Athanassia Williamson

Aufenthalt

September 2026 – August 2027

Forschungsthema

»Skepticism and the Novel. Critical Theory after Narrative«

Projektbeschreibung

At a moment when liberal democracies face renewed challenges from the erosion of trust in shared forms of knowledge, how has literature served as a source of critical knowledge about the changing social and political world? What claims can be made for the novel’s continuing power to shape the criticism and re-imagining of democratic forms of life? My first book project, Skepticism and the Novel, pursues these questions at the juncture of literature and philosophy, engaging broader problems of aesthetics, critical thought, and the politics of form. Offering a renewed understanding of the novel, from the nineteenth century onward, as an art form that transforms social and historical experience into a fiction grounded in skepticism toward that experience, my book argues that the novel has shaped the thought of twentieth-century critical theory. Philosophy and critical theory have repeatedly turned to the novel because of its democratic form of knowing: shaped by a skepticism toward foundational certainties and a responsiveness to shifting social experiences—a responsiveness that democracy itself shares.

Wissenschaftliches Profil

Athanassia Williamson hat nach dem Studium der Anglistik an der University of Oxford im Fach Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft an der New York University promoviert. In ihrer Dissertation »Skepticism and the Novel: Critical Theory after Narrative« arbeitet sie die zentrale Rolle des Romans für moderne ästhetische Theorien und die Geschichte des kritischen Denkens, von Georg Lukács bis Sylvia Wynter, heraus. Ihre Artikel und Rezensionen sind im »Journal of the History of Ideas«, in »Critical Inquiry« und in der »George Eliot Review« erschienen.

Forschungskontext

Athanassia Williamson ist auf Einladung des Forschungsschwerpupunktes »Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World« Postdoctoral Fellow am Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. Ihr Aufenthalt wird vom John McCloy Transatlantic Forum am Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften finanziert.