Living Texts

Living Texts seeks to explore the life of texts in all its significant aspects, from creation to reception. Living Texts’ focus will be on the multifarious life of texts intended primarily, although not exclusively, as of a literary nature, from the process of production through the manifold ways in which a text is made part of a cultural environment, including literary theories, textual criticism and adaptation. In particular, LT will examine the vagaries of textual transmission and reception, and the reformulation of literary works through and into different media.

LT is notably interested in thinking about adaptation and/as intertextuality; as well as in examining the relation between text and screen. Considering the popularity and variety of filmic and serial adaptations of literary texts, LT would like to question the many ways in which a text can be reinvented on screen. It will also interrogate the presupposed binary opposition that structures adaptation (literature vs. cinema; verbal vs. visual; high vs. low art; original vs. copy).

LT will also look at Creative Writing (understood as the process of writing fiction) and the ways in which critical thinking, academic practices and research methods can inform and participate in the creation of texts of a literary nature. Through the lens of creative writing, LT will focus on the various encounters between the creative and the critical. It will for instance aim to understand how and to what extent works of literature have shaped the thinking and writings of prominent thinkers. By exploring the role of creativity in critical thinking, LT will seek to challenge our understanding and expand the boundaries of academic writing and practice.

Contact Dominique Carlini-Versini or Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze for more information.

Events

Please see below for information about our previous events:

Sleepless Living Texts Event - Durham University

Living Texts Seminar Series: A Public Reading by Tomer Gardi - Eine runde Sache - Durham University

Living Texts Seminar: Elise Hugueny-Léger on Autofiction and Creative Writing - Durham University

The Living Texts Seminar Series - Durham University

Journée d’étude sur l’enseignement de l’écriture créative dans la classe de français - Durham University

Living Text Seminar Series - Durham University

Roundtable Discussion Caroline Lamarche - Durham University