Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Parables of the Posthuman
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 12/26/1967
WEBSITE:
CITY: London
STATE: ON
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
http://www.uwo.ca/english/people/boulter.html * http://www.uwo.ca/english/people/cvs/BoulterCV2012.pdf * http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/jonathan-boulter/ * http://news.westernu.ca/2015/11/professor-plugs-into-what-it-means-to-game/
WRITER NOTE:
Category changed from A to D, due to paucity of resource material.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2001036302
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2001036302
HEADING: Boulter, Jonathan, 1967-
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008 010507n| acannaabn |n aaa
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040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC
100 1_ |a Boulter, Jonathan, |d 1967-
670 __ |a Boulter, Jonathan. Interpreting narrative in the novels of Samuel Beckett, 2001: |b CIP t.p. (Jonathan Boulter) data sheet (b. Dec. 26, 1967)
953 __ |a lh38
PERSONAL
Born December 26, 1967, in Sona Bata, Democratic Republic of the Congo; immigrated to Canada, 1979; naturalized Canadian citizen; married.
EDUCATION:McMaster University, B.A. (with honors), 1991, M.A., 1992; University of Western Ontario, Ph.D., 1996.
ADDRESS
CAREER
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, instructor in English, 1996-97, adjunct faculty, 1997-2000; Saint Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, assistant professor, 2000-05, associate professor of English, 2005-06; University of Western Ontario, assistant professor, 2006-08, associate professor of English and writing studies, 2008-.
AVOCATIONS:Video gaming.
MEMBER:Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English, Modern Language Association of America, Samuel Beckett Society, Ford Madox Ford Society.
AWARDS:Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, fellowship, 1998-2000, research grant, 2005-08; cowinner of Margaret Church Award, Modern Fiction Studies, 2005, for the essay “Does Mourning Require a Subject? Samuel Beckett’s Texts for Nothing.”
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Samuel Beckett: A Casebook, edited by Jennifer M. Jeffers, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1998; Digital Game Play: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer, edited by Nathan C. Garrelts, McFarland and Co. (Jefferson, NC), 2005; Cy-Borgs: Memories of the Posthumanism in the Work of Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Ivan Callus and Stefan Herbrechter, Bucknell University Press (New York, NY), 2009; Samuel Beckett: History Memory Archive, edited by Sean Kennedy and Katherine Weis, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2009; and Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives, edited by Sherryl Vint and Graham Murphy, Routledge (New York, NY), 2010. Contributor of articles and reviews to academic journals, including Cultural Critique, English Studies in Canada, Genre, Hispanic Review, Journal of Beckett Studies, Lit: Literature Interpretation Today, and Modern Fiction Studies.
SIDELIGHTS
Jonathan Boulter has two primary interests, according to his faculty page at the University of Western Ontario Web site. One is contemporary literature from the twentieth century onward. He described a special concentration on the complex work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett, whose tortured explorations of human existence in an incomprehensible world are often linked to the “theater of the absurd.”
The author’s other passion is video games, specifically the ones that revolve around a character stretched past its natural limits until it actually becomes more than human. It becomes “posthuman.” So, while Boulter happens to be an avid gamer with thousands of hours to his credit, his interest has stretched beyond the typical parameters of Metal Gear Solid, one of his favorite games.
Boulter explained himself to Jason Winders in an interview in the Western News, a publication of the University of Western Ontario, where he teaches classes in English and writing. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Boulter did not even have access to a television until he immigrated to Canada in 1979 at the age of ten or eleven. Even afterward, his focus was mainly academic. It was his wife who introduced him to video games in an attempt to lure him away from his books. The ruse worked—until his fascination with the philosophical underpinnings of the gaming culture captivated him so thoroughly, he told Winders, that “I have turned my pleasure into work.”
In Parables of the Posthuman: Digital Realities, Gaming, and the Player Experience Boulter addresses the posthuman experience inherent in science fiction role-playing games like Fallout and BioShock. Clearly “the game is about extending the body of the [main] character beyond what it would normally do,” he explained to Winders, but the act of connecting to a television with a game controller also transforms the player into a posthuman state. Boulter ponders what it means to be human, to become posthuman. Along the way, he also analyzes the concept of play from a philosophical perspective.
Boulter’s analysis involves a synthesis of philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology with theories of game design and technology. Although he amplifies his thesis with examples from a selection of story-driven science fiction games, this is not recreational reading for the typical gamer. J.M. Smith predicted in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries that Parables of the Posthuman “will primarily interest scholars of philosophy and posthumanism.” Winders summarized in Western News that Boulter “has found a place among the first wave of video game culture academic researchers.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June, 2016, J.M. Smith, review of Parables of the Posthuman: Digital Realities, Gaming, and the Player Experience, p. 1463.
Reference & Research Book News, February, 2009, review of Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed; October, 2011, review of Melancholy and the Archive: Trauma, Memory, and History in the Contemporary Novel.
ONLINE
Bloomsbury Publishing Web site, http://www.bloomsbury.com/ (April 30, 2017), author profile.
University of Western Ontario Web site, http://www.uwo.ca/ (April 30, 2017), author profile.
Western News, http://news.westernu.ca/ (November 5, 2015), Jason Winders, “Professor Plugs into What It Means to Game.”
Jonathan Boulter
boulter
Associate Professor
BA (Honours), McMaster University, 1991
MA, McMaster University, 1992
PhD, The University of Western Ontario, 1996
On Sabbatical 1 July 2016 - 30 June 2017
jboulte@uwo.ca
PDF Download Click to view CV.
Research
My research focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary literature. I have a particular interest in the work of Samuel Beckett, but I have published on and taught the work of Paul Auster, Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago, David Mitchell, Jorge Luis Borges and others. My current project is an examination of digital culture (primarily video games) in the light of various theories of the posthuman.
Jonathan Boulter is Associate Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Writes: Modernism, Theatre Studies, European Literature, Contemporary Literature, Continental Philosophy, Comparative Literature
Author of : Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed, Melancholy and the Archive
- See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/jonathan-boulter/#sthash.RSEPch3S.dpuf
Professor plugs into what it means to game
NOVEMBER 5, 2015 BY JASON WINDERS
Special to Western News
English and Writing Studies professor Jonathan Boulter’s main interest is in science fiction games that make a theme out of the body being extended beyond its normal human boundaries, like Fallout 3, Crisis 2 and Metal Gear Solid. “The Metal Gear Solid series has always meant a great deal to me,” Boulter said. “It is a series that has worked on me not simply intellectually, but on an emotional level.”
She was worried her husband was spending too much time reading. And so, Jonathan Boulter’s wife bought him his first video game system, an Xbox.
“She wanted the gaming device to work as a sort of diversion from my academic work,” laughed the English and Writing Studies professor, who has logged countless gaming hours in the 15 years since that first system. “What has happened is,<< I have turned my pleasure into work.”>>
Today, Boulter, PhD’96, <
BOULTER
BOULTER
Boulter’s research focuses on 20th century and contemporary literature, with a particular interest in the works of Samuel Beckett. He has published on and taught the works of Paul Auster, Jose Saramago, Jorge Luis Borges and others. However, it is work of Hideo Kojima, and other digital auteurs, which has garnered his attention in recent years.
“As I started gaming seriously, I started noticing certain things in certain games that spoke to my interest in philosophy,” Boulter said. “Certain games had philosophical elements to them – questions about what it means ‘to play,’ what it means ‘to be human.’ I have justified my hours of pleasure in work, or my work in pleasure; I cannot quite tell anymore.”
Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Boulter spent the first decade of his life overseas and shielded from the burgeoning popular culture phenomena of video games in North America. Arriving in Canada in 1979, he missed some formative popular culture among his Generation X contemporaries – no Happy Days, no Evel Knievel and, most importantly, no early days of gaming.
“I had no television, no access to gaming devices or video games,” Boulter said. “In some ways, my interest in certain aspects of popular culture stems from the fact I didn’t have it the first 10 years of my life. I didn’t start gaming until fairly late. I think I am always trying to play catch-up to what I didn’t have.”
With roots back to the 1940s, video games did not capture the imagination of youth until the heyday of home consoles – think Atari and Nintendo systems – in the 1970s and 1980s. Since those days, the industry has exploded.
Right now, more than 1.4 billion people are playing games. Half of Canadians consider themselves ‘gamers,’ nearly evenly split between male and female, with an average age of 31 years. Canada ranks third in the world in terms of people employed in the gaming industry, with more than 16,000 employees having a $1.7-billion impact on the economy.
According to the Worldwide Digital Games Market 2015-2020‚ the digital gaming industry (including games played on mobile‚ tablet‚ PC‚ console‚ handheld‚ virtual reality and cloud platforms) will generate more than $80 billion in software revenues this year, and will cross the $100 billion threshold in 2018. Games consoles alone – PlayStation, Xbox, etc. – will generate $21 billion in revenues this year and reach $27 billion by 2018.
Given its size and influence, the area is ripe for academic study, although few minds are focused exclusively on the subject. Boulter’s work fills a gap in game criticism, one where many research are exploring ‘what a game is’ and ignoring ‘what a game can mean.’
“There is an impulse in me to always suspect fun, to be suspicious of it, and make it more meaningful. I am absolutely convinced these games are engaged in a philosophical speculation,” he said. “We should be responsible to these cultural products that hold so much sway in our culture, just as we should attend to films, to literature. These games are defining a way a generation is interacting with other subjects.”
Boulter’s work examines digital culture, and primarily video games, through the lens of various theories of the posthuman.
“I am interested in the cultural fascination with leaving the body behind and transforming into something more than it is,” he continued. “What does it mean for me ‘to game’? When I pick up a controller, and attach myself in a kind of cyborg way to my television screen, there is a way in which that act of engagement with this space is a practical realization of the fantasy of the game. <
Boulter’s main interest is in science fiction games that make a theme out of the body being extended beyond its normal human boundaries, like Fallout 3, Crisis 2 and Metal Gear Solid. His new book, Parables of the Posthuman: Digital Realities, Gaming, and the Player Experience, explores many of these same themes.
“The Metal Gear Solid series has always meant a great deal to me,” Boulter said. “It is a series that has worked on me not simply intellectually, but on an emotional level.”
For the uninitiated, the Metal Gear Solid series – or MGS – is a stealth action game where the player controls a Special Forces operative sent on military missions, including one where the player, eventually, faces off against Metal Gear, a gigantic super weapon which can be described as a walking tank with nuclear capabilities.
“This game is explicitly asking questions about what it means to be ‘in a game.’ It is a curious series – one that fetishizes violence and weapondary to an extraordinary extent, but it is also a critique of that very desire to kill.”
KOJIMA
KOJIMA
The game’s creator, Hideo Kojima, is “a god” in the industry, an auteur of the likes of famed film director Alfred Hitchcock. Both artists have presences felt throughout their works. By asking big questions of players, Kojima is engaging in a level of conversation with society equal to other artforms, Boulter argued.
“When a popular cultural artifact asks questions that my literary people, like Samuel Beckett, would, that makes me realize this binary between high and low art is, at times, completely false,” he concluded. “Popular culture can ask, and ask in more seductive ways, questions that so-called high art is as well – and maybe do so while engaging a wider audience.
* * *
IN CONVERSATION: Join American writer and critic Michael Clune in conversation with English and Writing Studies professor Jonathan Boulter in A Talk on GAMELIFE, 3:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, Arts & Humanities Building, 2R07.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO
FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES
CURRICULUM VITAE
Section I
Personal
NAME:
Jonathan Boulter
DATE COMPILED:
January 29, 2007
DATE UPDATED:
October 20, 2011
DEPARTMENT:
English
DATE, PLACE AND COUNTRY OF BIRTH:
December 26, 1967. Sona Bata. Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
CITIZENSHIP STATUS:
Canadian
Section II
Education
UNIVERSITIES (Dates and Degrees):
Ph.D. English. The University of Western Ontario. 1
996.
Master of Arts. English. McMaster University. 1992.
Bachelor of Arts (Honours). English. McMaster Unive
rsity. 1991.
DISTINCTIONS, HONOURS, FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
WITH DATES:
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
2005-2008. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Standard Research
Grant.
1998-2000. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Post-Doctoral
Fellowship
.
1994-1996. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship.
AWARDS
2011. Faculty of Arts and Humanities Teaching Excel
lence Award
2011. University Students' Council Excellence in Te
aching Certificate. The University of Western
Ontario
2009. University Students' Council Excellence in Te
aching Certificate. The University of Western
Ontario
2009. Nominated for USC Teaching Award. The Univers
ity of Western Ontario.
2008. University Students' Council Excellence in Te
aching Certificate. The University of Western
Ontario
2007. Nominated for USC Teaching Award. The Univers
ity of Western Ontario.
2005. Margaret Church Award. Given annually for the
best essay published in
Modern Fiction
Studies
.
2005. University Research/Publications/Teaching Awa
rd. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2004. University Council for Research Awards. Saint
Francis Xavier University.
2004. University Research/Publications/Teaching Awa
rd. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2003. Outstanding Teaching Award. Saint Francis Xav
ier University.
2003. University Research/Publications/Teaching Awa
rd. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2002. University Research/Publications/Teaching Awa
rd. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2001. University Council for Research Awards. Saint
Francis Xavier University.
2001. University Research/Publication/Teaching Awar
d. Saint Francis Xavier University.
1998. University Students' Council Excellence in Te
aching Certificate (for the year 1996-97 at the
University of Western Ontario).
1996. The McIntosh Prize. (Awarded to the student a
t The University of Western Ontario who
gives the best presentation based on doctoral resea
rch).
1994-1995. Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
(Declined in favour of the Social Sciences and Hum
anities Research Council of Canada
Fellowship.)
1993-1994. Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
1992-1993. Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
1991. Centennial Entrance Scholarship. (McMaster Un
iversity)
1991. McMaster Graduate Scholarship.
1991. The Agnes and John MacNeill Memorial Prize.
1990. Sheila Scott Scholarship in English.
1990. Dr. Harry Lyman Hooker Scholarship.
1989. Aaron Prize.
1989. University Scholarship.
1989. Patricia L. Smye Memorial Prize.
Section III
Academic Career
PREVIOUS UNIVERSITY EMPLOYMENT AND OTHER TEACHING E
XPERIENCE
(Institution(s), Rank(s) Held, Dates):
Associate Professor
2005-6. Saint Francis Xavier University.
Assistant Professor
2000-05. Saint Francis Xavier University.
DATE AND TYPE OF FIRST APPOINTMENT AT UNIVERSITY OF
WESTERN
ONTARIO (Continuous Service To Present):
2006. Tenure-Track Assistant Professor.
PROMOTIONS:
Promoted to Associate Professor. The University of
Western Ontario.
Promoted to Associate Professor. Saint Francis Xavi
er University.
TENURE (Date Conferred):
2009 (The University of Western Ontario)
2005 (Saint Francis Xavier University)
PRESENT RANK AND STATUS OF APPOINTMENT AT THE UNIVE
RSITY OF
WESTERN ONTARIO:
Associate Professor
MEMBERSHIP IN ACADEMIC OR PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES (I
nclude
Positions held and Dates, if any):
The Samuel Beckett Society
The Ford Madox Ford Society
Association of Canadian College and University Teac
hers of English
Modern Language Association
Canadian Comparative Literature Association
Section IV
Teaching Experience
GENERAL AREA(S) OF ACADEMIC SPECIALIZATION:
Modernism. Theory. Cultural Studies.
COURSES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO
AND
ELSEWHERE
(Subject, Description and Level):
Associate Professor
2011-12.
Scholar’s Elective Course (Dystopia and Apocalypse
in the Contemporary Novel). The
University of Western Ontario.
2011-12.
Digital Texts and Video Game Studies. Ph. D. Readin
g Course. The University of
Western Ontario.
2011.
Trauma and Modernism. Ph.D. Reading course. The Uni
versity of Western Ontario.
2010.
Melancholy and the Archive. Senior Seminar (English
454). The University of Western
Ontario.
2009 (Half course); 2011 (Half course). 2011-12 (Fu
ll year)
After Beckett. Graduate Seminar
(English 9018). The University of Western Ontario.
2008-12
. Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature (E
nglish 3554). The University of Western
Ontario.
Assistant Professor
2008
. Subjectivity and Digital Media. A reading course
developed with undergraduate student
Meghan Adams (Winter term).
2008
. Summer Intercession. English 3554.
2008
. Posthumanism and Digital Media (English 884B/002;
Winter Term). PhD. Reading
Course. The University of Western Ontario.
2006
-
07
. “After Beckett.” Senior Seminar (English 484). Th
e University of Western Ontario.
Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature (Eng
lish 254). The University of Western Ontario.
Associate Professor
2005
-. Seminar on Contemporary Critical Theory. English
445. Saint Francis Xavier University.
The Modern British Novel. English 350. Saint Franci
s Xavier University
Introduction to English. English 100. Saint Francis
Xavier University.
Assistant Professor
2004-5.
Seminar on Contemporary Critical Theory. English 44
5. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2002-03
. “After Beckett”. Senior Seminar (English 450). Sa
int Francis Xavier University.
2000-5
. The Modern British Novel. English 350. Saint Fran
cis Xavier University.
Twentieth-Century Literature in English. English 25
0. Saint Francis Xavier University.
Introduction to English. English 100. Saint Francis
Xavier University.
Adjunct Faculty
1999-2000
. Reading Popular Culture. English 117. The Univer
sity of Western Ontario. (210
students. Direct supervision of 4 Graduate Teaching
Assistants).
1998-99
. Reading Popular Culture. English 117. The Univers
ity of Western Ontario. (250 students.
Direct supervision of 4 Graduate Teaching Assistant
s).
1997-98
. Twentieth-Century British Literature. English 254
. The University of Western Ontario.
1997-98
. Expository Writing. Writing 101. The University o
f Western Ontario.
Instructor
1996-97
. Twentieth-Century British Literature. English 254
. The University of Western Ontario.
1996-97
. Modern Drama. English 289. The University of West
ern Ontario.
Summer 1996
. Dramatic Forms and Genres. English 284. The Unive
rsity of Western Ontario.
SUMMER SCHOOL, EXTENSION AND CONTINUING EDUCATION T
AUGHT AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO AND ELSEWHERE (S
ubject,
Description and Level):
Summer 1998
. Twentieth-Century British Literature. English 254
. The University of Western
Ontario.
Summer 1997
. Special Topics Course: "The Representation of His
tory in Modern British Poetry."
The University of Western Ontario.
THESIS SUPERVISION (Name of Student, Thesis Title,
Level, Date
Degree Conferred; if Chief Supervisor, please indi
cate):
Undergraduate Supervision
2011-12.
Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy. Alessai Iani. The Univers
ity of Western Ontario.
2010-11.
T.S. Eliot. Mitch Brown. The University of Western
Ontario.
2009-10.
Seamus Heaney’s
North
. Natalie Schembri. The University of Western Onta
rio.
2008-09.
Beckett’s
The Unnamable
. Taylor West. The University of Western Ontario.
2007-08.
Creative Writing Thesis. Meghan Adams. The Universi
ty of Western Ontario.
Creative Writing Thesis. Andrew Sullivan. The Unive
rsity of Western Ontario.
Beckett’s Trilogy. Stephanie Rade. The University o
f Western Ontario.
2005-06
.
Phenomenology and Narrative in Beckett’s Trilogy. P
hillip Glennie. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
Melancholy and Digital Gaming. Julia Casey. Saint F
rancis Xavier University.
Trauma and Mourning:
Mrs. Dalloway
. Alexandra Aubrecht. Saint Francis Xavier Universi
ty.
Critique and Subversion in Angela Carter’s
Nights at the Circus
. Nadia Crewe. Saint Francis
Xavier University.
2004-05
.
Reading the Body, Embodying the Work of Reading: Sa
muel Beckett’s
How It Is
,
Company
,
Ill
Seen Ill Said
, and
Worstward Ho
. Laura Crawford. Saint Francis Xavier University.
The Illusion of Freedom: Self-Creation Through Narr
ative in John Fowles’
The French
Lieutenant’s Woman
. Lauren Venedam. Saint Francis Xavier University.
A.S. Byatt: Self-Conscious Realist. Laura Sanders.
Saint Francis Xavier University.
Trauma and
Mrs Dalloway
. Crystal Gillis. Saint Francis Xavier University.
2003-04.
Narrative and Psychoanalysis. Joel Burton. Saint Fr
ancis Xavier University.
Intertextuality and T.S. Eliot’s
The Waste Land
. Marcia Franklin. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2002-03
.
The Disintegration of Narrative in Samuel Beckett’s
Trilogy. Kyle MacIsaac. Saint Francis
Xavier University.
(Post) Modernizing The Fairy Tale in Jeanette Winte
rson. Lori O’ Connor. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2001
-
02
.
Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness
. Jackie Moher. Saint Francis Xavier University.
1999-2000
.
“W.B. Yeats and False Consciousness.” Brian Dunphy
. The University of Western Ontario.
1998-99
.
“A, Is For Everything: A Play About Lucia Joyce an
d Suzanne Beckett.” Caitlin Murphy. The
University of Western Ontario.
1996-97
.
“The Role of Humour in Literature.” Stephanie Mason
. The University of Western Ontario.
Graduate Supervision
MA
2011-12.
Philip Spurrell. Independent Research Project: Irel
and and the Postcolonial.
Trent Gill. Independent Research Project: Theorizin
g the Contemporary American Novel.
2010-11.
Dino Bratic. Independent Research Project: Digital
Gaming.
PhD
Supervisor
2011-.
Andrew Wenaus.
Metaphor and Metanoia: Linguistic Transfer and Cogn
itive Transformation in
British and Irish Modernism
. (English Ph.D. In progress)
Christopher Langlois. Samuel Beckett and Theory. (T
heory Ph.D. In Progress)
Taylor West. Obliged to Manifest: Samuel Beckett an
d Ethics (English Ph.D. In progress)
Leif Schenstead-Harris. Hauntologies: Reading and P
resent Absences. (English Ph.D. In
progress)
2009-.
Roberta Cauchi. Beckett and Leopardi. (Comparative
Literature Ph. D. dissertation: In progress)
2007-.
Joel Burton. “Confessional Autobiography” (English
Ph. D. dissertation: In progress)
Section V
Grants, Consultantships & Publication
RESEARCH GRANTS (Other than Department: Source, Da
te, Amount,
Title of Project):
2005-2008. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Standard Research
Grant. “Mourning Autobiography.” $31, 959
1998-2000. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Post-Doctoral
Fellowship
.
$76,000
1994-1996. Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship.
$70,000
CONSULTANTSHIPS (e.g., Reading Theses for Other Ins
titutions, Editorial Work,
Refereeing, etc., with Dates):
Theses Examined
Kane X. Faucher, “Oncontology: Plateau 1001.” (2009
: Centre for Theory and Criticism). Ph. D.
Adam Parker, “Effective History.” (2008: Centre for
Theory and Criticism). MA.
Matt Sang, “Heidegger’s Experience of Art.” (2008:
Centre for Theory and Criticism). Ph. D.
Mark Asberg, “Go On, Give Up: Cynical Aporias.” (20
08: Centre for Theory and Criticism, The
University of Western Ontario). Ph.D.
Thomas Orange, "Clark Coolidge in Context: A New Am
erican Poetry 1962-1978." (2007:
Department of English, The University of Western On
tario). Ph.D.
Refereeing
2010
- Reader for
Limit(e) Beckett
2008-
Reader for
Science Fiction Studies
(2 articles)
2007-
Assessor for SSHRC Standard Research Grant Applica
tions
2001
- Reader for
Mosaic
(7 articles)
1998
- Reader for
Lit: Literature Interpretation
Theory
(2 articles)
BOOKS PUBLISHED (Title, Publisher, Place and Date o
f Publication, Number of Pages):
Melancholy and the Archive: Trauma, Memory, and His
tory in the Contemporary Novel
.
London: Continuum, 2011.
Samuel Beckett: A Guide for the Perplexed.
London: Continuum, 2008. 186 pages.
Interpreting Narrative in the Novels of Samuel Beck
ett
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2001. 158 pages.
Cultural Subjects
:
A Popular Culture Reader
. Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2005. Co-Edited with
Allan Gedalof, Joel Faflak, and Cameron McFarlane.
372 pages. Includes a critical/theoretical
introduction co-written by Boulter and Faflak (pp.
15-36) and Boulter’s introduction to 7 articles).
ARTICLES PUBLISHED (Title, Journal, Volume, Date, P
age Numbers):
“Posthuman Melancholy: Digital Games and Cyberpunk.
” In
Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical
Perspectives.
Eds. Sherryl Vint and Graham Murphy. New York: Rou
tledge, 2010. 135-54.
“Archives of the End: Embodied History in Beckett’s
Plays.” In
Samuel Beckett: History
Memory Archive
. Eds. Sean Kennedy and Katherine Weis. New York: P
algrave Macmillan,
2009. 129-49.
“Borges and the Trauma of Posthuman History.” In
Cy-Borges: Memories of the Posthumanism
in the Work of Jorge Luis Borges
. Ed. Ivan Callus and Stefan Herbrechter. New York
: Bucknell
UP, 2009. 179-215.
“Writing Guilt: Haruki Murakami and the Archives of
National Mourning.”
English Studies in
Canada
. 32.1: (2006): 125-45.
“The Melancholy Archive: Jose Saramago’s
All the Names
.”
Genre
. 36 3-4 (2005): 115-43.
“Virtual Bodies; or, Cyborgs are People Too.” In
Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of
Game and Gamer
. Ed. Nathan C. Garrelts. Jefferson: McFarland, 200
5. 52-68.
“After...Armageddon”: Trauma and History in Ford Mado
x Ford’s
No Enemy
.”
International
Ford Madox Ford Studies: History & Representation i
n Ford Madox Ford's Writings
. 3 (2004):
77-90.
(with Joel Faflak) “Cultural Studies Theory.”
Cultural Subjects: A Popular Culture Reader
.
Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2005. 15-36.
“Does Mourning Require a Subject? Samuel Beckett’s
Texts for Nothing
.”
Modern Fiction
Studies
. 50 (Summer 2004): 332-50.
"`Wordshit, bury me': The Waste of Narrative in Sam
uel Beckett's
Texts for Nothing
.”
Journal of
Beckett Studies
. 11. 2 (2002): 1-22.
"Partial Glimpses of the Infinite: Borges and the S
imulacrum."
Hispanic Review
. 69.3 (Summer
2001): 355-77.
“The Negative Way of Trauma: Georges Bataille’s
The Story of the Eye
.”
Cultural Critique
. 46
(Fall 2000): 153-78.
"`Speak no more': Hermeneutics and Narrative in Sam
uel Beckett's
Endgame
." In
Samuel Beckett:
A Casebook
. Ed. Jennifer M. Jeffers. New York and London: Ga
rland, 1998. 39-62.
"`A word from me and I am again': Repetition and Su
ffering in Samuel Beckett's
How It Is
."
Lit:
Literature Interpretation Theory
. 9.1 (1998): 85-101.
"`Delicate questions': Hermeneutics and Beckett's
Watt
." In
Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui:
Crossroads and Borderlines:L'Oeuvre Carrefour/L'Oeu
vre Limite
6 (1997): 149-63.
ARTICLES ACCEPTED (Title, Journal, Expected Date of
Publication):
“We have our being in justice”: Samuel Beckett’s
How It Is
. In
Beckett and Pain
. Eds. Mariko
Hori, Yoshiki Tajiri, and Michiko Tsushima. Amsterd
am: Rodopi, 2012.
BOOK REVIEWS (Title and Author of Book Reviewed, Jo
urnal, Volume, Date and Page
Numbers):
Review of
Mechademia 4: War/Time.
Ed. Frenchy Lunning.
Science Fiction Film and
Television
. 4: 2 (2011): 287-91.
Review of Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overb
eck (eds).
The Letters of Samuel
Beckett: Volume One
.
Modern Drama
. 53: 3 (2010): 412-414.
Review of P.J. Murphy’s
Beckett’s Dedalus: Dialogical Engagements with Joyc
e in Beckett’s
Fiction
.
English Studies in Canada
35:4 (2009): 121-25.
Review of
The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel
. Ed. John Wilson Foster.
University of
Toronto Quarterly
78:1 (2009): 270-72.
Review of Dominick LaCapra’s
History in Transit
.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature
.
4:34 (2007): 459-63.
Review of Philip Weinstein’s
Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction
.
Modernism/Modernity
14:1 (2007): 160-1.
Review of Thomas Cousineau’s
After the Final No: Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy
.
Religion and the
Arts
6:3 (2002): 387-390.
PAPERS READ (Title, Occasion, Date):
“We have our being in justice”: Samuel Beckett’s
How It Is
. Invited lecture to the Samuel
Beckett Research Circle of Japan. Aoyama Gakuin Uni
versity, Tokyo, Japan. December 11,
2010.
“A kind of great compassion”: Suffering and Beckett
’s
Endgame
. Invited lecture to Professor
Allen Irving’s graduate seminar, “Suffering, Compas
sion, and Social Justice,” King’s College,
London, Ontario. November, 2009.
“Allegories of (Posthuman) Being.” Invited lecture
to gaming company Silicon Knights, St.
Catherines, Ontario. January, 2009.
“Parables of the Posthuman.” Invited lecture to gam
ing company Silicon Knights, St. Catherines,
Ontario. October, 2008.
“Mourning Terrorism: Haruki Murakami’s
Underground
.” The Twentieth-Century Literature
Conference in Louisville, February, 2008.
“Symptom and Space: Enid Bagnold’s
A Diary Without Dates
.” The Twentieth-Century
Literature Conference in Louisville, February, 2007
.
“Can the Dead Mourn? Paul Auster’s
Oracle Night
.” The Twentieth-Century Literature
Conference in Louisville, February, 2005.
“The Melancholy Archive: Jose Saramago’s
All the Names
.” Presented at
Archiving Modernism
.
The University of Alberta, July, 2003.
“Trauma and History in Ford’s
No Enemy
.” Presented at The International Ford Madox Ford
Society’s
History and Representation in Ford Madox Ford’s Wri
tings
. University of Madison at
Wisconsin, September, 2002.
“`Our ghosts be as a dream’: Mourning Autobiography
.” The Twentieth-Century Literature
Conference in Louisville, February, 2002.
“Trauma, Memory, and History: Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘F
unes, The Memorious’”. The Twentieth-
Century Literature Conference in Louisville, Februa
ry, 2001.
“
Psycho
: The Lethal Gaze.” Presented at
Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock and Contemporary Art
. The
Art Gallery of Hamilton, June 2000.
“The Negative Way of Trauma: Georges Bataille’s
Story of the Eye
.” Presented at
Community,
Transgression and Excess: A Conference on Georges B
ataille
. Trent University, May 2000.
“`After... Armageddon’”: Trauma and Nostalgia in Ford
Madox Ford’s
No Enemy
. Presented at
Imagining the Space Between: Constructing Literatur
e and Culture, 1914-1945
. The University of
Western Ontario, May, 2000.
"`Wordshit, bury me': The Waste of Narrative in Sam
uel Beckett's
Texts for Nothing
."
The Samuel Beckett Symposium at South Bank Universi
ty, London, England, June 1999.
"Partial Glimpses of the Infinite: Borges and the S
imulacrum." The Twentieth-Century Literature
Conference in Louisville, February, 1999.
"`A word from me and I am again': Repetition and Su
ffering in Samuel Beckett's
How It Is
."
The Twentieth-Century Literature Conference in Loui
sville, February, 1998.
"`My old aporetics': Play as Hermeneutical Topos i
n Samuel Beckett's
Malone Dies
." The
Twentieth-Century Literature Conference in Louisvil
le, February, 1997.
"`Delicate questions': Hermeneutics and Samuel Beck
ett's
Watt
." The Beckett Conference,
"L'Oeuvre Carrefour, L'Oeuvre Limite," Strasbourg,
France, April, 1996.
"`By what token shall we know the truth?': The Met
atextual Figure in Samuel Beckett's
Mercier
and Camier
." The Twentieth-Century Literature Conference in L
ouisville, February, 1996.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
Parables of the Posthuman
. Book under contract with Wayne State University P
ress (submission
date, August 30, 2012)
Section VI
University Service
COMMITTEES (Department, Faculty or University, Titl
e of Committee, Name of
Chairman, Position Held, Dates):
2012-13.
Chair. Cultural Studies Comprehensive Examination C
ommittee.
2011-12
. Member of Cultural Studies Comprehensive Examinat
ion Committee.
2011-13.
Member of Senate. The University of Western Ontario
.
2011-12.
Member of Annual Performance Evaluation Committee
.
The University of Western
Ontario.
2010-12.
Member of Nominations Committee. The University o
f Western Ontario.
2011-12.
Chair. Twentieth-Century British and Irish Comprehe
nsive Examination Committee.
The University of Western Ontario.
2010-11.
University Discipline Appeals Committee. The Univer
sity of Western Ontario.
2010-11.
Chair. Twentieth-Century British and Irish Comprehe
nsive Examination Committee.
The University of Western Ontario.
2010-11.
Member of the Education Faculty Council. The Univer
sity of Western Ontario.
2010-12.
Member of the Committee on Graduate Studies. The Un
iversity of Western Ontario.
2008.
Member of the International Research Award Committe
e. The University of Western
Ontario.
2008-09.
Member of the Appointments Committee. Department of
English.
The University of
Western Ontario.
2006-08.
Member of the Committee on Graduate Studies. The Un
iversity of Western Ontario.
2006-7.
Chair. Twentieth-Century British and Irish Comprehe
nsive Examination Committee.
The University of Western Ontario.
2006-.
Member of the Twentieth-Century British and Irish C
omprehensive Examination
Committee. The University of Western Ontario.
2005-06
. Member of the Evaluation Committee. Saint Francis
Xavier University.
2004-05
. Secretary of the Faculty of Arts. Saint Francis X
avier University.
2004-
. Member of the Budget Committee. Department of Eng
lish. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2003-
. Member of the Curriculum Committee. Department of
English. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2002-04
. Member of University Senate. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2002-04
Chair, Quality of Life Committee. Saint Francis X
avier University.
2000-03
. Member of the Thesis Committee. Department of En
glish. Saint Francis Xavier
University.
2000
-
03
. Departmental Liaison to the English Society at Saint Francis Xavier University
Boulter, Jonathan. Parables of the posthuman: digital
realities, gaming, and the player experience
J.M. Smith
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.10 (June 2016): p1463.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Boulter, Jonathan. Parables of the posthuman: digital realities, gaming, and the player experience. Wayne State, 2015. 151 p bibl index ISBN
9780814334881 pbk, $31.99; ISBN 9780814341445 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-4225
GV1469
2015-933201 MARC
Posthuman discourse focuses on what being human means, particularly in light of technological advancements and the potential for the extension
of human capabilities. Boulter (English, Western Univ., Canada) delves into the philosophical meaning of posthumanism, using both
phenomenology and psychology in his analysis of posthumanist thought, and then applies his analysis to video game players as a case study of
the posthuman experience. Selecting several story-driven video games to describe the posthuman experience, the author not only looks at science
fiction story lines in which characters experience the augmentation of physical and/or mental capabilities but also questions whether gamers
experience a temporary posthuman condition (be it actual or perceived) as the result of immersion in a fantasy while playing the game. The
player-game relationship seems custom-built for the application of posthuman philosophy and makes for compelling illustrations--or parables--of
the posthuman experience. Though Parables of the Posthuman <
also appeal to game designers who desire a deeper understanding of the player experience. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Graduate students,
researchers, faculty, professionals.--J. M. Smith, Sonoma State University
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Smith, J.M. "Boulter, Jonathan. Parables of the posthuman: digital realities, gaming, and the player experience." CHOICE: Current Reviews for
Academic Libraries, June 2016, p. 1463+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA454942636&it=r&asid=9203de0204139f227b2208fa2fd044a1. Accessed 25 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A454942636
---
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Melancholy and the archive; trauma, memory, and history in
the contemporary novel
Reference & Research Book News.
26.5 (Oct. 2011):
COPYRIGHT 2011 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9781441124128
Melancholy and the archive; trauma, memory, and history in the contemporary novel.
Boulter, Jonathan.
Continuum Publishing Group
2011
208 pages
$110.00
Hardcover
Continuum literary studies
PN3503
Boulter (English U. of Western Ontario) argues that the idea of subjectivity without any subject is particularly useful for thinking about subjects
as they begin to negotiate a relationship to their memory and history. More specifically, he says, subjects negotiate a relationship to a disastrous
history, to a past marked by loss and trauma; they become more than merely individuals reflecting on a particular kind of economy of tragic loss,
but a scar of the disaster. His examples are Paul Auster archiving trauma, Haruki Murakami burying history, David Mitchell humanizing history,
and Jose Saramago archiving melancholy.
([c]2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
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"Melancholy and the archive; trauma, memory, and history in the contemporary novel." Reference & Research Book News, Oct. 2011. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA268249195&it=r&asid=fb066badb65dcc38cd451f929beaf869. Accessed 25 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A268249195
---
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Beckett; a guide for the perplexed
Reference & Research Book News.
24.1 (Feb. 2009):
COPYRIGHT 2009 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780826481955
Beckett; a guide for the perplexed.
Boulter, Jonathan.
Continuum Publishing Group
2008
186 pages
$19.95
Paperback
The guides for the perplexed series
PR6003
Boulter (English, U. of Western Ontario) has written a guide for students negotiating their way through Samuel Beckett's complex and difficult
plays and novels. The author provides a general introduction to Beckett and his work, and an analysis of each of the key works in major genres.
Dramas covered include Waiting for Godot and Endgame, and prose examples include Beckett's first trilogy of novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and
The Unnamable.
([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Beckett; a guide for the perplexed." Reference & Research Book News, Feb. 2009. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA196721544&it=r&asid=2f4784b31a7b2c8402ec2fe755edc744. Accessed 25 Apr.
2017.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A196721544
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BOOK BY P. J. Murphy. Beckett's Dedalus: Dialogical Engagements
with Joyce in Beckett's Fiction
REVIEW BY Jonathan Boulter
English Studies in Canada.
35.4 (Dec. 2009): p121.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English
http://www.accute.ca/Publications.htm#English%20Studies%20in%20Canada
Full Text:
P. J. Murphy. Beckett's Dedalus: Dialogical Engagements with Joyce in Beckett's Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. 268 pp.
$65.00.
In Beckett's Dedalus, P. J. Murphy argues that, contrary to prevailing critical opinion, Joyce's influence on Beckett extended well beyond early
writing like Dream of Fair to Middling Women (written 1932) and Murphy (1938). In his introduction, Murphy states that "Most Beckett
criticism has preemptively determined that Joyce's influence as a significant factor ended well before the famous Trilogy, even if there is
considerable disagreement over when exactly such 'influence' need no longer be regarded as important in the development of Beckett's writing"
(11). Murphy here establishes both thesis and tone for what follows: a startling and somewhat belligerent reading of some of Beckett's major
prose in terms of what can only be called an idee fixe.
Murphy's point of departure--and return--is Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, primarily two central moments: Stephen Dedalus's
aesthetic theory in chapter 5 and the vision of the so-called bird girl in chapter 4. According to Murphy, Beckett's major prose works from 1932
onward in various ways all respond either to Dedalus's theories of claritas, quidittas, and integritas, or rewrite, ironically or not, the epiphanic
vision of sexual beauty: all are deeply, elaborately embedded with allusive traces of A Portrait, the Joyce text (perhaps the text), as Murphy
suggests, that had the most influence on Beckett. Murphy thus moves from a reading of an early critical piece "Dante ... Bruno. Vico .. Joyce" to
"Assumption," Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Murphy, Watt, Mercier and Camier, Molloy (his readings of Malone Dies and The Unnamable
are negligible), and finally to a consideration of the posttrilogy Texts for Nothing and the late texts, including the so-called second trilogy.
Murphy's argument depends absolutely on patterns of allusion, on a recognition of these allusions by the reader. And here is where the major
difficulty with Beckett's Dedalus begins and ends. If it is not terribly difficult to see, or hear, Joyce's presence in the early writings (on this, all
agree), it becomes more so in the later texts. But Murphy is adamant that Joyce is indeed present, organizing the structure of Beckett's texts,
mobilizing possible ways of interpreting them. I find Murphy's readings unconvincing primarily because I cannot, in the great majority of
examples he cites, see the allusion for what Murphy requires it to be. The connections he draws between texts are so elaborately attenuated as to
be, in my estimation, of little interpretive value. I will cite some examples. In his reading of the opening sentences of Murphy, Murphy draws a
connection between the first two sentences--" 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Murphy sat out of it, as though he were
free, in a mew in West Brompton' " (95, Murphy's emphasis)--and a sentence from A Portrait which describes Stephen's state of mind preceding
his vision of the bird girl: " 'His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he were soaring sunward'
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" (95, Murphy's emphasis). Murphy suggests, after chiding Ackerley for not spotting the allusion in his Demented Particulars, that the "echolalia"
of the two phrases (he admits that it is not quite an allusion) draws a connection between the Icarian nature of both characters while, of course,
demonstrating how "Joyce is the major figure, literary or otherwise, that Beckett is engaged with here" (96).
In his reading of Watt, a text Joycean it seems largely because Watt's name refers to the idea of whatness or quidittas in Dedalus's aesthetic theory,
Murphy again cites two sentences, one from Beckett, one from Joyce. In the first, Beckett describes how Arsene looks at Watt: " 'The gentleman
gazed long at Watt, and then went away, without a word of explanation' " (141); in the second, Joyce describes the bird girl: " 'Long, long she
suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and
thither' " (141). It is only twenty-five pages later in Beckett's text, when Arsene uses the expression "hither and thither" (" 'the pleasant dawdling
motion carrying me about in the midst of them, hither and thither, with unparalleled sagacity' " (141), that the allusion is "complete" (141). One
final example (yet I could go on). In his reading of Molloy, Murphy, once again, cites two sentences: the first is Molloy describing his mother: "
'A head always. Veiled with hair, wrinkles, filth, slobber. A head that darkened the air' " (182); Murphy suggests that this is an allusion to A
Portrait and Stephen's sight of Josephine: " 'Suddenly he became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appeared suspended in the gloom of
the doorway' " (182).
Several questions occur to me as I read these examples: What qualifies as an allusion? When is an allusion an allusion? I suppose Murphy has the
interpretive freedom to see allusions where he wishes, but I simply cannot follow him here because it is difficult, beyond acknowledging an
accidental arrangement of words or vague structural homology of image, to see any connection between these texts. In some ways the crucial
question here has to be this: Why does Murphy need to see Beckett's continuing dependency on Joyce? Why does Beckett have to be the
monomaniac that Murphy clearly needs him to be? I ask these questions because, with very few exceptions, Murphy's readings of these allusions
rarely serve to elucidate Beckett's text (ironically, Murphy berates "post-structuralist" readers of Beckett for not paying careful enough attention
to the language of the novels). These allusions seem present merely to contradict Beckett's own denial of Joyce's influence or to contradict the
critical tradition which sees Joyce's influence wan after Murphy: that is, these allusions rarely function within the text as literary work.
These difficulties could, I suppose, be set to one side if they were the only problems with this study, but they are not. Murphy's dependence on A
Portrait, and specifically Dedalus's aesthetic theory, needs to be briefly mentioned here. It strikes me as a fatal blindness that Murphy takes
Stephen Dedalus's aesthetic theory seriously: surely it is a critical commonplace that Joyce is heavily ironizing Dedalus and his at times
outrageous pomposity (this is, after all, a portrait of the artist as a young man). Murphy would have Beckett fail to perceive Joyce's irony and
blithely base his entire body of work in prose on the overheated musings of a precocious adolescent. It is as difficult for me to countenance the
idea of Beckett being unable to read irony as it is for me to see the allusive connections Murphy draws between texts.
Murphy's underestimation of Beckett's capacity to gauge rhetorical strategies is symptomatic, I believe, of Murphy's overall assessment of other
readers of Beckett. As I read Beckett's Dedalus I am struck by the tone Murphy consistently strikes: the book is combative, defensive, and, as I
said above, at times belligerent. Perhaps this is to be expected given what Murphy believes to be his book's controversial argument. But I wonder
if blithe dismissals of other critics, some of whom are important figures in Beckett criticism, are the best way to convince readers of one's
argument. Murphy's assessments of Knowlson, Ackerley, Gontarski, Jewinski, and Katz seem mainly to suggest that the critic is wrong because
he did not see what Murphy thinks he should have seen. Jewinski's reading of the Joyce-Beckett relationship does not pay enough attention to the
qualities of the writing itself; his reading is "detached from such textual groundings and instead proffers a number of apercus that, even if
suggestive and sometimes insightful in themselves, do not form part of a continuous argument" (15). Katz's interpretation of Molloy is an
example of a "ready-made application of a post-structuralist reading" (182). Knowlson and Richard Ellmann both "comprehensively
underestimate Joyce's influence and active presence within Beckett's oeuvre" (155). Beckett's own estimation of Joyce's waning influence is itself
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dismissed several times. It is curious that Murphy, one who values dialogue as a critical trope (see the book's full title), is so willing to close off
opportunities for hermeneutical, and conversational, encounters with other scholars. We are left, thus, with Murphy as the only reader capable of
reading Beckett correctly, hence perhaps the title to his introduction, a title at once allusive and presumptuous, "Prolegomenon to Any Further
Beckett Criticism." (It is interesting to note that one text that offers a "brilliant" [22] reading of the Joyce-Beckett relation is an unpublished
dissertation from 1977; in an endnote, Murphy pleads for its publication in the Journal of Beckett Studies.)
Beckett's Dedalus is an extraordinarily curious work primarily because the author has allowed what he believes to be Beckett's obsession with
Joyce to conflate so completely with his own. Allusive readings can be perfectly useful as interpretive pathways into literary work, but Murphy's
insistence on repeatedly, doggedly, evaluating Beckett's texts in terms of a dubious connection to Joyce leads him to make some bizarre claims,
the oddest of which I will cite by way of concluding: "What is most notable in Malone Dies prior to its remarkable conclusion is the very paucity
of references to Joyce's work" (197). Most notable? Surely Malone Dies, one of the central considerations of the relation between writing and
death in twentieth-century literature, has more to offer than the mere absence of Joyce. To dismiss a novel for what it is not doing is to allow one's
thesis to determine, dogmatically, unreflectively, the outcome of one's reading. Becket's texts continue to pose a host of interpretive problems to
readers. I am not convinced that Murphy's version of allusive reading is the most congenial point of entry into works which continually demand
the reader suspend hermeneutical dogma in favour of radically dialogical openness.
Jonathan Boulter
The University of Western Ontario
Boulter, Jonathan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Boulter, Jonathan. "P. J. Murphy. Beckett's Dedalus: Dialogical Engagements with Joyce in Beckett's Fiction." English Studies in Canada, vol.
35, no. 4, 2009, p. 121+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA248918616&it=r&asid=7e2e1b861c9ef7a58bb4dbda82c640b3. Accessed 25 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A248918616