December 8, 2008: Prof Paul Giles from the Dept of English, Oxford University, will speak on "Contemporary Trends in Literature -- a British Perspective"
Venue: Chandigarh Arts Council Auditorium, 1st Floor, State Library, Sector 34.
Time: 3.30 pm.
Paul Giles is Professor of American Literature at the University of Oxford, UK. He has previously taught at the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham in the UK, and at Portland State University in Oregon, USA. He served as President of the International American Studies Association between 2005 and 2007, and also as Director of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford between 2003 and 2008. Among his books are "Atlantic Republic: The American Tradition in English Literature" (OUP, 2006); "Virtual Americas: Transnational Fictions and the Transatlantic Imaginary" (Duke UP, 2002); "Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730-1860" (Penn, 2001); "American catholic Arts and fictions: Culture, Ideology, Aesthetics" (CUP, 1992); "Hart Crane: The Contexts of "The Bridge" (CUP, 1986).
This talk will consider ways in which different cultural locations in British life--television, radio and journalism, as well as the academic world--produce different general expectations about literature. There will also be some consideration given to the role of literary prizes and marketing, and discussion of how definitions of "literature" have diverged markedly over the past twenty years for different kinds of readers. The talk will also consider how "extra-literary" trends are having an increasing cultural impact upon how literature is understood and consumed today.
