The Ian Watt Lecture in the History and Theory of the Novel: "Identification: A defense"

Speaker(s): Prof. Rita Felski (University of Virginia, University of South Denmark)

Identification: A defense 
 
This talk offers a defense of identification and a reconsideration of character. It argues that identifying is a more complex and variable process than it is often taken to be. Disentangling four strands of identification—alignment, allegiance, recognition, and empathy—it expands on their differing entailments and proposes that identification shapes academic as well as lay reading. Identifying with characters, meanwhile, overlaps with attachments to an author, a star, or a style. Characters are portmanteau creatures, assembled out of disparate materials drawn from fiction and life. Rather than being restricted to a single text, they can serve as nodes in many networks. They are distributed, adapted, and mediated. Their presence can be exceptionally vivid, yet it is painstakingly composed.