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VERSION:2.0
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CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
X-WR-CALNAME:Philosophy and Literature: The Last Temptation of Proust Notes
  on Redemption and Translation in the Final Volume
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260520T033248Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_52066784462912
DTSTART:20260306T021500Z
DTEND:20260306T034500Z
DESCRIPTION:With Guest Speaker Richard Maron Professor of Philosophy\, Harv
 ard university\n\nAbstract:\n\nThe following is a set of notes concerned w
 ith how we are to interpret the Final Volume of Proust’s novel. One them
 e I discussed in a previous paper\, “Swann’s Medical Philosophy\,” i
 s the ambiguous position of philosophy in the novel as a whole. Sometimes 
 it represents the aspiration to a kind of wisdom\, but just as often it re
 presents a kind of sophistry that some character employs as a prop for a k
 ind of disillusioned view of life that is a reaction to disappointment (in
  love) or self-doubt (about one’s artistic capacities). The Narrator him
 self shifts between these two relations to ‘philosophy’\, which create
 s issues for how we as readers are to relate ourselves to this or that phi
 losophical pronouncement in the novel. The presence of such explicitly ‘
 philosophical’ statements increases in the Final Volume\, along with the
  clash between the various perspectives that have structured the novel fro
 m the beginning: Childhood v. Adulthood\; Naïve faith v. disillusion or c
 ynicism\; a kind of Realism or attachment to what is outside oneself v. a 
 kind of Subjectivism when such attachment is disappointed or seems impossi
 ble\; an attachment to individuals (whether persons\, places or works of a
 rt) v. a reduction of individuals to general types expressing general laws
 . And throughout there is the relation of these conflicting responses to l
 ife to the appearance of ecstatic experiences (of nature\, of music\, etc.
 ) which come to a kind of crescendo in the succession of involuntary memor
 ies in the Guermantes library. \n\nThis crescendo is usually thought of as
  central to a redemptive reading of the novel: time is not lost after all\
 , the Narrator’s time has not been lost in the sense of wasted\, but wil
 l be redeemed\, indeed has been redeemed by the creation of the very book 
 we are reading. This redemptive reading\, thus\, is tied to the paradoxica
 l idea of the identity of the book we are reading with the book that the N
 arrator feels finally in a position to write. Josh Landy has of course cha
 llenged this reading and I think there are other problems with in addition
  to the ones he lays out. And yet I also think that the existence of and e
 xperience of the very book we are reading does play a role in how we are t
 o interpret any redemptive reading and in how we are to see the Narrator
 ’s journey from Childhood to Adulthood\, Faith to Disillusion\, and poss
 ibly back again. I don’t believe we arrive at a resolution of these conf
 licts. The philosophical expressions following the episodes of involuntary
  memory both diminish the distance between the Narrator and the author Mar
 cel Proust\, and show the continued grip of an essentially disillusioned p
 erspective\, even if that perspective is belied by the existence and the e
 xperience of the book itself. \n\nRSVP HERE for Philosophy and Literature 
 Event
GEO:37.427405;-122.1697
LOCATION:Building 260\, Pigott Hall\, Room 252
SUMMARY:Philosophy and Literature: The Last Temptation of Proust Notes on R
 edemption and Translation in the Final Volume
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.stanford.edu/event/philosophy-and-literature-t
 he-last-temptation-of-proust-notes-on-redemption-and-translation-in-the-fi
 nal-volume
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation/Talk
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END:VCALENDAR