José Zorrilla in Mexico: Transatlantic Romanticism and the Question of Artistic Labour

This article explores the strategic use of literary form in the Mexican writings of José Zorrilla. The article focuses on México y los mexicanos (1856), a letter Zorrilla wrote to his fellow Spanish Romantic playwright, Ángel de Saavedra, the Duke of Rivas. Zorrilla’s México y los mexicanos is a rare piece of epistolary writing in Spanish Romanticism as well as one of the first literary histories of Mexico. Often overlooked in the letter, however, is Zorrilla’s economic critique of the precarious condition of artists in both Mexico and Spain. A conservative moderado, Zorrilla could not air his concerns publicly without the threat of retribution from his fellow conservative colleagues in Spain. Zorrilla thus used the epistolary form, the article argues, in order to surreptitiously introduce the economic plight of artists into mainstream Spanish as well as Mexican political discourse. Read in this context, Zorrilla’s letter makes visible the fundamental role a transatlantic Romantic vision of labour played in shaping nineteenth-century political discourse in both the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America.     

Edna O'Brien and narrative diaspora space

Given the persistent presence of migration in the work of Edna O'Brien, it is surprising how marginal a theme it is in critiques of her work. This article explores how questions of diaspora have reached a renewed level of depth and intensity in her novel The Light of Evening (2006) and the related short story ‘My Two Mothers’ (2011). Looking, in particular, at how letters play a central role in the relationships of three generations of Irish women across three countries, it analyses how issues of mother(land), diaspora and belonging are mediated through migrant fiction. It draws on the work of Avtar Brah and Paul Ricoeur to argue that, along with related forms of textuality within O'Brien's oeuvre, letters represent a ‘narrative diaspora space’ which illuminates the relationship between mothers, daughters and writing in Irish migrant experience.     

A Novel Procedure for Simplified Nonlinear Numerical Modeling of Structural Units in Masonry Aggregates

ABSTRACT

Historical centers are always composed of masonry building aggregates often designed without respecting seismic design criteria. The current seismic Italian code does not foresee a clear calculation method to predict their static nonlinear behavior. For this reason, in this article the seismic response of structural units into masonry aggregates has been predicted through a simplified modeling approach. The implemented procedure has been calibrated on the results of a numerical model performed by using the Equivalent Frame Method (EFM), implemented within a Finite Element Method (FEM) calculation program, used to investigate a basic building compound representative of the constructive techniques developed in the past decades in the Southern Italy.

First, the whole aggregate has been modeled and analyzed in the nonlinear static field in order to evaluate the seismic behavior of both intermediate and head structural units.

Later on, the seismic response of these structural units, considered as isolated structures, has been assessed by considering in simplified way their position in the aggregate, as well as the influence of other constructions.

Finally, the achieved results on the above single analysis cases have been compared with those deriving from the investigation of the whole building compound, allowing to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed novel analysis procedure.     

Heterotopic and holey spaces as tents for the nomad: rereading Gwen John's letters

In this article I look into the letters and paintings of the expatriate Welsh artist Gwen John, tracing her spatial practices in the urban spaces of modernity. Drawing on Foucault's, Deleuze's and Guattari's analytics, I argue that John's spatial narratives chart heterotopias and holey spaces that challenge the hegemonic spaces of modernity, temporarily giving shelter to what Braidotti has theorized as female nomadic subjects. John's fluid spatiality is thus conceived as an event that interrogates static conceptualizations of spaces and identities and foregrounds difference, movement and forces of desire as constitutive of the real.     

Dative for Accusative Case Interchange in Epistolary Formulas in Greek Papyrus Letters

Greek papyrus letters preserve not only instances of the replacement of the dative case; they also show the use of the dative instead of the accusative case as direct object and disjoint infinitival subject. This interchange is mostly found in epistolary phrases, namely the salutation formula (?σπ?ζομα? σε) and the initial (ε?χομα? σε ?για?νειν) and final (?ρρ?σθα? σε ε?χομαι) health wishes. The phonetic similarity of the pronouns might have created the circumstances for case confusion. Contamination of the constructions reflects the difficulties of the scribes to construct conservative epistolary phrases and, thereby, diachronic phraseological variation might reflect language change. In salutation formulas, the use of a dative Addressee could be explained by analogical overextension from the category of communication verbs taking a dative complement. The decline of the accusative and infinitive construction might be one of the reasons why the accusative disjoint infinitival subject is replaced by the dative case in health wishes.