Papers by Angelina Del Balzo
Emotions in Non-Fictional Representations of the Individual, 1600-1850
Author(s): Del Balzo, Angelina | Advisor(s): Nussbaum, Felicity A | Abstract: Furbish’d Remnants ... more Author(s): Del Balzo, Angelina | Advisor(s): Nussbaum, Felicity A | Abstract: Furbish’d Remnants argues that eighteenth-century theatrical adaptations set in the Orient destabilize categories of difference, introducing Oriental characters as subjects of sympathy while at the same time defamiliarizing the people and space of London. Applying contemporary theories of emotion, I contend that in eighteenth-century theater, the actor and the character become distinct subjects for the affective transfer of sympathy, increasing the emotional potential of performance beyond the narrative onstage. Adaptation as a form heightens this alienation effect, by drawing attention to narrative’s properties as an artistic construction. A paradox at the heart of eighteenth-century theater is that while the term “adaptation” did not have a specific literary or theatrical definition until near the end of the period, in practice adaptations and translations proliferated on the English stage. Anticipating ...
Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 2019
In the early nineteenth century, Maria Edgeworth wrote a text that was an attempt at expiation fo... more In the early nineteenth century, Maria Edgeworth wrote a text that was an attempt at expiation for her previous stereotypical Jewish characters. Harrington (1817) was a novel about the sources of prejudice and how to overcome it. For Edgeworth, tolerance is a process rooted in Adam Smith's theorization of sympathy, in understanding how an individual would feel in another person's place. Edgeworth also embraces David Hume's conception of sympathy as contagion, an articulation of communal feeling. If prejudice is pathological, then the cure can also be found in the body. The novel ends, however, with the disturbing implication that, if both sympathy and negative affect are uncontrollable, complete tolerance may be unachievable. What remains in Harrington is not an endorsement of the power of toleration, but a dramatization of the pervasiveness of prejudice.
SEL Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 2015
Oriental tragedies were among the most popular new plays of the eighteenth century and the most c... more Oriental tragedies were among the most popular new plays of the eighteenth century and the most commonly revived. David Hume theorizes that the pleasure of tragedy comes from creating two separate presences, the character and the actor, with whom the audience could sympathize. Oriental settings paradoxically increase the potential for sympathetic exchange by highlighting the distance between the spectators and the tragic subjects. This paper focuses on Aaron Hill’s The Tragedy of Zara (1735) and argues that its metatheatrical metaphors of spectatorship increase the potential for sympathetic exchange in order to, in the words of Hill, “teach a languid people how to feel.”
Reviews by Angelina Del Balzo
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2021
Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 2018
d’éducatrices[,] [...] l’attention qu’elles porteraient uniformément et nécessairement à leur fam... more d’éducatrices[,] [...] l’attention qu’elles porteraient uniformément et nécessairement à leur fameuse “condition” » (10–11). Ainsi, la première section de l’ouvrage ramène à l’esprit le lieu commun du rapport entre femmes et romans, sans en interroger les fondements ou en examiner les conséquences, alors que plusieurs articles traitent du genre épistolaire ou s’intéressent aux fi gures de pédagogues. De même, le sous-titre à l’ouvrage, « Nouvelles approches critiques », ne semble pas correspondre à la plupart des contributions, puisque peu d’entre elles proposent des approches originales ou novatrices pour l’étude des femmes auteures. La part laissée à l’analyse dans plusieurs est, en eff et, sensiblement restreinte et certains propos manquent parfois d’assises théoriques ou de nuance (l’usage du français comme langue seconde peut sans doute en être la cause). Toutefois, l’ouvrage témoigne de l’intérêt que suscite en Espagne la question de la place de la femme dans l’histoire littéraire et les interventions relevées ici, entre autres, valent certainement d’être consultées et contribuent à une diff usion internationale de la recherche sur les femmes auteures.
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2020
Shakespeare Bulletin, 2019
Everything That Never Happened
Presented by Boston Court Pasadena, Pasadena, CA. September 27–Nov... more Everything That Never Happened
Presented by Boston Court Pasadena, Pasadena, CA. September 27–November 4, 2018. By Sarah B. Mantell. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Scenic design by François-Pierre Couture. Costumes by Denitsa Bliznakova. Lighting by Jaymi Lee Smith. Sound by John Nobori. Properties by Courtney Lynn Dusenberry. Dramaturgy by Emilie Beck. With Paul Culos (Lorenzo), Leo Marks (Shylock), Dylan Saunders (Gobbo), and Erika Soto (Jessica).
Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 2018
Teaching Documents by Angelina Del Balzo
Writing is actually a three-part process—reading, writing, and rewriting. We will read to soak up... more Writing is actually a three-part process—reading, writing, and rewriting. We will read to soak up different modes, styles, points of view. We will write to explore how to express ourselves using those techniques. We will revise based on the feedback of our peers and our own thoughts and instincts. Creative writing, like its academic counterpart, is still about communication, with the readers and writers of the past, present, and future. Along the way, perhaps most importantly, we will learn how to give constructive and respectful critiques, and also how to graciously receive, evaluate, and implement feedback.
This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement, part of a series o... more This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement, part of a series of conversations between texts, readers, and scholars. Postcolonial literature in particular has often used adaptation as a means of “writing back” to the colonizer, dramatizing the absences in the European canon. Yet this impulse to rewrite the past is not a new one: the long eighteenth century was a golden age of adaptation and translation. We will read eighteenth-century adaptations with their literary sources to think about questions of genre, language, and culture. In what ways do different genres interpret the same story, and to what effects? How does genre crossing relate to border crossings? As questions of race and migration continue to focus both political and cultural interest, we will also look at contemporary adaptations of eighteenth-century texts to think about the the period in our own cultural imagination. What makes a text canonical and how does that change our relationship to it? How does our contemporary understanding of adaptation relate to eighteenth-century adaptations? How do writers and artists use the eighteenth century to think through contemporary concerns?
Create your own adaptation of the Odyssey. It can be in whatever format you choose, and will incl... more Create your own adaptation of the Odyssey. It can be in whatever format you choose, and will include a two-paged reflection on the project.
One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, schola... more One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, scholars, and readers. This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement. By looking at source texts with their adaptations, we will consider the different ways that literature can be its own critic. We will use adaptation to ask larger questions about literature, such as: What is the relationship between translation and adaptation? In what different ways do various genres interpret the same story? How do traditionally marginalized groups engage with a canonical text and to what effect? Texts studied include Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Jo Baker's Longbourn, Aimé Césaire's A Tempest, William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Natasha Trethewey's Bellocq’s Ophelia.
One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, schola... more One way to approach the study of literature is as a series of conversations between texts, scholars, and readers. This course seeks to understand adaptation as a method of critical engagement. Our source will be Homer’s Odyssey, an epic poem that has had a profound impact on many English-language works. We will use it to ask larger questions about literature, such as: What is the relationship between translation and adaptation? In what different ways do various genres interpret the same story? How do works engage with a canonical text and to what effect? Texts studied include Stanley Lombardo's translation of the Odyssey, Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, Junot Díaz's Drown, Louise Glück: Meadowlands, Naomi Iizuka's Anon(ymous), and
Njabulo Ndebele's The Cry of Winnie Mandela.
This course considers the relationship between literature and the body. How do different genres o... more This course considers the relationship between literature and the body. How do different genres of literature (poetry, drama, prose) represent bodies and spaces? How do different spaces welcome or discourage interactions between people with different kinds of bodies, in terms of race, gender, sexuality, ability, and/or age? In what ways can storytelling (and the arts/humanities more generally) reach spaces outside the university? Explore these questions while collaborating with community organizations that work to break down gender stereotypes and empower individuals and communities: the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Club, the Santa Monica YWCA, and the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Texts include Jane Austen's Persuasion, David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, Caryl Phillips' Crossing the River, and William Shakespeare's Othello.
This course will examine the cultural response to the tumultuous 1960s in Great Britain and its f... more This course will examine the cultural response to the tumultuous 1960s in Great Britain and its former colonies. As American youth culture rebelled against suburban complacency and military aggression abroad, the 1950s in Britain were marked by austerity as the nation tried to recover from the devastation of World War II and the steady loss of its empire. “Swinging London” embraced the new and the modern in pop culture, despite the rise in class struggles in the north and terrorism in Northern Ireland. Countries like Nigeria, Jamaica, and India celebrated their newly independent national cultures, while reckoning with the legacy of colonialism. We will begin in 1954, the final end of wartime rationing, and finish in 1979 with the rise of Margaret Thatcher and Tory neoliberalism. Texts include Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine, Shelagh Delany's A Taste of Honey, V.S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men, Wole Soyinka's Death and the King’s Horseman, A Hard Day's Night, and Alfie.
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Papers by Angelina Del Balzo
Reviews by Angelina Del Balzo
Presented by Boston Court Pasadena, Pasadena, CA. September 27–November 4, 2018. By Sarah B. Mantell. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Scenic design by François-Pierre Couture. Costumes by Denitsa Bliznakova. Lighting by Jaymi Lee Smith. Sound by John Nobori. Properties by Courtney Lynn Dusenberry. Dramaturgy by Emilie Beck. With Paul Culos (Lorenzo), Leo Marks (Shylock), Dylan Saunders (Gobbo), and Erika Soto (Jessica).
Teaching Documents by Angelina Del Balzo
Njabulo Ndebele's The Cry of Winnie Mandela.
Presented by Boston Court Pasadena, Pasadena, CA. September 27–November 4, 2018. By Sarah B. Mantell. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Scenic design by François-Pierre Couture. Costumes by Denitsa Bliznakova. Lighting by Jaymi Lee Smith. Sound by John Nobori. Properties by Courtney Lynn Dusenberry. Dramaturgy by Emilie Beck. With Paul Culos (Lorenzo), Leo Marks (Shylock), Dylan Saunders (Gobbo), and Erika Soto (Jessica).
Njabulo Ndebele's The Cry of Winnie Mandela.