IPP KNL | Prof. Dr. Marco Caracciolo (Ghent, BE): “Challenges of Complexity in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction”
- https://www.uni-giessen.de/en/faculties/ggkgcsc/ggk-gcsc-calendar/wise-2425/knl/ipp-knl-prof-dr-marco-caracciolo-ghent-be-challenges-of-complexity-in-contemporary-anglophone-fiction-keynote
- IPP KNL | Prof. Dr. Marco Caracciolo (Ghent, BE): “Challenges of Complexity in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction”
- 2024-11-26T18:00:00+01:00
- 2024-11-26T20:00:00+01:00
Abstract:
Whether it is understood formally or cognitively, complexity is often seen as a desirable feature in the practices surrounding literary interpretation. But complexity can also prove threatening, overwhelming, or politically paralyzing, as authors including Samuel Arbesman and Eva Haifa Giraud have pointed out. In this talk, I will look at a range of contemporary Anglophone fictions that interrogate what one might think of as the dark sides of complexity. These novels tend to probe complexity and its limits in relation to pressing issues such as climate change or global mobility. My examples will include novels by Hanya Yanagihara (To Paradise) and Mohsin Hamid (Exit West). Combining narrative theory and New Formalism, I will explore how literature uses formal means to capture complexity as undesirable implication, and how such formal resources may prompt a (re)negotiation of how complexity is imagined and experienced affectively in real-world terms as well.
Everyone is welcome to attend, you need not be a member of the IPP or affiliated with the GGK/GCSC.
Link to online access: https://webconf.hrz.uni-giessen.de/b/isa-sdu-rca-df6
