The journal Critical Comparative Studies just published the special issue “Against the Grain: Dissent, Opposition and La parola contraria in Literature, Politics and the Art” Comparative Critical Studies: Vol 21, No 2-3, co-edited by Joost de Bloois (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University) and Jim Hicks (University of Massachusetts at Amherst). The special issue brings together contributions from a range of writers, poets and scholars from the Americas and Europe. It includes academic articles as well as interviews and conversation pieces with writers and poets Erri de Luca, Carolyn Forché and Sarah Clancy. The School of Global Affairs is represented by Cornelia Gräbner who co-edited the special issue, co-wrote the Introduction, and contributed a conversation piece with Carolyn Forché and an article on Forché’s recent work, and Samuel O’Donoghue with an article on ‘Poetry, Parody and the Construction of Contrarian Discourse in Franco’s Spain’.

The special issue built on the symposium Against the Grain, co-organized by Joost de Bloois and Cornelia Gräbner at the University of Amsterdam [Against the Grain: The Ethics, Poetics and Politics of Contrarian Speech - Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA)] in July 2019. The symposium was co-funded by The Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, the Amsterdam Center for Globalisation Studies, and the research project POEPOLIT II – Contemporary Poetry and Politics: Social Conflicts and Poetic Dialogisms. The idea for the symposium was sparked by conversations around Italian writer Erri De Luca’s essay A Dissenting Word. The essay was his reflection on the criminal charges levelled against him because of statements made in an interview with the Huffington Post regarding sabotage of the high-speed trainline TAV, part of a infrastructure mega-project Questions | Mass Review. The symposium explored opposition and contrarianism in speech, writing and the arts from a wide range of angles, and it also included several contributions on techniques used by the far right which undermine, sabotage and seek to replace critical, discerning speech and writing. After discussions building on the symposium, the editors decided to invite poet Carolyn Forché – who had not been at the symposium -- to contribute to the planned special issue through a conversation with Cornelia Gräbner, due to the relevance of her work on poetry of witness, and the nuance that it added to the theme. The special issue brings together contributions to the original symposium, as well as conversation pieces with De Luca and Forché.

CONTENT

JOOST DE BLOOIS, CORNELIA GRÄBNER, JIM HICKS, ‘Introduction’

ERRI DE LUCA AND JIM HICKS Conversation – ‘The Sole True Power’: A Few Questions for Erri De Luca

ERRI DE LUCA Quixoptimism Translated by JIM HICKS

JIM HICKS ‘The Instigation I Aspire To’: Erri De Luca and Contrarian Education

ANNA BOTTA A Knot Fit to Be Untied: A Collective Contrarian ‘We’ in Today’s Mediterranean

MARCO DE WAARD Contrary Virtuosos? Paradoxes of a Liminal Figure

KAREN D. VAN MINNEN Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Contrarian Speech? The Terrific Murder of (S)Jack the Elephant

ILKA KRESSNER Rafael Acevedo’s Cynical Voice in Literature: Finding Words Beyond Neoliberal Numbing

CAROLYN FORCHÉ AND CORNELIA GRÄBNER Conversation – Small Lights: On Poems, Coming-to-consciousness and Conscience

CORNELIA GRÄBNER ‘From Now On’: Concientización, Evidentiary Poems and Readerly Encounters in the Work of Carolyn Forché

GENEVIÈVE FABRY The Decolonial Poetics of Jaime Luis Huenún

ANNE SHEA Against the White Racial Imaginary: Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

SARAH CLANCY AND CORNELIA GRÄBNER Conversation – The Deeper Beats of the Heart: Poetry, Platforms, and the Collapse of the Public Sphere

SAMUEL O’DONOGHUE Poetry, Parody and the Construction of Contrarian Discourse in Franco’s Spain

JOSEPH KEADY Ambivalent Anti-Modernity: Fashwave and Far Right Temporality in the Internet Age

TERESA RETZER From Contrarian to Propositional Speech: The Neue Rechte and Völkische Siedler in Germany