Imagining the real : essays on politics, ideology, and literature / Robert Grant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grant, Robert, 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politics and culture.

Political science.

Political ethics.

Politics and literature.

Physical Description:

xvi, 248 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Summary:

Throughout its ten related essays, "Imagining the Real" contrasts our abstract imaginings about the human world with the imaginative insights provided by art and experience. It questions, variously, the relevance of game theory and sociobiology to politics; the supposed intrinsic values of liberal freedom, cultural change, and democratic action; and the claims of Marxism, deconstruction and "Theory" generally to be non-ideological. More positively, it reinterprets fiction as a specific invitation to imagine, and celebrates Shakespeare, L.H. Myers and Beckett as truly critical, because truly imaginative, exponents of ideas.

Contents:

1. The Politics of Equilibrium 1

2. Freedom for What? 25

3. Must New Worlds Also be Good? 37

4. Honesty, Honour and Trust 54

5. The Ideology of Deconstruction 66

6. Fetishizing the Unseen 88

7. Thinking Degree Zero 103

8. Fiction, Meaning and Utterance 123

9. The Case of L.H. Myers 137

10. Providence, Authority and the Moral Life in The Tempest 162.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 188-227) and index.

ISBN:

0333973712

OCLC:

51804957