What is Literary knowledge of Economy?

Event Date: 

Thursday, October 1, 2015 - 5:30pm

Event Location: 

  • Pembroke Hall 305
  • 172 Meeting Street
  • Cogut Center for the Humanities
  • Brown University
  • Lecture/Workshop

October 1
Humanities in the World Lecture
"What is Literary Knowledge of Economy?  How Does Criticism Help?"
Pembroke Hall 305
172 Meeting Street
5:30pm

Literary study has lost ground within universities and with the general public because of two apparent failures.  It doesn't seem to produce research knowledge of the kind defined by the natural and physical sciences.  It also appears not to help to solve public problems like climate change, structural racism, faltering technological innovation, or economic inequality.  Speaker Christopher Newfield, Department of English, University of California/Santa Barbara, suggests ways we might think about the status of literary knowledge and the connections between literary criticism and the social sciences.  In discussing one current economic problem, he argues that literary critics might best address political economy with theories of non-economic subjectivity that emerge from literary study itself.

This project is part of the Pell Humanities Initiative in Rhode Island to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Photo Gallery of the event.