modernist studies

In his recent work On Literary Worlds (2012), Eric Hayot examines how literature—through narration—gives shape and substance to worlds and ways of being in them. Literary worlds, Hayot argues,“[are] the diegetic totality constituted by the sum of all aspects of a single work, constellated into a structure or system that amounts to a whole” (44) and “they are always social and conceptual constructs, as well as formal and affective ones” (45).

The Subject of Women in Proust

On first reading, Proust's narrative in A la Recherche du temps perdu suggests that women are merely objects in Marcel's development. Despite extensive descriptions and metaphors, female characters seem to slip away from concrete definition, defying assured characterization. Moreover, most critical discussions of women in Proust compartmentalize female characters either as “Madonnas” (Marcel’s mother and grandmother) or “whores” (Odette, Gilberte, Albertine, Léa, Rachel). But how are women in Proust's fiction more than just objects? Given their centrality to the text, a reexamination of the ways in which Proust writes female characters is overdue.

CFP: Refuge

46th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900

http://thelouisvilleconference.com/

University of Louisville

Louisville, Kentucky

22–24 February 2018

The whole world was a refugee now that the war had at last ended. 

 — Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian, or Ruling Passions (1982)

Any man, even the greatest, can be broken in a moment and has no refuge. Any theory which denies this is a lie. For myself, I have no theories.

 —Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince (1973)

This panel will aim to conceptualize the relationship between literature and the museum in the age of cultural mediation and digital media. We will examine how the imagined and immaterial museum space, as represented in the narrative text, can contribute to redefining the aesthetic experience for the spectator. This will also allow us to explore the critical posture adopted by contemporary authors with respect to the existing configuration of the physical museum space available to the public. The multiplication of stories staged in the museum space raises the question of the type of narratives that the museum experience can offer.

We invite paper proposals for a panel the H.D. International Society is organizing at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, February 22-24, 2018. What we have said before about the conference remains true, that it is a very welcoming and invigorating conference that features research presentations and work by creative writers. It is hosted yearly by the University of Louisville in Louisville, KY and sustained by the organizing efforts of Alan Golding. For more information, please see the attached CFP from the conference organizers and note that the confirmed keynote speakers for 2018 are terrific, yet again:  M. NourbeSe Philip, Dominic Pettman, and Brent Hayes Edwards.