Utopia and consciousness / William S. Haney II.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haney, William S.

Series:

Consciousness, literature & the arts ; 29.

Consciousness, literature & the arts, 1573-2193 ; 29

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consciousness in literature.

Utopias in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (152 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In his book Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (2007), Fredric Jameson analyzes the multiple components of utopia and the possibility of achieving utopia in the near future. As this book argues, however, human civilization will never achieve utopia unless humans reach a state of pure consciousness in which they will use their full mental potential and avoid making blunders in life that would undermine the possibility of a utopia. This book develops a non-teleological, comparative poetics between Western and Sanskrit literary traditions by analyzing their opposing theories of language, consciousness and meaning. This comparison seeks to demonstrate the complementary nature of their two perspectives: the objective, conceptual emphasis of contemporary Western theory; and the subjective experiential emphasis of Sanskrit poetics. The potential contribution to the West of Indian culture in general, and Sanskrit poetics in particular, centers on the phenomenon of direct experience. Without the direct experience of pure consciousness, humans will not achieve a state of utopia because they will remain entangled in materialism without access to idealism or spiritualism available only through the direct experience of the unity of pure consciousness or the void of conceptions.

Contents:

Preliminary Material / William S. Haney

Preface / William S. Haney

Utopia, Deconstruction and Sanskrit Poetics / William S. Haney

Utopia and Unity in Sanskrit Poetics / William S. Haney

Utopia, Presence, Repetition and Vedic Philosophy / William S. Haney

Utopia and James Joyce’s Ulysses / William S. Haney

Utopia and Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying / William S. Haney

Utopia, the Self and the Fantastic in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 / William S. Haney

Utopia, Soyinka’s Ritual Drama, and the Mistake of the Intellect / William S. Haney

Bibliography / William S. Haney

Index / William S. Haney.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-12323-1

9786613123237

90-420-3306-1

OCLC:

729167169

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789042033061 DOI