The Speculative Literature of the Future

The course introduces students to the diverse epistemological and stylistic links between contemporary theories and manifestations of global literature and “biterature.” They get to know some of the writers who represent the literature of the future.
They learn about the contradictions and enigmas concerning the relationship between literary authorship and the interpretation of literature.
They form fresh and original perspectives for understanding the meaning and role of literature in the future.

No conditions for enrollment.

Requirements for the exam: presence and active participation in lectures and the completion of a seminar paper with a presentation.

In the contemporary and global world, the many ongoing wars and natural disasters caused by global warming are leading to an increasing number of displaced, traumatised, multilingual and multicultural people - the fresh literary authors who, along with other social minorities, will shape the world's literature in the future. Fresh authorial voices, who manage to break into western literary canons, previously shaped by white middle-class tastes and perspectives, are and will be writing literary stories about social phenomena thus far overlooked by history and the media. On the one hand, it seems that literature will never lose its power, despite digitisation and profanation, while on the other hand, with the help of artificial intelligence, a literature is already emerging that no longer needs a human author.

The Literature of the future course includes:

• Interdisciplinary thematisation of the literature of the future in the context of posthumanism and globalisation.
• Literary-theoretical, psychoanalytical and philosophical approaches
• The theory of minority literature
• The theory of melancholic literature
• The theory of nomadic literature
• The theory of “biterature”
• Individual authors such as Toni Morrison, Edouard Louis, Roberto Bolaño, Clarice Lispector and computer authors

Knowledge and understanding:
(Student ...)
- acquires knowledge of the social dimensions of critical literary theory, analysis and interpretation;
- acquires knowledge of the usefulness of interdisciplinary theories for understanding literature;
- develops understanding of important literary patterns and motifs in the context of globalisation and post-humanism.

Skills:
(Student ...)

• develops skills in analysing and interpreting literary texts from the perspectives of “biterature;”
• develops the ability to apply selected theories to foreign and domestic literature;
• develops critical judgment in understanding the interconnections between the linguistic, political and psychological dimensions of literature.

• Adorno, Theodor (1999). Beležke o literaturi. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba Catalogue
• Andrews, Chris (2014). Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe, New York: Columbia University Press.
• Bahun, Sanja (2014): Modernism and Melancholia: Writing as Counter-Mourning. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Baofu, Peter (2011). The Future of Post-human Literature: A Preface to a New Theory of Fiction and Non-fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge International.
• Calvo-Lopez, Ignacio (2015). Roberto Bolaño, A Less Distant Star: Critical Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Clarke, Bruce, Rossini, Manuela (eds.) (2017). The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Catalogue
• Deleuze, Gilles in Guattari, Felix (1995). Kafka: za manjšinsko književnost. Ljubljana: literarno-umetniško društvo Literatura.
• Foucault, Michel (2009). Neustrašni govor. Ljubljana: Sophia. https://plus.cobiss.net/cobiss/si/sl/bib/png/246169600
• Freud, Sigmund (1987). Metapsihološki spisi. Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis.
• Harrington, Katharine (2012). Writing the Nomadic Experience in Contemporary Francophone Literature. Lanham: Lexington Books.
• Swirski, Peter (2013). From Literature to Biterature. Montreal; Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press.
• Širca, Alen (2010). Foucaultovi pogledi na literaturo. Primerjalna književnost 33 (1): 41–61. E-version
• Vermeulen, Pieter (2020). Literature and the Anthropocene. London; New York: Routledge. Catalogue

Seminar assignment 30 %
Presentation of the seminar paper 20 %
Exam 50 %

Assist. Prof. Primož Mlačnik, PhD is a pedagogue and researcher at the Center for the Humanities of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Nova Gorica. With the help of critical theory, methods of deconstruction and cultural studies of representations, he researches various aspects of European and Slovene modernist literature and contemporary Slovene popular detective novels. He has lectured on Popular Music and Media, Modern Literature and Social Ideologies, Theories of Symbolic Forms, Critical Theory of Culture, Mystic and Political in Christianity and Cultural Policies and Books in the European Union and Slovenia. As part of the TILDA project, he is researching a collection of letters by women modernist writers. He regularly participates in scientific conferences and symposia at home and abroad. He also works as a writer.

References:

Mlačnik, P. (2018). The Deconstruction of Freud's Theory of Melancholy. Družboslovne razprave, 34 (88), 113-131.
Mlačnik, P. (2019). Kulturistike – kulturološka branja beletristike. Slavia Centralis, 12 (2), 46–57.
Mlačnik, P. (2019). Kafka ˝Shanghai-Ed˝ : Orientalist China in Kafka´s fiction and Kafkaesque phenomena in China. European journal of interdisciplinary studies 5(2), str. 36-44.
Mlačnik, P. (2020). Poročilo o melanholiji: primer Kafka. Ljubljana: Založba FDV.
Mlačnik, P. (2020). Minor literature in the case of Brina Svit. Przekłady Literatur Słowiańskich 10 (1): 207-223.
Mlačnik, P. (2021). The influence of Franz Kafka's literature on aspects of critical cultural theory. Slavia Centralis 14 (1), 249-259.
Mlačnik, P. (2021). Kulturne študije in sodobni slovenski detektivski romani : obstoječe raziskave in možni raziskovalni pristopi. V: NIKOLOVSKI, Gjoko (ur.). Izzivi slavistike v 21. stoletju : 4. mednarodna znanstvena konferenca Slavistični znanstveni premisleki, [13. 5. - 15. 5. 2021, Maribor] : zbornik povzetkov, Mednarodna znanstvena konferenca Slavistični znanstveni premisleki, Maribor. 1. izd. Maribor: Univerza v Mariboru, Univerzitetna založba. 2021, str. 95-96.
Mlačnik, P. (2022). Udomačeni Slovenci v detektivskih romanih Avgusta Demšarja. Jezik in Slovstvo; sprejeto v objavo/ accepted for publication.