ESSE Conference 2014 – Seminar: The Rhetorical and Political Implications of Victimhood and Other Forms of Vulnerability in 21st century British Fiction

NEW VISIBILITIES: THE RHETORICAL AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF VICTIMHOOD AND OTHER FORMS OF VULNERABILITY IN 21ST CENTURY BRITISH FICTION

Convenors:
Jean-Michel Ganteau, University of Montpellier 3, France, jean-michel.ganteau@univ-montp3.fr
Susana Onega, University of Zaragoza, Spain, sonega@unizar.es
Deconstructivist and trauma critics have popularised the view that trauma is unrepresentable. However, the proliferation of narratives representing traumatised or vulnerable individuals and groups shows that this is possible, even though through forms of rhetorical indirection such as symbolic language and narrative genres and modes of excess capable of providing an unfixed meaning to trauma. The seminar seeks contributions envisaging the role of 21st-century British novelists in the development of this new type of narrative to avoid the establishment of victimhood as an essentialist category of identity politics, and to provide strategies of resilience and foster the fruition of affects.
http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/event/4/12th-esse-conference#toc-literature