SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE APR. (Press Europa) –
The Tea Tenerife Museum Space of the Arts is hosting a talk this Saturday at 12 noon by poet and literary critic from Princeton University, Susan Stewart, who will present a lecture titled ‘The Lesson of the Ruins: An Introduction’.
This presentation draws inspiration from her latest book, ‘The Lesson of the Ruins: Meaning and Matter in Western Culture’ (2020), a piece yet to be translated into Spanish. With evocative prose, it contemplates the significance of ruins, from ancient inscriptions of vanished societies to commemorative monuments reflecting the strides of modernity.
Stewart’s exploration aims at understanding what fuels the ongoing fascination with ruins, along with their imagery and interpretations by some of the most influential voices in contemporary art and literature.
This event, part of the No-all programme: Criticism and Negativity, offers free admission, as reported by the Cabildo in a statement.
In her work, Susan Stewart delves into the haunting forms characterising ruins, examining the allegories and foundational myths often associated with these remnants.
Conscious of how Western culture has shaped the prevalent representations of the past over centuries, her analysis touches upon some of its most emblematic cultural creations, aiming to demonstrate how language and thought are vital for the yearning to endure.
To this author, ruins embody transcendent matter, typically serving as evidence of something that transcends them, especially when viewed from a primarily historical angle.
According to her, “the narrated past remains an open resource for future experience,” and ignorance of it can never fully absolve one from its quest for meaning.
Susan Stewart is both a poet and an academic, holding degrees in English and anthropology from Dickinson College, a master’s in human sciences from Johns Hopkins University, and a doctorate in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania (United States).
Currently, she teaches the history of poetry, aesthetics, and the philosophy of literature at Princeton University.
Her poetry has appeared in esteemed publications such as The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Tri-Quarterly, Harper’s, Ploughshares, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
She has been elected rector of the American Academy of Poets and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Monographs
Additionally, she has authored essential monographs, including Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature (1979); Crimes of Writing (1991); On Desire: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, Memory, and Collection (1993); Poetry and the Fate of the Senses (2002); The Open Study: Essays on Art and Aesthetics (2005); The Poet’s Freedom: A Notebook on Creation (2011); and The Lesson of the Ruins: Meaning and Matter in Western Culture (2020), among others.
The NO-everything: Criticism and Negativity programme, coordinated by Roberto Gil Hernández, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of La Laguna, questions the foundational aspects of the truth regimes governing reality.
Building on the shortcomings of established knowledge, it seeks to carve out a space from which to move beyond worldviews framed as ‘total works’.
This series of lectures and discussions will feature figures from within and outside the archipelago, who, from their respective fields of expertise, generate knowledge with a consciousness of its immeasurability.
