The Center for the Study of the Novel has invited professors Ato Quayson (Stanford), Richard Halpern (NYU), and John Kerrigan (Cambridge) to present work on the relationship between tragedy and postcolonial literature. The panel, entitled “Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature” will take place on Friday, November 15th at 2:00PM in the Terrace Room (Margaret Jacks Hall, Building 460).

How does the millennium-old genre of tragedy prove a necessary unit for the evaluation and interpretation of postcolonial literature? The critics on this panel––Ato Quayson, Richard Halpern, and John Kerrigan––have variously approached tragedy as an Aristotelian aesthetic form; a metric of political economy; and an oft-returned to platform for historical meditation on the act of revenge. These approaches are not only applicable to the study of postcolonial literature, but also open pathways for comparative study, drawing connections between Morrison, Becket, Achebe, Soyinka, and Shakespeare, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. We invite you to engage our speakers on topics ranging widely within literary studies, such as the philosophic interrogation of eudaimonia (virtue, good living) or the dynamics of British and Irish poetry since 1960.

Please RSVP here.