Lecture date : 2017-02-06
Since 1961, the OuLiPo, a Parisian collective of writers and mathematicians dedicated to exploring the generative potential of formal structures, has used text both conceptually and materially as a space for invention and play. But a somewhat quieter strain in oulipian inquiry tends toward the treatment of space itself as a sort of text, from Georges Perec’s experiments in exhaustive observation to Michelle Grangaud’s metro-station anagrams to a host of newer in situ compositional techniques. Daniel Levin Becker, the youngest member of the Oulipo, will survey the group’s relationship to the modern urban environment as inspiration, source, and compositional tool.
Daniel Levin Becker is literary editor of The Believer. His first book, Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature, was published by Harvard University Press in 2012.
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