SynThink         

An Institute for Meta/Physical Pragmatics

Loyola Marymount University

Presents:

Welcome:

Fr. Thomas P. O'Malley, S.J. (President,Loyola Marymount University)

Paul A. Harris (English, Loyola Marymount University)

Nothing: A User's Manual

Brian Rotman (Advanced Computing Center / Art & Design, Ohio State University)

(Author of Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero; Ad Infinitum: The Ghost in Turing's Machine)

"It Don't Mean A Thing, If It Ain't Got That Swing": Some Gestural Thoughts

(Author of Artificial Heart; Periplum or I am the Blaze; The House That Jack Built: The Lectures of Jack Spicer)

Poems Degree Zero

(Author of The Act of Reading; The Implied Reader; The Fictive and the Imaginary)

Mapping Indeterminacies: Experiencing Nothingness

SynThink, the Department of English, and Loyola Marymount University are pleased to hold this first colloquium in honor of Professor Wolfgang Iser, renowned literary critic and theorist.  Professor Iser's pathbreaking work at the University of Konstanz (Constance) founded what would become known as "Reader Response" criticism.  Professor Iser has published work on Walter Pater, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, as well as opened up a method of pursuing "literary anthropology."

Professor Iser is being honored at Loyola Marymount for his generousity of both spirit and intellect.  He has presented his work here in the past, and we take this occasion to enjoy his stimulating presence once again.

Brief Background on W. Iser
On Iser, Anthropology and Literature
 Wolfgang Iser Bibliography
Summary of Iser's Reader ResponseTheory
May '99 U.C. Irvine Colloquium for Iser