The disorder of things : a Foucauldian approach to the work of Nuruddin Farah / John Masterson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Masterson, John (John Edward), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politics and literature--Somalia.

Politics and literature.

Somalia--In literature.

Somalia.

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984.

Foucault, Michel.

Farah, Nuruddin, 1945---Criticism and interpretation.

Farah, Nuruddin.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 307 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Nuruddin Farah is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated voices in contemporary world literature. Michel Foucault is revered as one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, with his discursive legacy providing inspiration for scholars working in a range of interdisciplinary fields. The Disorder of Things offers a reading of the Somali novelist through the prism of the French philosopher. The book argues that the preoccupations that have remained central throughout Farah's forty year career, including political autocracy, female infibulation, border conflicts, international aid and development, civil war, transnational migration and the Horn of Africa's place in a so-called 'axis of evil', can be mapped onto some key concerns in Foucault's writing most notably Foucault's theoretical turn from 'disciplinary' to 'biopolitical' power. In both the colonial past and the postcolonial present, Somalia is typically represented as an incubator of disorder: whether in relation to internecine conflict, international terrorism or contemporary piracy. Through his work, both fictional and non-fictional, Farah strives to present alternative stories to an expanding global readership. The Disorder of Things analyses the politics and poetics that underpin this literary project, beginning with Farah's first fictional cycle, Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship (1979-1983), and ending with his Past Imperfect trilogy (2004-2011). Farah's writing calls for a more refined, substantial reading of our current geo-political situation. As such, it both warrants and compels the kind of critical engagement foregrounded throughout The Disorder of Things. This book will appeal to students, academics and general readers with an interest in the interdisciplinary study of literature. Its engagement with theorists, drawn from postcolonial, feminist and development studies, set against the backdrop of a host of philosophical and sociological discourses, shows how such intellectual cross-fertilisation can enliven a single-author study.

Contents:

Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; The Principal Works of Nuruddin Farah as Referred to in The Disorder of Things; 1 Taking On Foucault and Fleshing Out Farah: Opportunities for Dialogue and Reflections on Method; Locating Farah; Why Farah? Why Foucault? Why Now?; Spectres of Foucault: To Savage or Salvage?; Edward Said: Speaking the Truth to Foucault; Foucault in/and Africa; Disturbing Postcolonial Studies: Foucault-style; Farah and Foucault: Reflections on Beginnings

2 Quivering at the Heart of the Variations Cycle: Labyrinths of Loss in Sweet and Sour MilkNegotiating the Labyrinth: Texts and Contexts; The State as Stage: Torture and Performance in Sweet and Sour Milk; Shall I Be Released?; Architectures of Power and Resistance; 3 So Vast the Prison: Agonistic Power Relations in Sardines; Writing/Righting Rape; Tremulous Private and Public Bodies; The Building Blocks of Resistance; Foucault and FGM; Mourning Yet on Creation Day; 'Writers don't give prescriptions, they give headaches!'; To Guernica with Love

4 Through the Maze Darkly: Incarceration and Insurrection in Close SesameThe Writer as Doctor: Revolting Bodies and the Optics of Surveillance; The Optics of Malveillance; Madness and (Un)Civilisation: Spectres of the 'Mad Mullah'; Fleshing Out the Truth about Power; 5 From the Carceral to the Bio-political: The Dialectical Turn Inwards in Maps; The Bloody Pivot of the Ogaden War; Misra, Biopower and Ethnocentrism; Constructions and Destructions of the (M)Other; Psychosomatics and War; Hallucinating Foucault/Transforming Farah; Foucault and/on Biopolitics and Race

Bifurcated Bodies and Split SubjectsGaping Open: Textual Cycles and National Bodies in Maps; 6 'A Call to Alms': Gifts and the Possibilities of a Foucauldian Reading; The (In)Visibility of Giving; Foucault and the Tapestry of Aid; Towards a Foucauldian Genealogy of Humanitarianism; The Poetics and Politics of (Un)Conditional Giving; 'O my body, make of me always a man who questions!'; 7 Trajectories of Implosion and Explosion: The Politics of Blood and Betrayal in Secrets; The Poetics and Politics of Revulsion; Knots, Links and the Processes of Globalisation

The Disorder of Things: Normalisation and TabooReconfiguring a Symbolics of Blood: Taboo and Transgression in Secrets; 'There Must Be Some Way Out of Here'; Mixed-up Confusion; 8 Bringing It All Back Home: Theorising Diaspora and War in Yesterday, Tomorrow and Links; Taxonomies of the Human: Globalisation and Displacement; Reflections on Blamocracy; Bare Life and Transnational Travels/Travails Through a Bio-political Lens; Reception, Rejection and the Brotherhood of Man; Malawi and/as Disney: Reflections on Links; 'The Vietmalia Syndrome': The Poetics of Postmodern Warfare

Revisioning Black Hawk Down

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Apr 2018).

ISBN:

1-86814-587-5

OCLC:

1016598146