Paul Schrader’s Experiment in Italian Neo-decadence: The Comfort of Strangers and the Sadean System

The Comfort of Strangers (GB/Italy1990), directed by Paul Schrader and written by Harold Pinter (from the short novel by Ian McEwan), who had supplied the 1960s with its premier parable on power and sexuality in The Servant, was no success with audiences or critics, the latter nearly completely missing the obvious redux on a sexualized and cannibalistic fascism that arrived in the 1970s with Visconti, Cavani, Bertolucci, Fassbinder, and Pasolini. This chapter argues that like The Damned (1969) and Death in Venice (1971), as well as their heirs from Fassbinder's German Woman trilogy to Szabo's Mephisto (1981), Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers locates a sociopolitical tension between high and low art.

A Tale of Two Feminists?

One of the most engaging, yet controversial, public intellectuals of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt continues to be attacked with the same venom and ferocity that followed the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) more than fifty years ago. This article discusses why Arendt remains such a divisive figure and why her intellectual legacy is still so unsettling, particularly for Zionists. The essay examines how these issues are represented, negotiated, and problematized in Margarethe von Trotta’s film Hannah Arendt (Germany/ Luxembourg/France, 2012). It explores how one of the most prominent contemporary feminist filmmakers, whose work celebrates the life and activism of revolutionary women from Rosa Luxemburg to Gudrun Ensslin from the Red Army Faction, transforms the “historical Arendt” into a “cinematic Arendt.” Although not a revolutionary in the tradition of Luxemburg, the German-Jewish political thinker Arendt is an interesting choice for a left-leaning, post-Holocaust German woman director. Yet Arendt presents a paradox for feminists due to the contradictions embedded in her works and public pronouncements. The article examines these contradictions and how Arendt emerges from this film, which attempts to portray a politically engaged intellectual woman, a figure that is almost entirely absent from the film screen.

Paris, Poets, and Poverty

Freelance income and frugality allowed Nell to embark on her first trip abroad in 1950. In Paris, she felt as though she had stepped into an Impressionist landscape. Bowled over by Chartres Cathedral and the museums, she also visited two of her art idols, Jean Hélion and Fernand Léger. She became involved with a German woman with whom she traveled to Florence and Rome. Back in New York, while living with Midi Garth, she enjoyed hanging out with several of the poets later known as the New York School: Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Bebop records played at her boisterous parties, which often included marathon games of poker. In her painting, she had embarked on a period of experimentation with figurative imagery. Midi and Brook evokes a pastoral scene in Vermont, where the women vacationed. Meanwhile, her freelance work included serving as designer of the Village Voice.

Una ruptura en la fundación nacional(ista): triángulos amorosos disgénicos en Margarita de niebla de Jaime Torres Bodet y El réferi cuenta nueve de Diego Cañedo

Las novelas Margarita de niebla (1927) de Jaime Torres Bodet y El réferi cuenta nueve (1943) de Diego Cañedo tienen protagonistas varones mestizos/criollos de clase alta. Éstos se encuentran en triángulos amorosos que los fuerzan a escoger entre una mujer mestiza y mexicana, por un lado, y una mujer blanca y alemana, por otro. En ambos casos, los hombres optan por la extranjera, pero se arrepienten poco después cuando ven que no son compatibles. Este ensayo categoriza ambas novelas como ficciones fundacionales fallidas. Doris Sommer acuñó el término “ficciones fundacionales” al analizar literatura que imaginaba una reconciliación nacional a través del romance y matrimonio heterosexual entre personas de sectores distintos de la sociedad. Las novelas que analizamos a continuación hacen lo opuesto, pues interpretan el romance entre hombres mexicanos de la élite y mujeres extranjeras como una afrenta a los intentos del Estado posrevolucionario por construir una nación a través del proyecto oficial de mestizaje. Tanto Torres Bodet como Cañedo pintan a los hombres que evitan el matrimonio interracial como obstáculos a la institucionalización de una comunión nacionalista. The novels Margarita de niebla (Jaime Torres Bodet 1927) and El réferi cuenta nueve (Diego Cañedo 1943) follow the lives of well-to-do mestizo/criollo Mexican males who find themselves in love triangles that force them to choose between a Mexican mestiza or a white, German woman. In both cases, the men opt for the foreigner, but they soon regret their decisions when they realize that they are incompatible with their mates. For this reason, I view these novels as failed foundational fictions. Doris Sommer coined the term “foundational fictions” while analyzing literature that imagined a national reconciliation through heterosexual romance and marriage between people from different sectors of society. These novels do the opposite because they view romances between Mexican elites and foreign Others as antithetical to the nation-building project of official mestizaje. As such, both Torres Bodet and Cañedo depict those men who eschew interracial marriage as a hindrance to the institutionalization of a nationalist communion.

Halit Refig's I Lost My Heart to a Turk: Woman, Islam and Modernity in Turkish Cinema

Defined by some critics as the ultimate national cinema movement piece, Halit Refiğ’s I Lost My Heart to a Turk(1969), the love story of a German woman and a Turkish worker in the ancient town of Kayseri becomes a allegory for the Turkish nation’s identity crisis. This paper identifies the parameters used by Refiğ to position the Turkish identity in his film and emphasize the special role of women in Turkish modernization.

Cerebral Abscess by Fonsecaea monophora—The First Case Reported in Germany

We report the first case of cerebral Fonsecaea monophora infection in a German woman without immunodeficiency or travel history. F. monophora infection is a rare differential diagnosis of cerebral tumors; it was previously considered a tropical fungus. This case adds to the scarce reports in nontropical regions.