Department of English

• Thursday, September 15, 2016 - 11:00am to 12:30pm

Kelly Writers House, Arts Cafe

3805 Locust Walk

RSVPs to wh@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-746-POEM

Tired of addressing a significant problem in literature and drawing out its implications (to quote loosely from PMLA's submissions guidelines)? This event is for those of us who want to turn away from academic writing.

"Aversive Prose" is Charles Bernstein's preferred phrase for an exceptional prose whose genealogy spans the ancient essay and the experimental manifesto -- and which cuts against today's scholarly prose. Aversive: opposed, turned away, disinclined, warding off -- notably including a sensation of repugnance. This conversation will be a bit of aversion therapy against a scholarly addiction.

Having each averted our thoughts from the standard of scholarly prose, we come together to think about platforms for, and the roads beyond, our collective disgust. Is there a new (or old) politics of style to be claimed through aversive thinking and wordcraft? Where do we go once we have turned away from the voice expected of us? Who are the new audiences—that is to say, the real people—we, with our new voices, write both to and for?