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May 2012

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Grammar q. "Philosopher-in-question's ethos" or "philosopher in question's ethos". I think the former to denote single possessive noun...

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"He felt like a superhero. Ratman, he thought as he held her. Doing good with his bizarre rat-powers." An amusing -man suffix.

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Among the many good things I'm doing today, crossing the superb entry "Add King Rat reference to Rocketman" off my todo list ranks highly.

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Oh, and apt #phdchat - sorry to have missed most of it - doing my final printed copies of thesis in 2 weeks.

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Get friends to proofread (pay them if necessary!), remember your examiner gets paid little, so focus on clarity. #phdchat

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Have a train tweet. Out of book, out of work, the only thing for it is Rage Against the Machine's self-titled.

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Now wending my way back from the ace #TOconf. Thanks to @Nicole_Bush for great organization!

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Sarah Haggerty now talking on the expansion of the post office in the 18th century. Very Lot 49! #TOConf #Pynchon

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Question on how eating paper is represented in cultural imagination! Reminds me of that Maurice Sendak anecdote. #TOConf

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Aesthetic & economic exchange most clearly linked in Ishmael's purchase of translated book w/ sperm whale candles @KatieMcGettigan #TOConf

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Value of whale is only perspicuous, as for Marx, when expressed in terms of substitution, here made by books says @KatieMcGettigan #TOConf

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Books created from whalebone and shark skin in Moby Dick - literally "bound up" in the commodities of the sea says @KatieMcGettigan #TOConf

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Metaphors and markets are connected as sites of value says @KatieMcGettigan #TOConf

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Here @KatieMcGettigan is reading metaphor as a form of commodity exchange through Marx. One object substituted for another. #TOConf

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Against much critical background, @KatieMcGettigan proposes that Melville engages with the literary marketplace through metaphor #TOConf

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First edition of Moby Dick (published as The Whale) was bound in three colours of blue with gold whales (wrong type) down side #TOConf

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Now @KatieMcGettigan is up, looking at material metaphors and the literary marketplace in Moby Dick. #TOConf

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Margaret Gatty's "Aunt Sally's Life" (1862). Doll described as having been a tree, but shares its material with coffins! #TOConf

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Children look for souls in toys, says Baudelaire, but Gonzales points out that this soul exposure is through material deconstruction #TOConf

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Now Eugenia Gonzales is speaking on deconstruction and imagination in Victorian narratives of dolls #TOConf

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"the dirtiest wenches ever to have disgraced the fairer sex" - description of those sorting rags for paper. Not true says Friend #TOConf

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Ceramics and old clothes have a long history of crossover and exchange, says Friend. #ididnotknowthat #TOConf

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"rag grubbers" were those employed to sift through rubbish to find discarded linen. Sort of impoverished wombles. #TOConf

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Linen, tho, is an organic material that degrades & was discarded, instead of personal cleaning. At this stage it went to paper mills #TOConf

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Friend is looking at linen and it's re-use in the second hand clothes trade as a precursor to paper #TOConf

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Claire Friend now speaking on paper making in eighteenth-century Britain #TOConf

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I did, though, have a great dinner with @KatieMcGettigan, @EmaleeBeddoes and @19thc4d. Among others. #TOConf

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I feel very outnumbered by Victorianists at #TOconf. That said, a good first day. Looking forward to speaking on Pynchon tomorrow.

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Hinton argued that humans are four dimensional beings and located the parts of the brain in higher space #TOconf

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Hinton's cubes have obtained little attention, says @19thc4d, because they're extremely complex. #TOconf

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Finally, though, Towle creates non-secret Chlorodyne version and shatters the secret. Private/public breakdown. #TOconf

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Davencourt decided to just keep selling Chlorodyne, with the label "poison"! #TOconf

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Advertising of medicine became suspect - reputation should now have been apparent through medical discourse. Chlorodyne especially #TOconf

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Intro of pharmaceutical regulation designated two of Chlorodyne's ingredients poison. Proprietary medicines came under strain. #TOconf

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Two different parties started selling Chlorodyne. Judge gave verdict in which both claimed victory via marketing! #TOconf

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Chlorodyne had a secret constitution. @jimmussell is going to look at how the drug was represented #TOconf

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Ha! Burning mirrors also feature in 2 Bond films: Man With the Golden Gun and Die Another Die. #TOconf

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Lyall now showing how culture of satire built around burning glass - Pope and caricatures. #TOconf

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Mirror has sublime qualities, unearthly, but product of enlightenment. Also used for popular entertainment. #TOconf

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Lynall says that, although a cliché, burning mirror can be seen as liminal - between rationality and magic #TOconf

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There must be some way for my department to consolidate email lists. Every time there's a workshop, I get ~4 duplicate emails.

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Decided that formal conference wear would be too hot for train, so until I get to #TOconf I'm wearing a batman T-Shirt. Call me Bruce Wayne.

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Looking forward to #TOconf tomorrow. A little nervous about navigating Newcastle's metro system...

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Thanks for the birthday tweets! Will respond more courteously over next few days.

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Does this vile IMF woman have any evidence that Greeks are particular tax avoiders, or is she just spouting the usual?

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Would anybody argue against the proposition that Sartre's "What is Literature?" is terrible?

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A good morning's worth of work seems to have done much to alleviate the density of my paper. Fear not #TOconf!

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Some #phdadvice. Make sure your minor "Fore more, see X" footnotes contain enough detail that *you* can remember what X said in the viva!

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(It's a footnote to a sentence that describes Pynchon's "Thelonius epigraph" to Against the Day, which quotes Thelonious Monk) #phdchat

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"I cannot be the only writer who hopes that future opportunities arise for the use of “Thelonius” as an adjective" Should I keep? #phdchat

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Paul Fussell's Great War & Modern Memory is an extraordinary book. Also among the first & most perceptive pieces on Pynchon. He'll be missed

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Rarely read below comment lines, but from 1st line, seems someone's attempting to defend REF. If you could savage him/her, I'd be grateful.

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Depending on the harshness of my self critique, I'd currently situate my conference paper somewhere between "dense" & "theoretically rich".

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Can someone recommend a book on May '68? Looking for a general overview/break-in work for the history of the protests. #phdchat

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I agree with Andrew Bastardcroft, as I shall henceforth know him, on one point only. Nick Clegg's threats are hollow.

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Having a great day writing a paper on 2666, utopian fiction and the university! Genuinely enjoyable!

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A bit of #phdadvice: think of your readers and go easy on them. External examiners paid a mere ~£15 fee. #phdchat

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That "Greece heading out of Euro say UK voters" is a new opinion poll low. Mystic Meg predictions en masse.

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I'm sure I've told you all this before, but Roberto Bolaño's 2666 really is an astonishing novel.

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Think I asked this before, but: what are people's opinions/knowledge on the preservation of Storify archives? Do they expire like tweets?

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Sussex-Southampton Initiative: SuShI. An interdisciplinary fusion.

The third conference I attended last week was a day called SuShI. The idea was to bring together the humanities and business worlds. It was, from my extremely critical Leftist perspective, a somewhat strange event. I attended talks on advertising and creativity schematising business theorists. I…

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There are few words that rile me more than "overeducated". Presupposes utilitarian education AND glorifies ignorance.

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Could anybody give me some pronunciation advice on "Ciudad Juárez", please? Thanks in advance...

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Day 2 of Twenty-First-Century Literature Conference at Birkbeck

I just realised that I forgot to Storify my live tweets from day 2 of this conference... enjoy! [View the story "Day 2 of Twenty-First-Century British Fiction Symposium" on Storify] Day 2 of Twenty-First-Century British Fiction Symposium Storified by Martin Eve · Mon, May 21 2012 06:15:47…

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Beware the next wave of academic publishing grimness: apps.

Imagine if you could have, in your pocket, access to the world's research information in an easy-to-navigate, accessible format with dynamic add-ons, customizable aspects and links to other pieces of research. Well, we have a way of doing this. The technologies are called XHTML, HTML5, CSS and…

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If anybody wants some Red Swordfish tropical fish, ours have mated. North London for pickup; free to a good home.

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Thinking Feeling Conference at the University of Sussex

This Friday and Saturday, the University of Sussex hosted the Thinking Feeling conference on affect, feeling and emotion, attempting to theorise the myriad ways in which this is mapped out. To give a brief rundown of the papers that were of particular interest to my (inexperienced in this area)…

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Bit late, but contributing to #phdchat "share your workspace", here's my home room with lots of Samuel Beckett

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Looks like a really good #HELiveChat from @GdnHigherEd with @cap_and_gown & @the_blochian on how to be a good lecturer. Sorry I missed it!

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Tomorrow is day one of the thinking/feeling critical theory conference at Sussex. I'll use #tfcrit. You've been warned.

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Much discussion of critical and creative spaces. My query: will these remain ineffectual as long as they remain outside spaces? #sushidig

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Artists often didn't want to theorize their practice. Unsurprisingly, they want to practice as for of expression. #sushidig

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Assertion on a shared process in arts and business. I'm all for hybridity, but uneasy with uncritical "artistic product". #sushidig

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They looked to the humanities for novel practices in business management HE. #sushidig

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Interesting tweets from @ORCID_Org where it seems @gbilder is talking on ORCID.

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Cubitt says that challenge at the moment is to include non-human actors in the polis. The market is already. What about the env? #sushidig

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Haiti finished paying compensation to French for loss of slaves in revolution in... 1947. #sushidig

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Challenge for nation state is to extend rights to those who have no rights. The inadmissible governed says Cubitt #sushidig

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Partition of populations is an integral part of project of Western modernity says Cubitt #sushidig

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Even economics spoken about in terms of economics, as though there were no other means by which to describe exchange says Cubitt #sushidig

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Many aspects of nationhood are only refuge from brutality of unrestrained capitalism. #sushidig

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"We do not have rights. Politicians wit not call non-nationals refugees because then they achieve rights." says Cubitt #sushidig

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Cubitt moving on to rights discourse. Critique of UN human rights document that excludes non-citizens. #sushidig

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Cubitt shows video by H5 for Norweigan electro pop that is emblematic of biopolitics. Statistical management of populations. #sushidig

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Politics is "how should we live? " says Cubitt. We don't have this, but instead ethical: "how should I live?" #sushidig

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Cubitt points out that storage costs seem to be going down, but eco cost is soaring. #sushidig

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Interesting comment frm Cameron on continued disdain for digital practice in academia. Mirrors intellectual/manual labour snobbery #sushidig

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Caroline Bassett made good point about digital jettison; should all be archived? Difficult: no immanent historicism for value #sushidig

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Marie Sester's "Access" one of few pieces that works, says Cameron. Shows code. Brecht? #sushidig

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Cameron talks of immanent perception as non-critical, no uncanny. Art stages the uncanny. Interactive art loses critical uncanny. #sushidig

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Cameron now on to Brian Massumi and "the thinking-feeling of what happens" #sushidig

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Feels like quite a bit of media art resentment here today! Danger of two arts cultures I think. What about shared space? #sushidig

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“@MinxMarple @martin_eve disagree that fine art is not collaborative. It is often intensely & essentially collaborative process.” #sushidig

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Cameron talking abt Nicholas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics & applying to media art. Can representational art connect w/ world? #sushidig

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"As advertising is to digital, so fine art is to media art" suggests Cameron. #sushidig

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Digital talent not following trad creative route. Most starving artists go through adv at some point. Not with digital. #sushidig

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Little collaboration in adv - idea of romantic lone genius. Also hates testing! #sushidig #unittestwin

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Few mosaics of ideas in advertising. Obsessed by big ideas. Adv also focuses too much on visual aesthetics, rather than "feel" #sushidig

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Ha! Andy Cameron points out aggressive culture in advertising. Appropriation of ideas. No agility. No shared ownership of ideas. #sushidig

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Asks what creative technologists do different from advertisers trying to do this. #sushidig

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Andy Cameron points out that advertising agencies are good at storytelling, bad at software. Bad at fundamental coding level. #sushidig

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I'm quite terrified by ideas of advertising desiring immersion software experiences. #sushidig

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Andy Cameron using advertising as example to think through innovation and creativity. I'm not convinced by this. #sushidig

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Advertising is obsessed by "digital" - failure to engage with present and future though. #sushidig

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Cameron points out lack of critical voice on media art. Tech utilitarianism perhaps creeps in. #sushidig

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Excellent response from Bosma railing against apps and their closed nature. #sushidig

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Eek. This may not be Andy Cameron. Apologies. Until further notice, it's "speaker". Sorry! #sushidig

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Andy Cameron talking about fear of abundance and misunderstanding: digital economy act. Abundance can create value. #sushidig

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Asks: what is the value of scarcity, and what about the scarcity of value? #c21symp

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Cameron says that many aspects appear both ephemeral and persistent - human life, for instance #sushidig

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Andy Cameron is now on, talking about Values Systems in Art and Advertising: Notions of Craft vs Concept #sushidig

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2 to develop tools and platforms 3 to initiate discussion (copyright etc) 4 media archaeology of art history #sushidig

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Bosma giving some goals for art institutions. 1 serious openness and responsibility #sushidig

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Bosma says that institutions must collaborate to build open software and hardware infrastructures. #sushidig

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Bosma not an open source fanatic, but without openness, institutions keep making the same mistakes. #sushidig

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Very few art institutions that really engage with new media art. Lucky to have Tate in UK. #sushidig

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Information overload and distribution is false. Monopolies control majority of market. Google. Apple. MS. #sushidig

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Attempt at digital transition from many art orgs is merely simulacrum of participation says Bosma #sushidig

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Old school Darwinian archiving. Survival of fittest. Most reproduced is preserved because of distribution #sushidig

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Standard art pedagogy is 2d reproduction. New media poorly understood because of non-experiential material taught says Bosma #sushidig

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"the critical engineer deconstruction and incites suspicion of rich user experience" #sushidig

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Not same as artist-curator, but related. Also related to critical engineering manifesto. #sushidig

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Thinking about notions of curator-engineer. Making art institutions part of art practice. Museum as network node. #sushidig

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Bosma now up. First point about media art. No longer dark rooms. 2010s, the light is back! #sushidig

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Warren says another research question is: if we want certain ethical creative processes to persist, how do we alter future value? #sushidig

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Trying to understand, within creative sphere, how "value" is attached and to identify and question persistence. Ephemerality. #sushidig

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Now Lorraine Warren giving Southampton's side. Cross-institutional collaboration and curious diversity. #sushidig

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SuShI aims to provide an openness to difference, says Norman, rather than aiming for grim REFable cohesion. Ethical project. #sushidig

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... although before Bosma, Sally Jane Norman is introducing us to the background to interest in digital temporalities. #sushidig

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Josephine Bosma up first at #sushidig, speaking on Open Values and Multiple Temporalities Through Open Culture

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Today I'm attending the Sussex-Southampton initiative, SuShI conference on digital research. May tweet on #sushidig.

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Semi-sad to report that my first encounter with David Mitchell has been postponed in order to re-read 2666 for conference work.

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Hurrah! Paper accepted for teaching twenty-first-century lit. on Bolaño's 2666. Better get writing that, then!

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Meant to share a gem from my 91 year-old grandparents. Grandad: "young couple next door living in sin" / Grandma: "good for them".

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Any English literature pros out there who'd be willing to have a critical read of my book proposal?

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Haha! I type so fast that Routledge's ScholarOne online submission form thinks I'm copying and pasting my email and tells me off!

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Finally got around to reading B.S. Johnson's Albert Angelo this morning. Highly enjoyable & inventive. Love the metafictive "disintegration"

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"Romney rejects same-sex marriage" says BBC. I didn't even know he had an offer.

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“@TheTristero RT @quartertonality Drinking with English majors means comparing this drunk dude's ramblings to a Pynchon narrative.”

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Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery is a grim exercise in battering the reader with blunt, unsubtle historical irony. Not great :/

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That's my last conference for a while. If for "a while" you instead read "3 days".

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For those who want the lowdown on the final final writers roundtable at #c21symp, following @the_blochian. I've bailed!

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Loh will look at Amis and McEwan and their entanglement in post-9/11 debates, in which complaints against exploitation are... #c21symp

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Loh opens with story of the idiot BNP candidate, of Italian descent, who claimed to be the most cosmopolitan mayoral candidate! #c21symp

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Finally, Lucienne Loh speaks on (Post)colonial legacies in 21c British Fiction #c21symp

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Swift brings notions of nostalgic Englishness into consciousness, only to sharply ironize and critique them, says James #c21symp

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Redundancy of regional fiction is a false critical supposition, says James, with reference to Graham Swift's Wish You Were Here. #c21symp

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Modernist notions of direction particularly apt to counter retrogressive conventional "Englishness" reading says James #c21symp

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Zadie Smith derides continuation of 19c lit styles, but ignores, according to James, new forms that come from reference to that #c21symp

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Ok, no he isn't! James instead talking on Englishness and provincial imagination in "poco" fiction. #c21symp

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David James now speaking on unknowable communities in "postcolonial" fiction. #c21symp

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Critics sceptical of massive novels says Leggett. I'm sceptical of that claim. #c21symp

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Brian McHale's latest volume emphasizes problems of national categories for literature: sub-identities, global paradigm etc #c21symp

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Smaller field of study, the easier it is to defend says Leggett. Explains national and sub-national literary categorisation. #c21symp

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Final panel of #c21symp on "Provincialising Britain". Bianca Leggett up first with a survey of British cosmopolitan novel #c21symp

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Note to self. Wonder how Self's critique of monotheistic texts works in relation to Hoban's Eusa myth. #c21symp

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Question on whether Burnside's underlying real is actually a Platonist "real", real in its idealism. #c21symp

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Noting slow time in BoD precursor, Hoban's Riddley Walker & Self's allusion to this in RW intro says @the_blochian #c21symp cc @thoughtcat

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Slow time, activism of walking link to act of reading says @the_blochian #c21symp

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Self deliberately references paleo-biology - "deep time" - asks us to evaluate our own urban temporal practices says @the_blochian #c21symp

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Rundown of Self's critique of monotheistic religion by @the_blochian in both Book of Dave and his Intro to the Book of Revelation #c21symp

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Formulated by Maczynska, this Urban Visionary Satire is comprised of realist, satirical and fantastic. #c21symp

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Does this sit, then, in a parodic, satirical tradition, asks @the_blochian, or a reformed version called "Urban Visionary Satire" #c21symp

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A breakdown of literary canon within which Book of Dave sits, particularly with destroyed London landmarks, given by @the_blochian #c21symp

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City outside of time and critique of new Jerusalems says @the_blochian #c21symp

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... and @the_blochian brings up the Will Self connection that I just mentioned. #c21symp

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Schmitt-Kilb closing with postmodern walking and post-postmodern walking. Burnside says walking is political. Cf Will Self. #c21symp

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Burnside sits in a reality that is grounded but nonetheless retains construction & scepticism says Schmitt-Kilb #c21symp

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Problem for eco-crit is to situate itself between inescapable constructivist theories and naive realist notions says Schmitt-Kilb #c21symp

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Now we have Christian Schmitt-Kilb on John Burnside and contemporary eco-political fiction #c21symp

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Lilley says that Ryle's analysis of The Accidental as neo-pastoral falls short because it only focuses on representation #c21symp

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Whether Jensen's The Rapture is post - pastoral turns upon its eco - centricity, as opposed to anthro - centricity. #c21symp

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Now on to Terry Gifford's "post-pastoral" and Martin Ryle's "neo-pastoral". Many dualisms in this paper. #c21symp

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Utopian or elegiac modes of the pastoral in relation to ecological issues says Lilley #c21symp

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Two main strains in c21 pastoral. One that draws out ecological concern and another.... That I failed to catch :/ #c21symp

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Distinction between country and city key to 21C pastoral, says Lilley. #c21symp

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Deborah Lilley kicks off ecologies panel with a look at the pastoral mode. #c21symp

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Earlier statement on Noon's originality may have been Marczewska quoting Noon, by the way... #c21symp

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Ha ha! Now much critical feedback and questions from audience on Noon. Not well received! #c21symp @dgcrow

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Some twitter scepticism towards Noon's innovation coming in to #c21symp from @dgcrow

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Steampunk interconnection with yesterday's paper posited by Kirk in Mr Y. #c21symp

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Kirk talking about ways in which book reading competes with "there's an app for that" world. #c21symp

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Kirk mixes terms on Internet and Web in first sentence there. Web Berners Lee, Internet ARPAnet. #c21symp

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Gaming ad de-centralisation of protagonist as single entity. Chimes with Rushdie's PoCo and polyphony. #c21symp

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Corrigan unearthing Rushdie's counterfactuals. Video game comparison. Red Alert? Rushdie's environment not military history though. #c21symp

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Rushdie's PoCo troubling of citizenship are extended to notions of the human in Luka. #c21symp

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My live tweeting could exemplify Harraway's cyborg, says Corrigan. I'll be back. #c21symp

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Duality of text in young adult/adult fiction, mirrored in gaming mode employed. Is this a post-genre text? asks Corrigan. #c21symp

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Duality of text in young adult/adult fiction, mirrored in gaming mode employed. Is this a post-genre text? asks Corrigan.

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Corrigan arguing that Luka represents a departure for fiction that explores the post-human. #c21symp

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Now Marianne Corrigan is on, speaking on computer games in Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of Life. #c21symp

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Marczewska examining US-UK postmodern disjunction, especially across ludic mode. #c21symp

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This passes ironic comment on art and relinquishment of autonomy to the machine says Marczewska #c21symp

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Note: Cobralingus is not a real technological innovation, but a manual artistic process that mimics an imagined tech #c21symp

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Noon's Cobralingus "takes remix fiction to a whole new level" says Marczewska #c21symp

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Marczewska has slide up on cobralingus and "filter gates" - procedures for re-working texts. #c21symp

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Marczewska showing examples of uncreativity: "creativity is ______________ subtraction". #c21symp

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Kaja Marczewska now speaking on Jeff Noon and contemporary aesthetics. #c21symp

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Williams speaking on Helen de Witt's transcription of emails into fiction. Immanent documentary. #c21symp

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Williams describing a form of modernism that abandons its contract with the future. #c21symp

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Williams citing Tom McCarthy on authenticity and suggesting a problem in his modernist retrospective. #c21symp

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Williams characterising literary fiction as a "genre" the predominant trope of which is romanticised author. #c21symp

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Williams going to look at issues of transcription and trans-nationalism, but particularly in Helen de Witt. #c21symp

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NB I have a paper critiquing meta-modernism in lit out in C21 later this year. #c21symp

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Carol Jones now speaking on "post-devo-max-meta-modernism". Feels nervous after Bob Eaglestone's critical controversial keynote. #c21symp

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Contradictions in material memory texts; both neoconservative nostalgia and re-connection says Vardy. #c21symp

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Inability of Burn's text to integrate objects with society parallels fragmented society depicted says Vardy. #c21symp

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Digital fabric, says Vardy, gives us a present permeated by the past, from which we forget that there used to be a cultural present #c21symp

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Vardy says that Bill Brown queries ability of commodity fetishism to theorize material-memory dynamic. #c21symp

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Vardy cites Middleton and Woods for post-historical to memorial practices. #c21symp

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Focus on objectivity not new, says Vardy, but that "material-memory texts" resist this and root objects in subjectivity. #c21symp

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Running late to #c21symp as missed my train and alternative bus doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

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Anybody have any thoughts on durability/preservation issues in relation to Storify?

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...AND the author of both parts is the same engineer, Josh Bloch. Worked for Sun, then for Google, rewriting his own code. Self-plagiarism.

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Final panel was @DrKatyShaw, @gylphi, @djbduncan and counter-critique of publishing practices from me. #c21symp

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Final panel was @DrKatyShaw, @gylphi, @djbduncan and counter-critique of publishing practices from me.

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Glenn Patterson one of the few Northern Irish writers whose characters want to have sex just for fun, says @DrMagennis! #c21symp

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Patterson inserts fictional characters into historical events. Features interactions with people outside racial majority of NI. #c21symp

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How can we represent past, if no consensus exists on what happened, asks @DrMagennis #c21symp

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Glenn Patterson has broad cultural impact says @DrMagennis, asking what it means to write historical fiction in NI in 2012 #c21symp

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Now @DrMagennis is up! Speaking on the politics of memory in the modern Irish novel. #c21symp

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Boccardi claims that fossils sit outside interpretative framework; a hard referent. Not convinced. #c21symp

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Boccardi seems to be claiming that representation of geology, rather than engagement with lit tradition, can recover "authenticity" #c21symp

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Boccardi looking at mutations of Hutcheon's historiographic metafiction in neo-Victorian lit. Nat Hist as a sub for textuality #c21symp

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Now Mariadele Boccardi from UWE speaking on natural history and textual authenticity in Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures. #c21symp

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Not a distinctive British strain of neo-Victorian literature; global phenomenon says Kohlke. #c21symp

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“@C21st_symposium Publishing panel; Keynes Room, 43 Gordon Sq; Gylphi people; 530 till whenever...” #c21symp

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On to Byatt and Sarah Waters for stronger examples of traumatic return. #c21symp

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No coincidence that Mitchell's Cloud Atlas has 19c beginning and end for fracturing of self and narrative according to Kohlke. #c21symp

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Neo-Victorian often linked to spectrality and trauma discourse says Kohlke. #c21symp

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Marie-Luise Kohlke on trauma and gothic in neo-Victorian fiction first. Talking about Crimson Petal and the White #c21symp

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We now have a cheery panel on trauma and memory in 21st-Century literature! #c21symp

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FreakAngels dystopian, not anti-utopian. Venezia says the latter denies possibility of radical social change. #c21symp

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Ironic exclusion of digital media in FreakAngels despite steampunk affinity and online publication. #c21symp

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Venezia talks about the " ruins of the near future ". Wonder if he knows DeLillo essay with similar name on 9/11? I #c21symp

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Wyndham's The Midwich Cukoos is hypotext for FreakAngels, says Venezia. #c21symp

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Now Tony Venezia is up to talk about post-apocalyptic London in Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield. #c21symp

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Cultural aspects, such as sartorial markers a la Hebdige, remain important, but there's a shift towards the political says Beaumont #c21symp

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Impossible to summarize the humorous aspects of King Rat being discussed! #c21symp

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Beaumont arguing that between King Rat and The City and The City, Mieville moves to a post-cultural mode. Politics and space. #c21symp

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Christindis points out problem of PoCo ethics: exposure of multiple narratives to gaze has objectifying tendencies. #c21symp

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Structure is, then, mirroring earlier point, "unmarked" to "authentic" to polyphonic says Christindis. #c21symp

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Christindis shows that different diegetic levels of quotation can contribute to this intimacy. #c21symp

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Now Christindis talking about notions of "authenticity" linked to intimacy and unveiling. #c21symp

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Abstract individualism to forging "black" essentialist identity to re-discovery of roots is structure says Christindis #c21symp

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London offers only an illusion of choice to Faith, in Fruit of the Lemon Tree says Christindis. #c21symp

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Andrea Levy's Fruit of the Lemon does something very different says Christindis. Circular structure, for one. #c21symp

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Christindis argues that Brick Lane achieves transfer of bildungsroman structure to PoCo setting. One of few novels to use "agency"! #c21symp

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Riddley Walker far more extreme, Cloud Atlas drops letters or introduces phonemes. #c21symp

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Wonder how Hoban's Riddley Walker differs from model presented by... Oh, she's just mentioned it! #c21symp

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Looking at implications of Derrida's critique of phonocentrism for Mitchell's environment. #c21symp

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Females ostracised from male auto-aesthetic social groups in Self's Dorian. #c21symp

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Gregory also arguing that this question aesthetic history is entwined with the Gothic. #c21symp

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Gregory arguing that Dorian continues this history of a queer aesthetic. #c21symp

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Gregory exploring dual literary representational history of homosexuality as desirable and simultaneously abhorrent. #c21symp

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Alan Gregory up next, speaking about Will Self's Dorian and the diseased masculine body. #c21symp

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Soobramanien proposes that this "cannibalistic transubstantiation" serves an ethical and didactic function beyond existing PoCo. #c21symp

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“@avoiding_bears @martin_eve Reading that term reminds me I have to go and read about C17th anti-popery again. Bah...” #c21symp

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Soobramanien's novel cannibalises Paul et Virginia. Not in parody, but as a for of sacrifice. Sounds very Levinasian. #c21symp

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Soobramanien giving her personal biography and Mauritian heritage as background to her novel Genie and Paul. #c21symp

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Cannibalist movement reclaimed cannibalism as a "loving" move. Only in a literary context, I'll add! #c21symp

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Natasha Soobramanien now speaking on "cannibalistic transubstantiation" - a type of intertextuality that subsumes target. #c21symp

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Debate on degree of self-reflection in Jon McGregor's aestheticisation of the everyday & the necessary transformation it undergoes. #c21symp

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Mass housing of 1950s constructed with no thought of working class inhabitants. Gorbals flats as example, demolished 1993. #c21symp

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Idea that crime happens elsewhere than the middle-class house, as per shock of Sutcliffe's neighbours. #c21symp

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US equivalent of this paper would surely mention Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables. In fact, there was a similar paper @ Symbiosis. #c21symp

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Now on to Peace and notion that "all great houses resemble crimes". Echoes of "all property is theft". #c21symp

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Gordon speaking on representation of the Wests and their Cromwell Street crimes in Burn's work. Respectability of home ownership. #c21symp

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Rhona Gordon now up to talk about housing in Gordon Burn, David Peace and Andrew O'Hagan. #c21symp

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Hayward arguing that Rourke gives a form of static flaneurism. One that remains on the surface, not penetrating but reflecting. #c21symp

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Emma Haywood currently talking about various modes of flaneurism from Benjamin through Aykroyd and Rourke. #c21symp

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Wilshaw, OFSTED head, who has said that teaching is not stressful, obviously hasn't taught under his own regime of metrics & quantification.

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Suspect, from lineup tomorrow, that #OA in the humanities will not heavily feature. I have some tough questions for them!

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Looking forward to the "Publishing the 21st Century" panel at the British Fiction conference tomorrow. Wonder how much #OA will be covered?

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Just seen @GdnHigherEd chat is on accepting private universities. I'm at a conference, so will rely on others to post strong "no" for me.

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Obama also affirmed that he believes in evolution in that statement, thereby alienating exactly the same crowd who are anti-gay marriage.

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"I know which of my friends will copy and paste this status". So do I. The ones who fall for passive-aggressive bully tactics.

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I always try to write my reading into the thesis, even if it goes in the long run. This way I know I've understood it & "used" it #phdchat

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If @SarahR_H ever proofreads for you, beware! Here's what to expect #colourful

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Very enjoyable meetup with @the_blochian spanning all matters between lit teaching and online journals.

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Phew. On last stretch of journey home. With Vinelabd in hand. #pynchon2012 was pretty huge! Will begin posting photos tomorrow tomorrow!

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Thanks all participating in #Pynchon2012. Off to teach my final lit class of term. Will check in again later.

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I was very lucky to get a train early today. Vehicle has struck a bridge. Brighton-London trains cancelled.

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Aside from the Pynchon excitement today I also have my final seminar to teach, on Bechdel "Fun Home" and a meet up with @SarahR_H

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So pleased to see so much activity on #Pynchon2012 - off for our meetup in Brighton. I have Vineland in hand.

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Just had the first #Pynchon2012 photo submission from Kursk in Russia! Now off to bed. Happy birthday, Thomas Pynchon!

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Don't forget: if you get time to do something Pynchon-related tomorrow (Pynchon in Public Day) tweet on #Pynchon2012 or/and @PynchonInPublic

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I saw today's xkcd and didn't tweet it. Reenforces utilitarian approach to Higher Education.

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Good on the @Guardian for prominently featuring death penalty abolition article!

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Phew. Command line wizadry deployed... system booting again! (cleared apt-cache, re-installed headers + generic kernel image)

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Damn. Aborted kernel update has left me with unbootable machine; seems depmod failed.

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Just been out to vote. A Green/Labour mix. The latter with a sour taste of "better than the alternative" democracy.

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Research portion of my day over; now to prepare for first year UG teaching on Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home" graphic novel.

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Amazed at how blind I can be when I know document so well. Outsider proofreaders essential. #phdchat

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I had a concerted burst of removing "it seems" and "perhaps". Voice much stronger now! #phdchat

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I'm currently filling in a Word form. I have strong desire to murder the person who designed it.

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An update on Orbit 1.1

I thought it was time for a brief "state of the issue" post for the, no doubt voluminous, hordes awaiting the launch of Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon. One review and six articles are now typeset and going into proofreading. A further review and note are in initial copyediting. Three commissioned…

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Incensed by a sign in Enfield Town: "we're all Windsors" then listing jubilee events. Does this mean we can all live in palaces?

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Suspect this "Jimmy Wales to make all Open Access" model is one predicated on author pays, thus not solving library budget problem.

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Some hideous regressions in LibreOffice when dealing with Word doc files. In Ubuntu Precise -- the Long Term Support release :/

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That @DutchOverlord account is great (if you like cynical open access humour, as I do)!

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Just taught a very enjoyable 4 hours worth of Arundhati Roy seminars. Some great student comments. When teaching goes well, so energising.

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Just arrived on Sussex campus for a varied day. Starting with basic xhtml teaching, then meeting re summer school, then teaching lit seminar