Novel sensations: modernist fiction and the problem of qualia

Thesis

This thesis examines representations of sensation within modernist novels alongside contemporary philosophical debates over the concept of qualia. Concentrating on the work of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Percy Wyndham Lewis, and Samuel Beckett, it confronts a longstanding critical tradition that has tended to obscure or misunderstand the implications of arguments made by philosophers of mind in relation to literary descriptions of sensation.

That the mind is a thing, and that moder...

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Authors: Day, J

• Publication date: 2014
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-jnk5xdgxd
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: Oxford University, UK
• Language: English
• Keywords: Joyce; novels; sensation; Woolf; modernism; Beckett; modernist; Wyndham Lewis; Russell; qualia; Moore
• Subjects: English Language and Literature