Material, Literary Narrative and Cultural Economy

Primo Levi and the Industrial Short Story

Bibliographic Data

ID2182089
AuthorsNicky Gregson (0000-0002-2796-389X, University of Sheffield, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume2
Issue3
Pages285-300
Publication date2009-11-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cultural Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1753-0350 • E-ISSN: 1753-0369
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17530350903345520
OpenAlexW1581516273
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited38

In this paper I argue that thinking about the material in cultural economy has much to gain from culture itself. Specifically, I explore the potential of literary narrative for conceptualizing and writing material within a performative cultural economy. Drawing on the industrial short stories of Primo Levi (The Periodic Table, The Wrench, A Tranquil Star), I provide a literal reading of these works, highlighting their foregrounding of material encounters, the importance of process (and not just product), and materials’ instability in process, and their connections to theorizations of economies as assemblage. The paper also explores how Levi writes material to presence using the techniques of narrative discourse, particularly mimesis. The paper concludes by arguing that narrative is a means to writing a performative cultural economy and that cultural economy needs to rekindle the arts of story-telling. Paying attention to literary narrative shows how this might be achieved

Aesthetics · Art · Foregrounding · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Performative utterance · Reading (process · Sociology · Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior · Philosophy

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access