Michel Houellebecq, the Cassandra of Freedom

Submission and Decline
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-49812-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 454, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 478 g

Reihe: Faux Titre

On 7 January 2015, the day of the murderous attack on the offices of the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the cover of the current issue showed a drunken Michel Houellebecq in a wizard’s cap making two prophecies: “In 2016 I will lose my teeth. In 2022 I will observe Ramadan.” Houellebecq had previously described Islam as “the stupidest of religions.” But on that day, as terrorists sought to bring the justice of Islam to blasphemers for whom Michel Houellebecq was insufficiently anti-Islamic, Houellebecq’s novel Submission, depicting the democratic conquest of France by the Muslim Brotherhood, was published by Flammarion.
In this collection, an international cast of authorities on politics and literature discuss the meaning and unprecedented impact of Michel Houellebecq’s Submission.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kochin, Michael S.

Spektorowski, Alberto

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Theokratische und religiöse Ideologien
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Einzelne Autoren: Monographien & Biographien
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Romanische Literaturen Französische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

1 Submission and Decline: Houellebecq as Cassandra and Jester

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler

2 Michel Houellebecq and the “Political Triangle”: The Republic, the Radical Right, and the “Ultimate Other”

Alberto Spektorowski

3 The Mother of Invention: Theo van Gogh in Houellebecq’s Rearview Mirror

Sam Cherribi

4 Submission and the Possibility of Low-Intensity Totalitarianism in France

Yvon Grenier

5 Western Decline and the Overcoming of the Metaphysical Stage in Houellebecq’s Fiction

Guillermo Graíño Ferrer

6 Michel Houellebecq’s Comparative Political Science of Religion

Neil Rogachevsky

7 Submission to Peace, and Polygamy: Should the French Acquiesce to Houellebecq’s Dream of a New Islam?

Alexander Orwin

8 The Pleasures of Decay in Houellebecq’s Submission

Michael S. Kochin

9 Dissociation, Disavowal, and Despair in Houellebecq’s Submission

Henry F. Smith

10 Polygamy and the Political Problem of Eros in Houellebecq’s Submission

John von Heyking

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Michael S. Kochin, PhD University of Chicago, 1996. Teaches politics, literature and film at Tel Aviv University. His most recent book (with the historian Michael Taylor): An Independent Empire: Diplomacy & War in the Making of the United States (2020).

Alberto Spektorowski, PhD Hebrew University Jerusalem, 1996. Teaches comparative politics at Tel Aviv University. His most recent book (with Dafna Elfersy): From multiculturalism to democratic discrimination: The Challenge of Islam and the re-emergence of Europe’s nationalism (Michigan, 2020).