Edited Collection Philip Roth: TransatlanticPerspectives
Abstracts due December 1, 2011 (500 words; please include contact info and short bio)
Final essaysdue by 10 August2012 (4,000-5,000 words)
The editor of acontracted collection of essays titled PhilipRoth: Transatlantic Perspectives is seeking proposals for additional contributionsfor the remaining sections.
Philip Roth isa highly literary and referential writer. The essays collected in this volume willoffer an assessment of the conflicting influences on his work by his Americanand European forebears William Faulkner, Stephen Crane, Henry James, FranzKafka, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekov, Nikolai Gogol, the medievalEnglish morality “The Summoning of Everyman,” among others.
From 1974 to1989, Philip Roth was the General Editor of the Penguin Books paperback series “Writers from the Other Europe.” Rothselected titles, commissioned introductions, and oversaw publication of EasternEuropean writers relatively unknown to American readers. His literaryrelationship with these writers, however, has elicited little scholarly attentionto date. The essays assembled in this volume attempt to fill this void byemphasizing the importance of Roth's series for the introduction of theseauthors as well as his creative dialog with their work. Several chaptersexplore his relationship with the work of the Yugoslav author Danilo Kiš, ofthe Czech novelists Milan Kundera, Ludvik Vaculik, Bohumil Hrabal, of thePolish writers Bruno Schulz, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Tadeusz Borowski, and theHungarian writer György Konrád. A special attention will be paid to Roth'sinterviews with Milan Kundera and Ivan Klíma.
Variousstudies have interpreted Roth's humor as typically Jewish. The essay dedicatedto his comedy in this volume will explore it in its reference to the Europeantradition. Judicious writers have always practiced the art of contrast betweenthe serious and the comic. The European novel began as a half-serious genrewhich merges both comedy and tragedy. In “Tom Jones” (1749), Fielding laid downthe rules for the new genre defined as a “prosai-comi-epic writing.” Like hisEuropean forbears, Roth pursues this art with great success.
Thenumerous references to literature in Roth's body of work show how important itis to establish the intellectual and cultural tradition in which he stands.This collection of essays will bring together a number of academic voices fromdifferent countries with the aim to reenact a dialog of critical readings withthe texts and among themselves. The second goal of this book is to place Roth'sfiction in a larger transnational context.
Keywords
Philip Roth, Comparative literature, Intertextuality, Nikolai Gogol, LeoTolstoy, Anton Chekov, “Writers from the Other Europe” series, Danilo Kiš,Milan Kundera, Bruno Schulz, Bohumil Hrabal, Ludvik Vaculik, György Konrád,Henry James, Franz Kafka
Contribution
Thepublication of a book of academic essays offering particularly a comparisonbetween Philip Roth's fiction and his American and European forebears andcontemporaries will fill an academic void and will meet the needs of readersboth academic and general. The transnational perspective of the book, withcritical readings by European and American scholars, provides another compellingargument.
Chapter proposals that have already beenaccepted include analyses of Roth's literary relationship with Sophocles's “Oedipusthe King,” the medieval English morality “The Summoningof Everyman,” theAmerican Renaissance, Stephen Crane, William Faulkner, Lionel Trilling, Ivan Klíma, AharonAppelfeld, and J.M. Coetzee.
The editor is particularly interested in comparativeessays on the following topics:
1.Philip Roth's comedy in its reference to the European tradition
2.Philip Roth and the nineteenth century Russian authors Gogol, Tolstoy andChekhov
3.Philip Roth's “Writers from the Other Europe” series and its importance forhis fiction
4.Danilo Kiš's “A Tomb for BorisDavidovich,” subtitled “seven chaptersfrom the same story,” (1976, trans. 1980) and Philip Roth's story/counterstorynarrative technique in “TheCounterlife” (1986)
5.Philip Roth's literary relation with Milan Kundera. Kundera's novelspublished in Roth's series; the forewords they wrote for each other; theirconversations in London and Connecticut; Kundera's “Art of the Novel”; common themesand narrative techniques.
6.Philip Roth as editor of Bruno Schulz
7.Philip Roth as editor of the Czech writers Bohumil Hrabal, Milan Kundera,and Ludvik Vaculik
8.Henry James's “The Aspern Papers” (1888) and Franz Kafka's “Metamorphosis” (1915) as Intertexts for “ThePrague Orgy” (1985)
The editor hasspecific expectations and will be happy to discuss these chapters withpotential contributors.
In order tomake the contributions as consistent as possible, the editor is fully availableto be contacted by e-mail. Please direct your inquiries, proposed chapter abstract (500 words) andbrief biographical sketch with institutional affiliation to Dr. Velichka D.Ivanova (velichka.ivanova@iufm.unistra.fr) by December 1, 2011.
Selectedcontributors will be informed by December 15,2011. Completed chapters of 4,000-5,000words (works cited and endnotes included) will be required by August 10, 2012. Essaysshould follow the MLA style format (3rd Edition) and US spellingrules.