Abstract
If, as modern physics argues, time is a distinctly human fiction, one that helps us conceptualize and organize our lives as “human”, then what might be the consequences of bracketing this fiction from our lives, activating a kind of temporal indifference, thus opening ourselves to the unchanging and entangled reality of a Now that does not flow or pass? Both Virginia Woolf in Orlando and Julia Kristeva in The Enchanted Clock take the challenge to explore this question, each at the turn of a new century. As I shall demonstrate, the two writers use the device of time-travelling in an attempt to enable their eccentric protagonists to push beyond the borders of the categories (man, woman; reason, instinct; life, language; reality, imagination) that have framed the human, exploding it ecstatically to its infinity-point, a Now that enfolds a multiverse of possibilities.
Presenters
Maria MargaroniAssociate Professor, English Studies, University of Cyprus, Lefkosia, Cyprus
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
KRISTEVA, WOOLF, TEMPORALITY, BISEXUALITY
