Utopian generations : the political horizon of twentieth-century literature / Nicholas Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Nicholas, 1971-

Series:

Translation/transnation.

Translation/transnation

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Politics and literature--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Politics and literature--Africa--History--20th century.

African literature--20th century--History and criticism.

African literature.

Comparative literature--English and African.

Comparative literature.

Comparative literature--African and English.

Modernism (Literature)--Great Britain.

Modernism (Literature).

Modernism (Literature)--Africa.

Politics in literature.

Utopias in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (248 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Utopian Generations develops a powerful interpretive matrix for understanding world literature--one that renders modernism and postcolonial African literature comprehensible in a single framework, within which neither will ever look the same. African literature has commonly been seen as representationally naïve vis-à-vis modernism, and canonical modernism as reactionary vis-à-vis postcolonial literature. What brings these two bodies of work together, argues Nicholas Brown, is their disposition toward Utopia or "the horizon of a radical reconfiguration of social relations.? Grounded in a profound rethinking of the Hegelian Marxist tradition, this fluently written book takes as its point of departure the partial displacement during the twentieth century of capitalism's "internal limit" (classically conceived as the conflict between labor and capital) onto a geographic division of labor and wealth. Dispensing with whole genres of commonplace contemporary pieties, Brown examines works from both sides of this division to create a dialectical mapping of different modes of Utopian aesthetic practice. The theory of world literature developed in the introduction grounds the subtle and powerful readings at the heart of the book--focusing on works by James Joyce, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ford Madox Ford, Chinua Achebe, Wyndham Lewis, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Pepetela. A final chapter, arguing that this literary dialectic has reached a point of exhaustion, suggests that a radically reconceived notion of musical practice may be required to discern the Utopian desire immanent in the products of contemporary culture.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1. Subjectivity

Part 2. History

Part 3. Politics

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-230) and index.

ISBN:

9786612087295

9781282087293

1282087290

9781400826834

1400826837

OCLC:

355601218