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Bryan Counter

Academic Division: Arts & Humanities
Bryan Counter holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of Four Moments of Aesthetic Experience: Reading Huysmans, Proust, McCarthy, and Cusk (Anthem Press, 2025). He co-edited a special issue of Textual Practice on "Mere Light" with Nathan Wainstein in 2024, and has co-hosted, with Wainstein, Authors Die Twice, a podcast about video games and aesthetic theory, since March 2025. He is guest editor of a special themed edition of the First To Knock periodical on Maurice Blanchot (2023), a focus section of American Book Review on "Listening," and a forthcoming issue of Barthes Studies on Barthes's The Pleasure of the Text. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in SubStance, Barthes Studies, S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, CounterText, LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, Artefilosofia, Revue Textures, Literature and Event: Twenty-First Century Reformulations (Routledge, 2022), and Samuel Beckett and Nature (Bloomsbury, 2025). He is currently working on a book project provisionally titled A Window onto Life: Maurice Blanchot, Weird Fiction, and Wonder, as well as Quiet Proust: Aesthetic Experience, Reading the Virtual, and Thinking out of Time (under contract with Bloomsbury), a co-edited volume with James Dutton.

Publications

Journal Articles

  • Counter, B. (2025). ‘Stopping the flow of time’: Wonder and Writing Experience in Rachel Cusk. Vol: 11, Issue: 1, Page: 48-65. CounterText.
  • Counter, B., Wainstein, N. (2024). Mere Light. Vol: 38, Issue: 9, Page: 1357-1379. Textual Practice.
  • Counter, B. (2024). Reading, Dreaming, Writing in Proust and Cixous. Vol: 14, Page: 48-65. S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique.
  • Counter, B. (2024). The Absence of the Book: Preparing, Researching, Reading with Barthes. Vol: 10, Page: 10-28. Barthes Studies.
  • Counter, B. (2023). Spiralling Relations: Barthes, Kant, Balzac. Vol: 9, Page: 26-44. Barthes Studies.
  • Counter, B. (2021). Intoxication: Reading Between Proust and Barthes. Vol: 7, Page: 85-109. Barthes Studies.
  • Counter, B. (2020). ‘Pour cet état si particulier’: Disinterest and the Impersonal Resonance of Aesthetic Experience. Vol: 49, Issue: 3, Page: 19-36. SubStance.

Book Chapters

  • Counter, B. (2025). "For the space of an instant": Beckett on the Subject of Thought: Beckett and Nature. Page: 51-66. Bloomsbury. link
  • Counter, B. (2022). 'Peut-être aurais-je dû penser': Research and Event in Proust: Literature and Event: Twenty-First Century Reformulations. Routledge.

Books

  • Counter, B. (2025). Four Moments of Aesthetic Experience: Reading Huysmans, Proust, McCarthy, and Cusk. Anthem Press.

Other

  • Counter, B., Sims, B. (2025). Bennett Sims: The CounterText Interview. Vol: 11, Issue: 2, Page: 165-187. CounterText. link