Precarious Fl穗erie and the Ethics of the Self in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9783110767476)

Even though the literary trope of the fl穗eur has been proclaimed 'dead' on several occasions, it still proves particularly lively in contemporary Anglophone fiction. This study investigates how fl穗erie takes a belated 'ethical turn' in its more recent manifestations by negotiating models of ethical subjectivity. Drawing on Michel Foucault's writings on the 'aesthetics of existence' as well as Judith Butler's notion of precariousness as conditio humana, it establishes a link between post-sovereign models of subject formation and a paradoxical constellation of fl穗erie, which surfaces most prominently in the work of Walter Benjamin. By means of detailed readings of Ian McEwan's Saturday, Siri Hustvedt's The Blindfold, Teju Cole's Open City, Dionne Brand's What We All Long For and Robin Robertson's The Long Take, Or a Way to Lose More Slowly, this book traces how the ambivalence of fl穗erie and its textual representation produces ethical norms while at the same time propagating the value of difference by means of disrupting societal norms of sameness. Precarious Fl穗erie and the Ethics of the Self in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction thus shows that the fl穗erie text becomes a medium of ethical critique in post-postmodern times.

Author: Eva Ries
ISBN-10: 3110767473
ISBN-13: 9783110767476
Publisher: de Gruyter
Language: English
Published: 06/21/2022
Pages: 306
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.81d