Graduate Student, English
Doctoral Researcher
Thesis Title: Hostility or tolerance? Philosophy, polyphony and the novels of Thomas Pynchon
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Peter Boxall
Doug Haynes |
About
The primary aim of my current research is to answer four questions that situate and investigate the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno in relation to the novels of Thomas Pynchon: 1.) Where, and to what degree, does Pynchon scholarship diverge from the Theory-boom of the 1980s and 1990s?; 2.) Where are the points of hostility?; 3.) Upon what is this hostility predicated?; and 4.) What allegiances are signalled by a hostility or hospitality towards these schools of thought?
Through a polyphonic context, my work attempts to avoid the pitfalls of the prevalent Theory-rooted methodology and, rather than merely noting surface similitude, aims at a politicised, deeper understanding of Pynchon’s relationship to philosophical thought.
Future areas of research on which I would like to work include contemporary fiction (Roberto Bolaño, Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, David Grossman, Tom McCarthy, Toni Morrison, W.G. Sebald, David Foster Wallace), Modernism (Samuel Beckett, Robert Musil), innovative and productive engagements with philosophy and Theory, the theatre of Joe Orton, the films of Elia Suleiman, alternative theatre practice and the emergent digital humanities field.
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