- Department: English and Related Literature
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
The aim of this module is to explore the rise of the contemporary art novel, its critical vocabularies, interdisciplinary forms, and negotiations with contemporary art culture.
Traditionally, literary and art historical scholars have tended to understand the written mediation of visual art firstly in terms of ekphrasis—the literary description of a work of art, meaning to speak out from the work—and secondly, predominantly in terms of poetry. This module, however, explores the important turn toward art that the contemporary novel is witnessing and makes use of interdisciplinary vocabularies to discuss the innovative ways novelists, rather than poets, engage with visual art.
You will begin by looking at the validity of the term ekphrasis for contemporary art novels with Chloe Aridjis, then explore a kind of contemporary novel that not only meditates on art, but that develops its own practice of art criticism. As novelist Ben Lerner declared in a 2013 essay for Frieze Magazine, not only is the novel “a testing ground for aesthetic experiment and response,” but “a space wherein such an experiment in art writing can take place before the existence of the art itself, where an encounter can be staged between individuals and/or art works that are not or cannot be made actual.”
This module is therefore intrinsically interdisciplinary, asking you to look at not only key contemporary art novels, but art criticism written by contemporary novelists and the art they discuss. You will question how contemporary writers depict the figure of the artist, artistic practice, and artistic sensibility. How do these novelists reflect on questions of literary form, beauty, and aesthetic experience? What political and ethical problems, and debates about identity (gender, class, race), do they access by discussing art? If ekphrasis is no longer a suitable term what other terms could literary critics use to describe this engagement? From art criticism and critique, to engagements with contemporaneity and historicity, to formal play with visuality, media, and collage, you will investigate how these literary encounters with art develop new methods reading the art novel for a specifically present moment.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
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A | Autumn Term 2022-23 |
The aim of this module is to explore the rise of the contemporary art novel, its critical vocabularies, interdisciplinary forms, and negotiations with contemporary art culture.
On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:
Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
Key texts for this module may include the following. Current students should consult the VLE for the reading list: