Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days’: Multilingualism, Multiculturalism and Symbols

In this announcement, the various –linguistic and non-linguistic- symbols used in the literary work 'Around the world in 80 days', written by Jules Verne, are examined from an intertemporal and contemporary point of view. The references through these points of view, in matters of multiculturalism and multilingualism, are becoming classical in nature: they concern the necessity of the applied ability to communicate between individuals who belong to different social classes and age groups, speak the same or different languages, come from different cultures, with rights and obligations in their various areas of life, etc. Key-words: linguistics, multilingualism, multiculturalism, semiotics, semiotic systems, symbols

Ripensare l’opera lirica nell’era di Internet, a ritroso fino a Jules Verne

A cominciare dalla fine del ventesimo secolo, l’emergenza del Web, delle tecnologie digitali e dello streaming ha profondamente influenzato il mondo musicale. In questo articolo, mi concentro sull’impatto di questo processo trasformativo sulla diffusione e sulla ricezione della musica d’opera. Alcune novità della cultura operistica contemporanea includono il servizio Met Live in HD e Met Opera on Demand a New York, il sistema Friday Rush della Royal Opera House di Londra, la Troisième Scène dell’Opéra de Paris, e la rinnovata popolarità mediatica della serata inaugurale del Teatro alla Scala. Si tratterà anche, in una prospettiva storica di più lunga durata, di tracciare le origini culturali del rapporto fra opera e Web e di esplorare il nesso che, fin dall’Ottocento, lega divismo, melomania, nuovi media e tecnologia di registrazione. Lo studio dell’immaginario letterario e fantascientifico è particolarmente proficuo. Per esempio, nel suo romanzo gotico Le Château des Carpathes (1892), Jules Verne descrive la melomania del barone Rodolphe de Gortz: in un lugubre castello della Transilvania, il barone riporta in vita sotto forma di ologramma la diva italiana La Stilla attraverso proiezioni visive e registrazioni fonografiche.

Renversement européen du dragon asiatique

En Europe, la liste des saints sauroctones, tueurs de dragons, est longue : depuis l’archange Michel, saint Georges, saint Marcel jusqu’au capitaine Nemo du célèbre roman de Jules Verne. Il en va différemment en Asie continentale et spécialement en Chine, où le dragon jouit d’une valorisation extrêmement positive. Quelles sont les causes d’un tel renversement symbolique ? C’est ce que nous tentons d’élucider dans cet article. Le dragon, si chargé de malignité en Occident et nécessitant un héros pour le combattre et restaurer, contre la perversité multiple, la solidité de l’être, est, en Orient chinois, une image bénéfique qui s’enrichit de toutes les richesses de la multiplicité : assimilé au « Fils du Ciel », empereur de l’ici-bas terrestre, au moyeu du monde changeant, il assure la bonne ordonnance des pluralités politiques, géographiques, calendaires et anthropologiques. Deux visions du monde se trouvent dressées face à face : l’une qui sauve l’être-un en pourfendant le dragon, l’autre qui reconnaît la valeur des changements et transformations.

Ned Land et l’utopie compensatoire chez Jules Verne: à propos du Canadien de Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers

Jules Verne, qui appelait le Canada ‘mon pays de prédilection’, a écrit trois romans canadiens et donné jour à de forts personnages-types canadiens dans ses Voyages extraordinaires. Le mieux connu de ces personnages est Ned Land, l’intrépide harponneur de Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers, personnage composite des identités française et anglaise, le Verne de 1869 voyant le Canada de l’immédiate post-confédération comme le lieu de la conciliation franco-anglaise. Ned Land se distingue par son amour de la liberté: au fil des décennies, Verne, endossant désormais les récriminations de l’opinion française contre les ‘Anglo-Saxons’, fera de cette caractéristique celle de tous les Franco-Canadiens, son roman Famille-sans-nom (1889) présentant cette fois l’utopie compensatoire (à savoir cette propension vernienne à faire du Canada le lieu de représentations idéalisées allant à l’encontre de l’histoire événementielle) d’une union entre Canadiens français et peuples autochtones.

SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' PREDICTIONS COME TRUE

The article examines the predictions of the writers who came true; the works of Jules Verne, HG Wells, Mark Twain are considered.

Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces

Colonialism advanced its project of territorial expansion by changing the very meaning of borders and space. The colonial project scripted a unipolar spatial discourse that saw the colonies as an extension of European borders. In his monograph, Mohit Chandna engages with narrations of spatial conflicts in French and Francophone literature and film from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In literary works by Jules Verne, Ananda Devi, and Patrick Chamoiseau, and film by Michael Haneke, Chandna analyzes the depiction of ever-changing borders and spatial grammar within the colonial project. In so doing, he also examines the ongoing resistance to the spatial legacies of colonial practices that act as omnipresent enforcers of colonial borders. Literature and film become sites that register colonial spatial paradigms and advance competing narratives that fracture the dominance of these borders. Through its analyses Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces shows that colonialism is not a finished project relegated to our past. Colonialism is present in the here and now, and exercises its power through the borders that define us.

Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces

Colonialism advanced its project of territorial expansion by changing the very meaning of borders and space. The colonial project scripted a unipolar spatial discourse that saw the colonies as an extension of European borders. In his monograph, Mohit Chandna engages with narrations of spatial conflicts in French and Francophone literature and film from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In literary works by Jules Verne, Ananda Devi, and Patrick Chamoiseau, and film by Michael Haneke, Chandna analyzes the depiction of ever-changing borders and spatial grammar within the colonial project. In so doing, he also examines the ongoing resistance to the spatial legacies of colonial practices that act as omnipresent enforcers of colonial borders. Literature and film become sites that register colonial spatial paradigms and advance competing narratives that fracture the dominance of these borders. Through its analyses Spatial Boundaries, Abounding Spaces shows that colonialism is not a finished project relegated to our past. Colonialism is present in the here and now, and exercises its power through the borders that define us.

Joseph Brodsky: from the tragic to the sublime (The letter in a bottle and The new Jules Verne)

The article traces the evolution of J. Brodsky’s poetics driven by the desire to ‘be free from emotional sensitivity’ on the example of the poems The Letter in a Bottle (1964) and The New Jules Verne (1976). The transformation of the poet’s artistic manner is considered through the aesthetic categories of the tragic and the sublime.