Doodles by Famous Writers

An online gallery compiled by Flavorwire

Doodles from the journal of Sylvia Plath

From Flavorwire: ‘Sylvia Plath liked to doodle in her diaries, creating illustrations of her life, her dreams, and in this case, her nightmare about being chased by a hot dog and a marshmallow.’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Sylvia Plath Drawings Exhibition
• Sylvia Plath Tape Reels
• The Bell Jar: 50th Anniversary
• Carol Ann Duffy on Sylvia Plath
• Samuel Beckett's Doodles
• Watt: Samuel Beckett's Wartime Manuscripts

The PEN/Allen Foundation: Philip Roth

Roth accepts the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award

From Youtube: ‘The PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award honors a writer whose critically acclaimed work has drawn a wide audience and helps us to understand the human condition in original and powerful ways. The 2013 recipient of the award was Philip Roth.’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Writers: Philip Roth
• Philip Roth wins Man Booker International prize
• Philip Roth: Man Booker International Interview
• Roth and Oates receive 2010 National Humanities Medals
• Philip Roth on reading fiction

Shakespeare and Theory: Special Issue I

The latest issue of English Studies

Pete Postlethwaite plays the lead in a production of Shakespeare's King Lear

Shakespeare and Theory: Special Issue I
Guest Editors: François-Xavier Gleyzon and Johann Gregory

The latest issue of English Studies (a Taylor and Francis journal) is a special issue on Shakespeare and Theory.

Contents

(Vol. 94.3)

Thinking through Shakespeare: An Introduction to Shakespeare and Theory
Johann Gregory and François-Xavier Gleyzon

Shakespeare by Design: A Flight of Concepts
Julia Reinhard Lupton and C.J. Gordon (University of California)

Of Cause
Madhavi Menon (American University)

“After the Takeover”: Shakespeare, Lacan, Žižek and the Interpassive Subject
Étienne Poulard (Cardiff University)

Wordplay in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Accusation of Derrida’s “Logical Phallusies”
Johann Gregory (Cardiff University)

Storm at Sea: The Tempest, Cultural Materialism and the Early Modern Political Aesthetic
Christopher Pye (Williams College)

A second issue on Shakespeare and Theory, also guest edited by François-Xavier Gleyzon and Johann Gregory, will be published in the November issue of the same journal volume. This issue will include contributions from Arthur Bradley (Lancaster University), Drew Daniel (Johns Hopkins University), François-Xavier Gleyzon (University of Central Florida), Katherine Schaap Williams (Rutgers University) and Richard Wilson (Kingston University) [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Girls and Girlhood in Adaptations of Shakespeare
• Toni Morrison on Joyce and Shakespeare
• Shakespeare, Justice and Modern Law
• Shakespeare's Hamlet: Polonious on Conduct

Salinger: A New Documentary

A new documentary, nine years in the making

J. D. Salinger

From Paul Harris (The Guardian):

JD Salinger, the elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, was one of America's most famous recluses and guarded his private life with fanatical dedication. Yet even he might have been impressed by the immense efforts being undertaken to keep details secret of a new documentary that has been made about his life and works.

Called simply Salinger, the film is the brainchild of Shane Salerno, who has spent nine years writing, producing and directing the project, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money. The move is a major shift in career for Salerno, best known as a writer of mainstream blockbusters such as Alien vs Predator: Requiem and Armageddon. [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• J. D. Salinger: A Life
• J. D. Salinger 1919 - 2010
• $50,000 Letter from J. D. Salinger
• Woody Allen's Favourite Books
• Samuel Beckett's Reading List 1941-1956

Robert McCrum on W. G. Sebald

McCrum assesses the late writer's 'quietly potent legacy'

W. G. Sebald

From Robert McCrum (The Guardian): ‘Whenever readers despair of contemporary book culture, pointing to the horrors of Dan Brown or EL James; or to the mind-blowing inanities of "writing classes"; or the death of bookselling; or the alleged crimes of Amazon, I have one simple answer: the name of a writer whose life and work – a strange and deep response to the atrocities of history – has become a wonderful vindication of literary culture in all its subtle and entrancing complexity. His name? Sebald.’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Writers: W. G. Sebald
• Will Self and Others on W. G. Sebald
• W. G. Sebald on Robert Walser
• W. G. Sebald: Writing Tips
• W. G. Sebald on History, Memory and Austerlitz

Hyperion Journal finds a new home

January issue is available to read online

From Hyperion:

Hyperion is no longer published by the Nietzsche Circle but is now housed on the Contra Mundum Press (CMP) website. The issue is dedicated to Italian director Elio Petri, and features excerpts from CMP's forthcoming edition of Petri's writings, translated into English for the first time.

Also included are translations from Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, and Italian, as well as essays and reviews on art, cinema, dance, literature, poetry, and theatre. There are two texts by world renowned actor Lou Castel, and an essay on theater by distinguished Italian writer and translator Maura Del Serra. [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Contra Mundum Press talks to The Brooklyn Rail
• Contra Mundum Press
• Contra Mundum Press awarded grant
• Stuart Kendall translates Gilgamesh

Author Outlines for Famous Books

An online gallery by Flavorwire

Joseph Heller's intricate outline for Catch-22

From Flavorwire: ‘Writing a novel (or a story, for that matter) is confusing work. There are just so many characters running all over the place, dropping hints and having revelations. So it’s no surprise that many authors plan out their works beforehand, in chart or list or scribble form, in order to keep everything straight. After the jump, you’ll find a mini collection of those planning papers, so you can take a peek into the process of some of your favorite authors, from James Salter to J.K. Rowling’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Daily Routines of Writers and Philosophers
• Writers' Rooms: Siri Hustvedt
• Writers' Rooms: Virginia Woolf
• J.G. Ballard Manuscripts at British Library
• Watt: Samuel Beckett's Wartime Manuscripts

John Montague on Samuel Beckett

Recorded at the NYS Writers Institute in 1999

From Youtube.com: ‘An excerpt from a reading by Irish poet John Montague who appeared at the New York State Writers Institute to discuss Samuel Beckett in 1999. Montague served as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence for the New York State Writers Institute during each spring semester, teaching workshops in fiction and poetry and a class in the English Department, University at Albany.’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Writers: Samuel Beckett
• Anthony Uhlmann on Samuel Beckett
• John Hurt on Samuel Beckett
• San Quentin and Samuel Beckett: An Interview with Rick Cluchey
• Peter Brook on Samuel Beckett's Joy

Aaron Hillyer: The Disappearance of Literature

A new publication from Bloomsbury

Aaron Hillyer, The Disappearance of Literature: Blanchot, Agamben, and the Writers of the No

From Bloomsbury:

Aaron Hillyer considers the fate and implications of Maurice Blanchot's enigmatic formulation of literature's future: "Literature is heading to its essence, which is its disappearance." The Disappearance of Literature's primary theoretical objective is to highlight a previously neglected difference between Blanchot's and Agamben's philosophies. These philosophical and literary arguments proceed by examining a series of related concepts: study, sexuality, language, mysticism, and friendship. Despite the fact that Blanchot and Agamben often serve today as primary points of reference for literary theory, no significant critical work has yet examined their works in a sustained dialogue. Hillyer initiates this new trajectory of research through readings of Blanchot's The Unavowable Community and Agamben's The Open, which are followed by encounters with books by contemporary writers Vila-Matas, Aira, and Carson. The juxtaposition of these two different forms of writing (philosophy as literature and literature as philosophy) shows that the new kind of writing analyzed here holds both "literature" and "philosophy" at a certain distance from each other as well as from themselves. The primary means of this distantiation is the gesture of deactivation performed by the act of "study." The narrators and authors examined here often "study" both literature and philosophy in order to remove them from their perilous metaphysical foundations. In this way, Hillyer argues, the "study-novel" emerges as a basic paradigm of the disappearance of literature, a new category of literary creation marked by Agamben's dispute with Blanchot. [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Photographs of Maurice Blanchot
• Maurice Blanchot: Thomas Reads a Book
• Maurice Blanchot on Giacometti and Writing
• 10 Years Since Blanchot
• Maurice Blanchot: Corrected Proofs
• Michel Foucault on Maurice Blanchot

Van Sant/Burroughs: The Discipline of D.E.

Gus Van Sant adapts a work by William S. Burroughs

From Open Culture: ‘Fans of filmmaker Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, Milk) will love this 1982 short film – The Discipline of D.E. – based on a story by William S. Burroughs. And fans of Burroughs himself will particularly love its theme: The “D.E.” in the title stands for “Doing Easy,” a quasi-Buddhist notion best explained by the short’s koan-like closing question, “How fast can you take your time, kid?”’ [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Writers: William S. Burroughs
• William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
• Cronenberg: 'Imagination is dangerous'
• William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers