Bureaucratic Fanatics: Modern Literature and the Passions of Rationalization

Benjamin Lewis Robinson

Published by De Gruyter 2019

Bureaucratic Fanatics

Modern Literature and the Passions of Rationalization

Benjamin Lewis Robinson

Volume 8 in the series Paradigms

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110606935

Overview
Contents

About this book

Is justice only achievable by means of bureaucratization or might it first arrive with the end of bureaucracy? Bureaucratic Fanatics shows how this ever more contentious question in contemporary politics belongs to the political-theological underpinnings of bureaucratization itself.

At the end of the 18th century, a new and paradoxical kind of fanaticism emerged - rational fanaticism - that propelled the intensive biopolitical management of everyday life in Europe and North America as well as the extensive colonial exploitation of the earth and its peoples. These excesses of bureaucratization incited in turn increasingly fanatical forms of resistance. And they inspired literary production that provocatively presented the outrageous contours of rationalization. Combining political theory with readings of Kleist, Melville, Conrad, and Kafka, this genealogy of bureaucratic fanaticism relates two extreme figures: fanatical bureaucrats driven to the ends of the earth and to the limits of humanity by the rationality of the apparatuses they serve; and peculiar fanatics who passionately, albeit seemingly passively, resist the encroachments of bureaucratization.

Author / Editor information

Benjamin Lewis Robinson, University of Vienna, Austria.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Bureaucratic Fanaticism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
2. A New Kind of Schwärmer: Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3. Architecture of the Office: Melville’s Bartleby Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
4. Abstraction of the Earth: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
5. Poverty of Agency: Conrad’s The Secret Agent Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
6. State of Embarrassment: Kafka’s In the Penal Colony Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
7. Society of Security: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Epilogue: Guerrilla / Gardener Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars of Literary Studies, Political Theory, Critical Theory
Pages
- Front matter: 12
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 1
Keywords: Bureaucratization; biopolitics; colonialism; politics of refusal

eBook

Published: May 20, 2019
ISBN: 9783110606935

Hardcover

Published: May 20, 2019
ISBN: 9783110595192

Paperback

Published: December 7, 2020
ISBN: 9783110736694