History, Literature, Critical Theory
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cornell University Press
Published:15th May '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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- Hardback£108.00(9780801451973)
In History, Literature, Critical Theory, Dominick LaCapra continues his exploration of the complex relations between history and literature, here considering history as both process and representation. A trio of chapters at the center of the volume concern the ways in which history and literature (particularly the novel) impact and question each other. In one of the chapters LaCapra revisits Gustave Flaubert, pairing him with Joseph Conrad. Other chapters pair J. M. Coetzee and W. G. Sebald, Jonathan Littell's novel, The Kindly Ones, and Saul Friedlander's two-volume, prizewinning history Nazi Germany and the Jews. A recurrent motif of the book is the role of the sacred, its problematic status in sacrifice, its virulent manifestation in social and political violence (notably the Nazi genocide), its role or transformations in literature and art, and its multivalent expressions in "postsecular" hopes, anxieties, and quests. LaCapra concludes the volume with an essay on the place of violence in the thought of Slavoj Zizek. In LaCapra's view Zizek's provocative thought "at times has uncanny echoes of earlier reflections on, or apologies for, political and seemingly regenerative, even sacralized violence."
History, Literature, Critical Theory is a worthy addition to the LaCapra corpus, creating dialogues among history and other fields to enhance the possibilities for desirable change.
* American Historical Review *As is true of much of LaCapra's workthis book defies easy disciplinary classification and will be welcomed by readers in a variety of disciplinesincluding Holocaust studies.... LaCapra stands as one of the most important critical theorists in the US todayand this work belongs in extensive collections of theory.
* ChoiISBN: 9780801478659
Dimensions: 235mm x 155mm x 18mm
Weight: 454g
248 pages