Sumar

B. Literatura, Tomul XVIII, Nr. 1, 2013

CONTENTS

The Reading and Deciphering of the Body in Medical Case Reports

Magdalena Murawska

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland

mmurawska@wa.amu.edu.pl

Abstract: The present paper discusses how medical authors portray the patient’s body in professional medical publications. In more detail, the discursive processes of reading and deciphering of the patient’s body as manifested at the textual level in medical case reports are examined. To this aim, a corpus of 56 medical case reports from leading British and American medical journals has been compiled and studied with respect to the references to the patients and their bodies described therein. The theoretical background for the study includes selected concepts and distinctions from the sociology of medicine, which allow to examine the construction of the body in the texts at hand – hierarchical levels of medical description, biomedical model, disease/illness and symptom/sign. It will be shown how, linguistically, the body is abstracted from the person whose case is described and becomes the main focus of the text, being scrutinised and interpreted on the basis of the signs and symptoms it displays. This presentation goes in line with the biomedical model and is discussed with reference to selected developments from the history of medicine that shaped the current perception of the body in medicine.

Keywords: medical discourse, case report, patient, body, biomedical model, disease/illness, sign/symptom

Nakedness and Resistance: Understanding Naked Protests of Women

Parvin Sultana,

Political Studies in School of Social Sciences

with the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

parvin.jnu@gmail.com

Abstract: Women’s agency has often been questioned. Being marginalised in almost every sphere of life, when oppressed they had to resist in their own creative unique ways. Female bodies which are inherently linked to idea of honour in most societies have been the site of humiliation at many levels. How they responded to such humiliation has also been diverse. Because of prior marginalisation their protests have at times been non-confrontationist and unconventional. One such mode has been naked protests especially in societies where nudity is a taboo. Women resorted to such protests time and again to make a point. Generating controversy and questioning mainstream values have been the aim of such protests. But what such protests do apart from giving a cultural shock needs to be accounted for. To understand this, the article looks into two naked protests played out in different socio-cultural contexts. One was in a small state in eastern India, against the rape and murder of a woman by the Armed Forces and the other to oppose imposition of Hijab on women. What these two protests state about the agency of women concerned is worth noticing. Apart from it such protests should be taken into account along with all the complexity they come with, like the slippery ground between assertion and voyeurism that such protest treads on. This paper tries to do that.

Key words: resistance, body, political economy, feminism, Islam

Machtdispositiv und Gender

in Kafkas Romanfragment Der Verschollene

Nadja Reinhard,

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

nadja.reinhard@phil.HHU.de

Abstract: Looking back at the method shown here displaying dispositive power and gender in Kafka's unfinished novel The Man Who Disappeared, we note a clear tendency of regression and retreat of the young 'hero' Karl Rossmann.  He often takes the role of a victim and fails in struggle, for example, when he wants to impress his parents by the defense of the heater. He is sorted out as undisciplined, in the male competition of the best he cannot stand. Also, sexual and dominant women like Clare and Brunella frighten him, whereas older women are more likely to provide maternal protection. The novel fragment is a satire of power relations supported by ambivalent and misogynistic images of the female body.  In the tradition of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Kafka shows a modernist tragicomic vision of the female sadist. 

Key words: Kafka, female body, female sadist, the disappeared, American hero, normalization, deportation.

CORPUL ÎMBRĂCAT. MENTALITĂŢI ŞI GESTIONAREA IMPRESIILOR

(O ABORDARE COMPARATIVĂ A OPERELOR LITERARE ALE LUI N. FILIMON ŞI W. M. THACKERAY)

Lect. univ. dr Ana-Maria POPESCU

Universitatea din Piteşti

anamaria_stoica_sa@yahoo.com

Abstract: The present article offers a comparative, yet partial, analysis of two literary works of the 19^th century, Ciocoii vechi şi noi by Nicolae Filimon and Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Its novelty consists in a comparative approach of the two literary works in question, an approach which aims to reveal points of convergence between mentalities, literature and sociology of communication (based on the most important concepts introduced by Erving Goffman). We shall focus on the similarities between the 19^th century Romanian and English societies, as they reflect in fashion, in the representation of the covered body and we shall point out similar social position-related stereotypes in Nicolae Filimon’s and William Makepeace Thackeray’s literary works. In the two authors’ novels, both the characters holding privileged positions in society, and the ones trying to reach higher hierarchical positions build their prestige (personal front), first of all, through exhibiting symbols which indicate wealth (good quality clothes, valuable estates and objects, sumptuous parties, etc), through limiting their contact with individuals belonging to inferior social categories and through keeping in contact with characters belonging to the same or to a higher social category. Therefore, we shall conclude that irrespective of each author’s cultural background and individual style, the analysed aspects highlight features of the epoch similarly reflected in the two authors’ novels.

Key words: fashion, mentalities, impression management, literary discourse, Romanian/English society

CONSTRUCŢIE TEXTUALĂ ŞI IPOSTAZE ALE CORPULUI FEMININ - MIRCEA CĂRTARESCU, DE CE IUBIM FEMEILE

Simona ANTOFI

Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos’ din Galaţi

simoantofi@yahoo.com

Abstract: Starting from the contemporary theories focused on the issue and textual strategies involving body’ literary representations, our study analyses – beyond the necessary conceptual-methodological survey – the feminine body’ images in Mircea Cartarescu’s two short-stories included in his volume, De ce iubim femeile. The perspective proposed is based on the relation between the aesthetic function displayed within the erotic nature of the writing and the Postmodern textual engineering mechanisms. Even if shortly activated within the narrative itself, the experiments involving different literary games are overtly manifested within the larger feminine body theme, dressing up the text with sensual descriptions, bare erotic traits, even voyeurism. The effect thus obtained lies in an unexpected body-type corporality of the writing which interferers with the inter / intratextual specificity of the Postmodern texts.

Key-words: feminine body, erotic literature, Postmodern writing, textual strategy.

ESTETICA „OMULUI VIU” ŞI CONFLICTUL REPREZENTĂRILOR

Sabina FÎNARU

Universitatea „Ştefan cel Mare” Suceava, România

sab59ina@yahoo.com

Résumé: L’ouvrage analyse la pièce de théâtre qui se trouve en manuscrit, Aventure spirituelle de Mircea Eliade, publiée pour la première fois en 2012. C’est le premier texte fictionnel écrit par  l’auteur roumain en exil,  qui intègre d’une part, la conception sur l’authenticité et sur la représentation des textes écrits dans  son pays d’origine, mais qui, d’autre part, modifie sa vision par une dimension tragique, réflexion indirecte de l’expérience historique personnelle. C’est pourquoi l’accès au sens des œuvres de la nouvelle étape de sa création sera crypté d’une manière appelée « le réel camouflé sous des apparences ». L’ouvrage traite de la genèse du texte qui se reflète à travers les notations dans son journal intime et qui se rapporte à l’authenticité relevant de l’esthétique extra-artistique et de sa représentation artistique ; les enjeux de cette œuvre, le thème de la vie créatrice de l’homme moderne dans le cadre de l’histoire, les voies assumées de l’existence authentique dans le monde ; les stratégies spécifiques pour rendre concrète l’esthétique de l’authenticité, ainsi que les hypostases de l’homme représenté comme produit, producteur et consommateur culturel ; la problématisation et la contestation des codes des représentations littéraires et culturelles traditionnelles.            Mots-clé: esthétique, représentation, code, contestation, Mircea Eliade

THE ROMANIAN SURREALISM AFTER THE WAR

Ovidiu MORAR

University of “Ştefan cel Mare” Suceava

ovidiumorar10@yahoo.com

Abstract: The study points out the most significant aspects of the Romanian surrealism between 1945-1947, starting with its poetics (formulated mainly in the manifestos Critica mizeriei and Dialectique de la dialectique, both published in 1945, but also in several essays written by the painter Dolfi Trost), and ending with its poetry, of which main representatives were Gellu Naum, Gherasim Luca, Virgil Teodorescu and Paul Paun. The mechanisms of the poetic discourse and the structures of the surrealist imagery are analyzed in order to grasp the specificity and uniqueness of the Romanian surrealism.

Key-words: Romanian surrealism, poetry, revolution, dream, libido, Naum, Luca, Teodorescu, Trost

FRACTAL PERSPECTIVE IN RE-SHAPING CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY. LITERARY EXTENSIONS

Nicoleta IFRIM

‘Dunarea de Jos’ University of Galaţi

nicodasca@yahoo.com

Abstract: Approaching the topic of a crisis in contemporary epistemology, which becomes gradually more acute in the elaboration of the ontological profile’s relational system with the world, the current study suggests the compensating alternative of the fractal episteme / hermeneutics as a different mode of relating with the dynamics of contemporary literary writings. The status of Oneness ‘thrown into the world,’ the strategies of knowing one’s self, as well as the Other, the impact on the plurimorphous space of cultural transaction, the fractal structures of writings are points of interest for the present analysis.

Keywords: paradigm change, fractal hermeneutics, contemporary epistemology, the dynamics of the cultural space