French & Italian

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Last year, during April and May, Professor Gilbert Chaitin was a visiting professor in comparative literature at the University of Lisbon, where he taught a graduate course on "Theories of Narrative." When asked by this newsletter about his experiences there, he kindly submitted the following comments.

The students were extremely diverse and quite different from most of those here at IU. Some were Portuguese, of course, but others were from Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, and Italy. Moreover, almost all had full-time jobs: Several were high school teachers, one was an assistant professor of romance languages, one was an employee of the Brazilian consulate in Lisbon. This diversity of student background made for very lively discussions and seriousness of purpose. It was especially interesting to see their reactions to post-colonial and feminist theories of narrative, to which they had never before been exposed. In this context, I also gave public lectures, titled "Composite Portraits: Stories of Feminine Identity in Marguerite Duras’s L’Amant and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior," at the University of Lisbon and at the New University of Lisbon.

While in Portugal, I was able to travel briefly to Rabat, Morocco, where I was invited to give two lectures at the Université Mohammed V, one to psychology students on "The Concept of Transference in Lacan," the other to students and faculty involved in the study of literature and culture, on the alleged relation between Englightenment and fascist ideology according to Lacan and the German writers Horkheimer and Adorno.

As you can imagine, not every moment was spent teaching and preparing lectures. While in Morocco, I was able to visit the famous and beautiful mosque in Casablanca, one of the tourist sights I had not seen on previous visits to that country. I also attended several animated sessions of the European jazz festival being held in May in Rabat; strangely enough, during the week I was there, the main attraction was a band from Lisbon. I also had the opportunity to renew my appreciation of Moroccan cuisine. A propos of cuisine, Portugal is justly renowned for its delicious seafood, prepared in a variety of ways: all kinds of absolutely fresh fish, squid, cuttlefish, and of course, cod (which, contrary to popular belief, does not come from Portuguese waters). The Portuguese are also expert at preparing beef in different marinades, which makes it tastier than American steak, but nowhere near as tender. Another of my favorites was the typical Portuguese duck and rice dish I had at a colleague’s home not long before leaving Lisbon.

During that last week Joy and Sharon, my wife and daughter, joined me and we toured Lisbon, visiting the narrow streets and the fortress from the days of the Arab occupation, the grand cathedral and monastery from the country’s heyday of world domination, with the tombs of its greatest explorer, Vasco da Gama, and its greatest poet, Luís de Camoes, facing each other. We also had time to visit an utterly charming medieval walled town north of Lisbon called Obidos.

After Lisbon, I went for a few days to Barcelona, Spain, visiting a former doctoral student in comparative literature, now an assistant professor there, who is translating one of my articles into Spanish for an anthology she is publishing on poststructuralist theory. From there it was on to Paris where my family and I spent the months of June and July, my daughter working in an upscale sandwich shop near the Parc Monceau, my wife working on a theatrical adaptation of a Perrault fairy-tale, and myself at the Bibliothèque Nationale studying the literature and journals of the Third Republic. During our stay, we managed to spend a few days in Strasbourg, where we visited Mona Houston, who had been director of our study abroad program there. While in Paris, we hosted several visitors, the most notable of whom was another colleague, Leonard Hinds.

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