Literature and negativity
Proposed to be offered next in 1998
Kevin Hart
8 or 12 points
* 2 hours per week
* Clayton
Objectives On the successful completion of this subject students should have gained a close familiarity with the major works of Maurice Blanchot and Franz Kafka, and should be conversant with the criticism and theory relevant to reading their works.
Synopsis Negativity has been a durable theme of modern thought and writing, and in recent years it has become of considerable structural interest. The notion is variously defined, usually with reference to one or more of philosophy, psychoanalysis and theology. When brought into literary studies it assumes a wide range of guises: difference, interpretation, nothingness, reading, repression, the unsayable and writing. This seminar seeks to analyse `negativity' in the work of two modern writers, Franz Kafka and Maurice Blanchot, and it will do so with the help of a range of critical theorists, including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Harold Bloom, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva.
Assessment (8 points) Two essays (3000 words each): 50% each
Assessment (12 points) Two essays (4500 words each): 50% each
Prescribed texts
Blanchot MThe work of fire Stanford U P
Blanchot M The one who was standing apart from me Station Hill
Blanchot M Thomas the obscure Station Hill
Kafka F The trial Schocken
Kafka F Collected stories Schocken
Holland M The Blanchot reader Blackwell
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