“The Work of Literature: Event, Invention, History”

A lecture by Derek Attridge

Thurs. Jan 15
5:30pm
Reception at 5pm
FHI Garage
Smith Warehouse, Bay 4
Duke University 

Derek Attridge will present a section from his forthcoming book, The Work of Literature, a sequel to The Singularity of Literature that expands and refines its arguments. The new book is partly in the form of a self-interview or cross-examination; the lecture will include a portion of this material, discussing some of the key terms proposed in the earlier account of the specificity of literature as a cultural and linguistic practice and considering their possible role in understanding the apparent transcendence of historical time that literary works seem able to achieve.

Derek Attridge teaches in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UK, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author or editor of over twenty books, most recently of Moving Words: Forms of English Poetry (Oxford University Press). Forthcoming in 2015 are The Work of Literature (Oxford University Press) and, with Henry Staten, The Craft of Poetry: Dialogues on Minimal Interpretation ( Routledge).