Critical theory and literature: Theodor W. Adorno and Samuel Beckett's 'The Unnamable'

• Grant number: 14/12214-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: December 01, 2014
• End date: February 21, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Lucianno Ferreira Gatti
• Grantee: Lucianno Ferreira Gatti
• Host Investigator: Mark Nixon
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Reading, England

Abstract

Theodor W. Adorno has left a range of notes on Samuel Beckett's novel The Unnamed , which should be harnessed for the development of an essay which has never been written. The research project presented here tries to reconstitute these annotations, highlighting one of the hypotheses formulated by Adorno, namely the assumption that Beckett's novel could be characterized as the consummation of a tendency of the contemporary novel toward the reflexive novel. In order to deploy this issue, the project intends to confront elements of Adorno's aesthetic reflection, in particular those concerning the form of the novel, with an investigation of the novel itself and the most recent secondary literature on it. (AU)