Mirroring Zambo in an Atlantic context: the open wound of slavery in Gottfried Keller's Don Correa (1881)
Abstract This article analyzes Gottfried Keller's story Don Correa from the classic German novella-cycle Das Sinngedicht (The Epigram, 1881) in an Atlantic context. Using Walter Benjamin's concept of “mirroring” as a theoretical framework, the article “mirrors” Don Correa's Angolan slave Zambo in three different cultural and political settings: “Where Africa Mirrors Latin America” focuses on the prominent role of the Jesuits in Don Correa and connects the fate of African slaves with that of Amerindians, “Where Female Mirrors Male” focuses on the topic of transvestitism and connects the legendary Queen Nzinga to Keller's predilection for gender crossing, and “Where Black Mirrors White” focuses on the debate on slavery in Keller's native Switzerland during the time when the novel was written. These three “mirrors” provide new insights into the cultural and historical context to which Don Correa refers and the debate on transatlantic slavery during Keller's lifetime. This approach challenges the general assumption that Das Sinngedicht is one of the few works by Keller without reflection on concrete historical and/or political problems. By interpreting the story alongside research and debates on cultural and historical issues in the Atlantic world, it reveals a series of connections that have remained unnoticed in the existing scholarship. It shows how Atlantic studies allows new perspectives on classic literary works, even if those works originated in a cultural context that does not seem to have a direct relationship to slavery and colonialism.
Sade's La Philosophie dans le boudoir
La Philosophie dans le boudoir is dated around 1795, or shortly after the end of the Terror, during which the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the ex- convent at Picpus to which the guillotine had recently been moved from the Place de la Concorde because of complaints about the smell of blood. The work was begun during his imprisonment there in 1794, following his arrest by Robespierre for political moderation and alleged royalist sympathies. From his cell, he had a clear view of this new and efficient method of dispatching large numbers of the condemned. The executed were buried in their thousands in the grounds of the prison. Sade watched this bloody slaughter day after day, and declared in correspondence that it affected him greatly. Against the backdrop of these horrific events in Sade’s own life, the cruelties of Boudoir take on a highly ironic character. This sexually obscene dialogue (in conjunction with the intercalated pamphlet, “Francais, encore un effort, si vous voulez etre republicains” [Frenchmen, one more effort, if you want to be republicans]) alludes to and distinguishes itself from what Slavoj Žižek after Sigmund Freud calls the obscene superego double of the public law, in that the Terror can be said to be the obscene under side or excess of a Revolution arising from legitimate demands. 1 In pursuit of my contention that real obscenity lies outside the boudoir, I shall read Sade’s revolutionary text through a number of related binary oppositions— in particu lar, on- stage/of f- stage and low/high— emphasizing the work’s political sub versiveness and gay anarchy. 2 I shall argue that the entire dialogue can be read on a political level as inverting all hierarchies in ironic echo of the Revolution. 3
The identity and self-perception of artists-managers
Manager’s and artist’s professional identities seem to be opposite, but there are many indications that this understanding is not justified in reality. Despite the contradictions, these two identities can intersect. The paper aims to define the characteristics of the artists-managers’ identity. The object of the study was qualitative research (n = 22) conducted in the form of in-depth interviews with key informants from the international environment. The practical objective was to verify common and contradicted features of the artist’s and the manager’s identities among artists-managers to understand the possibilities of reducing the intra-psychic tensions and ways of fruitful paradoxical thinking among managers and negative consequences for personalities and organizations. The study reveals common characteristics between the artist’s and manager’s identities and describes artists-managers’ identity. Although artists-managers experience diversity between both identities, they do not see them as contrary; they use paradoxical thinking, being experts in using personal seemingly contradictory characteristics to achieve outstanding performance. Acting in paradoxical contexts and focusing on the positive aspects of seemingly contradictory personal qualities, they find nonstandard creative solutions. By trying to understand and implement their self-construction, there is the possibility to reduce the intra-psychic tensions and negative consequences of seemingly opposite identities or goals among individuals in organizations. There is a synergy between the manager’s and artist’s identities. Understanding the nature and attributes of artistic creativity, aesthetic theories and the phenomenon of artist-manager’s identity can be a valuable contribution to the practice of management and organizational life.