Il problema (est)etico della rappresentazione: Poor People di William T. Vollmann

Autori

  • Giuseppe Carrara Università degli Studi di Siena

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11922

Parole chiave:

Vollmann, Poor people, non-fiction, fototesti, reportage.

Abstract

Attraverso il confronto fra Let Us Now Praise Famous Men di James Agee e Walker Evans e Poor People di William T. Vollmann, l’articolo si propone di mostrare come quest’ultimo rifletta e cerchi di risolvere i problemi etici, politici e formali della rappresentazione documentaria. In particolare, si analizzano le modalità attraverso le quali viene problematizzato il processo di mediazione e di fruizione e lo specifico della retorica adottata da Vollmann per rendere conto dell’esperienza di un’alterità subalterna.

Through the comparison between James Agee’s and Walker Evans’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and William T. Vollmann’s Poor People, this essay focuses on ethical, political and aesthetic problems concerning documentary representation. Namely I analyse the ways in which Vollmann puts the mediation process into question and the rhetoric through which the experience of otherness is depicted in a work of literary non-fiction.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Agee, James and Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Mariner Books, 2001.

Allred, Jeff. American Modernism and Depression Documentary. Oxford UP, 2010.

Bauer, Georg. “William T. Vollmann’s Search for Truth and Community Participative Re-search.” William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes. U of Delaware P, 2015, pp. 73-92.

Blinder, Caroline. The American Photo-Text, 1930-1960. Edinburgh UP, 2019.

Bursey, Jeff. “‘A realm forever beyond reach’: William Vollmann’s Expelled from Eden and Poor People.” Electronic book review, Jan. 22, 2008, http://electronicbookreview.com/essay/a-realm-forever-beyond-reach-william-vollmanns-expelled-from-eden-and-poor-people/.

Carrara, Giuseppe. “Per una fenomenologia dell’iconotesto narrativo ipercontemporaneo”. Comparatismi, n. 2, 2017, pp. 26-55.

Chandler, Aaron D. “Egalitarian Longings: The Problem with Pity and Search for Equality in Poor People.” William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes, U of Delaware P, 2015, pp. 25-46.

Cometa, Michele. “Forme e retoriche del fototesto letterario”. Fototesti, a cura di Michele Co-meta e Roberta Coglitore. Quodlibet, 2016, pp. 69-115.

Donnarumma, Raffaele. Ipermodernità. Il Mulino, 2014.

Gusev, Mariya. “Vollmann in Russia: On Poor People.” William T. Vollmann: A Critical Compan-ion, edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes. U of Delaware P, 2015, pp. 67-72.

Hemmingson, Michael. William T. Vollmann: a critical study and seven interviews. McFarland, 2009.

Irr, Caren. “Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Realism in William T. Vollmann’s Poor People.” Reading Capitalist Realism, edited by Alison Shonkwiler and Leigh Claire La Berge. U of Iowa P, 2014, pp. 177-91.

Kristof, Nicholas. “Wretched of the Earth.” The New York Review of Books, 31 May 2007, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/05/31/wretched-of-the-earth/.

Marchese, Lorenzo. Storiografie parallele. Cos’è la non-fiction. Quodlibet, 2014.

Maslin, Janet. “The Poor Are Different From You and Me. Or Are They?” New York Times, 22 Feb. 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/books/22masl.html.

Palleau-Papin, Françoise. “Imperial Photography.” William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, edited by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes, U of Delaware P, 2015, pp. 295-316.

Perelman, Chaïm e Olbrechts-Tyteca Lucie. Trattato dell’argomentazione. La nuova retorica. Einaudi, 1966.

Provan, Alexander. “William T. Vollmann: Conflict, Compassion and the Process of Under-standing.” 032C, 19 July 2011, https://032c.com/william-t-vollmann-conflict-compassion-and-the-process-of-understanding.

Scarpino, Cinzia. Anni Trenta alla sbarra. Giustizia e letteratura nella Grande Depressione. Ledizioni, 2016.

Stott, William. Documentary Expression and Thirties America. Oxford UP, 1973.

Tosi, Renzo. “I Greci: gnomai, paroimiai, apophtegmata”. Teoria e storia dell’aforisma, a cura di Gino Ruozzi. Mondadori, 2004, pp. 1-16.

Vollmann, William T. “American Writing Today: Diagnosis of a Disease.” Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader, edited by Larry McCaffery and Michael Hemmingson. Thunder’s Mouth P, 2004, pp. 329-32. Consultabile anche online su Conjunctions, http://www.conjunctions.com/print/article/william-t-vollmann-c15.

---. Imperial. Penguin, 2010.

---. Poor People. Harper Perennial, 2008.

Dowloads

Pubblicato

18-07-2019

Come citare

Carrara, G. (2019). Il problema (est)etico della rappresentazione: Poor People di William T. Vollmann. ENTHYMEMA, (23), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11922

Fascicolo

Sezione

«We Should Never Write Without Feeling». Studi su William T. Vollmann – A cura di Giuseppe Carrara e Marco Malvestio
Ricevuto 2019-07-10
Accettato 2019-07-10
Pubblicato 2019-07-18