See you Thursday for MALAS's 3rd Edward Said Cultural Studies Lecture featuring Carlos Kelly, Thursday at 11am, November 21, 2019, in SDSU's GMCS 333. Free and Open to the Public

See you Thursday for MALAS's 3rd Edward Said Cultural Studies Lecture featuring Carlos Kelly, Thursday at 11am, November 21, 2019, in SDSU's GMCS 333. Free and Open to the Public.

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Leobardo Saravia Quiroz, Brings You, Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border -- SDSU Press

Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border (Baja California Literature in Translation) Paperback – August, 1996

 Leobardo Saravia Quiroz (Author)

Only 2 Left In Stock!

An inside look: In a lecture entitled "The Detective Story," Borges observes that, "The detective novel has created a special type of reader," and adds, "If Poe created the detective story, he subsequently created the reader of detective fiction" (492)..Yet, what Borges describes... draws our attention to what appears to be an insight into the ontology of literature that detective fiction provides. For what literature is, according to Borges, is "an aesthetic event" that "requires the conjunction of reader and text" (491); and what the detective story highlights, he suggests, is the way in which the reader-any reader-forms the conditions of possibility for this "aesthetic event."

"A la pinche modernidad":Literary Form and the End of History in Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes" by Emilio Sauri, MLN (125:2). 

Emilio Sauri's words perfectly describe the worlds found in "Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border," edited by L. Saravia Quiroz. In addition to the editor's introduction, there are evocative stories by G. Trujillo Muñoz, H. Daniel Gómez Nieves, L. Saravia Quiroz, E. Gómez Castellanos, J. Manuel Di Bella, C. Martín Gutiérrez, F. Campbell, H. Polkinhorn, and S. Gómez Montero. From the Introduction by L. Saravia Quiroz: "It is not simply an anthology of detective stories about Baja California, but rather an effort by a group of writers to devise detective fiction that does not conform to the orthodoxy of the genre."

First MALAS Edward Said Cultural Studies Lecture by Hayley Kasden on Chelsea Cain's Man-Eaters #1

Homer from Salinas! SDSU Press's Noteworthy Anthology on the Work of John Steinbeck, California's Favorite Son!

Don't Miss Out On SDSU Press SWAG! #GetUrMerch #hoodies #sweaters #tshirts

San Diego State University Press Apparel!

#GetUrMerch

Our Honor to Present, The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, 6 -- San Diego State University Press

The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, 6 (The Ralph R. Greenson Training Seminars) Paperback – 2018

Author: Ralph R. Greenson

Editor/Series Editor: Harry Polkinhorn

Ilustrator: William Nericcio

Take A Deeper Look Inside

We are proud to make available The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, 6, by Ralph R. Greenson, a new volume in our SDSU Press Psychoanalysis on the Couch book series edited by the Director of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, Dr. Harry Polkinhorn.

A review from the Introduction by Eli Miller:

"To my mind, this is the reason to still read Dr. Greenson, to see the powerful, masterful use of effective technique; to see abundant clinical examples, which link language and affect; and to demonstrate how analytic tact serves to put empathy to active, creative use."

Insightful Criticism form Peter Loewenberg, Professor of History Emeritus, UCLA; Training and Supervising Analyst, Dean Emeritus, New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles: 

"Ralph Greenson was a gifted charismatic teacher of psychoanalytic technique, premiere in his generation. I and many other students of analysis had the privilege of learning from his clear yet scintillating seminars on dreams and clinical practice. The editor has done a major service to all mental health practitioners in providing these brilliant sparkling Greenson seminars, notes, and papers for our benefit."

Latinx Comic Book Storytelling -- by Frederick Aldama, Brings You The Next Wave in the History of Sequential Art! -- SDSU Press

Latinx Comic Book Storytelling Paperback – 2016

You Won't Be Disappointed!

Take a deeper look into this "the next wave in History of Sequential Art" by Frederick Aldama. Professor Aldama is Distinguished University Professor, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, University Distinguished Scholar, and Alumni Distinguished Teacher at the Ohio State University. He is the 2018 recipient of the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring and the Susan M. Hartmann Mentoring and Leadership Award. He is the award-winning author, co-author, and editor of 40 books. 

Prolific prof Frederick Luis Aldama's latest full-color opus Latinx Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey by Interview features over 100 full-color comic illustrations and captures, via delicious interviews, the next wave in the history of sequential art, with Latinx cartoonist superheroes remaking the space of comics, comix, & graphic narrative, and, simultaneously, changing the pace/face (faster, browner) of art history in the process!

"The US comic’s scene is evolving—along with the rest of the culture—slowly, sometimes painfully, but inexorably towards a greater diversity of readers & creators, of new styles & stories. This book gives us a series of intimate conversations with several generations of Latin@ cartoonists (diverse themselves in their backgrounds and interests) juggling craft and art with heritage and language. These pioneers have their noses to their drawing boards and tablets but they keep their eyes on the larger significance of their work."

—Matt Madden, author of 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style

SDSU Press presents... POETICS AND VISUALITY: a trajectory of contemporary Brazilian poetry

Allow me to give you a few scenarios in which a vast knowledge of the history and development of Brazilian poetry would benefit you: an uptight dinner party to attend, the powerful feeling of being absolutely certain that you know more about Brazilian poetry than the person sitting next to you on the trolley, a cool party trick that can dupe your friends into thinking you're a literary scholar, being able to appreciate, perhaps even more than you already do, the growth and development Brazilian poetry has gone through.

But we would never encourage such shallow behavior!

In all seriousness, PHILADELPHO MENEZES' POETICS AND VISUALITY is an incredible account of Brazilian poetry and its various transformations throughout history.

Purchase now!! (let me know which scenario you most benefited from :))

https://www.amazon.com/Poetics-visuality-

SDSU Press Co-sponsors CULTURE CLASH at San Diego State University, October 15, 2019

SDSU Press Co-sponsors CULTURE CLASH at San Diego State University, October 15, 2019

Zaum! The Transrational Poetry of Russian Futurism (Paperback) -- San Diego State University Press

Zaum!

The Transrational Poetry of Russian Futurism

Author: Gerald Janecek

 If Dada and the European Avant-garde are your thing, then brace yourself for Gerald Janecek's ZAUM. According to Charlotte Douglas (Russian and Slavic Studies, NYU), Janecek's Zaum "is an encyclopedic account of zaum or 'beyonsense,' the most distinctive feature of Russian avant-garde art and poetry early in the 20th century. Janecek has mined a myriad of arcane and inaccessible sources, gathered the entire historical record in one place, and made it readable and comprehensible. His account of zaum theory and practice will be indispensable for anyone interested in modern poetry and art. Certainly it will become a standard text for all students of Russian Futurism."

SDSU Press Proud to Support the Department of Chicana/o Studies 50th Anniversary Celebration With Culture Clash!

Wow! Culture Clash is back at SDSU with locos Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza checking in with their unique traveling comedy with a heart circus of amazingness! More information here.

Or check out these posters below--click them to see them SUPERSIZE!

 

Frederick Luis Aldama and Ilan Stavans brings you, Laughing Matters: Conversations on Humor (Special Edition) from SDSU Press -- San Diego State University

Laughing Matters: Conversations on Humor (Special Edition)
Authors: Frederick Luis Aldama and Ilan Stavans

Do you dig humor, comedy, critical theory, literary criticism, philosophy, television, and mass media studies all wrapped up together? Then LAUGHING MATTERS by Latino scholar/writers/artists ILAN STAVANS and FREDERICK ALDAMA is the book for you. Hyperbole Books first volume in the "Chatting Professors/ Catedráticos Charlando" mini-series, LAUGHING MATTERS finds two comedic scholars talking seriously about the ludicrous. Or are they speaking ludicrously about the serious? And does it matter which is which?

Carlos Gagini's REDEMPTIONS (A Translation of El Árbol Enfermo) Back in a new TRADE PAPERBACK Printing, perfect for the Latin American Studies/Literature Classroom!

A Latin American Literary classic back in print with an afterword by Costa Rican novelist Daniel Quiros! Carlos Gagini's REDEMPTIONS ... https://t.co/WgCjYmp6Rx pic.twitter.com/wkm2pdYTIt

— San Diego State University Press (@SDSUPress) September 25, 2019

Newly Released Book! -- Tijuana: The History of a Mexican Metropolis -- From SDSU Press, San Diego State University

Tijuana: The History of a Mexican Metropolis

Author: T.D. Proffitt, III

Illustrator: Marcia Donato

Originally published in 1994, Tijuana: The History of Mexican Metropolis was the first book-length study of Tijuana to have appeared in decades. Thurber Proffitt produced an in-depth history that theorizes a symbiotic frontier-one that is mutually advantageous, but also, interdependent, so much so that San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Baja California, emerge as a fused metropolis, a Latinx megalopolis. Now in its second printing, this fascinating chronicle offers 21st century readers a vital sociocultural history, with Tijuana emerging alongside San Diego as twin cities on the edge of a vital tomorrow.

Third sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Tijuana

Take a closer look at what this captivating book has to offer: Tijuana: The History of a Mexican Metropolis

Baja California Literature is an SDSU Press Specialty! ¡La literatura de Baja California es una especialidad de SDSU Press!

Tracking the Mexican literary diaspora one book at a time ... https://t.co/3wdXHsJJUx#baja #bajacalifornia #mexicanliterature #comparativeliterature #lafrontera #border #borders pic.twitter.com/cfCExoyUj5

— San Diego State University Press (@SDSUPress) September 22, 2019

Hot Off the Press: More Than Money: a Memoir by Claudia Dominguez from SDSU Press, San Diego State University

More Than Money: a Memoir , by Claudia Dominguez

San Diego City Beat, the best of San Diego 2019, reviews graphic content from, More Than Money: a Memoir by Claudia Dominguez, “that gives readers an inside look at the corruption and lawlessness that plagues Mexico and addresses the stereotypes that often surround individuals that fall victim to organized crime organizations.” 

Check it out here: 

http://sdcitybeat.com/culture/features/claudia-dominguezs-graphic-content/

From Sam Cannon, Bruce and Steve Simon Professor of Language & Literature at LSU, Shreveport: "As I experienced Claudia's book I felt that it interacted with my sensibilities more on the level of a sequential watercolor mural than a traditional comic book or graphic novel. The opening two-page spread felt more like standing before the harrowing and inspiring murals of David Alfaro Siqueiros or José Clemente Orozco than opening a comic book. Like the Muralists, she illustrates both a broad image of the suffering of the Mexican people as well as their strength and resilience."

Interested? Check out the book in its entirety below!
https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Money-Claudia-Dominguez/dp/1938537122/ref=sr_1_11?m=A119ICNS1106UD&qid=1568733795&s=merchant-items&sr=1-11

Our Bestseller: Trilingual Education: Sign Language, Spanish, English by Professors Ben and Kathie Christensen from SDSU Press, San Diego State University

Trilingual Education: Sign Language, Spanish, English by Professors Ben and Kathie Christensen, is a unique manual developed to facilitate the communication of clear concepts between Spanish-speaking parents and their deaf children. Using a series of clear exercises and diagrams, it provides a basic tool for interchange among users of three different languages: spoken English, spoken Spanish, and American Sign Language.

Most sign language books normally just have English content. Trilingual English has more than just English content (Spanish and Sign Language). It allows students who sign in Spanish to learn new words or phrases that they may haven't been taught before.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Trilingual-Education-Language-Spanish-English/dp/0916304701/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=trilingual&m=A119ICNS1106UD&qid=1568414526&s=merchant-items&sr=1-1

The Literature of the Kumeyaay -- From SDSU Press, the University Press of San Diego State University

Check out our latest bestseller! https://t.co/yy0FBmU9fv#nativeamerican #kumeyaay #comparativeliterature #literatureoftheamericas #americanindianstudies pic.twitter.com/Exc2etxY0Q

— San Diego State University Press (@SDSUPress) September 9, 2019

The Latest Issue of Confluence, Now Distributed Internationally by SDSU Press.

As part of a pilot program, SDSU Press is thrilled to announce an association with Confluence, a journal of the AGLSP, (Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Program)--AGLSP is the international mothership for MALAS-style Liberal Studies/Liberal Arts MA & PhD programs worldwide.

Check out their latest issue here in our SDSU Press/Amazon.com special order link.

What is Confluence? Glad you asked: "Confluence is a national, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal published by the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGLSP) that reflects the best scholarly and creative work produced within and beyond AGLSP member institutions. Publishing scholarly essays and creative work such as short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art, Confluence stands as a demonstration of and an inspiration to the kind of interdisciplinary engagement that is constitutive of a liberal education, while emphasizing the fundamental relations that transcend the boundaries of discipline and form that must be engaged and explored."

More SDSU Press and Amatl Comix Doings at Comic-Con International 2019, San Diego, Califas

In Honor of Comic-Con 2019, Amatl Comix has Supercharged its World Wide Web Headquarters!

Our new comics imprint, #amatlcomix #amatlcomics https://t.co/F2bvqZ47NW, is evolving!

Check it out here and welcome aboard, officially to the Amatl editorial board, @ProfessorLatinx, Dr. Frederick Aldama, and Sam Cannon! pic.twitter.com/wBxJ52sN8f

— San Diego State University Press (@SDSUPress) July 20, 2019

Steven Bender's HOW THE WEST WAS JUAN--the perfect late fall 2019 syllabus addition for courses in political science, legal history, latin american studies and more...

Just a reminder about another of our more recent border/frontera-laced publications--a meditation, by noted legal scholar Steven Bender, HOW THE WEST WAS JUAN. The direct SDSUPress/Amazon purchase link is here https://t.co/aZa36lcfs2 #border #theborder #usmexico #lafrontera pic.twitter.com/i7rBqjrTSw

— San Diego State University Press (@SDSUPress) July 18, 2019

Don't Miss Claudia Dominguez, Author of Amatl Comix #1 MORE THAN MONEY at the Atheneum Arts Center! #mextasy #indycomix #comics #comix #latinx #latinxart

View this post on Instagram

More than Money- the making of a graphic novel by Claudia Dominguez opens July 13, 6-8pm. Check out Claudia’s first ever autobiographical graphic novel on the kidnapping of her father and subsequent rescue in Mexico City. This is a beautifully illustrated and timely novel about the world we live in (violence, migration, resilience, family and so much more). This novel is also SDSU’s first publication under Amatl Comix under the direction of @william.nericcio 👌🏾#comiccon2019 #graphicnovel #morethanmoney #women #df #illustration #watercoler #barrioartcrawl #saturday #sdsu #barriologan #loganheights #sandiego @claudita_famosa

A post shared by Art School Gallery Music Hall (@athenaeumartcenter) on Jul 4, 2019 at 8:58am PDT

New and Revised Titles Coming from SDSU Press!!! Juan Crespi's DESCRIPTION OF DISTANT ROADS and Margaret Fields Trilingual Kumeyaay Stories Collection!

My latest book designs for @SDSUPress #kumeyaay #literature #californiana #californiahistory pic.twitter.com/36nX0QJpsr

— William Nericcio (@eyegiene) June 15, 2019

The Day of the Lord Cometh: Nicholas Genovese's The Utopian Vision: Seven Essays on the Quincentennial of Sir Thomas More from San Diego State University Press

Rereading The Utopian Vision: Seven Essays on the Quincentennial of Sir Thomas More
Brian Frastaci, SDSU Press Editorial Assistant

Direct purchase from our SDSU Press Amz site.

Utopia has long had a bad rap. 

Members of nearly all political persuasions are frequently denounced as “utopian” in espousing an unrealistic and unattainable vision. Ideas are routinely held up “utopian” in the sense of “good in theory, untenable in practice.” If you believe in x, you’re a “utopian.” Might as well leave such things to the realm of fiction. Most espousing one ideology or another would avoid calling themselves “utopian” for these very reasons.
  
The very word utopia doesn’t help matters. Coined by Thomas More in his likewise-named work of 1516, utopia literally means “no place”—οὐτοπία, or outopia, for Greek-savvy readers. Obviously More wanted his readers to understand from the get-go that his was an impossible project. And unfortunately for ideologians of the modern day, this coinage stuck. 

But the idea of utopia hasn’t always been understood as an unattainable fantasy. From virtually the beginning of human civilization, people have traded ideas about the perfect society, and those perfect societies have always been understood as very real, whether an object of the past, present, or future. As SDSU’s own E.N. Genovese argues, two great traditions of utopia existed in antiquity. Those traditions may seem alien to us, but there are bound to be familiarities to the modern ear. What Genovese identifies as the “Indo-European” tradition is the idea that human civilization is cyclical, and that we of the modern day are (of course) in the worst possible existence, an “iron age” to be held in contempt to a past—and future—“golden age”, where justice reigns and humanity lives in an exalted state. The “Near Eastern” tradition, on the other hand, is the idea that a very real paradise currently does exist. This paradise usually takes the form of a garden, wherein there is no violence, no illness, and no suffering (paradise itself comes from a Persian word that means “a walled enclosure”). The Garden of Eden is the most obvious example of an ancient Near Eastern paradise, and as Genesis would have us believe, it does currently exist somewhere around Mesopotamia.  

As Genovese argues, the Indo-European and Near Eastern traditions survive and combine in the form of that great global religion, Christianity. It upholds the example of sinless man in a past paradise, in the Garden of Eden, and it believes in a presently existent paradise, the Kingdom of God in the heavens—both inheritances from Judaism, a Near Eastern religion. And as Jews came to believe before the time of Jesus, so did Christians: a future golden age is to come, the reign of God on earth. 

Two thousand years of interpretation have produced interesting takes on this utopian belief, and likewise lots of word soup. One mouthful possibly familiar to readers is Darbyite premillennialist dispensationalism, a modern interpretation of Jewish and Christian prophetic literature that features a “prophetic clock” operating throughout history. When God decides to start the now-frozen prophetic clock again, the earth will have seven years left before the return of Jesus with fire and brimstone. Fun events that will presage the end-times include a failed attack by Russia and Ethiopia on Israel and the installation of a single world government. Understandably, dispensationalists were excited when the modern nation-state of Israel and the United Nations were founded.

A dispensationalist timeline from 1919. Note the extraordinarily long toes of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

As the image shows, dispensationalism is quite complicated, but its appeal has not been dampened, particularly in the United States. Readers today can enjoy lots of dispensationalist literature, like the bestselling Left Behind series (all sixteen volumes of it) or even the widely panned Nicolas Cage movie of the same name (currently at a 1% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

The Left Behind movie (2014). If Genovese is correct, then this is a modern culmination of two venerably ancient traditions of utopia.

 
My point through all this is that a lot of toil has been spent on getting utopia right. And while I don’t espouse dispensationalism or many other utopian projects myself, I only want to suggest that we redefine the word utopia to mean something simpler: a better place. While many in the West don’t believe in a cyclical view of history anymore, many often uphold the glory of past societies as examples for our modern decrepit society to aspire to—see how often “the Founding Fathers”, the “good old days”, the 1950s, and so on, are looked upon with sometimes-religious fervor. And while many likewise don’t believe in a literal paradise existent somewhere else in the world, we often glorify other societies for their supposedly superior ways of life—Japan or Scandinavia, for instance—or maybe even ourselves—we in the United States are supposedly members of a “city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan once dramatically put it. The idea of the “noble savage” also comes to mind, that colonized indigenous peoples enjoyed or enjoy a simplistic and morally upright idyllic existence in nature. 

In short, utopia is present nearly everywhere in modern discourse, but it doesn’t get recognized as such. Instead, it gets denigrated as a silly fantasy. To close, maybe we should understand utopia in an alternate reading: as eutopia, εὐτοπία—in other words, a good place, something we all hopefully aspire to.

(To read more on Genovese’s construction of ancient utopia, order SDSU Press’s very own The Utopian Vision: Seven Essays on the Quincentennial of Sir Thomas More, available on Amazon here. The book includes other essays on utopias throughout the centuries, such as utopias in Marxism, feminism, Russia, Comte, Vonnegut, and of course, More himself. It also contains the first-ever comprehensive annotated bibliography of utopia!)

 

(Learn more about utopia with SDSU Press’s The Utopian Vision: 

Seven Essays on the Quincentennial of Sir Thomas More, available here at Amazon!)  

San Diego's Sestercentennial Got You Feeling Reminiscent? We've Got the Cure: Mourning Dove's Stories - An Authentic Compilation of Native Tales

From April through July, here in San Diego, both local elected officials and leaders of the Kumeyaay Nation are working together to celebrate 250 years of local history and heritage. A joint effort to commemorate the past and shed light on the region’s many peoples. And while leaders here in San Diego have waited until a big anniversary year to honor our history, native storytellers—like Mourning Dove—have long recognized the importance of preserving cultural traditions.

Considered one of the first native female novelists, Christine Quintasket (Mourning Dove), dedicated her life to transcribing the oral traditions of the Salish-speaking tribes in the Pacific Northwest.

Mourning Dove lived 1884-1936 in the native
borderlands between Washington and Canada.

Published in American Indian Studies at San Diego State University, comes Mourning Dove’s Stories, a rare unaltered collection of Mourning Dove’s original works.

Thanks to the extra efforts of editors, Clifford E. Trafzer and Richard D. Scheuerman, many of the stories in this compilation can be found virtually unchanged from Mourning Dove’s own interpretations—free from the westernized influence found in many previous presentations of her works which have been “corrected” by white men.

Featuring a diverse cast of characters—from Lynx to Coyote—all sixteen vignettes highlight the undeniable dualities of life and the careful balance between these dialectical tensions. As the pages turn characters go from brave heroes to cunning villains and back again. Through every transition the stories highlight the fragile balance between the good and evil that live both within and around us.

This book truly remains a treasured preservation of Mourning Dove and the story of her native people. Rich in wisdom and moral lessons, Mourning Dove’s Stories proves a quintessential reading for those interested in learning from the mistakes, examples, and truths of the past.

As many of us today are finally starting to appreciate the rich history of our locality (and our country as a whole), there is no better a moment to purchase Mourning Dove’s Stories as a way to complete the transformative journey through time and tradition. Mourning Dove herself lived in a transitional period in American Indian history—one where cultures collided and rapidly changed. So to the climate of today, as the United States increasingly becomes a region of diversity, we could all learn a lesson from this authentic assemblage of “the oldest truths of America.”

Purchase your own copy of Mourning Dove’s Stories here, so you to can learn from the truths and traditions of the past!

An Interview with Fanny Daubigny, Author of the New Book from SDSU Press, "Proust in Black"

Fanny Daubigny has called Los Angeles, CA home for now over ten years. In her new book, Proust in Black, published this Spring by SDSU Press, Daubigny makes the case that, despite his death just after WWI, the literary essence of Marcel Proust is alive and well in the City of Angels; hiding within its many dark recesses that spurred the Film Noir genre in the mid-twentieth century. Proust in Black stands as an unprecedented merge of poetic verse, cinematic history and critical theory that reads not so much like an academic text, but rather, as Daubigny puts it, a "love letter" to the cultural elements that she for so long has poured herself into.

Fanny Daubigny lives and writes in Los Angeles, California, and works as a full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at California State University, Fullerton. This interview was conducted in February of 2019.


SDSU PRESS: You’ve written in the LA Book Review, in the context of Marcel Proust’s own critics attempting to investigate his personal life in order to better understand his work, “Reality always falls short, and objects of beauty become distorted.” How much of yourself was wrapped up in Proust’s fiction while writing this book? Was there something that you used to ground yourself in reality during the process?

Daubigny: Proust in Black is a love letter to the city of Los Angeles, the city that welcomed me more than 10 years ago both as an immigrant and a transplant from Miami, Florida. It is a love letter to literature and film and a farewell letter to a certain type of academic discourse, cultural and literary criticism that I often find too arid, insular and dry. Finally, it is an open break-up letter to a past love.

P: Because you also write poetry, Proust in Black strikes a beautiful balance between academic investigation and pros that often come across as a work of art themselves, which makes for a delightful and informative read. How did you go about finding this balance between personal expression and research-based writing?

D: The balance came to me very naturally and spontaneously. This is how I approach the world and this is how I write as a reflection of how I experience reality.  A balance that constantly swings its pendulum between chaos and order, reason and heart, intellect and emotions, all together pulled by Dionysian and Apollonian forces (as a reference to Nietzschean aesthetics).

P: Having lived all over the world--France, Canada, Chile and Los Angeles (perhaps I’m missing one or two?)--is there something about LA that lends itself especially to the Noir genre that isn’t found anywhere else?

D: Yes, I think it does although the genre goes well beyond historic and cultural determinations as I tried to show it in my essay. What makes Los Angeles so special to me in my exploration of the theme and the genre is the  explosive crystallization of various elements that are so intrinsic to the city: The historic with the second world war ‘free play zone’, the cold war freeze, the nuclear threat (nuclear tests operated in the desert of Nevada in 1953 radiated unto the city of Los Angeles); the geographic with the ever dramatic struggle of a city with its threatening landscape: the sense of a city always being ‘on the edge’ (on the fault line), at the very border of explosion (Kiss me Deadly (1955); collusion with Mexico (Out of the Past (1947); Touch of Evil (1958); at the border of death with the proximity of the desert (Sullivans’ travels, 1941) etc.

Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity, 1944

P: Your book spans decades of Film Noir in LA, from the 1920s to the 1980s. How, in your opinion, have LA Noir films changed throughout time? Do you think the tone of the LA Noir film has changed with the city, or do films change the way we see the city?

D: Yes, absolutely, I think they have even as the stereotypes belonging to the genre can be exported to other film genres. Let’s take the example of Marlowe, the stereotype of the detective.  Marlowe as seen in The Big Sleep by Howard Hawks and Marlowe as portrayed by Robert Altman in A Very Long Goodbye are two different characters and the refection of two different cities in transition. Marlowe in Altman’s movie is still on his quest for truth but the crime scene has shifted to Mexico, the bad guys have turned from librarians to hopeless middle-aged writers, psychiatric wards keep the city’s secrets and Marlowe’s greatest passion is now for a cat.

P: Proust in Black often blurs the line between reality and fiction in its embrace of the night--as you write, “In calling up the night, it is often the myths and folklore of childhood that are evoked,” and “...throughout the centuries the blackness of night has known how to share intimate space with the writer’s white page.” Is there something to the idea of letting oneself get wrapped up in the drama and fantasy of film and fiction in a city like Los Angeles? Do you think there is something that Film Noir--and for that matter, Proust, himself--can teach us about embracing the night?

D: Los Angeles has the texture of a dream-like reality. Never completely real, never completely fake. Always on the edge, on the fault line, in-between, and in-and-out. Film noir has the color of the night, where opposites contrast, collide, meet and merge with one another; where black and white evoke the night of dreamers (like Marlowe) and killers all alike. Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past, contain early drafts that looked very much like a ‘bedtime story’, a conversation initially started between the narrator and his mother about literature. Later, the final version turned out to be the story of a man that cannot find sleep, dreams and wakes-up, fantasying all together about femme fatales, corrupted men and crimes (symbolic) all reflecting the progressive disparition and dissipation of a certain myth, the myth of a greater France, nostalgic of its glorious past whose dream was brutally interrupted in 1914, at the onset of one of the most vicious and barbaric times of the history of the French Republic when France, Europe and the world turned into the blackness and bleakness of WWI.

P: It’s undeniable that our world is changing more quickly by the day, with the advent of  social media, our addiction to the news cycle (and the news cycle’s reliance on our addiction), political turmoil, etc. Where does Proust’s work fit into all of this? Is there a remedy within his writing that society can find solace within? Likewise, where does your book fit into our society today? What can we learn from reading about the relationship between Film Noir and Marcel Proust’s work in your book?

D: Proust’s political stance is oven overlooked (or overshadowed) by the complex aesthetics the novel famously (or infamously) stands for. As said earlier, Proust’s novel is as much a work about poetry, fine imagery and complex metaphors as it is about history involving the researching, chronicling archiving and rendering of complex cultural, political and socio-economic questions such as: secularism, cultural diversity, class struggles, xenophobia, education, sexual politics, genre etc…

Proust in Black follows the path inaugurated by Proust’s novel in the sense that it strives to strike a balance between poetry and history, and in the end addressing in its content and in its form the primary question: how being bicultural is not just a historic but also a poetic question; how bi-culturality blurs the lines between forms and identities, genres and cultures.

Kiss Me Deadly, West of Los Angeles 
@2016 fdaubigny