To Sit is a Verb: Incoherence and Contemporary Conceptual Writing

<p>This thesis reconceives the productive possibilities of incoherence in four works of contemporary conceptual writing. Despite a pervasive ‘recognition’ of incoherence in literary criticism, we find little formal theorisation of its structure. Against existing evaluative and mystifying impressions of incoherence in literary analysis, I propose a revised concept of incoherence. This is equivalent to the existence of a contradiction (A and not-A) in a work that problematises the work’s identity. I test this concept in four recent works of conceptual writing: Expeditions of a Chimæra by Oana Avasilichioaei and Erín Moure (with interruptions by Elisa Sampedrín); An Arranged Affair by Sally Alatalo; The Happy End / All Welcome by Mónica de la Torre; and Hu Fang’s Garden of Mirrored Flowers, translated by Melissa Lim. Each of these works extends the illogical permissibility of early conceptual thought, re-shaped by contemporary concerns. As a result, these works explore alternative representational possibilities inaccessible to the coherent arrangement. The work of these texts is self-reflexive—in respect to their own identity within a context. Consequently, we observe the ways in which incoherent texts map misalignments and contradictions in the literary system itself; drawing attention to associative constellations misconceived as causal and the uncertain divide of representation and real.</p>

To Sit is a Verb: Incoherence and Contemporary Conceptual Writing

<p>This thesis reconceives the productive possibilities of incoherence in four works of contemporary conceptual writing. Despite a pervasive ‘recognition’ of incoherence in literary criticism, we find little formal theorisation of its structure. Against existing evaluative and mystifying impressions of incoherence in literary analysis, I propose a revised concept of incoherence. This is equivalent to the existence of a contradiction (A and not-A) in a work that problematises the work’s identity. I test this concept in four recent works of conceptual writing: Expeditions of a Chimæra by Oana Avasilichioaei and Erín Moure (with interruptions by Elisa Sampedrín); An Arranged Affair by Sally Alatalo; The Happy End / All Welcome by Mónica de la Torre; and Hu Fang’s Garden of Mirrored Flowers, translated by Melissa Lim. Each of these works extends the illogical permissibility of early conceptual thought, re-shaped by contemporary concerns. As a result, these works explore alternative representational possibilities inaccessible to the coherent arrangement. The work of these texts is self-reflexive—in respect to their own identity within a context. Consequently, we observe the ways in which incoherent texts map misalignments and contradictions in the literary system itself; drawing attention to associative constellations misconceived as causal and the uncertain divide of representation and real.</p>

Engendering Biopoetics of Testimony: Louise Dupré, Chus Pato, and Erín Moure

The act of bearing witness to the remnants of Auschwitz strains poetry and poetics. To examine manifestations of this disarray, this article first establishes a dialogue between philosophy and poetry by discussing Giorgio Agamben’s conception of testimony and Jacques Derrida’s reflection on the shibboleth. It goes on to consider writings by Louise Dupré, Chus Pato, and Erín Moure, who write as inheritors of necropolitical violence, yet at a remove from the Shoah. Although their writing practices cross paths with Agamben’s and Derrida’s reflections, these poets generate a biopoetics of testimony that exceeds these reflections by engendering a tension between dispossession and regeneration.L’acte de témoigner des vestiges d’Auschwitz met à mal la poésie et la poétique. Pour examiner les manifestations de ce désarroi, cet article établit d’abord un dialogue entre philosophie et poésie en abordant la conception du témoignage de Giorgio Agamben et la réflexion de Jacques Derrida sur le shibboleth. Il se penche ensuite sur les écrits de Louise Dupré, Chus Pato et Erín Moure, qui écrivent en héritiers de la violence nécropolitique, mais à distance de la Shoah. Bien que leurs pratiques d’écriture croisent les réflexions d’Agamben et de Derrida, ces poètes génèrent une biopoétique du témoignage qui dépasse ces réflexions en engendrant une tension entre dépossession et régénération.

Letters On The Move: Erín Moure and Chus Pato’s Secession/Insecession and Nathanaël (Nathalie Stephens)’s Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book)

In this essay I examine the space for exchange and dialogue opened by Erín Moure’s translation of Chus Pato’s Secession, which in its Canadian edition is published alongside Insecession, Moure’s own response or reciprocation to Pato’s text. I also turn to Nathanaël’s (Nathalie Stephens) relationship to a photograph of Claude Cahun and to the claim that in Cahun the author resembles herself. I argue that the eloquence of the inclination in both works, as each stages translation as a form of correspondence, suggests a failure of reciprocity and equivalences that denies the giving-over of one text to the other. Moure and Nathanaël thus underscore translation as a privileged site for reflecting on translation as a relationship text.

Canada in Galicia? Or Galicia in Canada? Translating Erín Moure

Although “[c]urrent copyright law ensures that translation projects will be driven by publishers, not by translators” (Venuti 1998, 48), minority-language literary systems such as the Galician one in Spain –in unbalanced competition with the globalized hegemonic system of the Spanish language–, give more room to the influence of what Sandra Ponzanesi defined as “relatively neglected agents of literature-making”, including academics and other authors (2006, 112), but also reputed translators who may be authors and/or academics themselves. We propose to examine here the confluence of interests operating in the circulation of Erín Moure’s poetry and essays in Galicia, her incorporation of Galician culture and language to her own production published in Canada, and her role as translator of Galician poetry into English. Our essay will be a dialogue with three implicated voices that will pay attention to the agents intervening in this particular process of cultural transfers between Canada and Galicia, including the academic context provided by the diverse conferences and seminars organized at the U. of Vigo by Belén Martín-Lucas that propitiated the encounters of Moure with poet Chus Pato and author/translator María Reimóndez; the role of Chus Pato as promoter of the translation of Moure’s work in Galicia; Reimóndez’s decisions as translator of Teatriños (2007); and the ongoing creative process of collaboration, influence and interest that has led Moure to translate Pato for Anglophone readers. This bidirectional cultural interaction is thus participating in a transnational Galician culture that recognizes Erín Moure as a “diasporic Galician in Canada”, at the same time that her critics and readers treasure Moure’s contribution to a transnational Canada. It is also the product of a shared belief in transnational feminist cooperation and creativity interweaving women in diverse contexts.

The Making of the Independent Short Film, Teatriños: Homenaxe ao mineral do repolo (Little Theatres: Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage)

This is a personal story of the process of making the short film, Little Theatres: Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage. The film is based on the poem by Erín Moure, Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage, from her book, Little Theatres.