Writing his way through grief in Scottish Gaelic: Christopher Whyte鈥檚 poems to Maria-Merc猫 Mar莽al
Speaker(s): Montserrat Lunati Maruny
In 1998, Catalan poet Maria-Merc猫 Mar莽al died of cancer, aged 45. At that time, Scottish writer and academic Christopher Whyte was living in Barcelona. They had been close friends through her illness and, after her death, he wrote six mourning poems in Scottish Gaelic, the language he favors for his poetry. This lecture, which is indebted to Jacques Derrida鈥檚 views on death, mourning and friendship, will focus on this collection of poems, whose title is 鈥Leabhar Nach Deach A Sgr矛obhadh: In memoriam Maria-Merc猫 Mar莽al, 11.XI.1952-5.VII. 1998鈥 [鈥A Book Unwritten: In memoriam Maria-Merc猫 Mar莽al, 11.XI.1952-5.VII. 1998鈥橾.
Montserrat Lunati Maruny taught at the School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University and is now an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the same university, and an Honorary Reader at the University of St. Andrews. Her research focuses on literature and visual media in contemporary Catalan and Spanish cultures, particularly on women鈥檚 production, as well as the textualization of illness and mourning; mother-daughter relationships; the (re)construction of the historical and cultural past through memory, perception and affect; the conversations that can be established between women writers from different periods, especially in relation to the representation of the 鈥榖ody鈥 and the construction of an (im)possible female genealogy; sexual and war trauma and its effects, especially on children, and the relevance of ironic discourse to cultural contestation.
She was the co-editor of the academic journal Tesserae, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, published by Taylor & Francis (Oxford) and she鈥檚 currently working on her monograph 鈥When Remembrance Becomes Historical Memory: Eva Koch鈥檚 Visual Art and the Spanish Civil War.鈥
Free and open to the public.