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J.M. Coetzee has new things to say about this relation between the
'real' and 'fictions of the real', and while much has already been
written about him, these questions need to be more fully explored.
The contributions to this volume are drawn together by the idea of
the hinge between the world (whether understood in ontological,
bio-ethical, personal and interpersonal, or socio-political terms)
and fictional representations of it (whether understood in
epistemological, ficto-biographical, formal, or stylistic terms).
In this collection, the question of understanding itself - how we
understand or imagine our place in the world - is shown to be
central to our conception of that world. That is, rather than
beginning with forms developed in socio-political understandings,
Coetzee's works ask us to consider what role fiction might play in
relation to politics, in relation to history, in relation to ethics
and our understanding of human agency and responsibility. Coetzee
has a profound interest in the methods through which we make sense
of the contemporary world and our place in it, and his approach
appeals to readers of fiction, critics and philosophers alike. The
central problems he deals with in his fiction are of the kind that
confront people everywhere and so involve a "translatability" that
allow the works to maintain relevance across cultures. Added to
this, though, his fiction makes us question the nature of
understanding itself. This book was originally published as a
special issue of Textual Practice.
J.M. Coetzee has new things to say about this relation between the
'real' and 'fictions of the real', and while much has already been
written about him, these questions need to be more fully explored.
The contributions to this volume are drawn together by the idea of
the hinge between the world (whether understood in ontological,
bio-ethical, personal and interpersonal, or socio-political terms)
and fictional representations of it (whether understood in
epistemological, ficto-biographical, formal, or stylistic terms).
In this collection, the question of understanding itself - how we
understand or imagine our place in the world - is shown to be
central to our conception of that world. That is, rather than
beginning with forms developed in socio-political understandings,
Coetzee's works ask us to consider what role fiction might play in
relation to politics, in relation to history, in relation to ethics
and our understanding of human agency and responsibility. Coetzee
has a profound interest in the methods through which we make sense
of the contemporary world and our place in it, and his approach
appeals to readers of fiction, critics and philosophers alike. The
central problems he deals with in his fiction are of the kind that
confront people everywhere and so involve a "translatability" that
allow the works to maintain relevance across cultures. Added to
this, though, his fiction makes us question the nature of
understanding itself. This book was originally published as a
special issue of Textual Practice.
Gerald Murnane is one of Australia's most important contemporary
authors, but for years was neglected by critics. In 2018 the New
York Times described him as "the greatest living English-language
writer most people have never heard of" and tipped him as a future
Nobel Prize winner.Gerald Murnane: Another World in This One
coincides with a renewed interest in his work. It includes an
important new essay by Murnane himself, alongside chapters by
established and emerging literary critics from Australia and
internationally. Together they provide a stimulating reassessment
of Murnane's diverse body of work.
Gail Jones is one of Australia's foremost contemporary novelists.
Her books have won or been shortlisted for the Prime Minister's
Literary Award, the Miles Franklin Award, the Stella Prize, and
numerous state literary awards. They are taught in high schools and
universities across the country.This collection of essays offers
reflections on Jones' fiction by leading Australian and
international literary critics. For readers who loved Sixty Lights,
Five Bells, Sorry and Jones' other novels, and for students of
Jones' work, this book will be an illuminating companion. With
chapters on her use of language, her thematic preoccupations, and
her place in local and global literary culture, it is a timely
guide to the work of an exceptional Australian writer.
Revisioning Beckett reassesses Beckett's career and literary
output, particularly his engagement with what might be called
decadent modernism. Gontarski approaches Beckett from multiple
viewpoints: from his running afoul of the Irish Censorship of
Publications Acts in the 1930s through the 1950s, his
preoccupations to "find literature in the pornography, or beneath
the pornography," his battles with the Lord Chamberlain in the
mid-1950s over London stagings of his first two plays, and his
close professional and personal associations with publishers who
celebrated the work of the demimonde. Much of that term encompasses
an opening to the fullness of human experience denied in previous
centuries, and much of that has been sexual or decadent. As
Gontarski shows, the aesthetics that emerges from such early career
encounters and associations continues to inform Beckett's work and
develops into experimental modes that upend literary models and
middle-class values, an aesthetics that, furthermore, has inspired
any number of visual artists to re-vision Beckett.
Since the controversy and acclaim that surrounded the publication
of Disgrace (1999), the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature
and the publication of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (both in
2003), J. M. Coetzee's status has begun to steadily rise to the
point where he has now outgrown the specialized domain of South
African literature. Today he is recognized more simply as one of
the most important writers in the English language from the late
20th and early 21st century. Coetzee's productivity and invention
has not slowed with old age. The Childhood of Jesus, published in
2013, like Elizabeth Costello, was met with a puzzled reception, as
critics struggled to come to terms with its odd setting and
structure, its seemingly flat tone, and the strange affectless
interactions of its characters. Most puzzling was the central
character, David, linked by the title to an idea of Jesus. J.M.
Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: The Ethics of Ideas and Things is
at the forefront of an exciting process of critical engagement with
this novel, which has begun to uncover its rich dialogue with
philosophy, theology, mathematics, politics, and questions of
meaning.
Thinking in Literature sets out to examine how the Modernist novel
might be understood to be a machine for thinking, and further how
it might offer means of coming to terms with what it means to
think. It begins with a theoretical analysis of the concept of
thinking in literature using Gilles Deleuze as a point of departure
and returning directly to the work of the two philosophers who were
most important to Deleuze's understanding of thinking in
literature: Spinoza and Leibniz. Three elements are identified as
crucial to aesthetic expression: relation; sensation; and
composition. Yet in order to build a fuller understanding of these
processes it is necessary to move from theory to specific readings
of artistic practice. Uhlmann examines the aesthetic practice of
three major Modernist writers: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and the
young Vladimir Nabokov. Each can be understood as working with
relation, sensation and composition, yet each emphasize the
interrelations between them in differing ways in expressing the
potentials for thinking in literature.
Thinking in Literature sets out to examine how the Modernist novel
might be understood to be a machine for thinking, and further how
it might offer means of coming to terms with what it means to
think. It begins with a theoretical analysis of the concept of
thinking in literature using Gilles Deleuze as a point of departure
and returning directly to the work of the two philosophers who were
most important to Deleuze's understanding of thinking in
literature: Spinoza and Leibniz. Three elements are identified as
crucial to aesthetic expression: relation; sensation; and
composition. Yet in order to build a fuller understanding of these
processes it is necessary to move from theory to specific readings
of artistic practice. Uhlmann examines the aesthetic practice of
three major Modernist writers: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and the
young Vladimir Nabokov. Each can be understood as working with
relation, sensation and composition, yet each emphasize the
interrelations between them in differing ways in expressing the
potentials for thinking in literature.
Revisioning Beckett reassesses Beckett's career and literary
output, particularly his engagement with what might be called
decadent modernism. Gontarski approaches Beckett from multiple
viewpoints: from his running afoul of the Irish Censorship of
Publications Acts in the 1930s through the 1950s, his
preoccupations to "find literature in the pornography, or beneath
the pornography," his battles with the Lord Chamberlain in the
mid-1950s over London stagings of his first two plays, and his
close professional and personal associations with publishers who
celebrated the work of the demimonde. Much of that term encompasses
an opening to the fullness of human experience denied in previous
centuries, and much of that has been sexual or decadent. As
Gontarski shows, the aesthetics that emerges from such early career
encounters and associations continues to inform Beckett's work and
develops into experimental modes that upend literary models and
middle-class values, an aesthetics that, furthermore, has inspired
any number of visual artists to re-vision Beckett.
J. M. Coetzee: Truth, Meaning, Fiction illuminates the intellectual
and philosophical interests that drive Coetzee's writing. In doing
so, it makes the case for Coetzee as an important and original
thinker in his own right. Whilst looking at Coetzee's writing
career, from his dissertation through to The Schooldays of Jesus
(2016), and interpreting running themes and scenarios, style and
evolving attitudes to literary form, Anthony Uhlmann also offers
revealing glimpses, informed by archival research, of Coetzee's
writing process. Among the main themes that Uhlmann sees in
Coetzee's writing, and which remains highly relevant today, is the
awareness that there is truth in fiction, or that fiction can
provide valuable insights into real world problems, and that there
are also fictions of the truth: that we are surrounded, in our
everyday lives, by stories we wish to believe are true. J. M.
Coetzee: Truth, Meaning, Fiction offers a revealing new account of
one of arguably our most important contemporary writers.
Since the controversy and acclaim that surrounded the publication
of Disgrace (1999), the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature
and the publication of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (both in
2003), J. M. Coetzee's status has begun to steadily rise to the
point where he has now outgrown the specialized domain of South
African literature. Today he is recognized more simply as one of
the most important writers in the English language from the late
20th and early 21st century. Coetzee's productivity and invention
has not slowed with old age. The Childhood of Jesus, published in
2013, like Elizabeth Costello, was met with a puzzled reception, as
critics struggled to come to terms with its odd setting and
structure, its seemingly flat tone, and the strange affectless
interactions of its characters. Most puzzling was the central
character, David, linked by the title to an idea of Jesus. J.M.
Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: The Ethics of Ideas and Things is
at the forefront of an exciting process of critical engagement with
this novel, which has begun to uncover its rich dialogue with
philosophy, theology, mathematics, politics, and questions of
meaning.
When Samuel Beckett first came to international prominence with the
success of Waiting for Godot, many critics believed the play was
divorced from any recognizable context. The two tramps, and the
master and servant they encounter, seemed to represent no one and
everyone. Today, critics challenge the assumption that Beckett
aimed to break definitively with context, highlighting images,
allusions, and motifs that tether Becket's writings to real people,
places, and issues in his life. This wide-ranging collection of
essays from 37 renowned Beckett scholars reveals how extensively
Beckett entered into dialogue with important literary traditions
and the realities of his time. Drawing on his major works, as well
as on a range of letters and theoretical notebooks, the essays are
designed to complement each other, building a broad overview that
will allow students and scholars to come away with a better sense
of Beckett's life, writings, and legacy.
When Samuel Beckett first came to international prominence with the
success of Waiting for Godot, many critics believed the play was
divorced from any recognisable context. The two tramps, and the
master and servant they encounter, seemed to represent no one and
everyone. Today, critics challenge the assumption that Beckett
aimed to break definitively with context, highlighting images,
allusions and motifs that tether Beckett's writings to real people,
places and issues in his life. This wide-ranging collection of
essays from 37 renowned Beckett scholars reveals how extensively
Beckett entered into dialogue with important literary traditions
and the realities of his time. Drawing on his major works, as well
as on a range of letters and theoretical notebooks, the essays are
designed to complement each other, building a broad overview that
will allow students and scholars to come away with a better sense
of Beckett's life, writings and legacy.
Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted
them, staging them in his plays, or using them in his fiction.
Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other
terms, like 'metaphor' or 'representation', and, in the process, to
analyse Beckett's use of images borrowed from philosophy and
aesthetics. This study, first published in 2006, carefully examines
Beckett's thoughts on the image in his literary works and his
extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann
considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between
philosophy and literature, and how Beckett makes use of images
which are borrowed from, or drawn into dialogue with, philosophical
images from Geulincx, Berkeley, Bergson, and the ancient Stoics.
Uhlmann's reading of Beckett's aesthetic and philosophical
interests provides a revolutionary reading of the importance of the
image in his work.
In Beckett and Poststructuralism, Anthony Uhlmann offers a reading
of Beckett in relation to French philosophy, particularly the work
of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Levinas, and Derrida. Uhlmann
offers a work of literary criticism that is also a piece of
intellectual history, emphasizing how Beckett develops a kind of
critical thinking which differs from yet is just as powerful as
that of philosophers who, along with Beckett, found themselves
faced with sets of ethical problems which were thrown into sharp
relief in post-war France. Uhlmann explores the links between
ethics and physical existence in Beckett, Foucault and Deleuze and
Guattari, and between ethics and language in Beckett, Derrida and
Levinas, showing how post-war French philosophy was powerfully
affected by Beckett's work. Literature is not reduced to philosophy
or vice versa; rather Uhlmann considers how they interrelate and
overlap, informing and deforming one another, and how both
encounter history.
Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted
them, staging them in his plays, or using them in his fiction.
Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other
terms, like 'metaphor' or 'representation', and, in the process, to
analyse Beckett's use of images borrowed from philosophy and
aesthetics. This study, first published in 2006, carefully examines
Beckett's thoughts on the image in his literary works and his
extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann
considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between
philosophy and literature, and how Beckett makes use of images
which are borrowed from, or drawn into dialogue with, philosophical
images from Geulincx, Berkeley, Bergson, and the ancient Stoics.
Uhlmann's reading of Beckett's aesthetic and philosophical
interests provides a revolutionary reading of the importance of the
image in his work.
J. M. Coetzee: Truth, Meaning, Fiction illuminates the intellectual
and philosophical interests that drive Coetzee's writing. In doing
so, it makes the case for Coetzee as an important and original
thinker in his own right. Whilst looking at Coetzee's writing
career, from his dissertation through to The Schooldays of Jesus
(2016), and interpreting running themes and scenarios, style and
evolving attitudes to literary form, Anthony Uhlmann also offers
revealing glimpses, informed by archival research, of Coetzee's
writing process. Among the main themes that Uhlmann sees in
Coetzee's writing, and which remains highly relevant today, is the
awareness that there is truth in fiction, or that fiction can
provide valuable insights into real world problems, and that there
are also fictions of the truth: that we are surrounded, in our
everyday lives, by stories we wish to believe are true. J. M.
Coetzee: Truth, Meaning, Fiction offers a revealing new account of
one of arguably our most important contemporary writers.
Anthony Uhlmann offers a reading of Beckett in the light of recent French philosophy, particularly the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Levinas, and Derrida. Beckett and Poststructuralism is a work of literary criticism that is also an intellectual history of the relationship between Beckett's texts and their French philosophical and cultural context. Uhlmann explores the overlap between Beckett's aesthetic and philosophy, emphasizing how postwar French philosophy was powerfully affected by Beckett's work. This book addresses a wide range of issues in contemporary philosophy and literary theory.
"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something
sensational to read in the train" (Oscar Wilde). Literature has
always treated the sensational: crime, passion, violence, trauma,
catastrophe. It has frequently caused, or been at the centre of
scandal, censorship and moral outrage. But literature is also
intricately connected with sensation in ways that are less well
understood. It mediates between the sensory world, perception and
cognition through rich modes of thought allied with perceptions and
emotions and makes sense of profound questions that transcend the
merely rational. And at its boundaries, literature engages with the
uncanny realm in which knowledge, presentiment or feeling is prior
to articulation in words. This book reviews the sensational
dimension of literature according to themes that have too often
been left to one side. Literary theory has often privileged
perception over sensation, cognition over raw experience, in
focusing on semantics rather than sense. The essays in this volume
cover literature and sensation in all its facets, drawing upon a
range of approaches from evolutionary theory, theories of mind,
perception, philosophy and aesthetics. The works considered are
drawn from various literary periods and genres, from the nineteenth
century to contemporary prose and poetry, including experiments in
new media. Literature and Sensation offers detailed and subtle
readings of literature according to the sensations they represent,
incite, or evoke in us, and will be of interest to readers of
literary theory, ethics and aesthetics, and theorists of new media
art.
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