Friday, February 7, 2020 at 2 p.m.
Robertson Gymnasium 1000A
Based on her forthcoming book of the same title, this talk makes a case for “attachment” as a key word for the humanities. The word directs our attention to what carries weight: it has both affective and ethical force. Drawing on a range of examples, Felski discusses two important aesthetic ties: identification and attunement. Finally, she clarifies how the language of attachment is relevant to pedagogy and interpreting in the classroom.
To prepare for the lecture and discussion, participants are invited to read the second chapter of Hooked: Art and Attachment, “Art and Attunement.”
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Rita Felski is author The Limits of Critique (University of Chicago Press, 2015), on the role of suspicion in literary criticism, which was widely reviewed and the subject of forums in PMLA, Religion and Literature, and the American Book Review. She has recently completed Hooked: Art and Attachment, which will be published in fall 2020 by The University of Chicago Press, and she is starting a new book on the contemporary Frankfurt School and its relevance for literary studies. Felski has longstanding interests in feminist theory, modernity and postmodernity, genre (especially tragedy), comparative literature, and cultural studies. In 2016 she was awared a Niels Bohr Professorship by the Danish National Research Foundation to lead a large research project on “Uses of Literature: the Social Dimensions of Literature.”
This event is co-sponsored by UCSB’s Comparative Literature Program, Department of English, and Graduate Center for Literary Research.
