Conrad to the Letter: Crosscurrents of Film and Philology Between Slavic Studies and English Studies

This dialogue across the disciplines of film and philology, Slavic studies and English studies, addresses the way Conrad's text often makes its readers stumble over letters. Taking as one point of reference Patrice Chereau's film version of "The Return" (entitled Gabrielle), the dialogue explores how that film dramatizes and visualizes a problem of reading letters that can be found throughout Conrad's work. Conrad's autobiographical A Personal Record provides another point of reference for exploring how this problem of reading letters-and above all the effect of adding the letter K to authorial signature (JC)-presents the vexed relationship between the Slavic identity of his Polish past and the English identity of his authorial persona.