Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften Silence and the Silenced: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 119 (Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature)

Silence and the Silenced: Interdisciplinary Perspectives comprises a collection of essays from North American and European scholars who examine the various ways in which the theme of silence is developed in literary narratives as well as in such visual media as photography, film, painting, and architecture. The questions of silence and the presence or absence of voice are also explored in the arena of performance, with examples relating to pantomime and live installations. As the book title indicates, two fundamental aspects of silence are investigated: silence freely chosen as a means to deepen meditation and inner reflection and silence that is imposed by external agents through various forms of political repression and censorship or, conversely, by the self in an attempt to express revolt or to camouflage shame. The approaches to these questions range from the philosophical and the psychological to the rhetorical and the linguistic. Together, these insightful reflections reveal the complexity and profundity that surround the function of silence and voice in an aesthetic and social context. About the Author Leslie Boldt is Professor of French Studies at Brock University, where she teaches courses on French literature, cinema and culture and civilization. She is the English translator of Bataille’s L’expérience intérieure and has also edited a critical anthology of essays on Bataille’s work. While she has published primarily in the field of twentieth-century French literature, she is also interested in the intersection between the literature and visual art of France. Corrado Federici is Professor of Italian at Brock University, where he teaches courses in Italian language, literature, translation, and Renaissance art. He has published on modern Italian poets and novelists and has translated six books from Italian to English. His three most recent publications are English translations of Renato Barilli, The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles (2012); Franco Cardini, The Companion to the Middle Ages (2012); and Raffaele Milani, The Art of the Landscape (2009). Ernesto Virgulti is Associate Professor of Italian at Brock University, where he teaches courses in Italian language, literature, cinema and pedagogy, and in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program. His publications cover medieval Italian literature (especially Boccaccio’s Decameron), literary theory (narratology, semiotics), and cinema (Bertolucci and Amelio). He has also published a critical edition of Luigi Pirandello’s Cosí è (se vi pare). Boldt, Federici, and Virgulti are also co-editors of the following volumes: Rewriting Texts, Remaking Images (Peter Lang, 2010); Disguise, Deception, Trompe-l’oeil (Peter Lang, 2009), Beauty and the Abject (Peter Lang, 2007); and Images and Imagery: Frames, Borders, Limits (Peter Lang, 2005).