Copyright (c) 2011 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer Recent documents in Brett B. Bodemer en-us Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:36:40 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/24 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/24 Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:06:12 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Articles http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/23 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/23 Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:01:40 PDT In the seventh chapter of Pantagruel, written in 1532, François Rabelais seized on the relationship between titles and books to pose a serious linguistic challenge to the stability of the book and its tenuous role in supporting an architectonic system of knowledge. The chapter consists primarily of a disordered catalog of invented titles, and the author assures us elsewhere that if we wish to grasp his deeper meaning we should examine these titles closely. A first look shows us that he is mocking particular authors and titling conventions, while further exploration reveals the catalog as a whole to serve as a macro-critique of scholastic attempts to order and regiment knowledge. But his critique also operates on the micro-level of the title as a function of naming. A close examination of the titles suggests a disturbing continuum between instable names and stable things, and impugns the integrity of the system’s basic unit: the book. Attempts to make sense of Rabelais’ book-less titles impose the recognition that these titles only “parse” if we make conjectures about the alleged books. Books and titles are co-texts. Reflecting his partiality for linguistic views found in Plato’s Cratylus, Rabelais deploys his titles as models of the regressively self-referential nature of language. In the context of this chapter, focused on an ancient Parisian library, the inference is clear: books are not solid, static monuments, but porous and contingent entities subject to the vagaries of language.

]]> Brett Bodemer Articles http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/22 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/22 Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:01:36 PDT 2011 American translation of Jean Baptiste Poquelin’s comedy Le Médecin malgré lui. Some liberties taken to convey analogous colloquialisms, and to transform exclamatory oaths into something less alien to American speech patterns of the early twenty‐first century.

]]> Brett B. Bodemer Translations http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/21 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/21 Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:01:32 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Articles http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/20 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/20 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:24:32 PDT These brief vignettes combining cross-cultural reflection and memoir were written shortly after returning from a year in Vietnam. They are assembled under a title which may strike the reader as an odd reversal of the more expected title - There and Back - but anyone who reads on will rapidly discover that although I was Back I was clearly still There. An excerpted version appeared in Moebius in 2010, but the text presented here is complete and unabridged.

]]> Brett B. Bodemer Travel Memoirs http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/18 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/18 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:09:47 PDT Brett Bodemer Travel Memoirs http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/17 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/17 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:15:16 PST 2010 American translation of Jean Baptiste Poquelin’s Dom Juan ou Le Festin de Pierre. Some liberties taken to convey the sense of metaphors , and to transform exclamatory oaths into something less alien to American speech patterns of the early twenty-first century.

]]> Brett B. Bodemer Translations http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/14 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/14 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:33 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/15 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/15 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:33 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/13 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/13 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:33 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/16 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/16 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:31 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/12 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/12 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:11 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/10 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/10 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:53:15 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Articles http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/11 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/11 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:52:46 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/9 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/9 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:58 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/6 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/6 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:57 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/8 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/8 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:57 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/7 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/7 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:57 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Fiction http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/3 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/3 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:56 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/4 http://works.bepress.com/bbodemer/4 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:07:56 PDT Brett B. Bodemer Poems