Poste de chercheur doctorant (ou postdoctorant) – KU Leuven (Unité de recherche “Littérature et culture”)

 

A Comparative Study of American and French Handbooks for Creative Writing

(Ref. BAP-2014-325)

 

Occupation : Full-time

Period : Fixed-term contract

Place : Leuven

Apply no later than : August 01, 2014

 

More info: http://icts.kuleuven.be/apps/jobsite/vacatures/53001554?lang=en

 

For the research group literature and culture, KU Leuven, we are looking for a pre-doctoral (possibly also a post-doctoral) researcher for A Comparative Study of American and French Handbooks for Creative Writing

 

Researcher within the research unit literature and culture in collaboration with colleagues working within the interuniversity attraction pole Literature and Media Innovation (LMI)

 

Project

The core corpus that we intend to study focuses on French and Anglo-Saxon handbooks for writing narrative prose in the first decade of the 21st century.

•  A first set of questions concerns the construction and legitimization of the writing practice. How is storytelling defined and constructed? Which strong constraints are formulated (and hierarchically ordered), and which options remain open for would-be writers? These constraints on literary texts can be regarded as a normative narratology or normative poetics. The project will examine how the proposed models implicitly and explicitly position themselves vis-à-vis narratological theories on the one hand and examples of good practice on the other hand.
• The project will look at different conceptions of the author as well as the reader. Which (established)examples are presented and how are they analyzed? How is the activity of writing related to the practice of reading? How do different constructions of the author in the book – the canonical examples, the published and commercially successful author that is the goal of the handbook and finally the self-representation of the author to the handbook – interact and contradict each other? Conversely, how is the reader constructed through the use of for instance intertextual references and discursive elements like the use of imperatives, summaries and exercises? How do different reader-constructions, e.g. the analytic reader and the reader-aspiring author interact?
• We will investigate the institutional forces and constraints in the broad sense of the term. Most handbooks not only focus on textual features, but also on getting published. They pay much attention, already in their title, to preparing and finishing an optimal manuscript, presenting it to a publisher or producer and turning it into a commercial success. This entails a specific conception of the literary system in which the text functions. We will look into the cultural and institutional contexts that are being constructed within the handbooks and at how these texts negotiate the relation between professional and amateur or aspiring writers

 

Profile

• Requirement 1: Master in Language and literature, Western Literatures, Cultural Studies or equivalent degree with good study results
• Requirement 2: Very good knowledge of narratology or (literary) sociology or semiotics
• Requirement 3: Creative researcher who can work both independently or in group
• Requirement 4: Very good knowledge of French and English

 

Offer

• Offer 1: obtaining a PhD
• Offer 2: dynamic research environment and realizing of scientific publications, both individually and with a team
• Offer 3: international working environment

Interested?

More information can be obtained with prof. dr. Anneleen Masschelein, mail: anneleen.masschelein@arts.kuleuven.be (until 11/7/2014), prof. dr. Dirk De Geest, mail: dirk.degeest@arts.kuleuven.be or dr. Heidi Peeters, mail: anneleen.masschelein@arts.kuleuven.be (from 22/7/2014).
Candidates are strongly encouraged to get acquainted with at least one (preferably French) handbook for creative writing in preparation of the application.

 

You can apply for this job no later than August 01, 2014 via the online application tool. More info: http://icts.kuleuven.be/apps/jobsite/vacatures/53001554?lang=en

 

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