Sharon Lubkemann Allen
PhD 2003, Princeton University, Comparative Literature
Project | The Slanted Line: Dreams, Dissent, and Displacement: Luso-Brazilian/Russian
Dialogues in Contemporary Fiction, Literary and Cultural Theory
Dr. Allen explores the relation
of dreams, dissent, and displacement in literature and culture on
the geographical and historical margins of Europe and of empire.
Reflexive fictions by Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Machado de Assis are
the points of departure for this study, in which cultural consciousness
is explored through the internalized, “underground” dialogues of
digressive clerks dreaming in corners of the city and in the margins
of the text.
Dr. Allen begins with twentieth-century
narratives: those for which Dostoyevsky and Machado de Assis’s proto-modernist
underground texts become subtexts, and in which nightmarish political
and psychological realities displace dissent into the domain of
dreams—in Pessoa’s Lisbon, Bulgakov and Petrushevskaia’s Moscow,
Lispector’s Rio, and Lin’s Recife. She continues with an examination
of dreamscapes in contemporary fiction (Pelevin, Saramago, Fonseca,
and Abreu), film, and cultural theory (particularly models of displaced
memory developed by Lotman, Schwarz, Lachmann, Todorov, and Epstein).
The result will be a better understanding
of the function of dreams and the creative capacities of an eccentric
line of literature that originated under totalitarian rule but now
is no longer linked to dissent or forced to dissemble exigent to
Soviet or Brazilian military rule. Dr. Allen also hopes to integrate
dialogues between contemporary Brazilian, Portuguese, and Russian
writers, filmmakers, and scholars
Eleni Kefala
PhD 2004, University of Cambridge, Comparative Literature
Project | Inside/Outside
the City of Dreams: Dreaming (of the ) World(s)
For Homer, in The Odyssey, dreams work in
parallel with and as additions to reality. The topos of dreams forms
the space of encounter of three different worlds: the world of humans,
the world of the Gods, and the world of the dead. Dreams form the
locus where premonitions, advice, or even threats can reach humans
from the other worlds. Conceived by Homer as an adjunct to reality,
the City of Dreams allows the possibility of entering and
leaving. In J. L. Borges’ writings (the city of) dream is reality
inasmuch as reality is the outcome of a dreaming God—the poet himself—who
constructs and deconstructs the world interminably with his words—the
Wor(l)d. Specifically, Borges’ work constitutes a constant speculation
on the philosophical problem of knowledge with respect to the world.
For Borges, the world we perceive as real is essentially a construction
(a dream) of the human mind as it attempts to impose meaning on
a chaotic and meaningless world.
Dr. Kefala uses a comparative approach to the
literary and philosophical topoi of sleep and dreams in the work
of Homer and Borges. Borges, who blends Eastern and Western philosophy,
ideology, and religion in his fiction, invites in-depth analysis
to explain overlapping notions from philosophers from the Western
tradition as various as Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley, and Schopenhauer.
Buddhism’s influence on Borges is also examined.
Maria Ruvoldt
PhD 1999, Columbia University, Art History
Project | Sleep,
Dreams, and Spectacle at the Court of Francesco de’Medici
Since antiquity, dreams have been the focus of speculation
both poetic and scientific. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
in Italy, the universal and democratic experience of dreaming became
an indicator of character as poets and philosophers alike defined
true dreams—those sent by God—as signs of divine favor, the purview
of gifted individuals. Sleeping figures were adopted as personal
emblems on portrait medals, artists and writers reported their dreams
to one another, and themes of sleep and dreams became increasingly
popular in the visual and literary arts.
Dr. Ruvoldt investigates how the concept of the dream
gradually migrated from the private to the public sphere. As part
of a larger examination of theme of sleep and dreams in sixteenth-century
political propaganda and court spectacle, she will focus on the
personal iconography of Francesco de’Medici (1541-1587), Grand Duke
of Tuscany. Dr. Ruvoldt explores the imagery of sleep and dreams
in the private spaces of the prince’s bedroom and studiolo and in
the public masques staged in honor of his weddings in 1566 and 1579.
The masques in particular, the Triumph of Dreams (1566) and the
Cavalcade of Night (1579), demonstrate the role that themes of sleep
and dreams played in fashioning Francesco’s public identity. His
ability to place before the eyes of his public a dream fully realized
places Francesco in the role of God, controlling and directing the
visionary experience of his subjects.
Building on Dr. Ruvoldt’s work on sleep and
dreams in Renaissance art and on the work of historians of theatre
and Medicean dynastic imagery, this project will be the first study
of the cult of dreams at Francesco’s court.
Brigitte Steger
PhD 2001, University of Vienna, Japanese Studies
Project | Japanese
Sleeping Culture: An Intercultural Perspective
In her dissertation, (No) Time to Sleep, A study on
sleep in Japan from the perspective of the cultural and social sciences,
Dr. Steger developed a number of hypotheses on the cultural and
socio-anthropological meanings of sleep. Beginning with providing
an English summary of her research on the symbolism of sleep and
its cultural and social context in Japan, she compares her findings
to current work on sleeping behavior in Europe and North America:
in particular, the work of sociologist Steve Kroll-Smith (University
of South Carolina) and historian Li Yi (Tacoma College).
Kroll-Smith explores the recent decline of the siesta
in the southern hemisphere and the emergence of the workplace nap
in the northern, changes he attributes to differing definitions
of labor. In the North, cognitive labor increasingly defines work;
physical, Fordist-type labor defines it in the South. Kroll’s argument
appears to be confirmed by Li’s work on the changes in siesta behavior
in China. Dr. Steger relates these findings to the typology of sleeping
cultures developed in her dissertation: monophasic sleep cultures,
siesta culture, and napping culture.
For Dr. Steger (as Kroll-Smith commented about her
work on dozing in parliament), the ‘liminal’ quality of inemuri
(to be present and sleep; Japanese) is a far finer, more discrete
view of soporific behavior than found in the US. Indeed, ‘daydreaming’
or ‘away behavior’ is subject to reprimand in schools, factory floors,
service work, and so on. The idea of when, in fact, ‘active participation
in a situation’ is warranted appears to be cultural and begs a cross-cultural
inquiry.
Warren Woodfin
PhD 2002, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Art History
Project | Constructing
the Heavenly Jerusalem: Dreams, Visions, and the Transformation
of Heaven in Byzantine Art
Dr. Woodfin’s recent work on liturgical textiles
in the late Byzantine period has brought into sharper focus an entire
range of images in a variety of media that make symbolic realities
visible to the eye. Certain frescoes of this period, for instance,
present Christ attired in liturgical vestments as a Eucharistic
celebrant, accompanied by angels attired as deacons. Some of these
images were inspired by visions that addressed contemporary theological
controversies, such as depictions of the vision of St. Peter of
Alexandria, in which Christ appeared on the altar as a small child.
Others are less easily explained by direct correlation to contemporary
events.
Dr. Woodfin examines the role of dreams and visions
in the gradual introduction and multiplication of images of liturgical
realism in Byzantine art. Moving from his earlier research on the
textual tradition of Byzantine commentaries on the Eucharistic liturgy,
he looks closely at other textual sources, hagiography in particular,
for narratives that corroborate or contradict the artistic emphasis
on making the hidden symbolism of the rite visible. Insights gained
from the study of liturgical dress are applied to the question of
the relation between these visions of the unseen world and the lived
experience of Byzantine women and men. |
