We hope you can join us for the last "The Uses of Literature" session of this term, where we'll be joined by Victor Sage, Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia (and graduate of Durham University!), for a very special off-schedule seminar. Professor Sage's paper, about two of the most exciting and innovative novelists currently working in British contemporary fiction, will be followed by open forum discussion and a trip to the pub.
Two Uses of the Encyclopaedia: Narrative and the Archive in Tom McCarthy’s C and Nicola Barker’s Darkmans.
Victor Sage, Emeritus Professor of English Literature (Department of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia)
6.30pm, Thursday 17th March 2011
Hallgarth House Seminar Room, Hallgarth Street, Durham
Abstract
Encyclopaedism in fiction can be defined (crudely) as an assimilation of prose narrative to the Archive, and in particular to the concept of infinity, the infinity of Knowledge, the ideal form of which is the list. Knowledge as a journey off the map of whatever conscious or unconscious provincialism we happen to inhabit. The moods and effects of this writerly manoeuvre are many and various; in the case of the novel, Bakhtin has helped us begin to chart its long prehistory of subversion before we get to the lists of Rabelais. He showed us two things: that this assimilation of narrative to the conceptually open form of the quantitative is not just a Modern (let alone a Modernist) tradition. And he also showed that it is not just a high, intellectual tradition, but a popular comic tradition too. The effects of this writerly manoeuvre are various. This talk considers two recent examples of the assimilation of narrative to infinity in Tom McCarthy’s C, and Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, which gives an occasion to reflect on the tension between the high cultural and popular traditions in contemporary fiction.
Biography
Victor Sage is an Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia. A graduate of the University of Durham, he is the author of three books of fiction. He has also written on the the novel in the 19th and 20th century Gothic tradition: on Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Beckett, Katherine Mansfield, John McGahern, J.G.Ballard, and, recently, Kazuo Ishiguro. His most recent monograph is Le Fanu’s Gothic: the Rhetoric of Darkness (2004). He is the editor for Penguin Classics of Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer and J.Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas. He is currently working on A Cultural History of European Gothic for Polity Press.
Showing posts with label THE USES OF LITERATURE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label THE USES OF LITERATURE. Show all posts
15 March 2011
19 February 2011
"Converging Cultures: Film, Fiction and Celebrity"
Please join us for the next session in our "The Uses of Literature" series, where we'll be joined by James Annesley of Newcastle University's School of Literature, Language and Linguistics.
ABSTRACT
More than just a description of technological changes that are working alongside the increasing integration of media businesses, convergence is a social process that works on our cultural consumption at the same time as it affects the aesthetics of the culture we consume. Films are increasingly resembling video games, literary texts are merging with other forms of media on Ipad and Kindle.
Beyond these technological, industrial and sociological changes, there is also, this paper argues, evidence of increasing convergence in creative practice. The self-reflexive quality of Bret Ellis’ recent fiction and Spike Jonze’s films, for example, not only illustrates the ways in which convergence works to blur and undermine familiar aesthetic categories, but does so in terms that offer important insight into the boundary-less creative gene pool that provides a context for cultural production in a converged mediascape. Focussing on the functioning of celebrity in their work (particularly Ellis’ portraits of himself as the celebrity author, and the games Jonze plays with John Malkovich and Christopher Walken), the argument is that convergence is not only affecting the kinds of material that writers are filmmakers are producing and changing the ways in which their cultural production is financed, disseminated and consumed, but is at the same time transforming the ways in which they are making their work. Jonze in particular seems to have very clear sense that the perceived divisions between music, advertising, cinema and television have as little meaning for his creative practice as they do for media businesses and consumers. Even as "Being John Malkovich" encourages us to reconsider our expectations about the aesthetics of film in a converging culture, it also helps us understand the extent to which it, like many other contemporary cultural artefacts, is the product of a creative practice that is itself convergent.
BIO
James Annesley is Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Newcastle University with research interests including American literature, contemporary literature and culture, globalization, consumer society and lifestyle. His publications include Fictions of Globalisation: Consumption, the Market and the Contemporary American Novel (London: Continuum, 2006), Blank Fiction: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel (London: Pluto: 1998).
ABSTRACT
More than just a description of technological changes that are working alongside the increasing integration of media businesses, convergence is a social process that works on our cultural consumption at the same time as it affects the aesthetics of the culture we consume. Films are increasingly resembling video games, literary texts are merging with other forms of media on Ipad and Kindle.
Beyond these technological, industrial and sociological changes, there is also, this paper argues, evidence of increasing convergence in creative practice. The self-reflexive quality of Bret Ellis’ recent fiction and Spike Jonze’s films, for example, not only illustrates the ways in which convergence works to blur and undermine familiar aesthetic categories, but does so in terms that offer important insight into the boundary-less creative gene pool that provides a context for cultural production in a converged mediascape. Focussing on the functioning of celebrity in their work (particularly Ellis’ portraits of himself as the celebrity author, and the games Jonze plays with John Malkovich and Christopher Walken), the argument is that convergence is not only affecting the kinds of material that writers are filmmakers are producing and changing the ways in which their cultural production is financed, disseminated and consumed, but is at the same time transforming the ways in which they are making their work. Jonze in particular seems to have very clear sense that the perceived divisions between music, advertising, cinema and television have as little meaning for his creative practice as they do for media businesses and consumers. Even as "Being John Malkovich" encourages us to reconsider our expectations about the aesthetics of film in a converging culture, it also helps us understand the extent to which it, like many other contemporary cultural artefacts, is the product of a creative practice that is itself convergent.
BIO
James Annesley is Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Newcastle University with research interests including American literature, contemporary literature and culture, globalization, consumer society and lifestyle. His publications include Fictions of Globalisation: Consumption, the Market and the Contemporary American Novel (London: Continuum, 2006), Blank Fiction: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel (London: Pluto: 1998).
1 February 2011
“Cognition, Narrative, and the Force of Fictionality”
Hope you can join us for the next seminar in our "The Uses of Literature" series, lead by Richard Walsh of the University of York. Dr Walsh will be discussing the role of fictionality in human understanding (abstract follows below). As ever, his paper will be followed by open forum discussion and then a trip to the pub.
ABSTRACT
The literary text is inherently metadiscursive, and like all metadiscourse if offers understanding of something already within the human domain of meaning, rather than natural phenomena. This paper elaborates upon that quality with specific reference to fictionality, and shows how the built-in self-consciousness of fictionality as a rhetorical orientation connects highly wrought literary fictions with the most elemental functions of human understanding. At a cognitive level, narrative sense-making is both an adaptive faculty offering unprecedented mastery over temporality and experience, and the inauguration of a reflexive cycle of representation that works both to define the parameters of human value and to expose the contingency and limitations of its own frame of reference. Fictive rhetoric, by virtue of the self-consciousness integral to its operation, uses this cycle as the engine of the creative imagination; and literary fiction raises it to the highest degree. My argument maps out this view of fictionality, moving from a cognitive-evolutionary frame of reference, via a consideration of the status of narrative in relation to the theory of natural selection itself, to a distinction between value and force that characterizes the duality between what narrative reflexiveness says and what it does.
BIO
Richard Walsh is a senior lecturer in English and Related Literature at the University of York. He is the author of "Novel Arguments: Reading Innovative American Fiction" (Cambridge 1995) and "The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction" (Ohio State, 2007), which proposes a fundamental reconceptualisation of the role of fictionality in narrative, and in doing so challenges many of the core assumptions of narrative theory. He has published articles in "Poetics Today", "Narrative", "Style", "Modern Fiction Studies" and "Storyworlds", among others, and has contributed essays to edited volumes such as the "Blackwell Companion to Narrative Theory" (2005), "Toward a Cognitive Theory of Narrative Acts" (2010) and "Postclassical Narratology: Approaches and Analyses" (2010). His current research interests include narrative across media and narrative theory in interdisciplinary contexts, in particular the relation between narrative and the concept of emergence. He is the leader of the Fictionality Research Group, and director of Narrative Research in York’s Centre for Modern Studies.
ABSTRACT
The literary text is inherently metadiscursive, and like all metadiscourse if offers understanding of something already within the human domain of meaning, rather than natural phenomena. This paper elaborates upon that quality with specific reference to fictionality, and shows how the built-in self-consciousness of fictionality as a rhetorical orientation connects highly wrought literary fictions with the most elemental functions of human understanding. At a cognitive level, narrative sense-making is both an adaptive faculty offering unprecedented mastery over temporality and experience, and the inauguration of a reflexive cycle of representation that works both to define the parameters of human value and to expose the contingency and limitations of its own frame of reference. Fictive rhetoric, by virtue of the self-consciousness integral to its operation, uses this cycle as the engine of the creative imagination; and literary fiction raises it to the highest degree. My argument maps out this view of fictionality, moving from a cognitive-evolutionary frame of reference, via a consideration of the status of narrative in relation to the theory of natural selection itself, to a distinction between value and force that characterizes the duality between what narrative reflexiveness says and what it does.
BIO
Richard Walsh is a senior lecturer in English and Related Literature at the University of York. He is the author of "Novel Arguments: Reading Innovative American Fiction" (Cambridge 1995) and "The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction" (Ohio State, 2007), which proposes a fundamental reconceptualisation of the role of fictionality in narrative, and in doing so challenges many of the core assumptions of narrative theory. He has published articles in "Poetics Today", "Narrative", "Style", "Modern Fiction Studies" and "Storyworlds", among others, and has contributed essays to edited volumes such as the "Blackwell Companion to Narrative Theory" (2005), "Toward a Cognitive Theory of Narrative Acts" (2010) and "Postclassical Narratology: Approaches and Analyses" (2010). His current research interests include narrative across media and narrative theory in interdisciplinary contexts, in particular the relation between narrative and the concept of emergence. He is the leader of the Fictionality Research Group, and director of Narrative Research in York’s Centre for Modern Studies.
22 January 2011
"Imaginative Worlds: Medical Humanities and ‘the uses of literature’"
Please join us for the first "The Uses of Literature" seminar of Epiphany Term, where we'll be joined by members of the Centre for Medical Humanities here at Durham University.
ABSTRACT
The Medical Humanities is an emerging interdisciplinary field of enquiry in which humanities and social sciences perspectives are brought to bear upon an exploration of the human side of medicine, broadly conceived. Literary studies has been a key contributing discipline to the development of this field; however, driven as it has been by the imperatives of medical education, the Medical Humanities has tended to value literature mainly as a form of training (in how to be empathetic, to tolerate ambiguity, to develop 'narrative competence' in the context of clinical practice). The central argument of this paper is that a more sophisticated account of the ‘uses of literature’ in the Medical Humanities is needed if the field is to continue to flourish. To that end, our paper, which is very much a work in progress, takes some first steps in the attempt to rethink the role of literature in understanding medicine and, indeed, human experience. Beginning with an overview uses of literature dominant in the Medical Humanities, we then explore alternative approaches by looking at the imaginative worlds of pre-modern literature and the Zuckerman novels of Philip Roth.
BIOGRAPHIES
Corinne Saunders is Professor in the Department of English Studies, Associate Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities, and Director of the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A key focus of her current work is the study of pre-Cartesian models of mind-body-affect and their links with contemporary neuroscience. Michael Mack is a Reader in the Department of English Studies and the Centre for Medical Humanities. He is currently completing a book about how literature changes the way we think. Angela Woods is a Lecturer in Medical Humanities whose first book "The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory" is forthcoming in 2011.
ABSTRACT
The Medical Humanities is an emerging interdisciplinary field of enquiry in which humanities and social sciences perspectives are brought to bear upon an exploration of the human side of medicine, broadly conceived. Literary studies has been a key contributing discipline to the development of this field; however, driven as it has been by the imperatives of medical education, the Medical Humanities has tended to value literature mainly as a form of training (in how to be empathetic, to tolerate ambiguity, to develop 'narrative competence' in the context of clinical practice). The central argument of this paper is that a more sophisticated account of the ‘uses of literature’ in the Medical Humanities is needed if the field is to continue to flourish. To that end, our paper, which is very much a work in progress, takes some first steps in the attempt to rethink the role of literature in understanding medicine and, indeed, human experience. Beginning with an overview uses of literature dominant in the Medical Humanities, we then explore alternative approaches by looking at the imaginative worlds of pre-modern literature and the Zuckerman novels of Philip Roth.
BIOGRAPHIES
Corinne Saunders is Professor in the Department of English Studies, Associate Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities, and Director of the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A key focus of her current work is the study of pre-Cartesian models of mind-body-affect and their links with contemporary neuroscience. Michael Mack is a Reader in the Department of English Studies and the Centre for Medical Humanities. He is currently completing a book about how literature changes the way we think. Angela Woods is a Lecturer in Medical Humanities whose first book "The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory" is forthcoming in 2011.
18 January 2011
EPIPHANY TERM PROGRAMME
We hope you'll join us for the next batch of seminars in the "The Uses of Literature" series. Our Epiphany Term programme runs the gamut of the arts and humanities disciplines, from the Medical Humanities to Film Studies, taking in topics including rethinking the role of literature in medicine; fictionality and human understanding; the commingling of film, fiction and celebrity culture and new, innovative tendencies in the British novel.
6pm Tuesday 25th January 2011
"Imaginative Worlds: Medical Humanities and ‘the uses of literature’"
Corinne Saunders, Michael Mack & Angela Woods (Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University)
6pm Tuesday 8th February 2011
“Cognition, Narrative, and the Force of Fictionality”
Richard Walsh (Department of English and Related Literature, University of York)
6pm Tuesday 22nd February 2011
"Converging Cultures: Film, Fiction and Celebrity in Spike Jonze and Bret Easton Ellis"
James Annesley (School of Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University)
TBC, March 2011: Vic Sage (School of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia)
Please note the seminars will take place on Tuesday evenings this term. As ever, the seminars take place in the Seminar Room at Hallgarth House, Hallgarth Street, Durham and are followed by drinks and discussion in the Victoria pub.
"The Uses of Literature" Epiphany Term Programme
6pm Tuesday 25th January 2011
"Imaginative Worlds: Medical Humanities and ‘the uses of literature’"
Corinne Saunders, Michael Mack & Angela Woods (Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University)
6pm Tuesday 8th February 2011
“Cognition, Narrative, and the Force of Fictionality”
Richard Walsh (Department of English and Related Literature, University of York)
6pm Tuesday 22nd February 2011
"Converging Cultures: Film, Fiction and Celebrity in Spike Jonze and Bret Easton Ellis"
James Annesley (School of Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University)
TBC, March 2011: Vic Sage (School of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia)
Please note the seminars will take place on Tuesday evenings this term. As ever, the seminars take place in the Seminar Room at Hallgarth House, Hallgarth Street, Durham and are followed by drinks and discussion in the Victoria pub.
11 January 2011
PODCAST #1: "GENRE AND DISCIPLINE" - ALASTAIR RENFREW
We're delighted to announce that the first of our "The Uses of Literature" seminars, a spirited defence of the arts and humanities by Durham University Department of Russian's Alastair Renfrew, is now available to stream.
Dr. Alastair Renfrew - 'Genre and Discipline' by inventionsofthetext
We still have spots available for the latter part of the series, if you'd like to contribute, please email inventionsofthetext@gmail.com
10 January 2011
"THE USES OF LITERATURE" PODCAST
We will shortly be making our "The Uses of Literature" seminars available to stream as podcasts. Please stay tuned for more information.
30 November 2010
"WHITHER DECONSTRUCTION...? WITHER DECONSTRUCTION...?" - MAEBH LONG
Please join us for the final "The Uses of Literature" seminar of this term. The English Department's own Maebh Long will be speaking about the futures of literary theory in a paper entitled "Whither deconstruction…? Wither deconstruction…?". The paper will be followed by open forum discussion and a trip to the Victoria, in the usual way.
ABSTRACT
“The future of literary criticism will be Derridean, or it will not be. And if it is... not, it will have been Derridean, since it was he who first envisioned critically the possibility of a future from which literature—and, a fortiori, literary criticism—might be absent”. Richard Klein, “The Future of Literary Criticism” PMLA 125.4 (2010).
In the brave new world in which we live futures and fates are very much under scrutiny. The tragedy/farce of the Browne Report has precipitated – exacerbated – the prevailing sense of being haunted by the future, of being under siege by an inevitable and inescapable fate. Futures are closed off within a dystopian use of the future perfect that attempts to repress the openness of what Derrida termed the “to come”. This paper looks at the “to come” of the humanities, and specifically literary theory, and works to find some openness and possibility within the withering gaze of a potentially bleak future.
BIO
Maebh Long has submitted her doctoral thesis on Jacques Derrida and irony, which she wrote under the supervision of Prof. Timothy Clark, and is currently awaiting her viva. Her work attempts to position Derrida within a lineage of thinkers working on the borders of literature and philosophy who exploit irony, a non-propositional element of language, as a cognitive resource. Long was Chief Editor of the postgraduate journal Kaleidoscope (2008-2010), was co-convenor of Inventions of the Text (2008-2009) and co-convenor the English department’s theory reading group (2007-2010). "A Step Askew: Ironic Parabasis in Blanchot" in Blanchot Romantique, ed. by John McKeane and Hannes Opelz (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010) has just been published, and "Radical Digressivity and At Swim-Two-Birds" is forthcoming in Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digressions, ed. by Rhian Atkin (Oxford: Legenda, 2011).
ABSTRACT
“The future of literary criticism will be Derridean, or it will not be. And if it is... not, it will have been Derridean, since it was he who first envisioned critically the possibility of a future from which literature—and, a fortiori, literary criticism—might be absent”. Richard Klein, “The Future of Literary Criticism” PMLA 125.4 (2010).
In the brave new world in which we live futures and fates are very much under scrutiny. The tragedy/farce of the Browne Report has precipitated – exacerbated – the prevailing sense of being haunted by the future, of being under siege by an inevitable and inescapable fate. Futures are closed off within a dystopian use of the future perfect that attempts to repress the openness of what Derrida termed the “to come”. This paper looks at the “to come” of the humanities, and specifically literary theory, and works to find some openness and possibility within the withering gaze of a potentially bleak future.
BIO
Maebh Long has submitted her doctoral thesis on Jacques Derrida and irony, which she wrote under the supervision of Prof. Timothy Clark, and is currently awaiting her viva. Her work attempts to position Derrida within a lineage of thinkers working on the borders of literature and philosophy who exploit irony, a non-propositional element of language, as a cognitive resource. Long was Chief Editor of the postgraduate journal Kaleidoscope (2008-2010), was co-convenor of Inventions of the Text (2008-2009) and co-convenor the English department’s theory reading group (2007-2010). "A Step Askew: Ironic Parabasis in Blanchot" in Blanchot Romantique, ed. by John McKeane and Hannes Opelz (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010) has just been published, and "Radical Digressivity and At Swim-Two-Birds" is forthcoming in Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digressions, ed. by Rhian Atkin (Oxford: Legenda, 2011).
23 October 2010
"WHY WE DON'T WRITE POEMS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE" - MATTHEW GRIFFITHS
Join us for the second of our "The Uses of Literature" series for a talk that explores how climate change is employed to expose age old poetic concerns, and calls for a new account of the cultural significances of this massive anti-glacial effort on the part of humanity.
15 October 2010
FIRST SEMINAR: "GENRE AND DISCIPLINE" - ALASTAIR RENFREW
Join us for the first in our "The Uses of Literature" series:
ABSTRACT
Against the background of the ubiquity of ‘interdisciplinarity’ and now endemic concerns about ‘the profession’, this paper seeks, first, to retrace the history of the professionalization of Literary Studies in the twentieth century, proceeding from the rise of so-called Russian Formalism in the Soviet 1920s. The broad purpose of this brief retrospective is to isolate ...certain particular ways in which institutional factors have influenced the evolution of discipline and to highlight the sense in which, for the humanities at least, the cloak of interdisciplinarity has concealed a state of ‘war’. The second part of the paper involves a return to the selected point of origin – ‘Russian Formalism’ – in order to suggest a corrective reconceptualisation of the ways in which humanities disciplines in general might be viewed. This will entail a revisionist view not only of Formalism itself, but also of the ways in which genre has been conceived in Literary Studies. In an echo of the ways in which a Bakhtinian (Barthesian) conception of the ‘war of languages’ implies a re-conceptualisation of literary genre, the objective is to examine how genre can be deployed in order to understand – and defuse – the ‘war of disciplines’.
BIO
Alastair Renfrew taught at the universities of Strathclyde and Exeter before coming to Durham as Reader and Head of Russian in 2007. He is Director of Research in the School of Modern Languages & Cultures and has recently become Editor of the journal Slavonica. His main area of research specialization is critical and literary theory, with particular emphasis on the Soviet 1920s. He has published widely on Mikhail Bakhtin and the so-called Russian Formalists, including the monograph Towards a New Material Aesthetics (Legenda, 2006) and the recent collection Critical Theory in Russia and the West (Routledge 2010). He is currently completing an introduction to Bakhtin for Routledge Critical Thinkers. He has also taught and published on Russian and Soviet Cinema, Russian and Scottish Literature and is currently developing a project on the history of political violence in Russian literature and culture.
ABSTRACT
Against the background of the ubiquity of ‘interdisciplinarity’ and now endemic concerns about ‘the profession’, this paper seeks, first, to retrace the history of the professionalization of Literary Studies in the twentieth century, proceeding from the rise of so-called Russian Formalism in the Soviet 1920s. The broad purpose of this brief retrospective is to isolate ...certain particular ways in which institutional factors have influenced the evolution of discipline and to highlight the sense in which, for the humanities at least, the cloak of interdisciplinarity has concealed a state of ‘war’. The second part of the paper involves a return to the selected point of origin – ‘Russian Formalism’ – in order to suggest a corrective reconceptualisation of the ways in which humanities disciplines in general might be viewed. This will entail a revisionist view not only of Formalism itself, but also of the ways in which genre has been conceived in Literary Studies. In an echo of the ways in which a Bakhtinian (Barthesian) conception of the ‘war of languages’ implies a re-conceptualisation of literary genre, the objective is to examine how genre can be deployed in order to understand – and defuse – the ‘war of disciplines’.
BIO
Alastair Renfrew taught at the universities of Strathclyde and Exeter before coming to Durham as Reader and Head of Russian in 2007. He is Director of Research in the School of Modern Languages & Cultures and has recently become Editor of the journal Slavonica. His main area of research specialization is critical and literary theory, with particular emphasis on the Soviet 1920s. He has published widely on Mikhail Bakhtin and the so-called Russian Formalists, including the monograph Towards a New Material Aesthetics (Legenda, 2006) and the recent collection Critical Theory in Russia and the West (Routledge 2010). He is currently completing an introduction to Bakhtin for Routledge Critical Thinkers. He has also taught and published on Russian and Soviet Cinema, Russian and Scottish Literature and is currently developing a project on the history of political violence in Russian literature and culture.
2 September 2010
INVENTIONS OF THE TEXT 2010/11: "THE USES OF LITERATURE"
Inventions of the Text is a fortnightly staff-student forum run by postgraduate students from the Department of English Studies at Durham University. It is an opportunity for postgraduate students and staff to present their research in the form of a 20-minute paper, and to contribute to lively discussion on key issues raised.
How to contribute
Please send an email indicating your interest, together with an abstract of 100-200 words to
inventionsofthetext@gmail.com.
"The Uses of Literature"
Our theme for this year’s series is “The Uses of Literature”. Literature and literary study is being forced to justify itself as never before. New higher education funding proposals have brought fears about the effects of socio-economic impact assessment on research in the arts and humanities. Traditional claims for literature as “the best that has been thought or said” have been replaced by a more sceptical attitude about literature’s social and cultural power – its role can now only be provisional. Literary critics and theorists are also in the firing line. The academic Left, it has been argued, is “rotten with theory”. Ever-suspicious, is has been criticised for finding its own gloomy diagnosis in every text – often at the expense of the text itself. Literature as a form of knowledge has apparently been outstripped by the natural and social sciences. What’s more, the future of the book itself is uncertain, with digital media threatening to usurp its old print counterpart.
Inventions of the Text hopes to make a challenging and timely intervention in these debates. We invite papers that reflect on the forms and functions of literature and literary study in its broadest sense. We encourage those that examine the role of literature in its social, cultural and economic contexts and also those that challenge this sense of “crisis”. Should literature have to justify itself at all? Does this emphasis on use value of literature short-change the vital and varied roles of literature in culture?
This year, Inventions of the Text invites you to engage with fundamental questions of why we do what we do.
Topics include, but are by no means limited to:
Prose
The novel in culture
Literary translation & possibilities for a global literature
The novel & the political
Realism & experimentation
Genre mixing & hybrid forms
The novel form in the digital age
New developments in narratology
Poetry
Poetry, creation & value
Poetic knowledge: poetry vs. theory/philosophy
Publishing poetry: the small press & the "little magazine"
Poetry & everyday life
Poetry & the academy
Theory
Literature as literary criticism
Cognition vs. affect
Ideologies of reading
Hermeneutics
Historicism & cultural memory studies
How to contribute
Please send an email indicating your interest, together with an abstract of 100-200 words to
inventionsofthetext@gmail.com.
"The Uses of Literature"
Our theme for this year’s series is “The Uses of Literature”. Literature and literary study is being forced to justify itself as never before. New higher education funding proposals have brought fears about the effects of socio-economic impact assessment on research in the arts and humanities. Traditional claims for literature as “the best that has been thought or said” have been replaced by a more sceptical attitude about literature’s social and cultural power – its role can now only be provisional. Literary critics and theorists are also in the firing line. The academic Left, it has been argued, is “rotten with theory”. Ever-suspicious, is has been criticised for finding its own gloomy diagnosis in every text – often at the expense of the text itself. Literature as a form of knowledge has apparently been outstripped by the natural and social sciences. What’s more, the future of the book itself is uncertain, with digital media threatening to usurp its old print counterpart.
Inventions of the Text hopes to make a challenging and timely intervention in these debates. We invite papers that reflect on the forms and functions of literature and literary study in its broadest sense. We encourage those that examine the role of literature in its social, cultural and economic contexts and also those that challenge this sense of “crisis”. Should literature have to justify itself at all? Does this emphasis on use value of literature short-change the vital and varied roles of literature in culture?
This year, Inventions of the Text invites you to engage with fundamental questions of why we do what we do.
Topics include, but are by no means limited to:
Prose
The novel in culture
Literary translation & possibilities for a global literature
The novel & the political
Realism & experimentation
Genre mixing & hybrid forms
The novel form in the digital age
New developments in narratology
Poetry
Poetry, creation & value
Poetic knowledge: poetry vs. theory/philosophy
Publishing poetry: the small press & the "little magazine"
Poetry & everyday life
Poetry & the academy
Theory
Literature as literary criticism
Cognition vs. affect
Ideologies of reading
Hermeneutics
Historicism & cultural memory studies
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