Anne Carson and the Unknown
Contemporary Perspectives on Poetic Experimentation
The University of Michigan Press
Will be published approx. on 2. December 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-472-04032-2 (ISBN)
Description
Making art relies on a process of intuitive discovery that begins prior to knowing and overrides intention. Anne Carson and the Unknown delves into the varied ways the contemporary poet and classicist Anne Carson engages with the unknown, both as a philosophical concept and as a method of creative practice. Bringing together various contemporary perspectives, ranging from the world of quantum physics to feminist literary criticism and media studies, this volume considers how contemporary poets like Anne Carson continue to show the relevance of the unknown in our turbulent times of global upheaval.
It covers Carson's unusual travelogue about the collapse of civilizations and knowledge, positions her oeuvre in the context of a wider debate on post-critique, and reads her work as an engagement with a radically formalist Classics that goes back to ancient Greek's etymological complexity. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the volume dives into her work's ambiguous relationships with trans experience and religion, the centrality of the psychoanalytical concept of the caesura, and her use of figures like Helen of Troy and Herakles. It also discusses the unknown as a visual mechanism in her recent creative collaboration with comics creator Rosanna Bruno. In this way, Carson provides a necessary counter to both Western scientific knowledge's goals of predictability and rationality, and to the algorithmic certitudes sought by the engineering culture of technologists who prevail today.
It covers Carson's unusual travelogue about the collapse of civilizations and knowledge, positions her oeuvre in the context of a wider debate on post-critique, and reads her work as an engagement with a radically formalist Classics that goes back to ancient Greek's etymological complexity. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the volume dives into her work's ambiguous relationships with trans experience and religion, the centrality of the psychoanalytical concept of the caesura, and her use of figures like Helen of Troy and Herakles. It also discusses the unknown as a visual mechanism in her recent creative collaboration with comics creator Rosanna Bruno. In this way, Carson provides a necessary counter to both Western scientific knowledge's goals of predictability and rationality, and to the algorithmic certitudes sought by the engineering culture of technologists who prevail today.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
United States
Illustrations
14 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-472-04032-2 (9780472040322)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Helena Van Praet is an FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow at Ghent University, Belgium.
Christine Wiesenthal is Professor Emerita in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Christine Wiesenthal is Professor Emerita in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Content
1. Introduction - Helena Van Praet and Christine Wiesenthal
2. Knowing Collapse: Anne Carson's "The Fall of Rome" - Ian Rae
3. Poetics of the Caesura - Elizabeth D. Harvey
4. Anne Carson Explains - Elizabeth Sarah Coles
5. Reading for the Unknowable Ground: Anne Carson's Greek Lyric Poetry - David Fearn
6. The "Floating" Gender: Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red and the Lost Trans Archive - Mary Mussman
7. De-Stabilizing the Known / Restoring the Unknown: Reading Anne Carson through the Lens of Quantum Physics - Jennifer K Dick
8. "That Emptiness Where God Would Be": Anne Carson and the Postsecular - Kyra Sutton
9. Norma Jeane Baker, "Harlot of Troy": Anne Carson's Unknowable Hellenic Eidolon - Amanda Kubic
10. Re-Reading Tragedy with Comics in Carson and Bruno's Euripides' Trojan Women: A Comic - Natalie J. Swain
11. Tracing the Unknown Herakles in H of H Playbook - Zina Giannopoulou and Lena Grimm
12. Envoi: "Every Exit is an Entrance" - Christine Wiesenthal and Helena Van Praet
2. Knowing Collapse: Anne Carson's "The Fall of Rome" - Ian Rae
3. Poetics of the Caesura - Elizabeth D. Harvey
4. Anne Carson Explains - Elizabeth Sarah Coles
5. Reading for the Unknowable Ground: Anne Carson's Greek Lyric Poetry - David Fearn
6. The "Floating" Gender: Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red and the Lost Trans Archive - Mary Mussman
7. De-Stabilizing the Known / Restoring the Unknown: Reading Anne Carson through the Lens of Quantum Physics - Jennifer K Dick
8. "That Emptiness Where God Would Be": Anne Carson and the Postsecular - Kyra Sutton
9. Norma Jeane Baker, "Harlot of Troy": Anne Carson's Unknowable Hellenic Eidolon - Amanda Kubic
10. Re-Reading Tragedy with Comics in Carson and Bruno's Euripides' Trojan Women: A Comic - Natalie J. Swain
11. Tracing the Unknown Herakles in H of H Playbook - Zina Giannopoulou and Lena Grimm
12. Envoi: "Every Exit is an Entrance" - Christine Wiesenthal and Helena Van Praet