Who said "vulnerable"? Literature, Canada, precarity, affect

Bibliographic Data

ID2179273
AuthorsEva Darias-Beautell (0000-0002-9986-3951)
Year2019
Volume55
Issue4
Pages445-458
Publication date2019-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2019.1602846
OpenAlexW2945854385
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

This article draws on Judith Butler’s notions of vulnerability and precarity to propose an approach to the study of contemporary Canadian literature that is both aesthetically and politically involved. In recent work, Butler implies the possibility of engaging, through the field of literature and critical theory, with the production of vulnerability at the heart of human crises. If that is so, it is crucial to emphasize the role of postcolonial literatures in tackling contemporary forms of violence and revealing the normative frames that empower those forms. The article argues for the usefulness of critically reading Canadian literature in those terms, if only as a response to the large number of texts that narrate and engage the multiple sites of human vulnerability, implicitly calling for a mode of analysis that draws attention back to the political potential of the aesthetic, and endorsing what could be thought of as a post-post-structuralist moment

Aesthetics · Affect (linguistics · Art · Critical theory · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Normative · Political science · Politics · Precarity · Reading (process · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Homelessness and Social Issues · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Gender Studies · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub