About

Richard J. Lane is a bestselling author in the field of literary theory and criticism. He's a professor of English at Vancouver Island University, Canada. He also leads several major projects as Director of the Literary Theory Research Group and the Seminar for Advances Studies in the Humanities, and principal investigator of the MeTA Digital Humanities lab.

Recent Talks and Conferences

  • "Revisiting Open Source Software Development Models for Community Based DH Research Generation." Forthcoming, Implementing New Knowledge Environments, Whistler, BC, 2016.
  • "Coding Agamben/Agamben Codes: More Hack Plus More Yak Equals Critical DH?" Critical Digital Humanities Group, Winter 2015.
  • More Hack Plus More Yak Equals Critical DH? VIU-UVic Critical Digital Humanities Group, The University of Victoria, BC, Winter 2015.
  • "Social and Tech Innovation Partnerships: Community Collaboration and Development." Innovation Lab @ VIU Cowichan Symposium, Vancouver Island University, BC, Spring 2015.
  • "Innovation Trends for Social Enterprise in British Columbia." Position paper. Social Enterprise Vancouver Island (SEVI) launch meeting, Nanaimo, BC, Spring 2015.
  • "DH Labs: eversion/Innovation." VIU-UVic Critical Digital Humanities Group, The University of Victoria, BC, Spring 2015.
  • "Creating Narrative Space: New Modes of Navigation for Online Scholarly Publications." Sustaining Partnerships to Transform Scholarly Publication, Implementing New Knowledge Environments, Whistler, BC, January 2015.
  • "Coding eversion/Innovation: The Modernist Machine and the Digital Context Engine." VIU-UVic Critical Digital Humanities Group, The University of Victoria, BC, Fall 2014.
  • "The Space(s) of Digital Humanities." The Electronic Textual Cultures Laboratory, Nuts and Bolts Series, The Faculty Club, The University of Victoria, BC, Fall 2014.
  • "Digital Humanities Dialectic at a Standstill: The Digital Arcades Project and Small Screen Intensities." VIU-UVic Critical Digital Humanities Group, The University of Victoria, BC, Fall 2014.
  • "Novae Res: Digital Innovation and Critical Digital Humanities." Inaugural presentation of the VIU-UVic Critical Digital Humanities Group, The University of Victoria, BC, Fall 2014.
  • "Social Enterprise and Digital Innovation: Blending Technology, Economic Models of Success and Positive Social Outcomes." The BC Association of Healthcare Auxiliaries, Nanaimo, B, Fall 2014.
  • The Desire for Immediacy and the Function of Deferral: Disruptive Innovation, New Knowledge Production, and the Language of Technology. The Generative Anthropology Summer Conference: Deferral, Discipline, Knowledge. The University of Victoria, Summer 2014.
  • Ekphrasis in 3D: Text Encoding and 3D Innovation in Modernist War Literature. Paper delivered with Deanna McGillivray (VIU) at the Innovation Lab @ VIU Cowichan's Planning Committee, Spring 2014.
  • Returning to the Text through the Digital Humanities: The First World War Literature of Rebecca West and John McCrae. Paper delivered with Deanna McGillivray (VIU) at the VIU Arts and Humanities Colloquium, called Fascinating Technologies: Future Directions in the Arts and Humanities, Spring 2014.
  • 'The Question Concerning Technology': Research Questions for Digital Innovation and Digital Humanities Projects. The Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Research Symposium, Spring 2014.
  • 'Developing a TEI Framework for 3D Modelling and 3D Printing: Advanced Narratological Tags.' The Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Research Symposium, Spring 2014.
  • Innovation Through Digital Subjectivity and Aesthetics: Heidegger, Techne and Aura. The Many Masks/Masques of Heidegger: Technology, Poeisis and Humanism: A Literary Theory Research Group Symposium, The Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Vancouver Island University, Spring 2014.
  • Innovation through Tradition: New Scholarly Publishing Applications Modelled on Faith-Based Electronic Publishing and Learning Environments. Building Partnerships to Transform Scholarly Publishing, The Electronic Textual Cultures Lab/Implementing New Knowledge Environments, Whistler, BC, February 2014.
  • DH in 3D: Digital Innovation and the Modernist/Postmodernist Experimental Novel (Rebecca West/B.S. Johnson). Brown Bag Lecture Series, The Electronic Textual Cultures Lab, The University of Victoria, December 2013.
  • Building Research Capacity Through Shared Infrastructure. Building Large, Partnered Research Projects: A Symposium, Vancouver Island University, November 2013.
  • Ekphrasis across Editions: Rebecca West through TEI and Versioning Machine. With Deanna McGillivray (MeTA DH Lab, VIU), Faculty Writing Group, The Writing Centre, Vancouver Island University, August 2013.
  • Innovation in Desktop Fabrication: Aesthetics, Material Objects, and Narratological Design. Position paper, with Deanna McGillivray (VIU), Innovation Lab@Cowichan Creative Committee, Vancouver Island University, June 2013.
  • Levinas, Ethics and the Digital Humanities. Panel co-chair with Emily Marroquin (UBC), ACCUTE, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities/Literary Theory Research Group special member-organized panel, University of Victoria, June 2013.
  • Object Oriented Coding and Text Encoding: Digital Materiality and the Experimental Novel - with Deanna McGillivray (VIU), DH Innovations: Lab Based Environments in the Humanities Symposium, Vancouver Island University, May 29, 2013.
  • D[H]isruptive Technologies - Report on the ETCL-funded DH-Theory Group activities for 2012, The University Club, University of Victoria, December 5, 2012.
  • Disruptive Innovation and 3D Printing Technologies: From Africa to BC - Innovation Knowledge and Practice-- Examples from BC Panelist at the Institute for Coastal Research Symposium, Vancouver Island University, November 23, 2012.
  • The Innovation Lab @ Cowichan and The MeTA Digital Humanities Lab: Disruptive Innovation and Shared Research and Development Projects. Provost Council, Vancouver Island University, November 7, 2012.
  • Innovation is Disruption: Why Institutions Need a Space in Which Innovators Can Breathe. Cowichan Chamber of Commerce, Duncan, BC, September 26, 2012. Joint presentation with Dr. Sally Carpentier, Vancouver Island University.
  • The Creaturely Makeover, or, Being's Tears: Heidegger, Santner and the Phenomenology the unready-to-hand' in Being and Time. Biopolitics and Being: a Symposium on Creaturely Life, The Literary Theory Research Group and Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Vancouver Island University, March 30, 2012.
  • Big Humanities? Digital Humanities? Evolving Humanities? Panelist at the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab, Humanities Discussion Panel, The University Club, University of Victoria, January 10, 2012.
  • Digital Innovation: Collaboration, Computing Fabrication and Knowledge Mobilization within Local and Virtual Communities. Position paper at Cowichan Development and Management Committee, Vancouver Island University, Cowichan Campus, January 9, 2012.
  • Phenomenology of Creaturely Life: the Glass Interface. Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, November 2011.
  • User-driven IT and the MeTA Digital Humanities Lab at Vancouver Island University. Regional Planning Committee, Vancouver Island University, Cowichan Campus, October 2011.
  • Creaturely Glass Architecture. Work in progress report, Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, October 2011.
  • The Creature in the Glass House: Nigel Dennis's A House In Order. Opening lecture for the 2011-2012 Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, September 2011.
  • Zizek's The Ticklish Subject: Subjectivization and its Vicissitudes. Panel chair, member-organized session, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of New Brunswick, ACCUTE and the Literary Theory Research Group, VIU, May-June 2011.
  • Reclaiming Abjection as Pleromatos: Vulnerable and Exposed Subjectivity in Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of New Brunswick, CLSG and ACCUTE, May-June 2011.
  • The Imperishable Remnant: Trauma and Death in Modernist Canadian War Literature. Modernist Networks, The Modernist Studies Association, Victoria, BC, 11-14 Nov 2010.
  • A Phenomenology of Digital Reading: On eBooks and other Virtual Experiences. eBooks in the contemporary humanities: advantages and challenges for teaching and research, A Symposium Organized by The Humanities Interdisciplinarity Research Group, VIU and VIU Library, VIU Library Boardroom, 24th September, 2010.
  • The Irreparable in Agamben and Benjamin: The Coming Community as Dialectics at a Standstill. Without Subjects: Giorgio Agamben and The Coming Community - A Literary Theory Research Group Symposium, Vancouver Island University, May 14 2010.
  • Collaborative Texts: Machine Communities and Radical Metaphysics (Benjamin and Rosenzweig). Process Over Product: Collaboration and Machine Communities, Arts and Humanities Colloquia Series, Vancouver Island University, 10 February 2010.
  • The State of Exception in Giorgio Agamben's The Coming Community. the Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, September 2009.
  • The Malcolm Lowry Centenary International Conference. Co-organizer with Miguel Mota, Green College, UBC, August 2009.
  • Revisiting and Reassessing Frances Brooke's Role in the History of Canadian Literature. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, ACCUTE, Carleton University, Ottawa, May 24, 2009.
  • Frances Brooke and The Contested Origins of the Canadian Novel: A Narrative in Many Parts. Chawton House Research Seminar, Chawton House Library, Hampshire, UK and The University of Southampton, May 2009.
  • The Aleatory Space of Dangerous Sports: Performance, Improvisation and The Conjectural Order. Power Play: Improvisation and Sport, University of British Columbia and Coastal Jazz, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, February 6-7, 2009.
  • The Semiotic, the Symbolic, and the Museum in Jean Baudrillard's Writings on Fashion. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of British Columbia, ACCUTE, May 31, 2008.
  • Binding Signifiance: Reading Genesis 32 via Barthes, George and Strindberg. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, CLSG and ACCUTE, University of British Columbia, May 31, 2008.
  • Panel Chair, Returning to The Postmodern Condition: A Re-Appraisal. ACCUTE, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, and The Literary Theory Research Group, University of British Columbia, May 31, 2008.
  • Post-Theory Canadian Postmodernism: An Architectonic of Canadian Literary and Visual Culture. Canadian Literature Symposium, University of Ottawa, May 2008.
  • Baudrillard, Benjamin, and Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust Memorial: 'Abreaction to the Event'. Theory Collective, University of Victoria, April 2008.
  • Writing a History of Canadian Literature: Issues in Theory and Criticism. Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, April 2008.
  • The Hyperreal Life and Death of Jean Baudrillard. English Colloquium, Vancouver Island University, Fall 2007.
  • An Archaeology of Myth: Mimetic Desire and Time in Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition. Inaugural lecture of the Seminar for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Literary Theory Research Group, Vancouver Island University, August 2007.
  • Trauma and Commemoration. Panel Chair, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, ACCUTE, York University, May 29 2006.
  • Jacques Derrida's circumfessional turn: where later means earlier in the future of affirmative deconstruction. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, ACCUTE, York University, May 28 2006.
  • Profane Illumination: The Work of Theory and Theology in the Writings of Walter Benjamin. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, CLSG, York University, May 28 2006.
  • Transcultural Images of Canada: Recoding Pictures of Canada's First Peoples and Place. Canada from the outside in: Images, Perceptions, Comparisons. May 25 - 27, 2005. International Council for Canadian Studies (ICCS) in partnership with The University of Ottawa and Carleton University, Ottawa.
  • The Double Cry: Theorizing the Event of Auto/biographical Performance through Samuel Beckett's Breath. Putting a Life on Stage: A Theatre and AutoBiography Exploratory Workshop. February 18-22, 2004, The University of British Columbia. Funded by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and the UBC Hampton Fund.
  • The Frame of Mind: Translating Klossowski and Heidegger. Critical Theory Group, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada, October 10, 2003.
  • Can Lit. for Export: Containment and Commodification. Across Time And Space: Visions Of Canada From Abroad, University College of The Cariboo, Canadian Studies Department, Kamloops, BC, Canada, September 12-13, 2003.
  • 'The Murder of the Real': A One Day Symposium on Jean Baudrillard. Co-organizer, with Dr. Joy James, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada, August 12, 2003.
  • Terrorism's Geist: Spectres of the Symbolic in Jean Baudrillard. 'The Murder of the Real': A One Day Symposium on Jean Baudrillard, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada, August 12, 2003.
  • Benjamin's 'Program of the Coming Philosophy' and the Theory of Experience: redefining the subject in Kant. The Eighteenth Century Circle, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, May 27, 2003.
  • Nietzsche's Legacy: Heidegger and the Nachlass. Inaugural Lecture, Critical Theory Group, Koerner Library, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, May 13, 2003.
  • Construction without Theory: Benjamin's Goethe/Goethe's Faust. Faustival Conference, The University of Calgary, Canada, April11. April 5, 2003.
  • Canadian Literature Under Review: Critical and Ethical Directions. Canada in the European Mind Conference, University of Debrecen, Hungary, October 2002.
  • Panel chair: First Nations Literature in the European Mind. Canada in the European Mind Conference, University of Debrecen, Hungary, October 2002.
  • Canadian Literature: Readings from the Pacific Northwest. Guest Lecture Series, The University of Turin, Italy, funded by The University of Turin, September 2002: Reading the Pacific Northwest Short Story.; Utopian Visions of Canada and the Pacific Northwest.; Trickster Writing and Trickster Signs: Re-writing Postmodernism.
  • The Materiality of the Text: Boxed Books and Portable Archives. Reading Benjamin's Arcades, King Alfred's College, Winchester, UK, in association with New Formations, July 2002.
  • Aesthetic and Generic Boundary Crossing: Boxed Books and the Avant-garde. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Toronto, May 2002.
  • Death as Being: Excursions Through Aesthetics and Philosophy in Baudrillard and Jim Crace. North East Modern Languages Association, Toronto, April 2002.
  • Metaphors of Reclamation: Mythology vs. Postcolonial Theory in Canadian Aboriginal Writing. New Visions: The Writer in Literature and Criticism, School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, February 2002.
  • Notes on Vorticism and Blast (1914-1915). Aesthetic Theory Research Seminar, ICA, January 2002.
  • Deleuze on Beckett on Film: A Theoretical Mise-en-Abyme. The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, Philosophy and Theory Research Seminar, ICA, December 2001.
  • Beckett's Three Dialogues: A Critical Reappraisal. Organizer, South Bank University and The London Network For Modern Fiction Studies, November 2001.
  • Surviving the Residential School System: Resisting Hegemonic Canadianness in Tomson Highway's The Kiss of the Fur Queen. Centre for Canadian Studies, Free University of Brussels, Reconfigurations: Canadian Literatures and Postcolonial Identities, November, 2001.
  • Just Gaming: Benjamin, Johnson and Wittgenstein's Concept of Family Resemblance. The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, Philosophy and Theory Research Seminar, ICA, August 2001.
  • Cultural Negotiations: Postcolonial Studies and the Nisga'a Treaty. Cultural Studies: Between Politics and Ethics: An International Interdisciplinary Conference, 6-8 July 2001, Bath Spa University.
  • Panel Organizer, with Professor Laurie Ricou, Constructing British Columbian Literature: New Perspectives. Beyond Hope: Constructing British Columbia in Practice and Theory, The University College of The Cariboo, BC, May 2001
  • Shadowing the Potlatch: British Columbian Contexts. Beyond Hope: Constructing British Columbia in Practice and Theory, The University College of The Cariboo, British Columbia, May 2001.
  • Chiasmatic readings of the 'difficulty of philosophy': sections 86-93 Of Wittgenstein's 'Big Typescript'. The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, Philosophy and Theory Research Seminar, ICA, May 2001.
  • British Travel Writing and Literature of the 1930s, Guest Lecture Series, funded by The British Council, Department of British Studies, University of Debrecen, Hungary, April 2001: Culture and Society of the 1930s: Anxiety, Uncanniness and Mass Culture.; The Aesthetic Vortex or A New Confidence in Literature and Art.; Travelling Spain/Fighting Spain: Poetry, Prose and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.; Delayed Decoding in British Travel Writing: Heart of Darkness and Journey Without Maps.; A Critique of England: Travel Writing Turned Inwards: Orwell, Upward, Waugh and Woolf.; Between the Acts: The Show is Over: Woolf and a Final Vision of England.
  • Maps and Dreams or Imagining Colonial Space: Eighteenth Century Visions of British Columbia/the Pacific Northwest. British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, St. John's College, Oxford, January 2001.
  • Malcolm Lowry's Journey of the Dead: Redemptive Literary Acts. The Word in the word Conference, University of Reading, November 2000.
  • 'Cultural Exchanges': The Fourth Order of Australian Simulation. British Australian Studies Association, King's College, London, September 2000.
  • Performing Memory: The Ethical Turn in Ariel Dorfman. Cultures of Political Transition Conference, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, September 2000.
  • 'The Remains of The Day': Theorizing Archival Marginalia. Co-organizer, South Bank University and The London Network For Modern Fiction Studies, June, 2000.
  • Systemic Economies: Potlatching French Theorists. Metaphors of Economy Conference , University of East Anglia, June 2000.
  • One Culture? The Thematics of Art, Science and Change in the Twenty-First Century. Co-organizer, The University of North London and The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, May 2000.
  • The Materiality of the Text: Walter Benjamin and B.S. Johnson. North Eastern Modern Languages Association, Buffalo, U.S.A., April, 2000.
  • Theorizing Intertextuality in Malcolm Lowry. Panel Chair, (2 panels) North Eastern Modern Languages Association, Buffalo, U.S.A., April, 2000.
  • Coming of Age: New Voicing in Contemporary British Fiction 1979. 2000. Co-organizer, Jesus College, Cambridge and The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, January 29, 2000.
  • Beckett and Nietzsche: The Eternal Headache. Reading Beckett Seminar, University of Reading, November 20, 1999.
  • Effacing native land-title: 'blank' territory and hidden borders in twentieth-century popular British Columbian fiction. BC Studies Conference, Vancouver, Canada, November 11-13, 1999.
  • The Caring Hand? Eva Johnson's Murras. Playing Australia: Theatre, Diaspora, Dialogue, Department of Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London, November 5. 7, 1999.
  • The Modern Inventory from Object to Subject: Uncovering the Secret Rules of 'the' Aboriginal. British Australian Studies Association Conference, University of London, October 9, 1999.
  • Redemption and Horror: Journeys through the Aesthetic of Enlightenment in Conrad and Lowry. Lowry and Conrad Conference, Lyon, France, 9-11 September, 1999.
  • Forgotten Voices Symposium, Co-organizer, The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, University of Westminster, June 5, 1999.
  • 'The Capital of the Ruins': Beckett's Prose Fragments, Co-organizer, The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, South Bank University, June 3, 1999. 
  • Contemporary British Fiction Symposium, Co-organizer, The London Network for Modern Fiction Studies, The British Library, June 2, 1999.
  • Passing the Province, or, the Tyrannical Prehension: Theoretical Readings of BC Theatre. Staging The Pacific Province Conference, University College of the Cariboo, Kamloops, British Columbia, May 13-15, 1999.
  • R.I.P. or The Uncanny State of Passing in Malcolm Lowry's October Ferry to Gabriola. North Eastern Modern Languages Association, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., April 16-18, 1999.
  • New Subjectivities in Contemporary British Fiction. Panel Chair (2 panels) North Eastern Modern Languages Association, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., April 16-18, 1999.
  • The Last Will and Testament of Malcolm Lowry: Reading the Last Notebook. Malcolm Lowry Symposium, June 11-15, 1997. New College, The University of Toronto, Canada.
  • Under the Blanket or Out of the Text: Bertrand William Sinclair's White Mythology. (Native Americans and Borders). Western Literature Association, October 11-14, 1995. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Theorising the Potlatch: Eurocentric Narrative Structures. International Conference on Narrative Literature, April 28 - May 1, 1994. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
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In a crowded and competitive field, Richard Lane's [Global Literary Theory: An Anthology] sets itself apart from the rest by living up to its title. This is a truly global survey of theory past and present, as comprehensive, judicious and up-to-the-minute as anyone could wish for. It promises to be an indispensable field-guide to the multiform complexities of theory for many years to come.
—Dr Paul Sheehan, Macquarie University, Australia
Lane's rare talent for explaining complex theoretical concepts while preserving the inherent difficulty of these ideas is fully engaged [in The Postcolonial Novel]. This is a learned, lucid and innovative book by one of the leading scholars in the field.
—Deborah L Madsen, University of Geneva