The Department of English presents the first in a new series of events about the relationship between poetry and theory, with a spotlight on poet-theorists, those writers who make both poetry and theory. This two-day series seeks both to blur the line between poetry and theory and also to explore the unique affordances of each mode of writing.
Roundtable discussion: The Poet-Theorist: A Conversation with Professors David Marriott, Jackie Wang, and Chris Nealon
Please join us as our guests discuss the overlaps between their work in poetry and theory in terms of compositional techniques, intertextual conversations, and affective and cognitive experiences. They will further consider what kinds of thought and experience might be specific to poetry or to theory.
Also in this event series:
Tuesday, April 6, at 5:00pm Pacific Time
Public lecture: Professor David Marriott: The Thought of Poetry
About David Marriott David Marriott is a Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. Marriott is the author of three far-reaching and transformative books of criticism: On Black Men; Haunted Life: Visual Culture and Black Modernity; and Whither Fanon?: Studies in the Blackness of Being. Whither Fanon is hailed as "one of the most original and significant works of theory of this generation." Marriott is also the author of numerous books of searching, startling poems, including Incognegro, Hoodoo Voodoo, The Bloods, and Duppies. Of Hoodoo Voodoo, the critic Romana Huk has said, "I'm overwhelmed by the beauty that is this book."
About Jackie Wang Jackie Wang is a Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at the New School for Social Research. Wang is the author of Carceral Capitalism, a vital theoretical study of racial capitalism and policing, and The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void, a book of poetry exploring the social dimensions of dreams and personal trauma. Wang's co-discussant, Chris Nealon, calls The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void "a gorgeous, ambitious, phantasmagoric lament for the better worlds our bodies tell us must be possible."
About Chris Nealon Chris Nealon is a Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. Nealon has produced field-changing books in Marxist literary theory and queer theory (The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in The American Century; Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall) and has written numerous books of stunningly original poetry, including The Joyous Age, Plummet, Heteronomy, and The Shore. The Shore is currently a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
