'A Vibrating Coat Hanger': How Newness Decentres the World in Some Late Writing
Dr John Masterson will lecture on “assemblage” as both paradigm and praxis in contemporary literature and music, drawing on contrapuntal readings inspired by Edward Said.
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to think through, with and against ‘assemblage,’ as both paradigm and praxis, in some recent texts. Taking inspiration from Said’s On Late Style and his contrapuntal reflections on music and politics more broadly, I stage conversations across writers and performers, ranging from Christina Sharpe, Margo Jefferson and Teju Cole via Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Nina Simone and Barack Obama, amongst others. I explore the formal innovations of their work as responses to and affective ripostes in untethered times.
Bio
John Masterson is an Associate Professor in World Literatures in English at the University of Sussex and an Honorary Research Associate of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His has published on a range of contemporary writers, from Nuruddin Farah and J.M. Coetzee to Ali Smith, via Barack Obama and Jennifer Egan.