Silence and the Silenced ― Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Silence can be overtly expressed, or it can be subtle, speaking simply by not being spoken. These seventeen essays examine a range of ways in which silence can be expressed, be it through codes or through overt rhetorical actions. The uses of silence examined here include the muted tones in Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, political silencing (such as cartographic silences in Brian Friels's translations and Becket's Cold War texts) silencing one's own voice (self-censorship, how to foster silence), fascination with the void (the image of the falling man), body language(the secret sensation of self and other, the Japanese tea ceremony as a form of contemplative ellipses), pure and uncorrupted pantomime (classical and medieval science), silenced women in Latin elegy, and speaking in "saintly silence." Annotation c2014 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Leslie Boldt is Professor of French Studies at Brock University, where she teaches courses on French literature, cinema and culture and civilization. She is the English translator of Bataille’s L’experience interieure and has also edited a critical anthology of essays on Bataille’s work. While she has published primarily in the field of twentieth-century French literature, she is also interested in the intersection between the literature and visual art of France.
Corrado Federici is Professor of Italian at Brock University, where he teaches courses in Italian language, literature, translation, and Renaissance art. He has published on modern Italian poets and novelists and has translated six books from Italian to English. His three most recent publications are English translations of Renato Barilli, The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles (2012); Franco Cardini, The Companion to the Middle Ages (2012); and Raffaele Milani, The Art of the Landscape (2009).
Ernesto Virgulti is Associate Professor of Italian at Brock University, where he teaches courses in Italian language, literature, cinema and pedagogy, and in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program. His publications cover medieval Italian literature (especially Boccaccio’s Decameron), literary theory (narratology, semiotics), and cinema (Bertolucci and Amelio). He has also published a critical edition of Luigi Pirandello’s Cosi e (se vi pare).
Boldt, Federici, and Virgulti are also co-editors of the following volumes: Rewriting Texts, Remaking Images (Peter Lang, 2010); Disguise, Deception, Trompe-l’oeil (Peter Lang, 2009), Beauty and the Abject (Peter Lang, 2007); and Images and Imagery: Frames, Borders, Limits (Peter Lang, 2005).