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Art for Art’s Sake: Writing Aesthetic Fiction in an Age of Literary Moralism
Wednesday February 28 at 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm EST
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Join American novelists A. Natasha Joukovsky (The Portrait of a Mirror) and Tara Isabella Burton (Here in Avalon; Social Creature) for a salon on the nature of novelistic responsibility, the prevailing ethos of historico-political utility in contemporary fiction and its discontents, and the literary pursuit of beauty and truth.
In her 2022 essay for Lit Hub “Anxiety and Irresponsibility: What Is to Be Done About Literary Moralism?” Joukovsky argues against the “moral medicine” view of literature, offering ten specific tips for writing aesthetic fiction—fiction that justifies itself. In this salon, we will dive into these ideas one-by-one, from egoic disarmament to Oscar Wilde’s famous claim: “All art is quite useless.”
Topics discussed will include:
- Character development, mimetic desire, and plot.
- Literary research, influence, allusion, and plagiarism.
- The separation vs. conflation of novelistic and marketing concerns.
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Recommended Materials
“Anxiety and Irresponsibility: What is to Be Done About Literary Moralism?” by A. Natasha Joukovsky
“Why we love stories about messy rich people . . . and hate ourselves for it” by A. Natasha Joukovsky
