Metacritic Journal


for Comparative Studies and Theory

The Objects of Memory, the Memory of Objects 7.1 (July 2021)
ISSN 2457 – 8827
Petronia Popa Petrar, Carmen Borbely Petronia Popa Petrar, Carmen Borbely

Remembering Things Present: The Matter of Memory


Recommended Citation: Popa Petrar, Petronia, Borbely, Carmen. “Remembering Things Present: The Matter of Memory.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.01

Abstract: The argument behind our introductory essay, as well as behind our special issue of the Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, is that the human can emerge as part of the texture of the world only by being reminded of and by objects, that is,...   ⇨ Read more
Christian Moraru Christian Moraru

Objecthood, Flat Form, Political Formalism: OOO and Ben Lerner’s Hatred of Poetry


Recommended Citation: Moraru, Christian. “Objecthood, Flat Form, Political Formalism: OOO and Ben Lerner’s Hatred of Poetry.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.02

Abstract: This is a largely theoretical essay that, in conversation with Graham Harman’s energetic view of objects and Ben Lerner’s idiosyncratic theory of poetry, articulates the basic tenets of a “flat aesthetics” and then moves on to tease out this...   ⇨ Read more
Maryam Muliaee Maryam Muliaee

Media-as-things: The Intensified Materiality of Degenerated Images


Recommended Citation: Muliaee, Maryam. “Media-as-things: The Intensified Materiality of Degenerated Images.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.03

Abstract: This paper adopts an art-based research model to investigate how media objects, as entangled material agencies, can become co-creators with artists and condition the viewers' memory and imagination. My work Recycled Series among other artists’ work are the...   ⇨ Read more
Alexandru Matei Alexandru Matei

Michel Serres’s Integumentum, or Why Ecology Lies (Also) Beyond Arguments


Recommended Citation: Matei, Alexandru. “Michel Serres’s Integumentum, or Why Ecology Lies (Also) Beyond Arguments.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.04

Abstract: During the Middle Ages, integumentum was a term widely used by “intellectuals” (Le Goff) in order to unfold the function of allegory: there is no story whose signification does not echo the sacred texts, and every sacred truth needs a story to bring it to...   ⇨ Read more
Daniel Clinci Daniel Clinci

Plastic Memories of the Anthropocene


Recommended Citation: Clinci, Daniel. “Plastic Memories of the Anthropocene.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.05

Abstract: Plastic has become a ubiquitous material on planet Earth. I use Bennett’s term, thing-power, to analyse various aspects of plastic’s onto-materiality. Generally considered a single-use material, plastic is easily discarded, leaving the individualized, private space of capitalism, and becoming...   ⇨ Read more
Eleonora Sava Eleonora Sava

Family Cookbooks – Objects of Family Memory


Recommended Citation: Sava, Eleonora. “Family Cookbooks – Objects of Family Memory.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.06

Abstract: The article proposes an analysis of family cookbooks from the perspective of memory studies. Its main goal is to show that these are objects that shape family memory, helping to preserve and transmit it from one generation to the next. The first section outlines the theoretical...   ⇨ Read more
Andrea Roxana Bellot Andrea Roxana Bellot

Keeping the Memories of the Malvinas/Falklands War Alive: Exploring Memorial Sites in the UK, Argentina and the Falkland Islands


Recommended Citation: Bellot, Andrea Roxana. “Keeping the Memories of the Malvinas/Falklands War Alive: Exploring Memorial Sites in the UK, Argentina and the Falkland Islands.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.07

Abstract: The remembrance of war and commemoration practices shape the collective memories of society and, as such, war has been one of the most productive topics in memory studies. Commemorating past wars...   ⇨ Read more
Alina Preda Alina Preda

Technological Practices of Embodiment Reflected in Jeanette Winterson’s Fictional Framing of Posthuman Subjects


Recommended Citation: Preda, Alina. “Technological Practices of Embodiment Reflected in Jeanette Winterson’s Fictional Framing of Posthuman Subjects.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.08

Abstract: Focusing on The PowerBook and The Stone Gods, this article explores the ways in which Jeanette Winterson articulates the interconnections between consciousness and memory, delineates their role in identity formation and...   ⇨ Read more
Dragoș Ivana Dragoș Ivana

Merging the Human and the Nonhuman: The Object Narrator in The Adventures of a Black Coat


Recommended Citation: Ivana, Dragoș. “Merging the Human and the Nonhuman: The Object Narrator in The Adventures of a Black Coat.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.09

Abstract: Rooted in the tradition of eighteenth-century circulation novels recounted by an object narrator, The Adventures of a Black Coat (1760) epitomizes the features of this experimental novelistic subgenre by foregrounding a coat which, acting as...   ⇨ Read more
Ágnes Zsófia  Kovács Ágnes Zsófia Kovács

Body Marks of the Past in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Home


Recommended Citation: Kovács, Ágnes Zsófia. “Body Marks of the Past in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Home.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.10

Abstract: Toni Morrison’s project of reimagining individual memories of the African American past has been immortalized by the image of the chokecherry tree of scar tissue on Sethe’s back in Beloved. Invisible and dumb for Sethe, the scars have to be faced...   ⇨ Read more
Dana Percec Dana Percec

Subject or Object? The Anti-Hero of the Allegory and the Hero of the Anti-Allegory


Recommended Citation: Percec, Dana. “Subject or Object? The Anti-Hero of the Allegory and the Hero of the Anti-Allegory.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.11

Abstract: Referring to the British writers’ prompt reaction to the Brexit crisis, in developing what has already come to be known as BrexLit, Robert Eaglestone remarks the “cultural and emotional landscapes” created by such literary responses, which attempt to...   ⇨ Read more
Ana Țăranu Ana Țăranu

Signifying the Self: Cultural Trauma and Mechanisms of Memorialization in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God


Recommended Citation: Țăranu, Ana. “Signifying the Self: Cultural Trauma and Mechanisms of Memorialization in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.12

Abstract: Starting from Hirsch and Smith’s concept of a feminist counterhistory and referencing the theoretical framework of cultural trauma, this paper undertakes a (re)reading of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were...   ⇨ Read more
Ada Beleuță Ada Beleuță

Empathet(h)ics: Intersubjectivity, Interobjectivity, and (Non)Human Storytellers in Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin


Recommended Citation: Beleuță, Ada. “Empathet(h)ics: Intersubjectivity, Interobjectivity, and (Non)Human Storytellers in Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.13

Abstract: Tracing some of the inflection points in our conceptualization of empathy, social cognition, intersubjective understanding, and social theories over time, this essay attempts to contextualize and give a...   ⇨ Read more
Andrei Bogdan Popa Andrei Bogdan Popa

'The World of the Dying:’ John McGahern’s Memoir and the Thingness in Anticipatory Grief


Recommended Citation: Popa, Andrei Bogdan. “‘The World of the Dying:’ John McGahern’s Memoir and the Thingness in Anticipatory Grief.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.14

Abstract: My essay will aim to prove that John McGahern’s Memoir foregrounds the material dimension of anticipatory grief and its aftermath as a space in which different affective responses to the “Thing” can be explored. Firstly, I look at how...   ⇨ Read more
Lavinia Tache Lavinia Tache

Objects Reconfiguring the Present and the Presence. Routes of Displacement for Humans: Yoko Ogawa, Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk


Recommended Citation: Tache, Lavinia. “Objects Reconfiguring the Present and the Presence. Routes of Displacement for Humans: Yoko Ogawa, Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.15

Abstract: The materiality of the human body is to be understood in a complementary relation with the objects that produce an extension of life and the privation of it. The Memory Police (Yoko Ogawa) and Human Acts...   ⇨ Read more
Florina Ilis Florina Ilis

The Emergence of Violence and the Terror of Being Born in Murakami’s Coin Locker Babies


Recommended Citation: Ilis, Florina. “The Emergence of Violence and the Terror of Being Born in Murakami’s Coin Locker Babies.” Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 7.1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2021.11.16

Abstract: Modern poetics imposed the image of Nietzsche’s split Subject, with the disaggregated self-emerging as dilemmatic subjectivity and its aesthetic culmination in the “dehumanisation of art.” Nietzsche’s philosophy provided postmodern poetics...   ⇨ Read more