Search results

The article proposes a method for literary analysis that is located at the intersection of Eliseo Verón's semiotics of circulation and the politics of literature in the wake of Jacques Rancière and Jean-François Hamel. This method takes into account the historical material conditions of textual production, as well as the historical material conditions of recognition in which interpretation occurs, thus overcoming the limits inherent to the immanentism of sociocriticism. It allows for both greater objectivity and reflexivity in analyzing signifying materialities or signs. Drawing on Wittgenstein, Verón, Peirce, and Bakhtin, the value and pertinence of the politics of literature is defended by emphasizing the importance of four main concepts: grammar, circulation, indexicality, and expressiveness. An analysis of Haï (1971) by J.M.G. Le Clézio illustrates the method, arguing in favor of the possible and desirable intertwinement of the politics of literature and decoloniality. Three main concepts stemming from decolonial studies are discussed in this context: codigophagy, colonial semiosis, and border thinking.

Michael Keren traces the political lives and messages of some of the twentieth century's greatest literary characters in this insightful and jargon-free book of literary criticism. He observes the infamous characters ranging from Joseph K from Franz Kafka's The Trial to Ralph from William Golding's Lord of the Flies to Chauncey Gardiner from Jerzy Kosinski's Being There and beyond while they struggle through their lives and world events. The Citizen's Voice is a refreshing contribution to civil society theory that makes a pioneering effort to cross the boundaries between politics, literature, and culture. A study of the human condition via literature this book expounds the key features of a good citizen while offering a perfect discussion piece for courses in political theory, politics and literature, and history.

Michael Keren traces the political lives and messages of some of the twentieth century's greatest literary characters in this insightful and jargon-free book of literary criticism. Hans Castorp (Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain), Joseph K. (Franz Kafka's The Trial), John the Savage (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), Winston Smith (George Orwell's 1984), Ralph (William Golding's Lord of the Flies), Merusault (Albert Camus's The Stranger), Ida Ramundo (Elsa Morante's History), and Chauncey Gardiner (Jerzy Kosinski's Being There) participate in ideological, technological, and organizational projects of the twentieth century. Keren observes these infamous characters' behaviours and attitudes while they struggle through world wars, the rise and fall of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, the development of the atomic bomb, de-colonization, the Cold War, and globalization. Here is a refreshing contribution to civil society theory that makes a pioneering effort to cross the boundaries between politics, literature, and culture. A study of the human condition via literature, The Citizen's Voice expounds the key features of a "good citizen" while offering a perfect discussion piece for courses in political theory, politics and literature, and history.

This book highlights the linkages between politics and governance and the arts. The essays in the volume show how literature and music have challenged those in power to stir up national fervour and found themselves at the receiving end of political censure.

This study is, to a large extent, influenced by the Marxist doctrine on the relationship between literature and society. It has been assumed by the marxist literary theorists that literature as the upper level of society is determined by the lower level namely the economic. Meanwhile, it is also suggested that literature is a part of social-realism suggesting that literary writer must describe the reality within society and then make socialistic propaganda. This study, by concentrating on this contadictory statementnconcerning literature, sees that arcadia theory may be applicable in order to explain the relationship beetween literature and society. The theory assumes that a writer of a certain class, aristocracy for instance, must adapt his way of struggling against a certain condition to his own social background. In this way, it has been found that Amir Hamzah who was of the aristocratic family must fight against his own society by the use of 'hidden' propaganda rather than a straight forward or bottom-up approach.