Literary Forms

17 Mai 2024

Rory CRITTEN

Prof. Rory Critten, UNIL

Dr. Matthew Scully, UNIL

Prof. Eric Weiskott, Boston College (UK)

Over the last several decades, literary scholars across periods have debated the topic of "New Formalism." The return to and reframing of formalism attempt to consider the practices and methods that constitute literary studies as a field. Importantly, and in a break from many of the "older" formalisms, new formalism acknowledges that an attention to literary form also implies an attention to the political, social, and cultural implications of that form. For example, Caroline Levine's influential book, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (Princeton UP, 2015), reveals the imbrication of literary and political forms such that they cannot be absolutely distinguished. Such developments have directly influenced work in Medieval Studies, as in Thomas A. Prendergast and Jessica Rosenfeld's edited collection, Chaucer and the Subversion of Form (Cambridge UP, 2018). This CUSO event offers Swiss doctoral students the opportunity to engage with these larger disciplinary questions. It asks: what can a renewed attention to form help us say about texts and textual practices? A leading scholar in the field, Prof. Eric Weiskott (Boston College), will frame these conversations for us. Prof. Weiskott has published widely on poetry and poetics, and he has also published in both academic and mainstream venues, which provides him with unique insights into these discussions of form. Prof. Weiskott will discuss with students some relevant content-contemporary trends and debates about form and formalism in literary studies-as well as more practical topics of process, scholarly positioning, and profe

UNIL

25