Dr Chris Danta
Contact
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 a senior lecturer in English at UNSW.
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 theorizes the idea of literature in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot based on the treatment by these writers of the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. I have co-edited two collections of essays on the recent fiction of J. M. Coetzee and a special issue of the journal SubStance on the "Political Animal". I have published articles on Kierkegaard, Kafka, Blanchot, Coetzee, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jane Austen in international peer-reviewed journals such as Textual Practice, Literature & Theology, New Literary History, SubStance, Angelaki and Modernism/modernity.
I have recently completed a book that emerges from an ARC-funded Discovery project on the evolution of the animal fable after Darwin. Animal Fables after Darwin: Literature, Speciesism, and Metaphor will be published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press. The book 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 problematizes traditional philosophical and theological conceptions of the human by thinking the human predominantly in relation to its biological milieu.
Publications
- Danta C, 2018, Animal Fables after Darwin Literature, Speciesism, and Metaphor, Cambridge University Press
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 Blanchot’s Abraham, International Colloquium: “Blanchot, the Obscureâ€, 01 January 2004
- Danta C;Groth H, 2014, Mindful Aesthetics, Bloomsbury, New York
Books
Book Chapters
Journal articles
Conference Presentations
Edited Books
Teaching and Supervision
I mainly teach 19th and 20th century English literature. 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.
I supervise topics in the areas of literary animal studies,literary theory, continental philosophy, 19th and 20th century European literature and science fiction.
Completed projects:
George Damalas, "The Sonic Animal in Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells and Nineteenth-Century Fiction" (MRes-2015)
Amy Parish, "Strange Intimacies: Autre-biography, Failure and the Body in J. M. Coetzee and Paul Auster" (PhD-2017)
Current students:
Donald Johnston (joint with Paul Patton), "What Can a Body Do? Deleuze, Health and the Elaboration of a Postcolonial Symptomatological Methodology"(PhD)
George Damalas, "The Literary Animal in Sacred Space" (PhD)
Isabelle Wentworth, "Time and Empathy within the Context of Cognitive Literary Criticism"(PhD)
Emma Armstrong, "The Anthropocene and Science Fiction"(PhD)
Engagement and Professional contributions
I am currently president of the Australasian Association for Literature: https://aalorg.wordpress.com/