Hello All,

Below, please find the readings for this week’s seminar, in which I will present my on-going work on Dickens’ Oliver Twist. I have included two of my own draft pieces.  The first will hopefully be the first section of my first dissertation chapter, “Oliver Twist’s Silence, Fagin’s Villainy, and the Hazards of Anti-Poor Law Authorship:
Dickens’ Narrative Politics.” The second is a conference paper that I presented to the Graduate Student Forum last month.  I am including this conference paper for two reasons. First, it provided the material that eventually turned into the first chapter.  Second, it will hopefully give you an idea of the close readings that will inform the second half of the chapter, which is currently unfinished.  Though the conference paper did obviously inform the chapter draft, I think that I have taken the work in a new direction and I’m interested to hear your opinions.  As a caveat, these two pieces are very much works in progress–they may still be very rough in some places. Additionally, the conference paper is very conversational; I hope you aren’t too distracted by that!

I have also provided a secondary piece by Elaine Hadley from her book, “Melodramatic Tactics: Theatricalized Dissent in the English Marketplace.”  I took a section from her third chapter that I thought would be most helpful in understanding the context in which I am writing.

Best,

Khristina

Gonzalez, Chapter One-Oliver Twist-First Draft

Gonzalez, Conference Paper-Oliver Twist

Hadley, Theatricalized Dissent

Hi All,

This coming Wednesday, April 14, Laurel will be presenting a draft of her dissertation chapter, “Lyric Hospitalities: Description and Voice as Guests in Marianne Moore’s Poetry.” You can find this chapter is PDF form below. Her supplemental readings include three of Moore’s poems, as well as an article by Susan Stewart.

Just as a reminder, we will be meeting for two weeks in a row—this Wednesday, April 14 and next Wednesday, April 21.

Laurel Rayburn-Chapter Draft

The Pickpocket-Susan Stewart

The Pangolin, by Marianne Moore

Silence, by Marianne Moore

The Frigate Pelican, by Marianne Moore(pending)

The culminating conference is drawing near and we have come up with a tentative conference schedule.  You may access it through the Colloquium Page or simply click HERE.

Please begin advertising to colleagues and other interested parties as well.  It promises to be an exciting and thought-provoking day.

We’ve been waiting a long time (at least I have!) but its finally time to read a novel (or something like a novel).  For this week’s Mellon, we have Maurice Blanchot’s Thomas the Obscure (don’t worry, its only about 100 pages).  We will also be reading a short Blanchot essay, “The Essential Solitude” from his book The Space of Literature.

This week, Professor Jacques Khalip will be joining us to lead our discussion on Blanchot.  It should be a great meeting!

Below, please find the PDF for Thomas the Obscure. I will post “The Essential Solitude” by the weekend’s end.

Thomas the Obscure by Maurice Blanchot

Blanchot, “The Essential Solitude”

Translator’s Introduction, Blanchot

Here are Sarah’s interlocutor pieces:

Williams letter

Castiglia

Hullot-Kentor introduction

R Williams_Keywords

Adorno in America*

Mbembe “Necropolitics”

Baucom, “Amicus Curiae”

Ian Baucom-On Inimical Life

Butler, Judith-Introduction to “Frames of War”

Supplemental Reading:

Professor Baucom has suggested that we might also want to take a look at his new book chapter, “Cicero’s Ghost,” which appeared in Russ Castronovo’s 2009 anthology: States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies, since it was written as a companion piece to “On Inimical Life.”  The PDF is below, but as these are uncorrected proofs, they are not meant for distribution beyond our group.

Baucom-Cicero’s Ghost

And his introlocutors:

Greenberg, Avant-Guarde

Galbraith, “Centralized Decision…”