BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.6.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news192@english.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191119T165901 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191206T140000 SUMMARY:«New Developments in Theory» lecture series Double Feature DESCRIPTION:Time after (the End of) Time\\r\\nWe are living in the historic al period characterized by its refusal to imagine history. The traditional narratives of utopia/dystopia are no longer sufficient to represent the f uture. Indeed\, we are caught in the continuous present whose repercussion s are felt in politics\, historiography\, and popular culture alike.The ec ological crisis and the threat of climate change have created a new vision of apocalypse: a slow-moving one. If previous threats to humanity resulte d in visions of sudden annihilation – from the nuclear war to the sudden technological collapse – the contemporary crisis of the historical imag ination has generated narratives of “being stuck” in the perpetual pre sence. It is not merely that our conceptualizations of history no longer c onform to the traditional duality of utopia/dystopia. Rather\, the very no tion of historical change has undergone a profound transformation. Instead of history being the arena of human activity alone\, it now blends in wit h the “deep history” of evolutionary and geological change\; or as Tim othy Morton puts it\, “we are no longer able to think history as exclusi vely human” (Hyperobjects). But this creates a strange paradox\, for it is precisely human activity that is to blame for the coming ecological cat astrophe. Being dislodged from its central role in the historical narrativ e\, humanity becomes both the subject and the object. Time itself stretche s into a muddle of the “broad present” since the catastrophe is always coming but is never quite here. History becomes a story that is impossibl e to tell: a narrative without a protagonist or narrator.Literature\, espe cially speculative literature\, has always been the arena in which narrati ve templates of historical change are reflected in the shape of fictional genres. The “chronotope of the broad present” (Gumbrecht) generates ne w forms of the literary imagination. I am particularly interested in three new developments that signify our collective bafflement in the face of th e Anthropocene. The first is what my co-author Vered Shemtov and I called limbotopia: narratives of “being stuck.” The second is a deformation o f traditional generic templates that results in narrative formlessness. By this I mean narratives that lack a resolution\, closure or explanation\, defying “the sense of an ending” (Kermode). And finally\, the third is the slow apocalypse – the emergence of a new form of apocalyptic narrat ivity out of the conventional popular culture formulae of\, for example\, invasion\, epidemic\, or environmental catastrophe fiction.Elana Gomel is Associate Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at T el Aviv University. She is the author of six non-fiction books and numerou s articles on subjects such as narrative theory\, posthumanism\, science f iction\, Dickens\, and Victorian culture. Her latest books are Narrative S pace and Time: Representing Impossible Topologies in Literature (Routledge 2014) and Science Fiction\, Alien Encounters\, and the Ethics of Posthuma nism: Beyond the Golden Rule (Palgrave Macmillan 2014). She is also the au thor of more than 40 fantasy and science fiction stories.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe F orm of Slowness: Literary Narrative and the Imagination of the Nonhuman\\r \\nIn How Forests Think\, Eduardo Kohn develops an anthropology of form ge ared toward questioning the divide between human societies and natural pro cesses. For Kohn\, form promises to bring together humans and nonhumans th rough its “effortless efficacy.” As a concept\, form resonates strongl y with the practice of literary scholarship\, as demonstrated recently by work in the area of New Formalism. Yet\, in literary terms\, form does not prove as effortless as Kohn suggests. In fact\, developing attention to f orm requires time and training—it involves a deliberate “slowing down of perception\,” to go back to the roots of the formalist project (via V iktor Shklovsky’s “Art as Technique”).In this talk\, I explore slown ess as both a conceptual category for literary theory and a mode of attent ion attuned to the nonhuman world. I argue that decentering the human and bringing out human-nonhuman interconnectedness depends on a specific exper iential stance that can be fostered by literary narrative through formal d evices. Building on David Abram’s phenomenologically inspired environmen tal philosophy\, contemporary work in cognitive narrative theory\, and exa mples from literary fiction and other media\, I seek to develop an account of “slow narrative” and its value for the imagination of the nonhuman world.Marco Caracciolo is Associate Professor of English and Literary The ory at Ghent University in Belgium\, where he leads the ERC Starting Grant project “Narrating the Mesh.” He is the author of three books\, inclu ding most recently Strange Narrators in Contemporary Fiction: Explorations in Readers‘ Engagement with Characters (University of Nebraska Press 20 16). His new book project (working title Narrating the Mesh: Form and Stor y in the Anthropocene) is currently under review. X-ALT-DESC:

Time after (the End of) Time

\n

We are living in the h istorical period characterized by its refusal to imagine history. The trad itional narratives of utopia/dystopia are no longer sufficient to represen t the future. Indeed\, we are caught in the continuous present whose reper cussions are felt in politics\, historiography\, and popular culture alike .
The ecological crisis and the threat of climate change have created a new vision of apocalypse: a slow-moving one. If previous threats to hum anity resulted in visions of sudden annihilation – from the nuclear war to the sudden technological collapse – the contemporary crisis of the hi storical imagination has generated narratives of “being stuck” in the perpetual presence. It is not merely that our conceptualizations of histor y no longer conform to the traditional duality of utopia/dystopia. Rather\ , the very notion of historical change has undergone a profound transforma tion. Instead of history being the arena of human activity alone\, it now blends in with the “deep history” of evolutionary and geological chang e\; or as Timothy Morton puts it\, “we are no longer able to think histo ry as exclusively human” (Hyperobjects). But this creates a stran ge paradox\, for it is precisely human activity that is to blame for the c oming ecological catastrophe. Being dislodged from its central role in the historical narrative\, humanity becomes both the subject and the object. Time itself stretches into a muddle of the “broad present” since the c atastrophe is always coming but is never quite here. History becomes a sto ry that is impossible to tell: a narrative without a protagonist or narrat or.
Literature\, especially speculative literature\, has always been the arena in which narrative templates of historical change are reflected in the shape of fictional genres. The “chronotope of the broad present ” (Gumbrecht) generates new forms of the literary imagination. I am part icularly interested in three new developments that signify our collective bafflement in the face of the Anthropocene. The first is what my co-author Vered Shemtov and I called limbotopia: narratives of “being stuck.” T he second is a deformation of traditional generic templates that results i n narrative formlessness. By this I mean narratives that lack a resolution \, closure or explanation\, defying “the sense of an ending” (Kermode) . And finally\, the third is the slow apocalypse – the emergence of a ne w form of apocalyptic narrativity out of the conventional popular culture formulae of\, for example\, invasion\, epidemic\, or environmental catastr ophe fiction.

Elana Gomel is Associate Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of six non-fiction books and numerous articles on subjects such as narrative theory\, posthumanism\, science fiction\, Dickens\, and Vict orian culture. Her latest books are Narrative Space and Time: Represent ing Impossible Topologies in Literature (Routledge 2014) and Scienc e Fiction\, Alien Encounters\, and the Ethics of Posthumanism: Beyond the Golden Rule (Palgrave Macmillan 2014). She is also the author of more than 40 fantasy and science fiction stories.

\n\n

The Form of Slowne ss: Literary Narrative and the Imagination of the Nonhuman

\n

In How Forests Think\, Eduardo Kohn develops an anthropology of form gear ed toward questioning the divide between human societies and natural proce sses. For Kohn\, form promises to bring together humans and nonhumans thro ugh its “effortless efficacy.” As a concept\, form resonates strongly with the practice of literary scholarship\, as demonstrated recently by wo rk in the area of New Formalism. Yet\, in literary terms\, form does not p rove as effortless as Kohn suggests. In fact\, developing attention to for m requires time and training—it involves a deliberate “slowing down of perception\,” to go back to the roots of the formalist project (via Vik tor Shklovsky’s “Art as Technique”).
In this talk\, I explore s lowness as both a conceptual category for literary theory and a mode of at tention attuned to the nonhuman world. I argue that decentering the human and bringing out human-nonhuman interconnectedness depends on a specific e xperiential stance that can be fostered by literary narrative through form al devices. Building on David Abram’s phenomenologically inspired enviro nmental philosophy\, contemporary work in cognitive narrative theory\, and examples from literary fiction and other media\, I seek to develop an acc ount of “slow narrative” and its value for the imagination of the nonh uman world.

Marco Caracciolo is Associate Professor of E nglish and Literary Theory at Ghent University in Belgium\, where he leads the ERC Starting Grant project “Narrating the Mesh.” He is the author of three books\, including most recently Strange Narrators in Contempo rary Fiction: Explorations in Readers‘ Engagement with Characters (U niversity of Nebraska Press 2016). His new book project (working title Narrating the Mesh: Form and Story in the Anthropocene) is currently u nder review.

DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191206T173000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR