What Graduate Students Are Reading

Daniel Martini is reading "Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds? Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Aesthetics, Fiction and the Arts" by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides (2001), which can be found in De Gruyter's Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies (2021).
 
This piece informs Daniel's dissertation on the affordances of literature, specifically the means by which texts communicate through non-semantic stylistic features like parallelisms. 

Naz Keynejad is reading Persian poet Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami's "Yusuf and Zulaikha" (15th century CE).

The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha appears in Jami’s Haft Awrang (Persian: هفت اورنگ‎, meaning "Seven Thrones"). According to the story, Yusuf’s arresting beauty captures the hearts of all of the women he encounters. Zulaikha, unable to quell her thoughts of Yusuf, attempts to seduce him, but he rejects her advances until they meet again and marry many years later. 

Graham Feyl is re-reading/revisiting There's a disco ball between us: a theory of Black gay life (2021) by Jafari S. Allen. Lyrical and genre transforming/bending, Allen presents an ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls "Black gay habits of mind"  as a way of renarrating and reconsidering Black, gay histories. Moving across various temporalities and spaces, and using pieces from visual art, performance and literature, Allen considers how Black gay life has resisted and survived under systems of oppression through community, radical joy and care. Graham reaches for Allen's text because of his prose and methodological approach to history as flashes that are still present today. The text itself acts as an example of community: first names are used, there are reminders to take deep breaths, and it is a chorus of voices that come together to formulate alongside Allen. 
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Surojit Kayal is reading The Marvelous Clouds by John Durham Peters.

In The Marvelous Clouds, the author argues that though we often think of media as environments, the reverse is just as true—environments are media. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive.  

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Richard Nedjat-Haiem is reading Broadcasting Change: Arabic Media as a Catalyst for Liberalism by Joseph Baude.

Amid civil war, failing states, and terrorism, Arab liberals are growing in numbers and influence. Advocating a culture of equity, tolerance, good governance, and the rule of law, they work through some of the region’s largest media outlets to spread their ideals within the culture. This book analyzes this trend by portraying the intersection of media and politics in two Arab countries with seismic impact on the region and beyond. 

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James Nichols is reading Exorcismos de la memoria: Políticas y poéticas de la melancolía en la España de la transición by Alberto Medina Dominguez. 

Through an interdisciplinary approach in which the analysis of philosophical, filmic, literary and political texts coexist, the book deals with a reading hypothesis of the period in which the lines of demarcation between the aesthetic and the political are blurred.

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Ursula Friedman is reading The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, edited by Wilt L. Idema and Beata Grant.

Because of the burgeoning interest in the study of both premodern and modern women in China, this anthology offers a glimpse of women's writings not only in poetry but in other genres as well, including essays and letters, drama, religious writing, and narrative fiction.

Rachel Feldman is reading Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest (Hebrew: פתאום בעומק היער: אגדה‎) by Amos Oz. 

A dark, yet gen­tle, "fable for all ages" about silence, tolerance, and the role of language, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Hebrew in 2005. The narrative is based in a mysterious town without animals or birds. Legend tells that they have been spirited away by the Pied Piper figure of Nehi, the mountain demon. Two children set out into the forest to find out more. 

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GCLR Event Proposal 

As we begin working to fill our calendar for the upcoming academic year, students and faculty, please submit your event suggestions for the GCLR by completing this form. All submissions will be reviewed by the GCLR board.

Prof. Sara Pankenier Weld, "Miniature Revelations: Childhood in Nabokov's Writings"

In her book project Miniature Revelations: Childhood in Nabokov’s Writings, Sara Pankenier Weld argues that attention to childhood and the often neglected and inscrutable child, who might be mistaken for a marginal figure, in fact offers a miniature revelation and key to Vladimir Nabokov’s novels. Looking through the lens of childhood also allows for pointed critiques of the solipsism of brilliant but flawed protagonists and reveals ethical dimensions of the text that may be ignored by the protagonist or obscured by the author, who frequently offers interpretive challenges for the reader and creates texts that are not what they seem to be. 

Thursday, October 24, 12-1:15pm in Phelps 6206C

This new series is offered jointly by the GCLR, the Comparative Literature Program, the Dept. of French and Italian, and the Dept. of Germanic and Slavic. Two brownbag lunches per quarter with speakers from UCSB and beyond will be organized. Everybody is welcome!

 
 
Public Lecture "The Expansion of Muslim Atheism in 1960s Central Asia." Prof. Eren Tasar
Prof. Tasar will discuss the second chapter of
his book in progress, Muslim Atheism in
Central Asia. The chapter, entitled
"Expansion," charts the dramatic growth in
atheistic literature in languages spoken by
Central Asian Muslims throughout the 1960s,
a decade that witnessed Khrushchev's
antireligious campaign as well as a
subsequent effort to rein in that campaign's
excesses.
 
Friday, October 18
4:00 p.m. HSSB 4020
 
 
 
Eren Tasar is Associate Professor of History at UNC Chapel Hill.
Call for Papers: 2024 Fall Roundtable "Technology and the Humanities"

The GCLR is pleased to announce that we are currently accepting submissions for our 2024 Fall Roundtable "Technology and the Humanities" to be held on October 17th from 6-8pm in Phelps 6206C!

Interested applicants are encouraged to submit short papers/works-in-progress alongside an abstract and brief author biography to complit-gclr@ucsb.edu.

Deadline: October 13th, 2024. Selected presenters will be notified the following day. 

Refreshments will be served

Fall Quarter Weekly Writing Group

The GCLR is pleased to announce that the Weekly Writing Group will be continuing this quarter on Thursdays from 10am-1pm in Phelps 6206C.

 

We hope that you'll stop by for a comradely environment, writing accountability, and of course: coffee and snacks! 

GCLR 2024 Distinguished Visitor: Prof. Mario Biagioli (UCLA)

The GCLR is pleased to welcome our 2024 distinguished visitor, Mario Biagioli, who will be visiting UCSB from May 29-31. Biagioli is a Distinguished Professor of Law and Communication at UCLA and will be joining us for two special GCLR events. The first is a student and faculty workshop on Thursday, May 30th, 5pm - 6:30pm, in Phelps 6206C entitled: “The Curriculum Vitae: Recording, Constructing, and Evaluating Authorship." To sign up for this in-person workshop, please fill out this form.  The second event is a special lecture by Biagioli called "The Impact of Impact," and will be held Friday, May 31, from 4pm-6pm in the Wallis Annenberg Conference Room (4315 SSMS). Please join us in welcoming Biagioli to UCSB, and participating in what promises to be an enriching series of events! More information can be found by clicking on this post. 

The Future of the Lumpenproletariat: A Conference in Memory of Glyn Salton-Cox

This conference seeks to center the contemporary valences of the concept of the lumpenproletariat, which Friedrich Engels identified as “social scum,” particularly outcasts, such as professional thieves, pimps, and gamblers. More generally, this term refers to those who do not generate profits for employers. In this judgment, the hegemonic working-class paradigm of the left and conservative notion of the “undeserving poor” converge. This conference is organized to honor and extend the work of Glyn Salton-Cox, who was an Associate Professor of English at UC Santa Barbara and who suddenly passed away while working on a book on the topic. Please join us May 24-25 either in person or on Zoom (view attached schedule) to not only honor the legacy of Glyn, but also provide a space for emerging and established scholars to reflect on the untapped potential of the concept of the lumpenproletariat and its varying forms given the unstable and uneven faces of global capitalism today.

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