Disordering Disease: Re-historicising the art and literature of Roy Fisher and Jeff Nuttall, 1960’s-1980’s
Award Number
2273629Award Type
StudentshipStatus / Stage
ActiveDates
29 September 2019 -29 September 2023
Duration (calculated)
04 years 00 monthsFunder(s)
AHRCFunding Amount
£0.00Funder/Grant study page
AHRCContracted Centre
Keele UniversityPrincipal Investigator
Gurkiranpreet KaurPI Contact
g.kaur@keele.ac.ukWHO Catergories
Methodologies and approaches for risk reduction researchDisease Type
Dementia (Unspecified)CPEC Review Info
| Reference ID | 784 |
|---|---|
| Researcher | Reside Team |
| Published | 24/07/2023 |
Data
| Award Number | 2273629 |
|---|---|
| Status / Stage | Active |
| Start Date | 20190929 |
| End Date | 20230929 |
| Duration (calculated) | 04 years 00 months |
| Funder/Grant study page | AHRC |
| Contracted Centre | Keele University |
| Funding Amount | £0.00 |
Abstract
Active in the 1960’s-80’s, Roy Fisher (1930-2017) and Jeff Nuttall (1933-2004) were British writers, jazz musicians and artists whose works have either been dismissively categorised as “experimental” or largely forgotten. My research identifies the inadequacies of the term “experimental.” I aim to redefine this “experimentalism” in their poetry, prose and visual art (including paintings, drawings, figurines and pop-out booklets). In its place I will be building on the critical paradigms established by Sass, Jameson, Deleuze and Guattari who relate experimental Modernist and Postmodernist art to madness. Their models make it possible to identify diseases and disorders such as schizophrenia, trauma, delusion, dementia and depression as symptoms of cultural anxieties that affect the body both mentally and physically in Fisher’s and Nuttall’s work. This fresh, interdisciplinary thesis contributes to and connects diverging fields to re-historicise both writers.
The project will reorient the current state of criticism on Fisher and Nuttall as it remains limited in volume and scope. Critics such as Robert Sheppard situate Fisher and Nuttall within the British Poetry Revival 1960’s-70’s
Aims
1. Re-historicise Fisher, Nuttall and their art practices including poetry, prose and visual art in relation to diseases and disorders.
2. Locate the relationship between “experimental” art practices and their correlation to mental diseases and disorders and how they affect the body.
3. Advance the conceptualisation of “experimental” texts, viewing them in terms of cultural anxiety and resituating the work of both practitioners in relation to “madness” in Modernism (e.g. Sass) and Postmodernism (e.g. Jameson).