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).
19 February 2011
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).
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