The Cultural Work of Ekphrasis in Contemporary Anglophone Transcultural Novels

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4375110
AutoresGabriele Rippl (0000-0003-1447-0129, University of Bern, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen39
Número2
Páginas265-285
Fecha de publicación2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPoetics Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/03335372-4324444
OpenAlexW2803819660
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas26

This article takes as its starting point the conspicuous ekphrastic nature of many contemporary Anglophone transcultural novels and asks about their engagement with ekphrasis as a self-reflexive writing mode delving into implicit power relations, cultural hierarchies, and the media landscapes of our digital age. Against the backdrop of intermediality theory, my functional analysis of the cultural work of ekphrasis builds its argument on the analysis of three novels: No Violet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2014), Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go (2013), and Teju Cole’s Open City (2011). I analyze these writers’ interventions in the field of aesthetics, considering networks of aesthetic exchange as well as identity politics, and argue that the functions of ekphrasis in narratives written by the transcultural writers discussed here are of a cultural-critical and sociopolitical nature

Aesthetics · Art · Critical theory · Culture theory · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Reflexivity · Sociology · Anthropology · Cultural Studies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Visual Culture and Art Theory