Papers by Rense Verweerden
This exploration of local environmental imagination will, both by means of the notion of ecologi... more This exploration of local environmental imagination will, both by means of the notion of ecological naïveté as well as through the description of local environments of nineteenth-century naturalists, seek to address the vast and universal concept of climate change as a tangible imaginary, emphasizing the importance of literary representations in the creation of a collective environmental consciousness.
Deze paper onderzoekt het concept van “onzichtbaarheid” van de vertalers van Haruki Murakami in h... more Deze paper onderzoekt het concept van “onzichtbaarheid” van de vertalers van Haruki Murakami in het Engelse en Nederlandse taalgebied. De onzichtbaarheid van de vertalers wordt geanalyseerd op drie verschillende niveaus. Ten eerste wordt er gekeken naar de vertaler als mens in de professionele vertaalcirkels en welke factoren –zoals academische functies, verdeling van werk en persoonlijke geschiedenis– invloed hebben op de zelfperceptie en zichtbaarheid van de vertaler. Daarna wordt er dieper ingegaan op de (on)zichtbaarheid van de vertaling zelf. Volgens Lawrence Venuti is het toepassen van de courante domesticating strategie, waarin een vertaling verondersteld wordt vloeiend en transparant te zijn, een cruciale factor in de miskenning van de vertaler omdat die als het ware verdwijnt in de tekst. De spanning tussen domesticatie aan de ene kant en een foreignizing techniek aan de andere, wordt besproken in het werk van Murakami, omdat de grenzen tussen bron- en doelcultuur in zijn verhalen vervagen door de sterke rol van de westerse cultuur in Japanse verhalen. De zichtbaarheid van de vertaler als persoon en van de vertaling worden dan cumulatief in rekening genomen bij het analyseren van de erkenning van vertalers in recensies en kritieken.
The second half of the nineteenth century in Britain, also called the Victorian Era, saw both lib... more The second half of the nineteenth century in Britain, also called the Victorian Era, saw both liberal and aesthetic culture taking up new forms. Various ideas about expansionism and imperialism emerged, as well as visions of cultivation, distance and many-sidedness. The former as well as the latter, a complex set of attitudes, were often considered characteristics of “cosmopolitanism”. In both its Victorian and contemporary contexts, the term cosmopolitanism varies widely in connotation and denotation. In this paper, I will explore cosmopolitanism in its nineteenth-century context; in first place by describing the evolution of terminology and the current debates concerning cosmopolitanism. The visions of important scholars such as Amanda Anderson, Lauren Goodlad, Pheng Cheah and Tanya Agathocleous will be discussed to come to a more pronounced understanding of what it means to be cosmopolitan in the Victorian era. Secondly, cosmopolitanism will be investigated by focussing on one particular, peculiar individual: John Ruskin. The aim of my writing is to situate Ruskin in the Victorian cosmopolitan context and to evaluate his ambivalent place in this even more ambiguous context. I will do this by first giving a brief biography The Stones of Venice will be used as a primary source to investigate the presupposed cosmopolitan ethics and aesthetics of Ruskin, while the city of Venice will also be considered independently.
This paper provides a comparative analysis of Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen and Haruki Mura... more This paper provides a comparative analysis of Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen and Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. Both novels portray a contemporary society with supernatural events, which causes an estranging effect. This effect of the uncanny will be discussed due to its presence throughout both novels, by using the theoretical concepts provided by An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory by Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle.
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Papers by Rense Verweerden