Description
Book SynopsisThis book takes a postcritical perspective on Joseph Conrad’s central texts, including Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes, and Lord Jim. Whereas critique is a form of reading that prioritizes suspicion, unmasking, and demystifying, postcritique ascribes positive value to the knowledge, affect, ethics, and politics that emerge from literature. The essays in this collection recognize the dark elements in Conrad’s fiction—deceit, vanity, avarice, lust, cynicism, and cruelty—yet they perceive hopefulness as well. Conrad’s skepticism unveils the dark heart of politics, and his critical heritage can feed our fear that humanity is incapable of improving. This Conrad is a well-known figure, but there is another, neglected Conrad that this book aims to bring to light, one who delves into the politics of hope as well as the politics of fear.
Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com
Table of ContentsChapter 1: IntroductionPart I: Finding Hope—Recuperative Reading, Reparative ReadingChapter 2: Quixotic Conrad: Betrayal, Conversion, and Flight, Jay ParkerChapter 3: "The new sun is rising": Conrad, Women, and Hope, Rachel HollanderPart II: Understanding the Politics of FearChapter 4: Doubling Down on the Politics of Fear, Opening Up the Politics of Hope, Joyce WexlerChapter 5: Joseph Conrad’s “Strange Air of Finality”: Negative Affect and the Politics of Fear in “The Tale, Jarica Linn WattsChapter 6: "Pulsating Wrongfully":Critique, Cliché, and
The Secret Agent, James BrophyPart III: Ethics and AestheticsChapter 7: "Heart of Darkness" and the Memory of the Holocaust, Riccardo CapoferroChapter 8: The Beating Heart of Sublime Empire:
The Secret Agent as Sequel to “Heart of Darkness”, Jana M. GilesChapter 9: Cross-cultural Accord in the Malay Fiction: The Performative Politics of Conrad’s Eastern World, Mark DegganChapter 10: "Some Knowledge of Yourself": “Heart of Darkness” in the Twenty-First Century Literature Classroom—An Ethical Approach, Anna Lindhé.
