This seminar places Samuel
Beckett's work in the context of open-endedness and its
philosophical and theoretical implications in modernity.
We will focus on the following core issues:
1. The permeation of indeterminacy in Beckett's texts and
plays;
2. Silence and the pruning of speech;
3. The location of Beckett's writing on the boundary between
literary and philosophical discourse;
4. Voids and blanks as centers of emergence;
5. The role of indeterminacy, silence and voids in the transference
between reader and text/audience and play;
6. "My mind at peace, that is to say empty":
Figurations of Subjectivity and Nothingness.
Required readings:
Trilogy: Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable Endgame The Complete Short Prose
Brian Rotman, Signifying Nothing
Course Requirements: Long paper.
(For students taking Beckett for the major author requirement,
additional readings will be required.)
