Siri Hustvedt Research Articles

Caring about things in Siri Hustvedt's The Blindfold

Caring about things in Siri Hustvedt's The Blindfold

Banned Emotions: Figuring the Feelings of Unwanted People

Metaphors for culturally “banned” emotions such as prolonged anger reveal what is at stake, politically, in representing human emotions. Expressions such as “clinging,” “holding on,” and “letting go” refer to bodily experiences, but they also deliver ideological impact, validating some people’s emotional experiences while dismissing those of others. To examine the ways that human physiology and cultural ideology combine in emotion metaphors, this study compares the representations of jilted women’s emotions in Virgil’s Aeneid, Rudyard Kipling’s “The Phantom Rickshaw,” and Siri Hustvedt’s The Summer without Men. The study draws on John Bowlby’s theory of attachment, Lisa Feldman Barrett’s conceptual act theory of emotions, and Sara Ahmed’s and Sianne Ngai’s cultural criticism of the ways emotions are represented in political writing and literary fiction. The essay argues that metaphors for culturally discouraged emotions—such refusing to “move on”—perform a hegemonic function. By making those less powerful feel ashamed of their anger, emotion metaphors may work to suppress cries against injustice.

A Feminist Approach to Popular Philosophy: Classifying Recent Work by Sarah Bakewell, Laura Kipnis and Siri Hustvedt

In this article, I ask the question: what might a feminist approach to the popular philosophy genre look like? I note some of the seminal texts in the genre of popular philosophy in recent years – particularly the work of A.C. Grayling and Alain de Botton – and demonstrate how these celebrated works fail to embody feminist principles. I then posit three recent works as possible exhibits of feminist popular philosophy: Sarah Bakewell's biography of Montaigne titled How to Live, Laura Kipnis's polemical creative non-fiction work, Against Love and Siri Hustvedt's post September 11 novel, The Sorrows of an American.

Illness as Assemblage

This article explores illness as an assemblage of bodies, discourses, and practices by tracing a genealogy of the condition hystero-epilepsy in order to show the precarity of dominant bio-psychiatric ideology in the present. I read Siri Hustvedt’s case study of her own nervous condition with and against other histories of nerves, including Charcot’s treatment of hystero-epilepsy in the 1870s, Foucault’s treatment of hysteria, simulation, and the ‘neurological body’ presented in his lectures in 1974, and Elizabeth Wilson’s recent treatment of the Freudian concept of ‘somatic compliance.’ I assemble this eclectic hystero-epileptic archive not in order to present a definitive history of hystero-epilepsy, but rather to think about how illness is made, unmade, and remade in the clinic and narrative.

Touching Brains

In this essay, I focus on the portrayal of physical brains in contemporary fiction, with a particular focus on three novels: Siri Hustvedt’s The Sorrows of an American , Ian McEwan’s Saturday , and John Wray’s Lowboy . These novels represent a common literary phenomenon: the dramatization of a fantasy whereby touching brains may reveal the immaterial self. Building on William A. Cohen’s concept of material interiority, I argue that the literary portrayal of this fantasy challenges traditional understandings of interiority because they represent mental experience as a product of dynamic relationships among brain, body, social relations, and environment.

Life Sciences and Life Writing

Recent attempts to combine the life sciences with the practice and study of life writing rely on the common basis of a changed research environment about the constitution and conception of life. New fields of research, such as the Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine, chart the way for a cross-disciplinary cooperation, which overcomes C. P. Snow’s claim of two distinct cultures. Both scientists and writers experience and describe aspects of organic life to understand human nature, often in comparison to animal behavior, with an ecological concern for the preservation of the biosphere. In this endeavor they acquire new systems of knowledge and make use of the art of narrative self-presentation. The interaction of the life sciences and life writing in autobiographies and autobiographical fiction of the Canadian zoologist David Suzuki, the Harvard myrmecologist E. O. Wilson, and the New York novelist Siri Hustvedt ranges from the use of evolutionary biological models of life via environmental activism to the insights of neuroscience. In all instances, the science and life writers recognize the advantage of life writing for the presentation of scientific ideas to a larger audience in publications or on TV.

Marriage and moral perfectionism in Siri Hustvedt and Stanley Cavell

Perfectionism is a moral outlook developed in the writings of the contemporary American philosopher, Stanley Cavell. In an idiosyncratic exploration of romantic relationship and modern marriage Cavell attends to perfectionism as he finds it in the film comedies and tragedies of 1930s' and 1940s' Hollywood. Foregrounding the Cavellian emphasis on ideal marriage as re-marriage this article explores relationship and repetition in Siri Hustvedt's The Summer Without Men (2011). I argue that Hustvedt's novel is directly relevant to Cavell's philosophical assessment of the self and its perfectibility within a marital union. Philosopher and novelist part ways, I argue, in the rigidity of Cavell's genre construction.

Present Women/Absent Men in Siri Hustvedt’s The Summer without Men (2011)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 This article analyzes how Siri Hustvedt’s protagonist Mia Fredricksen in the novel The Summer without Men (2011) falls ill from the absence of her husband and men in general and how the presence of women helps her to cope with her illness. Mia’s illness is seen as a postmodern crisis that must be dealt with by means of narrative expression.

Ekphrasis Refigured: Writing Seeing in Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved

Noting the extensive and sustained engagement with visual media in many contemporary American novels, this essay argues that the notion of ekphrasis as a critical notion must be reconceptualized in order to accommodate the complexity of the relations between new literary expressions and the visual.

Authorship and Meta-fiction in Carol Shields’ ‘Unless’ and Siri Hustvedt’s ‘The Summer without Men’

Authorship and Meta-fiction in Carol Shields’ ‘Unless’ and Siri Hustvedt’s ‘The Summer without Men’

Pleasure and Peril: Dynamic Forces of Power and Desire in Siri Hustvedt's The Blindfold

Nearly 20 years after its publication in 1992, Siri Hustvedt's richly complex debut novel, The Blindfold, continues to be fertile, yet neglected, ground for scholars to plow. As Kristiaan Versluys noted, Hustvedt's debut novel has sunk into oblivion (99) after its predominantly positive reception. (1) The Blindfold explores, among other themes, the dynamic quality of power and the significant and disturbing role it plays in sexual relationships. This essay analyzes Hustvedt's depiction of world that thrives on such precarious forces, arguing that Hustvedt represents power as strongly connected to desire and both forces as having transforming influence on one's sense of self. In four separate, non-chronologically recounted yet thematically connected, mini-narratives Iris reflects back on her confrontation with power, madness and desire while graduate student at Columbia University. In part one she is employed as research assistant by the enigmatic Mr. Morning, who sets bizarre tasks whose point seems to be his gaining control over her. Part two sketches the emergence of triadic relationship between Iris, her distant boyfriend, Stephen, and their manipulative photographer friend, George, whose portrait of Iris increases the tensions between all three, eventually leading to the implosion of the relationship. Part three sees Iris admitted to the hospital for an incapacitating migraine, where she experiences increasing fear and paranoia toward demented roommate. In the final narrative her work assisting Professor Rose with his translation of German novella leads Iris to bring the novella's protagonist to life when she obsessively engages in cross-dressing on the New York streets. She is rescued from this addiction by the professor, only to begin clandestine sexual relationship with him that ends in disaster. Parts two and four of the novel form the central pillars of my argument, garlanded as they are with textual references that illustrate the ambiguity of power and its relation to notions of speech/silence and seeing/ blindness. The Blindfold's power dynamic not been adequately considered by critics who have written on the work. Tracy Johnson looks at Iris's construction and subversion of female identity within social power structures, but one-sidedly concludes that she remains victim (58). Regarding the control that men exert over Iris, Versluys more insightfully argues submission is something she invites and simultaneously abhors (100). I will argue that the multifaceted nature of power causes the protagonist to experience nothing less than self-shattering, dangerous destabilization of any sense of personal identity. If it is impossible to ascertain whether one is in control of situation, then it also becomes impossible to consider oneself unified subject, centered around solid core. The forces of power raise critical challenge in that they elude strict classification. The subtle movements between states of mastery and seeming powerlessness that Iris experiences, and her ambivalence toward her submission, indicate that Hustvedt's work does not express definitive stance on power relations. The oscillation Hustvedt depicts between being in possession of power and being in powerless position suggests that power and its effects should not be regarded as static forces. Jeffrey Weeks argues, no longer appears as homogeneous force which can be straightforwardly expressed or captured. Power ... can be seen as mobile, heterogeneous, insistent and malleable, giving rise to various forms of domination, of which the sexual is one, and producing constant forms of challenge and resistance (9). The multiple forms of power showcased in Hustvedt's novel, which Carole Morin describes as a book of successful ambiguities (6), question such binaries as control/loss of control, self/other, and active/passive. Power relations are revealed to be much more complex than the polarization of power and powerlessness seems to suggest. …

A well-grounded approach to the mind-body problem

The Shaking Woman Or A History of My Nerves Siri Hustvedt Henry Holt and Company; 2010. There is a widely held conviction in medical circles that all can benefit from sharing the diverse fruits of scientific knowledge. Still, the term ‘scientific knowledge’ covers a lot of conceptual ground

The Sorrows of an American: A Novelby Siri Hustvedt. New York, Henry Holt and Co., 2008, 320 pp., $25.00.

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ForumFull AccessThe Sorrows of an American: A NovelANDREEA L. SERITAN M.D.,ANDREEA L. SERITAN M.D.Search for more papers by this author,Published Online:1 Dec 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.08071129AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The Sorrows of an American is the fourth novel published by author Siri Hustvedt. It consists of several interwoven stories whose protagonists are two adult children of a Norwegian immigrant family and takes place during the year following their father’s death. At times the writing is sheer stream of consciousness, swiftly grafting details of each story on the others, so the novel’s central line becomes a bit difficult to follow. It is, however, apparent that this is a novel about the archetypal father, as father figures are central throughout the book. Indeed, the acknowledgments reveal that the book’s scaffolding leans on original excerpts from the journal written and left behind by the author’s father. Erik Davidsen is a New York psychiatrist whose emotionally impoverished life after a divorce, focused almost exclusively on his work, suddenly becomes more animated with the appearance of his two tenants: Miranda, a graphic artist of Jamaican descent, and her little daughter Eggy. Eggy embraces Erik as her father figure and while he enjoys the role, the three of them become victims of a stalker. Unseen, Eggy’s biological father is watching them and leaving anonymous photos behind. At some point, he breaks into the house and captures an image of a very angry Erik raising a hammer at the perpetrator. The photo becomes part of an exhibit, which, as luck would have it, is attended by at least one of Erik’s patients. Interestingly, when confronted about his behavior, the stalker explains that Erik’s threatening demeanor in that moment reminded him of his own father’s relentless anger and ascribes this to “transference.” Erik is in a difficult situation, as he is sexually attracted to Miranda, who is ambivalent about her love object, although she recognizes who the more stable man is.Inga, Erik’s sister, is a widow living with her 17-year-old daughter, Sonia, who has been traumatized not only by her father’s death from cancer, but also by watching the Twin Towers collapse on September 11 from a neighborhood window. The novel is set against the backdrop of the hurt city, with the horror returning in Sonia’s nightmares and in a moving poem she writes about her father’s decay and the day we will forever mourn. Inga is harassed by a journalist who appears to know a scandalous secret about her dead husband, a much celebrated author and playwright. Sonia is attuned to her mother’s pain but grieving herself, at the same time as Inga is bewildered by unraveling family secrets.The central thread of the novel is a letter that Erik and Inga find in their departed father’s papers, which brings them back to Minnesota in order to uncover mysterious past events. The pursuit of the truth behind the letter and the reconstruction of their father’s life story based on his journal and people’s recollections about him are cathartic for both Inga and Erik. Getting closer to their father as they retrace his early steps amongst the Minnesota landscape is a healing experience. Sprinkled with depictions of psychotherapeutic exchanges and brief dissections of transference and countertransference processes, as well as with modern psychiatric terms, the book communicates the author’s sophisticated fund of knowledge and psychological insight. However, it is not clear who her target audience is; the neuropsychoanalytic name dropping may not ring a bell to lay readers, while those attracted by a story about the immigrant’s plights might look for a clearer description of life in the New World, as viewed by those transplanted around the middle of the past century. And finally, psychiatrists hoping to relax with a book placed outside of specialty journals or case conferences may be disappointed, as the novel keeps the readers on their toes with its intricate threads and throes.Sacramento, Calif.Book review accepted for publication August 2008 (doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.08071129). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 165Issue 12 December, 2008Pages 1617-1618THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY December 2008 Volume 165 Number 12 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 December 2008 Published in print 1 December 2008

GOYA'S BODIES

The Yale ReviewVolume 93, Issue 3 p. 34-54 GOYA'S BODIES THE LIVING, THE DEAD, AND THE GHOSTLY SIRI HUSTVEDT, SIRI HUSTVEDT Author of the novels Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl , and What I Loved , and the essay collection Yonder. Her essay is from a forthcoming volume from Princeton Architectural Press. She lives in Brooklyn.Search for more papers by this author SIRI HUSTVEDT, SIRI HUSTVEDT Author of the novels Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl , and What I Loved , and the essay collection Yonder. Her essay is from a forthcoming volume from Princeton Architectural Press. She lives in Brooklyn.Search for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0044-0124.2005.00921.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume93, Issue3July 2005Pages 34-54 RelatedInformation

The Pleasures of Bewilderment

The Yale ReviewVolume 91, Issue 4 p. 85-93 The Pleasures of Bewilderment Siri Hustvedt, Siri HustvedtSearch for more papers by this author Siri Hustvedt, Siri HustvedtSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/0044-0124.00752AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume91, Issue4October 2003Pages 85-93 RelatedInformation