MFA Residency Public Lecture and Reading Schedule – Sunday, January 7
Public Lectures: Sunday, January 7
In Canon Lounge, Gladfelter
Sunday, January 7 DANA LEVIN: Object Lessons (part 1)
9:30 AM
There are two primary foci for this lecture: 1) T.S. Eliot’s idea of the Objective Correlative. 2) Objectification: both in terms of power dynamics and in terms of the made thing. Issues addressed will include: Show, Don’t Tell; intimacy; displacement; the male gaze; desire and seeing; infinity mirrors. We’ll look at these literary works: Eliot’s “Hamlet and His Problems” (criticism); a little brief on Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (novel); Hass, “A Story about the Body” (prose poem); Carter, “The Bloody Chamber” (story). Philosophers Gaston Bachelard and Martin Buber will offer some lenses through which to see.
Sunday, January 7 MARISA SILVER: The Noticing Eye
10:45 AM
It’s a commonplace that two people looking at the same thing—a painting, a crime in progress, a vase on a table—will notice very different things. We could say that the way in which we notice, and the differences that arise when two people see and interpret an event differently, are at the root of conflict and therefore of drama. This lecture will discuss the implications of noticing—the way in which character and conflict can be shaped by it, and the way a writer engages a reader by directing him or her to notice certain images and details. We will also explore how the act of noticing is an essential tool a writer must bring to the world around him or her to find out what feels important and meaningful to write about. Among the works we’ll discuss will be Meneseteung by Alice Munro, Errand by Raymond Carver, The Dead by James Joyce, That Night Alice McDermott, as well as music by Steve Reich and films by James Benning.
Public Readings: Sunday, January 7In Canon Lounge, Gladfelter
Jeremy Gavron
Daisy Fried
Megan Staffel
Alan Williamson
