Material Signifiers, Transparent Things: Nabokov and Large Language Models

• In Event: New Approaches to Nabokov’s Transparent Things

Abstract

This paper will consider Transparent Things as an exercise in making signifiers material, physical, or solid while signifieds (and referents) become “transparent.” I’ll briefly suggest that this aspect of the novella helps unmask the simulacra of language and writing in large language models.

Author

• Chloe Kitzinger, Columbia U