eric bulson | Claremont Graduate University (original) (raw)
Books by eric bulson
In the 1950s and 60s, the little magazine was being nurtured by postcolonial nations looking to p... more In the 1950s and 60s, the little magazine was being nurtured by postcolonial nations looking to produce a literature that was regional, national, and global. By importing the foreign form of the little magazine, a diasporic network was created linking newly independent African nations with cities in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and the West Indies. Black Orpheus (Nigeria), Transition (Uganda), Bim (Barbados), Kyk-Over-al (Guyana), and The Beacon (Trinidad), accommodated a black internationalism that challenged the hegemony of a globalized book business (anchored in London and New York) actively repackaging “African writers” for a Western audience.
This chapter looks at some of the most prominent “exile” magazines produced by British and Amer... more This chapter looks at some of the most prominent “exile” magazines produced by British and American editors who fled to countries across Europe to combat this increased Anglo-American provincialism. Broom (1921-24), Secession (1922-24), Gargoyle (1921-22), The Exile
(1927-28), Tambour (1929-30), This Quarter (1925), the transatlantic review (1924-25), and transition (1927-38) represent a collective attempt to establish an international system for production and distribution that worked in reverse. Instead of producing magazines in England or America, they published them in European cities and had them transported back across the
Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. This story about the “little exiled magazine,” as Malcolm Cowley called it, doesn’t end here. In the 1930s and 1940s, it became a lifeline for so many of the critics and writers, who fled the Fascists and Nazis, and came to include anti-fascist communist magazines such as Das Wort (a German language magazine printed in Russia) and Surrealist magazines such as VVV and Dyn (one printed in New York City, the
other in Mexico City). Taking the long view of the little magazine’s exilic history and geography allows us to foreground a political reality that is so often ignored or forgotten.
What is a Novel? Where did the Novel come from? How does it work? Where is it going? These are so... more What is a Novel? Where did the Novel come from? How does it work? Where is it going? These are some of the BIG questions addressed in "The Cambridge Companion to the NOVEL" (2018).
Papers by eric bulson
This essay provides a computational close reading of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis". It examines how ... more This essay provides a computational close reading of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis". It examines how measurements of its basic building blocks-the chapters, quotations, and pages-can inform our understanding of how Auerbach came to terms with the representation, and distribution, of three thousand years of literary history in a single literary-critical work.
James Joyce in Context, 2009
Is it possible to talk about literary history from a planetary perspective? Not the literary hist... more Is it possible to talk about literary history from a planetary perspective? Not the literary history of a single country or continent, but one that accounts for the production and reception of literature across five continents over the course of a 2,500 year period? Who, after all, would feel comfortable working with so many different literary genres in hundreds of different languages even if they were in translation? 1 Once you begin to imagine the literary field as a multimillenial global phenomenon, the effects can be dizzying. Many who know a great deal about the history of the novel in England, France or the United States, for instance, would be hard pressed to explain what happened in China, Chile, Nigeria, Brazil, Japan and India. In the past fifty years, literary critics have been trained to limit, not expand, the geographical horizons of their research. And though globalisation has made the world seem smaller, our critical perspectives do not have to follow suit. Instead, they should be even wider, more accommodating and open to the fact that literature is involved in a complex network of local and global processes. World literature is not a clearly defined field with a single methodology, canon and readymade vocabulary. In fact, we might say more accurately that it is a hotly contested possibility for literary study that involves critics with a variety of different interests. The debate about world literature has gained serious momentum in the past decade, but Joyce has not garnered much attention. And Joyce critics, in turn, have not been particularly interested in throwing him into the fray. In what follows, I will lay out what is really at stake in the world literature debate and explain how a globalising approach to Joyce might actually change how we read, study and teach him. A lot of energy has already been spent trying to figure out what the term 'world literature' means in the first place. Is it a selection of poems, novels, plays and epics from around the globe, a critical approach that examines the circulation and exchange of literature, a new way to read (and not to read) comparatively, a quantitative mode of analysis devoted to the global circulation of particular genres? 2 The novel has received the greatest amount of
New German Critique, 2010
How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when disc... more How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when discussing urban representation in the postwar novel. Not all postwar cities are, of course, in ruins, but in the second half of the twentieth century many novelists were forced to confront historical examples of aerial destruction that would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets falling on London, the Allied air raids against German cities and towns, and the atomic bombs targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among them: in every case, the destruction was the end result of military strategies engineered to maximize civilian casualties and flatten the built environment as much as possible. Modernism's flaneurs never had to navigate mounds of rubble or worry about falling bombs. The cities they inhabited, though disorienting at times, were navigable, and they corresponded with a topographical plan in which every landmark and street sign could be located. For the postwar flaneur, the blaze created by aerial bombing put an end to the blasé, that disinterested quality Georg Simmel assigned to the "metropolitan" individual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the postwar environment, the pubs, restaurants, and shops are closed; the streets
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 2009
Overview of Dylan's Landmark Album as it turns 60. First appeared in the "Cambridge Companion to ... more Overview of Dylan's Landmark Album as it turns 60. First appeared in the "Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan" (ed. Kevin Dettmar).
Times Literary Supplement, 2019
Michel Foucault took LSD in Death Valley. This is a review of the memoir of that event as describ... more Michel Foucault took LSD in Death Valley. This is a review of the memoir of that event as described by Simeon Wade, the curator of the trip.
Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
The history of the little magazine is intimately bound up with remediation practices in the secon... more The history of the little magazine is intimately bound up with remediation practices in the second half of the twentieth century. This article traces the move from microfilm to reprints and anastatic copies to digital documents and considers what it means to curate the digital archives now and in the future.
1922 wasn't just an annus mirabillis for modernism. There were also lots of rejections. This piec... more 1922 wasn't just an annus mirabillis for modernism. There were also lots of rejections. This piece takes the data from a single year of the little magazine, BROOM, to examine what rejection looks like.
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism turns 25!
Where is Mrs. Dalloway? Not where you think she is. This essay examines what the presence and abs... more Where is Mrs. Dalloway? Not where you think she is. This essay examines what the presence and absence of Mrs. Dalloway in London tells us about the disorienting experience of Empire.
Using word counts to try and explain why Ulysses is as long as it is. The Quantitative as a way t... more Using word counts to try and explain why Ulysses is as long as it is. The Quantitative as a way to the Qualitative.
Review of Italian Futurism Exhibit held at Guggenheim Museum
Review of Robert Spoo's "Without Copyrights," Rachel Potter's "Obscene Modernism," and Michael Sa... more Review of Robert Spoo's "Without Copyrights," Rachel Potter's "Obscene Modernism," and Michael Sayeau's "Against the Event"
How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when disc... more How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when discussing urban representation in the postwar novel. Not all postwar cities are, of course, in ruins, but in the second half of the twentieth century many novelists were forced to confront historical examples of aerial destruction that would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets falling on London, the Allied air raids against German cities and towns, and the atomic bombs targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among them: in every case, the destruction was the end result of military strategies engineered to maximize civilian casualties and flatten the built environment as much as possible. Modernism's flaneurs never had to navigate mounds of rubble or worry about falling bombs. The cities they inhabited, though disorienting at times, were navigable, and they corresponded with a topographical plan in which every landmark and street sign could be located. For the postwar flaneur, the blaze created by aerial bombing put an end to the blasé, that disinterested quality Georg Simmel assigned to the "metropolitan" individual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the postwar environment, the pubs, restaurants, and shops are closed; the streets
In the 1950s and 60s, the little magazine was being nurtured by postcolonial nations looking to p... more In the 1950s and 60s, the little magazine was being nurtured by postcolonial nations looking to produce a literature that was regional, national, and global. By importing the foreign form of the little magazine, a diasporic network was created linking newly independent African nations with cities in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and the West Indies. Black Orpheus (Nigeria), Transition (Uganda), Bim (Barbados), Kyk-Over-al (Guyana), and The Beacon (Trinidad), accommodated a black internationalism that challenged the hegemony of a globalized book business (anchored in London and New York) actively repackaging “African writers” for a Western audience.
This chapter looks at some of the most prominent “exile” magazines produced by British and Amer... more This chapter looks at some of the most prominent “exile” magazines produced by British and American editors who fled to countries across Europe to combat this increased Anglo-American provincialism. Broom (1921-24), Secession (1922-24), Gargoyle (1921-22), The Exile
(1927-28), Tambour (1929-30), This Quarter (1925), the transatlantic review (1924-25), and transition (1927-38) represent a collective attempt to establish an international system for production and distribution that worked in reverse. Instead of producing magazines in England or America, they published them in European cities and had them transported back across the
Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. This story about the “little exiled magazine,” as Malcolm Cowley called it, doesn’t end here. In the 1930s and 1940s, it became a lifeline for so many of the critics and writers, who fled the Fascists and Nazis, and came to include anti-fascist communist magazines such as Das Wort (a German language magazine printed in Russia) and Surrealist magazines such as VVV and Dyn (one printed in New York City, the
other in Mexico City). Taking the long view of the little magazine’s exilic history and geography allows us to foreground a political reality that is so often ignored or forgotten.
What is a Novel? Where did the Novel come from? How does it work? Where is it going? These are so... more What is a Novel? Where did the Novel come from? How does it work? Where is it going? These are some of the BIG questions addressed in "The Cambridge Companion to the NOVEL" (2018).
This essay provides a computational close reading of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis". It examines how ... more This essay provides a computational close reading of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis". It examines how measurements of its basic building blocks-the chapters, quotations, and pages-can inform our understanding of how Auerbach came to terms with the representation, and distribution, of three thousand years of literary history in a single literary-critical work.
James Joyce in Context, 2009
Is it possible to talk about literary history from a planetary perspective? Not the literary hist... more Is it possible to talk about literary history from a planetary perspective? Not the literary history of a single country or continent, but one that accounts for the production and reception of literature across five continents over the course of a 2,500 year period? Who, after all, would feel comfortable working with so many different literary genres in hundreds of different languages even if they were in translation? 1 Once you begin to imagine the literary field as a multimillenial global phenomenon, the effects can be dizzying. Many who know a great deal about the history of the novel in England, France or the United States, for instance, would be hard pressed to explain what happened in China, Chile, Nigeria, Brazil, Japan and India. In the past fifty years, literary critics have been trained to limit, not expand, the geographical horizons of their research. And though globalisation has made the world seem smaller, our critical perspectives do not have to follow suit. Instead, they should be even wider, more accommodating and open to the fact that literature is involved in a complex network of local and global processes. World literature is not a clearly defined field with a single methodology, canon and readymade vocabulary. In fact, we might say more accurately that it is a hotly contested possibility for literary study that involves critics with a variety of different interests. The debate about world literature has gained serious momentum in the past decade, but Joyce has not garnered much attention. And Joyce critics, in turn, have not been particularly interested in throwing him into the fray. In what follows, I will lay out what is really at stake in the world literature debate and explain how a globalising approach to Joyce might actually change how we read, study and teach him. A lot of energy has already been spent trying to figure out what the term 'world literature' means in the first place. Is it a selection of poems, novels, plays and epics from around the globe, a critical approach that examines the circulation and exchange of literature, a new way to read (and not to read) comparatively, a quantitative mode of analysis devoted to the global circulation of particular genres? 2 The novel has received the greatest amount of
New German Critique, 2010
How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when disc... more How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when discussing urban representation in the postwar novel. Not all postwar cities are, of course, in ruins, but in the second half of the twentieth century many novelists were forced to confront historical examples of aerial destruction that would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets falling on London, the Allied air raids against German cities and towns, and the atomic bombs targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among them: in every case, the destruction was the end result of military strategies engineered to maximize civilian casualties and flatten the built environment as much as possible. Modernism's flaneurs never had to navigate mounds of rubble or worry about falling bombs. The cities they inhabited, though disorienting at times, were navigable, and they corresponded with a topographical plan in which every landmark and street sign could be located. For the postwar flaneur, the blaze created by aerial bombing put an end to the blasé, that disinterested quality Georg Simmel assigned to the "metropolitan" individual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the postwar environment, the pubs, restaurants, and shops are closed; the streets
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 2009
Overview of Dylan's Landmark Album as it turns 60. First appeared in the "Cambridge Companion to ... more Overview of Dylan's Landmark Album as it turns 60. First appeared in the "Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan" (ed. Kevin Dettmar).
Times Literary Supplement, 2019
Michel Foucault took LSD in Death Valley. This is a review of the memoir of that event as describ... more Michel Foucault took LSD in Death Valley. This is a review of the memoir of that event as described by Simeon Wade, the curator of the trip.
Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
The history of the little magazine is intimately bound up with remediation practices in the secon... more The history of the little magazine is intimately bound up with remediation practices in the second half of the twentieth century. This article traces the move from microfilm to reprints and anastatic copies to digital documents and considers what it means to curate the digital archives now and in the future.
1922 wasn't just an annus mirabillis for modernism. There were also lots of rejections. This piec... more 1922 wasn't just an annus mirabillis for modernism. There were also lots of rejections. This piece takes the data from a single year of the little magazine, BROOM, to examine what rejection looks like.
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism turns 25!
Where is Mrs. Dalloway? Not where you think she is. This essay examines what the presence and abs... more Where is Mrs. Dalloway? Not where you think she is. This essay examines what the presence and absence of Mrs. Dalloway in London tells us about the disorienting experience of Empire.
Using word counts to try and explain why Ulysses is as long as it is. The Quantitative as a way t... more Using word counts to try and explain why Ulysses is as long as it is. The Quantitative as a way to the Qualitative.
Review of Italian Futurism Exhibit held at Guggenheim Museum
Review of Robert Spoo's "Without Copyrights," Rachel Potter's "Obscene Modernism," and Michael Sa... more Review of Robert Spoo's "Without Copyrights," Rachel Potter's "Obscene Modernism," and Michael Sayeau's "Against the Event"
How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when disc... more How do you represent a bombed-out city in the novel? That's the question we need to ask when discussing urban representation in the postwar novel. Not all postwar cities are, of course, in ruins, but in the second half of the twentieth century many novelists were forced to confront historical examples of aerial destruction that would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets falling on London, the Allied air raids against German cities and towns, and the atomic bombs targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among them: in every case, the destruction was the end result of military strategies engineered to maximize civilian casualties and flatten the built environment as much as possible. Modernism's flaneurs never had to navigate mounds of rubble or worry about falling bombs. The cities they inhabited, though disorienting at times, were navigable, and they corresponded with a topographical plan in which every landmark and street sign could be located. For the postwar flaneur, the blaze created by aerial bombing put an end to the blasé, that disinterested quality Georg Simmel assigned to the "metropolitan" individual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the postwar environment, the pubs, restaurants, and shops are closed; the streets
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Wiping the Windshield of your MIND, 2018
TLS review essay on Chris Ware's "Monograph," Hillary Chute's "Why Comics?," and Igort's "Japanes... more TLS review essay on Chris Ware's "Monograph," Hillary Chute's "Why Comics?," and Igort's "Japanese Notebooks."
