Series:

Cultural Dialectics

3 total works

Cover of The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh’s letters are frequently admired for theirexceptional literary quality, but there is no extended critique of thisaspect of his writing. Addressing key constellations of metaphors andideas, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh shows the remarkableimaginative coherence underlying the painter’s correspondence andcharts van Gogh’s evolving conception of himself as anartist. 

Cover of "My Own Portrait in Writing"

"My Own Portrait in Writing"

by Patrick Grant

Published 1 January 2015

A reading of Van Gogh's collected correspondence by way of aset of ideas about dialogue and self-fashioning derived especially fromMikhail Bakhtin. Patrick Grant's central claim is that VanGogh's letters raise from within themselves questions and issuesto which they also respond dialogically, thereby thematizing theprocess of self-fashioning within their own discourse. The manner inwhich they do so is a marker of the specifically literary dimension ofVan Gogh's writing. Complementing Grant's earlier criticalanalysis, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh: A Critical Study(AU Press, 2014), this study brings Van Gogh's collectedcorrespondence fully into the domain of modern literary studies, bothcritical and theoretical-as is long overdue.

Cover of Imperfection

Imperfection

by Patrick Grant

Published 1 January 2012
"... aspirations to perfection awaken us to our actualimperfection." It is in the space between these aspirations andour inability to achieve them that Grant reflects upon imperfection.Grant argues that an awareness of imperfection, defined as bothsuffering and the need for justice, drive us to an unrelenting searchfor perfection, freedom, and self-determination. The twenty-one briefchapters of Imperfection develop this governing idea as itrelates to the present situation of the God debate, modern ethnicconflicts, and the pursuit of freedom in relation to the uncertaintiesof personal identity and the quest for self-determination.