The StFX Department of English proudly presents
A Seminar Discussion with Dr. CONALL CASH, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow
Just Personal: Modernist Anxieties and Utopias of Impersonality
The idea of the impersonal most immediately conjures the image of something cold and barren, alien and alienating in its distance, its indifference towards us. Why, then, does impersonality become a great value for much art and literature in the modernist period? T.S. Eliot encapsulates this mood, writing in 1919 that “the emotion of art is impersonal.” This paper will consider the stakes of modernism’s encounter with the impersonal, as an object alternately of horror and of desire.
This event will feature a short talk followed by discussion of a pre-circulated paper. To receive the paper to be discussed, please email @email.
