Week 1. OCCT welcome lunch
Friday 16 Oct, 13:00-14:00
Radcliffe Humanities Building, Colin Matthew Room
Week 2. Maison Française and OCCT hosted conference: Paris and London 1851-1900
13:30 Friday 23 Oct – 16:00 Saturday 24 Oct
Maison Française, see MFO website for programme
Week 3. Fiction and Other Minds seminar:
Wednesday 28 Oct, 16:30-18:30
Speakers: Peter Garratt (Durham): ‘Mind Bloat and The Lifted Veil’
Helen Small (English/Oxford): 'On the Verification of Mental Experience’
Chair: Ben Morgan (German/Oxford)
Radcliffe Humanities Building, Seminar Room
The seminar studies the very varied way that fiction from different traditions analyses the visceral levels of human interaction. We also investigate whether the practice of reading or watching different forms of fictions contributes to our social know-how. These questions have been the focus of much debate in recent cognitive literary studies, but we don’t confine ourselves to cognitive methods. The comparative angle helps us think hard about the cultural preconditions of mindreading in different social settings in addition to what cognitive and phenomenological tools can teach us about the neural substrates of empathy and emotional attunement and their mobilisation by literary texts. Papers in each session focus on one work. This term’s text is George Eliot’s short narrative “The Lifted Veil” (1859), which presents a character for whom the thoughts of others obtrude on his own: a character who knows too much. The two speakers are Peter Garrat, one of the founders of the “Cognitive Futures in the Humanities’ network; and Helen Small, editor of the Oxford World Classics edition of Eliot’s text. See more at the event's page.
Week 4. Intercultural Literary Practices seminar:
Wednesday 4 Nov, 16:00-18:00
Laura Lonsdale (Queen's College, Oxford): 'Barbarisms: Multilingualism and Modernity in Narratives of the Spanish-speaking World’.
Respondent: Jane Hiddleston (French/Oxford)
Radcliffe Humanities Building, Seminar Room
Deriving from the Greek word barbaros or uncivilized foreigner, barbarism onomatopoeically conveys the stuttering or repetitive sound of incomprehensible foreign speech. Denoting violence and the primitive, the word also refers to imported elements in language or errors in morphology, reinforcing the association of foreignness with intrusion and the inarticulate. These combined associations make barbarism an interesting lens through which to view the uses of multilingualism in literature, especially in relation to modernity. Defined by both enlightenment and xenophobic violence, characterised by upheaval and the mass movement of people, modernity has also, in the Spanish-speaking world, been dogged by the discourse of barbarism. This talk will explore some of the ways in which novelists have employed multilingual techniques to engage with the twentieth century’s barbarous modernity.
Speakers: Laura Lonsdale; Jane Hiddleston; Chair: Mohamed-Salah Omri
Week 6. Translation and Poetry seminar:
Wednesday 18 Nov: 18:00-20:00
'Poetry and the Translation of the Ordinary'
Speakers: Gilles Ortlieb, Stephen Romer in conversation with Patrick McGuinness (French/Oxford), with a reading of their work
On the 18th of November, 6-8pm, St Anne's will be hosting 'Poetry and the Translation of the Ordinary'. The poets and translators Gilles Ortlieb and Stephen Romer will be in conversation with Patrick McGuinness (French/Oxford), with a reading of their work. The event will take place in Seminar room 7, Ruth Deech Building.
See more at the OCCT website.
Week 7. Translation and Criticism seminar:
Wednesday 25 Nov: 17:15-18:45
Speakers: Ursula Philips (UCL): 'Life in Translation: Zofia Nalkowska in English and Virginia Woolf in Polish';
Magda Heydel (Krakow)
Chair: Stanley Bill (Cambridge)
Radcliffe Humanities Building, Seminar Room
During Week 7, we look forward to 'Life in Translation: Zofia Nalkowska in English and Virginia Woolf in Polish'. The event is co-organised and supported by Programme on Modern Poland, Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation and the Polish Cultural Institute in London. Speakers include Ursula Phillips (UCL) and Magda Heydel (Krakow), with Stanley Bill (Cambridge) as chair. This event is taking place on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - 17:15 to 18:45 in the Seminar Room of the Radcliffe Humanities Building.
See more at the OCCT website.
OCCT Discussion Group:
Weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, Fortnightly meetings, led by graduate students and early-career researchers
On Wednesdays, 12:45-14:00, St Anne’s College
For preparatory readings and other details, please check on OCCT website or email peter.hill@sjc.ox.ac.uk.