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Literature, Democracy and the Object: from Lukács to Rancière and Back

Evans, Joel

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Authors

JOEL EVANS JOEL.EVANS@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Assistant Professor in Literature



Abstract

The idea of “literary democracy” can be traced back to the early twentieth century, which this article does by looking initially at the work of Georg Lukács. His distinctly humanist view of literary democracy resonates with other key thinkers, including Erich Auerbach and Mikhail Bakhtin. But it is in the contemporary work of Jacques Rancière that an explicit engagement with this idea resurfaces. The task, then, becomes to trace the progression in thought in the passage between these two thinkers, and to evaluate the differences in their concept of literary democracy. Whilst Lukács presents a humanist view of the relation between literature and democracy, Rancière, I argue, presents an anti-humanist view. This claim leads to a critique of Rancière’s anti-humanist position, which has much in common with concepts of democracy in critical theory at-large. The essay ends by returning to Lukács’ work, which provides some solutions to the problems posed by Rancière’s.

Citation

Evans, J. (2021). Literature, Democracy and the Object: from Lukács to Rancière and Back. Angelaki, 26(5), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2021.1963079

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 5, 2020
Online Publication Date Sep 1, 2021
Publication Date Sep 3, 2021
Deposit Date Jul 31, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 2, 2023
Journal Angelaki
Print ISSN 0969-725X
Electronic ISSN 1469-2899
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 5
Pages 72-87
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2021.1963079
Keywords Literary democracy; reification; Rancière; Lukács; Object-Oriented Ontology; Actor Network Theory
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4797994
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969725X.2021.1963079
Additional Information Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=cang20; Published: 2021-09-01

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