Illusions of a Future
Ishiguro, Liberalism, Political Theology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12662425 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Bradley (0000-0003-1017-1076, Lancaster University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 638-642 |
| Publication date | 2018-08-29 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Theology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1462-317X • E-ISSN: 1743-1719 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1462317x.2018.1513189 |
| OpenAlex | W2889033595 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
This article explores the fate of political theology in Kazuo Ishiguro's speculative fiction Never Let Me Go (2005) and, by implication, in contemporary fiction more broadly. To pursue a reading of Christianity that extends from Hegel through Lacan to Žižek, the article argues that political theology’s future may perversely lie in a materialism emptied of all transcendental guarantees: political theology is the historically privileged master fantasy or illusion which reveals the fantastic or illusory status of our entire relation to the real in (neo-)liberal modernity. In conclusion, the article argues that Ishiguro’s fiction may thus be read less as a melancholic dystopian study in total ideological capture or surrender than as the representation of a state of immanent freedom beyond the power relations of (neo-)liberal subjectivity
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Epistemology · Fantasy · Hegelianism · Ideology · Liberalism · Literature · Modernity · Political science · Political theology · Politics · Power (physics · Relation (database · Sociology · Subjectivity · Theology · Transcendental number · Utopia · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
| Highly cited | No |
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