You-Narration in the Millennial Novel

Denise Wong, Postdoctoral Researcher at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany, presents a talk in the series “Current Research in Narrative Studies,” the research seminar of the British and Irish Association for Narrative Studies. These seminars are held in a hybrid format, with speakers and audience from the Association membership around the country, hosted at York by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Narrative Studies.

Abstract:

Although a consensus on what the ‘millennial novel’ is has yet to be reached, it is a typically derogatory term used to describe contemporary novels authored by a generation of writers born between 1981 and 1996, and characterised by rootlessness, anxiety, ennui and a general detachment or disenfranchisement from governing socioeconomic structures of neoliberal modern life. This paper takes into consideration emerging theorisations of the millennial novel while focusing on the use of autodiegetic second-person narration, that is, cases in which an often latent narrating-I located in the narrative future addresses a present you-narratee self. I argue, firstly, that autodiegetic you-narration operates according to the logic of the future perfect tense, or the anticipation of retrospection, in more explicit ways than other narrative forms; and secondly, that it formalises the phenomenological structure of shame.

Bio:

Denise Wong is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. She has published work in Textual Practice, DIEGESIS, and the Journal of Asian American Studies. She is also Reviews Co-Editor of C21: Journal of 21st-century Writings and she is currently writing a monograph on you-narration in the contemporary.