Postcolonial Realism and the Concept of the Political; 1

As the scholarly world attunes itself once again to the specifically political, this book rethinks the political significance of literary realism within a postcolonial context. Generally, postcolonial studies has either ignored realism or criticized it as being naïve, anachronistic, deceptive, or complicit with colonial discourse; in other words―incongruous with the postcolonial. This book argues that postcolonial realism is intimately connected to the specifically political in the sense that realist form is premised on the idea of a collective reality. Discussing a range of literary and theoretical works, Dr. Sorensen exemplifies that many postcolonial writers were often faced with the realities of an unstable state, a divided community inhabiting a contested social space, the challenges of constructing a notion of ‘the people,’ often out of a myriad of local communities with different traditions and languages brought together arbitrarily through colonization. The book demonstrates that the political context of realism is the sphere or possibility of civil war, divided societies, and unstable communities. Postcolonial realism is prompted by disturbing political circumstances, and it gestures toward a commonly imagined world, precisely because such a notion is under pressure or absent. Postcolonial Realism and the Concept of the Political Cover -1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: Postcolonial Studies and the End of History 10 Introduction 10 Literature and History 13 Poly-Cultural Writing 18 Postcolonial Studies and the Question of Representation 21 Theoretical-Critical Fictions 24 The Return to Literary Realism 27 Notes 30 Works Cited 36 1. Nation, Nationalism, and the Novel Form 41 The Critique of Nationalism 41 Imagined Community vs. DissemiNation 43 Anderson's Nation 47 The Novel and the Nation 50 Notes 57 Works Cited 63 2. The Historico-Political Discourse 66 Carl Schmitt's Concept of the Political 66 Michel Foucault's Society Must Be Defended 68 The Historico-Political Discourse 70 Foucault's Hobbes 73 Boulainvilliers and the Birth of the Nation 74 The French Revolution: The Birth of a Nation 77 Lukacs's Historico-Political Discourse 80 Necessary Anachronism and '1848' 86 Notes 92 Works Cited 101 3. The Political Significance of Literary Realism 104 Introduction 104 The Rise of Realism 106 The Novel as a Form of Secondariness 107 Realism and Transparency 108 The Lure of Realism 111 Performative Realism 114 Realism as Historico-Political Discourse 120 Realist Omniscience 123 The Monopolization of Reality 126 Notes 127 Works Cited 135 4. Postcolonial Realism 141 Jus Publicum Europaeum 141 Postcolonial Realism 143 Commonality vs. Singularity 149 'Living Reality' and the Question of the Nation 151 Lukács's Critique of Modernism 158 Jameson's National Allegory 161 Conclusion 165 Notes 166 Works Cited 169 5. The Politics of Realism: Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey 173 Introduction 173 Not Enough or Too Much Realism 174 The Public vs. the Private 176 Ironic Distance 180 Narrative and Rhetoric 183 Improbable Connections 186 Conclusion 189 Notes 190 Works Cited 192 Conclusion 194 Notes 199 Works Cited 199 Index 200 "As the scholarly world attunes itself once again to the specifically political, this book rethinks the political significance of literary realism within a postcolonial context. Generally, postcolonial studies have either ignored realism or criticized it as being naïve, anachronistic, deceptive, or complicit with colonial discourse, in other words - incongruous with the postcolonial. This book argues that postcolonial realism is intimately connected to the specifically political in the sense that realist form is premised on the idea of a collective reality. Discussing a range of literary and theoretical works, Dr. Sorensen exemplifies that many postcolonial writers were often faced with the realities of an unstable state, a divided community inhabiting a contested social space, the challenges of constructing a notion of 'the people,' often out of a myriad of local communities with different traditions and languages brought together arbitrarily through colonization. The book demonstrates that the political context of realism is the sphere or possibility of civil war, divided societies, and unstable communities. Postcolonial realism is prompted by disturbing political circumstances and it gestures toward a commonly imagined world, precisely because such a notion is under pressure or absent"-- Provided by publisher