TLRH | School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies Research Seminar

Tuesday, 11 May 2021, 4 – 5pm Research presentations by Jason
Marrott, Tom Hedley, and Conor Brennan as part of the School of
Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies Research Seminar Series
in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. Speaking to the Mirror:
A Brief Cultural History of Solitude JASON MARROTT There is an
inherently paradoxical aspect to the mediation of solitude, for to
express it entails a betrayal of its core principal: the seclusion
of the individual from the many. When an audience learns of an
experience of solitude, it necessarily ceases to truly be a
solitary one. The choice to practice solitude is often taken
directly in reaction to society. Indeed, the cognitive framework,
barriers, ideologies, and cultural practices of the society a
solitary figure purports to have left, still guide his or her
experience of solitude and understanding of self. Historically, the
discourse of ‘solitude’ has tended to posit the categories of
‘solitary’ and ‘community’ as opposed, but an examination of the
cultural history of solitude as an embodied experience (in the
West) shows us that the two both reciprocally define, and are
defined by one another. The very act of mediating solitude back to
a community is an act of bridging the gap, so to speak, between the
community and its other. This presentation will briefly present and
explore a survey of episodes of Solitude which exemplify this
complementary relationship with the ultimate goal of offering an
answer to the question: can one ever truly be alone? Jason Marrott
is a PhD student in the Department of Germanic Studies at TCD. He
has a background in Comparative Literature and Applied Linguistics.
Spatial Reckonings: 'Das Raumproblem' in Modern Mathematics &
German Modernism TOM HEDLEY Despite the ascent of academic
‘interdisciplinarity’, mathematics and the arts continue to be
viewed as ‘two cultures’ that have divergent origins, influences
and aims — an enduring perception that this research seeks to
undermine. By examining the the problem of space in the
transformative era of the late 19th Century to the early 20th
Century, this paper aims to show how modern mathematics can be
integrated into the wider modernist epoch. Specifically, this paper
will use the historical context and common philosophical as a
springboard to propose a more meaningful comparison of the two
fields. Tom Hedley is a PhD candidate in the Department of Germanic
Studies at TCD and is supervised by Dr Caitríona Leahy. A graduate
of German and Mathematics at TCD, Tom completed an MA in German
Literature at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena with the
support of a DAAD scholarship. His PhD research is funded by the
Irish Research Council. Out of the cage, into the echo chamber:
Finding forms for the Anthropocene CONOR BRENNAN The talk will
consider some of the interactions between ecocritical discourse and
literary form, drawing on examples from contemporary writers
Christoph Ransmayr, Olga Tokarczuk and Richard Flanagan. As a
literary reference point shared by all three writers, the talk will
also touch on texts by Franz Kafka. One of the questions this
comparison raises is how exactly the contemporary hopes to catch up
with itself—to catch itself ‘in the act'. Conor Brennan is a PhD
candidate in the Department of Germanic Studies, under the
supervision of Dr Caitríona Leahy. He holds a BA in English &
German from TCD and an MSt from the University of Oxford, where he
was an Ertegun Scholar. His doctoral research is funded by the
Irish Research Council and a TCD Foundation Scholarship. Learn more
at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/