Owl Purdue Comparative Essay
Hedy Madrid
In her article, "Cultural Politics, Rhetoric, and the Essay: A Comparison of Emerson and Rod," Sophia McClennen compares two essays which have been central to debates over "American" cultural identity. Her work is a detailed comparison of the persuasive language used in "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson and "Ariel" by Jos Enrique Rod. She focuses on the specific ways that the rhetoric of the persuasive essay binds Emerson and Rod to a literary tradition and consequently impedes each author's ability to construct a liberated culture. She also demonstrates how the comparative method is a useful tool for analyzing representations of cultural autonomy. For in both essays the author is intent on resisting cultural colonization from a dominant power; yet the tools employed in such resistance ultimately resort to thoughts derived from others. The similar literary and intellectual framework of these essays suggests that a correlative historical moment -- nation-building -- and political motivation -- the quest for an autonomous cultural identity -- can lead two authors from different places and different periods to produce very similar types of rhetoric or persuasive discourse. The conflict between these essays' cultural politics and their use of rhetoric explains one of the fundamental pitfalls of these texts: On the one hand, each essay wants to convince the reader to think "freely" yet, on the other hand, clearly articulates and dictates the guidelines for such behavior.
Associate Professor Robert Patrick Newcomb (Ph.D., Brown University) teaches Luso-Brazilian and Hispanic/Latin American literature at UC Davis. He is co-director of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese's undergraduate program in Portuguese language. He is also founder and co-director of the UC Comparative Iberian Studies Working Group.
His research focuses on comparative approaches to Luso-Hispanic literatures, with emphasis placed on the late 19th/early 20th centuries, on the essay, and on literary relations between writers operating in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds.
His first book, Nossa and Nuestra Amrica: Inter-American Dialogues (Purdue UP, 2011), examines the question of Brazil's place within the geo-historical category "Latin America" through a comparative examination of the essayistic writing of four canonical Latin American writers - Jos Enrique Rod, Joaquim Nabuco, Alfonso Reyes, and Srgio Buarque de Holanda. Recently published or forthcoming projects include the edited volume Beyond Tordesillas: New Approaches to Comparative Luso-Hispanic Studies (with Richard A. Gordon, Ohio State, 2017), and the manuscript Iberianism and Crisis: Spain and Portugal at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming Spring 2018).
He is beginning work on a new research project, Across the Waves: Imagining Luso-Brazilian Community at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, which will examine efforts by writers from Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa to articulate a sense of transnational Lusophone community decades before the articulation of discourses such as "Luso-Tropicalism" and "Lusofonia." He is also actively translating crnicas (newspaper chronicles) and essays by Machado de Assis for eventual inclusion in an English-language anthology.
Robert Patrick Newcomb (pronouns: he/him/his) teaches Luso-Brazilian and Hispanic/Latin American literatures at UC Davis. He is co-director of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese's undergraduate program in Portuguese. He is also founder and co-director of the UC Comparative Iberian Studies Working Group.
His research focuses on comparative approaches to Luso-Hispanic literatures, in both Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, with emphasis placed on the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the essay, and literary relations between writers operating in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. He is active in public debates on Iberian studies, and is a translator (Portuguese to English) of literary and critical texts.
For this essay, you are asked to develop your own topic and to discuss that topic with me, via office hours or email so I can provide feedback and suggestions. Your essay normally should cover one or more primary texts and/or critical theory on the syllabus. There is no requirement for the essay to be comparative, but it can be, should you wish. Students who wish to write on texts or materials not covered on the syllabus or to put such materials in dialogue with the set texts should seek approval from Dr Forman before undertaking the essay.
Your essay must have a strong central argument/thesis statement, which should appear towards the start. I will be expecting you to do close reading during the essay, commenting on issues such as narrative voice, style, etc. and the way in which these elements contribute to the title you have chosen or developed.
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