This lecture offers a re-reading of certain well-known and not-so-well-known moments and enigmatic aspects of Conrad’s classic The Heart of Darkness considering its workings as modernist narrative, its handling of the naming of place and persons, textuality and otherness and exploring the proposition that the modernist text most becomes itself when it becomes its others.

Dr Richard Brown is Reader in Modern Literature in the School of English at the University of Leeds where he is currently Programme Leader for the BA in English Literature.  He co-ordinates the Level Three Core Module in Modern Literature, the Modern and Contemporary Pathway of the MA in English Literature and teaches his MA module The Enigmatic Body of Modernism as well as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Millennial Fictions.  He has published widely in Modern and Contemporary Literatures, especially James Joyce (James Joyce and Sexuality, James Joyce: A Postcultural Perspective, and the Blackwell Companion to James Joyce which looks at Joyce in global contexts) and contemporary writers including Ian McEwan, Bob Dylan and J. G. Ballard (the volume J.G. Ballard: Landscapes of Tomorrow appeared in 2016).

Open to all students and faculty members! For further information, please contact Dr. Tabish Khair.