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Dr. Katrin Berndt is an Assistant Professor of British
and Anglophone Literatures at the University of Bremen, Germany. She has
been awarded a three months Visiting Research Fellowship at IASH to work
on a project discussing 'Friendship in the British Novel from 1760 to
1830: A Study of the Connections between Motif and Genre'.
Abstract:
Related to the current IASH research theme 'Dialogues of Enlightenment',
the project explores the connections of the literary motif of friendship
with both the formal and the thematic constitution of the British novel
from 1760 to 1830. Fictional friendship is defined here as a point of
convergence for public and private discourses of an age that was distinguished
by changing socio-cultural paradigms of women and men's understanding
of themselves and their community. The era also saw the innovative elevation
of the novel as a socially responsive genre, which exemplified enlightened
conceptions of virtues and vices in order to discuss contemporary challenges
of 'progress'.
The project looks at the way in which different forms of fictional friendship
are used to express particular thematic preoccupations of the novel, such
as the perceived virtuousness of formalized values, benevolence vs. self-love,
representations of civil society and notions of compassion and sociability.
Furthermore, it attests the motif of friendship a formative role in the
constitution of the novel when it relates amity to the emergence of novelistic
sub-genres, the diversification of narrative perspectives and the growing
variety of plot structures, among other features of the genre. The research
to be carried out at IASH will involve the study of philosophical texts,
such as Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and
Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767);
it will also take into account major contributions of the Scottish 'School
of Common Sense', including their consideration of Immanuel Kant and German
idealism.
Contact
Details:
Email: Katrin Berndt
Address:
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
The University of Edinburgh
Hope Park Square
Edinburgh EH8 9NW
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