The article analyses ideological and genre aspects of Joseph Brodsky’s work, associated with the imperial theme in Russian literature. By drawing on methods from comparative literature, historical poetics, and empire studies I claim that a concern with space is not only central to Brodsky’s work but also consistent with his imperial thinking. Brodsky’s verse maintains a direct dialogue with Classicist poetry and Acmeist poetry (particularly Osip Mandelstam), both of which dealt with the notion of empire through adoption of the “high” literary style. The Imperial theme in Brodsky's oeuvre also overlaps with the dismantlement of the Russian imperial subject at the end of the Cold War. Against this backdrop, I argue that he was, above all, the last Russian imperial poet.

October 2020: Rafi Tsirkin-Sadan received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests include: Russian literature, Modern Hebrew literature, and Poetics of Space in East-European context. He serves as senior lecturer at the department of literature, arts and language at The Open University of Israel. Rafi is the author of two books: Jewish Letters at the Pushkin Library:  Yosef Haim Brenner's work and its connection to Russian Literature and Thought (Bialik Institute, 2013, in Hebrew), and Wandering Heroes, Committed Writers: Nihilists and Nihilism in Russian Literature (Van Leer/Hakibutz Hameuhad, 2015, in Hebrew). Together with Natasha Gorodinsky he edited a special issue of Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature dedicated to representations of European metropolis in Hebrew literature.

This paper examines some of the ways in which olfactory representations can convey atrocities of the battlefield and their moral implications. Analysis of olfactory images and of their emotional and even physical affordance suggest the differences in the writers’ ethical and aesthetic stance. Some represent war in all its violence, cruelty, and horror; others leave the harsh reality only implied and stylized, according to the principle that “silence screams louder than words.” Seven Israeli writers are discussed: Yoram Kaniuk, Shulamith Hareven, Yuval Neria, Haim Sabato, S. Yizhar, Haim Be’er and Yitzhak Ben-Ner. Their use (or omission) of references to smell may be indicative of their attitude to war. This study shares the growing interest in the senses and their significance in Humanities and social sciences.

October 2020: Yael Balaban is a researcher of Hebrew literature and a lecturer at Beit Berl College, Israel. She holds a Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and was a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include sensory representations in literature, musical ekphrasis, and Modern Hebrew literature. She is author of Many Voices: Reading the Prose of Shulamith Hareven, Magnes Press, 2019 [Hebrew].

From 1938 to 1945, Shanghai was a temporary haven to more than 20,000 Jews originally from Europe. Most of the Jewish refugees in Shanghai survived to see the end of WWII. However, the Jewish settlement in Shanghai during WWII remains a little-known chapter of the history of the Holocaust. Recent decades have witnessed significant changes in this regard. In addition to historical studies, memoirs, and popular culture, the Shanghai experience of European Jews also found its way into literary fiction. Drawing on theories of cultural memory and media studies and based on readings of two novels—Marion Cuba’s Shanghai Legacy (2005) and Beila’s The Cursed Piano (2007, English edition 2017), this article argues that literary fiction contributes, albeit belatedly, to the collective efforts to preserve this important legacy, and may do so in a more compelling way than other media, through special perspectives, engaging storytelling, and broader accessibility.

October 2020: Junsong Chen is Associate Professor at the Department of English, East China Normal University. His areas of research include contemporary American literature, cultural memory studies, narratology, and comparative literature. Junsong Chen received his Ph.D. from Shanghai International Studies University (2010), and completed his postdoctoral research at Fudan University (2015-2018). He was a Fulbright visiting research scholar at Harvard University (2018-2019). Over the past decade, his work has been engaged primarily with issues concerning the interaction among literature, history, and politics. He is the author of Political Engagement in Contemporary American Historiographic Metafiction (2013), Cultural Memory of Post-War America in the Fiction of Don DeLillo (forthcoming), and the translator of Chinese editions of Don DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories and Samuel Beckett’s Proust. His papers have appeared in such journals as Foreign Literature, Foreign Literature Studies, Contemporary Foreign Literature, etc. Currently he is working on a book examining contemporary American literature through the lens of cultural memory, tentatively titled Reconstructing Postwar America: History, Literature, and the Politics of Memory.