Literature and Epistemic Justice

Power and Resistance in the Contemporary Novel
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-64924-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Literary Studies in Social Justice

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.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Colvin, Sarah

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Deutsche Literatur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Sarah Colvin is the Schröder Professor at the University of Cambridge, UK. She has authored and edited a number of books including Shadowland: The Story of Germany Told by its Prisoners (2022) and (with Stephanie Galasso) Epistemic Justice and Creative Agency: Global Perspectives on Literature and Film (Routledge, 2023)