The demonic natures of modernity - From situation-management to management-simulation: William Gaddis meets Dostoevsky

Berensmeyer, Ingo (2003): The demonic natures of modernity - From situation-management to management-simulation: William Gaddis meets Dostoevsky. In: Arcadia, Bd. 38, Nr. 1: S. 154-178

Abstract

Using the concepts of manipulation and simulation as diagnostic terms for modernity, this article offers a cross-reading of Dostoevsky's `Demons' ('Besy' 1872) and William Gaddis's novels `The Recognitions' (1955) and `JR' (1975). It stages a dialogue in terms of a change in perspectives instead of showing a case of literary influence. The dialogue concerns filling and (re)presenting a gap that can only be called ``demonic.'' In the case of Dostoevsky, the hap is due to the opaqueness of human beings and the hysterical subjectivity it generates,which can no longer be healed by communication. In Gaddis, entropic communication engenders and enhances an opaqueness of the real world, as it were a hysterical objectivity of simulacra. Both authors search for adequate and radical modes of representation for what is unpresentable in this modernity.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 3 > Anglistik
• Themengebiete: 400 Sprache > 420 Englisch, Altenglisch ; 800 Literatur > 820 Englische, altenglische Literaturen
• ISSN: 0003-7982
• Sprache: Englisch