The question of intention is central to the study of literature. How far can an author's intentions determine the meanings of his/her text? What do we mean by 'intention' in a literary context? What force does the reader's intention have in the construction of textual meaning? To what extent can a text itself be said to be 'intentional'? The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth analysis and critique of this concept of intention, its uses within the realms of literary theory, aesthetics, philosophy of language, phenomenology and deconstruction, and its potential for redefinition. Mitchell sets out to re-think intention and interrogate the possibilities of an intentionalism more suited to a formalist or textualist critical methodology. She moves from an assessment of the pitfalls of a traditional authorial intentionalism, towards the formulation of an 'intentionality of form', where intention is seen as a formal attribute of the text itself
Examines the intersection of shame, gender and writing in contemporary literatureConsiders the particular intersection of shame, gender and writing in literature produced since the 1990sViews shame as a constitutive factor in the social construction and experience of femininityAnalyses a diverse range of texts from pulp to literary fiction to life writing and autofiction, with a self-reflexive focus on the formal disjunctions produced by/in the writing of shame, and on the shame attending the act of writing itselfOffers political readings of neglected genres (lesbian pulp fiction), highly topical texts (like Kraus's I Love Dick and Knausgaard's My Struggle), and established authors (such as Mary Gaitskill, A.M. Homes, Rupert Thomson)Through readings of an array of recent texts - literary and popular, fictional and autofictional, realist and experimental - this book maps out a contemporary, Western, shame culture. It unpicks the complex triangulation of shame, gender and writing, and intervenes forcefully in feminist and queer debates of the last three decades. Starting from the premise that shame cannot be overcome or abandoned, and that femininity and shame are utterly and necessarily imbricated, Writing Shame examines writing that explores and inhabits this state of shame, considering the dissonant effects of such explorations on and beyond the page.
Focussing on the Australian South Sea Islander minority community this volume employs a variety of theoretical arguments in order to contribute a new method for comprehending the many interleaving aspects of memory spaces, and should be of interest to heritage professionals, local councils and governing bodies, and members of the general public.
Rupert Thomson's innovative and unsettling writing ranges from dystopian alternative futures to meditations on crime and cultural memory, and from historical fictions to explorations of contemporary gender violence. The essays in this collection argue that Thomson's novels and memoir are compelling case-studies in late twentieth and early twenty-first-century literature, which engage with contemporary cultural and political preoccupations through persistently off-beat and often experimental literary forms, and trouble stable definitions of genre in the process. With chapters focusing on borders, panopticism, haunting, child sexual abuse, shame, atmosphere and intertextuality, this collection offers a critical introduction to an author whose work has been overlooked by the academy for too long.
The question of intention is central to the study of literature. How far can an author's intentions determine the meanings of his/her text? What do we mean by 'intention' in a literary context? What force does the reader's intention have in the construction of textual meaning? To what extent can a text itself be said to be 'intentional'? The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth analysis and critique of this concept of intention, its uses within the realms of literary theory, aesthetics, philosophy of language, phenomenology and deconstruction, and its potential for redefinition. Mitchell sets out to re-think intention and interrogate the possibilities of an intentionalism more suited to a formalist or textualist critical methodology. She moves from an assessment of the pitfalls of a traditional authorial intentionalism, towards the formulation of an 'intentionality of form', where intention is seen as a formal attribute of the text itself
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.