Sean Pryor
@seanbpryor.bsky.social
Associate Professor of English @UNSW : poetry and poetics : modernism : editor, http://affirmationsmodern.com
Maybe if someone came dressed as a superhero to every meeting with management, all the decisions would be good for staff and students?
rdcu.be/eR9GH
rdcu.be/eR9GH
Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect
npj Mental Health Research - Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect
rdcu.be
November 28, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Maybe if someone came dressed as a superhero to every meeting with management, all the decisions would be good for staff and students?
rdcu.be/eR9GH
rdcu.be/eR9GH
There's a mini-genre of essays borrowing or adapting the title of Arnold's "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time", maybe most obviously Eliot's "The Function of Criticism", but also essays by Wilde, Frye, Spender, Bateson, Leavis, Vendler, Booth, Eagleton. Any others come to mind?
November 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
There's a mini-genre of essays borrowing or adapting the title of Arnold's "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time", maybe most obviously Eliot's "The Function of Criticism", but also essays by Wilde, Frye, Spender, Bateson, Leavis, Vendler, Booth, Eagleton. Any others come to mind?
Reposted by Sean Pryor
This Saturday at 7 pm, two @columbiaup.bsky.social authors, Keegan Cook Finberg and Kristin Grogan discuss their extraordinary new books, POETRY IN GENERAL and STITCH, UNSTITCH: in conversation w/ Christopher Nealon at @redemmas.org! bit.ly/3LAvRYz @keegancf.bsky.social @kristingrogan.bsky.social
Keegan Cook Finberg and Kristin Grogan present "Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public" and "Stitch, Unstitch Modernist Poetry and the World of Work" in conversation w/ Christopher Nealo...
Join us for an evening of rethinking the power and labor of poetry in everyday spaces.
bit.ly
November 14, 2025 at 1:26 AM
This Saturday at 7 pm, two @columbiaup.bsky.social authors, Keegan Cook Finberg and Kristin Grogan discuss their extraordinary new books, POETRY IN GENERAL and STITCH, UNSTITCH: in conversation w/ Christopher Nealon at @redemmas.org! bit.ly/3LAvRYz @keegancf.bsky.social @kristingrogan.bsky.social
Can anyone recommend good recent reflection on the history of and relation between the terms "literary criticism" and "literary study", whether as synonyms or as, say, dividing between them the acts of judgement and analysis, or however else the relation may be understood?
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Can anyone recommend good recent reflection on the history of and relation between the terms "literary criticism" and "literary study", whether as synonyms or as, say, dividing between them the acts of judgement and analysis, or however else the relation may be understood?
Where are we, when the New Left Review has become a potentially offensive primary source?
November 6, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Where are we, when the New Left Review has become a potentially offensive primary source?
Last summer I wrote a short piece about poetry for children, and especially about how much fun rhythm can be. The essay's about fun and it's supposed to be fun to read; it's meant for anyone who loves rhythm as much as kids do. You might like it? southerlylitmag.com.au/wp-content/u...
southerlylitmag.com.au
October 16, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Last summer I wrote a short piece about poetry for children, and especially about how much fun rhythm can be. The essay's about fun and it's supposed to be fun to read; it's meant for anyone who loves rhythm as much as kids do. You might like it? southerlylitmag.com.au/wp-content/u...
Lovely to be at the launch of @southerlylitmag.bsky.social's new issue this evening and to hear from the journal's wonderful new editor, UNSW's very own Roanna Gonsalves. Read the new issue, "First, The Future", here: southerlylitmag.com.au/announcing-s...
October 16, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Lovely to be at the launch of @southerlylitmag.bsky.social's new issue this evening and to hear from the journal's wonderful new editor, UNSW's very own Roanna Gonsalves. Read the new issue, "First, The Future", here: southerlylitmag.com.au/announcing-s...
Here's a new essay I wrote for the Sydney Review of Books, on poetry and computer code in a work by @mezbreeze.bsky.social. With thanks to James Jiang for giving the essay what shape it has. I hope you like it: it's supposed to be fun!
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/on-eq...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/on-eq...
On Equivalence | Sydney Review of Books
Ten years ago, Mez Breeze published ‘\oriGaM[e,]i[,+ U]/’ online. Sean Pryor revisits this work in the context of Breeze’s experiments mixing code and poetry. Can literary-critical tools help close th...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
October 1, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Here's a new essay I wrote for the Sydney Review of Books, on poetry and computer code in a work by @mezbreeze.bsky.social. With thanks to James Jiang for giving the essay what shape it has. I hope you like it: it's supposed to be fun!
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/on-eq...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/on-eq...
UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #7
"Dear AI Reader: Nonhuman Perspective and Evolutionary Thinking in the Human-Machine Relation"
Chris Danta (ANU)
Wednesday, 24 September
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"Dear AI Reader: Nonhuman Perspective and Evolutionary Thinking in the Human-Machine Relation"
Chris Danta (ANU)
Wednesday, 24 September
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
September 9, 2025 at 12:13 AM
UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #7
"Dear AI Reader: Nonhuman Perspective and Evolutionary Thinking in the Human-Machine Relation"
Chris Danta (ANU)
Wednesday, 24 September
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"Dear AI Reader: Nonhuman Perspective and Evolutionary Thinking in the Human-Machine Relation"
Chris Danta (ANU)
Wednesday, 24 September
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
Reposted by Sean Pryor
Now available! Blending Marxist and feminist theory with attentive close readings, STITCH, UNSTITCH is a revelatory materialist account of the values of poetry. buff.ly/DlnVJeY #CreativeLabor #FeministModernism #WagesForHousework #Modernism
September 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Now available! Blending Marxist and feminist theory with attentive close readings, STITCH, UNSTITCH is a revelatory materialist account of the values of poetry. buff.ly/DlnVJeY #CreativeLabor #FeministModernism #WagesForHousework #Modernism
Apropos of nothing, I love the way water beads on kale.
September 4, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Apropos of nothing, I love the way water beads on kale.
What are the best / most interesting / most influential manifestos for and against quantitative or computational literary studies, do you think? (Not Moretti, not Da.)
August 29, 2025 at 5:06 AM
What are the best / most interesting / most influential manifestos for and against quantitative or computational literary studies, do you think? (Not Moretti, not Da.)
UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #6
"The Poetics and Politics of Speculative Biography: Miles Franklin Undercover"
Kerrie Davies (UNSW)
Wednesday, 27 August
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The Poetics and Politics of Speculative Biography: Miles Franklin Undercover"
Kerrie Davies (UNSW)
Wednesday, 27 August
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
July 30, 2025 at 6:05 AM
UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #6
"The Poetics and Politics of Speculative Biography: Miles Franklin Undercover"
Kerrie Davies (UNSW)
Wednesday, 27 August
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The Poetics and Politics of Speculative Biography: Miles Franklin Undercover"
Kerrie Davies (UNSW)
Wednesday, 27 August
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 327, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
Also, isn't "Having a Coke with You" just the most wonderful thing?
July 24, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Also, isn't "Having a Coke with You" just the most wonderful thing?
ON THIS WEEK! UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #5
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
See the comments for an abstract.
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Sydney
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
See the comments for an abstract.
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Sydney
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
July 13, 2025 at 9:26 PM
ON THIS WEEK! UNSW Literary Provocations Hub Seminar #5
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
See the comments for an abstract.
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Sydney
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
See the comments for an abstract.
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Sydney
No need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
Earlier this year I had an essay in English Studies on The Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers (1925), an anthology of mostly modernist writing, and the press have given me this link for 50 free ecopies of the essay. Have a look, if that sounds interesting? www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2EQP3...
Modernism's Book of Scraps: Worldmaking and the Anthology as Medium in the Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers
This article investigates how literary works create worlds by asking about medium. Whereas Eric Hayot, Jonathan Culler, Paul K. Saint-Amour, and others emphasize diegesis and form, this article arg...
www.tandfonline.com
July 4, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Earlier this year I had an essay in English Studies on The Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers (1925), an anthology of mostly modernist writing, and the press have given me this link for 50 free ecopies of the essay. Have a look, if that sounds interesting? www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2EQP3...
UNSW LITERARY PROVOCATIONS HUB SEMINAR #5
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
June 26, 2025 at 4:36 AM
UNSW LITERARY PROVOCATIONS HUB SEMINAR #5
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
"The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading"
Elizabeth Pender (Sydney)
Wednesday, 16 July
3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Robert Webster 335, UNSW Main Campus
There's no need to register, and all are welcome. Come along!
Will says, You're home!
May 26, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Will says, You're home!
It's a small thing, I know, but I can't say how much it meant to see a teenager reading Swann's Way as we were getting off the train at Macarthur in the middle of the afternoon, and so engrossed that I couldn't even catch his eye to say, "Isn't it just wonderful?"
May 16, 2025 at 5:56 AM
It's a small thing, I know, but I can't say how much it meant to see a teenager reading Swann's Way as we were getting off the train at Macarthur in the middle of the afternoon, and so engrossed that I couldn't even catch his eye to say, "Isn't it just wonderful?"
If you had to pick the half dozen best statements on the task of literary criticism from, say, 1700 to today, what would they be?
May 9, 2025 at 1:32 AM
If you had to pick the half dozen best statements on the task of literary criticism from, say, 1700 to today, what would they be?
What should contemporary criticism do with the novels of Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy, and John Rodker, too often ignored by earlier critics? Read Simon During's review of Liz Pender's THE NEW MODERNIST NOVEL: CRITICISM AND THE TASK OF READING, just published in AFFIRMATIONS: tinyurl.com/bdd9hda3.
Elizabeth Pender, The New Modernist Novel: Criticism and the Task of Reading
| Affirmations: of the modern
tinyurl.com
April 30, 2025 at 3:59 AM
What should contemporary criticism do with the novels of Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy, and John Rodker, too often ignored by earlier critics? Read Simon During's review of Liz Pender's THE NEW MODERNIST NOVEL: CRITICISM AND THE TASK OF READING, just published in AFFIRMATIONS: tinyurl.com/bdd9hda3.
When Joshua Clover visited UNSW in 2019, he gave a seminar to postgraduate students on, in the broadest terms, poetry and the world-system, and on, more narrowly, Baraka and di Prima, and on, most of all, a single sentence from Revolutionary Letters #19. It was wonderful, and he'll be much missed.
April 28, 2025 at 10:11 PM
When Joshua Clover visited UNSW in 2019, he gave a seminar to postgraduate students on, in the broadest terms, poetry and the world-system, and on, more narrowly, Baraka and di Prima, and on, most of all, a single sentence from Revolutionary Letters #19. It was wonderful, and he'll be much missed.
I'm looking for examples of literary writing which perform, reflect on, or theorise literary criticism. Pope's "Essay on Criticism" is an obvious instance; Moore's "Poetry" or O'Hara's "Why I Am Not a Painter" not quite what I'm after. Does anything spring to mind?
April 23, 2025 at 2:31 AM
I'm looking for examples of literary writing which perform, reflect on, or theorise literary criticism. Pope's "Essay on Criticism" is an obvious instance; Moore's "Poetry" or O'Hara's "Why I Am Not a Painter" not quite what I'm after. Does anything spring to mind?
SCRIVENER:
Here’s a good world the while. Who is so gross
That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold but says he sees it not?
Bad is the world, and all will come to nought
When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.
—Richard III, 3.6
Here’s a good world the while. Who is so gross
That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold but says he sees it not?
Bad is the world, and all will come to nought
When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.
—Richard III, 3.6
April 17, 2025 at 2:25 AM
SCRIVENER:
Here’s a good world the while. Who is so gross
That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold but says he sees it not?
Bad is the world, and all will come to nought
When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.
—Richard III, 3.6
Here’s a good world the while. Who is so gross
That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold but says he sees it not?
Bad is the world, and all will come to nought
When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.
—Richard III, 3.6
UNSW LITERARY PROVOCATIONS HUB SEMINAR #4
"New Adventures in the Theory of Fiction and of Narrative: A Postgraduate Panel"
Three short talks theorizing fiction and narrative, by Shaye Easton, Meike Heinrich, and Xanthe Muston.
Wednesday, 7 May
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Webster 327, UNSW
All welcome!
"New Adventures in the Theory of Fiction and of Narrative: A Postgraduate Panel"
Three short talks theorizing fiction and narrative, by Shaye Easton, Meike Heinrich, and Xanthe Muston.
Wednesday, 7 May
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Webster 327, UNSW
All welcome!
April 17, 2025 at 12:48 AM
UNSW LITERARY PROVOCATIONS HUB SEMINAR #4
"New Adventures in the Theory of Fiction and of Narrative: A Postgraduate Panel"
Three short talks theorizing fiction and narrative, by Shaye Easton, Meike Heinrich, and Xanthe Muston.
Wednesday, 7 May
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Webster 327, UNSW
All welcome!
"New Adventures in the Theory of Fiction and of Narrative: A Postgraduate Panel"
Three short talks theorizing fiction and narrative, by Shaye Easton, Meike Heinrich, and Xanthe Muston.
Wednesday, 7 May
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Webster 327, UNSW
All welcome!