An upcoming University of Queensland public seminar will delve into contemporary literature and film’s fascination with the concept of twins.
According to UQ Ipswich Contemporary Studies Program lecturer Dr Juliana de Nooy, stories about twins are told and retold with astonishing frequency in contemporary novels and films.
Popular movies include the 1988 comedy Twins starring Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the unlikely-looking twin brothers searching for their biological mother, and the Disney classic Parent Trap (1961) in which a young Hayley Mills plays identical twins desperate to bring their divorced parents back together.
“There are tales of the stranglehold of brotherly love, the evil twin who steals her sister’s lover, the homicidal mutant twin on a rampage, the reunion of twins separated at birth, and confusion between look-alike twins,” Dr de Nooy said.
Her recently completed book on contemporary narrative uses of twins, Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture (forthcoming 2005) (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan) explores the repeated appearance of certain twin tales in films and novels from recent decades, identifying the shifts that have occurred in the retellings and their cultural purposes.
The free seminar (with refreshments afterwards) is to be held in the Social Sciences and Humanities Library Conference Room (Duhig Building, Building No. 2) on Thursday, September 23, from 2pm-3.30pm
It is part of the University’s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies’ regular free public seminar program.
“Critics tend to view twin tales as a subset of the literature of the double, in decline since the 19th century,” Dr de Nooy said.
“A closer look at recent examples, however, reveals patterns of genre and gender quite specific to our time. Why do we keep telling twin tales and why might we want to tell them differently?”
The seminar will analyse some contemporary story-telling conventions and what's at stake in attempts to shift them.
For more details, visit the Centre’s website.
Media contacts: Dr de Nooy (telephone: 07 3381 1562), Andrea Mitchell (telephone: 07 3365 7182) or Shirley Glaisterat UQ Communications (telephone: 07 3365 1120).
