Against Anarchy

Cord-Christian Casper

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020

Against Anarchy

Political Alterity in Early Modernism

Cord-Christian Casper

Volume 1 in the series Transregional Practices of Power

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110645873

Overview
Contents

About this book

'Against Anarchy' investigates the function of Anarchism in Early Modernist political fiction. The study explains how political novels from 1886 to 1911 narrate and evaluate the function of Anarchists as embodiments of a radical space beyond politics.
The literary prevalence of Anarchists has so far not been connected systematically to its literary and political functions. The study addresses this research gap in detailed analyses of a radical theme in narratives by Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and G.K. Chesterton. It shows that each novel presents strategies of demarcation that allow turn-of-the-century Britain to project its cultural anxieties upon an imagined other, the dreaded figure labelled ‘Anarchist’. The political radical is set up as the foil against which comforting self-descriptions can be maintained. Rather than merely reproducing this boundary work, however, the novels also evaluate its function, both for the respective political system and for their own narrative capabilities — and present the consequences incurred by the loss of an anarchist outside.
'Against Anarchy' is a thorough cultural historiography of the politically other and marginal. At the same time, the study demonstrates that close attention to the specific literary image of Anarchism allows for a re-evaluation of political thought beyond its immediate historical moment — a literary political theory in its own right.

Author information

Cord-Christian Casper, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Political Literature and the Demarcation of Alterity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3. Demarcations of Culture and Anarchy in The Princess Casamassima Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
4. Residual Politics in The Secret Agent Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
5. Politics beyond Demarcation? Loss of Alterity in Conrad and Chesterton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	449
6. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	602
Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	619
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	655
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	657

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Intellectual Historians, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Theory, Anarchist Studies
Pages
- Front matter: 6
- Main content: 660
Keywords: 19. Jahrhundert; Großbritannien; Anarchismus

eBook

Published: August 24, 2020
ISBN: 9783110645873

Hardcover

Published: August 24, 2020
ISBN: 9783110644654

Against Anarchy

​Political Alterity in Early Modernism

Political Alterity in Early Modernism