Full Description
A vital resource for anyone interested in literature and politics, this is the first in-depth study of epistemic injustice as a concept for literary studies. Focusing on contemporary fiction in an age of post-truth, it shows how eight novels set in different global contexts reveal epistemic injustice as an authoritarian practice and offer an aesthetics of resistance. Epistemic injustice valorises the thinking of those in power while suppressing other people's knowledge; it declares some people omniscient and others targets for violence. This book tracks how the novels make tangible its strategic use and effects while suggesting - in their form as well as their content - that something else is possible. Bridging political philosophy and literary analysis in clear prose, this study offers exciting new stimuli for reading groups and general readers as well as for students of literature.
Contents
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
PART I 'WE CANNOT BREATHE'. PRACTICES OF POWER
CHAPTER 1. VIOLENT TIMES
I. Necropolitical space-time
Petrifying times and twin temporalities in 1000 Coils of Fear
II. Epistemic ghosting
Picaresque unheroism and ghosted knowledge in Voroshilovgrad
CHAPTER 2. ABSENT VOICES
I. Epistemologies of ignorance and petrified stories
White lies in the Bardo
II. Deadly silences
Violent silencing, necro-joking and necro-pleasure in We That Are Young
CHAPTER 3. DIVISIVE FORMS
I. Hierarchies and binaries
Logics of purity in We That Are Young
II. Split-separation in the necropatriarchy
The murderous Midas touch. Purity and profiteering in Ada's Realm
CHAPTER 4. PETRIFIED BODIES
I. Written on the body
Traces of injustice in We Need New Names
II. The body as archive
Marks of violence in Glory
CHAPTER 5. THE END OF MEANING
I. The pure and simple ... lie
Life and Death and the lie of state
II. Postnarrative
'There is no why here'. Ultimate epistemic injustice in Glory
PART 2 BREATHING FIRE. ANIMATING AESTHETICS
CHAPTER 6. INSURRECTIONARY TIMES
I. Transtemporal possibilities
Time in the singular plural. 1000 Coils of Fear and Ada's Realm
II. Epistemic revenants
Haunting and counter-memory. Voroshilovgrad and Glory
CHAPTER 7. OTHER VOICES
I. Eccentric narrators
Disruptive knowledge. Picaresque and trickster voices in We Need New Names and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
II. Guerrilla epistemology
Animals as epistemic guerrilleros. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and Glory
CHAPTER 8. BODIES IN RELATION
I. Affirmative pleasure
Counter-pleasure and blues irony in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and Voroshilovgrad
II. Motherhood and mayonnaise
Chiasmus and curdling. Lincoln in the Bardo and Ada's Realm
CHAPTER 9. THE FUTURE OF MEANING
I. Meaning beyond monody
Provoking pluralism in Lincoln in the Bardo and We That Are Young
II. Animapoetics. Stories in the face of death
'There's a chance you won't be remembered as a total asshole'. Hope and community in Voroshilovgrad and Glory
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Index
