"Philosophy and/as Literature," King’s College London, May 5-6, 2009.

Tuesday 5th May 9.30-10.00 coffee 10-10.50 Josh Billings (Oxford): ‘The Idea of Hamlet’ 10.50-11.45 Niklas Forsberg (Uppsala): ‘Running Out of Arguments: On Iris Murdoch "Resorting" to Literature’ 12-12.50 Craig Taylor (Flinders): ‘Literature, Value and Ambiguity’ 1.30-2.20 Joanne Waugh (South Florida/Tampa): ‘Philosophia, Poiesis and Paideia: the Republic Revisited’ 2.25-3.15 Nora Hämäläinen (Helsinki): ‘Literature, Moral Realism and Rorty’ 3.30-4.20 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran (Geneva): ‘Unamuno’s Philosophy of Tragic Passions’ 4.25-5.15 Sophie Djigo (Amiens): ‘Satire and Moral Perfectionism in Musil’s Novel’ Wednesday 6th May 10-10.50 Abigail Bright (Oxford/London): ‘What would be the significance of identifying features of reasoning intrinsic to philosophy but not to philosophical literature?’ 10.50-11.45 Manolis Simos (Cambridge): ‘Remarks on the Concept of a Literary Philosophy’ 12-12.50 Julia Peters (Berlin) ‘Self-Knowledge, Teleology and Involuntary Memory: On a Hegelian Element in Proust’s Recherche’ 1.30-2.20: Torsten Pettersson (Uppsala): ‘The Decay of Dying: Questioning the Detective Novel from the Viewpoint of Moral Philosophy; 2.25-3.15: Mikel Burley (Leeds): ‘Philosophizing Through Grief: C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed (With Several Allusions to Wittgenstein)’ 3.30-4.20 Stefano Marino (Bologna): ‘Theodor W. Adorno: Philosophy as More Than Just a Kind of Writing’ 4.25-5.15 María José Alcaraz León (Murcia): ‘Responding to Fiction as a Form of Self-Knowledge’ Further information is available from: christopher.hamilton@kcl.ac.uk.

Yanal, Robert J. Review of Peter Lamarque's THE PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. NDPR (March 2009).

Lamarque, Peter. The Philosophy of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. The Philosophy of Literature is another installment in the Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts series, which "is designed to provide a comprehensive but flexible series of concise texts addressing both fundamental general questions about art as well as questions about the several arts". Peter Lamarque, formerly editor of the British Journal of Aesthetics, has made a specialty of the philosophy of literature, having authored two books in this area (with Stein Haugom Olsen Truth, Fiction and Literature (1994), and Fictional Points of View (1996), along with a goodly number of articles. I shall not here describe points of similarity with or departure from Lamarque's previous work. Appropriately for a book that presents itself as an introduction to the field, Lamarque gives a historical overview of various sub-topics in the philosophy of literature as well as supplementary readings for each chapter. The topics canvassed are: literature-as-art; the role of the author (including attention to the intentional "fallacy"), reading a work of art-literature (including issues regarding interpretation), issues raised by works of fiction (including the ontology of fictional characters and emotions towards fiction), literary truth (what it might be); and the evaluation of literature (including the formation of a "canon" and "ethical criticism"). There are many topics I haven't listed (hence "including"), and certainly many topics I cannot touch on in this review. Indeed, I shall focus on one topic here: the definition of literature (which does seem to be Lamarque's principal concern). His Preface begins, "What exactly is it to view literature as art?" (vii), implying that the book is an exploration of various issues that arise from this very question. There is one general objection I have to this, though it isn't terribly serious. Some issues touched on in the book do directly relate to the problem of defining art-literature. If a text is art-literature, we might adopt approaches to it that are like those we would take towards other art forms (e.g., attention to form and structure, special ways of evaluation). But other issues can be raised quite independently of whether a text is art-literature: interpretation, the ontology of fiction, and emotion towards fiction, to name three. The same issues that arise with the interpretation of art-literature come up with the interpretation of non-art texts, such as legal contracts. That is, the fact that a certain text is a work of art is not always what forces issues of interpretation. Too, "Not all novels . . . are 'literary' " (31), but even fictional stories that are not art-literature raise issues of ontology and emotional reaction. (What, if anything, does "Sherlock Holmes" refer to? What is the nature of our emotional response to reading "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"?) Literary theorists -- New Critics, Structuralists, etc. -- are not interested in the problem of when a text is a work of literary art (though something like it arises as the problem of canon formation). Philosophers, though, are interested in definition, and the standard form of the analytical problematic is to seek necessary and sufficient conditions for "X is a work of literary art". . . . Notwithstanding Yanal's limited understanding of literary theory in the paragraph above (where does he get the idea that literary theorists are uninterested in the "problem of when a text is a work of literary art" and what has this to do with "canon formation" exactly?), read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15645.

"Pro and Contra: Ethical Values in Literature?," Interdisciplinary Workshop, University of Tuebingen, April 23-25, 2009.

A workshop on Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities and Fedor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Organisation: Prof. Dr. Sabine Döring, Dr. Catrin Misselhorn, Prof. Dr. Schamma Schahadat, Dr. Irina Wutsdorff Within the framework of this workshop issues concerning the ethical assessment of works of literature will be discussed from a philosophical as well as a literary perspective. Philosophers have recently provided controversial answers to the question whether, if at all, moral criteria should play any role in assessing pieces of art. With regard to literature the following questions ensue: In which way are ethical topoi and issues inscribed in literary works of art? What are the poetological consequences of ethical claims on literature as is predominantly the case in Russian culture. The novels The Brothers Karamazov by Fedor Dostoyevsky and The Man without Qualities by Robert Musil will serve as a primary point of reference. Speakers include: Gottfried Gabriel, Berys Gaut, Peter Goldie, and Matthew Kieran. Participation is free of charge, but the number of participants is limited and registration is required. Please contact: irina.wutsdorff@uni-tuebingen.de for further information.

Pub: Heinze, Eric. "Heir, Celebrity, Martyr, Monster: Legal and Political Legitimacy in Shakespeare and Beyond." LAW AND CRITIQUE 20.1 (2009).

Abstract: The Seventeenth Century places Western political thought on a path increasingly concerned with ascertaining the legitimacy of a determinate individual, parliamentary or popular sovereign. Beginning with Shakespeare, however, a parallel literary tradition serves not to systematise, but to problematise the discourses used to assert the legitimacy with which control over law and government is exercised. This article examines discourses of legal and political legitimacy spawned in early modernity. It is argued that basic notions of 'right', 'duty', 'justice' and 'power' (corresponding, in their more vivid manifestations, to categories of 'heir', 'celebrity', 'martyr' and 'monster') combine in discrete, but always encumbered ways, to generate a variety of legitimating discourses. Whilst transcendentalist versions of those discourses begin to wane, their secular counterparts acquire steadily greater force. In addition to the Shakespearean histories, works of John Milton, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Friedrich Schiller and Richard Wagner are examined, along with some more contemporary or ironic renderings. Download the whole article here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1348116.

White, Ryan Benjamin. "The Judge as an Author - The Author as a Judge." Working Paper Series, Social Science Research Network. February 9, 2009.

Abstract: For Federal judges, a life-tenure also comes with a life-long publishing deal. While some judges remain faithful to the rigid framework of judicial opinion writing that dominates the shelves of law libraries throughout the country, others utilize certain cases to summon their inner novelist or poet to add life to the pages of the Federal Register. The use of humor, poetry, and popular culture in judicial opinions is not without its criticism. This paper is divided into two main topics; the first discusses the judge as an author. The section will begin with an examination of the audience of judicial opinions and an outline of the different styles of judicial opinion writing. The section will also examine the advantages and disadvantages of using literary tools to advance the law. The second section addresses the role of the artist as a judge. This section will study a small segment of judges who, in addition to the law, maintain an outside career as an author or artist. Judges who fit into this group include authors of books, operas, and magazine articles, and their opinions are often written in a manner which reflects their experience. This section will also discuss the advantages (and potential drawbacks) of having these unique judges deciding cases dealing with a wide range of author's issues, including copyright and free speech, both substantively and stylistically. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1339943.

Orth, John V. "'The Golden Metwand': the Measure of Justice in Shakespeare's MEASURE FOR MEASURE." ADELAIDE LAW REVIEW (forthcoming).

Abstract: Measure for Measure, one of Shakespeare's problem plays, is a dark comedy depicting Duke Vincentio's effort to restore respect for the law after a period of lax enforcement. Peopled with a wide variety of law-enforcers and law-breakers, the play implicates numerous legal issues and has consequently attracted the attention of lawyers and judges. In the eighteenth century Sir William Blackstone contributed notes on the play, while in the twentieth century judges have quoted from it in their judicial opinions. Like all good legal dramas, Measure for Measure ends with a trial scene, but - as we would expect from Shakespeare - one with an unusual twist. When charges of corruption are brought against Angelo, the deputy appointed to enforce the law, the Duke orders an immediate trial: Come, cousin Angelo / In this I'll be impartial; be you judge / Of your own cause. When the deputy's guilt is disclosed, the Duke commands that he suffer the punishment he intended for others - measure for measure, putting the Bible-conscious play-goer in mind of the passage: Judge not, that ye be not judged. / For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you againe. By ordering Angelo to be the judge of his own cause, the Duke is inviting the deputy to measure out his own punishment. And Shakespeare is forcing us all to confront the difficulty of doing earthly justice. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1334263.

Cfp: "Law, Literature and Religion," School of Law and Department of English, Villanova University, October 1-3, 2009.

First Annual Law and Literature Symposium. We invite interested scholars to submit abstracts of proposed papers. Peter Goodrich (Professor of Law and Director of Law and Humanities, Cardozo School of Law), Steven Mailloux (Professor of English and Chancellor’s Professor of Rhetoric, Department of English, University of California – Irvine), and Robin West (Associate Dean, Research and Academic Programs, and Frederick J. Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center), will be keynote speakers. The conference theme for 2009, “Law, Literature, and Religion”, is broadly conceived. Papers may include but are not limited to papers on any literary, rhetorical, narrative, or textual aspects of law and religion; the exegesis and hermeneutics of legal texts or topics; interpretation in law, literature, and religion; shared languages and histories of law and religion; discursive intersections of civil and canon law; ethics and justice explored in religious and secular literature; the comparative poetics or rhetoric of legality and religion; legal priesthoods; political theology; orthodoxies and/or heterodoxies; humanisms; Pauline studies; religious images in law; literary works about religion in/and/as law; and law as a civil religion. Papers will be 20-25 minutes long to permit time for discussion. Abstracts of proposed papers should be sent to Professor Penelope Pether (pether@law.villanova.edu), to whom inquires may also be addressed. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, and should arrive before March 15, 2009. Invitees will be notified by April 30, 2009, and will receive room and board at (but not transportation to and from) the symposium, provided by Villanova University School of Law.

Eldridge, Richard. Review of Garry Hagberg, ed. ART AND ETHICAL CRITICISM. NDPR (January 2009).

Hagberg, Garry L., ed. Art and Ethical Criticism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Over the past twenty or so years, both the philosophy of art and literary and art studies have progressively returned, albeit somewhat fitfully, to considering human subjects and the powers and interests they bring to the construction and reception of art. In the philosophy of art, Stanley Cavell and Arthur Danto called attention to the expressive and revelatory powers of art, helping us to overcome flatter institutional theories of art and one-sided obsession with the epistemological problem of the justification of judgments of taste. In literary studies, the New Critical formalism that reigned up through the mid-1960s was displaced first by deconstruction and then by various forms of sociohistorical analysis. Though much interesting and valuable work was done, a feeling began to emerge that this latter analysis scanted too much both the powers of authors to think productively and critically about their social circumstances and the powers of their audiences to follow their densely specific lines of thought. These two lines of disciplinary development have now begun to converge under the heading of ethical criticism: "criticism" because the philosophical thoughts about the powers and interest of literary art are often urged substantially via engagement with particular works, and "ethical" because it is oriented toward human subjects and what they might learn about values rather than toward generalizing sociohistorical explanation. A list of central figures in this line of development would include not only Cavell and Danto, but also Martha Nussbaum, Frank Farrell, Noël Carroll, John Gibson, and the present reviewer in philosophy, Wayne Booth, Charles Altieri, and Frank Kermode in literary studies and James Elkins and Michael Fried (all along) in the visual arts. In each case, the effort is to accept and incorporate, rather than deny, the insights afforded by deconstruction and sociohistorical criticism (beyond formalism) while focusing nonetheless centrally on the powers and interest of art as itself a form of productive critical thought. A related but narrower line of thinking within philosophy has focused specifically on the question of the relation between the artistic value of a work and the moral value of a work. Does the fact that a given work embodies a noxious moral attitude detract from its artistic value, and does a praiseworthy moral attitude in a work add to its artistic value? Or is artistic value centrally formal and aesthetic, so that embodied moral attitudes have no implications for artistic value? Within discussions of these questions, Leni Riefenstahl and the Marquis de Sade are often under consideration. Important work on this topic has been done by Berys Gaut, Matthew Kieran, Marcia Eaton, Richard Posner, and Noël Carroll, among others. Jerrold Levinson's collection Aesthetics and Ethics provides a valuable overview of the various positions as does my An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art, Chapter 9, "Art and Morality." A difficulty that has frequently been thought to attach to raising the topic of art and morality in just this way, however, is that it is not so clear how to distinguish the art-relevant features of a work sharply and exhaustively from its ethical features. Are Pynchon's manic wordplay or Powell's sympathetic reserve from overt judgment or Robbe-Grillet's geometric coolness artistic or moral features of their texts? Likewise for Francis Bacon's or David Hockney's ways of handling the painting of their human subjects. If it is hard to say with any assurance that these features are ethical rather than artistic (or vice versa), then it courts obtuseness to ask how the ethical affects the artistic. Garry Hagberg's new anthology Art and Ethical Criticism consists of twelve new essays -- ten by philosophers, one each by an art historian and a professor of French -- together with a short foreword. The overall argument that emerges from these essays is that the first, broader topic (the powers and interest of art for human subjects) is more important than the second, narrower topic (the relation between artistic and moral value), and the essays are strongest exactly when they illuminate the powers and interest of art, precisely by not separating the artistic and ethical features of a work sharply from each other. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15065.

Pippin, Robert. Review of Richard Eldridge's LITERATURE, LIFE AND MODERNITITY. NDPR (January 2009).

Eldridge, Richard. Literature, Life, and Modernity. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. In Literature, Life, and Modernity Richard Eldridge focuses on the question of a reader's or a viewer's response to a literary or dramatic work in a specific historical epoch ("modernity"). That is, in contrast with many other philosophical approaches to literature, he avoids fixing attention on any putative doctrinal (moral or political or diagnostic) claims in a literary work. Thereby, and in many other admirable ways, he avoids the danger of treating literature as philosophy manqué, concedes the distinctness of literary experience, and only then asks about the significance of this experience. (In this way his approach is reminiscent to some extent of Schiller's; not bad company to be keeping.) This all amounts to a philosophy of literature of sorts but avoids a forced "philosophy in literature" or "literature as philosophy" treatment. There are themes and ideas at stake of course, but for distinct historical reasons, Eldridge also thinks of what he generally calls "modern" literature as characterized precisely by the absence of any thematic resolution, and so by a kind of play of possibilities, unsettledness, even homelessness. But, he argues, this is a play of ambiguity that nevertheless (and here the first controversial aesthetic claim) invites and sustains a compelling, valuable attentiveness, an attentiveness and involvement that (and here the second controversial philosophical claim) can be said also to inspire or provoke or in some way lead to this kind of attentiveness and involvement in, simply stated, life. (I should note too that this approach means that Eldridge has focused much more, though not exclusively, on issues of figuration and poetry, and not narrative. The latter is much more important for interpreters who take the fate suffered by characters in a narration as evidence of philosophical judgment. Eldridge's account of poetic figuration, even in dramas like Stoppard's and novels like Sebald's, allows him to stay much closer to a genuinely literary response, and that seems to me all to the good.) Let me first state more carefully the three cornerstones of Eldridge's position: (i) the unique and unprecedented historical condition that he thinks we face, "modernity"; (ii) the unique historical response summoned up by "modern literature"; and (iii) the value -- not the moral or political value, but something like the existential value -- of such a responsiveness for what is simply called "life." Modernity, Literature, and Life, then; as in his title, but re-arranging things a bit. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15027.

"Genre and Interpretation," Finnish Literary Society and Finnish Graduate School of Literary Studies, Helsinki, June 10–12, 2009.

Confirmed keynote speakers for the conference include Brian McHale (Ohio State University) and Ansgar Nünning (Justus-Liebig-Universität). Two of the eight workshops focus on Bakhtinian ideas on genre. Please send your abstract (300 – 500 words) for a 20-minute paper to Tintti Klapuri, tintti.klapuri@utu.fi, and to Saija Isomaa, saija.isomaa@helsinki.fi, no later than January 16th, 2009.

"The Surplus of Culture: Sense, Common-Sense, Non-Sense," Institute of English Cultures and Literatures, University of Silesia, September 16-20, 2009.

This conference is designed as a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on the cultural and literary aspects of Sense (and meaning, as in philosophy), Common-Sense (and everyday life or the quotidian or just ordinary) and Non-Sense (as in the discourse on the absurd, meaningless, the comical, the funny, etc). Culture and literature have always been most inspiring sites to address the idea of the sens-ical or the sens-uous, the common sens-ical (ambiguous as the word“sense” can be) and the non-sensical which, from medieval times or the Renaissance to the present, have been ubiquitous in discourse. The conference debates will circle round but will not be limited to the following questions: What knowledge is necessary for the reader to bring to thet ext to understand its sense/meaning? In what ways may the meaning of the text be regarded as stable (unstable)? What are full evaluative arguments that assess the works of art, in a broad sense: formal, literary, moral, aesthetic, etc? What is the sense of the work of art as opposed to or concurrent with its meaning? What is the unique sense of the work of art if at all? What is the source of sense? The (non)sensical will address topsy-turvyness, absurdity, theories of humor, humor and cultural differences, humor and art of translation, riddles, children’s humor, multivalence, word games in literature, the grotesque, parody, satire, the carnivalesque, the effect of nonsense caused by an excess of meaning, etc. What are the forms of nonsense writing in various genres or types of literature such as romantic verse, travel writing, short story, lyric poetry, natural history, journalism, to name a few? Is nonsense funnybecause it does not make sense, or because of various techniques and devices that are employed in this type ofwriting? What is the absurd, the nonsensical and the exaggerated? Why are philosophers and linguists fascinated with nonsense? Common sense is often juxtaposed with reasoning and rationality; the commonsensical and the rational are defined as “two distinctive features of the common cognitive architecture” (Renee Elio). As Barry Smith puts it, “Commonsense is on the one hand a certain set of processes of natural cognition - of speaking, reasoning, seeing, and so on. On the other hand, common sense is a system of beliefs or the world of objects to which the processes of natural cognition and the corresponding belief-contents standardly relate”. For the Catholic apologist, John Henry Newman, in his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, common sense is vital to the Illative Sense, “the power of judging and concluding, when in its perfection.” The conference debates will address all of the aforementioned issues and many others to inquire into the sense/common-sense (or non-sense) of contemporary literary and cultural studies, whether European, American, Afro-American, Asian, Asian-American, Australian, Caribbean, New Zealander and others, the presentation of which will be most welcome. We invite a wide range of voices, historical, critical and theoretical papers that will address the above aspects (in a narrow or broad sense of the terms). The conference portions will be inaugurated by plenary lectures followed by papers no more than twenty minutes in length to be presented in concurrent sessions (each session featuring three papers). Please forward 300-word abstracts, including title, professional affiliation, addresses (especially e-mail), phone number, and audio-video requirements by April 15, 2009. Electronic submissions are highly encouraged. Papers should be delivered in English. Contact: Prof. Dr. hab. Ewa Borkowska Institute of English Cultures and Literatures (IECL) Department of Philology University of Silesiaul Gen. Grota-Roweckiego 541-205 Sosnowiec Poland. Tel.: +48 32 3640 892 (804) Email: surplus.conference2009@gmail.com Web: https://mail.cavehill.uwi.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.fil.us.edu.pl/ibacl/pl_konferencje.php

John, Eileen. "Review of David Davies' AESTHETICS AND LITERATURE." NDPR (September 2008).

Davies, David. Aesthetics and Literature. London: Continuum, 2007. David Davies here offers a succinct, intelligent account of the state of play in a range of philosophical debates concerning literature, focusing on the Anglo-American tradition. The book considers conceptual and ontological questions (what is literature, what is fiction, what is a literary work, what is a fictional character), questions about interpretation (how to construe discourse concerning fiction, how intentions and context constrain interpretation of literary works), issues arising from emotional engagement with fiction (whether it is genuine emotion, how we can enjoy works of tragedy and of horror), and questions concerning the cognitive and ethical roles and values of literature. If you do not know these debates, this book would be an excellent, efficient route to wide-ranging understanding of the field. If you are familiar with these debates, I think it is well worth following Davies in his forthright examination of the issues. The book is not aimed at promoting Davies' views on the issues, and chapters typically leave the reader with a summary of the possibilities considered -- where one might go from here -- but the possibilities have been well canvassed for plausibility, and a number of interesting approaches are advanced along the way. With a few exceptions, I felt persuaded by Davies' way of framing, and assessing the promise of, the various views and strategies under consideration. . . . Read the rest of the review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14185.

Mukherjee, Pablo. "A Manifesto to Discard Elitism." TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION August 28, 2008.

Felski, Rita. Uses of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. If theory "simply is the process of reflecting on the underlying frameworks, principles, and assumptions that shape our act of interpretation," how do we explain the blood-splattered field of the theory wars? Unsurprisingly, Felski finds that it is the structural elitism of the literary critics that has given theory its bad name. We are caught between those who hold a theological view of the uniqueness of literature and those who maintain that literature always unknowingly transmits dominant ideological norms. But both schools agree that it is the critic alone who can interpret the full range of literary meanings by adopting poses of "analytical detachment, critical vigilance, guarded suspicion." Felski wants to find an "ordinary" theory of literature and culture that would replace these hermeneutics of suspicion. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403291&c=1.

CFP: "Double Edges: Rhetorics / Rhizomes / Regions," International Association of Philosophy and Literature, Brunel University, June 1-7, 2009.

The deadline for submissions of individual and panel abstracts is October 15. Further information will be posted at the IAPL website in due course: http://www.iapl.info/.

Hughes, Kathryn. "The Death of Life Writing." GUARDIAN June 28, 2008.

Nigel Hamilton opens his new primer How to Do Biography (Harvard) with the bold boast that we are living in "a golden age" of life writing. Really, he should know better. To anyone who reads, reviews or writes on the subject, such confidence is baffling. (Hamilton, a Briton, lives mainly in the States, which may account for his rosy myopia.) Seen close up, and with an eye to proper detail, biography appears in rather a bad way. 'Crisis' would probably be putting it too strongly, not least because it suggests a certain convulsive energy. 'Sclerosis' might be nearer. Sales, it's true, are still good, though showing signs of softening. According to Nielsen BookScan, literary biography reached an all-time high in 2005, but has since started to fall. General arts biographies are also down. However, to give an idea of how the non-fiction market as a whole has recently been bent out of shape, it's worth noting the exponential leap in celebrity memoir. Thus Katie Price has managed to shift 335,649 hardback copies of her life story Being Jordan, despite her jaunty admission that someone else wrote it. Meanwhile, Hilary Spurling's Costa-winning Matisse the Master, surely one of the best biographies of the decade, has lifetime hardback sales of just 12,451. . . . Read the rest here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,2287893,00.html.

Williams, Jeffrey J. "Why Today's Publishing World Is Reprising the Past." CHRONICLE REVIEW June 13, 2008.

Literary theory seems caught in a holding pattern. Instead of the heady manifestoes and rampant invention of the late 1960s through the early 80s, it has turned retrospective. This turn says something about the state of literary criticism, as well as the humanities and the university today. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=8hbhvkhkg8qnl8nckpyhmx33bqptvlg3.

CFP: "Literature and Philosophy," Centre for Philosophy and Literature, University of Sussex, June 12-14, 2008.

Update: June 9, 2008

Plenary Talks:

• Paul Davies: "Living Without Belief: Philosophy and a Fictional World"
• Alex Garcia-Duttmann: "Literary Examples in Philosophy"
• Jonathan Lear: "Mythic Justice: Plato's Cave"
• Stephen Mulhall: "The Wounded Animal: J. M. Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality"
• Nicholas Royle: "Miracle Play"
• Kathleen Stock: "Fictional Desires and Fictional Objects"
• Kendall Walton: "Poets, Personnae, Thoughtwriters"

The programme may be found here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/clp/1-2-3-12.html.

First Posted: October 27, 2007

Final Call for papers for the 2008 inaugural conference of the Centre for Literature and Philosophy at the University of Sussex Keynote speakers: Paul Davies, Alex Garcia-Duttmann,Jonathan Lear, Stephen Mulhall, Nicholas Royle, Kendall Walton Theme: Over the last few years there has been a sustained discussion of the relation between philosophy and literature: from within the analytic and the continental philosophical traditions, specific questions are being raised about the metaphysics, value and interpretation of literary texts; from literary theory emerge new forms of literary practice; and, partly as a result of these developments, important questions about disciplinary boundaries are being addressed to both disciplines.The aim of our first conference is to take stock of these developments. The topic of this first conference is deliberately broad:'Philosophy and Literature/Literature and Philosophy' Topics may include: Cognition, emotion, imagination- Autobiography- Fiction and reality- Ethics and literature- Interpretation and psychoanalysis- Critical theory- Philosophy as literature/literature as philosophy Contributions are invited for: A. Panel topics (2-4 speakers) B. Individual papers (40 minutes) C. Graduate papers (for the graduate round tables) Please send proposals (300 words) by the 1st of November 2007 to: K. Deligiorgi, B 346, Centre for Literature and Philosophy, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QNOr: K.Deligiorgi@sussex.ac.uk. Visit the Centre for Literature and Philosophy website at www.sussex.ac.uk/clp/index.php.

Golden, Leon. "Review of M. A. R. Habib's A HISTORY OF LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM." BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW May 27, 2008.

Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Theory and Criticism from Plato to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. In this work Professor Habib embarks on an ambitious and rewarding task. To understand the thorough and complex kind of literary history which Habib has written we should note the five goals which he explicitly says have motivated the shaping of his study. First comes the recognition that literary theory is not a discrete entity but is embedded in one or more philosophical traditions that require some exposition and clarification for students and general readers if they are to grasp the depth and significance of that theory; secondly while the text is impressively comprehensive it does not in its 838 pages attempt to cover every important figure. It does select influential theorists, movements, and critics for focused attention and close reading, and together with this close analysis of selected texts Habib provides an account of the historical background, political, social, intellectual in which these works were written. A third feature of the book is that while it recognizes and indicates the influence of prior philosophical and critical theories on later ones, it is organized so that the reader can access information about particular theories without first reviewing their antecedents. A fourth principal followed by Habib is to challenge a currently popular assumption that modern manifestations of literary theory have bypassed or even erased the importance of earlier important contributions to the subject. Habib emphasizes the continuity of influence of past great philosophical orientations as well as the continuing relevance of those positions. Finally there is an aspiration on Habib's part to break through the barrier of unnecessarily obscure jargon in which some critical theories are framed so as to make those theories more readily accessible to students and general readers. In the program he has defined for himself, Habib has achieved considerable success although not perfection. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-05-27.html.

Flatt, Molly. "Criticism's Vocabulary of Cruelty." GUARDIAN BOOKS BLOG May 19, 2008.

Literary criticism is famously red in tooth and claw. Terry Eagleton, Mary McCarthy and Dale Peck are just a few reviewers who have made their names with funny and often frankly showy cruelty. With the book market more crowded than ever before, a bracing and briny critique can be just the thing to cut through the prettily packaged chaff. As Eaves pointed out, critics are brokers, advising readers where to invest their time and money with a duty to the often less-than-lenient truth - an image that is especially appealing to bloggers, avowedly fearless mouthpieces for the common man. Moreover, in his article this week on the notoriously prickly VS Naipaul's new work of criticism, A Writer's People, Radhakrishan Nayar reminds us that a clever tongue-lash can be a defining symptom of uncompromising and idiosyncratic literary brilliance. "Great writers can be impatient, quirky, rudely iconoclastic literary critics," he says. "It is almost a professional deformity. They achieve greatness through a stern commitment to sharply individual visions of the world." . . . The likes of Eagleton and Naipaul may well be motivated by their "stern commitment" to truth. But in a society that relishes sensationalism, flippancy and, most of all, the vicious culling of tall poppies, I suspect that our funny negatives are too often motivated by laziness, egotism and commercial appeal. . . . Read the rest here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/05/review.html.

Angier, Natalie. "New Curriculum Designed to Unite Art and Science." NEW YORK TIMES May 27, 2008.

It’s been some 50 years since the physicist-turned-novelist C.P. Snow delivered his famous “Two Cultures” lecture at the University of Cambridge, in which he decried the “gulf of mutual incomprehension,” the “hostility and dislike” that divided the world’s “natural scientists,” its chemists, engineers, physicists and biologists, from its “literary intellectuals,” a group that, by Snow’s reckoning, included pretty much everyone who wasn’t a scientist. His critique set off a frenzy of hand-wringing that continues to this day, particularly in the United States, as educators, policymakers and other observers bemoan the Balkanization of knowledge, the scientific illiteracy of the general public and the chronic academic turf wars that are all too easily lampooned. Yet a few scholars of thick dermis and pep-rally vigor believe that the cultural chasm can be bridged and the sciences and the humanities united into a powerful new discipline that would apply the strengths of both mindsets, the quantitative and qualitative, to a wide array of problems. Among the most ambitious of these exercises in fusion thinking is a program under development at Binghamton University in New York called the New Humanities Initiative. Jointly conceived by David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology, and Leslie Heywood, a professor of English, the program is intended to build on some of the themes explored in Dr. Wilson’s evolutionary studies program, which has proved enormously popular with science and nonscience majors alike, and which he describes in the recently published Evolution for Everyone. In Dr. Wilson’s view, evolutionary biology is a discipline that, to be done right, demands a crossover approach, the capacity to think in narrative and abstract terms simultaneously, so why not use it as a template for emulsifying the two cultures generally? “There are more similarities than differences between the humanities and the sciences, and some of the stereotypes have to be altered,” Dr. Wilson said. “Darwin, for example, established his entire evolutionary theory on the basis of his observations of natural history, and most of that information was qualitative, not quantitative.” As he and Dr. Heywood envision the program, courses under the New Humanities rubric would be offered campuswide, in any number of departments, including history, literature, philosophy, sociology, law and business. The students would be introduced to basic scientific tools like statistics and experimental design and to liberal arts staples like the importance of analyzing specific texts or documents closely, identifying their animating ideas and comparing them with the texts of other times or other immortal minds. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/science/27angi.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin.