1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910151581803321

Autore

Simek Nicole

Titolo

Hunger and Irony in the French Caribbean [[electronic resource] ] : Literature, Theory, and Public Life / / by Nicole Simek

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Palgrave Macmillan US : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-55882-2

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (IX, 201 p.)

Collana

New Caribbean Studies, , 2691-3011

Disciplina

809.7

Soggetti

America—Literatures

Literature   

Literature, Modern—20th century

Literature—Philosophy

Culture—Study and teaching

Literature—History and criticism

North American Literature

Postcolonial/World Literature

Twentieth-Century Literature

Literary Theory

Cultural Theory

Literary History

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Caribbean Area French-speaking Areas

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction: Living on the Edge -- 2. Theory or Over-Eating -- 3. Ironic Intent -- 4. In the Belly of the Beast: Irony, Opacity, Politics -- 5. Hunger Pangs: Irony, Tragedy, Constraint -- 6. Thirsty Ruins, Ironic Futures -- 7. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.-.

Sommario/riassunto

‘A superb study… The guiding proposition – that irony should be read as a vector that helps deploy figures of hunger – works very well to identify and underscore a series of tensions specific to Francophone Caribbean literary history and culture… Insightful, wide-ranging, and



exciting.’ – Lydie Moudileno, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA ‘This book forwards a fascinating discussion of Francophone Caribbean writing through varying registers of hunger and irony. By thinking of these as both material determinants and interpretive levers, Simek provides not only new ways to read Martinican and Guadaloupean literature, but usefully recasts possibilities for postcolonial critique in general.’ - Peter Hitchcock, Professor of English, The Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York, USA Through a series of case studies spanning the bounds of literature, photography, essay, and manifesto, this book examines the ways in which literary texts do theoretical, ethical, and political work. Nicole Simek approaches the relationship between literature, theory, and public life through a specific site, the French Antillean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and focuses on two mutually elucidating terms: hunger and irony. Reading these concepts together helps elucidate irony’s creative potential and limits. If hunger gives irony purchase by anchoring it in particular historical and material conditions, irony also gives a literature and politics of hunger a means for moving beyond a given situation, for pushing through the inertias of history and culture.