a thank you note that I doubt

she would have accepted. But I hope you will join me in wishing her well. It’s called, “Extravagance.”

“You must think I am terribly extravagant,” said Dr. Furst, making her way toward the spa, and I answered with a commonplace. Such a statement

deserves more than a blithe answer.

Yes, I do think you are extravagant, Dr.

Furst, and delightfully so … but not

because you take your Sunday coffee in bed and call it “my one decadence;” and not because you reveal you’re having

“very dark thoughts” of returning to Food Lion for an additional bag of grapefruit. Or because you welcome bears into every nook and cranny of your home, and set them about reading and tutoring each other in Hebrew, German, Latin, and

Greek. It is not extravagant, after all, to

expect one’s bears to be conversant with the Greats; it’s simply a requirement.

Your extravagance, Dr. Furst, is elsewhere. You are extravagant in your willingness to share your time and your talent with students, even though you are not partial to the texts they choose.

You are extravagant to call me at home with the simple, “It’s Lilian,” to assure me about my work. In an era that privileges critical jargon, you have the bravura to suggest that not only do you not understand it, but to declare that none of

it matters. The emperor still has no clothes, and alas, there is no haberdashery in sight.

In a time when story-telling is a lost art, you spend your afternoons telling me of your dear father the dentist who slept through your articles, and who awoke to

say, “My dear, do you really think anyone reads p. 457 of the PMLA?” You tell me of the pleasure of having your hair washed, of choosing purple and white pansies for the colors you can still see, and of the memory of picking out dresses with your

mother at a time when the seamstress

came to your home in Vienna. Yes, Dr. Furst, you are extravagant.

May you remain so. Godspeed.

in memoriam

Lilian Renée Furst, 1931–2009


By Edward Donald Kennedy. Reprinted

from The Comparatist (34 : 2010).

Lilian R. Furst, Marcel Bataillon Professor

of Comparative Literature, emerita, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died at her home in Chapel Hill on September 11, 2009.

Lilian taught at Chapel Hill from 1986 to 2005 and for many of those years regularly attended and read papers at the annual meetings of the SCLA and was an

enthusiastic supporter of the organization. When I became chair of Comparative Literature at Chapel Hill in 1994, she encouraged me to attend the fall meeting

in Raleigh and become involved with the organization, praising it for the quality of the papers presented and the collegiality of the people attending. The SCLA meeting was high on her list of conferences that she

encouraged our graduate students to attend

because she thought it was conference

where they would get encouragement and positive feedback. Travel money for students in Comparative Literature, however, had been scarce, and when a few years into my chairmanship a former doctoral student of hers anonymously started donating $3500 a year as the “Lilian Furst Fund” for her

to spend as she pleased, she, with her usual concern for the students, directed me to divide it into seven annual $500 travel scholarships so that students could more easily attend conferences.

She was the author or editor of twenty-three books, at least 106 articles (none of which, so far

as I know, were repeated in the books), and over 80 reviews. She wrote major studies of Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, irony, and narrative technique, and, in later years, she became a leading figure in the emerging field of literature and medicine. One of her books, Romanticism (1969) was translated into Japanese, Greek, Korean, and Malaysian, and her study

of Naturalism (1971) into Greek, Portuguese, and Korean. As her friend and colleague,

Professor Madeline Levine, wrote in a notice of her death sent out to students and faculty,

“Her scholarship was wide-ranging and accessible to both scholars and educated laypersons—a

trait she took great pride in.”

in memoriam



Born in Vienna in 1931, she escaped in 1939 with her parents, who were dental surgeons, to Manchester, England (where

fortunately there was a shortage of dentists) shortly after the Nazis moved into Austria. Many years later,

after her father’s death she discovered among his

papers an account he wrote of the problems the family faced during those years. Lilian edited this and added to it in alternating chapters her own memories of this period, giving a child’s perspective in juxtaposition to the adult’s. The resulting book Home Is Somewhere Else:

Autobiography in Two Voices (1994), is one of her

most widely-read works. A translation into

German that appeared this past fall will make it available to even more readers. She regularly

taught a comparative literature course in the literature of adolescence, and she wrote,“I

am aware each time I teach my course ...just

how close I came to the fate of Anne Frank.”

She received her B.A. degree with honors in French and German at the University of

Manchester in 1952, and, unable at that time

to specialize in Comparative Literature in England, received her doctorate in German

from Cambridge University in 1957. She

taught in the German Department of Queen’s University, Belfast for twelve years (beginning in 1955) and then for about four

years as head of Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Manchester. She thought, however, that there was higher regard

for Comparative Literature in the United States and moved to this country in 1970, holding positions at the University of Oregon and the University of Texas at Dallas before moving permanently to Chapel Hill. She also held year-long visiting faculty

appointments at Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, William and Mary, and Case Western Reserve.

Among the many honors she received during her

academic career were fellowships from ACLS, the

in memoriam



Guggenheim Foundation and NEH, a year’s residency at the National Humanities Center,

summer appointments for eleven years at the Stanford Humanities Center, and in 2006 an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where she was the commencement speaker in August of that year.

Lilian’s years after retirement were difficult: because of macular degeneration and a detached retina she lost her ability to read and she also began to have the problems with her heart from

which she eventually died. She had a number of close friends and former students with whom

she maintained contact, however, and her spirit was generally positive and courageous. She continued to be a mentor to many of her students, advising them on their projects and on publishers that might be interested in their work. The last time I had lunch with her, about two months before her death, she mentioned, as she had so many times before, how much some of

her students had meant to her and how knowing them had enriched her life; she was, as always, eager to talk about what they were doing. Fiercely independent, she had never wanted to move to a retirement center or assisted living facility, and she was able to remain in her

home to the end, cared for in the last few weeks of her life not just by home health care but also

by some of her closest friends.

In 1994, the same year that Home Is Somewhere Else was published, Lilian also wrote a

biographical essay “Born to Compare” (with the title suggested by her having had a Hungarian father and a

Polish mother who gave her an English first name, a

French middle name, and a German last name) in which

she discussed what the field of Comparative Literature was like when she started out.

1 In one of my

conversations with her in the past year she told me that since she could no longer read and do research, she had decided to write essays that were memoirs.

She apparently decided to develop “Born to Compare” more fully, for she left at her death one last book manuscript that is yet to be published: The Rachel

Chronicles, sketches based on her experiences as a Jewish

female graduate student and scholar in the male-

dominated academic world of the 1950s, written, as

Professor Levine wrote in the notice of her death, “with

the charm, whimsy, and sense of irony that those who

knew her well loved and admired.”

1 This essay appears in Building a Profession: Autobiographical

Perspectives on the Beginnings of Comparative Literature in the United

States. Eds. Lionel Gossman and Mihai I. Spariosu. Albany: SUNY

Press, 1994. 107–24.

in memoriam



UNC senior’s thesis goes beyond the books: Booker’s research inspired by travel

Victoria Cook | The Daily Tarheel.

Sarah Booker started her honors thesis

at UNC. But unlike many comparative literature honors theses, it took her well

beyond a book list and Wilson Library.

Instead, it landed the UNC senior 2,400 miles

away in Otavalo, Ecuador. Last summer,

Booker traveled to Ecuador for Inti Raymi, or the Sun Festival, to study indigenous music as

a form of resistance. Eric Downing, Booker’s

thesis adviser, said students who write an

honors thesis in comparative literature usually work off of a summer book list. But Booker

wanted to pursue her project in the field. And he said Booker excelled at it.“She’s

extraordinary,” he said. “She really pulled it off — one of the most accomplished workers and thinkers that I’ve had the pleasure of working with here at Carolina.”

Booker said her interest in travel and

alternative forms of literature inspired her to pursue the project. By attending the festival, which is centered around the music of the

indigenous people, she was able to observe indigenous music firsthand. “The music is very

much the way that they define themselves, way

more than we see here,” she said. “It was

amazing,” she added. “It was totally different than anything else I’ve ever experienced.”

Her thesis compared the work of a theater and its performances, which reacted to the Argentinian government’s Dirty War of 1976-

83, to the use of indigenous music as a form of

resistance in present-day Ecuador. “They’re

not necessarily trying to stop outside influence,” she said. “They’re just trying to maintain their own roots as well.”

Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Booker’s faculty

adviser and an anthropology professor, said he’s glad Booker was able to reach outside of Chapel Hill for her research. “It was a great

collaboration, and it really is the model that

anthropological research tries to follow,” he

said. Booker said she applied for many grants and received four, including a Summer

Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) for $3,500.

Downing said Booker presented him with five new pages each week, along with revisions. Her final thesis totaled more than 100 pages. “She’s

a very mature, motivated and conscientious scholar,” he said. “It was her project. It was what she wanted to do, and she did it.” Booker

will graduate in May with a double major in Spanish and comparative literature. In September, she will travel to Spain to teach English for a year. She then wants to attend

graduate school at the University of Iowa and work for a Masters of Fine Arts in literary

translation.

“We’ll see where I end up going with it,” she said. Booker said undergraduates should look

into research opportunities. “UNC has a lot of opportunities and a lot of funding for people to do a lot of worthwhile, neat things to learn

outside of the classroom, to travel wherever,”

she said. “I don’t think people take advantage of it enough, and I think that they should.”

Colloredo-Mansfeld agreed and said students

should find something that interests them and pursue it. “(Booker) shows you how far you can go with a good idea, a lot of work and a little

luck,” he said.


Several of our faculty headed to exciting destinations this year: Eric Downing to Germany, and

Gregg Flaxman to Australia (Gregg was awarded and Australian Research Council Fellowship for

the Study of Film and Philosophy). Shayne Legassie was awarded a MEMS research leave, which

he will take up in spring 2012.

Our faculty continues to receive recognition for superb teaching: Gregg Flaxman was awarded a

2011 Tanner Award for Post-Baccalaureate Teaching and Mentoring; the department awarded

Professor Flaxman a Dissertation Mentoring Award in autumn 2010. Jessica Wolfe was also given

a Graduate Mentoring Award by the department in 2010 and Rebecka Rutledge Fisher received

the same award in 2011. Inger Brodey received a Chapman Family Teaching Award in Spring

2011, awarded by the Institute for Arts and the Humanities, to continue her current work on

representations of Cowboys and Samurai in post-WWII film.

et ses prédécesseurs. Essais en hommage à

Richard Bales, edited by Nigel Harkness and

Marion Schmid. In summer 2010, Professor

Leonard participated in a ‘Ruskin on the Old

Road’ tour of Ruskin sites in northern France

with a group of Ruskin scholars, and in June

2011, she participated in the “Ruskin on the

Old Road” tour of northern England,

focusing on the Lake District and Ruskin’s

home, Brantwood, on Lake Coniston.

In addition to completing her book

manuscript on the reception of Homer in

Renaissance Europe, Jessica Wolfe

completed three forthcoming articles,

including “Shakespeare and the Classics,”

appearing later this autumn in the Oxford

Handbook to Shakespeare, edited by Arthur

Kinney, and “Homer in England, 1558-

1660,” which will appear in volume 2 of the

Oxford History of Classical Relations with

English Literature, edited by Patrick Cheney

and Philip Hardie.

Among the many books and articles

published by our faculty in the last year are:

volume 1 of Gregg Flaxman’s Gilles

Deleuze and the Fabulation of Philosophy:

Powers of the False, to be published this fall

by the University of Minnesota Press. Two

articles by Gregg Flaxman also appeared in

2010-11: “Philosophy” in Deleuze: Key

Concepts (2nd

Edition), ed. Charles Stivale

and “The Subject of Chaos” in Deleuze,

Science, and the Force of the Virutal, ed.

Peter Gaffney.

Professor Diane Leonard published three

articles in the past year: “Werner Paul

Friederich: ‘le Cristoph Colomb du

comparatisme américain’” (reprinted in full

on our CMPL website) appeared in the fall

2010 issue of Comparative Critical Studies;

“’L’Église de Combray de Proust et ses avant-textes ruskiniens,” was published in the

2011 volume Postérité de Ruskin, and

“Proust in the Fourth Dimension” was

published in Au seuil de la modernité: Proust

Faculty Travel and Awards

Recent Faculty Publications


Bill

Dw

orsk

y

"How did the Captain of the Men's Varsity Soccer team manage a double major with honors in both Comparative Literature and

Economics? And why did he choose to major in Comparative Literature?"

I remember receiving UNC’s new curriculum

coursebook as an incoming freshman in the

summer of 2006, along with the anxious

excitement it contained within its

voluminous pages. For someone who has difficult deciding when there are lots of good

options, trying to choose classes for my first

semester at Carolina was difficult. To make

things tougher, I had extra flexibility to take

electives from having satisfied some of the

general education requirements through high school AP classes. Still, one choice became

easy once I stumbled on the Comparative Literature section: Great Books I. The

opportunity to survey the classics, or at least snippets of them, was too good to turn down. Another choice became easy once I asked for

my dad’s advice: “Try an economics class – it

would be good for you to explore something different that you haven’t ever experienced in the classroom.” Sure, why not? With these

two decisions, I began my academic journey.

Through my first two years on campus, I knew that I wanted to major in Comp. Lit., but

procrastinating the foreign language requirement held me back from a more narrow concentration

in the department. Still, this turned out for the best, as it allowed me to explore other areas in school, and incrementally taking classes in

Economics led me to a major there in parallel. I ultimately decided to write theses in both – that

to me was the fun and challenging part of the major in the first place – and I like to think that I

took a rather humanist approach to my work in economics, even though this made me

something of an anomalous matriculate in the

department. Regardless, I had a great time doing experiments in topics under the umbrella of behavioral economics and approaching the field from the perspective of individual actors’ decisions, as opposed to statistical econometrics or some other abstract field with minimal real-

life applicability. An interest in economics and business ultimately led me to my current job, but

more on that in a bit.

The real fun began once I finally made the leap into Comp. Lit. Thankfully, Professor Brodey was willing to take me under her advisory wing, despite the bizarre topic I was hoping to write about. I have always loved epic as a genre and felt obliged as a patriotic citizen to read Moby

Dick before my senior year. Once I started, I

thought about matching it with another literary love – Vergil’s Aeneid for a thesis topic. My

authorial sailings wandered just as Aeneas and Ishmael, from Joseph Campbell’s writings on heroism to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America,

but we all finally came to terms and survived the

journey of academic and self-exploration. That was all well and good, but I still needed to do

something after graduating, since, unfortunately

college does not last forever…

I started visiting the campus career services office and attending some of the job fairs and

Continued on page 17

Alumni Feature


Marsha Collins serves as the current Marcel

Bataillon Professor in Comparative Literature. The professorship was established in 1972 by Werner P. Friederich in honor of his friend

Marcel Bataillon, who was called "the dean of

French comparatists." Friederich named the endowed professorship after Bataillon to perpetuate recognition of his friend’s outstanding achievements in comparative literature. Bataillon was a member and former

director of the Collège de France and a

member of the Institut de France. He was well-

known for his many works on Spanish Renaissance literature, especially his

fundamentally important "Erasmus in Spain." Bataillon and Friederich were honorary presidents of the International Comparative Literature Association. In

creating the chair, Friederich stipulated that the holder should be "a distinguished scholar,

an inspiring teacher, an excellent linguist, a leader in his field and, in view of Professor

Bataillon's French background, preferably well-grounded in French literature: all

qualities that Marsha Collins possesses in abundance, with an additional specialization in Golden Age Spanish literature.

The Marcel Bataillon Professorship

meetings that different companies held to introduce themselves to potential applicants. At one, I heard a recent graduate say, “I chose to begin work in consulting because I had lots of

different interests but didn’t really know what I wanted to do.” Well, that was my story too, so,

after a bit more employment homework, I decided consulting was the thing for me to start with out of UNC. Now, I work in Boston for Deloitte Consulting on strategic and operational projects for different types of companies across the country.

When I tell people that I’m a consultant, I often receive one of two responses. First, some people think that’s code for being unemployed –

which is occasionally true. Second, some people ask if it’s just like the movie “Up in the Air” – this I do not know because I have not seen it.

Though I am certainly no George Clooney, the job has allowed me to use

both sides of my brain that I attempted to balance harmoniously in school

vis-à-vis economics and literature. Being able to analyze complex situations with lots of discrepant pieces of data is important everyday on the job, but I feel well-prepared for it because I have the confidence of having tackled all of the cetological chapters that Herman Melville was kind enough to provide as significant interludes along the Pequod’s journey. Likewise, crafting storyboards and logically constructing

documents to provide value for clients is paramount to our projects’ success, but I feel more

capable to approach these things having followed Vergil’s dactylically hexametrical path with Aeneas from Troy around the Mediterranean. Working with people of such different backgrounds is always a great learning experience and a chance to find those with shared

interests, but I think I’m the only one there who still likes to read tomes, treatises, and tragedies

in his minimal free time. I started with “Sum pius Aeneas” and “Call me Ishmael,” but now I am just bookish Bill.

Continued from page 16

“ I think I’m

the only one there who

still likes to

read tomes, treatises, and tragedies in his minimal

free time ”


Spotlight on Dr. Rebecka Rutledge Fisher

Her Graduate Student Mentoring Award and Secrets to Success

The Department of English and Comparative Literature recently honored Dr. Rebecka Rutledge Fisher with its Graduate Student

Mentoring Award, recognizing her

commitment to guiding and directing the professional development of its graduate students. Dr. Fisher, while describing some of

the tasks she performs as a mentor, discussed editing dissertation chapters and articles for publication; guiding graduate students toward appropriate venues for the publication of their research; writing letters of recommendation for a wide range of fellowships, awards, and job placements; and helping graduate students

locate and apply for funding.

When asked to describe her secrets to being a

successful mentor, Dr. Fisher observed that

mentoring is an essential part of her graduate teaching, one that requires a substantial time commitment. “My students are on a deadline

just as I am,” says Fisher, acknowledging that

she frequently privileges the work of her students over her own demands and deadlines

in order to provide them with timely feedback. Dr. Fisher’s intention in offering this diligent attention is to help graduate students discover their unique voices as writers, to highlight their original

ideas as researchers and

thinkers, and to develop their professionalism and collegiality, empowering them to participate respectfully and meaningfully in discursive scholarly

communities.

Perhaps Dr. Fisher’s greatest secret to being a

successful mentor is that she remains actively

engaged in her own discursive communities even

as she dedicates time to the work of her students.

She has recently completed a manuscript of her new book Habitations of the Veil: Metaphor and the

Poetics of Being in African American Literature, to be

published by the State University of New York Press in their philosophy and race series. Her article, "The Poetics of Belonging in the Age of

Enlightenment: Spiritual Metaphors of Being in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative” will

appear in a special issue of Early American

Studies, dedicated to the study of empire. She

will also contribute an essay to South American

Quarterly (SAQ) in a special issue focusing on

W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction (1935).

Dr. Fisher’s commitment to making critical contributions to her field enables her to advise

her students about the most recent trends in

scholarship, allowing them to become current,

informed professionals. Dr. Fisher’s generosity, her kind professionalism, and her commitment to serving students not only make her a worthy

recipient of the Graduate Student Mentoring Award but also an invaluable resource to her

mentees and an asset to the university.

“My

students

are on a

deadline

just as I

am.”


| Core Faculty

Inger S. B. Brodey

Associate Professor of Comparative

Literature, Affiliate Faculty in Asian

Studies and Global Studies, and

Director of the Comp. Lit. Program

[email protected]

Marsha S. Collins

Professor of Comparative Literature

[email protected]

Eric S. Downing

Professor of German and Comparative

Literature, Adjunct Professor of

Classical Studies

[email protected]

Gregg Flaxman

Associate Professor, Department of

English and Comparative Literature;

Adjunct Professor, Department of

Communication Studies; Affiliated

Faculty, Program in Cultural Studies

[email protected]

Clayton Koelb

Guy B. Johnson Professor of German

and Comparative Literature

[email protected]

Shayne Legassie

Assistant Professor of English and

Comparative Literature; Affiliated

Faculty, Program in Medieval & Early

Modern Studies; Affiliated Faculty,

Program in Sexual Studies

[email protected]

Diane R. Leonard

Associate Professor of Comparative

Literature

[email protected]

Faculty in Comparative Literature

John McGowan

Professor of English and

Comparative Literature, Director

of Institute for Arts and

Humanities

[email protected]

Jessica Wolfe

Associate Professor of English

[email protected]

| Adjunct & Affiliated

Faculty

E. Jane Burns

Professor of the Curriculum in

Women’s Studies

[email protected]

Dino Cervigni

Professor of Romance Languages

and Comparative Literature

[email protected]

Juan Carlos Gonzales Espitia

Assistant Professor of Spanish

[email protected]

Rebecka Rutledge Fisher

Assistant Professor in English and

Comparative Literature

[email protected]

Sharon L. James

Associate Professor of Classics

[email protected]

Janice H. Koelb

Adjunct Assistant Professor of


[email protected]

Federico Luisetti

Associate Professor of Italian

Studies

[email protected]

Anne MacNeil

Associate Professor in the

Department of Music

[email protected]

Hassan Melehy

Associate Professor of French

[email protected]

James L. Peacock

Kenan Professor of Anthropology

and Professor of Comparative

Literature

[email protected]

William H. Race

George L. Paddison Professor of

Classics

[email protected]

Monica P. Rector

Professor of Portuguese

[email protected]

Eliza Richards

Associate Professor in English and


[email protected]

Alicia Rivero

Associate Professor of Spanish

American Literature and Adjunct

Professor of Comparative

Literature

[email protected]


Support the Comparative Literature Program Our continued success and the growth of our

program are direct results of the generous support

of many friends and alumni to the Fund for the

Comparative Literature Program. This fund is

critical to our ability to sustain and expand our

mission of teaching, research, and service. We need

your support now more than ever if we are to

continue the momentum we have built. In

particular, we are looking for donors to support:

• Undergraduate and graduate student summer

language study and travel grants for

conference participation

• Renovation of our CMPL conference room in

Dey Hall to accommodate audio-visual

presentations

• Additional support for our ongoing Furst

Forum, and Prize money for our annual essay

and dissertation prizes

You can present tax-deductible

donations through the Arts and

Sciences Foundation at UNC-

Chapel Hill at the following address:

UNC-Arts & Sciences

Foundation

134 East Franklin Street

CB# 6115

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-6115

Please note in the memo section of

your check that your gift is intended

for the Comparative Literature

Program. For questions or more

information about gift giving, please

contact Margaret Costley, our

representative in the Arts and

Sciences Foundation by email at

[email protected].

Department of English and Comparative Literature

Greenlaw Hall, CB #3520

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520

Phone: (919) 962-5481 Fax: (919) 962-3520 http://englishcomplit.unc.edu/complit

Documents

Comparative Literature Newsletter Fall 2010-2011