Shandy Hall trip and Thanks

On Friday we held the final Spaces in Theory meeting at Shandy Hall. We began with a tour of the house kindly led by the engaging and knowledgeable Patrick Wildgust, taking in the house's recently discovered sixteenth century wall paintings, the famous bust of Sterne produced by Joseph Nollekens, and Sterne's souvenir china cow (!) Patrick then led us into a discussion of the relationship between Sterne and Elizabeth Draper, the subject of Shandy Hall's current exhibition.

The exhibition puts Sterne and Draper's relationship into context, featuring Sterne's letters and Eliza's forged replies, reproductions of the gifts that passed between the two and artistic responses to their relationship and separation. In addition it introduces the art of eighteenth-century letter writing.

After enjoying the exhibition we then had the privilege of visiting the bedroom created for, but never used by, Eliza. An eerie and emotional space, the room features an installation by Carolyn Thompson which explores the truths and fictions surrounding Sterne and Draper's relationship."Folie a Deux" is an elaborate coverlet created using eighteenth-century techniques and embroidered with copies of Sterne's letters.

There is still time to catch this wonderful exhibition which runs until June 29th.

Finally, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped with and participated in the reading group over the last year; we've had a fantastic time.

- Laurie and Helen.

Summary of May's Meeting

On Wednesday Anna Hope guided us through the strange world of 'Bizarro' fiction and Foucault's essay 'Of Other Spaces'. The texts provoked plenty of questions, including: how 'bizarre' really is Bizarro? What kinds of conservative assumptions and messages might actually lurk within the genre? How does the genre- and Carlton Mellick in particular - treat the female body? Do these authors encourage particular reading practices? Can any kind of dialogue be opened up between these authors and theorists or academics?

Foucault's text allowed us to think about the female body in Mellick's The Haunted Vagina as a type of 'heterotopia', which in turn made us ask whether the text positions the female body as a 'deviant' space. It also led us to discuss Foucault's notions of 'real' and 'unreal' spaces, and to ask to what extent the virtual worlds evident in texts such as Mellick's challenge or complement Foucault's thesis.

Thanks to all who attended our penultimate session. On the 18th we will bring 'Spaces in Theory' to a close with our trip to Shandy Hall.

Summary of February's Meeting

On Tuesday we achieved the seemingly impossible feat of connecting Derridean theory and medieval Robin Hood ballads. To summarize:

Laurie began by discussing the notion of hospitality and the ways in which it has been theorized. This led us to ask: should hospitality be understood, and practiced, as an economic pact, or as a gesture of (potentially disastrous) openness? And what do we mean when we talk about 'hospitality' - what kind of personal, social and geographic boundaries are involved? Can we talk about all these things at once - does Derrida? And how successfully?

This led us on to the Robin Hood ballad and Robin's own 'hospitable' practices. We discussed the ways in which Robin positions himself as a greenwood host, and what this says about his social, economic and spatial position.  We talked a little more generally about the ballad itself and its contexts of production. We also idly wondered why the otherwise sparse ballad describes the many birds Robin eats for dinner in such minute detail ! "There fayled none so litell a birde / That ever was bred on bryre."

Thanks to all who came to another enjoyable session.

Finally, we will have some exciting news soon  regarding a 'Spaces in Theory' excursion. Details will follow shortly.

Summary of December's Session

Claire helpfully opened last month’s reading group with a lowdown on the basics of Transatlantic Literary Studies. She described its status as a sub-discipline arising in 1997 from the strength of American Studies and an increasing interest in manifest destiny and the frontier spirit, topics which have long been concerned with international dialogue. The sub-discipline rethinks classic American Literature through a transnational and transcultural approach, emphasising hybridity, migration, and aboriginality rather than old world / new world binaries. We briefly looked at the work of Susan Manning, a pioneer in this field, and considered how the concept of global connectivity threatens notions of fixed national space through a collective imagination.

As discussion got underway, we debated how class, racial and economic groups can be privileged when examples of mobility and circulation become the focus of study.

With reference to the example texts (see schedule tab), we discussed the political symbolism of trees such as the oak; Irish-English relations; English-French relations from the eighteenth-century to the present day; and bestial imagery in Emerson, especially his comparison of the slave to the dodo. However, events such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 came up as possible evidence of Emerson’s nuanced beliefs on race, as in his journal we can see the process by which he eventually supports Brown.

As it often does, the concept of literary pilgrimage came up in last month’s session, as we learned about Emerson’s visiting Wordsworth and Coleridge, and how this might have affected his view of a ‘national’ literature. We debated how the construction of American Literature may be a religious endeavour. 

We talked about how transnationalism encompasses nation as it tries to supersede it and how international financial capitalism acknowledges yet transcends nation. We discussed nation as a relatively new term, compared to that of race, which is considered as located in a deep, mythic past.

We then considered the difference between transnationalism and postnationalism, and identified the latter with anxieties over a lack of control over the economy. We agreed that transnationalism is more concerned with borders and how porous they are, although we acknowledged that some are violent and therefore not porous for everybody. We discussed the Jewish diaspora as a potentially supranational ethnic group, and McDonalds and Starbucks as homogenizing brands that get re-localised in an attempt to appear more relevant and culturally accepting.

Quote of the month

Emerson on the Englishman: ‘He must be treated with sincerity and reality,—with muffins, and not the promise of muffins’.

Thank you to all who came and made the session so interesting, we can't wait for the next.

Summary of October Meeting

Tristram charts the plots of the first four volumes of

Tristram Shandy, 1762 (vol. 6, ch. 40, p. 152).

Thank you to everyone who turned up for Friday’s reading group, we hope you enjoyed the discussion. For the curious who didn’t make it, here’s a brief summary:

After some appropriately nomadic wandering from Lipman building to Squires building in search of a suitable room, we watched Penny Grennan’s short film A Journey Around my Life with a glass of white wine (Helen forgot the red). We then pondered the distinction between charts and maps, the influence of Laurence Sterne and Descartes on de Maistre, and the complex fusion of seriality and plot in Penny’s film. There was also a healthy debate about the economy of travel theory proposed by Georges Van Den Abbeele and how perhaps nomadic cultures (and even rambling texts) are difficult to assimilate to the A to B kind of travel that he favours. This led to a consideration of a changing or multiple sense of ‘home’. We also discussed ennui, walking, typographic margins and textual spaces, and the securing of national boundaries arising from the French Revolution. Quite a mixture!

The next meeting will be Friday 18th November, when Laurie McKee will introduce some Robin Hood texts which we will be comparing to Derrida’s theory of hospitality. Red wine will be available, and keep your eyes peeled for a confirmation of the room, as our usual one seems to be missing a computer. If you want to plan ahead even further, the 2011/12 schedule can be found here. Laurie’s extracts will be circulated in early November.

In the meantime, keep checking our ‘Useful Pages’ tab - it's regularly updated with related links and CFPs.