The Cultural Work of Ekphrasis in Contemporary Anglophone Transcultural Novels

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4375110
AutoresGabriele Rippl (0000-0003-1447-0129, University of Bern, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume39
Fascículo2
Páginas265-285
Data de publicação2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPoetics Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/03335372-4324444
OpenAlexW2803819660
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências 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