Northern Osmosis: Literary Viscosity as Material Solidarity (Lab)

Harbour Centre 1520

Organizers:
Sarah-Nelle Jackson (University of British Columbia)
C. Elizabeth Rosch (University of British Columbia)
Scott Russell (University of British Columbia)

Viscous literary critique affirms, rather than dissolves, difference, even as it tests conventional boundaries between subject and non-subject. Together, we experiment with viscosity as a literary method for reimagining bodily relations. Lab participants, including the audience, begin with the Exeter Book riddles, whose objects invite viscous reading in the playful elusiveness of their subjective identities. Turning to presenters' explorations of critical viscosity, we depart from isle and manuscript to Hollywood horror and queer neomedievalism before returning to the fens of Old English literature. Finally, we invite presenters and audience alike to speculate on the critical and practical futures of viscosity.

Tamara Browne (University of Edinburgh), “Environmental Alchemy: A Reading of John Carpenter’s The Fog”
Bethany Whalley, “Women, Wetlands, and Viscous Pre/modernities”
Inés G. Labarta (Lancaster University), “Viscosity in The Book of the Cow"
Lisa Weston (California State University, Fresno), “Viscous Literacy in Exeter Riddle 60, The Husband’s Message, and Wulf and Eadwacer”