How to Postcritique II. The Necessity of Being Vulnerable. In Conversation With Toril Moi

What can literary studies be? Toril Moi, Duke University, author
of Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies After
Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell inspires us to educate our
judgment and claims that finding a question is the work
of literary studies. She helps us read Vigdis Hjorth’s Will
and Testament as a Wittgensteinian novel about
acknowledgment and invites us to see what fascinates her about
Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle. On the way, we are
encouraged to get lost, learn about our responsibility for our
texts, and about Lacan’s treacherous “subject that is supposed to
know”. 


(00:00:07) Introducing Toril Moi


(00:00:42) Toril Moi’s Relationship to Scandinavian Literatury
Studies


(00:06:52) Stefanie’s Encounter with Toril Moi’s Work


(00:09:07) How to Define and Talk about Postcritique 


(00:18:20) Wittgensteinian Criticism


(00:26:32) Fascination and Acknowledgement 


(00:31:42) Criticism as Writing a Travel Report


(00:38:07) Building an Intellectual Environment for Thriving
Ideas


(00:40:11) Literary Criticism as an Invitation to Conversation


(00:43:59) The Professor as Lacan’s “Subject That is Supposed to
Know


(00:50:16) On Arrogance 


(00:53:01) Introducing Vigdis Hjorth’s Will and Testament


(00:55:07) On ‘Truth’ in Will and Testament


(00:57:57) Acknowledgement in Will and Testament


(01:03:45) Designing Truthful Characters 


(01:11:27) The Struggle with Karl Ove Knausgård’s My
Struggle


(01:16:13) On Authenticity in Literary Works


(01:22:17) Pinpointing the Struggle with My Struggle


(01:25:36) The Novelty of Knausgård’s writing 


(01:27:19) Revealing Yourself and Your Surroundings in Literature


(01:34:59) Short Summary of Differences in Knausgård’s and
Hjorth’s Writing


(01:38:25) What Advice Would You Give Your Student-Self?





Bibliography, further information and comments are available on
Experiment Geisteswissenschaften.


https://exgeist.hypotheses.org/


Idea and conception: Stefanie von Schnurbein


Cut: Cecilia Falkman