Building on the multivalent meanings of the Arabo- Persian tarjama (‘to interpret’, ‘to translate’, ‘to narrate’), this essay argues for the relevance of Qur’ānic inimitability (i’jāz) to contemporary translation theory. I examine how the translation of Arabic rhetorical theory (‘ilm al-balāgha) into Persian inaugurated new trends within the study…[Read more]

One of Rod Serling’s favourite topics of exploration in The Twilight Zone (1959–64) is nostalgia, which pervaded many of the episodes of the series. Although Serling himself often looked back upon the past wishing to regain it, he did, however, understand that we often see things looking back that were not there and that the past is often ide…[Read more]

Introduction to my book, “Projecting Race: Postwar America, Civil Rights, and Documentary Film.” Projecting Race presents a history of educational documentary filmmaking in the postwar era in light of race relations and the fight for Civil Rights. Drawing on extensive archival research and textual analyses, this book tracks the evolution of…[Read more]

Featuring work by: Will Alexander, Alexis Almeida, Maria Attanasio, Gennady Aygi, Omar Berrada, Carla Billitteri, Tanella Boni, Amal Dunqul, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Norman Fischer, Peter France, Todd Fredson, María José Giménez, Yāqūt Al-Ḥamawī, Ouyang Jianghe, Hajiwara Kyojiro, John High, Roberta Iannamico, Lucas Klein, David Larsen, Brian Lucas,…[Read more]

Aboriginal Song Poems (compiled by Robert Wood) André Breton (translated by Mark Polizzotti) René Char (translated by Stuart Kendall) Sergio Chejfec (translated by Margaret Carson) James Clifford Joseph Donahue Gyrðir Elíasson (translated by Meg Matich) Clayton Eshleman (interviewed by Irakli Qolbaia) Nazim Hikmet (translated by Murat Nem…[Read more]

Featuring work by: Eugénio de Andrade, Anonymous, A. James Arnold, Rito Ramón Aroche, Dawn-Michelle Baude, Susan Bernofsky, Aloysius Bertrand, Paul Blackburn, Daniel Borzutzky, André Breton, Garrett Caples, Valerie Mejer Caso, RosalÍa de Castro, Paul Celan, Aimé Césaire, René Char, Beatritz de Dia, Kristin Dykstra, Paul Éluard, Clayton Eshlema…[Read more]

Work by: Etel Adnan – Demosthenes Agrafiotis – Will Alexander – Rachel Tzvia Back – Dan Bellm – Aleksandr Blok – Pura López Colomé – Colin Dayan – René Depestre – Rachel Blau DuPlessis – Marcella Durand – Sarah Tuss Efrik – Elke Erb – Peter France – Johannes Göransson – David Hadbawnik – Larry Kearney – Alexis Levitin – Brian Lucas – Michèle Méta…[Read more]

This essay examines how translation theory can globalize contemporary literary comparison. Whereas Persian studies has historically been isolated from the latest developments within literary theory, world literature has similarly been isolated from the latest developments within the study of non-European literatures. The methodology of hard…[Read more]

The conference will explore the image of the supernatural city as expressed in narrative media from a variety of epochs and cultures. It will provide an interdisciplinary forum for the development of innovative and creative research and examine the cultural significance of these themes in all their various manifestations. As with previous OGOM…[Read more]

Text of a talk I gave on March 1 at the Translation Symposium held in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the 3rd International JLPP International Translation Competition at Gakushi Kaikan, Tokyo.

In this short essay on “La Loi du marché” (“The Measure of a Man”, 2015), I argue that the film builds an accurate representation of the economic and social relations in capitalism, aggravated by the neoliberal offensive.

Entry on Senagelese filmmaker and writer Ousmane Sembène.

Music videos, like many other art works, are the result of a creative process of image creation that sometimes does not start from scratch. At times this process relies on visual material previously produced that is reused and recombined. The use and combination of pre-existing film footage is an example of this, an appropriation with the purpose…[Read more]

Taking “Heroes” (2006-10), the popular drama series about a group of ordinary human beings with superhuman abilities, as a case study allows us to expand on these ideas. This chapter aims at contributing to a stylistic analysis of the series without attempting to examine every major stylistic feature of the series in detail. Instead, the scope of…[Read more]

The fourth issue of “Cinema” addresses the topic of philosophy of religion and its connections with cinematic art. Film and religion have been fruitful research topics taken in conjunction. Researchers in this specific field have focused on particular periods (like the censorship era in the USA), on representations of religious traditions and pra…[Read more]

This paper is a reading of André Bazin’s article “Cinema and Theology”, an appraisal of “Cielo sulla palude” (“Heaven Over the Marshes”, 1949) that also reflects on the relation between film and theology. The reading takes into account Bazin’s ontology of cinema, which has been at times simplistically described as a belief in the simple transpare…[Read more]

The idea of a sci-fi ghetto that “Battlestar Galactica” tried to escape from suggests a fruitful way of analysing the show. Genres, especially those that are popular simultaneously in television and film, are defined and definable through a repertoire of elements: characters, plot, setting, iconography, and style. Since the focus of this cha…[Read more]

If Guy Maddin were a scientist, he would be a mad scientist. Perhaps, then, he is a mad artist, effusively mixing images that appear to come from the silent era and sounds that seem to come from the first talkies. The metaphor is apt—and not just because of the weird, frenzied scientist father in “Brand upon the Brain!” (2006). It is apt becau…[Read more]