The question of literature The place of the literary in contemporary theory [Paperback]

The question of literature brings together essays by a number of distinguished theorists and academics on the changing cultural significance of literature as such. As literary theory has grown more influential, interdisciplinary and sophisticated, it has come to concern itself with a much greater range of issues and objects than those traditionally considered literary. Literary theory now addresses philosophy, history, psychology, politics, the media, and potentially every other aspect of our culture - but as a result the nature of its relation to literature itself has become less clear.

The question of literature seeks to recontextualise literature within the diversity of postmodern theory, showing how theory has changed our understanding of literature and its questions, and affirming the ways in which literature remains valuable and transformative for present day culture. It relates literature importantly to the institution of the university, but also to ethical judgements and values, new media and computer technology, and the nature of representative democracy. In the scope of its discussion The question of literature constitutes a major intervention in current literary-theoretical debates, and will be of great interest not only to academics and students in literary, social, and cultural studies but to anyone concerned with these debates or with the future of literature as such.

1. Introduction

2. The literary and the ethical: difference as definition - Charles Altieri

3. Singular events: literature, invention, and performance - Derek Attridge

4. The post-literary condition: Sartre, Camus and the question(s) of literature - David Carroll

5. Literary force, institutional values - Timothy Clark

6. The literary as activity in postmodernity - Marianne DeKoven

7. The question concerning literature - Thomas Dochertty

8. Literature as regime (meditiations on an emergence) - John Frow

9. 'Fiction' and lÓÒ