Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development: From International Relations to World Literature

by James Christie (Editor), Nesrin Degirmencioglu (Editor)

Overview

Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development represents an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of Leon Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development. This groundbreaking collection brings together the work of scholars from both the field of international relations and the field of literature and the arts in an effort to adapt the political and historical analysis which originated in Trotsky's Russia and apply them to the subject of contemporary world literature. The results provide essential insights for those looking to find new ways of understanding literary texts, as well as for those seeking to draw lessons from Trotsky's revolutionary politics for use in combatting today's world order.

Contributors: Alexander Anievas, Gail Day, James Christie, Kamran Matin, Kerem Nisancioglu, Luke Cooper, Michael Niblett, Neil Davidson, Nesrin Degirmencioglu, Robert Spencer, Steve Edwards.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642595659
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Series:	Historical Materialism
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

James Christie was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of English and Comparatıve Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, where he received his Ph.D. in 2014. He now teaches English in secondary education in the UK. His research interests include critical theory and contemporary American fiction. He has published in Mediations: The Journal of the Marxist Literary Group, and The Cormac McCarthy Journal.

Nesrin Degirmencioglu was formerly a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, where she received her Ph.D. in 2014. She now teaches at the Middle East Technical University's Northern Cyprus Campus. Her current research focuses on world literature debates and manifestations of neoliberalism in contemporary American and Turkish fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

List of Figures x

Notes on Contributors xi

Part 1 Introducing the Field

Introduction: Why Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development? James Christie Nesrin Degirmencioglu 3

1 Uneven and Combined Development as a Universal Aspect of Capitalist Modernity Neil Davidson 17

Part 2 Critiques of Eurocentrism

2 Troubling Time and Space in World Politics; Reimagining Western Modernity in the Atlantic Mirror Alexander Anievas Kerem Nisancioglu 83

3 The Iranian Revolution in the Mirror of Uneven and Combined Development Kamran Matin 114

4 Rationalist or Nationalist? The Eighteenth-Century Public Sphere Luke Cooper 138

Part 3 Towards a Theory of Culture

5 Uneven and Combined Development: Between Capitalist Modernity and Modernism Neil Davidson 167

6 Fredric Jameson and the Rise of World Literature: From World Systems Theory to Uneven and Combined Development James Christie 199

Part 4 Reading under the Sign of Uneven and Combined Development

7 Late Capitalism in Contemporary Fiction Robert Spencer 227

8 Differential Time and Aesthetic Form: Uneven and Combined Capitalism in the Work of Allan Sekula Gail Day Steve Edwards 253

9 Aesthetics of Uneven and Combined Development: Tanpmar and Dos Passos at a World Literary Conjuncture Nesrin Degirmencioglu 289

10 Demon Landscapes, Uneven Ecologies: Folk-Spirits in Guyanese Fiction Michael Niblett 314

Bibliography 339

General Index 376