Eileen J. Pollard
E mail: ejpollard@googlemail.com
Project title: Origin and Ellipsis in the Writing of Hilary Mantel
Supervisors: Berthold Schoene, John Sears, Ginette Carpenter
Project outline
My thesis challenges current readings of Mantel’s writing that privilege an origin as the fetishized natural site or location of meaning. In particular, I problematise material within the academy and journalism that tethers Mantel’s fiction and memoir to Gothicism/historicism, autobiography or the body, as centres that anchor a singular meaning. Using the writings of both Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy on ellipsis, my thesis advances on the possibilities of the elliptical for deconstructive practice by considering the resistance of Mantel’s work to any conceptual solidity. Ultimately, the thesis will conclude with my own interpretation of her texts as always already elliptically circling the west, as a troubled, yet hallowed, locus throughout her implied corpus.
Publications/conference papers
“Trust me, I’m telling you my life story”: Queer Sisterhood in the memoirs of Jeanette Winterson and Jackie Kay’ (paper presented at Queer Sisterhood in Contemporary Women’s Writing: A Postgraduate Symposium, Belfast, Northern Ireland, February 29, 2012)
‘”But at second sight the words seemed not so simple” (Woolf 1929): Thickening and rotting hysteria in the writing of Hilary Mantel and Virginia Woolf’, The Virginia Woolf Miscellany, 80 (2011), 24-26
http://home.southernct.edu/~neverowv1/VWM_Online.html
‘”Are you local? – Alienation in The League of Gentlemen‘ (paper presented at MMU Philosophy Co-operative, Manchester, UK, November 21, 2011)
http://mmuphilosophycoop.webs.com/paperarchive.htm
‘Community’ (stand-up comedy routine presented at Bright Club Manchester 7: Obsession, Manchester, UK, June 24, 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TN6zLDTP38
‘”But at second sight the words seemed not so simple” (Woolf 1929): Thickening and rotting hysteria in the writing of Hilary Mantel and Virginia Woolf’ (paper presented at Contradictory Woolf: 21st Annual International Virginia Woolf Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, June 10, 2011)
‘”The revenant is going to come”: Sex and rottenness in the communities of Hilary Mantel and Nicola Barker,’ in The Evil Body, ed. by April Anson (Ebook: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011), pp. 143-151
http://interdisciplinarypress.net/online-store/ebooks/evil-monsters-horror/the-evil-body
‘”The revenant is going to come”: Sex and rottenness in the communities of Hilary Mantel and Nicola Barker’ (paper presented at Evil, Women and the Feminine: 3rd Global Conference, Poland, Warsaw, May 14, 2011)
Other research activities
I am currently drafting a lengthy article on ellipsis for the journal Textual Practice. In January 2012, I will apply to the AHRC International Placement Scheme to request to consult Mantel’s archive held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. I recently assisted with the organisation of a one-day conference on ‘Further Adventures in Wonderland: The Afterlife of Alice’ in December 2011. During the autumn term of 2011, I shadowed my supervisor teaching on a Modernism module and taught one undergraduate seminar myself on Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. In September 2012, I hope to host a symposium on Mantel’s writing entitled ‘Privileging the Unseen’ at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester. For more information about this event, please read the following Call for Papers:
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/43685
I also blog infrequently at the following address – ejpollard.wordpress.com