The American Literature Association 2004 Annual Conference
May 27-30, 2004
San Francisco

Proposed Panel:
Ekphrasis in Recent Fiction

Despite its etymologically inherent elasticity, ekphrasis as a critical concept has traditionally been confined to the domain of poetry. Here, ekphrasis suggests a process by which poetry evokes and describes fictive as well as non-fictive works of art (the Homeric Shield, the Keatsian Urn).

For this panel, we seek contributions which explore the implications of what Murray Krieger calls "the ekphrastic impulse" for recent prose fiction. In this respect, several writers immediately come to mind: Paul Auster (film); Richard Powers (photography); Don DeLillo (contemporary visuality); Siri Hustvedt (painting) and certainly countless others.

Papers may address issues such as: the significance of the ekphrastic in narrative; a reconsideration of the ekphrastic object in an age of interart traffic (film, photography, music); the implications of a reconceptualization of ekphrasis for intertextuality; contemporary fiction in a "visual culture."