{"id":3613,"date":"2015-01-15T10:44:48","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T10:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/?p=3613"},"modified":"2015-05-06T13:37:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T12:37:54","slug":"patricia-novella-corvalan-on-maximilian-of-austria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/2015\/01\/15\/patricia-novella-corvalan-on-maximilian-of-austria\/","title":{"rendered":"Patricia Novillo-Corvalan on Maximilian of Austria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/secl\/complit\/staff\/novillo-corvalan.html\">Dr Patricia Novillo-Corvalan<\/a> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/secl\/complit\/index.html\">Department of Comparative Literature<\/a> will\u00a0give a lecture entitled <em>\u2018<\/em>Visions of the Abyss: Manet, Lowry, Bola\u00f1o, and the Ghost of Maximilian of Austria\u2019 at the <a href=\"http:\/\/modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk\/\">Institute of Modern Languages Research<\/a>, part of the School of Advanced Studies at the University of London, on Thursday 22 January at 7pm.<\/p>\n<p>The tragic story of the rise and fall of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/EBchecked\/topic\/370459\/Maximilian\">Maximilian of Austria<\/a> (1832-1867), the Hapsburg archduke-turned-Emperor of Mexico, has generated scores of legends, dramas, novels, paintings, and films. Maximilian was executed by a firing-squad in Quer\u00e9taro, Mexico, and his proud and beautiful consort, Charlotte of Belgium, descended into madness. Patricia&#8217;s\u00a0paper will conduct a transnational reading of the imperial narrative by examining its representation in French, British, and Latin American art and literature through a comparative analysis, particularly\u00a0exploring its significance in the works of \u00c9douard Manet, Malcolm Lowry, and Roberto Bola\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p>Patricia will begin with a discussion of Manet\u2019s series of artistic compositions centred on the political theme of the French invasion of Mexico and its tragic conclusion. Entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/L'Ex\u00e9cution_de_Maximilien#mediaviewer\/File:Edouard_Manet_022.jpg\"><em>L\u2019Ex<\/em><em>\u00e9<\/em><em>cution de Maximilien<\/em><\/a> (1867-1869), the paintings represent a thinly-veiled critique \u00a0of the Imperial <em>r<\/em><em>\u00e9<\/em><em>gime <\/em>of Napoleon III. She will then examine Malcolm Lowry\u2019s association of Maximilian in the novel\u00a0<em>Under the Volcano <\/em>(1947),\u00a0which uses the\u00a0motif of Faustian damnation\u00a0with\u00a0the dualistic conception of Mexico as an \u2018infernal paradise\u2019. Lowry endorses the age-old construction of the <em>gringo<\/em> who is ruthlessly shot by bandits. She will conclude with a discussion of Bola\u00f1o\u2019s revisionist historiography of Maximilian\u2019s adventure in his posthumous novel <em>Woes of the True Policeman <\/em>(2011), in which he returns to the theme of the horrors of history as fictionalised in <em>2666<\/em> (2004) by using the narrative of Maximilian as a symbol for the traumatic consciousness of Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Further details of the event can be found on the School of Advanced Studies website:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/events.sas.ac.uk\/imlr\/events\/view\/16547\/Visions+of+the+Abyss%3A+Lowry%2C+Bola%C3%B1o%2C+and+the+Ghost+of+Maximilian+of+Austria\">http:\/\/events.sas.ac.uk\/imlr\/events\/view\/16547\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Patricia Novillo-Corvalan from the Department of Comparative Literature will\u00a0give a lecture entitled \u2018Visions of the Abyss: Manet, Lowry, Bola\u00f1o, and the Ghost of Maximilian &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/2015\/01\/15\/patricia-novella-corvalan-on-maximilian-of-austria\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5829,"featured_media":3641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135858,18583,124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5829"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3613"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3644,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions\/3644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/secl-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}