Will followed the research interests: Reading (Psychology), Psychology of Reading, and Neuroaesthetics
Will started following the journal Eighteenth-century fiction.
Will started following the work of Julie Candler Hayes, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures/ French.
Queen Mary, University of London
Faculty Member, Comparative Literature
Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature
About
I am just finishing a book entitled Sade, or the Ethics of Fictional Violence, which builds on my previous work on eighteenth-century fiction, and on narrative theory. This study examines the reception of Sade in twentieth-century criticism and theory, and the circumstances of his institutionalization as an author of literature. It uses Sade as a test case for the exploration of theoretical questions of authorship and readership, and looks at the experience of reading Sadean fiction to revisit the question of the death of the author, and the controversy that has surrounded the figure of the implied author. It goes on to explore the ethical issues raised by the reading of violent pornography as literature.
