Ideology in the 20Th Century Studies of Literary and Social Discourses and Practices

Ideology in the 20th Century Studies of literary and social discourses and practices Edited by Jonatan Vinkler Ana Beguš Marcello Potocco Založba Univerze na Primorskem University of Primorska Press Uredniški odbor / Editorial Board Gregor Pobežin Maja Meško Vito Vitrih Silva Bratož Ana Petelin Janko Gravner Krstivoje Špijunović Miloš Zelenka Jonatan Vinkler Alen Ježovnik Ideology in the 20th Century Studies of literary and social discourses and practices Edited by Jonatan Vinkler Ana Beguš Marcello Potocco Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices Edited by Jonatan Vinkler, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco Reviewers Jernej Habjan Igor Grdina Typesetting: Jonatan Vinkler Published by Založba Univerze na Primorskem (For publisher: Prof. Klavdija Kutnar, PhD., rector) Titov trg 4, SI-6000 Koper Editor-in-chief Jonatan Vinkler Managing editor Alen Ježovnik Koper 2019 isbn 978-961-7055-99-3 (spletna izdaja: pdf) http://www.hippocampus.si/ISBN/978-961-7055-99-3.pdf isbn 978-961-7055-28-3 (spletna izdaja: html) http://www.hippocampus.si/ISBN/978-961-7055-28-3/index.html DOI: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-7055-99-3 © 2019 Založba Univerze na Primorskem/University of Primorska Press Izdaja je sofinancirana po pogodbi ARRS za sofinanciranje izdajanja znanstvenih monografij v letu 2019. Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani COBISS.SI-ID=303309312 ISBN 978-961-7055-99-3 (pdf) ISBN 978-961-7055-28-3 (html) Contents Marcello Potocco, Ana Beguš, Jonatan Vinkler 9 Introduction: The Crossroads of Literature and Social Praxis Ana Beguš 19 Genre in the Technological Remediation of Culture 24 New Genres 27 The Status of Literature in the New Media Ecosystem 28 Future Technological and Cultural Development Tomaž Toporišič 33 Negotiating the Discursive Circulation of (Mis)Information in the Face of Global Uncertainties: The Fiction of W. G. Sebald and the Theatre of Oliver Frljić 33 Literature and Theatre in the Uncertainty of ‘Glocal’ Societies 34 The Special Status of Culture and Art in the Contemporary World 35 The Effect of Reality and Senseless Cruelty 37 Prose as Inner Theatre 38 The Deconstruction and Ironising of the Horizon of Expectation 39 Theatre as Learning to Watch 40 The Demolishing and Renewed Restoring of Illusions 41 Theatre as an Attempt to Erase the Amnesia of Memory 42 The Spectator as the Secondary Eyewitness 44 Art as a Glocal Societal Spectacle and the Acute Crisis of Ethics Vladimir Gvozden 47 Fiction and Eschatology: The Politics of Fear in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices Špela Virant 63 Epistemology, Ideology, and Literature: Radical Constructivism, Decolonial Studies, and Native American Literature Marcello Potocco 81 National Identification in Canada: Two Chapters from Its Anglophone Population’s Relations to the United States of America 83 American or Canadian? Between Similarity and Difference(s) in Text and Context, the First Take 87 American or Canadian? Between Similarity and Difference in Text and Context, the Second Take Aleš Kozár 95 Searching for the Image of the Village in the Swirl of 20th Century 6 Ideological Conflicts 97 Writing About the Village After the Political Changes in 1989–1991 102 The Czech Situation 106 Conclusion Gašper Troha 109 Society as Seen in Slovenian Drama during Socialist Times and Today 111 The Society in Literature; First Example: Dušan Jovanović: Military Secret 113 The Society in Literature; Second Example: Simona Semenič: nineteeneightyone 116 Literature in Society 119 Conclusion Maja Murnik 121 Contemporary Slovenian Stage-plays and the Political 121 Postdramatic Theatre and ‘No Longer Dramatic Text’ 123 Art and Theatre in the Age of Post-politics 126 Textual and Performative Tactics through their Relationship with the Political: Case Studies 130 Conclusion Varja Balžalorsky Antić 133 Women’s Poetic Discourse in the Context of Post-war Ideologies: Senca v srcu (A Shade in the Hearth) by Ada Škerl Contents Roland Orcsik 145 Play, Chaos and Autonomy in the Poetry of Hungarians in Voivodina (Uj Symposion) 145 The Yugoslav Seal 148 ‘Cosmopolitan Reservations’ 153 Old News? Irma Ratiani 157 From War to Peace: The Literary Life of Georgia after the Second World War 161 Social and Cultural Reaction to the Political Transfiguration of Soviet Government 165 Establishment of Modern Georgian Literature Maka Elbakidze 171 The Forbidden Homeland: Viktor Nozadze’s Scholarly Activity 7 from the Soviet Ideological Viewpoint 172 “Those Who Are Not with Us Are Against Us” 173 Years of Emigration 176 The Theology of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Viktor Nozadze Ștefan Baghiu 185 The Functions of Socialist Realism: Translation of Genre Fiction in Communist Romania 187 World Genre Fiction in Romanian Translation during Stalinism 190 Genre Fiction in Romania: from ‘Subliterature’ to Functional Literature 192 Soviet Genre Fiction vs. World Genre Fiction in Translation 192 The Pragmatic Function of Children’s and Young Adult Literature 195 Conclusions Andrei Terian 199 Socialist Modernism as Compromise: A Study of the Romanian Literary System 200 From Socialist Realism to Socialist Modernism 204 The Content and Limits of Socialist Modernism 207 Socialist Modernism as Late Modernism 213 Povzetek 219 Authors 223 Reviews 223 I 224 II 227 Index Introduction: The Crossroads of Literature and Social Praxis Marcello Potocco, Ana Beguš, Jonatan Vinkler When researching ideology, it would be unimaginable to disregard the work of Louis Althusser and his followers in the early 1970s. One of Al- thusser’s central theses describes ideology as ‘imaginary’: ideology is the imaginary relation of an individual to the material conditions of his existence. Yet the ideological attitude is not treated merely as a possible cog- nition of the world, instead it is defined as inevitable consciousness, since each relation to the world is conscious and given as an imaginary relation. Ideology is the mechanism that provides the ‘evidentness of meaning’, i.e. an individual is given the ‘evident truth’ on how things are to be understood. According to Althusserians, an individual is thus presented with seemingly only one possible signification. The meaning of an utterance depends on what Michel Pêcheux calls the inter-discourse, a set of discursive formations which are themselves “imbricated with the complex of ideological formations”. The signification of utterances therefore comes into being according to the position their speakers (users) assume in relation to ideological formations. Althusserians understand ideology as constitutive for the subject’s identification, and vice versa, the subject is constitutive for ideology, since ideology is in itself acting through the subject, it is an ideological interpellation of an individual as a subject. Within this conceptual frame, ideology is conceived as general ideology that supposedly permeates both the entire social system as well as each of the subject’s identifications. The subject’s relation to the world, his/her ability of the imaginary is uniform, and ideology becomes the only possible form of the imaginary. Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices However, we have to be careful in determining the relation between the imaginary and ideology, since the imaginary cannot be understood in only one possible way. It is especially important to note that the imaginary, as the primary ability of an individual to build an arbitrary link between the image and its signification, must be limited by a kind of social institution. This is why it is useful to follow CorneliusCastoriadis’s ex- planation of the role of the imaginary in any society. Castoriadis argues that the imaginary mostly manifests as the institutionalising set of representations common to a society. It is only through such sets that a society is seamed together, as we can understand each other only by using a set of common representations. Paradoxically, ideology can be understood as an order of such institutionalising sets. The problem of meaning, i.e. the relation between the signifier and the signified, is fundamental to under- 10 standing both ideology and the role of an individual. While the imaginary—in its primary existence—is open to any possible link between the signifier (the image) and the signified, ideology, on the contrary, attempts to close this gap and establish a fixed meaning. Due to this tendency, ideology can be defined as a discourse of modernity, as discourses of modernity strive to suppress and eliminate differences and ambivalences, using rational control and action. Althusserian definitions would therefore lead us to think that the ideological relation is given as an a priori relation to the world. The pro- cess of ideological interpellation achieved by means of identification pro- duces an empty space in the inter-discursive set, and the subject necessar- ily fills in the empty space. A similar stance was later taken up by Michel Foucault. However, Stuart Hall emphasises that the link between the signifier and the signified can never be completely closed, and, consequent- ly, meaning can never be totally fixed. This means that even in discourses of modernity the subject may not comply to identifying with one meaning only. Hall thus argues for the autonomy of the subject that was denied to the individual in Althusserian thought. Parallel to the interpellation provided by a discourse, there must exist the subject’s response, a praxis through which “individual constitutes and recognises himself qua subject”, “as a subject of desire”. This is whyFoucault was substituting the no- tion of discourse with the analysis of power in the structure of discourses as well as institutions. Terry Eagleton agrees and takes a step further: if the subject were but an effect of the discourse or power, there would be no reason for the ideological control of the subject and there would be no possible way to oppose an ideology.

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