Hunger and Irony in the French Caribbean: Literature, Theory, and Public Life

ISBN-13: 9781349719358 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 201 str.

Nicole Simek

Opis

Through a series of case studies spanning the bounds of literature, photography, essay, and manifesto, this book examines the ways in which literary texts do theoretical, ethical, and political work. Nicole Simek approaches the relationship between literature, theory, and public life through a specific site, the French Antillean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and focuses on two mutually elucidating terms: hunger and irony. Reading these concepts together helps elucidate irony's creative potential and limits. If hunger gives irony purchase by anchoring it in particular historical and material conditions, irony also gives a literature and politics of hunger a means for moving beyond a given situation, for pushing through the inertias of history and culture.

Recenzje

"Nicole Simek examines the connections between hunger and irony to think through texts from the Antillean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and situate them within particular social, political, and ethical considerations. ... Hunger and Irony is an excellent resource for scholars whose teaching and research specialize in the fields of Postcolonial Theory and Francophone Literary Studies, history and the cultures of the Francophone world." (Jennifer Boum Make, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature STTCL, Vol. 42 (2), July, 2018)

"Nicole Simek offers an insightful study of the presence and multiple uses of irony in French Caribbean works that cross generic boundaries ... . Simek's study will be an excellent resource for students and scholars interested in Caribbean cultural productions." (Véronique Maisier, H-France Review, Vol. 18 (90), April, 2018)

Spis treści

Table of Contents

 

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Living on the Edge

2. Theory or Over-Eating

3. Ironic Intent

4. In the Belly of the Beast: Irony, Opacity, Politics

5. Hunger Pangs: Irony, Tragedy, Constraint

6. Thirsty Ruins, Ironic Futures

7. Conclusion

Bibliography

O autorze

Nicole Simek is Associate Professor of French and Interdisciplinary Studies at Whitman College, USA. She is the author of Eating Well, Reading Well: Maryse Condé and the Ethics of Interpretation.

Blurb

‘A superb study… The guiding proposition – that irony should be read as a vector that helps deploy figures of hunger – works very well to identify and underscore a series of tensions specific to Francophone Caribbean literary history and culture… Insightful, wide-ranging, and exciting.’ – Lydie Moudileno, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA

‘This book forwards a fascinating discussion of Francophone Caribbean writing through varying registers of hunger and irony.  By thinking of these as both material determinants and interpretive levers, Simek provides not only new ways to read Martinican and Guadaloupean literature, but usefully recasts possibilities for postcolonial critique in general.’ - Peter Hitchcock, Professor of English, The Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York, USA

Through a series of case studies spanning the bounds of literature, photography, essay, and manifesto, this book examines the ways in which literary texts do theoretical, ethical, and political work. Nicole Simek approaches the relationship between literature, theory, and public life through a specific site, the French Antillean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and focuses on two mutually elucidating terms: hunger and irony. Reading these concepts together helps elucidate irony’s creative potential and limits.  If hunger gives irony purchase by anchoring it in particular historical and material conditions, irony also gives a literature and politics of hunger a means for moving beyond a given situation, for pushing through the inertias of history and culture.