Dept of English & Philosophy: Works In Progress Colloquium

The Department of English and Philosophy hosted its fifth Works in Progress Colloquium in the Cullum Hall Memorial Room. Dr. Cassandra Nelson led the discussion with her piece, “Possessed of a Selfness, a Teeming Soul: Terrorism, Technology, and Transcendence in Don DeLillo’s Mao II.” In it, she considered the way in which technology, belief, and identity are closely linked in Don DeLillo’s fiction, particularly in relation to the creation of material text versus Mass Media. The presentation sparked an extended discussion about what DeLillo refers to as a “zero-sum game” in which, “what terrorists gain, novelists lose.