BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The Optics of Fiction: Analysing Visual Dispositives in Contempora
 ry British Novels - Diane Leblond
DTSTART:20170207T210000Z
DTEND:20170207T213000Z
UID:TALK70068@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Michael Kosicki
DESCRIPTION:\nAt the turn of the 21st century\, British fiction finds itse
 lf negotiating conflicting perceptions of vision. In the context of the 
 “visual turn\,” it reflects the increasingly influential role that vis
 ual technologies and media play in today’s cultural landscape. At the sa
 me time\, it addresses anxious accounts of what is often presented as a cr
 isis of the visual. For centuries vision was celebrated as the most intell
 ectual of the senses\; today\, however\, it is more often presented as a k
 ey component in practices of manipulation and control. My reading of works
  by authors such as Martin Amis\, Ali Smith\, Jeanette Winterson\, Nicola 
 Barker and Rupert Thomson suggests that while taking such concerns into ac
 count\, contemporary fiction creates optical dispositives that subvert the
  mechanisms of visual subjugation\, and pave the way for new practices of 
 subjectivation. In doing so it calls for a shift in the paradigms used to 
 delineate the workings of vision: the epistemological understanding of vis
 ual perception as a vehicle of knowledge is replaced by a political and et
 hical interpretation of vision. Leaving behind optical models defined by t
 he binary separation between seeing and seen\, subject and object\, the no
 vels I analyse explore visual encounters in which one pair of eyes necessa
 rily meets another. 
LOCATION:Senior Parlour\, Gonville and Caius College
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR