The Humanities Institute is excited to announce the visiting speaker for the 2024 Zacher Lecture in the Humanities: Merve Emre, presenting "Too Close Reading: Asceticism and Pleasure." A reception will follow.
This talk argues that miniaturism, as represented by contemporary forms like "flash fiction" or "the short-short story," emerges as the primary aesthetic strategy for foregrounding the disciplined study of grammar over figuration. In the fiction of Lydia Davis, Diane Williams, and Garielle Lutz, grammar is inseparable from gender, and gender is inseparable from forms of literary labor that are regularly trivialized, devalued, and rendered invisible: translating, editing, fact checking, transcribing, type-setting, and teaching composition. Through its promotion of too close reading, or reading at the smallest scale possible, miniaturism reveals the unappreciated relationship between literary asceticism and literary pleasure.
This event is free and open to the public. RSVPs are requested.
