In the last century or so the author has largely disappeared from literary criticism--since the second half of the 20th century psychocriticism and biographical readings are almost absent from academia today. Considering the author in interpretation can certainly limit and reduce criticism, but perhaps it can also expand it. There are new forms of storytelling today--contemporary, digital--that may let us see how psychocriticism, and the explicit presence of an author in her work of fiction, may be less restrictive than we once thought. Who are the writers whose lives, and whose presences in their own work, do not constrain but rather multiply our understanding of that literary work?
with presentations by Professor Edward Mendelson (Department of English), Professor Nicholas Dames (Department of English), and Anna Krauthamer (The Center for Contemporary Critical Thought). Moderated by Professor Dennis Tenen with an introduction by Professor Bernard Harcourt.
