糖心TV

Research Interests

global modernisms, 20th century and contemporary literature, experimental writing, new materialisms, waste studies, environmental humanities, ecocriticism, ecopoetics, critical theory

Publications

鈥溾�楾he absolute impossibility of all purchase鈥�: Property and Translation in Beckett鈥檚 Post-war Prose.鈥� Samuel Beckett and Translation, ed. Jos茅 Francisco Fern谩ndez et al. Book Chapter. (Accepted)

鈥溾�楽uch density of furniture defeats imagination鈥�: Beckett鈥檚 Post-War Room and the Inheritance of Things.鈥� Modernist Objects, ed. Xavier Kalck et al. Seminal Modernisms Series, Clemson University Press. Book Chapter. (Forthcoming 2020)

鈥溾�楾he following precious and illuminating material should be carefully studied鈥�: Material Incorporation in Beckett, Sebald, and Krasznahorkai.鈥� In , ed. Michela Bariselli, et al. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2017. 15-40. Book Chapter.

." Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry 2.2 (2016). Article.

鈥溾�� Lemon Hound 5 (June 2013): Web. Article.

鈥淭owards the Feynman Point: A Beginning in 30. A creative exercise in Oulipan constraint and critical review.鈥� ecloga: Journal of Literature and the Arts 9 (Spring 2011): 38-50. Article.

Reviews

Bates, Julie, (2017), Beckett鈥檚 Art of Salvage: Writing and Material Imagination, 1932–1987. Journal of Beckett Studies vol. 28.2, September 2019: 240-245. DOI: 10.3366/jobs.2019.0271

Brazil, Kevin, (2018), Art, History, and Postwar Fiction. Review of English Studies vol. 295, June 2019: 793-796.

Recent Conference Papers

鈥淲alking the Fields of Cultural Production: W.G. Sebald鈥檚 The Rings of Saturn.鈥� Borders and Crossings 2019, University of Leicester (2019)

鈥淎fter Kafka, After Beckett: Unmaking Modernisms in L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai鈥檚 Fiction.鈥� Troublesome Modernisms, BAMS, King鈥檚 College London (2019)

鈥淎utofiction By Any Other Means: Experiments in Citation and Form (On Lerner, Tokarczuk, and Sebald)鈥�. AUTO- Conference, Royal College of Art (2019)

鈥淧roperty, Nation-building, and Translation in Beckett鈥檚 Post-war Prose.鈥� 5^th International Conference of the Samuel Beckett Society: Beckett and Translation, University of Almer铆a (2019)

鈥淏eckett鈥檚 鈥楴ightmare Thingness鈥� and the Draff of Modernism.鈥� Modernist Objects, French Society for Modernist Studies, Paris Sorbonne (2018)

鈥淚nto what nightmare thingness am I fallen?鈥�: The Politics of Matter in Samuel Beckett鈥檚 Short Stories" Beckett and Politics Conference, BARP, University of Reading (2016)

鈥溾�楾he following precious and illuminating material should be carefully studied鈥�: The Logic of Incorporation in Beckett, Sebald, and Krasznahorkai.鈥� Beckett and Europe Conference, BARP, University of Reading (2015)

鈥淔ootnotes: Poets/Scholars.鈥� Milburn House Symposium, University of 糖心TV (2015)

鈥淥n the History of Natural Destruction: an Apocalyptic Reading of W.G. Sebald鈥檚 The Rings of Saturn.鈥� Brave New Worlds Conference, University of Newcastle (2015)

PhD Thesis

Like a Thing Forsaken: Beckett, Sebald and the Politics of Materiality

Completed under the supervision of and , and with funding from the Chancellor's Scholarship.

Abstract

This comparative study investigates representations of objects and materiality in the late modernism of Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald. The thesis responds to the recent proliferation of theories and literary analyses focused on objects, matter, and the nonhuman (such as 鈥渘ew materialisms鈥� and 鈥渢hing theory鈥�), and specifically to what is arguably their unifying premise: the call for a 鈥減olitics of materiality.鈥� It argues that Beckett and Sebald鈥檚 works are defined by leftover things and material remainders, which express a negative, indeterminate quality that problematizes affirmative systems of relations and the recuperation of 鈥渕atter鈥� into narrative meaning. What their oeuvres share is a sense of historical belatedness and material depletion, tied to the European post-war moment and a mutual concern for issues of remembrance and recovery. Within this context, their aesthetic response to a history of violence is in conversation with both realist and modernist object categories, and poses a series of specific difficulties to object-oriented perspectives and the notion of a 鈥減olitics of materiality.鈥� Their works foreground the materiality of language, intensifying the inadequacy of mediation not just for the representation of things, but for any encounter with them. Regarding the respective author fields, the thesis contends that the focus on materiality encourages a critical reformulation of the problem of politics and history, a problem that persists through their work鈥檚 resistance towards systematisation, determination and resolution. It posits that a conception of 鈥渢hingness鈥� in their work expresses neither truth, essence, nor an ideal object, but rather a limit encounter that asks for a continual revision of historical and political signification. The thesis contributes to the recent critical recognition of a latent political potential in Beckett鈥檚 work, and disputes claims that Sebald鈥檚 novels encourage melancholic resignation in the face of catastrophe.

Dr Martin Schauss

M dot Schauss dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk

PhD English & Comparative Literary Studies

Office Hours (2019/20):

Thursday 4-5pm H5.34

Thursday 5-6pm Arranged meeting/skype