scholarly journals Omniscience et polyphonie : esthétique de l’engagement dans L’espace d’un cillement de Jacques Stephen Alexi

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Józef Kwaterko
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Magic Realism ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Jacques Stephen Alexis ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
The Aesthetic

This article is a sociocritical reading of the novel L’espace d’un cillement (1959) by Jacques Stephen Alexis. In  this novel the Carib is an important chronotope and the magic realism, understood as programmatic discourse, reaches a peculiar level of aesthetic complexity. I will demonstrate how Jacques Stephen Alexis confronts the topoi of the Carib and Haïti, generating thus a discourse permeated by transcultural images. I will also focus my attention on the political aspects of the novel’s narration, on how the “proletarian” language of the omniscient narrator negotiates its voice with the free indirect speech of the characters who are shaped by their sensual relationship to reality. I will study the aesthetic form taken by the ideological message of the novel with the help of Bakhtin’s concepts of heteroglossia (diversity of languages), heterophony (diversity of voices), and heterology (diversity of social discourses).

In the Kingdom of Whomever: Baldwin’s Method

Empty Houses ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kurnick
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Generic Difference

James Baldwin is not only one of the more notable Anglophone twentieth-century novelists to attempt continually and with minimal success to enter the theater. He is also one of the major inheritors of the aesthetic and political problematic we have repeatedly encountered in the course of this book. Baldwin is perhaps the most important twentieth-century novelist to seriously explore what it means to make interiority the bearer of collective desire. This chapter argues that the novel of interiority reaches an impasse and a breakthrough in the work of Baldwin precisely when the contradictions inherent in the attempt to think collective problems through sexual interiority becomes unavoidably insistent—and does so through Baldwin's negotiation with the generic difference of the theater. His career makes clear that if the novel relentlessly personalizes collective issues, its theatrical preoccupation constitutes a record of the political costs of that reduction, one that demands to be read at the level of form.

scholarly journals Dis/Graceful Liberties: Textual Libertinism/ Libertine Texts in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45
Author(s):  
Hager Ben Driss
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
Political Allegory ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract This essay addresses J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, a Booker Prize winner in 1999. The novel captures South African political and cultural turmoil attending the post-apartheid transitional period. Far from overlooking the political allegory, I propose instead to expand on a topic only cursorily developed elsewhere, namely liberty and license. The two terms foreground the textual dynamics of the novel as they compete and/or negotiate meaning and ascendency. I argue that Disgrace is energized by Coetzee’s belief in a total liberty of artistic production. Sex is philosophically problematized in the text and advocated as a serious issue that deserves artistic investigation without restriction or censorship. This essay looks into the subtle libertinism in Coetzee’s text, which displays pornographic overtones without exhibiting a flamboyant libertinage. Disgrace acquires its libertine gesture from its dialogue with several literary works steeped in libertinism. The troubled relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical yields an ambiguous text that invites a responsible act of reading.

Psychopathology, Inner Space and the Automotive Death Drive: J.G. Ballard

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Sey
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Aesthetic Expression

This paper uses a detailed reading of the 1973 novel Crash!, a work of dystopian science fiction by British author J.G. Ballard, to outline a new theory of psychopathology in a thoroughly technologised culture. The paper proposes that, in the light of the evidence of the novel, it may be possible to reconceptualise both trauma and the somatic relationship to pathology, through the mediation of a saturated technoculture, at least in the sense of a closer investigation of the relationship between perversity and aesthetic expression. The argument concludes that there is a privileged relationship between such extreme forms of pathological symptom as are presented in the novel, and the aesthetic form itself, which leads to a more productive understanding of psychopathology.

Digital protest in Singapore: the pragmatics of political Internet memes

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1115-1132
Author(s):  
Wee Yang Soh
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Use Of Internet

This article investigates the use of Internet memes as political protest in Singapore. The proliferation of political memes after the controversial 2017 Singapore presidential election was curious, considering the government’s strict policies in regulating discourses both online and offline. By analyzing memes that circulated after the election, this article examines how the aesthetic form of political Internet memes intersects with current communicative ideologies to disperse their authorship, thereby allowing Singaporeans to communicate political dissent indirectly in ways that can always be subsequently disavowed as humor. In particular, the political productiveness of memes stems from their ambivalent status, as they are capable of being evaluated according to two competing ideologies centered on two intensional prototypes: first, of memes as political artifacts; second, of memes as humorous artifacts. Empirically, this article builds on existing digital media scholarship by demonstrating the need to factor language and media ideologies into analyses of digital media.

Aesthetic Form and Social ‘Form’ in À la recherche du temps perdu

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-218
Author(s):  
Alison Finch
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Aesthetic Form

The frequency with which Proust uses the word ‘goût’ (taste) in À la recherche du temps perdu contributes to the patterning or ‘form’ of the novel, while raising questions about social ‘form’. Proust plays with the concept of ‘taste’ or ‘tastes’ in such a way as to interweave the bodily, the historical and the imaginary, constructing scenarios that depend on ‘taste’, variously interpreted, and that are – alternately or simultaneously – comic, quasi-anthropological or poignant (for example, those staging gay eroticism); he also creates puns that draw on both oral and aesthetic meanings of taste/s. Throughout the novel, he depicts the relativism of tastes, the battlegrounds on which these are fought out, and the complex relationship between taste and disgust. (Arguably, in some cases the battlegrounds are peculiarly French, given the political importance of ‘taste’ in the national culture.) Characters such as Albertine, Brichot and the ‘low-life’ Jupien all have their – sometimes unexpected – roles in these taste-wars.

Dazzling Estrangement: Modernism, Queer Ekphrasis, and the Spatial Form of Nightwood

PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
pp. 749-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Glavey
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spatial Form ◽  
High Modernism ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
The Aesthetic

The reputation of Djuna Barnes's Nightwood as a work of “marginal” modernism is complicated by its affinities with the aesthetics of high modernism, a fact signaled by its role as the inspiration of Joseph Frank's theory of spatial form. At once emblematic and eccentric, the novel is devoted to both recognition and obscurity. Nightwood enacts this paradox through a strategy of queer ekphrasis that aestheticizes moments of loss, giving aesthetic form to experiences of stigma in order to “dazzle” them. Attending to Barnes's spatial form will forward debates about modernism and queer theory, suggesting a more useful vocabulary for both: an account of the aesthetic that is neither wholly subversive nor wholly conservative and a nuanced account of queerness that does not subscribe to either total negation or total affirmation.

scholarly journals BUMIPUTRA AUTHOR’S RESISTANCE TOWARD POLITICAL HEGEMONY AND CANONIZATION OF BALAI PUSTAKA IN THE NOVEL HIKAYAT KADIROEN AND STUDENT HIDJO

LITERA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hary Sulistyo ◽  
Endang Sartika
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Literary Politics ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Colonial Government

The ideological and aesthetic contestation of Balai Pustaka, forcing writer‟s resistance particularly Bumiputra writers. The ideological contestation occurs because Balai Pustaka as the apparatus of the Colonial government suppress the resistance attitudes of the indigenous authors. The authors, who ideologically contradicted with the government, resisted the politics of literature through their works. This research is intended to reveal the canonization of Balai Pustaka which governs the aesthetic and ideological standards of literary works and the resistance of Bumiputra authors toward the hegemony of the Dutch East Indies. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative approach by seeing the text as the representation of hegemony and resistance as well as linking textual and contextual issues to describe literary politics and the reflection of general politics. The objects of this research are the text and historical context represented in the novel Hikayat Kadiroen and Student Hidjo. The results show that Hikayat Kadiroen presents exemplary attitudes of fair leaders in solving peoples‟ problems and representing the identity of Indonesian literature. Whereas Student Hidjo portrayed concern for the Indigenous people by criticisizing the political hegemony on racial basic. The resistance of Bumiputra authors was shown by raising resistance theme toward colonialism in the Dutch East Indies, as a form of resistance toward political hegemony and canonization of Balai Pustaka.Keywords: hegemony and resistance, Dutch East Indies, cultural identity.RESISTENSI PENGARANG BUMIPUTERA TERHADAP HEGEMONI POLITIK DAN KANONISASI BALAI PUSTAKA DALAM NOVEL HIKAYAT KADIROEN DAN STUDENT HIDJOAbstrakKontestasi ideologis dan estetis Balai Pustaka, menghadirkan sikap-sikap perlawanan khususnya para penulis Bumiputra. Pertarungan ideologis terjadi karena Balai Pustaka sebagai apparatus pemerintah Kolonial, menekan sikap-sikap perlawanan pengarang Pribumi. Para pengarang yang secara ideologi berseberangan dengan pemerintah, melakukan resistensi atas politik kesusastraan melalui karya-karyanya. Tujuan penelitian ini mengungkapkan kanonisasi Balai Pustaka yang mengatur standar estetis dan idelogis karya sastra dan perlawanan kelompok Bumiputra terhadap hegemoni yang diterapkan di Hindia Belanda. Metode penelitian ini diawali dengan melihat teks sebagai representasi hegemoni dan resistensi dalam novel Hikayat Kadiroen dan Student Hidjo. Menghubungkan persoalan tekstual dan kontekstual untuk menjabarkan politik sastra dan cerminan politik general. Hasil penelitian menunjukan Hikayat Kadiroen menghadirkan sikap keteladanan pemimpin yang adil terhadap rakyat dalam menyeselaikan persoalan dan merepresentasikan identitas kultural kesusastraan Indonesia. Sedangkan Student Hidjo, menunjukkan sikap kepedulian terhadap Pribumi dengan kritik terhadap hegemoni politik atas dasar rasialis. Resistensi pengarang Bumiputra terhadap Balai Pustaka, ditunjukkan dengan mengangkat tema perlawanan terhadap kolonialisme di Hindia Belanda, sebagai bentuk resistensi terhadap hegemoni dan kanonisasi Balai Pustaka.Kata kunci: hegemoni dan resistensi, Hindia Belanda, identitas kultural.

scholarly journals Deltageren som museumsaktivist

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (118) ◽  
pp. 125-138
Author(s):  
Mette Thobo-Carlsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Art Installation ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic

Since the 1960s, a ’theatricalization’ of contemporary art and culture has questioned the modernist ideal of the autonomy of art, highlighting instead the performativity and sociality of art as event. The performative and theatrical viewer-involving tendency in art has redefined the relations between art, context and viewer and inspired many museums to rethink the political rationality implied in their social role as authoritative producers of knowledge and their educative and civilizing functions. The museum - once considered an isolated and privileged public space reserved for a small section of citizens - is today developing new museum policies and strategies based on performative and participatory forms of knowledge production, thus aiming to play a more active and perhaps critical role in constituting new social relations and mobilizing new collectivities and communities. In this context, the present article wishes to suggest a performative reading of the art exhibition The Model: Palle Nielsen from 2014 at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, in order to understand the various performative modes of participation which the art installation makes possible. The article explores what makes the artwork political, how it achieves and performs political agency and to what effect, thus aiming to redefine the political in art not in terms of content but as unforeseeable effects of the performativity of the aesthetic form. 

Indigenous Literature in Postwar Australia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Indigenous Literature ◽  
Black Theatre ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Alphabetic Writing

Indigenous people in Australia have used inscriptive practices for at least 65,000 years and have employed alphabetic writing extensively since contact with Europeans, but the latter half of the 20th century saw an even wider explosion of indigenous writing in Australia. Aboriginal writers have worked across all modes: poetry (beginning with Oodgeroo Noonuccal in the 1960s), theater (flourishing in the 1970s with the National Black Theatre and spreading as far afield as Western Australia with the formation of Jack Davis’s Yirra Yaakin Aboriginal Theatre Company), the novel, and the proliferation of life writing in the 1980s. In each case, indigenous writing in postwar Australia balances the aesthetic with the political, drawing in transnational influences while also foregrounding local concerns.

Ishiguro at the Limit: The Corporation and the Novel

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-405
Author(s):  
Chris Holmes
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Corporate Personhood ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Corporate State

Abstract The early twenty-first century has seen a radical shift in how the aesthetic form of the novel addresses the abstraction of labor and the precarity of minority communities that have come to epitomize neoliberal capital. Novels increasingly attempt to formulate institutions apart from the privatizing drive that seeks to corporatize all civil society. This ambition to differentiate the novel from the primary ideology of this period has been marked by the emergence of a particular mode of critical rejoinder to the pervasive corporatist mind-set, a mode called limit thinking, in which novels draw attention to themselves as texts with which to produce new forms of thinking rather than as storehouses of information or political treatises. The writer Kazuo Ishiguro's novels Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go present limit thinking as a means to offset the prevailing form of totalizing thinking in the West: corporate personhood. That corporate body, with its obvious intentions toward absolute privatization, has been allowed a unique form of embodiment. The imagined body of the corporation has been gifted the presumption of thought. Understanding the limits of the novel—and by contrast the seeming limitlessness of the corporate state of mind—prepares us to understand how the novel resists an epistemological system into which it incorporated and how, in doing so, it shifts the kinds of questions we ask of the novel from those of what does the novel know? to how is the novel thinking?

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