Librarians of Babel
Public Texts MA Thesis Defence - Liam Andrews
Event Details
-
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
City: Peterborough
Traill College
Building: Wallis Hall
Room: 132.4
The English (Public Texts) Graduate Program is excited to announce the upcoming MA defence by Liam Andrews of their thesis entitled Librarians of Babel.
Examining Committee:
Andrew Loeb (Supervisor) and Brent Bellamy
Internal Examiner: Emily Bruusgaard
Chair: Karleen Pendleton Jiménez
Abstract
This thesis explores the instability of textual systems in conveying stable truths through the speculative fiction novels Stanisław Lem’s Solaris and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, two works which interrogate the limits of human knowledge and the failure of truth systems to fully represent complex phenomena. In Solaris, the scientific discipline of Solaristics is defeated by its inability to interpret the alien planet Solaris, with a vast library of contradictory and esoteric texts symbolizing the collapse of scientific objectivity. House of Leaves similarly critiques narrative and academic truth systems, destabilizing its own paratext, bibliography, and narrative structure to highlight the impossibility of definitive interpretation. By placing these novels in dialogue, the thesis argues that while textual systems fail to provide stable truths, they reveal the fragility of human knowledge and affirm the vitality of interpretation as a mode of existence. Ultimately, the pursuit of meaning becomes an act of ongoing inquiry, sustaining the archive and its discourse.
Limited seating is available