J.M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Power

Unsettling Complicity, Complacency, and Confession
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-90-04-30843-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 185, 276 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Cross/Cultures

“For I was not, as I liked to believe, the indulgent pleasure-loving opposite of the cold rigid Colonel. I was the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow.” Thus the Magistrate confesses in Coetzee’s 1980 novel Waiting for the Barbarians. The present study looks closely into the unsettling effects Coetzee’s novels have on the reader and explores the interconnectedness between stylistic choices and moral insights. Its overall aim is to disclose the effectiveness of Coetzee’s narrative strategies to prompt the reader to engage in self-questioning and radical revisions of personal and social moral assumptions.

“This is an original and ground-breaking study of Coetzee’s work. Dr Tegla’s insightful close-readings highlight the ways in which Coetzee fictionalizes a variety of moral dilemmas. In particular, she shows how he turns narrative into an instrument for moral discernment. Her narratological approach advances our understanding of his achievements, and I can state without reservation that this book will be referred to as a landmark in Coetzee criticism.”
— Richard Bradford, Research Professor and Senior Distinguished Research Fellow, University of Ulster

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tegla, Emanuela

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturkritik: Hermeneutik und Interpretation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 From Duty to Moral Choice: Waiting for the Barbarians
Present-Tense Narration and the Ethics of Representation
The Magistrate: The Journey from Duty to Moral Choice
2 Facile Goodness and Shame: Age of Iron
Epistolarity: Death, History, and Writing
Confession: Self-Doubt and Problematic Love
Shame: Self-Reflexiveness, Social Questioning, and Moral Revelation
Purgation: The Elusive Character of Redemption
3 Sloth and Moral Integrity: Life & Times of Michael K
Narrative Strategies and the Ethical Encounter
History and Individual Trauma
4 Ideals, Sex, and Violence: Disgrace
Historical Guilt, Humiliation, and Morality
Self-Deception and Morality
Conclusion
The Moral Dimension of Resisting Narrative Closure
Works Cited
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Emanuela Tegla has a PhD in literature from the University of Ulster and has been working recently on postcolonial autobiography and the question of identity. She is the author of The Burden of the Self: Tim Parks, Salman Rushdie and Postmodernism (2008) and of several articles on various aspects of contemporary literature. Her main research interests include ethics, morality, postcolonial literature, and the globalization of literature.