Overview
If reading literature involves the evocation of a virtual world, it may be taken for granted that this is interior, lived privately for the reader through introspective imagining. As we read, evocations imperceptible in extended space are formed and come to life within us on the basis of verbal cues, while the interconnecting, fluid nature of this process and the involvement it requires contribute to an experience of a virtual, living world. While the sense of an interior wherein all of this may operate evades direct reflection, we can explore its potential topography by turning to literary reflection on imagining itself. This examines the sense of an inner life through the phenomenology of imagination and of literary experience, with the aim of showing that literature contributes not only to reflection upon inward experience, but also to the cultivation of a sense of interiority wherein it unfolds.
Speaker
Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei is Kurrelmeyer Chair in German and Professor in German and Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. She studied at Oxford (DPhil, German; MSt, European Literature); Columbia (MFA, Poetry); and Villanova (PhD, MA, Philosophy). She is author of seven books: Imagination: A Very Short Introduction (OUP); On Being and Becoming: An Existentialist Approach to Life (OUP); The Life of Imagination: Revealing and Making the World (Columbia UP); Exotic Spaces in German Modernism (OUP); The Ecstatic Quotidian: Phenomenological Sightings in Modern Art and Literature (Penn State UP); Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language (Fordham UP); and After the Palace Burns, which won The Paris Review Prize in Poetry.
Details
This event is organised by Ruoshui Zhang in collaboration with the Wolfson Humanities Society and Wolfson College Research Networks.
This is a hybrid event, which will take place in-person in the Gatsby Room (Chancellor's Centre) and also on Teams.
If you would like to attend online, please register for the Zoom link.
Refreshments will be available for the in-person audience.
Access
This event will take place in the Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact our events team - events@wolfson.cam.ac.uk
Wolfson Humanities Society
The Humanities Society organises regular talks spanning a wide range of topics which take place every Tuesday during term time - please sign up to their mailing list to keep up to date with their upcoming events.
Wolfson College Research Networks
The Wolfson College Research Networks are the College’s central hub for research activity, fostering excellence in learning, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Organising and curating a diverse programme of academic events, the Research Networks support the College’s research hubs and initiatives, and facilitates knowledge exchange by connecting scholars across disciplines within Wolfson, the wider University, and industry.
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