Bookshelf Offerings

Schwanecke, Christine. A Narratology of Drama. De Gruyter, 2022.

In her monograph A Narratology of Drama, Christine Schwanecke
explores the interactions between narrative elements and drama. She contends that even in dramatic texts and theater plays that theorists
have not yet studied from a narratological perspective, narrative is an
integral component. Building on research by Ansgar Nünning, Vera
Nünning, Ryan Claycomb, Nina Tecklenburg, and Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Schwanecke shows how drama is, at its core, narrative. Her book sets out to revolutionize the study of drama by challenging Gérard Genette’s theories.

The monograph is divided into two sections, with the first theoretically exploring the use of narrative techniques in drama and providing insights into how drama successfully conveys narrative elements. The author
addresses the long-standing debate surrounding the relationship
between drama and narrative and resolves much of the “terminological and conceptual fuzziness” (13) present in the field of narratology in
drama. In the second section, the book traces the historical development of drama and narrative from the Renaissance to the present. Discussing a broad range of classics in the history of British drama, Schwanecke emphasizes the consistent presence of narrative in drama throughout myriad historical and cultural variations. Moreover, the author cogently argues that it is necessary to consider social, cultural, and political
contexts in drama theory and narratology due to their inherent
connectedness. Although dominant narrative modes may change over time, Schwanecke maintains, drama is always inherently narrative. This noteworthy study is most definitely worth reading and incorporating into the classroom for scholars and students to apply this innovative
theoretical framework.

(Contribution by Nina De Bettin Padolin)

Zukowski, Scott. “Archives, (Inter)Mediality, and the Graphic Novel: Ghost River as an Indigenous Revision of Records.” The New
Americanist, vol. 2, no. 1, 2023, pp. 75-107, https://doi.org/10.3366/tna.2023.0006.

This article studies the cultural and historical critiques that the 2019
graphic novel Ghost River issues toward the dominant narrative and
documentation of two colonial massacres of Conestoga Native
Americans in 1763 Pennsylvania. The analysis pays close attention to the form and function of the graphic novel—a valuable and unique
vehicle for cultural expression and historical revision. A particular focus is Ghost River’s engagement with concepts of the archive: archival
bias, archival access, archival inclusion and exclusion, and the lifecycles of archival documents. In these ways, the article illuminates the ability of the graphic novel to connect the distant past with ongoing cultural
issues by reassessing, revising, and revitalizing culturally important
archival documents that have long been at rest. Ultimately, this essay
illustrates that, through its form, content, and intermediality—all of which individually and collectively manifest concepts of survivance, rhetorical sovereignty, and medial and archival authority— Ghost River revises the historical narrative and extant archival record of North American history and culture.

(Abstract by Scott Zukowski)

Intermediality Around Town

steirischer herbst ‘23 – “Humans and Demons” (Sep 21–Oct 15)

Humans and Demons, which is this year’s theme of the festival called Steirischer Herbst [Styrian Autumn], explores the thin line between
human weakness and wickedness and investigates this grey area through character-based storytelling. The individual performances and exhibitions are artistic ventures that intertwine personal and individual histories with the larger historical narrative of the city itself. The selection of exhibition spaces draws attention to ways in which non-human agents impact how cities assemble and tell their own tales. In addition, this year’s edition of the ORF musikprotokoll series will feature the
staging of a range of orchestral performances which attempt to sonically evoke the cross-border research of international artists and composers. 

Grazer Kunstverein – “Until Due Time, Everything is else”
(Sep 23–Nov 19)

In Until Due Time, Everything Is Else, Pan Daijing crafts an evocative
exploration of temporality, memory, and presence. Through the interplay of video, traces of performance, site-specific interventions, and sound, the exhibition delves into the impermanent and fleeting dimensions that shape her understanding of performance.

Until Due Time, Everything Is Else introduces a counterpoint to the
artist’s previous work that mostly comprised live performances. In the present exhibition, all elements of liveness are stripped away. Instead of witnessing the dynamism of bodies in space or the throbbing pulse of live sound, visitors encounter only the echoes of such occurrences.
Suggestions of presence are enveloped, hinted at, or harnessed by the exhibited works, and they are imbued with the vitality of what once was or what is to come.

Until Due Time, Everything Is Else gathers works of an ambiguous
nature, which stand as materials crafted in moments of anticipation, as remnants from those very animate experiences, or as bearers of the
procedural and intuitive displacements that happen when moving from one medium to another. Reaching beyond the registers of performance documentation, these works are containers imprinted by transformative moments, and so embody or forecast change. As such, the exhibition
directly confronts the paradox of the trace, which suggests that in
attempting to capture or preserve an instance, one inadvertently alters or distorts its origins. Daijing’s pieces emphasize that traces, whether in memory or art or life, are both revealing and concealing, capturing both past and future whilst simultaneously eluding complete comprehension.

From the Director’s Desk

Dear Readers,
Thank you for your interest in the second issue of The Intermediality Messenger.
Shortly after the first issue was sent to subscribers, the Association for Word and Music Studies, which was founded in 1997 in Graz and is—in a way—something of a precursor of CIMIG, held its 13^th international conference in Munich from June 28 through July 1. The topic of
“Repetition/Variation in Literature and Music” drew an international
roster of speakers. Professor Werner Wolf, co-founder of CIMIG and very recently retired professor emeritus of English Studies here at the
University of Graz, presented a paper on “Repetition in Literature and Music: Similarities and Differences in Large-Scale, Form-Motivated
Repetition.” Those of you who are interested in musico-literary
intermediality can now look forward to the conference volume.

Apropos publications: The prestigious book series Studies in
Intermediality, which is published by Brill and which was founded by Werner Wolf and Walter Bernhart in 2006, has been entrusted to Irina Rajewsky and me as the new general editors. As expressed in the
revised description of the series and its goals, Studies in Intermediality “highlights the fact that the field of Intermediality Studies has become
increasingly variegated and that it advances overlapping, yet distinct theories of intermediality, transmediality, multimodality, and adaptation. These theories acknowledge an extensive range of relationships
established among various media and investigate how more general conceptualizations of mediality emerge from ever-diversifying
mediascapes, which incorporate media that have persisted for centuries as well as new formats (digital or otherwise) that continue to evolve.” For more details, please see https://brill.com/display/serial/SIIM?language=en. Prof. Rajewsky and I look forward to working with the members of the interdisciplinary
advisory board to foster the international visibility of intermediality
research.

Cooperation with the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) at VUB Brussels has continued throughout this calendar year, and plans for the years to come are in the making. As Lorand Chair in
Intermediality Studies 2022/23, I had the honor to give a lecture on
“Intermedial Meaning-Making in Climate Change Theater” at Kaaitheater in Brussels. I would like to thank colleagues and students at CLIC for their kind hospitality and for many hours of fruitful discussions. More
information on shared activities will be provided in future newsletters.

For now, I would like to wish all readers the very best for the fall/winter term. Should you have suggestions or comments, please send them to cimig@uni-graz.at. I look forward to keeping you updated on intermediality-related matters.

(Photo: Nassim Balestrini and CLIC chair Janine Hauthal at Kaaitheater, Brussels (photo: Tara Brusselaers))