Modernist Poetry as Forensics

Forensics is the investigative practice necessary for criminal and/or legal proceedings. Forensics is often connected to particular state apparatuses known as the criminal justice system.

In contrast to the criminal justice system, modernist literature deploys forensics for different, often critical, purposes. Drawing on writers such as Gertrude Stein, Aimé Césaire and Anna Mendelssohn we will explore how modernist writers address crimes that the state doesn't address, or is actively complicit in, crimes of capital, race and misogyny.

According to Chrissie Dobson, "Modernist Forensics are in opposition to state forensics as they seek ambiguity as opposed to facts. Yet at the same time, they are like state forensics because they look into things with great scrutiny, picking them apart, emphasising the material over abstract." In this session, we will be joined by Chrissie Dobson to discuss what is forensic about modernism, and how modernism subverts forensics.