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Apocalyptic futures : marked bodies and the violence of the text in Kafka, Conrad, and Coetzee / Russell Samolsky.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Samolsky, Russell.
- Series:
- Modern Language Initiative
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- 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.
- Spiegelman, Art.
- Fiction--20th century--History and criticism.
- Fiction.
- Ethics in literature.
- Apocalyptic literature.
- Prophecy in literature.
- Violence in literature.
- Mimesis in literature.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (248 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Fordham University Press, 2011.
- Language Note:
- English
- 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.
- 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:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- "This book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation"-- title-page verso.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.
- ISBN:
- 9786613892676
- 9780823234813
- 0823234819
- 9780823241248
- 0823241246
- 9781283580229
- 1283580225
- 9780823241514
- 0823241513
- OCLC:
- 801363595
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