In preparation for the UW visit of Katz Lecturer Derek Attridge (English, York University) the week of October 15-19, this micro-seminar will devote close study to Attridge’s recent, influential book The Singularity of Literature (2004), which presents a new theory of literary reading that emphasizes equally the text, the reader, and the social and historical context. This book points the way toward overcoming the gap between formalist and historicist ways of reading in a way that opens onto the problematic of "the other."

Henry Staten is Professor of Comparative Literature and English. His research interests encompass international modernism, the Victorian novel, critical theory, race theory, theories of identity and agency, and classical
philosophy. He is author of Eros in Mourning: Homer to Lacan (1995), Nietzsche’s Voice (1990), and Wittgenstein and Derrida (1984).

Derek Attridge is Leverhulme Research Professor and Chair of English at the University of York. Attridge is known as a leading interpreter of James Joyce, J.M.Coetzee, and Jacques Derrida as well as a brilliant theorist of poetic form and literary language. He is the author of How to Read Joyce (2007), Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction (1995), and The Singularity of Literature (2004), winner of the 2006 European Society for the Study of English Book Award.

This course is open to UW graduate students across all departments. To register please contact Jennifer Siembor, Program Coordinator for English graduate studies via email at englgrad@u.washington.edu or call 543-6077.
Students can also register for this course in person at Padelford Hall Room A105.