People

Associate Professor Chris Danta

Associate Professor

BA (ANU), BA (hons) (Melbourne), PhD. (Monash)

Centre for Modernism Studies in Australia, School of the Arts & Media

Contact

Email:

c.danta@unsw.edu.au

Phone:

+61 2 9385 2282

Fax:

+61 2 9385 6812

Location:

211, Level 2 Robert Webster

Campus:

Kensington Campus

Fields: British and Irish Literature, Comparative Literature Studies

Tags: Languages and Literature

I did a BA at ANU, received honours in English at the University of Melbourne, before completing a PhD. in Comparative Literature at Monash University. From 2009-2011, I was an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow. I am currently associate professor in English at UNSW.

I have sole authored two books, co-edited two books and co-edited three special issues of journals. I have published articles in international peer-reviewed journals such as New Literary History, SubStance, Angelaki, Textual Practice, Literature and Theology and Modernism/modernity.

My research operates at the intersection of literary theory, philosophy, science and theology. My first book, Literature Suspends Death: Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot (Bloomsbury, 2011), theorises the idea of literature in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot based on the treatment by these writers of the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. My second book, Animal Fables after Darwin: Literature, Speciesism, and Metaphor (Cambridge University Press, 2018), emerges from an ARC-funded Discovery project and demonstrates how the rise of the biological sciences in the second half of the nineteenth century provides literary writers such as Stevenson, H. G. Wells, T. F. Powys, David Garnett, Franz Kafka and J. M. Coetzee with new material for the fable, new ways to exploit the grotesque comparison of human and ape. After Darwin, it claims, certain writers turn to the beast fable to express a new kind of biological existentialism that problematises traditional philosophical and theological conceptions of the human by thinking the human predominantly in relation to its biological milieu.

Publications

Books

Danta C, 2018, Animal Fables after Darwin Literature, Speciesism, and Metaphor, Cambridge University Press, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108552394
Danta C, 2011, Literature Suspends Death: Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot, Original, Continuum, London and New York
Danta C; Kossew SR; Murphet JS, (eds.), 2011, Strong Opinions: J. M. Coetzee and the Authority of Contemporary Fiction, Original, Continuum, London & New York, http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=159194&SubjectId=997&Subject2Id=1410

Book Chapters

Danta C, 2014, 'Derrida: Derrida and the test of secrecy', in Interpreting Abraham: Journeys to Moriah, pp. 187 - 209
Danta C;Groth H, 2014, 'Introduction: Between Minds', in Danta C; Groth H (ed.), Mindful Aesthetics: Literature and the Science of Mind, edn. 1, Bloomsbury, New York, pp. 1 - 14, http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472543707
Danta C, 2013, 'Animal Bachelors and Animal Brides: Fabulous Metamorphosis in Kafka and Garnett', in Moran B; Salzani C (ed.), Philosophy and Kafka, edn. Original, Lexington Books, Lanham, pp. 123 - 140
Danta C, 2012, '"The cold illucid world": The Poetics of Gray in Cormac McCarthy's The Road', in Murphet J; Steven M (ed.), Styles of Extinction: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, edn. Original, Continuum, New York, pp. 9 - 26
Danta C, 2011, 'Introduction J.M. Coetzee: The Janus Face of Authority', in Danta C; Kossew S; Murphet J (ed.), Strong Opinions: J.M. Coetzee and the Authority of Contemporary Fiction, edn. Original, Continuum, London and New York, pp. xi - xx
Danta C, 2011, 'The Melancholy Ape: Coetzee's Fables of Animal Finitude', in Danta C; Kossew S; Murphet J (ed.), Strong Opinions: J.M. Coetzee and the Authority of Contemporary Fiction, edn. Original, Continuum, London and New York, pp. 125 - 140
Danta C, 2011, 'Revolution at a Distance: Jane Austen and Personalised History', in Russo S; Napton D; Cousins AD (ed.), The French Revolution and the British Novel in the Romantic Period, edn. Original, Peter Lang, New York and Oxford, pp. 137 - 152
Danta C, 2008, 'The Animal Substitutes', in Lloyd F (ed.), The Finlay Lloyd Book About Animals, edn. Original, Finlay Lloyd Publishers, Braidwood, NSW, pp. 87 - 97
Danta C, 2005, '`The Absolutely Dark Moment of the Plot`: Blanchot`s Abraham', in HIll L; Nelson B; Vardoulakis D (ed.), After Blanchot: Literature, Criticism, Philosophy, edn. First, Univesity of Delaware Press, Newark, pp. 205 - 221

Journal articles

Danta C, 2018, 'The theology of personification: Allegory and nonhuman agency in the work of t. F. Powys', Modernism - Modernity, vol. 25, pp. 709 - 728, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mod.2018.0056
Danta C, 2018, 'Eurydice's curse: J. M. Coetzee and the prospect of death', Australian Literary Studies, vol. 33, http://dx.doi.org/10.20314/als.5a6d5f0afc
Danta C, 2015, 'Acrobats and ascetics: Peter Sloterdijk and the aesthetics of verticality', European Journal of English Studies, vol. 19, pp. 66 - 80, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2015.1004918
Danta C, 2014, '"Might sovereignty be devouring?" Derrida and the fable', Sub-Stance, vol. 43, pp. 37 - 49, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.2014.0014
Chrulew M;Danta C, 2014, 'Fabled thought: On Jacques Derrida's the beast & the sovereign', Sub-Stance, vol. 43, pp. 3 - 9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.2014.0023
Danta C, 2013, 'The new solitude: Melancholy anthropomorphism and the molecular gaze', English Studies in Canada, vol. 39, pp. 71 - 86, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/esc.2013.0017
Danta C, 2013, 'Derrida and the test of secrecy', Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, vol. 18, pp. 61 - 75, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2013.804991
Danta C, 2012, 'The future will have been animal: Dr Moreau and the aesthetics of monstrosity', Textual Practice, vol. 26, pp. 687 - 705, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2012.696490
Danta C, 2010, 'The Metaphysical Cut: Darwin and Stevenson on Vivisection', Victorian Review: an interdisciplinary journal of victorian studies, vol. 36, pp. 51 - 65, http://web.uvic.ca/victorianreview/contents.html
Danta C, 2009, 'Kafka and Cultural Zionism: Dates in Palestine', MODERNISM-MODERNITY, vol. 16, pp. 629 - 631, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000270428700024&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a
Danta C, 2009, 'Kafka and Photography', MODERNISM-MODERNITY, vol. 16, pp. 629 - 631, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000270428700025&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a
Danta C, 2009, 'Coetzee`s Animal Afterlives', Southerly, vol. 69, http://www.brandl.com.au/Southerly/southerly%20longpaddock/1-69/danta.html
Danta C;Vardoulakis D, 2008, 'The Political Animal Foreword', SUB-STANCE, vol. 37, pp. 3 - 6, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.0.0025
Danta C, 2008, 'Kafka's Mousetrap: The fable of the dying voice', Sub-Stance, vol. 37, pp. 152 - 168, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.0.0014
Danta C;Vardoulakis D, 2008, 'The political animal', Sub-Stance, vol. 37, pp. 3 - 6
Danta C, 2008, 'Sarah's laughter: Kafka's Abraham', Modernism - Modernity, vol. 15, pp. 343 - 359, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mod.2008.0048
Danta C, 2007, 'The poetics of distance: Kierkegaards Abraham', Literature and Theology, vol. 21, pp. 160 - 177, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frm009
Danta C, 2007, 'Like a dog . . . like a lamb: Becoming sacrificial animal in Kafka and Coetzee', New Literary History, vol. 38, pp. 721 - 737, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2008.0011
Danta C, 2006, 'Two versions of death: The transformation of the literary corpse in Kafka and Stevenson', Textual Practice, vol. 20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502360600703302
Danta C, 2005, 'The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred', COLLOQUY-TEXT THEORY CRITIQUE, pp. 328 - 330, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000421901300024&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a
Danta C, 2005, 'Disclosing Spaces: On Painting' by Andrew Benjamin', AUSTRALIAN HUMANITIES REVIEW, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000219043600006&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a

Conference Presentations

Danta C, 2008, 'The Scientific Ape: Robert Louis Stevenson and the Post-Darwinian Fable', presented at RLS 2008, Bergamo, Italy, 12 - 13 July 2007
Danta C, 2005, 'Transuming Abraham: Fear and Trembling and the Poetics of Identification', presented at 1st International Kierkegaard in Asia Conference, University of Melbourne, 01 December 2005
Danta C, 2004, 'The Absolutely Dark Moment of the Plot', presented at Blanchotâ€™s Abraham, International Colloquium: â€œBlanchot, the Obscureâ€, 01 January 2004

Edited Books

Danta C;Groth H, 2014, Mindful Aesthetics, Bloomsbury, New York

Teaching and Supervision

I have taught the following courses at UNSW: Introduction to Literary Genre; 19th Century Prose; The English Canon; Modernism and Modernity; Jane Austen in Context; Crime Fiction, Theatre and Film and Literary Animals, Monsters and Machines.

Engagement and Professional contributions

I am currently president of the Australasian Association for Literature: https://aalorg.wordpress.com/