Video Interview with Kathleen Alcala

As my ongoing ill-health is preventing me from reading my normal magic-realist book a week and therefore my weekly review, I thought I might share with you this video interview with Kathleen Alcala. I reviewed the book referenced in the interview Spirits of the Ordinary in July 2013. The link is here http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com/2013/07/spirits-of-ordinary-by-kathleen-alcala.html

Video on Magic Realism in the Art of Frida Kahlo

 

The term magic realism first appears in the writings of art critic Franz Roh. There is a natural movement between magic realist literature and magic realist art - see my review of Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. Carrington was both an artist and a writer. So when I came across this video on magic realism in the self portraits of Frida Kahlo I just had to share it with you. 

The video is from the University of San Francisco's Academy of Art.

Video post - In Search of Haruki Murakami

I am sure you will all find this 50-minute documentary about Haruki Murakami as fascinating as I did when I first saw it on the BBC. It is suitably impressionistic, as Alan Yentob explores Japan in search of the roots of and inspiration for the great Japanese magic realist with the help of a talking cat.

Magic Realism Videos - Lois Zamora

This post is part of the Magic Realism Bloghop 2015. It is also the first in a new series of blog posts that I am planning for this blog. Every weekend over the next year I plan to bring you a video about magic realism.

My aim is to comb You Tube and other sites to find a wide variety of videos that will expand your understanding of the genre. Some will be interviews with magic realist writers, some writer profiles, some animations of magic realist fiction and some will be academic lectures. We start the series with an excellent example of the latter.

The University of Houston has made available online (in this case on You Tube - but it is also available on the University's own website) a course delivered by magic-realism specialist Professor Lois Zamora. There are 25 (yes 25) lectures on the course. The course title is Contemporary Literature - Magic Realism. The focus is on a number of key magic realist books: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez), Labyrinths (Borges), The Kingdom of this World (Carpentier), Tracks (Erdrich), Ceremony (Silko) and The House of Spirits (Allende). But it also touches on magic realism in art and its influence on the concept of magical realism in literature.

Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community by Professor Zamora and Wendy B. Ferris is the classic textbook on the subject. So these videos are the perfect way to study the genre.

I have included videos number one (above) and two (below), which focus on What is Magical Realism.

You can view the other lectures here: http://freevideolectures.com/Course/2608/The-Contemporary-Novel-Magical-Realism/

Summary of lecture contents:
Lectures 3, 4 and 25 - The Art Historical Beginnings of Magical Realism
Lectures 5, 6, 7, 8 and the first half of 9 - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lectures Second half of 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 - Jorge Luis Borges
Lectures 14, 15, 16 - Alejo Carpentier
Lectures 17, 18, 19 - Louise Erdrich
Lectures 20, 21 and beginning of 22 - Leslie Marmon Silko
Lectures 22, 23, 24 - Isabel Allende and Magical Feminism