Poetry Off the Page: Literary History and the Spoken Word 

Julia Lajta-Novak’s project “Poetry Off the Page” will reveal the vital role of orality in the aesthetic, economic, and socio-political dynamics of poetry since 1965. Focusing on poetry as spoken word and taking advantage of recent digital archives, it will develop an alternative ‘literary’ history of this period. Poetry Off the Page uses British and Irish poetry as case studies, but moves well beyond the national paradigm: it will develop a new method of poetry performance historiography that is geared towards exploring the aesthetic and cultural work of poetry performance. The project will shed light on poetry’s inheritance and innovative transformation of oral traditions, on the functions of poetry performance as a form of public address and a vehicle for identity politics, as well as on its relation to emerging communications technologies and their profound impact on how literature is experienced and by whom.

Julia Lajta-Novak is an Elise Richter research fellow (FWF) at the Department of English and American Studies, where she is working on a project on biographical novels about historical women artists. She has previously conducted research at King’s College London, the Institute of English Studies, University of London, and the English Faculty, University of Oxford. She was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna and research fellow at the University of Salzburg, where she was awarded the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award. 

Press release at the University of Vienna's webpage (in German)