PHASE & OCCASION
ART & POETRY IN MALTA
Introduction by Prof. Ivan Callus
31 poets illustrated with works by Norbert Francis Attard.
Published by Norbert Francis Attard Foundation
ISBN 978-9918-0-0337-2
2024
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€ 75
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Is this an art book? Or is it a poetry anthology? Or is it both – or not quite either?
Think of Phase and Occasion as an exploration of the reciprocities of art and poetry, and the generosity of each towards the other. The poetry it gives space to, by writers mostly from Malta but also from elsewhere, enables a retrospective look at the art of Norbert Francis Attard. That is because Norbert’s art is what the poems here, stretching from the seventies to the present, are in dialogue, sometimes in contention, with. It is therefore tempting to see the turns of phase – and the play of occasion and encounter – across and between Norbert’s art and the evolving tradition of Maltese poetry mapping themselves onto each other. Would this be correct? Yes – and no. It is why there is much to think on here: about art, poetry, their affinities and differences – and more besides.
INTRODUCTION
IVAN CALLUS
My main areas of interest are contemporary literature and literary theory. My PhD was obtained at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University in 1998, following research into the cahiers d’anagrammes of Ferdinand de Saussure and their influence on literature and literary theory. Aspects of this research have since appeared in a number of journal articles, and the fascinatingly enigmatic nature of the anagrammes is something I have continued to investigate in more recent work.
I am the founding co-editor, with James Corby, of CounterText: A Journal for the Study of the Post-Literary, launched with Edinburgh University Press in 2015. The journal’s focus is on literature’s evolving identities and its directions in contemporary culture. It’s a focus that complements another strong interest: posthumanism. With Stefan Herbrechter, I am the co-editor of the Critical Posthumanisms book series published by Brill. I am also co-director of the Critical Posthumanism Network (criticalposthumanism.net).
I have co-edited six books centring on intersections between literature and various areas of literary theory: Discipline and Practice: The (Ir)resistibility of Theory (Bucknell University Press, 2004); Post-Theory/Culture/Criticism (Rodopi, 2004); Cy-Borges: Memories of Posthumanism in the Work of Jorge Luis Borges (Bucknell University Press, 2009); Posthumanist Shakespeares (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Style in Theory: Between Literature and Philosophy (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013); European Posthumanism (Routledge, 2016). I have published various articles and book chapters on contemporary narrative, poststructuralist literary theory and comparative literature, including work which has appeared in journals like Angelaki, Arcadia, Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, Comparative Critical Studies, CounterText, EJES, Electronic Book Review, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Parallax, Subjectivity, and Word and Text.
EDITOR
MARIA THEUMA
Maria Theuma is a researcher and artist with an interdisciplinary practice. She is the writer of Frank u Jien (2024), an installation about the life and work of modernist artist Frank Portelli. Other recent writings of hers appear in Aphroconfuso (2023) and Scintillas: New Maltese Writing (London: Praspar Press, 2022). Her visual work has been exhibited across various venues, including Spazju Kreattiv and the Malta Society of Arts. Maria holds a PhD in English and lectures within the Department of Digital Arts at the University of Malta. She is the editor of the volume of essays Decadence, Now (Risch-Rotkreuz: Impeached, 2023) and has had articles published in CounterText (University of Edinburgh) and the Journal of Posthumanism (Transnational Press London), among others. Her research interests cover posthumanism, feminist literary theory, comparative literature and contemporary aesthetics.