Literary Criticism by Phyllis van Slyck
The Henry James Review, 2022
“Happiness” is not an emotion we immediately associate with the life of Henry James or with the c... more “Happiness” is not an emotion we immediately associate with the life of Henry James or with the characters in his fiction. It is true that some of his characters comment on the idea of happiness, but not without persistent irony. The protagonists of James’s late tales express no explicit interest in happiness; however, their desire to understand their journeys results in an important insight into the complex, and perhaps contradictory, nature of personal fulfillment. It is an experience, I argue, that offers a moment of painful joy, and it is the closest thing to happiness possible for James’s characters, and perhaps for Henry James.
Modern Fiction Studies, 2021
Albert Camus’s L’Etranger (1942) and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), are two of the most controv... more Albert Camus’s L’Etranger (1942) and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), are two of the most controversial novels of the twentieth century. Their contested and exhaustive critical reception suggests that readers continue to be hailed by these texts in complex ethical ways. In each text, a white male protagonist engages in a violent encounter with an individual identified as Other. If they initially arouse discomfort by appearing to divest others of their alterity, these characters ultimately recognize and preserve that otherness, inviting readers to consider the requirement that we privilege others over ourselves in order to become subjects.
Iktilaf: Journal of Critical Humanities and Social Studies, 2019
In the Fall of 2017, first year liberal arts students at Community College and second year Master... more In the Fall of 2017, first year liberal arts students at Community College and second year Masters' Students in literature at a university in Morocco collaborated in an online and live conversation focusing on the novel Horses of God (Les Etoiles de Sidi Moumen) written by Mahi Binabine. The novel describes the lives of four childhood friends growing up in a slum near Casablanca, navigating poverty and purposelessness and being drawn to religious fundamentalism. Students in the two colleges engaged in an online discussion on Facebook and live Google Hangouts exchange in which they shared questions about the novel. Moroccan students provided cultural context for the novel and American students discovered important connections to their own lives. Their contrasting life experiences generated unexpected common ground: an acknowledgement of difference and a shared ethical awareness of ways literature can interrogate political extremism.
Reading Henry James in the 21st Century: Heritage and Transmission , 2019
Henry James and Marcel Proust, two giants of the nineteenth and twentieth century novel, explore ... more Henry James and Marcel Proust, two giants of the nineteenth and twentieth century novel, explore strikingly similar territory: the emotionally powerful relationship between memory and imagination. Their characters explore the creative possibilities of memory, its capacity to produce the “illusion of immanence” (Sartre 50), and its ability to generate an intimacy with a subject that may not have been possible in “real” life. Both writers stage scenes in which characters compose imaginative “memory-images” (Ricoeur 53) in order to satisfy a desire. This activity offers an intriguing perspective on the themes of transmission and heritage. Proust and James are fascinated not only by the location of memories, their enigmatic encryption in inaccessible places, but also by the secret emptiness at the center of a memory that exposes the ultimate failure of transmission. Their works thus chart a tension, a fraught internal ambiguity, between memory and its emotional remainder. Although it is generally agreed that these two writers never met, their shared obsession with the reproduction of memories, specifically with the inner life of privately recalled and re-transmitted memory-images is worth sustained scrutiny.
Tracing Henry Hames. Eds. Melanie H. Ross and Greg W. Zacharias. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , 2008
Tintoretto and James, separated by three centuries, both stage a forceful assault on the conventi... more Tintoretto and James, separated by three centuries, both stage a forceful assault on the conventions of their medium and engender in the viewer or reader a kind of vertigo, a visual and psychological dislocation that is the basis of a new kind of insight. In Tintoretto, this dislocation ushers in mannerist and pre-baroque ambiguity. In James, fluid, inconclusive images of others set the stage for a post-modern interrogation of the subject.
Criticism, 2005
Henry James defines ethical action, not in relation to external norms, but within his characters’... more Henry James defines ethical action, not in relation to external norms, but within his characters’ struggling consciousness—they are ethical insofar as they remain true to their desire. In the face of profound indeterminacy, those who recognize, and struggle with the terrible responsibility of their choices construct a highly individual ethic. It is what Lacan calls and “ethic of the Real,” what Badiou calls “the real process of fidelity to an event.” Pursuing their desire to the point where they have shed the claims of the world—the external motives that tie action to the demands of the big Other —these individuals encounter their true selves—what Lacan would call their subjectivity. Milly Theale, I argue here, who is placed from the beginning of her story in a terrifying battle with her mortality, constructs an understanding of desire and subjectivity that embodies such an ethic.
The Henry James Review, 2003
"The Finer thread, The Tighter Weave": Essays on the Short Fiction of Henry James. Eds. Joseph Dewey and Brooke Horvath., 2001
The object of desire in James's fiction is an ironic construct designed to expose the inevitable ... more The object of desire in James's fiction is an ironic construct designed to expose the inevitable deformations of the gaze. What we long for--to be seen (understood) from our own perspective or, conversely, to understand another from his or her own perspective--is impossible. Instead there is always a gap, an abyss, between what we see and what we imagine or wish to be true about the Other. For Jacques Lacan, the gaze is, simply, "the subject sustaining itself in the function of desire" (Four Fundamental Concepts 84). In James's fiction, the powerful impulse to create an "ideal" and to believe that one's ideal is "real" or "true" is undermined as characters confront the deeper truth of their subjective shaping of reality.
The Henry James Review, 1994
Pedagogy Articles by Phyllis van Slyck
English Studies in Africa, 2020
This essay explores ways faculty in the humanities may guide students through current manifestati... more This essay explores ways faculty in the humanities may guide students through current manifestations of populism, specifically, this movement’s encouragement of xenophobia. As a member of an English department at a public community college in the United States, I argue, first, that community college students, who often have deep personal connections to the experiences of immigrants, may respond to the anti-immigrant rhetoric in useful and provocative ways. Second, I suggest that the related history of anti-immigration sentiment in American politics since the beginning of the 20th century can provide students with a powerful context for understanding xenophobia today. Third, I propose that students can participate in online exchanges across national and cultural borders, an experience that can foster global literacy and encourage them to develop a deeper understanding of others, something students in a recent exchange between Johannesburg and New York City described as ubuntu.
Change, 2003
EJ671682 - The Face of the Future: Engaging in Diversity at LaGuardia Community College.
Teaching English in the Two Year College, Dec 1, 2009
This essay argues that only by sharing our mistakes and uncertainty can we fully reflect on our o... more This essay argues that only by sharing our mistakes and uncertainty can we fully reflect on our own process as teachers, only by understanding our process can we begin to identify the many factors that contribute to classroom messes in the first place, and only by acknowledging the perpetual messiness of our practice can we fully engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
College English, 1997
... to challenge them, students persist in looking at the sit-uation in either-or terms: who is r... more ... to challenge them, students persist in looking at the sit-uation in either-or terms: who is right-the parents or Fatiha and Hocine? ... Despite his objections, therefore, the villagers force Hosna Bint Mahmoud to marry Wad Rayyes; however, she has her revenge: two weeks after her ...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1632 Prof 2006 2006 1 163, Jan 31, 2007
... ties as an example of interdisciplinarity is connected to the current debate about the value ... more ... ties as an example of interdisciplinarity is connected to the current debate about the value of the scholarship of teaching. ... involved in discussions of pedagogy, and, supported by centers for teach ing and learning, they often engage in the scholarship of teaching. In ...
Community college faculty accept high service demands, in addition to heavy teaching loads, as es... more Community college faculty accept high service demands, in addition to heavy teaching loads, as essential to tenure and promotion. Much of service work is uncompensated or very modestly compensated. If historically service was a substitute for scholarship, this is no longer the case. And the culture of many community colleges does not encourage a discussion of service concerns. This article poses questions for faculty, for department chairs, for administrators regarding how best to support the multiple demands being made of community college faculty, particularly women.
Memoir by Phyllis van Slyck
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Literary Criticism by Phyllis van Slyck
Pedagogy Articles by Phyllis van Slyck
Memoir by Phyllis van Slyck