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States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel: Martel, Eugenides, Coetzee, Sebald
Author(s): Arne De Boever (Author)
- Publisher: Continuum
- Publication Date: 10 May 2012
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 176 pages
- ISBN-10: 1441125973
- ISBN-13: 9781441125972
Book Description
This title investigates the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of decisions in post-9/11 contemporary fiction. In the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks, the political situation in both the United States and abroad has often been described as a ‘state of exception’: a situation in which the normal rule of law is suspended. This book investigates the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of various decisions represented in novels that were published around 9/11: Martel’s “Life of Pi”, Eugenides’ “Middlesex”, Coetzee’s “Disgrace”, and Sebald’s “Austerlitz”. Although it is very much a work of literary criticism for the post-9/11 era, the selection of novels discussed reveals that it is not an investigation into the so-called ‘September 11 novel’. Instead, De Boever looks more generally at novels representing crisis situations. De Boever’s readings of the novels revolve around what he calls the ‘aesthetic decision’. How do the characters’ and narrators’ aesthetic decisions in these novels relate to the political decisions that are also represented? What can these aesthetic decisions reveal about real-life ethical and political decisions? The book uncovers the politics of allegory, autobiography, focalization, and montage in today’s planetary state of exception.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Arne De Boever’s States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel offers a unique approach […], looking to contemporary fiction for a radical rethinking of the forms of ethical and political decision making. […] States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel is a valuable step toward better understanding the novel’s recent history. At the same time, it indicates our need for a more thoroughgoing analysis of the constitutive differences between political, ethical, and aesthetic decisions, so that we might better see how those spheres inform and illuminate one another.” —David Babcock, James Madison University, Novel
About the Author
Arne De Boever (Ph.D. Columbia University) is Assistant Professor of American Studies in the School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts, USA. He has published journal articles and book chapters on literature, film, and critical theory and is one of the editors of Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy.
