CFP: Lionel Trilling and Nineteenth-Century Literature (09/12/02; NEMLA
03/06/03-03/09/03)
For the 2003 NEMLA at Boston, I have approval for a panel on
Trilling and nineteenth-century literature, the focus of some of his best
essays. Although Leon Wieseltier's recent edition of Trilling's essays
makes their reassessment timely, the approving citations of Trilling in
such contrary books as Harvey M. Teres' Renewing the Left and Pat
Buchanan's The Death of the West remind us why the task will not be
easy. One purpose of this session is to investigate the current status of
Trilling's influential work on such writers as Wordsworth, Austen, Keats,
Arnold, and James. A second purpose is to assess the role of
nineteenth-century literature in Trilling's work in general. Trilling
turned to the nineteenth century for heroic examples of the artist, but he
also argued that "it is not possible to conceive of a person standing
beyond his culture." Does Trilling offer a useful resistance to
contemporary constructions of Modernism and Postmodernism? Is Trilling's
idea of an adversarial relationship to the adversarial culture ("to unmask
the unmaskers") still vital? Is he "Harold Bloom's true precursor, all the
more powerful as influence because he is so rarely acknowledged," as
Jonathan Freedman argues? Send two-page proposals by email or regular mail
to Tracy Ware, Department of English, Queen's University, Kingston,
Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6; tw5@qsilver.queensu.ca.
Tracy Ware (613) 533-2153
Department of English, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
K7L 3N6
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