Prof Anthony Reed, Vanderbilt College, USA. Talk on ‘Between Subjects: Toward a Theory of Black Lyricism’ at Durham University’s Inventions of the Text (online)
INVENTIONS OF THE TEXT
returns for 2022-2023
26th October 2022,
1730 UK time.
Our first speaker this year is Prof Anthony Reed, Vanderbilt College, USA.
He will presenting his latest research to us:
Between Subjects: Toward a Theory of Black Lyricism
Abstract
Lyric, as reading and writing practice, constellates isolated moments whose cumulative texture give a feel for life as it is lived. Its claims to generalized humanity, however, put it at odds with the experiences of otherness that have defined black life. Black writing often works through and alongside texts (photographs, bureaucratic lists, legends, myths) and genres (such as the lyric), rooting itself in the gap between the predicted and desired effects of literary forms and the motivated and guilty (because motivated to find what may not be there) aspects of reading. Recasting earlier arguments about a post-lyric tendency among some contemporary black writers through substantive critiques of coloniality as offered by Frantz Fanon, Dionne Brand and Sylvia Wynter this talk offers a preliminary account of the theoretical and historical meanings of contemporary black lyric practice as an ongoing, collective project of theorizing black life.
Prof Anthony Reed
Prof Anthony Reed won the prestigious William Sanders Scarborough award in 2014 for his book Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing (Johns Hopkins UP 2014). His latest work is Soundworks: Race, Sound, and Poetry in Production (Duke UP, 2021). He has served as an academic previously in various institutions including Yale University and the University of Chicago. Currently, he is a Professor of English at Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
The session will be held online via Zoom. Links will be circulated on the day of the event.
Register NOW! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inventions-of-the-text-prof-anthony-reed-vanderbilt-college-usa-tickets-439928567187
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