Object Lessons is fascinating and powerfully argued. Bartlett s understanding of contemporary work on reference is impeccable, and she uses the theory of the novel to articulate new insights into the nature of reference itself. This book carves out an important possibility for putting philosophy and literary studies in touch with one another.
John Gibson, University of Louisville ... Read more Object Lessons is a tightly argued set of reflections on reference and the novel form. It is also a refreshing, original, and insistently smart example of interdisciplinary scholarship, bringing tools from the analytic philosophy of language to literary study seriously and without compromise.The result is an altogether new account of the way that the novel stands in relation to the world.
Jonathan Kramnick, Yale University The novel has perhaps always wanted to refer; critics have balked.In Bartlett s application of language philosophy to fiction, and of fiction to language philosophy, we have a chance to reconsider the problematic inheritances of both the referential illusion and thing theory. This will be a highly generative work.
Elaine Freedgood, New York University In Object Lessons, Bartlett argues that the nineteenth-century realist novel is less a form of representation than an intentional and ironic act of reference, a self-conscious effort to understand what it means to reach for, interact with, or point at things. Putting novels by Meredith, Thackeray, Gaskell, and Murdoch into conversation with analytic and other philosophies of language, intention, and action, she shows in close detail what happens when novels use language to handle or to name the world and its objects. Pursuing these analyses with rigorous attention to the novel s minor details as well as to its deep structures, Bartlett offers original readings of major Victorian narratives and develops a new and persuasive way to read literary fiction.
Kent Puckett, University of California, Berkeley The novel has perhaps always wanted to refer; critics have balked. In Bartlett's application of language philosophy to fiction, and of fiction to language philosophy, we have a chance to reconsider the problematic inheritances of both 'the referential illusion' and 'thing theory.' This will be a highly generative work.
Elaine Freedgood, New York University In Object Lessons, Bartlett argues that the nineteenth-century realist novel is less a form of representation than an intentional and ironic act of reference, a self-conscious effort to understand what it means to reach for, interact with, or point at things. Putting novels by Meredith, Thackeray, Gaskell, and Murdoch into conversation with analytic and other philosophies of language, intention, and action, she shows in close detail what happens when novels use language to handle or to name the world and its objects. Pursuing these analyses with rigorous attention to the novel's minor details as well as to its deep structures, Bartlett offers original readings of major Victorian narratives and develops a new and persuasive way to read literary fiction.
Kent Puckett, University of California, Berkeley Object Lessons is a tightly argued set of reflections on reference and the novel form. It is also a refreshing, original, and insistently smart example of interdisciplinary scholarship, bringing tools from the analytic philosophy of language to literary study seriously and without compromise. The result is an altogether new account of the way that the novel stands in relation to the world.
Jonathan Kramnick, Yale University Object Lessons is fascinating and powerfully argued. Bartlett's understanding of contemporary work on reference is impeccable, and she uses the theory of the novel to articulate new insights into the nature of reference itself. This book carves out an important possibility for putting philosophy and literary studies in touch with one another.
John Gibson, University of Louisville In Object Lessons, Bartlett argues that the nineteenth-century realist novel is less a form of representation than an intentional and ironic act of reference, a self-conscious effort to understand what it means to reach for, interact with, or point at things. Putting novels by Meredith, Thackeray, Gaskell, and Murdoch into conversation with analytic and other philosophies of language, intention, and action, she shows in close detail what happens when novels use language to handle or to name the world and its objects. Pursuing these analyses with rigorous attention to the novel s minor details as well as to its deep structures, Bartlett offers original readings of major Victorian narratives and develops a new and persuasive way to read literary fiction.
Kent Puckett, University of California, Berkeley Object Lessons is a tightly argued set of reflections on reference and the novel form. It is also a refreshing, original, and insistently smart example of interdisciplinary scholarship, bringing tools from the analytic philosophy of language to literary study seriously and without compromise.The result is an altogether new account of the way that the novel stands in relation to the world.
Jonathan Kramnick, Yale University Object Lessons is fascinating and powerfully argued. Bartlett s understanding of contemporary work on reference is impeccable, and she uses the theory of the novel to articulate new insights into the nature of reference itself. This book carves out an important possibility for putting philosophy and literary studies in touch with one another.
John Gibson, University of Louisville Show Less