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Contemporary Literature and Criticism

Works Count: 48265

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This cluster of papers explores the themes and characteristics of postmodern literature, including its engagement with cultural critique, narrative experimentation, and the impact of historical events such as 9/11. It delves into the works of prominent authors like Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, examining their contributions to contemporary fiction and the reflection of national memory in literary culture.

Keywords

Postmodernism; Contemporary Fiction; Thomas Pynchon; David Foster Wallace; Cultural Critique; Narrative; Metamodernism; 9/11; Literary Culture; National Memory

Imaginary homelands: essays and criticism, 1981-1991

1991-11-01

Salman Rushdie

Drawing from two political and several literary homelands, this collection presents a remarkable series of trenchant essays, demonstrating the full range and force of Salman Rushdie's remarkable imaginative and observational … Drawing from two political and several literary homelands, this collection presents a remarkable series of trenchant essays, demonstrating the full range and force of Salman Rushdie's remarkable imaginative and observational powers. With candour, eloquence and indignation he carefully examines an expanse of topics; including the politics of India and Pakistan, censorship, the Labour Party, Palestinian identity, contemporary film and late-twentieth century race, religion and politics. Elsewhere he trains his eye on literature and fellow writers, from Julian Barnes on love to the politics of George Orwell's 'Inside the Whale', providing fresh insight on Kipling, V.S. Naipaul, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Raymond Carver, Philip Roth and Thomas Pynchon among others. Profound, passionate and insightful, Imaginary Homelands is a masterful collection from one of the greatest writers working today.

Looking awry: an introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture

1992-01-01

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj ?i?ek, a leading intellectual in new social movements that are sweeping Eastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of Jacques Lacan. ?i?ek inverts current pedagogical strategies explain difficult philosophical underpinnings … Slavoj ?i?ek, a leading intellectual in new social movements that are sweeping Eastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of Jacques Lacan. ?i?ek inverts current pedagogical strategies explain difficult philosophical underpinnings of French theoretician and practician who revolutionized our view of psychoanalysis. He approaches Lacan through motifs and works of contemporary popular culture, Hitchcock's Vertigo to Stephen King's Pet Sematary, from McCullough's An Indecent Obsession to Romero's Return of Living Dead--a strategy of looking awry that recalls exhilarating and vital experience of Lacan.?i?ek discovers fundamental Lacanian categories--the triad Imaginary/Symbolic/Real, object small a, the opposition of drive and desire, split subject--at work in horror fiction, in detective thrillers, in romances, in mass media's perception of ecological crisis, and, above all, in Alfred Hitchcock's films. The playfulness of ?i?ek's text, however, is entirely different that associated with deconstructive approach made famous by Derrida. By clarifying what Lacan is saying as well as what he is not saying, ?i?ek is uniquely able distinguish Lacan poststructuralists who so often claim him.

The End of the Line: Essays on Psychoanalysis and the Sublime

1987-01-01

Krystian Czerniecki , Neil Hertz

Previously Published by Basil Blackwell, Inc. 432 Park Avenue South, Suite 1503, New York, NY 10016. Copyright 2005 by Neil Hertz. All rights reserved. Previously Published by Basil Blackwell, Inc. 432 Park Avenue South, Suite 1503, New York, NY 10016. Copyright 2005 by Neil Hertz. All rights reserved.

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Postmodernism, or, The cultural logic of late capitalism

1991-04-01

Fredric Jameson

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” … Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

The World, the Text, and the Critic

1986-01-01

David Carroll , Edward W. Said

In these essays, Edward Said challenges contemporary literary criticism. He examines, among other things, narrative, focusing on Joseph Conrad and the curious dearth of literature on Jonathan Swift. In these essays, Edward Said challenges contemporary literary criticism. He examines, among other things, narrative, focusing on Joseph Conrad and the curious dearth of literature on Jonathan Swift.

Fertile Obsession: Validity After Poststructuralism

1993-11-01

Patti Lather

[P]ost-modernism involves the development of new rhetorics of science, new stories of knowledge ‘after truth’‥. The postmodern world is without guarantees, without ‘method’‥. All we can do is invent. We … [P]ost-modernism involves the development of new rhetorics of science, new stories of knowledge ‘after truth’‥. The postmodern world is without guarantees, without ‘method’‥. All we can do is invent. We must construct and exemplify the rhetorics of the future … through … endless stories. Like this one. Tomlinson (1989), pp.44,57.

Postmodernist culture: an introduction to theories of the contemporary

1990-06-01

Steven Connor

Part 1 Context: postmodernism and the academy. Part 2 Posterities: postmodernities postmodernism in architecture and the visual arts postmodernism and literature postmodern performance postmodern film and TV postmodernism and popular … Part 1 Context: postmodernism and the academy. Part 2 Posterities: postmodernities postmodernism in architecture and the visual arts postmodernism and literature postmodern performance postmodern film and TV postmodernism and popular culture renunciation and sublimity - on critical modesty postmodernism and cultural politics.

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On Postmodernism and Articulation

1986-06-01

Lawrence Grossberg

Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

1995-01-01

James D. Sidaway

Post-modernism and the social sciences: insights, inroads, and intrusions

1992-09-01

Pauline Marie Rosenau

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and … Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of left-wing and right-wing. Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries.

The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity

1995-09-01

Celia Marshik

Reviewed by: The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity Celia Marshik The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity. Mary Russo. New York: Routledge, 1994. Pp. 233. $16.95 (paper). Russo sets … Reviewed by: The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity Celia Marshik The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity. Mary Russo. New York: Routledge, 1994. Pp. 233. $16.95 (paper). Russo sets out to relate the grotesque body to “spatial and temporal dimensions of modern spectacle” (6) and to explore the possibilities of the grotesque for a feminism she characterizes as too concerned with appearing mainstream (12). While her analysis draws on various theoretical traditions, Russo largely builds on Peter Stallybrass and Allon White’s argument that “the grotesque returns as the repressed of the political unconscious, as those hidden cultural contents which by their abjection had consolidated the cultural identity of the bourgeoisie” (8–9). 1 She foregrounds the interdependence of the grotesque and the normal and argues that the grotesque body provides “room for chance” within “the very constrained spaces of normalization” (11), incorporating “female exceptionalism” and the “monstrous and lacking,” taking in both “high” and “low” bodies (22–23). Crossing centuries, national borders, and genres, her cultural-studies inquiry suggestively juxtaposes grotesqueries from Amelia Earhart’s stunt flying to Georges du Maurier’s serial novel Trilby and David Cronenberg’s gynecological nightmare Dead Ringers. Russo contests traditional readings of these bodies as victimized and powerless, [End Page 183] arguing that “the assumption of death, risk, and invisibility may be the price of moving beyond a narrow politics of identity and place” (48). Risk is “not a bad thing to be avoided” (10), but neither should feminists normalize the figure at risk as “a safe woman” (29). Russo uses the grotesque as an intriguing model for alternative communities that would tolerate heterogeneity. Her analysis of the wedding feast in Tod Browning’s Freaks argues that the celebration is characterized by “a sense of solidarity and community [that] emerges from the participants’ collective differences” (90). The grotesque body does not necessarily point the way to a utopian spaceÑfor Russo’s purposes, Freaks is marred by a “normalizing narrative of sexual relations” (93)Ñbut she poses the interesting question of whether and how the female grotesque can model new kinds of relationships. If a society modeled on the classical body leaves “irregular bodies behind,” then the female grotesque might indicate how to achieve “a state of intimacy without oneness” (11Đ12). The project, however, has real limits, some of which are endemic to cultural studies. Russo’s definition of the grotesque and selection of examples are “avowedly personal and somewhat idiosyncratic” (13), and the book lacks cohesion as a result. The grotesque becomes so encompassing a category that it covers any female body that is not average, from acrobats to fetishized body parts. 2 Analyses of disparate bodies are suggestive, but challenging questions about the connections between them are unaddressed. The Female Grotesque also exemplifies what Stefan Collini identifies as a typical weakness of cultural studies: a tendency toward reductiveness in representing the “dominant” culture. 3 Russo opens with the contestatory claim that “feminism in the 1990s has stood increasingly for and with the normal” and accuses this “normal” feminism of “disarticulating” itself “from the strange, the risky, the minoritarian, the excessive, the outlawed, and the alien” (vii). Given that the proliferation of feminist work around the globe is too diverse to align with one “prevailing standard” (vii), this characterization of “feminism”Ñinstead of the now common “feminisms”Ñis problematic, not to mention the fact that in quite a few locales feminism certainly falls within the category of the grotesque by Russo’s definition. Russo also reifies “the cultural identity of the bourgeoisie” (9, emphasis mine), reducing complex and historically specific processes of identity formation to a one-size-fits-all model; her grotesque is interesting as an oppositional space of diversity and change, but such representations oversimplify the interaction between the abject and the “mainstream.” Russo’s lack of attention to historical detail, the most serious limitation to this study, prevents her from providing a model of the grotesque truly useful to feminism, a central aspect of her project. Her analysis of Trilby asserts that the novel created a community of young women who subversively mimed the fetish of Trilby’s famous foot, but Russo doesn’t present enough...

Fashionable nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science

1999-10-01

Alan D. Sokal , Jean Bricmont , N. David Mermin

In 1996, Alan Sokal published an essay in the hip intellectual magazine Social Text parodying the scientific but impenetrable lingo of contemporary theorists. Here, Sokal teams up with Jean Bricmont … In 1996, Alan Sokal published an essay in the hip intellectual magazine Social Text parodying the scientific but impenetrable lingo of contemporary theorists. Here, Sokal teams up with Jean Bricmont to expose the abuse of scientific concepts in the writings of today's most fashionable postmodern thinkers. From Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva to Luce Irigaray and Jean Baudrillard, the authors document the errors made by some postmodernists using science to bolster their arguments and theories. Witty and closely reasoned, Fashionable Nonsense dispels the notion that scientific theories are mere narratives or social constructions, and explored the abilities and the limits of science to describe the conditions of existence.

The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act

1983-01-01

Alice N. Benston , Fredric Jameson

be obvious that no work in the area of narrative analysis can afford to ignore the fundamental contributions of Northrop Frye, the codifica tion by A. J. Greimas of the … be obvious that no work in the area of narrative analysis can afford to ignore the fundamental contributions of Northrop Frye, the codifica tion by A. J. Greimas of the whole Formalist and semiotic traditions, the heritage of a certain Christian hermeneutics, and above all, the indispensable explorations by Freud of the logic of dreams, and by Claude Levi-Strauss of the logic of "primitive" storytelling and pensee sauvage, not to speak of the flawed yet monumental achievements in this area of the greatest Marxist philosopher of modern times, Georg Lukacs.These divergent and unequal bodies of work are here interro gated and evaluated from the perspective of the specific critical and interpretive task of the present volume, namely to restructure the prob lematics of ideology, of the unconscious and of desire, of representa tion, of history, and of cultural production, around the all-informing process of narrative, which I take to be (here using the shorthand of philosophical idealism) the central function or instance of the human

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We Have Never Been Modern

1994-09-01

Tony Crawford

Reviewed by: We Have Never Been Modern T. Hugh Crawford (bio) Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993. 157 pp. … Reviewed by: We Have Never Been Modern T. Hugh Crawford (bio) Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993. 157 pp. $29.95. In “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”—an essay that has become the touchstone for discussions of contemporary cultural periodization—Fredric Jameson argues that the “last few years have been marked by an inverted millenarianism, in which premonitions of the future, catastrophic or redemptive, have been replaced by senses of the end of this or that” (Postmodernism [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991], p. 1). The attempt to formulate some break with the immediate past is a characteristic of much contemporary theory, and, given the emergence of various theories of the postmodern at the end of our century, this impulse can be tied to anticipation, however inverted, of the coming millennium. One can approach such an ending with joy, trepidation, or downright cynicism, seeking in the new era either a complete rupture with the past or some lines of continuity. Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern takes the latter strategy, arguing that we are not moving into a radically new age configured by the trappings of postmodern techno-gadgetry and the philosophy of the simulacrum, nor do we have need to remain trapped in the hegemonic structures of the modern era. Instead, this state of affairs can be avoided through the simple recognition that, indeed, we have never been modern: the repertoire of modern critical analysis has always been internally inconsistent if not outright contradictory, and, more importantly, we have always been at home in the nonmodern world, living comfortably with hybrid combinations of natural and social objects/subjects. Latour developed the basis of this argument through his empirical laboratory studies (Laboratory Life, The Pasteurization of France), where he discovered that nothing particularly different from everyday life takes place within the laboratory. He argues that if there has never been such a thing as scientific reasoning (characterized by the production of sleek, ahuman technological systems and universal natural truths), then we have never actually attained modernity—let alone postmodernity, a concept Latour regards with disdain, noting that it is “a symptom, not a fresh solution” (p. 46) because the postmoderns “accept the total division between the material and technological world on the one hand and the linguistic play of speaking subjects on the other” (p. 61). His position regarding scientific reasoning finds partial support from the strong programme of the Edinburgh school. The principle of symmetry—that scientific successes as well as failures must have social explanations—helped demystify scientific knowledge; however, Latour advocates a generalized principle of symmetry, which requires both a natural and a social explanation for laboratory successes and failures. Indeed, if one were to follow out his program to its conclusion, those distinctions would become impossible to maintain, and we would recognize that we have never been modern. Latour’s definition of modernity is both simple and profound. He locates its roots in the time of Hobbes and Boyle, using Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air-Pump as his primary example of (almost successful) [End Page 578] anthropology of science. The modern world emerged when the domain of knowledge was split between knowledge of people (Hobbes and politics) and knowledge of things (Boyle and science): “[The moderns] have cut the Gordian knot with a well-honed sword. The shaft is broken: on the left, they have put knowledge things; on the right, power and human politics” (p. 3). Latour argues that this is an impoverished model: neither natural objects nor social subjects have ever been simply real, social, or discursive. Instead, they are hybrids circulating in networks of translation and mediation while the moderns busily attempt to purify them of their hybrid qualities and locate them on one end or the other of the subject/object pole. From this perspective, current disciplines are both the cause and the symptom of the modern mind, and Latour has written the manifesto for the interdisciplinarians who must stop worrying over metaphysics and practice “infraphysics” (p. 128). In one swift move, the realist/constructivist debate is rendered uninteresting, the...

Beginnings: Intention and Method

1978-01-01

Jonathan Arac , Edward W. Said

Asking, What is a beginning?, this book brings together history, philosophy, structuralism and critical theory in a work of literary criticism. Edward Said differentiates beginning from origin; the latter is … Asking, What is a beginning?, this book brings together history, philosophy, structuralism and critical theory in a work of literary criticism. Edward Said differentiates beginning from origin; the latter is divine, mythical and privileged, the former secular, humanly produced and ceaselessly re-examined. During the 18th and 19th centuries, he argues, the novel was the major attempt in Western literary culture to give beginnings an authorizing, institutional and specialized role in art, experience and knowledge. He traces this idea through the late-19th and early-20th centuries - to Freud's discoveries and the novels of modernist authors - and goes on to explore the question of beginnings in critical discourse and the work of the French structuralists. Combining philosophy and belles-lettres, the book refuses to divorce literature from history, philosophy and social discourse, thereby broadening the role of criticism, from celebration and orthodoxy to re-experiencing and questioning. It discusses Dickens, Conrad, Hardy, T.E. Lawrence, Nietzsche, Freud, Vico and Michel Foucault. Edward Said is the author of Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism and Peace and Its Discontents.

What is posthumanism?

2010-12-01

Cary Wolfe

Introduction: What Is Posthumanism? Part One: Theories, Disciplines, Ethics 1. Meaning and Event, or, Systems Theory and Reconstruction of Deconstruction 2. Language and Subjectivity: Cognitive Science, Deconstruction, and The 3. … Introduction: What Is Posthumanism? Part One: Theories, Disciplines, Ethics 1. Meaning and Event, or, Systems Theory and Reconstruction of Deconstruction 2. Language and Subjectivity: Cognitive Science, Deconstruction, and The 3. Flesh and Finitude: Bioethics and the Philosophy of The Living 4. Animal Disciplinarity, and the (Post)Humanities 5. Learning from Temple Grandin: Studies, Disability Studies, and Who Comes After the Subject Part Two: Media, Culture, Practices 6. From Dead Meat to Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies: The Question in Contemporary Art 7. When You Can't Believe Your Eyes (Or Voice): Dancer in The Dark 8. Lose the Building: Form and System in Contemporary Architecture 9. Emerson's Romanticism, Cavell's Skepticism, Luhmann's Modernity 10. The Idea of Observation at Key West: Systems Theory, Poetry, and Form Beyond Formalism 11. The Digital, the Analog, and the Spectral: Echographies from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts Notes Publication History Index

Postmodernity and its discontents

1998-04-01

Introduction: Discontents -- Modern and Postmodern. 1. The Dream of Purity. 2. Making and Unmaking of Strangers. 3. The Strangers of the Consumer Era: from the Welfare State to Prison. … Introduction: Discontents -- Modern and Postmodern. 1. The Dream of Purity. 2. Making and Unmaking of Strangers. 3. The Strangers of the Consumer Era: from the Welfare State to Prison. 4. Morality Begins at Home: or the Rocky Road to Justice. 5. Parvenu and Pariah -- the Heroes and Victims of Modernity. 6. Tourists and Vagabonds -- the Heroes and Victims of Postmodernity. 7. Postmodern Art, or the Impossibility of the Avant--garde. 8. On the Meaning of Art and the Art of Meaning. 9. Culture as Consumer Co--operative. 10. On the Postmodern Deployment of Sex: Foucaulta s History of Sexuality Revisited. 11. Immortality, Postmodern Version. 12. Postmodern Religion?. 13. On Communitarianism and Human Freedom, or How to Square the Circle. Afterword: The Last word -- and it Belongs to Freedom. Notes. Index.

Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader

1982-11-01

David H. Miles , Robert Young , Alan Wilde

Modern Fiction Studies.

1960-10-01

Robert L. Jackson

Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel

1989-09-01

Donald E. Hall , Nancy Armstrong

Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism

1989-01-01

Andrew Ross

Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.

1993-10-01

Martin Jay , Jane Flax , Fredric Jameson

The illusions of postmodernism

1997-03-01

Terry Eagleton

Can postmodernism, with its commitments to "the other," and its radical deconstructions of race, class, and gender, enhance and extend our understanding of the liberationist "option for the poor?"Or, are … Can postmodernism, with its commitments to "the other," and its radical deconstructions of race, class, and gender, enhance and extend our understanding of the liberationist "option for the poor?"Or, are postmodernists an ethically uncommitted, anti-historical, privileged European and North American intellectual elite who threaten to coopt the liberationist project entirely?These are the two questions that haunt both of these books.The answer that emerges from each book to both of these questions is "yes."For Eagleton, Marxist literary critic at Oxford, it is the relationship between Marxism and postmodernism that is at stake.For the multiple authors of Liberation Theologies, Postmodernity, and the Americas, it is the relationship between a Marxist-informed liberation theology and postmodernity that is the issue.Eagleton is pessimistic about the potential relationship between postmodernism and Marxism.He worries that postmodernism represents a tossing in of the towel by political radicals, who have left the streets where they were challenging modes of production, social systems, and doctrinal formulations in favor of intramural conversations about "prisons, patriarchy, the body, and absolutist political orders."(p.11) According to Eagleton, academic discourse that belabors questions of epistemology ("talk of whether the signifier produces the signified or vice versa") is symptomatic of a complete abandonment of the material world (and any form of historical materialism) altogether.At its worst, it encourages a kind of Stalinist pragmatism (cf.Rorty) that "sees your cognitive propositions simply as ways of promoting your desired political goals . . .." (p.13) Eagleton appreciates the decentering and deconstructing impulse within postmodernism, but wonders whether this impulse can be "intentional" and "transitive," so that it moves "towards certain projects and into intricate solidarities with others," (p.15) rather than toward endless intransitive differánce.Even more critically, Eagleton wonders whether the clarion postmodern cry that history has ended and that metanarratives are dead is not part and parcel of the historical contradiction and metanarrative of late capitalism.He finds this same kind of "dogmatic anti-essentialism" to be part of the mystifying logic of capitalism.Using the arguments of postmodernism itself, he shows how the

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Postmodernist Fiction

2003-09-02

Brian McHale

In this trenchant and lively study Brian McHale undertakes to construct a version of postmodernist fiction which encompasses forms as wide-ranging as North American metafiction, Latin American magic realism, the … In this trenchant and lively study Brian McHale undertakes to construct a version of postmodernist fiction which encompasses forms as wide-ranging as North American metafiction, Latin American magic realism, the French New New Novel, concrete prose and science fiction. Considering a variety of theoretical approaches including those of Ingarden, Eco, Dolezel, Pavel, and Hrushovski, McHale shows that the common denominator is postmodernist fiction's ability to thrust its own ontological status into the foreground and to raise questions about the world (or worlds) in which we live. Exploiting various theoretical approaches to literary ontology - those of Ingarden, Eco, Dolezel, Pavel, Hrushovski and others - and ranging widely over contemporary world literature, McHale assembles a comprehensive repertoire of postmodernist fiction's strategies of world-making and -unmaking.

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A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction.

1990-12-01

Chris Luebbe , Linda Hutcheon

Postmodernist Fiction

1988-01-01

Clem Robyns , Brian McHale

A poetics of postmodernism: history, theory, fiction

1988-10-01

Constructing Postmodernism

2012-11-12

Brian McHale

Postmodernity and Its Discontents

1998-03-01

Barry Smart , Zygmunt Bauman

Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

1992-01-01

Fredric Jameson

Welcome to the desert of the real! : five essays on September 11 and related dates

2002-01-01

Slavoj Žižek

On September 11, the USA was given the opportunity to realize what kind of a world it was a part of. It might have taken this opportunity - but it … On September 11, the USA was given the opportunity to realize what kind of a world it was a part of. It might have taken this opportunity - but it did not; instead it opted to reassert its traditional ideological commitments: out with feelings of responsibility and guilt towards the impoverished Third World, we are the victims now! In the months following September 11, mainstream commentators bombarded us with histrionic claims that the event marked 'The End of the Age of Irony' or the conclusion to America's 'holiday from history'. Now, according to these pompous pundits, the time for playing games was over and the hour had struck to take sides in 'The War on Terrorism'. This temptation to choose one's camp is, Zizek argues, exactly the temptation to be resisted. For it is precisely when we are confronted with such apparently clear choices that the real alternatives to the situation are most obscured: in being asked to choose between 'democracy' and 'fundamentalism', is not the real problem one of democracy itself - as if the only alternative to 'fundamentalism' is the political system of liberal democracy? Welcome to the Desert of the Real takes a step back from the hype, hysteria and rhetoric, in order to problematise the options we are being offered. It proposes that global capitalism is fundamentalist and that America was complicit in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. It points to our dreaming about the catastrophe in numerous disaster movies before it happened, and explores the irony that the tragedy has been used to legitimate torture. Last, but not least, Zizek analyses the fiasco of the predominant leftist response to the events.

8.1. ANSWER TO THE QUESTION, WHAT IS THE POSTMODERN?

2025-06-26

| Edinburgh University Press eBooks

INTRODUCTION: POSTMODERNISM? NOT REPRESENTING POSTMODERNISM

2025-06-26

| Edinburgh University Press eBooks

WHAT CAN READING DO? ON POSTCRITIQUE AND ‘THE NEW DISCIPLINE’

2025-06-25

Ed Cooper | Tempo

Abstract Methods of critique fashion their possible outcomes. Rita Felski (2015) makes the case for ‘postcritique’, a method of reading in which texts are worked with , understood in their … Abstract Methods of critique fashion their possible outcomes. Rita Felski (2015) makes the case for ‘postcritique’, a method of reading in which texts are worked with , understood in their own right, such that a more diverse range of styles and arguments might be understood. Robert T. Tally Jr. (2022) rejects this method, contending that postcritique claims to serve the text under analysis but, in adopting a standpoint of placid agreement, facilitates a mode of reading that diminishes the potency of the text itself and critical dialogue more generally. This article argues that postcritique has dominated the discourse surrounding ‘The New Discipline’, a manifesto of sorts written by composer Jennifer Walshe. The article offers an alternative critical reading of ‘The New Discipline’, arguing that the text is itself a Jennifer Walshe piece. The composer performs the role of a musicologist who falsely declares newness, inconsistently includes and excludes artists, and deploys a vague, if not contradictory, definition of bodies. The manifesto is addressed to an undisclosed but seemingly specific audience. I argue that these apparent shortcomings evoke themes of performance, irony and fictionalisation that are found elsewhere in Walshe’s work and make such a reading licit.

Fabulation and Dennis Severs’ House

2025-06-24

Freya Gowrley | Manchester University Press eBooks

The Transcendent Function and Luke Skywalker's New Ethic of Balance

2025-06-24

Steve Gronert Ellerhoff | Routledge eBooks

Post-Apocalyptic Images in Cinema: A Structural-Semiotic Narrative Analysis of Len Wiseman's Total Recall

2025-06-23

Mikail BOZ | Türkiye İletişim Araştırmaları Dergisi

Structuralist-semiotic film analysis posits that films can be understood as a system of signs with structural integrity. In this form of analysis, which focuses on concepts such as codes, signs, … Structuralist-semiotic film analysis posits that films can be understood as a system of signs with structural integrity. In this form of analysis, which focuses on concepts such as codes, signs, denotations and connotations, metaphor and metonymy, an approach is taken that will reveal the ideology and myths created in the deeper layers of the films. The narrative conventions and genre codes that are inherent to the cinematic medium provide a foundation for a systematic analysis that considers intertextuality, particularly within the science fiction genre. In this context, the film Total Recall (2012), directed by Len Wiseman, can be considered a remake and adaptation. As a post-apocalyptic text in which the world is transformed and renewed by a catastrophe, it offers insights into the future of humanity in the present era. Qualitative descriptive genre analysis was integrated into structuralist-semiotic narrative analysis to examine the film in question. The film was selected as a purposive sample for the study and was analyzed through the headings of the narrative elements of cinema. Consequently, the film addresses several contemporary issues, including the distress caused by modern life, the crisis in the family unit between spouses, the surveillance society and the desire for novelty. These are discussed in the context of the film, which presents a relatively liberal discourse on matters such as the ideal structure of the family and methods of distress management. Additionally, the film attempts to establish a more balanced relationship between exploiter and exploited, moving towards a more democratic and egalitarian model.

Book Review: 1984, de George Orwell

2025-06-20

Jose M. Romarís Cercós | Deleted Journal

Abstract: Wounded Nation, Shifting Identity: An Examination of US Literature after 9/11

2025-06-20

Mikel BAREA PÉREZ | Deleted Journal

Book Review: The Ethics of (In-)Attention in Contemporary Anglophone Narrative

2025-06-20

Lola Martin | Deleted Journal

The Deconstruction of Language in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange: A Postmodern Analysis

2025-06-19

Mahmut Kayaaltı | Litera:dil,edebiyat ve kültür araştırmaları dergisi

Not “the British Empire in Space”: Symbiosis as Subversion in Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild”

2025-06-19

Onur Böle | Litera:dil,edebiyat ve kültür araştırmaları dergisi

Don DeLillo

2025-06-19

Lauren White , Patrick Vincent | American Literature

Few authors have exerted as much influence over American literature than the postmodern novelist Don DeLillo. Donald Richard DeLillo (b. 1936) was born in New York City to a Catholic … Few authors have exerted as much influence over American literature than the postmodern novelist Don DeLillo. Donald Richard DeLillo (b. 1936) was born in New York City to a Catholic family. Growing up in an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, DeLillo attended Cardinal Hayes High School, graduating in 1954, and earned a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Fordham University, a Catholic Jesuit private research university, in 1958. Following graduation, DeLillo worked for five years as a copywriter for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, before leaving in 1964. Following his departure from the advertising agency, DeLillo began work on his first novel, the ad-writing aesthetic persisting through DeLillo’s prose. Americana (1971) was published after four years to moderate critical praise. In 1975 DeLillo married Barbara Bennett, and in 1982 he published his seventh novel, The Names, which follows a risk analyst’s run-ins with a language cult, shifting DeLillo’s focus to the intricacies of language and mass culture. With the publication of White Noise (1985), which was awarded the National Book Award for fiction and later adapted into a 2022 film by Noah Baumbach, DeLillo began to see mainstream success. Libra (1988), the speculative novel on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, polarized American audiences but still met critical praise. Mao II (1992), winner of the PEN/Faulkner and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, represented DeLillo’s concerns about a society dominated by media and terror. A finalist for the 1997 National Book Award and 1998 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the William Dean Howells Medal in 2000, Underworld (1997), an epic Cold War history spanning the events of the atomic arms race to the advent of the Internet, has been referred to as the height of DeLillo’s career. In the 2000s, DeLillo’s standing fell from the mainstream heights of the 1980s and 1990s. While The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (2011) received widespread critical praise, DeLillo has published numerous plays, which have not garnered the same attention as his novels and short stories. DeLillo has been awarded the Jerusalem Prize (1999), the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction (2010), and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (2013). His work has been read widely, garnering a significant amount of English and non-English scholarship. The reclusive postmodernist DeLillo is admired for his engagement with art, death, techno-culture, and the dangers of a society driven by systems of mass media and mass consumption with many arguing that he is the most important American novelist of the late twentieth century.

The Visual Metalepsis as a Palimpsest in Alan Wake 2 and Layers of Fear 2

2025-06-19

Agata Waszkiewicz | Routledge eBooks

Emotional void and identity fragmentation: madness and narcissism in "Lady Audley's Secret" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862).

2025-06-18

Paolo Lantieri | English Studies at NBU

This research aims at investigating the psychological dimension of the protagonist Lady Audley on the grounds of the dialectic of alleged madness and assumed narcissistic personality disorder related to psychoanalytic … This research aims at investigating the psychological dimension of the protagonist Lady Audley on the grounds of the dialectic of alleged madness and assumed narcissistic personality disorder related to psychoanalytic literary methodology and criticism. In the light of the first Freudian studies of the first decade of the twentieth century and the subsequent outcomes, we attempt the hypothesis of female identity construction onto typically narcissistic features, in the perspective of Freud's unconscious anticipated by Mary Elizabeth Braddon in her prose generating not only a sensation novel but also an innovative psychological plot depicting the double nature of Victorian society from the perspective of a woman labeled as insane.

Introduction: Themes and Concerns in Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror

2025-06-18

Greg Singh | Routledge eBooks

Postmodernism

2025-06-17

Ella Wydrzynska | Routledge eBooks

Narrative of aging and disease in Kazuo Ishiguro's <i>The Remains of the Day</i>

2025-06-15

Xu Dai , Junwu Tian | Orbis Litterarum

Abstract Despite the centrality of aging and disease in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day , these themes have received limited critical attention. This study fills that gap by … Abstract Despite the centrality of aging and disease in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day , these themes have received limited critical attention. This study fills that gap by analyzing their portrayal through the characters of Mr. Stevens, his father, and Miss Kenton. The protagonist, Stevens, navigates a transition into old age, confronting physical decline and cognitive struggles akin to those experienced by his father. This self‐awareness generates deep unease and fear for his future. Lord Darlington's suicide, stemming from his diminished social standing in later years, intensifies Stevens' existential crisis. In response, Stevens embarks on a journey to reconcile his anxieties about aging and disease. Through his reflections, Stevens achieves a new self‐recognition, marking the novel as a Reifungsroman . From the perspective of literary gerontology, this study examines Ishiguro's representation of aging, highlighting its significance within the narrative and Ishiguro's broader philosophical engagement with aging. Ishiguro invites readers to reconsider aging not as mere decline but as a transformative phase offering opportunities for reflection, growth, and the rediscovery of purpose. By doing so, the novel enriches our understanding of later life, framing it as a stage filled with profound potential and meaning.

Shibu’s Tail by Tess Thomas (review)

2025-06-13

Danica Ronquillo | Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books./Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

6. Thinking over the Airwaves: Immediate Connection in Geoff Ryman’s Air and Tade Thompson’s The Wormwood Trilogy

2025-06-12

Arthur Rose | University of Exeter Press eBooks

Memory and Posthuman Subjectivity in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

2025-06-11

Natawan Wongchalard | Manusya Journal of Humanities

Abstract This article explores the significance of posthuman subjectivity and memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). The narrative details the life of clones bred for medical donation, … Abstract This article explores the significance of posthuman subjectivity and memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). The narrative details the life of clones bred for medical donation, who are facing premature demise. Kathy H., the protagonist and narrator, has been criticized for her seeming passivity and submission to oppression. However, this inquiry contends that her narrative – propelled by her act of remembrance – is a mechanism formulated to reclaim the agency of the non-human other or posthuman subject. The study employs Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of ‘desire’ and ‘becoming’ to examine the clones’ desires, which are constrained by their posthuman status. Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘remembrance’ is also used to analyze how memory facilitates the clones’ tangential recovery of agency and alleviates their suffering. Through the analysis of Ishiguro’s novel, the intricate dynamics of posthuman subjectivity and memory are uncovered.

Trauma Representation in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

2025-06-11

Wajiran Wajiran , Nathania Reva Maslida | Leksika Jurnal Bahasa Sastra dan Pengajarannya

This study aims to examine the representation of personal and collective trauma in the novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro using the trauma theory approach developed by Cathy … This study aims to examine the representation of personal and collective trauma in the novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro using the trauma theory approach developed by Cathy Caruth. Trauma in this context is understood not simply as a painful experience, but as an event that cannot be understood directly and only reappears in the form of repetition, dissociation, and disruption in the narrative structure. This research uses a qualitative-descriptive method with content analysis techniques of the novel text, supported by literature studies of relevant academic sources. Data were collected through in-depth reading techniques and analyzed thematically based on Caruth's key concepts such as belatedness, deferred understanding, and repetition compulsion. The analysis shows that the characters' traumatic experiences are not only personal, but also reflect collective wounds institutionalized through a dystopic social system. The non-linear narrative structure, the fragmentation of the characters' identities, and the delayed understanding of their fate are the main markers of the traumatic experience. This study concludes that Never Let Me Go not only depicts trauma through the content of the story, but also through the narrative form that reflects the psychological mechanism of trauma. This finding reinforces the importance of reading trauma in understanding the ethical and human dimensions in contemporary literature.

“Genesis is a great lie, but”

2025-06-10

Dovilė Gervytė | Textual Cultures

It is increasingly accepted in textual studies that to approach the genesis of a literary work is to narrate how its textual versions were produced. In other words, understanding the … It is increasingly accepted in textual studies that to approach the genesis of a literary work is to narrate how its textual versions were produced. In other words, understanding the development of a work encourages a reflection on the strategies used to reveal the reconstruction of its genesis for the reader. Since the main objective of genetic analysis is to trace back the processual aspects of materially recorded changes, the question arises as to how the dynamics of writing are implied by the very narration of reconstruction. In light of this discussion, the present article examines the avant-texte of John Fowles’s novel The Magus, focusing on the work’s closure which has repeatedly been debated by critics yet not addressed from the perspective of genetic analysis. This case problematizes the task of representing the complex genetic links comprehensively and promotes the view that the versions of the novel’s ending ought to be treated as a homogenous structure rather than a set of heterogeneous units.

Discovering Dynamics of Diminishing Resistance in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

2025-06-09

Angel Kushmi | Contemporary Research An Interdisciplinary Academic Journal

This research paper examines the lack of resistance towards the unjust and inhuman treatment of clones, despite the obvious reasons for opposition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The … This research paper examines the lack of resistance towards the unjust and inhuman treatment of clones, despite the obvious reasons for opposition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The dystopian society depicted in the narrative moves around clones Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy being created only for organ donation to humans. Given the harsh and unfair treatment they endure, one would expect significant resistance from the clones. However, this study argues that definite dynamics repress their aptitude to rebel and instead admit their predetermined providence. Hence, relying on the theoretical concepts of indoctrination and hegemony proposed by Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci, this paper unfolds how individuals can be influenced and conditioned to adopt values and beliefs that align with the dominant ideology, even if it contradicts their own well-being and autonomy. Therefore, this article gives emphasis on the importance of critically examining the impact of ideology and socialization on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors.

Postmodernism: Theory, Politics, Literature

2025-06-05

Ciarán Leinster | BRILL eBooks

Henry Parland’s Cyborgs: The Problematic Perfection of Man

2025-06-03

Mattias Pirholt | BRILL eBooks

Human Organs as Commodities: A Critical Study of Kazu Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

2025-06-01

Bishnu Prasad Pokharel , S. Rameeza Banu , Binod Sapkota | Nepal Journal of Multidisciplinary Research

Background: This paper explores Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) as a critique of capitalist consumer society, focusing on how human beings are transformed into commodified entities under the … Background: This paper explores Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) as a critique of capitalist consumer society, focusing on how human beings are transformed into commodified entities under the guise of progress and care. Through the characters of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth—clones raised for the sole purpose of organ donation—this study presents a dystopian reflection of late-stage capitalism, where life itself becomes a consumable product. Hailsham, a seemingly progressive boarding school, is revealed to be a corporate apparatus designed to normalize and aestheticize the commodification of bodies. Methodology: This study employs a Marxist theoretical framework, incorporating Karl Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism and alienation, Fredric Jameson’s analysis of late capitalist culture, and Max Weber’s understanding of bureaucratic rationalization. These frameworks help illuminate how the novel critiques the transformation of human subjects into objects of exchange, where emotional attachments and personal identities are suppressed in favor of utilitarian value. Results: Kathy’s reflective narration becomes a vehicle to expose the internalization of ideological structures that render resistance nearly impossible. The characters’ experiences of love, loss, and longing are systematically subordinated to the demands of bio-capitalism. Organ harvesting is not portrayed as a shocking exception but as the normalized endpoint of a society that values economic productivity over ethical considerations. The transition from Hailsham to the Cottages symbolizes a gradual but irreversible surrender to the capitalist logic that governs their lives. Conclusion: The deaths of Tommy and Ruth, and the anticipated death of Kathy, exemplify the culmination of capitalist logic, where the body is wholly owned, managed, and exhausted for the benefit of others. Once a domain of human development, education is co-opted as a mechanism to produce docile, compliant subjects fit for exploitation. Novelty: Ultimately, Never Let Me Go functions as an allegorical critique of consumer-driven modernity, where the human condition is eroded by systemic commodification. This study warns against a world in which efficiency overrides empathy, and individuals are reduced to replaceable components in a capitalist machine. Through its haunting portrayal of disability and silence, Ishiguro's work demands a rethinking of the ethical limits of consumerism and bio-political control.

Framed by Existentialism: Dissecting Absurdity and the Search for Meaning in The Island of Missing Trees

2025-06-01

S. Iftikhar , Abdul Waheed Qureshi , Farman Ullah | Deleted Journal

This study utilizes a qualitative research methodology, relying on interpretive analysis to explore existential themes in The Island of Missing Trees. Framed through the lens of Albert Camus’s philosophy particularly … This study utilizes a qualitative research methodology, relying on interpretive analysis to explore existential themes in The Island of Missing Trees. Framed through the lens of Albert Camus’s philosophy particularly his concept of absurdism the study analyzes how characters like Ada, Kostas, and Meryem find meaning in this absurd and meaningless world. The researcher specifically uses Barnet and Cain’s (2014) textual analysis model as a guiding framework, focusing on close reading, character analysis, thematic exploration, symbolism, and narrative structure to uncover layers of meaning within the text. The study addresses how Shafak transforms existential anguish into perseverance and human connection. Ultimately, the research highlights how, in this absurd world where nothing makes sense, human actions still find meaning and literature clearly embodies this philosophical struggle, making abstract ideas emotionally tangible.

7 October 2023 and Its Aftermath Through Edward Said’s Lens

2025-06-01

Md. Mahmudul Hasan | Asiatic IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature

The Palestinian tragedy meted out by Israeli settler colonial domination has lasted for many decades. Increasing Israeli atrocities against Palestinians range from targeted killings and settler violence to mass murders, … The Palestinian tragedy meted out by Israeli settler colonial domination has lasted for many decades. Increasing Israeli atrocities against Palestinians range from targeted killings and settler violence to mass murders, destruction of builtscapes, and denial of basic necessities of life such as food, water, healthcare, and communication systems. After innumerable episodes of calculated unilateral escalation of military violence against Palestinians, Israel has exhibited an increase in its aggressive behaviour in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Had Edward Said been alive today, he would have taken great interest in interpreting the current events in the region. However, he identified a pattern in Israeli behaviour which has remained unjust to Palestinians since long before the 7 October 2023 event. Israel’s characteristic hostility to Palestinians examined by Said helps us understand its genocidal crimes, which this essay explores.

‘The kid is not my son’: Rejecting the adult in Boy (2010)

2025-06-01

Beth Roberts | Australasian Journal of Popular Culture

This article examines how Māori director Taika Waititi rejects the ‘adult’ across his cinematic body of work, offering instead a vision of the world through the eyes of children, privileging … This article examines how Māori director Taika Waititi rejects the ‘adult’ across his cinematic body of work, offering instead a vision of the world through the eyes of children, privileging whimsical and nonsensical humour to challenge conventional definitions of maturity and development. With reference to several theoretical conversations on the child’s perspective in film and a non-linear coming of age, this article addresses already established writings on Waititi’s films as sites of subversion; the rejections of the ‘adult’ are the key to developing these arguments. First, he rejects the ‘adult’ perspective, using a childlike, fantastical cinematic viewpoint to confront and eschew the social norms that pressure the child protagonists into replicating socially accepted ways of becoming and being ‘mature’. Second, Waititi offers alternative, non-linear paths of development that reject the generalization of the adult, siding instead with outsider characters that are shown to have ‘failed’ in the eyes of the society. Finally, an analysis of Indigenous development narratives, their influence on how the definition of ‘maturity’ is challenged and how this intersects with Waititi’s whimsical, childlike humour reveals a nuanced rejection of the ‘western’ adult inherent in traditional coming-of-age narratives.

The Modalities of a Post-Image Future: Metaphysical Crisis and Philosophical Cinematics in Don DeLillo’s Point Omega

2025-06-01

Ian Tan | Modern fiction studies

Abstract: This essay analyzes the significance of the cinematic image in Don DeLillo’s novel Point Omega as ushering in new ways of engaging with contemporary media culture. DeLillo’s philosophical understanding … Abstract: This essay analyzes the significance of the cinematic image in Don DeLillo’s novel Point Omega as ushering in new ways of engaging with contemporary media culture. DeLillo’s philosophical understanding of the image as signifier of posthuman transcendence avails itself of comparison with Martin Heidegger’s ideas of technological modernity as dominated by a world picture distinguished by the stability of visuality. I emphasize DeLillo’s affinity with a Heideggerian critique of modernity and metaphysical thinking through his art but also stress their divergence in DeLillo’s recognition that authentic projection cannot reside in a premodern political economy, but in thinking with images.

Architexture Of “Walling In And Walling Out” in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

2025-06-01

I. Murat Öner | [sic] - a journal of literature culture and literary translation