Applications for the Interzones Doctoral program, so highly anticipated, have opened. There are 4 places, under category B applications, open to candidates who have held Mundus Masters grants. These applications close at the end of February. The closing date for category A applications (European or non-European graduates who have not been residents nor have lived in Europe for study or work for more than 12 consecutive months duringthe 5 years prior to the application deadline) is listed as the 10th December. All the relevant information is available on the Interzones website.
Welcome
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Articles from students: Discontinuity in Qiu Anxiong’s work
Xu Sheng, one of the previous Mundus Master students was recently so kind as to send an article for publication on the blog, detailing the concept of 'the gap' in the work of Qiu Anxiong (the fascination with 'the gap' that is one of the hallmarks of the classes previously taught by Prof Girard will no doubt be familiar to many who have taken his course on 'applied heterology').
About discontinuity in Qiu Anxiong’s work
At the end of an article by Yuko Hasegawa on Qiu Anxiong’s video work, she mentioned “expressive artist” [1]. In “Utopia”, the solo exhibition of Qiu in Arken Art Museum, the artist has been classified into “magic realism” [2]. Although it’s true that the fantastic images in “The New Book of Mountains and Seas” accord with the sign of Magic realism, the meaning of this kind of classification has been limited within the words. From the beginning of modern art, the trends and styles of art has been defined through their appearance instead of their essence. Expressionism, cubism and their succeeders share a same pursue, that is to “transmit directly the spirit of artist” by the “discontinuity in logic” [3].
The discontinuity (or gap) has countless forms and exists in every successful modern art work. Before the discussion on its foundation, we can firstly find some “gap” in Qiu Anxiong’s work.
In “Jiang Nan Poem”, the most significant gap comes from the audience’s expectation of narration, as the only narration of the work is the passage of time. It’s exactly this gap that generates the aesthetic observation on the work. “The New Book of Mountains and Seas” has a firm background for interpretation, but the delicate polarization (gap) in the narration shows the inner confrontation of the work and of the artist himself. For example, in the representative scene, where the “men” in black get out from the earth and fly, logically, the “men” is no longer a creature described by the fictitious narrator of ancient time, but a symbolic sign put into the scene by the artist himself. In “Minguo Landscape”, the narration has been weakened again and gaps between scenes are common. Each scene has then adopted their own artistic conception.
Qiu said that his resource of art creation is his experience. The signs from “In the Sky” look like a direct representation of the artist’s inner experience， while interpretation from audiences can only depend on their own experience. The discontinuity comes then from the gap between different backgrounds of the author and the audience. In front of this gap, audience turns automatically to the “common sense” to get a “reasonable” interpretation – for example the “self destructive civilization” – so that the gap can be filled up. The aesthetics of a work are usually destroyed by this kind of “common sense” – “In the Sky” can be only a musing of the artist.
Welch wrote a letter on the day the war was broken. And the whole letter described a doll shop. The letter looks quite special as it gives a signal against the war and expresses the nostalgia for happy time, but the fact is that Mr. Welch didn’t know the war had been broken at all. If we read articles by Qiu Anxiong himself, we can see that his ideas have something in common with the “magic realism”, but being exhausted in finding any clew to rebuild the connection is not an aesthetic action. It’s better to go back to the work itself.
Being a philosophical exploration of the aesthetic methodology, “discontinuity” comes from “Matière et Mémoire” (by Henri Bergson), a work that explores the relation between man and the world around. Perception, in short, is by dividing the continuity of material and is only for part of it (man can’t perceive the whole world in a time). This divided perception selects related memory; and the memory brings related action as feedback to the perception. The process, where the discontinuous perception of the world engages the memory of a man, is where the affection is generated. In an aesthetic point of view, the process where audience discovers the discontinuity of an artist’s work and gives inner feedback, is where the transmission happens.
The western analytical methodology can actually be applied to the eastern art. The discontinuity by Bergson finds its earliest illustration on the blank of Chinese traditional painting. In Qiu Anxiong’s work, the “blank” has been treated in a new way and brings new discontinuity to the moving paintings.
In Qiu’ earliest video work “Jiang Nan Poem”, the real perspective has been compressed into an imaginary space of Chinese Painting. Later, by movements, “In the Sky” tries to put space into the blank of the flat paper. Spaces created by movements become common in “New Book of Mountains and Seas” and “Minguo Landscape”. A typical creation of space is the following: in “Minguo Landscape”, we don’t “see” the lake until a small boat passes by. Blank in Chinese painting is regarded as “imaginary truth”. Qiu turns the blank into a logical space by movements. This game with perception is only the first step.
In Qiu’s work, the expression of space and movement of every scene is based on one painting. He never represents a same space in different perspectives. On one hand , it’s limited by the technique; on the other hand, the still “camera” and single point of view denies the existence of “outre-champ”. His work is rather a theatre than a movie, as the stage can’t move, only the actors and sets can. The representation of the world is through switches of different scenes. Traditional Chinese paintings inspire imagination for time and space. In Qiu’s work, time and space has been represented, and imagination comes from the transition of scenes itself…
What’s important is not to find out all the discontinuity, but to perceive the transmission it generates. Yuko Hasegawa compares the last scene of “The New Book of Mountains and Seas” to the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. It gives us a hint that Qiu’s work is rather a stage of spirit than expression.
[1] From the article of Yuko Hasegawa: “Witness of an enchanted land – Qiu AnXiong”
[2] http://www.arken.dk/composite-1210.htm
[3] A translation from the Chinese version. Sarah Connor, Art, A Histroy of Changing Style, translated by Ouyang Ying & Fan Xiaomin, 1992, p.209
[4] Refer to the discussion between the author and Qiu Anxiong.
[5] http://www.qiuanxiong.com
[6] This opinion is only applicable for Qiu’s published work until now.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Crossways gets to 'News and Events'
The University of St Andrews has published the information concerning our General Meeting in Lisbon, in the 'News and Events' section of the website!
www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modlangs/news.
Check it out!
Monday, 19 October 2009
More electronic
Poonam Ganglani recently attended a Research Methodology workshop and sent some interesting research links featured below. While these may interest students that are doing their theses in French or dealing with french texts, they may nevertheless be of use to other students. All of the sites, except the last, have English and Spanish interfaces and are reasonably user friendly. They are specifically related to theses and so may be most useful in checking whether a given topic has already been treated, and in which was it was dealt with. 1. FICHIER CENTRAL DE THESES:2. GALLICA3. AGENCE BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT SUPERIEUR4. ATELIER NATIONAL DE REPRODUCTION DES THESES
Café Philo Lisbon
Lorena Tiberi has just informed me of a wonderful initiative that the Crossways group in Lisbon is putting together - its essentially a Café Philo, a reading group and discussion group that is interested in taking, as a point of departure, extracts from a willing Crossways student's dissertation report or dissertation itself. The student would essentially offer their text, high-lighting perhaps the most important sections and then this text would form the basis of a round table discussion among the Crossways team and other interested students and academics in Lisbon. Needless to say this is a very interesting opportunity to gain both greater expousure and to also be able to respond to critisisms levelled at the work so as to improve it ahead of submission or publication.
The students who offer their work are not excluded from participation, and while physically going to lisbon may be a little far, Lorenza has suggested the use of Skype as a medium that would allow the student in question to take part no matter where they are within the Crossways consortium. Furthermore this initiative has implications for both the virtual symposium and the initiative by Roberta, to present more student research online. One could imagine that a podcast or video cast of the proceedings be linked online, or the participation of any number of students via a skype group call, these suggestions are not without technical difficulties, but are not insurmountable. Any thoughts, suggestions or volunteers would be most welcome in the comments suggestion below.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Electronic Academic Resources
Sorting out references and finding books can sometimes be a little challenging, especially given the fact that we move every semester. Carry your own portable library across the continent is both a recipe for disaster and can be a complete nightmare as books, while useful and necessary are also extremely heavy. E-books offer a fairly good solution to the problem, and while not all books are available online, you could at least reduce the amount of books and photocopies that you need to carry by using some of the online resources detailed below.
Google Books (http://books.google.com/books) is one of the best resources online, comprising a vast library of scanned searchable titles, Google books can help you track down that elusive citation or see whether a book you need is worthwhile ordering. Its especially useful when you only need to consult one or two pages or a single section – as the whole book is not always available.
JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org) is one of the best electronic journal archives out there, both Sheffield and St Andrews have access to this excellent resource. In addition St Andrews has off campus access so once you’ve been to St Andrews you can access the journal from anywhere. There are similar electronic journal archives for each of the major languages and the librarians at your current university will be able to help you gain access. Journal archives enable you to rapidly find papers on topics that you need, and generally provide these papers as PDF downloads, which you can store on your computer, search and even print should you need a hardcopy.
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) is the academic search engine related to Google’s highly successful online search engine. Google scholar searches academic books, journals and conferences to deliver academically orientated results. This is a more general search than one that could be conducted in JSTOR and the only weak point is that the results are not always accessible, ie the search engine returns results for journal archives that require specific subscriptions that your university may or may not have. However it is a good way in which one may find out whether a vital paper exists on the required subject, which can then be ordered or accessed by other means.
Finally, probably the greatest benefit of electronic resources, over and above the fact that they weigh virtually nothing, is that they are fully searchable, which saves a lot of time skim reading and allows one to quickly establish the interest of a book or article when one is unsure of its validity.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Research Abstracts
As part of the effort to increase both the participation and the academic content of the Crossways blog, Roberta Gregoli suggested that we invite past and present members of the program to submit abstracts for the research that they are currently engaged in, be it for their Crossways Masters, or for further studies, or for conference or journal submission. Hopefully we can build up a data base of the research that has been performed and which is ongoing, enabling the demonstration of the academic quality of this program to potential employers, applicants and other stake holders.
Herewith the first abstract from Roberta Gregoli
TRANSNATIONAL RECEPTION OF CITY OF GOD AND ELITE SQUAD
GENDER, SPECTATORSHIP AND IDENTITY
Roberta Gregoli
Brazilian cinema has historically had a pivotal role in raising social issues. Recently, it has been the recipient of considerable attention worldwide, and a catalyst for the debate of urban problems such as social inequality, drug trafficking, and violence in the favelas (slums). Although the favela is not a new topos in Brazilian cinema, City of God (Cidade de Deus, 2002) and Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite, 2007) have been particularly successful in reviving its representation while problematising it in the public forum. Such vivid debate seems to reflect, and only be enabled by, spectators’ deep engagement with national film. Notwithstanding, despite the popularity of Brazilian cinema among the public, critics, and the media, the relationship between cinema and audience and its ability to reflect, as well as affect, social issues seem not to have been explored, there being a scarcity of research on film reception, particularly empirical, in Brazil. It is thus the aim of this study to investigate theories of reception and spectatorship through the analysis of audience reaction to City of God and Elite Squad. Due to current interest in transnational studies and the relevance of analysis involving empirical data, the two films are investigated through the examination of 238 responses collected from three groups: non-Brazilian, Brazilian middle class, and Brazilian favela inhabitants. The films will be examined through the weaving of empirical data and theories pertaining cinematic spectatorship, gender and the relationship between cinema and national identity. While analysis of the data has yielded thought-provoking insights on notions of masculinity and identity in the context of postmodern theorisation, the study advocates for further research in the field of cinematic spectatorship in Brazil.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
2nd CROSSWAYS GENERAL MEETING
2nd CROSSWAYS GENERAL MEETING
It is my pleasure to anno
unce that the tradition started by Roberta Gregoli will continue this year, with the 2nd Crossways General Meeting of Students. The GM allows students from all the 7 universities from the consortium to meet and discuss the changes that should be made to the program. Last year, issues such as that of the heavy workload in the 2nd semester, were addressed to the director of the program after being discussed in the GM, and are now in the process of being changed. In addition, the General Meeting is a great opportunity to meet another university, another city, and students who otherwise you wouldn’t have met.
Where: Lisbon, Portugal
When: November 13-15, 2009
This year, for the first time, the Alumni meeting will be parallel to the students’ meeting, allowing for joint activities and discussions regarding the past, present and future of the program. In addition, students will have the opportunity to explore Lisbon and its wonders! Financial help will be available for accommodation in hostels.
If you are interested in participating, please send me an email (guerreiro.asofia@gmail.com) before Wednesday, 30th September and let me know how many nights you’re spending in Lisbon, so that accommodation costs can be calculated.
I hope to see you all there!
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Erasmus Mundus in Brazil Network
If you are a Brazilian Erasmus Mundus student or alumni, please read the following message in Portuguese.
Prezad@ ex-alun@ Erasmus Mundus,
Como parte da iniciativa de divulgar o programa Erasmus Mundus no território nacional, venho convidá-l@s a participar do grupo Erasmus Mundus no Brasil (http://groups.google.com/group/mundus-no-brasil).
Os objetivos do grupo são:
- Estabelecer uma rede sólida entre alumni brasileir@s de maneira a promover interação social e profissional;- Discutir maneiras eficientes de promover e divulgar o EM no Brasil, bem como auxiliar candidat@s brasileir@s no processo de seleção;- Organizar e realizar palestras informativas;- Compartilhar materiais promocionais e promover treinamentos informais, de maneira que todos transmitamos a mesma mensagem.
Para entrar no grupo, por favor acesse 
Subscribe to Erasmus Mundus no Brasil Email: Visit this group
e clique em "Sign in and apply for membership".
A Rede EM no Brasil está em crescimento constante, tendo realizado mais de 10 visitas a universidades brasileiras, participado uma feira de educação de grande porte (ExpoBelta 2009) e em encontros de assessores internacionais.
Adoraríamos ter você a bordo! Você escolhe se quer participar mais ou menos ativamente (através da função "Edit my membership", onde você escolhe se quer receber emails diários ou não).
Qualquer dúvida ou esclarecimento, não hesite em me contactar pessoalmente em roberta.gregoli@ema-la.eu
Esperamos ver você em breve!
Roberta GregoliMA Erasmus Mundus Crossways in HumanitiesUniversity of Sheffield, Université de Perpignan and Universidade Nova de Lisboa
EMA Country Representative for BrazilEMA Latin America Promotions Team
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
