Present Tense

Armen Avanessian is Visiting Faculty in the MA Aesthetics and Politics program in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, USA, and, since 2014, Visiting Lecturer at the Art Institute, FHN Academy Basel, Switzerland. Previously he has been a Visiting Fellow in the German Department at Columbia University and in the German Department at Yale University. From 2007-2014 he taught at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Free University Berlin, Germany. He is editor in chief at Merve Verlag Berlin. In 2012 he founded a bilingual research platform on Speculative Poetics, including a series of events, translations and publications: www.spekulative-poetik.de. Anke Hennig is a theorist of literature and visual culture. Currently she is teaching at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, UK, and organising the international research group 'Retro-Formalism' (www.retroformalism.net). Previously she taught at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Free University Berlin, Germany, and has been a Fulbright Fellow at New York University, USA.

This book renews attention to poetics as a worthy field of literary studies by offering a thorough and systematic examination of the narrative and philosophical significance of tense. The manner of delivery is engaging even as it remains scholarly. Fresh, at times daring, in its propositions, this work will no doubt provoke interest and generate discussion.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Present Tense Novel2. Readings in Methodology3. The Imaginary Present Tense4. Tense PhilosophyConclusionGlossaryNotes