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ENH4920

Literature and negativity

Proposed to be offered next in 1998

K Hart

12 points
* 2 hours per week
* First semester
* 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 subject seeks to analyse `negativity' in the work of two modern writers - Franz Kafka and Maurice Blanchot - with the help of a range of critical theorists, including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Harold Bloom, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva.

Assessment Two essays (4500 words each): 50% each

Prescribed texts

Blanchot M The 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

Holland M The Blanchot reader Blackwells

Kafka The trial Schocken

Kafka F Collected stories Schocken


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