Apocalyptic futures : marked bodies and the violence of the text in Kafka, Conrad, and Coetzee / Russell Samolsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Samolsky, Russell.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spiegelman, Art.

Coetzee, J. M., 1940-.

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924.

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.

Fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Fiction.

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924--Criticism and interpretation.

Kafka, Franz.

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924--Criticism and interpretation.

Conrad, Joseph.

Coetzee, J. M., 1940---Criticism and interpretation.

Coetzee, J. M.

Spiegelman, Art--Criticism and interpretation.

Ethics in literature.

Apocalyptic literature.

Prophecy in literature.

Violence in literature.

Mimesis in literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

x, 237 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Marked bodies and the violence of the text in Kafka, Conrad, and Coetzee

Violence of the text in Kafka, Conrad, and Coetzee

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2011.

Summary:

In this book, the author argues that certain modern literary texts have apocalyptic futures. Rather than claim that great writers have clairvoyant powers, he examines the ways in which a text incorporates an apocalyptic event into its future reception. He is thus concerned with the way in which apocalyptic works solicit their future receptions.

Apocalyptic Futures also sets out to articulate a new theory and textual practice of the relation between literary reception and embodiment. Deploying the double register of "marks" to show how a text both codes and targets mutilated bodies, the author focuses on how these bodies are incorporated into texts by Kafka, Conrad, Coetzee, and Spiegelman.

Situating "In the Penal Colony" in relation to the Holocaust, Heart of Darkness to the Rwandan genocide, and Waiting for the Barbarians to the revelations of torture in apartheid South Africa and contemporary Iraq, the author argues for the ethical and political importance of reading these literary works' "apocalyptic futures" in our own urgent and perilous situations. The book concludes with a reading of Spiegelman's Maus that offers a messianic counter-time to the law of apocalyptic incorporation. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: writing violence : marked bodies and retroactive signs

Metaleptic machines : Kafka, Kabbalah, Shoah

Kafka and Shoah

Kafka and Kabbalah

Inscriptional machines

Apocalyptic futures : Heart of darkness, embodiment, and African genocide

Heart of darkness and African genocide

The genealogy of apocalypse

Delayed decodings

Marlow and messianism

The body in ruins : torture, allegory, and materiality in J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the barbarians

The politics of the eternal present

Torture and allegory

The body in ruins

The materiality of the letter

Mourning the bones

Coda : the time of inscription: Maus and the apocalypse of number.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780823234790

0823234797

9780823234806

0823234800

OCLC:

694832836