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AISCLI SUMMER SCHOOL: WORLD CULTURES AND LITERATURES IN ENGLISH

“Beyond Postcolonialism : The Artist's Role according to Ben Okri ” Mariaconcetta Costantini G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara. AISCLI SUMMER SCHOOL: WORLD CULTURES AND LITERATURES IN ENGLISH Ethics and Literature: from Civil and Human Rights to Environmental HumanitiesS

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AISCLI SUMMER SCHOOL: WORLD CULTURES AND LITERATURES IN ENGLISH

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  1. “Beyond Postcolonialism: The Artist's Role according to Ben Okri” Mariaconcetta CostantiniG. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara AISCLI SUMMER SCHOOL: WORLD CULTURES AND LITERATURES IN ENGLISH Ethics and Literature: from Civil and Human Rights to Environmental HumanitiesS 15-20 September 2014

  2. Ben Okri-works • NOVELS SHORT STORIES COLLECTIONS • Flowers and Shadows(1980)Incidents at the Shrine(1986) • The LandscapesWithin(1981)Starsof the New Curfew(1988) • The Famished Road (1991) TalesofFreedom(2009) • SongsofEnchantment (1993) • Astonishing the Gods (1995) • Dangerous Love (1996) • Infinite Riches (1998) • In Arcadia (2002) • Starbook (2007) • POETRY ESSAYS • An AfricanElegy (1992) Birds of Heaven(1995) • MentalFight (1999) A Way of Being Free (1997) • Wild(2012)A Time for New Dreams(2011)

  3. Cesare Segre, Ritorno alla critica, Einaudi, 2001. Umberto Eco, Sulla letteratura, Bompiani, 2003.

  4. “The postmodern reply to the past consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed because its deconstruction leads to silence, must be revisited; but with irony, not innocently”. (Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver, 1984)

  5. Homo fabula: we are storytellingbeings (“The Joys of Storytelling III”).

  6. Itmayseemthatbecausewe live in a fracturedworld the art of storytellingis dead. Itmayseemthatbecausewe live in a world withoutcoherentbelief, a world thathaslostitscentre, in which a multitudeofcontendingversionsof reality clamour in the mind, thatstorytelling and enchantment are no longerrelevant. Thisis a sadview. Worsethanthat, itis a viewwhichimpliesthatwe no longerhave a basisfromwhichtospeaktooneanother. Whenwe do attemptspeech or songwe do itsolipsistically, in fracturedtones. This negative viewofstorytellingalsoimpliesthatthere are no continuities in the humanexperience, and no magicalplacesresident in usthatwe can call up in oneanother (“The JoysofStorytelling I”).

  7. The mystery ofstorytellingis the miracleof a single living seedwhich can populatewholeacresofhumanminds. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  8. Ifartists continue to develop, in retrospectthismay be seenas an era of immense experimentation and energy, of the extension of oldboundaries, the exploration of unexhaustedmines and quarries. (“The JoysofStorytelling II”)

  9. The earlieststorytellerswere magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. […] Theywrestledwith the mysteries and transformedthemintomyths, whichcoded the world and helped the community to live throughone more darkness, witheyes wide open, and withhearts set alight. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  10. Writing, in ourday, hasmovedinfinitelyclosertoits source, tothisdisquieting sound whichannouncesfrom the depthsoflanguage ― once weattendtoit ― the source againstwhichweseekrefuge and towardwhichweaddressourselves. (M. Foucault, “LanguagetoInfinity”)

  11. And I thinkthatnow, in ourage, in the mid-oceanofourdays, withcertaintiescollapsingaboutus, and with no beliefsbywhichtosteerourwaysthrough the dark descendingnightsahead – I thinkthatnowweneedthosefictionaloldbards and fearlessstorytellers, thoseseers. Weneedtheirmagic, theircourage, their love, and theirfire more thaneverbefore. Itisprecisely in a fracturedbrokenagethatweneed mystery and a reawokensenseofwonder. Weneedthem in ordertobegintobewholeagain. Weneedtoberemindedof the primeval terror again. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  12. This feeling thatbooks, thatwords can once againtrouble the sleepofancientpowers; thisjoyful challenge to the centralityofrealism; thiseternalquestioningofwhat reality reallyis; thishealingassault on homogeneity; thisquestformagicalnewrealms; thisplayfulambush on the ivorytower and itsguardsmenwhopolice the acceptedfrontiersofwhatisconsideredvalid in narrative terms; thisunsungageof happy and tragicliterarywarriors and enchanters and healers; thiscreationoftextswhich are dreamsthatkeepchanging, fluidtextswhichrewritethemselveswhen the readerisn’t looking, textswhich are dreamsthatchangeyouasyoureadthem, dreamswhich are textswhichyouwrite in the durationofcontactbetween the eye and the page; allthesemarvels, actsof private and public courage, allthis and much more constitutesfor me the joysofstorytelling. (“The JoysofStorytelling II”).

  13. DF: So, you don’t feelthatyouhavebeeninfluencedbyanywritersofcanons or styles in particular? Howwouldyoureact, forexample, toThe Famished Road beingcalled a magicrealistnovel? BO: Strangelyenough, it’s not the subject or the historyof the place or the personal philosophy or the culture thatshapes the pieceof work. It’s somethingabout the agewhichyou live in, butit’s something more to do withyour secret trueorientationto life thatreallydoes. That’s wherewritershavetheirtrueaffinities. That’s why I rejectutterly the way in whichmy work isplacedwithin the wholecontextofthe margin, the peripheral, postcolonial and stufflikethat. I thinkthose are verypoordescriptions of the work that some of us are trying to do. Becauseitcompletelysituates the work within a time/historicalcontext and notwithin a contextof self and innernecessity, whichisbiggerthanthat and beyondthat. And there are affinitiesbetweenwritersthathave more to do withthatthantheyhaveto do with the factthattheyboth come fromso-calledex-colonialnations. (“WhisperingsofGods. Interviewwith Delia Falconer”)

  14. Itis a kindofrealism, but a realismwithmany more dimensions. (“Interviewwith J. W. Ross”, in ContemporaryAuthors)

  15. […] the Africanenchanters, whosestories are riversreclaimingtheirownland, and wherestories are journeys in the forgottendreamsof the centuries. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  16. We are a people who are massaged by fictions; wegrow up in a sea of narratives and myths, the perpetualinvention of stories. (“Interviewwith J. W. Ross”)

  17. In Renaissance paintings I sometimesseethat the interactionbetweenEurope and Africa isanoldone. (“Amongst the SilentStones”)

  18. Poets, be cunning. Learn some of the miracles. Survive. Weaveyourtrans-formations in your life aswellas in your work. Live. Stay alive. Don’t go under, don’t go mad, don’t letthemdefineyou, or confine you, or buyyoursilence. Ifthey do confine you, burst out oftheirprisonswithwilderfatidicalsongs. Be a counter-antagonist, break theiranti-myths. (“While the World Sleeps”)

  19. Ifyouwanttoknowwhatis happening in anage or in a nation, find out whatis happening to the writers; the town-criers; forthey are the seismographsthat calibrate impendingearthquakes in the spiritof the times. […] The writeris the barometerof the age. (“Fables Are MadeofThis”)

  20. If the poetbeginstospeakonlyofnarrowthings, ofthingsthatwe can effortlesslydigest and recognise, ofthingsthat do notdisturb, frighten, stir, or annoyus, or makeusrestlessfor more, makeuscryforgreaterjustice, makeuswantto set sail and exploreinklingsmurdered in ouryouths, if the poetsingsonlyofourrestrictedangles and in restrictedterms and in restrictedlanguage, thenwhathopeisthereforanyofus in this world? (“While the World Sleeps”)

  21. The writer, functioning in a magical medium, anabstract medium, doesonehalfof the work, but the readerdoes the other. […] Reading, therefore, is a co-productionbetweenwriter and reader. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  22. The greatessays on storytelling are done in storiesthemselves. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

  23. […] the functionof the criticreallyshouldbetomultiply the possibilitiesofinterpretationof a work; to open up a work, to illuminate the world of a work; notto reduce it and todiminishit; tokeep opening it up becausethat’s whatworks do. (“The JoysofStorytelling II”)

  24. La lettura delle opere letterarie ci obbliga a un esercizio della fedeltà e del rispetto nella libertà dell’interpretazione. C’è una pericolosa eresia critica, tipica dei nostri giorni, per cui di un’opera letteraria si può fare quello che si vuole, leggendovi quanto i nostri più incontrollabili impulsi ci suggeriscono. Non è vero. Le opere letterarie ci invitano alla libertà dell’interpretazione, perché ci propongono un discorso dai molti piani di lettura e ci pongono di fronte alle ambiguità e del linguaggio e della vita. Ma per poter procedere in questo gioco, per cui ogni generazione legge le opere letterarie in modo diverso, occorre essere mossi da un profondo rispetto verso quella che io ho altrove chiamato l’intenzione del testo. (U. Eco, Sulla letteratura)

  25. […] la stagnazione continua. Anche accom-pagnata da scoramento, di fronte ai mutati rapporti di forza tra le attività culturali, e al declino del prestigio, entro queste attività, della letteratura, perciò pure della critica, che è al servizio della letteratura, come interprete e valorizzatrice. È anche affievolito quell’impegno etico, che affidava alla critica il compito di spingersi verso le verità del testo. Le inter-pretazioni possibili, venuto meno il compito di verifica, sono tutte disponibili in un supermarket dell’opinabile. (C. Segre, Ritorno alla critica)

  26. Philosophyismostpowerfulwhenitresolvesinto story. But story isamplified in powerby the presenceofphilosophy. (“The JoysofStorytelling I”)

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