UCLA PROGRAM IN EXPERIMENTAL CRITICAL THEORY

Abstract: Freud famously stated that literature was the royal road to psychoanalysis. Following course, Lacan noted, in “The Signification of the Phallus”, that if one wanted to understand human sexuality and desire, better read Sophocle’s Oedipus, or Longus’s Daphnis and Chloë, than rely on biological inquiry and data . Even Foucault described his project to devise a “history of sexuality” as a manner of “transcribing” Diderot’s fable, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, in the language of historical inquiry. In other words, fictional narration, for which dreams and phantasy could be said to provide a template, might be the best way to approach...

Abstract: Marco Polo and his father and uncle spent seventeen years in China, and because of his personal history there, Sinologists have long scrutinized and debated his connection to the larger history of China and his status as a historical writer of China. In response to biographical discussions about Polo in Sinology, this talk investigates the way history informs the study of Le Devisement du monde. I compare Polo’s work to Chinese historiography, a genre centered on the theorization of political authority and the body politic. While Medievalists locate Polo in the European Middle Ages as a Christian European who...