scholarly journals The Catch of the Hyperreal: Yossarian and the Ideological Vicissitudes of Hyperreality

Text Matters ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 386-410
Author(s):  
Abdolali Yazdizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
American Life ◽  
Ideological Discourse ◽  
Catch 22

Hyperreality is a key term in Jean Baudrillard’s cultural theory, designating a phase in the development of image where it “masks the absence of a profound reality.” The ambiance of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) closely corresponds to Baudrillard’s notion of the hyperreal as images persist to precede reality in the fictional world of the novel. Since for Baudrillard each order of simulacra produces a certain mode of ideological discourse that impacts the perception of reality, it is plausible that the characters of this fictional context should be ideologically impacted by the hyperreal discourse. From this vantage point it is possible to have a new critical assessment of Yossarian’s (protagonist) antiheroic stance and study the role of the “business of illusion,” whose ideological edifice is based on the discourse of the hyperreal, on his antiheroic stance and actions. By drawing on Baudrillard’s cultural theory this paper aims to read Heller’s novel as a postmodern allegory of rebellion against the hyperreality of the twentieth-century American life and trace its relevance to modern-day U.S.

scholarly journals Raja yoga within the system of religious-ethical philosophy Of M. V. Lodyzhensky

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-90
Author(s):  
Oleg Viktorovich Solopov
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Special Role ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
Knowledge Ontology ◽  
Comprehensive Study

This article is dedicated to examination of the characteristics of the doctrine of Raja yoga in interpretation Of M. V. Lodyzhensky. The goal consists in the analysis and reconstruction of the system of Raja yoga within the religious-ethical philosophy of the thinker. In the course of this research, the author resolves a number of problems: examines the system of primary elements of religious-ethical philosophy of M. V. Lodyzhensky; analyzes the sources that affected the formation of views of the philosopher upon Raja yoga; reveals main characteristics of the system of Raja yoga within Lodyzhensky’s philosophy; determines the peculiarities of religious-mystical practice of Raja yoga in the philosophy of M. V. Lodyzhensky; defines the role of Raja-yoga within the system of religious-ethical philosophy of the thinker. The novelty lies in determination of the novel in comparison to the existing in scientific literature categories of M. V. Lodyzhensky’s philosophy and their analysis in the context of system of fundamental sections of philosophical knowledge (ontology, theology, anthropology, epistemology, axiology, ethics); as well as in comprehensive study of the system of Raja yoga in interpretation Of M. V. Lodyzhensky and determination of its role within the structure of his philosophy. It is established that the “core” of the system of religious-ethical philosophy of M. V. Lodyzhensky is the ethics develop ethics and axiology of Hesychasm developed by him. It is proven that the system of metaphysical categories and ideas of the thinker is of synthetic nature and leans on various cultural trends and traditions. The article demonstrates that special role within the system of Lodyzhensky’s philosophy is played by the apologetics of Hesychasm that implies critical review of the non-Christian mystical practices, among which is the examination of Raja yoga. The author underlines the uniqueness of interpretation of Raja yoga in the philosophy M. V. Lodyzhensky, as well as provides critical assessment to his interpretation of the system of Raja yoga.

NEO-VICTORIAN STUDIES

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret D. Stetz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Victorian Novel ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Victorian Studies ◽  
Remarkable Effect

Long ago, Margery Williams'sThe Velveteen Rabbit(1922) taught us that toys become real when they are loved. Literary genres, however, become real when they are parodied. The neo-Victorian novel, therefore, must now be real, for its features have become so familiar and readily distinguishable that John Crace has been able to have naughty fun at their expense inBrideshead Abbreviated: The Digested Read of the Twentieth Century(2010), where John Fowles'sThe French Lieutenant's Woman(1969) stands as representative of the type. Crace's treatment of Fowles's first-person narrator results in a remarkable effect: the ironic commentary upon the nineteenth century from a twentieth-century vantage point that runs throughout the novel gets subjected, in turn, to ironic commentary from a twenty-first-century point-of-view:

Negation in discourse: a text world approach to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Hidalgo-Downing
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Joseph Heller ◽  
Form Part ◽  
The Common ◽  
Catch 22 ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
The Way

This article presents a discourse-based approach to negation by applying text world theory to the analysis of negation in the novel Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (1986 [1961]), The model developed for the analysis of negation is based on Werth’s (1999) notion of negation as a subworld which modifies information which is present in the common ground of the discourse. By so doing, negation contributes to the general discourse function of updating information in the text world. Additionally, negation may form part of contradictory structures which, being self-contained units, do not contribute to the updating discourse function but, rather, seem to block the flow of information. The analysis of the functions of negation is framed within a broader framework of stylistic analysis, where the objective is to discuss how the foregrounded nature of negation as a recursive feature in Catch-22 may have a defamiliarizing effect. The argument put forward in this article is that negation plays a crucial role in the expression of a conflict between what is presented as real and what is presented as not real in the fictional world; this conflict, in its turn, has important consequences for the way the story develops and the way major themes of the novel are treated.

scholarly journals “Musil’s Discourse”: Some Aspects of a Linguistic Experiment

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-205
Author(s):  
T. V. Yudina ◽  
V. O. Fedorovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Conservation Strategy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Bipolar Structure ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Central Fragment ◽  
Cultural Experts ◽  
Positive Presentation ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

The article is devoted to the role of experiment in the process of discourse formation as a linguistic phenomenon. The object of the study is the discourse initiated by the largest Austrian writer of the twentieth century, Robert Musil. The aim of the study is a discursive analysis of the philological and literary-critical interpretations of the novel “A Man Without Qualities”, which is a central fragment of the “Musil’s Discourse”. It is noted that the Musil’s discourse unfolding during the century, is formed by numerous participants representing various groups of subjects: literary scholars, writers, cultural experts, psychologists and literary critics. Particular attention is paid to the bipolar structure of the Musil’s discourse as its main characteristic. It is shown that the leading German critic Marcel Reich- Ranicki set a new direction for the development of Musil’s discourse. The results of the analysis of Musil’s discourse at the level of its content, as well as at the levels of strategies and means of implementation are presented. The main strategies of the studied fragment of the discourse are identified - the deconstruction strategy and the conservation strategy, implemented in the tactics of invective, tactics of positive presentation and tactics of support. It is proved that the idea of the experiment laid down by Musil in the basis of the novel “A Man Without Qualities” is transposed to the Musil’s discourse as a whole and turns it into an object of experiment.

scholarly journals “The End of Human Exceptionality”: The Shift of the Anthropological Dominant in Science Fiction

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Dan Paranyuk
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
American Science

Based on the methodological proposals of literary anthropology, in particular on the conceptual ideas of C. Levi-Strauss (structural anthropology), J. Ortega y Gasset (“dehumanization of arts”), J.-M. Schaeffer (“the end of human exceptionality”), M. Foucault (the fall of a human being from the humanistic pedestal of culture), the article under studies emphasizes the violation of the anthropological dominant in science fiction, which is very typical of the fantasy genre. Consequently, there arise new principles of constructing personosphere of a literary text. On the example of the novel “City” (1953) by an American science fiction writer Clifford Simak, the article traces the way a human being shifts from the center of personosphere to the “outskirts” of narration, whereas its image acquires fictional parameters. This all happens due to the phenomenon of “anthropocene” (the term by G. Canavan), which implies the harmful consequences of the human reigning over the nature. In addition, the author of the article introduces the notion of “phantasoid’ – a character of the fictional world of fantasy (outlined by the narrator) that functions exceptionally in the imagination of a certain fantastic character and is somehow related to his previous experience. The novel by C. Simak outlines a gradual shift of the anthropological vector: the heterogeneous image of a human turns into a counter-image, whereby particular significance is attached to the change in the attitude towards mankind. In the text, human culture is perceived as something alien, while Simak’s image of a human being ruins the so called imagological stereotype, along with the reader’s receptive expectations. The role of the attractor in the novel is assigned to “antromorphized” and “humanized” creatures (plants, animals, objects, robots, mutants), which indicates the drastic breach with the previous genre tradition, as well as higlights a peculiar polemic connection with classical literary science fiction. This all proves the metamorphic nature of science fiction and its transition into the hyperreal dimensions of fantasy, where different artificial forms of life and mentality can peacefully coexist with each other.

COMMODITIES, OWNERSHIP, AND THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS: THE VALUE OF FEMININITY

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jen Sattaur
Keyword(s):  
Moral Worth ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Commodity Culture ◽  
Recent Commentary ◽  
Female Condition ◽  
Different Types

In an 1867 treatise on diamonds and precious stones, Harry Emanuel writes the following: [I]n the process of cutting, flaws and imperfections are often laid bare, which go much deeper than the appearance of the rough diamond would predict; and, on the other hand, the colour, apparent in the rough stone, is sometimes found to arise from the presence of flaws or specks, which are removed in cutting, thus leaving the stone white. (70) From such a description, it is easy to see the parallel to the female condition, and particularly the female condition, as it is popularly portrayed in the mid-nineteenth century. With the emphasis on purity and hidden flaws, it is not difficult to understand why the diamond could hold such symbolic significance for the female wearer, by functioning as an indicator not only of personal wealth, but of moral worth. Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds (1871), a novel which can be said to revolve around this metaphor, is essentially a novel about worth: absolute vs. transitory worth, actual vs. symbolic worth, and especially monetary vs. moral worth. Lizzie's character, the legal issues surrounding the diamonds, and the convoluted marriage arrangements which are perpetuated by or affected by the presence of the diamonds are all, in one way or another, concerned with the different types of value – moral, symbolic, monetary, etc. – placed upon commodity objects: objects which, by their very nature, can never be permanently owned, as their value lies in their exchangeability. I will return later to a discussion of the diamonds themselves. There has been considerable recent commentary on the role of commodities – whatever their worth – and of commodity culture within Trollope's novel; such readings, however, concentrate on the purely symbolic role played by commodity objects – and primarily the diamonds – in the novel; it is worth, by contrast, examining how Trollope utilizes the discourses and associations of actual commodity objects as he deploys them within his fictional world. This paper will examine the ways in which Trollope uses four commodity objects in particular – books of poetry, hunting horses, the safe box, and finally, the Eustace diamonds themselves – and the contemporary discourses surrounding them to defend the essentially mercenary character of Lizzie as a woman shaped by the demands that a commodity-driven society places upon her.

Tagore’s exploration of Hindu identity in Gora

2021 ◽  
pp. 002198942098858
Author(s):  
Ashim Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Indian Politics ◽  
Indian Identity

Published between 1907 and 1910, Rabindranath Tagore’s novel Gora reflects its author’s evolving cultural, political, and ideological views in the first decade of the twentieth century. This period was significant not only for Tagore’s engagement in and disenchantment with the Swadeshi movement, but also in terms of his critical assessment of the viability of a Hindu cultural-national identity for India. Reading the novel in the light of some of his relevant writings in and around the 1900s, this essay puts Tagore’s exploration of Hindu identity into perspective in order to distinguish it from the exclusionary Hindutva ideologies later promoted and popularized in Indian politics. Using a dialogic method in the novel, Tagore pits a limited, divisive, and communalist Hindu ideology against an open, liberal, and alternative Hindu selfhood for India which is compatible with the universal-humanist perspective propounded at the end. Despite endorsing the latter perspective, Tagore nevertheless reveals his concerns and uncertainties about the position of minority communities and outsiders within that holistic paradigm of Indian identity.

scholarly journals The Taming of Matter: Jalmari Finne and the Typewriter

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veijo Pulkkinen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Remarkable Feature ◽  
Previous Version ◽  
Genetic Process ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Genetic Examination

This article examines the role of the typewriter in the genetic process of the novel Vuosisatain vaatimus (1918) by the Finnish novelist Jalmari Finne (1874–1939). Finne is a rare example of an early twentieth-century author who mastered touch typing and composed directly on a typewriter. He claimed that he used the typewriter because it enabled him to keep up with his thinking, a claim that challenges Friedrich Kittler’s (1990, 193) thesis that the most remarkable feature of the typewriter is not its speed but its “spatially and discrete signs”. A genetic examination of Finne’s typescripts suggests that he had developed generative typing into a kind of  “blind revision” in that he did not read and correct previous drafts but rather inserted a blank paper in the machine and typed an altogether new version of the text without copying the previous version.  

scholarly journals Kartezjusz — Lyotard — Dukaj. „Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość” jako propozycja oświecenia po uznaniu końca paradygmatu wielkich narracji

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 169-178
Author(s):  
Gerard Ronge
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Canonical Texts

The paper explores the philosophical statements emerging from the plot of Jacek Dukaj’s science-fiction novel Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość [The Perfect Imperfection]. The argument of the article states that the Polish novel proposes a complete philosophical model of possible ways of imagining the future which is unique, yet fully coherent with the Enlightenment paradigm. After recapitulating the most important arguments of the mid-century’s discussion about the end of the grand narratives and brief recall of most canonical texts of the period of the Enlightenment, the author analyses ontological presuppositions hidden after the structure of the fictional world created by Dukaj. The novel appears to fully acknowledge the Cartesian dualistic model of the human being (which strongly separates its biological and mental roots) and sets plots in times when all biological limitations have been transgressed. Despite that, both optimistic scenarios of eighteenth-century utopians and catastrophic visions of twentieth-century sci-fi authors have never been fulfilled and the fictional world of the twenty-ninth century appears to be just the same as ours in its core, despite being totally different in terms of its phenomenological appearance.

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