What can literary studies be? Toril Moi, Duke University, author of Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies After Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell inspires us to educate our judgment and claims that finding a question is the work of literary studies. She helps us read Vigdis Hjorth’s Will and Testament as a Wittgensteinian novel about acknowledgment and invites us to see what fascinates her about Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle. On the way, we are encouraged to get lost, learn about our responsibility for our texts, and about Lacan’s treacherous “subject that is supposed to know”.
(00:00:07) Introducing Toril Moi
(00:00:42) Toril Moi’s Relationship to Scandinavian Literatury Studies
(00:06:52) Stefanie’s Encounter with Toril Moi’s Work
(00:09:07) How to Define and Talk about Postcritique
(00:18:20) Wittgensteinian Criticism
(00:26:32) Fascination and Acknowledgement
(00:31:42) Criticism as Writing a Travel Report
(00:38:07) Building an Intellectual Environment for Thriving Ideas
(00:40:11) Literary Criticism as an Invitation to Conversation
(00:43:59) The Professor as Lacan’s “Subject That is Supposed to Know
(00:50:16) On Arrogance
(00:53:01) Introducing Vigdis Hjorth’s Will and Testament
(00:55:07) On ‘Truth’ in Will and Testament
(00:57:57) Acknowledgement in Will and Testament
(01:03:45) Designing Truthful Characters
(01:11:27) The Struggle with Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle
(01:16:13) On Authenticity in Literary Works
(01:22:17) Pinpointing the Struggle with My Struggle
(01:25:36) The Novelty of Knausgård’s writing
(01:27:19) Revealing Yourself and Your Surroundings in Literature
(01:34:59) Short Summary of Differences in Knausgård’s and Hjorth’s Writing
(01:38:25) What Advice Would You Give Your Student-Self?
Bibliography, further information and comments are available on Experiment Geisteswissenschaften.
https://exgeist.hypotheses.org/
Idea and conception: Stefanie von Schnurbein
Cut: Cecilia Falkman