“The World Had Forgotten about Us”: Heterotopian Resistance in Richard Flanagan’s Wanting and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip

This article explores how the different forms of heterotopias present in Richard Flanagan’s Wanting (2008) and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip (2006) articulate problematic identity politics and cultural memory. In Wanting, the collocation of Mathinna’s story with that of the lost Franklin expedition offers a form of reclaiming. This article argues that Flanagan’s novel moves from heterotopias of deviation to a crisis heterotopia, displacing and debunking the compensation function of the colonial heterotopia to highlight the crushing of Aboriginal identity. This shifting heterotopia is doubled by Mathinna’s heterotopic carceral body, that is, body as confined space, which qualifies the act of reclaiming. In Mister Pip, heterotopias concern cultural memory as the island of Bougainville, secluded from the rest of the world, turns into the repository of the villagers’ culture juxtaposed with the reading of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1860–1861). This article argues that Jones’s creation of a palimpsestic heterotopia allows him to resist Eurocentric views as well as to actualize postcolonial concepts. Jones’s novel calls for a dynamic appropriation of literature. Matilda’s ‘Pacific version’ of Pip’s story reflects the cracks in the Victorian and contemporary exploitations of the island. Readers’ immersions in these heterotopias do not provide an escape from but a thoughtful commitment to the past.

SEMIÓTICA DE LA PARODIA

Este artículo indaga en la trascendencia de la semiótica y la filosofía del lenguaje para la manipulación de la dimensión connotativa esencial en el discurso de la imaginación. Para ello, la parodia servirá como punto de reflexión sobre el que la idea de semiotización podría definirse como un enclave textual de la memoria cultural. Siendo la parodia un fenómeno al que se adhieren (y que se adhiere a) valores historiográficos sin que a su definición pueda imponerse a una mirada histórica parcial (nacional, ideológica), hay en ella una asociación semiótica vertebrada por la historia de la filosofía del lenguaje, acompasada por la encarnación mítica y post-mítica de las relaciones materia-forma, individuo-colectividad. De esta manera, la aporía todo acto de figuración se ejecuta en la parodia como una dialéctica que permite a los estudios literarios atender a la complejidad de la idea de Tradición en la especificidad de la forma estética. Abstract: This article explores the significance of semiotics and the philosophy of language for the manipulation of the connotative dimension in the discourse of the imagination. To this end, parody will serve as a point of reflection on which the idea of semiotization could be defined as a textual enclave of cultural memory. Since parody is a phenomenon to which historiographical values adhere (and which is adhered to) without its definition being subject to a partial (national, ideological) historical gaze, there can be observed in it a semiotic association vertebrate by the history of the philosophy of language, accompanied by the mythical and post-mythical incarnation of the relations matter-form, individual-collectivity. In this way, the aporia of every act of figuration is executed in parody as a dialectic that allows literary studies to attend to the complexity of the idea of Tradition in the specificity of aesthetic form.

Performative Memory

Though scholars in memory studies often deal with different aspects of cultural memory, it is rare to find any systematic framework to which memory adheres to and which would explain the emergence and maintenance of memories in general. In this article, I use the concepts of Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, namely interpellation, subject constitution, repetition, sedimentation, citationality and subversion, to show how she could provide a procedural account of memory formation. To illustrate how this might work, I look at how Turkey has chosen to commemorate the failed coup of July 2016 by interpreting some examples of such memory through Butler’s theories. In doing so, I show that Butler, rather than introducing new concepts to the field, offers a systematic framework that can relate scholars to one another by transposing their concepts onto Butler’s theory.

The “Millstätter Predigten” (Millstatt Sermons), Petrus Berchorius, and Mechthild of Magdeburg

This article presents the project “Virtual Benedictine library Millstatt” (www.virtbibmillstatt.com/), which is dedicated to the cultural memory and educational history of Carinthia in the broadest sense. It aims to reconstruct the hitherto little-known and little-researched corpus of manuscripts from the Benedictine Abbey of Millstatt, to identify its texts, and to shed light on their history of use. Against the background of the eventful history of ownership of the Millstatt library, the problems that arise when trying to reliably assign manuscripts scattered around the world to the Millstatt corpus are outlined. Examples will be used to show the extent to which external features (binding, signature system, accessories), but also text-internal indications, make the origin and ownership history of the manuscripts traceable. Spectacular new finds are presented, but also erroneous assumptions about the affiliation of certain texts to the reading canon of the Millstatt Benedictines are pointed out.