The Face of the Other in Anglo-American Literature

Edited By: Marija Knežević

£39.99

Has 20th-century theory failed us? In a world of resurgent bigotry, this book seeks new phenomenological ways to understand the Other.

If we have established that our approach to the phenomena that are other to us is always a matter of semiosis, and that even in…

If we have established that our approach to the phenomena that are other to us is always a matter of semiosis, and that even in an attempt to naturalize phenomenology, like the one made by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who points to the corporeity of consciousness as much as an intentionality of the body, it appears that our most negligible movements present our cultural being or habituality (cf. Iris Young, Throwing Like a Girl, 1990, 2005). However, many thinkers have claimed (for example, the novelist D. H. Lawrence or philosopher Luce Iragary) that we know by touch and intuition.

The papers collected in this book examine our approach to these issues in an essentially post-theory world, particularly enquiring if twentieth century theory has left us clear directions of where we are supposed to be looking for new ways of understanding and representing the phenomenological.

The way the Other exists in the consciousness that, as Hegel said, always pursues its death, becomes especially interesting in the context of the development of Anglo-American studies in the post-postmodern world which sees the West as a changeable cultural (and geographical) concept that incorporates a multiplicity of others. Yet, at the same time, a number of contemporary Anglo-American writers insists on the prolonged effects of colonialism in the modern world, in which outbursts of violence and hatred aimed at the Other prove that the modern world still cannot approach the Other without bigotry.

Marija Knežević teaches 19th- and 20th-century British literature at The Faculty of Philosophy, University of Montenegro, where she also works as a Vice Dean for International Relations. Her publications, D. H. Lawrence in Italy (Beograd, 2000) and Quest for the Transcendent in D. H. Lawrence’s Prose (Nikšić, 2009), focus on the work of D. H. Lawrence, but her recent interests also include travel writing and Native American literature. Apart from numerous other publications, together with Aleksandra Nikčević Batrićević, she co-edited Culture-Bound Translation and Language in the Global Era; History, Politics, Identity: Reading Literature in a Changing World; Recounting Cultural Encounters and On the Borders of Convention (2010) all published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. She has edited and co-edited a series of translations of British, Canadian, and Native American authors. She is the current General Editor of linguistics and literature journal Folia Linguistica et Literaria.

Aleksandra Nikčević Batrićević is an Assistant Professor of American Literature at the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Montenegro. She also teaches courses on feminist literary theory and English language at the Department of History. Although in her publications she primarily focuses on the works of Herman Melville and English and American female poets, her interests also include literary theory (narratology and feminist criticism/theory). During the previous years she has participated at various international conferences and has co-organized seven on Anglo-American studies at the University of Montenegro. She has also organized conferences on female writing that take place in American Corner in Podgorica. Together with Marija Knežević, she co-edited Culture-Bound Translation and Language in the Global Era; History, Politics, Identity: Reading Literature in a Changing World; Recounting Cultural Encounters and On the Borders of Convention (2010). She is President of the Society for Anglo-American Literary Studies and member of the editorial boards of several literary magazines (ARS, Lingua Montenegrina, Folia Linguistica et Literaria) in Montenegro. Her translations include literary texts as well as texts related to literary theory.