Inventing Romance Studies

If the hallmark of literary representation is that it is an unfaithful representation of the real, then perhaps the most literary texts are those that betray (disclose or let slip) that infidelity even as they indulge in it themselves. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. 00:00 Introduction 02:07 Patterns of Commonality and Difference 03:36 Questions 04:57 Growing Up and Betrayal...

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Anita Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin) and Jon Beasley-Murray Lecture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etyrdFxPV-o Website: http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inventingromancestudies/ #romancestudies #rmst202

A Conversation for RMST 202 about Djaïli Amadou Amal's The Impatient. With Djaïli Amadou Amal and Jon Beasley-Murray. Interpretation by Julien Mowang Ngoula. Many thanks also to Irem Ayan for her advice and help. Short: https://youtube.com/shorts/snVovb7I0qo Lecture video: Website: http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inventingromancestudies/ #romancestudies #rmst202

This is a novel that is both in transit and in translation. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. 00:00 Introduction 02:23 Politics as Necropolitics11:08 Questions 14:03 Burrowing through Space26:21 Credits For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #romancestudies #rmst202

The best they can do, it seems, is embrace their fate, fight for their own servitude. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. 00:00 Introduction02:04 Acquiring a Taste for Domination06:53 Questions11:00 Mobilizing the Politics of Language19:33 Credits Full text here: https://rmst202.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2022/02/brilliant-friend.pdf For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #rmst2...

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Ann Goldstein (Ferrante's translator) and Jon Beasley-Murray. See also the lecture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl434Ui-dhs #rmst202 #romancestudies http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

Art may not be able to evade death, but through performance it can be a vehicle of resurrection. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. 00:00 Introduction 03:18 Politics as Necropolitics07:25 Questions 10:14 Reading as Resurrection20:03 Credits For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #romancestudies #rmst202

A Conversation for RMST 202 about José Eduardo Agualusa's The Book of Chameleons. With José Eduardo Agualusa and Jon Beasley-Murray. 11:46 An Absurd Reality: Violence, the Fantastic, and Exuberance16:59 Literature and Dreams: Disquieting Reminders, Sudden Creativity20:19 Dreams as Preparation for Reality: Nightmares and Tears21:55 Enter the Gecko: Finding the Voice of a Laughing God25:37 Nature an...

It may be nice to think we can reinvent ourselves, construct new pasts and precursors, and fiction encourages us in this fantasy. But there are scars that simply will not fade. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction 06:22 The Powers of the False07:03 Questions 16:02 History's Revenge26:42 CreditsFor RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #romancestudies #rmst2...

Doubling kickstarts a mechanism that generates uncountable multitudes, whose diverse multiplicity contrasts starkly with the image of one nation, one people. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #rmst202 #romancestudies

Writing is rendered a battle of betrayal and counter-betrayal, whereby it is not truth (fidelity) that leads to the real, but subterfuge (perfidy) that gives us the really real, the heart of the matter! By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #rmst202 #romancestudies

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Bécquer Seguín (Johns Hopkins University) and Jon Beasley-Murray. Lecture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k-_eMlcYl0 Website: http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inventingromancestudies/ #romancestudies #rmst202

Bolaño's fiction, whether set in Chile or Mexico, is as much about a memory of Latin America as it is about the region’s actuality, even if that memory is sometimes also a memory of the future. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. For RMST 202. ⁠https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/⁠ #rmst202 #romancestudies

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Ryan Long (University of Maryland) and Jon Beasley-Murray. #rmst202 #romancestudies http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

Money is, after all, one of the most powerful fictions that structure social relations. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction 08:49 Based on a True Story20:41 Questions 22:38 Bonfire of the Vanities35:05 CreditsFor RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/#romancestudies #rmst202

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Fabricio Tocco (Australian National University) and Jon Beasley-Murray. #rmst202 #romancestudies http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

There is a margin of uncertainty in life as in literature, and a strange resonance between the experiences of living in Communist society and engaging with a text, both of which are exercises in close reading, a hermeneutics of suspicion. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction04:06 The Uncertainty of Interpretation05:54 Questions13:43 The Temptations of Complicity...

A Conversation for RMST 202. With famed Romanian writer Norman Manea, Jon Beasley-Murray, and students of RMST 202. We profoundly thank Professor Manea for the privilege of his time and his extraordinary generosity. #rmst202 #romancestudies http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

The power of writing has little to do with whatever meaning it may convey, subject to interpretation, but rather with the book as fetish object, the materiality of paper. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia. For RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #rmst202 #romancestudies

In rewriting the lover, Duras also rewrites herself, her origin as writer, in a precarious zone shuttling between past and future and back again. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction 03:11 Approaching Agency09:35 Questions 12:19 Rewriting Hierarchy22:01 CreditsFor RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #romancestudies #rmst202

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Fernanda Negrete (University at Buffalo) and Jon Beasley-Murray. #rmst202 #romancestudies http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

You, of course, may take your reading of the novel in some other direction, reach your own conclusions. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction 04:40 Metafiction and Materiality08:47 Questions 17:53 Escaping Gendered Endings26:14 CreditsFor RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/#romancestudies #rmst202

A Conversation for RMST 202. With Claudia Dellacasa (Glasgow University) and Jon Beasley-Murray. #rmst202 #romancestudies ⁠http://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca

It is about an ethics of writing, about how writing can be true to life, to “a life,” without necessarily laying claim to the truth of that life. It is about the hesitations, affirmations, and disruptive explosions that mark any text as it tries to describe and negotiate the world. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia00:00 Introduction10:59 A Hesitant Ethics13:20 Questions21:29 An...

Postmodernism, by putting truth in question (or in brackets) does not necessarily abandon either politics or ethics. By Jon Beasley-Murray, University of British Columbia.00:00 Introduction01:48 Postmodernity, Postmodernism, and Fragments07:50 Questions11:15 Life Writing and the Return of the Subject19:49 CreditsFor RMST 202. https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/ #rmst202 #romancestudies