School of Culture and Communication

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Variations of difference

Mirabito, Angelina. (University of Melbourne, 2009)
Temporality and Australian narratives of racial science; or, thesis as lynch mob

Low, Nicolas (University of Melbourne, 2008)
Resisting Infinity: The Creative Practice of Aporetic Short Fiction

Smith, Soren Tae ( 2023-02)

This thesis offers a framework for the written story as a creative-philosophical practice, in line with some of its earliest uses since 1904, when Franz Kafka began to write the stories of Betrachtung (Contemplation). Freeing the story from comparison with other forms, this project gives a positive reading of its most apparent feature: aporia, which goes under various names in short fiction theory, including difficulty, disorder, fragmentation, impressionism and subjectivity. Through concepts from Simone Weil and Sarah Kofman, and taking influential examples from the brief writings of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar and David Foster Wallace, this thesis aligns short fiction's creative practice with a long-standing and clear philosophical aim: shared, transformative enquiry. The first part of this thesis is a critical study; the second part, Remainders, is a suite of original brief writings strongly linked to the critical component. Through both parts, this practice-led thesis brings a new understanding of our written stories as active zones of preservation, connection and desire.