(Dis)placements

Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One opens with the claim that “It should not be surprising that Marx remains as inexhaustible as capital itself, and that with every adaptation or mutation of the latter his texts and his thought resonate in new ways and with fresh accents … rich with new meanings” (Jameson 1). Together with Valences of the Dialectic (2009), this is Fredric Jameson's latest chapter in a life-long project of actualization and affirmation of different categories of Marx’s dialectic, from alienation to commodity fetishism, all thoroughly criticized and somewhat abandoned after the (post)structuralist turn of Marxism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By positing the category of representation in the center of his reading of Capital, Jameson is moving against the current of those appropriations of Marx that amidst the unprecedented global financial crisis of 2008, aimed to find their foothold in the supposed objectivity of the economy – projecting onto the economy ...

The boy was playing alone on a dusty road, not far from the big door of the courtyard of his house. On a day other than a market day or a holiday, the road would be peaceful, almost deserted, but the boy would always harbor a hidden hope that the road might produce something new, rare, and exciting. On that day the road brought nothing for quite a long time. At one moment the boy raised his eyes. High overhead he saw someone coming down the hill.The slopes of that unusually steep hill rose above the town almost perpendicularly, evoking in the boy’s mind the image of a school blackboard. The precipitous surface of the hill was streaked by a dusty white road that disappeared behind low, rocky and sparsely vegetated mounds with a well-trodden shortcut the color of clay stretching between them. High above on the hill the traveller emerged as a tiny figure whose clothes or age could not yet be discerned. The boy saw him disappear behind the rocky mounds and then appear again, coming out of ...

Transgressivity, in a broad sense, denotes a state of movement from one distinct position, mode, or territory to another, be it spatial, geographical, mental, spiritual, or even narrative. Transgression occurs when one crosses boundaries, in other words, limes of different entities. Geocritical transgressivity, which is a multifaceted concept, may lead to a variety of interpretations at many different strata. Transgressivity finds echoes in Caryl Phillips’s narratives, at times in geographical forms, where a deterritorialized character crosses borders without ever gaining reterritorialization, at other times, in his fragmented narration where the reader stands at a threshold. Our paper uses Phillips’s A New World Order (2001) in particular as a key text through this geocritical lens of transgressivity to see to what extent it functions as the author’s map legend that presents a cartographic pattern of his writing in general. Our discussion also focuses on Phillips’s distinct analyses i...

This paper examines David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004) and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), with a particular focus on history and narrative time. It seeks to offer an alternative perspective on the multiple and intertwined fictional narratives of Mitchell’s oeuvre as these evidence a move past the "post-" of postmodernism. Keywords: David Mitchell, time, narrative, historiography, experimental fiction, post-postmodernismPostmodernism has cast an extended influence over much literary criticism in the last fifty years. However, with the end of the noughties now in reach of critical hindsight, and with the shock of September 11, 2001 beginning to subside, significant attention is turning once again toward the new literary vanguard. Efforts to discuss post-postmodernism, critical realism, new materialism, and new-millennial writing are certainly on a par with artistic and literary efforts to move beyond postmodernist playfulness and relativism. Within this broader framework,...

Edgeworth je na televiziji gledao memoare o autobusnoj vožnji u Hitchcockovom uratku Sretni Jim kad je zazvonio telefon. Pauzirao je posebno kolekcionarsko izdanje Obiteljske zavjere i podigao stražnji dio naslonjača. Posegnuvši za slušalicom, primijetio je kako su kazaljke na satu zatrzale prema ponoći. „Halo?“ rekao je, pa za manje od sekunde ponovio: „Halo?“„Je li to gospodin Edgeworth?“Nije prepoznao ženin glas premda nije niti znao neku ženu koja bi ga imala razloga nazvati. „Pri telefonu“, rekao je.„Gospodin Eric Edgeworth?“„Još uvijek niste u krivu.“„Imate li par minuta, gospodine Edgeworth?“„Ne treba mi popravak kompjutora. Nisam imao nesreću na radu, niti bilo gdje drugdje. Ne kupujem ništa i neću vam reći gdje i što kupujem. Moji politički stavovi su moja stvar, kao i sve ostalo o čemu trenutačno razmišljam. Nisam nikad pobijedio na natjecanju, tako da se nemojte niti truditi tvrditi drugačije. Ne idem na godišnji u inozemstvo, tako da mi ne morate niti pokušavati prodati neš...

Gwen Pharis Ringwood (1910–1984) is one of the most eminent Canadian playwrights of the 20th century. In her drama Drum Song: An Indian Trilogy which consists of three parts: Maya (Lament for Harmonica, 1959), The Stranger (1971) and The Furies (1981) the author implements her knowledge of First Nations’ traditions and customs. Moreover, it is “in the lives of the Indian tribes [that] Gwen Ringwood had found an elemental struggle for survival that has produced conflicts comparable with those of Greek tragedy” (Perkyns 330). Such conflicts and elements characteristic of Greek tragedy find their place in this trilogy as well. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to analyse those elements, examine their function, the way and form in which they are presented in the trilogy. Keywords: Canada, drama, First Nations, Gwen Ringwood, tradition, tragedy, trilogy