Betwixt the Text and the World: Literary Theory Responses to Current Challenges from a Teaching Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2013.87.142Keywords:
literary theory, text-centered, world-centered, Posthumanism, human machine, cyborg, cybertextualityAbstract
The paper offers a view of literary theory development as a kind of pendulum movement between text-centered and world-centered models. The reasons behind current theory’s gravitation towards world-centered approaches are discussed, including scholars’ dissatisfaction with New Critics’ concentration on texts’ formal characteristics taking no heed of broader socio-cultural context. Critical edge of present-day theory also presupposes closer attention to the interface between the text and the world. Posthumanism as a prominent trend in contemporary philosophy and cultural studies is considered in terms of its continuity with regards to traditional humanism and of its potential efficiency as an instrument for analyzing and interpreting literary phenomena, in particular, those engendered by early 21st c. cultural and psychological atmosphere. It is argued that, far from postulating “the death of the subject”, posthumanism offers a different perspective on human beings in their ambivalent relationships with natural environment and technology. Based on a variety of ideas put forward by such prominent exponents of new directions in humanities as Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe and others, the paper shows how contemporary intellectuals seek to challenge and transgress the traditional limits of human subjectivity demonstrating the porosity of borders separating humans from their “companion species” and man-made cyborgs.References
Baudrillard J. Symvolichnyi obmin i smert’ [Symbolic exchange and death]. Lviv, 2004, 376 p. (in Ukrainian).
Foucault M. Slova i veschi. Arkheologia gumanitarnykh nauk [Words and things. An archeology of the human sciences]. Moscow, 1977, 404 p. (in Russian).
Aarseth E. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, 1997, 203 p.
Culler J. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, 1997, 143 p.
Gallagher C., Greenblatt St. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago, 2000, 227 p.
Haraway D. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In: Haraway D. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York, 1991, pp. 149–181.
Haraway D. When Species Meet. Minneapolis, 2008, 402 p.
Hassan I. Prometheus as Performer: Towards a Posthumanist Culture?. The Georgia Review, 1997, vol. 4, no. 31, pp. 830–850.
Hayles K. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, 1999, 364 p. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226321394.001.0001
Nichols S. Post-Humanist Movement. Available at: http://posthuman.org/wpimages/wp11ea53d0-05-06.jpg (accessed 5 September 2012).
Wolfe C. What Is Posthumanism?. Minneapolis, 2010, 357 p.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Natalia Vysotska
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.