Literature, Ethics, and Decolonization in Postwar France - The Politics of Disengagement

A wide-ranging account of French literature of the 1950s and 1960s showing how politically engaged leading writers were.

List of contents

1. Introduction: literature and engagement; 2. Neutral writing and Roland Barthes's theory of exhausted literature; 3. Maurice Blanchot and the politics of narrative genres; 4. Literary weakness: Maurice Blanchot, commitment, and decolonization; 5. The poverty of history and memory: Albert Camus's Algeria; 6. Albert Camus and the politics of shame; 7. Marguerite Duras, war traumas, and the dilemmas of literary representation; 8. Literary void: ethics and politics in Marguerite Duras's hybrid stories; 9. Conclusion: the literature of exhaustion, weakness, and blankness; Bibliography.

About the author

Daniel Just is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University, Ankara. He has published a number of articles in journals including the Modern Language Review, New Literary History, MLN, the Forum for Modern Language Studies, and Philosophy and Literature.

Summary

A wide-ranging account of French literature during the 1950s and 1960s, including works by Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, and Marguerite Duras. Daniel Just shows how literature enters into contemporary debates about ethics and engagement at a time of extended national crisis.

Product details

• Authors: Daniel Just, Daniel (Bilkent University Just, Just Daniel
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2017
• EAN: 9781107474864
• ISBN: 978-1-107-47486-4
• No. of pages: 227
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; French, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: post-colonial literature, National liberation & independence, post-colonialism, c 1945 to c 2000 (Post-war period), Literary studies: postcolonial literature