Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184997
- eISBN:
- 9780191674426
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184997.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
This study engages with the troubled question of authorial subjectivity and ethics in Modernism in general and in Conrad's short fiction in particular, and offers an original theoretical perspective, ...
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This study engages with the troubled question of authorial subjectivity and ethics in Modernism in general and in Conrad's short fiction in particular, and offers an original theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of Derrida and the early philosophical writings of M. M. Bakhtin. Part One of the book focuses on the relational dynamics in Under Western Eyes and The Secret Sharer, and develops a ‘heterobiographical’ reading matrix, which serves as a psycho-textual and philosophical approach to modes of authorial presence in the text. Part Two offers close readings of ten short stories spanning the whole of Conrad's career and clustered into five chapters — Writing and Fratricide, The Pathos of Authenticity, The Poetics of Cultural Despair, The Romantic paradox, and Addressing the Woman. This part of the book engages with the interpretative problems posed by these stories through a cultural-historical perspective, linking Conrad's essentially Romantic sensibility and his unique position on the threshold of Modernism with some of the issues that have emerged from the ‘Postmodern turn’: the relationship between metaphysics and subjectivity, the conception of inter-subjectivity as prior to and constitutive of subjectivity; the permeability of textual and psychological boundary-lines; and the desire for subjective aesthetization.Less
This study engages with the troubled question of authorial subjectivity and ethics in Modernism in general and in Conrad's short fiction in particular, and offers an original theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of Derrida and the early philosophical writings of M. M. Bakhtin. Part One of the book focuses on the relational dynamics in Under Western Eyes and The Secret Sharer, and develops a ‘heterobiographical’ reading matrix, which serves as a psycho-textual and philosophical approach to modes of authorial presence in the text. Part Two offers close readings of ten short stories spanning the whole of Conrad's career and clustered into five chapters — Writing and Fratricide, The Pathos of Authenticity, The Poetics of Cultural Despair, The Romantic paradox, and Addressing the Woman. This part of the book engages with the interpretative problems posed by these stories through a cultural-historical perspective, linking Conrad's essentially Romantic sensibility and his unique position on the threshold of Modernism with some of the issues that have emerged from the ‘Postmodern turn’: the relationship between metaphysics and subjectivity, the conception of inter-subjectivity as prior to and constitutive of subjectivity; the permeability of textual and psychological boundary-lines; and the desire for subjective aesthetization.
Jacqueline Howard
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119920
- eISBN:
- 9780191671258
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119920.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Criticism/Theory
This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical ...
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This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other discourses in the reading process. This position enables the author to intervene in feminist discussions of Gothic, which have claimed it as a specifically female genre. The author suggests a way in which feminists can appropriate Bakhtin to make politically effective readings, while acknowledging that these readings do not exhaust the novels' possibilities of meaning and reception. Drawing on the most up-to-date debates in literary theory, this is a sophisticated and scholarly analysis of a genre that has consistently challenged literary criticism.Less
This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other discourses in the reading process. This position enables the author to intervene in feminist discussions of Gothic, which have claimed it as a specifically female genre. The author suggests a way in which feminists can appropriate Bakhtin to make politically effective readings, while acknowledging that these readings do not exhaust the novels' possibilities of meaning and reception. Drawing on the most up-to-date debates in literary theory, this is a sophisticated and scholarly analysis of a genre that has consistently challenged literary criticism.
Emily Van Buskirk
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166797
- eISBN:
- 9781400873777
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166797.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter explains the concept of post-individualist prose as a pointed departure from nineteenth-century Realism. This is a fragmentary, documentary literature that restricts itself to the realm ...
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This chapter explains the concept of post-individualist prose as a pointed departure from nineteenth-century Realism. This is a fragmentary, documentary literature that restricts itself to the realm of “fact,” while being free to range outside the conventions of established genres. The post-individualist person's primary dilemma is a crisis in values, and Ginzburg treats writing as an ethical act. The chapter considers how writing serves as an “exit from the self,” a process by which the self becomes another, leaving behind the ego. It then turns to two of Ginzburg's narratives (“Delusion of the Will” and “A Story of Pity and Cruelty”), which concern the dilemmas of moral action in response to the death of a loved one. The traumatized subject uses techniques of “self-distancing” to deal with his or her sense of self and of the past by constructing a complete and responsible self-image, embedded within a social milieu, and then trying to connect it with his or her actions. Ginzburg's techniques of “self-distancing” are examined side-by-side with Shklovsky's concept of ostranenie (“estrangement”) and Bakhtin's vnenakhodimost' (“outsideness”).Less
This chapter explains the concept of post-individualist prose as a pointed departure from nineteenth-century Realism. This is a fragmentary, documentary literature that restricts itself to the realm of “fact,” while being free to range outside the conventions of established genres. The post-individualist person's primary dilemma is a crisis in values, and Ginzburg treats writing as an ethical act. The chapter considers how writing serves as an “exit from the self,” a process by which the self becomes another, leaving behind the ego. It then turns to two of Ginzburg's narratives (“Delusion of the Will” and “A Story of Pity and Cruelty”), which concern the dilemmas of moral action in response to the death of a loved one. The traumatized subject uses techniques of “self-distancing” to deal with his or her sense of self and of the past by constructing a complete and responsible self-image, embedded within a social milieu, and then trying to connect it with his or her actions. Ginzburg's techniques of “self-distancing” are examined side-by-side with Shklovsky's concept of ostranenie (“estrangement”) and Bakhtin's vnenakhodimost' (“outsideness”).
KEN HIRSCHKOP
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159612
- eISBN:
- 9780191673641
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159612.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The chapter focuses on the logic of the unwilling transformation of the novel becoming a privileged form of culture. The efforts of post-glasnost Bakhtin scholarship made it even harder to know about ...
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The chapter focuses on the logic of the unwilling transformation of the novel becoming a privileged form of culture. The efforts of post-glasnost Bakhtin scholarship made it even harder to know about Bakhtin’s life. There were a lot of Bakhtin myths that were not generated by Soviet censorship but in the course of its demise. Indirectly, they reveal that the founding myth of the Bakhtin scholarship itself is caused by the heavy hand of official politics and Stalinist repression. A substantially revised and enlarged text, Problems of Dostoesky’s Poetics, concerned the rediscovery of Bakhtin himself. In the United States, the choice between a non-Marxist Bakhtin and his Marxist comrades appeared as a choice between social systems. This allowed Morson to enlist Bakhtin in the fight for ‘American progressive ideals’. The chapter goes on to reveal more truths about Mikhail Bakhtin’s history which debunked many myths.Less
The chapter focuses on the logic of the unwilling transformation of the novel becoming a privileged form of culture. The efforts of post-glasnost Bakhtin scholarship made it even harder to know about Bakhtin’s life. There were a lot of Bakhtin myths that were not generated by Soviet censorship but in the course of its demise. Indirectly, they reveal that the founding myth of the Bakhtin scholarship itself is caused by the heavy hand of official politics and Stalinist repression. A substantially revised and enlarged text, Problems of Dostoesky’s Poetics, concerned the rediscovery of Bakhtin himself. In the United States, the choice between a non-Marxist Bakhtin and his Marxist comrades appeared as a choice between social systems. This allowed Morson to enlist Bakhtin in the fight for ‘American progressive ideals’. The chapter goes on to reveal more truths about Mikhail Bakhtin’s history which debunked many myths.
Murray Pittock
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232796
- eISBN:
- 9780191716409
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232796.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This book addresses the main non-English Romanticisms of the British Isles. It begins by challenging the terms of its own title by asking ‘what is Romanticism’, and ‘what does the term ‘national ...
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This book addresses the main non-English Romanticisms of the British Isles. It begins by challenging the terms of its own title by asking ‘what is Romanticism’, and ‘what does the term ‘national literature’ mean’? It then proceeds to explain and define the answers to these questions, providing certain triggers by the presence of which a national literature can be recognized, and also deals with two major problems which are holding back the development of a new and broader understanding of British Isles Romanticisms: the survival of outdated assumptions in ostensibly more modern paradigms, and a lack of understanding of the full range of dialogues and relationships across the literatures of these islands. The theorists whose work chiefly inform the book are Bakhtin, Fanon, and Habermas, although they do not define its arguments, and an alertness to the ways in which other literary theories inform each other is present throughout the book.Less
This book addresses the main non-English Romanticisms of the British Isles. It begins by challenging the terms of its own title by asking ‘what is Romanticism’, and ‘what does the term ‘national literature’ mean’? It then proceeds to explain and define the answers to these questions, providing certain triggers by the presence of which a national literature can be recognized, and also deals with two major problems which are holding back the development of a new and broader understanding of British Isles Romanticisms: the survival of outdated assumptions in ostensibly more modern paradigms, and a lack of understanding of the full range of dialogues and relationships across the literatures of these islands. The theorists whose work chiefly inform the book are Bakhtin, Fanon, and Habermas, although they do not define its arguments, and an alertness to the ways in which other literary theories inform each other is present throughout the book.
Julian Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195372397
- eISBN:
- 9780199870844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372397.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Opera
The Wunderhorn songs, and the symphonies that draw on them, are discussed in relation to the idea of Humor as understood in romantic literature (especially Jean Paul) as an inverted form of the ...
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The Wunderhorn songs, and the symphonies that draw on them, are discussed in relation to the idea of Humor as understood in romantic literature (especially Jean Paul) as an inverted form of the sublime and also to the idea of the carnivalesque as understood by Bakhtin. Both are related to the idea of irony in Mahler's music and explored through considering the tone with which his music speaks—in both the Wunderhorn songs and the symphonies. The chapter also explores the extent to which Mahler's music is constituted from borrowed voices, understood both as allusions to other historical styles as well as more direct echoes of the music of other composers. Incidences of quotation are rare in Mahler and are much less important than his weaving together of plural stylistic idioms.Less
The Wunderhorn songs, and the symphonies that draw on them, are discussed in relation to the idea of Humor as understood in romantic literature (especially Jean Paul) as an inverted form of the sublime and also to the idea of the carnivalesque as understood by Bakhtin. Both are related to the idea of irony in Mahler's music and explored through considering the tone with which his music speaks—in both the Wunderhorn songs and the symphonies. The chapter also explores the extent to which Mahler's music is constituted from borrowed voices, understood both as allusions to other historical styles as well as more direct echoes of the music of other composers. Incidences of quotation are rare in Mahler and are much less important than his weaving together of plural stylistic idioms.
J. R. Watson
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198270027
- eISBN:
- 9780191600784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019827002X.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Considers the traditional view of hymns as second‐rate literature, and the neglect of them by most literary critics, apart from Donald Davie and Lionel Adey. Hymns have been thought of as belonging ...
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Considers the traditional view of hymns as second‐rate literature, and the neglect of them by most literary critics, apart from Donald Davie and Lionel Adey. Hymns have been thought of as belonging to the church, rather than to the world. Church critics have not helped by concentrating on content and function in worship. There is a need to understand the form of hymns, and the inseparable nature of form and content (Bakhtin).Less
Considers the traditional view of hymns as second‐rate literature, and the neglect of them by most literary critics, apart from Donald Davie and Lionel Adey. Hymns have been thought of as belonging to the church, rather than to the world. Church critics have not helped by concentrating on content and function in worship. There is a need to understand the form of hymns, and the inseparable nature of form and content (Bakhtin).
George Pattison
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199279777
- eISBN:
- 9780191603464
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199279772.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Language must be led by what is extra-linguistic. This chapter explores ideas of vision that might inform thinking about God in language. Drawing from Bakhtin and Tillich, from an icon of Andrei ...
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Language must be led by what is extra-linguistic. This chapter explores ideas of vision that might inform thinking about God in language. Drawing from Bakhtin and Tillich, from an icon of Andrei Rublev, and from the film After Life, the idea of a reverse vision is developed; vision that flows back upon itself, as offering one idea of vision that might aid non-technological thinking. In light of P. Florensky’s reflections on truth, this is connected with the notion of liturgy as a site of active remembrance and hope.Less
Language must be led by what is extra-linguistic. This chapter explores ideas of vision that might inform thinking about God in language. Drawing from Bakhtin and Tillich, from an icon of Andrei Rublev, and from the film After Life, the idea of a reverse vision is developed; vision that flows back upon itself, as offering one idea of vision that might aid non-technological thinking. In light of P. Florensky’s reflections on truth, this is connected with the notion of liturgy as a site of active remembrance and hope.
Thomas L. Brodie
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195138368
- eISBN:
- 9780199834037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138368.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
It is not fully clear why Genesis consists of literary diptychs – narratives in dialog – rather than linear narrative. Yet, diptych structure is central to Genesis. The complexity of diptychs ...
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It is not fully clear why Genesis consists of literary diptychs – narratives in dialog – rather than linear narrative. Yet, diptych structure is central to Genesis. The complexity of diptychs corresponds significantly to the complex nature of reality, of art, and of ideas. This complexity also corresponds partly to Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of truth as dialogical. The diptych is mind‐opening.Less
It is not fully clear why Genesis consists of literary diptychs – narratives in dialog – rather than linear narrative. Yet, diptych structure is central to Genesis. The complexity of diptychs corresponds significantly to the complex nature of reality, of art, and of ideas. This complexity also corresponds partly to Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of truth as dialogical. The diptych is mind‐opening.
Elton T.E. Barker
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199542710
- eISBN:
- 9780191715365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542710.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter introduces the book's subject, methodology, and aims. Noting limitations in scope and tendency towards abstraction of previous studies, it considers the broader institutional context for ...
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This chapter introduces the book's subject, methodology, and aims. Noting limitations in scope and tendency towards abstraction of previous studies, it considers the broader institutional context for debate and examines its various manifestations in texts. Three arguments are proposed: that debate plays a critical role in both oral and written narrative (epic and historiography) and drama (tragedy); that debate is best thought of in terms of the due management of disagreement; and that its textual representations reproduce an agonistic mental horizon among its many audiences. In making these claims, the introduction draws on the cultural analysis of competition and debate by G. Lloyd, J.-P. Vernant and others, the theory of structuration by the political theorist A. Giddens, which stresses the activity of people working within social structures to enact them, and M. Bakhtin's dialogic approach, which analyses the dynamic between the narrator's voice and those of his characters.Less
This chapter introduces the book's subject, methodology, and aims. Noting limitations in scope and tendency towards abstraction of previous studies, it considers the broader institutional context for debate and examines its various manifestations in texts. Three arguments are proposed: that debate plays a critical role in both oral and written narrative (epic and historiography) and drama (tragedy); that debate is best thought of in terms of the due management of disagreement; and that its textual representations reproduce an agonistic mental horizon among its many audiences. In making these claims, the introduction draws on the cultural analysis of competition and debate by G. Lloyd, J.-P. Vernant and others, the theory of structuration by the political theorist A. Giddens, which stresses the activity of people working within social structures to enact them, and M. Bakhtin's dialogic approach, which analyses the dynamic between the narrator's voice and those of his characters.
Ilkka Tuomi
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199269051
- eISBN:
- 9780191699337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269051.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management, Innovation
This chapter returns to the topic of communities. It discusses several alternative theoretical traditions that have described the social basis of meaning, knowing, and knowledge creation. It starts ...
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This chapter returns to the topic of communities. It discusses several alternative theoretical traditions that have described the social basis of meaning, knowing, and knowledge creation. It starts by introducing the concept of thought community that was originally introduced by Ludwik Fleck (1979) in the 1930s. Fleck's historical study described many of those social processes that underlie the emergence of new scientific knowledge and new technologies. The chapter further discusses Bakhtin's speech genres, cultural-historical activity theory, social learning in communities of practice, and the concept of ba. Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues have argued that innovation and knowledge creation occur in knowledge creation spaces, or ba. The chapter discusses the nature of ba, and links this concept back to its origins in the epistemological theory of Kitaro Nishida and the Kyoto School. The chapter, therefore, introduces a set of alternative theoretical views that can be used to understand the cognitive and social basis of innovation.Less
This chapter returns to the topic of communities. It discusses several alternative theoretical traditions that have described the social basis of meaning, knowing, and knowledge creation. It starts by introducing the concept of thought community that was originally introduced by Ludwik Fleck (1979) in the 1930s. Fleck's historical study described many of those social processes that underlie the emergence of new scientific knowledge and new technologies. The chapter further discusses Bakhtin's speech genres, cultural-historical activity theory, social learning in communities of practice, and the concept of ba. Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues have argued that innovation and knowledge creation occur in knowledge creation spaces, or ba. The chapter discusses the nature of ba, and links this concept back to its origins in the epistemological theory of Kitaro Nishida and the Kyoto School. The chapter, therefore, introduces a set of alternative theoretical views that can be used to understand the cognitive and social basis of innovation.
Nicole M. Piemonte
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262037396
- eISBN:
- 9780262344968
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037396.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
While many commentators have pointed to the lack of compassion and empathy in medicine, their critiques, for the most part, have not considered seriously the deeper philosophical, psychological, and ...
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While many commentators have pointed to the lack of compassion and empathy in medicine, their critiques, for the most part, have not considered seriously the deeper philosophical, psychological, and ontological reasons why clinicians and medical students might choose to conceive of medicine as an endeavor concerned solely with the biological workings of the body. Thus, this book examines why it is that existential suffering tends to be overlooked in medical practice and education, as well as the ways in which contemporary medical epistemology and pedagogy not only perpetuate but are indeed shaped by the human tendency to flee from the reality of death and vulnerability. It also explores how students and doctors perceive medicine, including what it means to be a doctor and what responsibilities doctors have toward addressing existential suffering. Contending that the being of the physician is constituted by the other who calls out to her in his suffering, this book argues that the doctor is, in fact, called to attend to suffering that extends beyond the biological. It also discusses how future physicians might be “brought back to themselves” and oriented toward a deeper sense of care through a pedagogy that encourages intentional reflection and values the cultivation of the self, openness to vulnerability, and a fuller conception of what it means to be a healer.Less
While many commentators have pointed to the lack of compassion and empathy in medicine, their critiques, for the most part, have not considered seriously the deeper philosophical, psychological, and ontological reasons why clinicians and medical students might choose to conceive of medicine as an endeavor concerned solely with the biological workings of the body. Thus, this book examines why it is that existential suffering tends to be overlooked in medical practice and education, as well as the ways in which contemporary medical epistemology and pedagogy not only perpetuate but are indeed shaped by the human tendency to flee from the reality of death and vulnerability. It also explores how students and doctors perceive medicine, including what it means to be a doctor and what responsibilities doctors have toward addressing existential suffering. Contending that the being of the physician is constituted by the other who calls out to her in his suffering, this book argues that the doctor is, in fact, called to attend to suffering that extends beyond the biological. It also discusses how future physicians might be “brought back to themselves” and oriented toward a deeper sense of care through a pedagogy that encourages intentional reflection and values the cultivation of the self, openness to vulnerability, and a fuller conception of what it means to be a healer.
Michael Macovski
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195069655
- eISBN:
- 9780199855186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195069655.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Extending and modifying the works of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ong, and Foucault—though drawing primarily on Bakhtin's theory of dialogue—this book constructs a theoretical model of “dialogic romanticism” ...
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Extending and modifying the works of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ong, and Foucault—though drawing primarily on Bakhtin's theory of dialogue—this book constructs a theoretical model of “dialogic romanticism” and applies it to a range of Romantic texts. Literary discourse is seen as a composite of voices—interactive voices which are not only contained within the literary text but extend beyond it, to other works, authors, interpretations, and discourses. The book holds that varieties of dialogic forms and meanings were particularly pronounced during the Romantic epoch, and accordingly traces the manifestations of dialogues within Romantic discourse, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge and extending to those nineteenth-century prose works most often treated as “Romantic”: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Heart of Darkness.Less
Extending and modifying the works of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ong, and Foucault—though drawing primarily on Bakhtin's theory of dialogue—this book constructs a theoretical model of “dialogic romanticism” and applies it to a range of Romantic texts. Literary discourse is seen as a composite of voices—interactive voices which are not only contained within the literary text but extend beyond it, to other works, authors, interpretations, and discourses. The book holds that varieties of dialogic forms and meanings were particularly pronounced during the Romantic epoch, and accordingly traces the manifestations of dialogues within Romantic discourse, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge and extending to those nineteenth-century prose works most often treated as “Romantic”: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Heart of Darkness.
Galin Tihanov
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187257
- eISBN:
- 9780191674679
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187257.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book is a comparative study in the history of ideas. It is an innovative examination of the intellectual background, affiliations and contexts of two major twentieth-century thinkers, and an ...
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This book is a comparative study in the history of ideas. It is an innovative examination of the intellectual background, affiliations and contexts of two major twentieth-century thinkers, and an historical interpretation of their work in aesthetics, cultural theory, literary history, and philosophy. Unlike all existing texts on Lukács and Bakhtin, the book offers a comparison of their writings at different stages of their intellectual development and in the broad context of the ideas of their time. It introduces unknown archival material and discusses hitherto disregarded or overlooked texts by Lukács and Bakhtin. The book puts forward new readings of the best-known work on Dostoevsky, Rabelais, and Goethe, and treats in an original way the question of the coherence of Bakhtin's oeuvre. It offers valuable insight into the sources of Bakhtin's terminological repertoire, and through examination of Bakhtin's and Lukács's intellectual affiliations, into the limits and substance of their originality as thinkers. Lukács and Bakhtin emerge from the book as thinkers, whose intellectual careers followed strikingly similar paths. They both were confronted with similar agendas and questions posed for them by their time. Bakhtin however, had to find answers not only for this common agenda, but also to the answers that Lukács himself had already provided.Less
This book is a comparative study in the history of ideas. It is an innovative examination of the intellectual background, affiliations and contexts of two major twentieth-century thinkers, and an historical interpretation of their work in aesthetics, cultural theory, literary history, and philosophy. Unlike all existing texts on Lukács and Bakhtin, the book offers a comparison of their writings at different stages of their intellectual development and in the broad context of the ideas of their time. It introduces unknown archival material and discusses hitherto disregarded or overlooked texts by Lukács and Bakhtin. The book puts forward new readings of the best-known work on Dostoevsky, Rabelais, and Goethe, and treats in an original way the question of the coherence of Bakhtin's oeuvre. It offers valuable insight into the sources of Bakhtin's terminological repertoire, and through examination of Bakhtin's and Lukács's intellectual affiliations, into the limits and substance of their originality as thinkers. Lukács and Bakhtin emerge from the book as thinkers, whose intellectual careers followed strikingly similar paths. They both were confronted with similar agendas and questions posed for them by their time. Bakhtin however, had to find answers not only for this common agenda, but also to the answers that Lukács himself had already provided.
Martin O'Shaughnessy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719091506
- eISBN:
- 9781781708590
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091506.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to ...
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Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to globalized consumption more acutely than perhaps any other French film-maker. His films always challenge his characters’ assumptions about their world. But they also make their spectators rethink their position in relation to what they see. This is what makes Cantet such an important film-maker, the book argues. It explores Cantet’s unique working ‘method,’ his use of amateur actors and attempt to develop an egalitarian authorship that allows other voices to be heard rather than subsumed. It discusses his way of constructing films at the uneasy interface of the individual, the group and the broader social context and his recourse to melodramatic strategies and moments of shame to force social tensions into view. It shows how the roots of the well-known later films can be found in his early works. It explores the major fictions from Ressources humaines to the recent Foxfire, Confessions of a Girl Gang. It combines careful close analysis with attention to broader cinematic, social and political contexts while drawing on a range of important theorists from Pierre Bourdieu to Jacques Rancière, Michael Bakhtin and Mary Ann Doane. It concludes by examining how, resolutely contemporary of the current moment, Cantet helps us rethink the possibilities and limits of political cinema in a context in which old resistances have fallen silent and new forms of protest are only emergent.Less
Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to globalized consumption more acutely than perhaps any other French film-maker. His films always challenge his characters’ assumptions about their world. But they also make their spectators rethink their position in relation to what they see. This is what makes Cantet such an important film-maker, the book argues. It explores Cantet’s unique working ‘method,’ his use of amateur actors and attempt to develop an egalitarian authorship that allows other voices to be heard rather than subsumed. It discusses his way of constructing films at the uneasy interface of the individual, the group and the broader social context and his recourse to melodramatic strategies and moments of shame to force social tensions into view. It shows how the roots of the well-known later films can be found in his early works. It explores the major fictions from Ressources humaines to the recent Foxfire, Confessions of a Girl Gang. It combines careful close analysis with attention to broader cinematic, social and political contexts while drawing on a range of important theorists from Pierre Bourdieu to Jacques Rancière, Michael Bakhtin and Mary Ann Doane. It concludes by examining how, resolutely contemporary of the current moment, Cantet helps us rethink the possibilities and limits of political cinema in a context in which old resistances have fallen silent and new forms of protest are only emergent.
Gregory Currie
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199256280
- eISBN:
- 9780191601712
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199256284.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Many theorists have been attracted to the idea that literature can help us penetrate the mystery of time. Argues that the track record of the works they appeal to is poor. Finds some common ground ...
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Many theorists have been attracted to the idea that literature can help us penetrate the mystery of time. Argues that the track record of the works they appeal to is poor. Finds some common ground with the literary philosophers, and suggests ways in which fiction might tell us things about time; But alsosuggests that there is very little to be hoped for from this programme. A belief to the contrary is largely the result of a misunderstanding about what counts as a question about time.Less
Many theorists have been attracted to the idea that literature can help us penetrate the mystery of time. Argues that the track record of the works they appeal to is poor. Finds some common ground with the literary philosophers, and suggests ways in which fiction might tell us things about time; But alsosuggests that there is very little to be hoped for from this programme. A belief to the contrary is largely the result of a misunderstanding about what counts as a question about time.
Ken Hirschkop
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159612
- eISBN:
- 9780191673641
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159612.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book makes a break with earlier interpretations of Bakhtin’s work. Using recent Russian scholarship, it explodes many of the myths which have surrounded Bakhtin and his work, and lays the ground ...
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This book makes a break with earlier interpretations of Bakhtin’s work. Using recent Russian scholarship, it explodes many of the myths which have surrounded Bakhtin and his work, and lays the ground for a new, more historically acute sense of his achievement. Through a comprehensive reading of Bakhtin’s work, the book demonstrates that his discussion of the philosophy of language, literary history, popular festive culture, and the phenomenology of everyday life revolved around a lifelong search for a new kind of modern ethical culture. A detailed examination of the major works reveals the careful interweaving of philosophical and historical argument which makes Bakhtin at once so compelling and so frustrating a writer. The book treats Bakhtin not as a metaphysician or a philosopher for the ages, but as a writer inevitably drawn into the historical conflicts produced by a modernizing and democratizing Europe. As a consequence, Bakhtin becomes a more sober but also more original writer, with a striking contribution to make to the definition of the democratic project.Less
This book makes a break with earlier interpretations of Bakhtin’s work. Using recent Russian scholarship, it explodes many of the myths which have surrounded Bakhtin and his work, and lays the ground for a new, more historically acute sense of his achievement. Through a comprehensive reading of Bakhtin’s work, the book demonstrates that his discussion of the philosophy of language, literary history, popular festive culture, and the phenomenology of everyday life revolved around a lifelong search for a new kind of modern ethical culture. A detailed examination of the major works reveals the careful interweaving of philosophical and historical argument which makes Bakhtin at once so compelling and so frustrating a writer. The book treats Bakhtin not as a metaphysician or a philosopher for the ages, but as a writer inevitably drawn into the historical conflicts produced by a modernizing and democratizing Europe. As a consequence, Bakhtin becomes a more sober but also more original writer, with a striking contribution to make to the definition of the democratic project.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid ...
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Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin, it examines, within a broadly Bakhtinian theoretical framework, the relationship between their self-consciousness and their cultural and political context. The texts are shown to challenge notions about the nature and function of literature fundamental to both Soviet and Anglo-American criticism. In particular, although metafictional strategies may seem designed to confirm assumptions about the aesthetic autonomy of the literary text, their effect is to reveal the shortcomings of such assumptions. The texts discussed take us beyond conventional understandings of metafiction by highlighting the need for a theoretically informed account of the history and reception of Soviet literature in which the inescapability of politics and ideology is no longer acknowledged grudgingly, but is instead celebrated.Less
Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin, it examines, within a broadly Bakhtinian theoretical framework, the relationship between their self-consciousness and their cultural and political context. The texts are shown to challenge notions about the nature and function of literature fundamental to both Soviet and Anglo-American criticism. In particular, although metafictional strategies may seem designed to confirm assumptions about the aesthetic autonomy of the literary text, their effect is to reveal the shortcomings of such assumptions. The texts discussed take us beyond conventional understandings of metafiction by highlighting the need for a theoretically informed account of the history and reception of Soviet literature in which the inescapability of politics and ideology is no longer acknowledged grudgingly, but is instead celebrated.
Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184997
- eISBN:
- 9780191674426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184997.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
This chapter turns to ‘The Secret Sharer’ and studies the story through its relation to ‘Under Western Eyes’. It argues that the same isomorphic paradigm overruns the boundaries of the text: both the ...
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This chapter turns to ‘The Secret Sharer’ and studies the story through its relation to ‘Under Western Eyes’. It argues that the same isomorphic paradigm overruns the boundaries of the text: both the fictional and the historical subjects. ‘The Secret Sharer’ enacts the return of autobiographical desire. Against the breach of sovereign subjectivity in Under Western Eyes, Conrad deploys a strategy of aestheticization in the short story, setting up an imaginary relationship of identification, which enables the subject — both the textual and the biographical subject — to holster up an artificial sense of selfhood against the threat of psychic dissolution. Against the transgression of boundary lines or the dynamics of heterobiography which operate as a structuring principle in the novel, the narrator of ‘The Secret Sharer’ tries to aestheticize and frame himself, to reclaim the ground lost in the writing of the novel.Less
This chapter turns to ‘The Secret Sharer’ and studies the story through its relation to ‘Under Western Eyes’. It argues that the same isomorphic paradigm overruns the boundaries of the text: both the fictional and the historical subjects. ‘The Secret Sharer’ enacts the return of autobiographical desire. Against the breach of sovereign subjectivity in Under Western Eyes, Conrad deploys a strategy of aestheticization in the short story, setting up an imaginary relationship of identification, which enables the subject — both the textual and the biographical subject — to holster up an artificial sense of selfhood against the threat of psychic dissolution. Against the transgression of boundary lines or the dynamics of heterobiography which operate as a structuring principle in the novel, the narrator of ‘The Secret Sharer’ tries to aestheticize and frame himself, to reclaim the ground lost in the writing of the novel.
Emma Dillon
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199732951
- eISBN:
- 9780199932061
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Among the most memorable innovations of music and poetry in thirteenth-century France was a genre that seemed to privilege sound over sense. The polytextual motet is especially well-known to scholars ...
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Among the most memorable innovations of music and poetry in thirteenth-century France was a genre that seemed to privilege sound over sense. The polytextual motet is especially well-known to scholars of the Middle Ages for its tendency to conceal complex allegorical meaning in a texture that in performance made words less, not more audible. It is with such musical sound that this book is concerned. What did it mean to create a musical effect so potentially independent from the meaning of words? Is it possible such supermusical effects themselves had significance? The Sense of Sound offers a radical recontextualization of French song in the heyday of the motet c.1260-1330, and makes the case for listening to musical sound against a range of other potently meaningful sonorities, often premised on non-verbal meaning. In identifying new audible interlocutors to music, it opens our ears to a broad spectrum of sounds often left out of historical inquiry, from the hubbub of the medieval city; to the eloquent babble of madmen; to the violent clamor of charivari; to the charismatic chatter of prayer. Drawing on a rich array of artistic evidence (music, manuscripts, poetry, and images) and contemporary cultural theory, it locates musical production in this period within a larger cultural environment concerned with representing sound and its emotional, ethical, and social effects. In so doing, The Sense of Sound offers an experiment in how we might place central the most elusive aspect of music’s history: sound’s vibrating, living effect.Less
Among the most memorable innovations of music and poetry in thirteenth-century France was a genre that seemed to privilege sound over sense. The polytextual motet is especially well-known to scholars of the Middle Ages for its tendency to conceal complex allegorical meaning in a texture that in performance made words less, not more audible. It is with such musical sound that this book is concerned. What did it mean to create a musical effect so potentially independent from the meaning of words? Is it possible such supermusical effects themselves had significance? The Sense of Sound offers a radical recontextualization of French song in the heyday of the motet c.1260-1330, and makes the case for listening to musical sound against a range of other potently meaningful sonorities, often premised on non-verbal meaning. In identifying new audible interlocutors to music, it opens our ears to a broad spectrum of sounds often left out of historical inquiry, from the hubbub of the medieval city; to the eloquent babble of madmen; to the violent clamor of charivari; to the charismatic chatter of prayer. Drawing on a rich array of artistic evidence (music, manuscripts, poetry, and images) and contemporary cultural theory, it locates musical production in this period within a larger cultural environment concerned with representing sound and its emotional, ethical, and social effects. In so doing, The Sense of Sound offers an experiment in how we might place central the most elusive aspect of music’s history: sound’s vibrating, living effect.
