- Brandon Carr is a doctor of Comparative Literature with more than a decade of teaching experience at the University o... moreBrandon Carr is a doctor of Comparative Literature with more than a decade of teaching experience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Florida. He has written and presented on the work of Émile Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Catherine Malabou and published on topics in writing studies.edit
This dissertation contends with the treatment of the biological in literary representation, arguing that the biological lacunae particularly visible in critical practice are best redressed by a formal exploration of aesthetic images of... more
This dissertation contends with the treatment of the biological in literary representation, arguing that the biological lacunae particularly visible in critical practice are best redressed by a formal exploration of aesthetic images of life. Biology, as I will show, admits of contingency, spontaneity, and novelty at the level of its aesthetic representation in a manner entirely distinct from what might be gleaned from a critical practice focused exclusively on the annals of discursive history. I approach this dynamic as an isomorphism of symbolism and biology and argue that just as contemporary philosophy has, through the work of Catherine Malabou, traced the symbolization of the biological, aesthetic criticism should seek to trace the biologization of the symbolic, that is, should seek to trace the way biology imposes its presence as an ontological piece of representation. Working my way back from the prominent appearance of three specific tropes in naturalist texts, I demonstrate within this dynamic that the aesthetic image of life asserts its plasticity against an impossible transcendental alterity, an alterity too long taken for granted in critical practice.
Research Interests:
This paper will present a reading of the Critique of Dialectical Reason and explicate the role of the structuralist confrontation of the Critique. Specifically I will argue that in presenting a form of dialectical nominalism, the Critique... more
This paper will present a reading of the Critique of Dialectical Reason and explicate the role of the structuralist confrontation of the Critique. Specifically I will argue that in presenting a form of dialectical nominalism, the Critique must posit a provisional totalization of structuralism. In doing so, and presenting an alternate example of this totalization, Sartre’s Critique rediscovers the inversion of its project in the elaboration of synthetic number.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper will present a reading of the Critique of Dialectical Reason and explicate the role of the structuralist confrontation of the Critique. Specifically I will argue that in presenting a form of dialectical nominalism, the Critique... more
This paper will present a reading of the Critique of Dialectical Reason and explicate the role of the structuralist confrontation of the Critique. Specifically I will argue that in presenting a form of dialectical nominalism, the Critique must posit a provisional totalization of structuralism. In doing so, and presenting an alternate example of this totalization, Sartre’s Critique rediscovers the inversion of its project in the elaboration of synthetic number.