On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life

by Heather H. Yeung

Overview

On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life calls to Franz Kafka, and in particular ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters’, for aid in charting the long reach of plastic on the human mind and world. In this book, Heather H. Yeung builds a past and future ecology of plastic, arguing that it is through a deep reading of literature that we can begin to understand more clearly what it is that plastic means to us today, asking, under the auspices of the idea of literary plasticity: what are the true depths of our twenty-first-century fascination with plastic? How did we become so entangled? How can we come to a better understanding of plastic’s role in our imagination, our environment, and our lives? What can literature teach us in this respect? Why should we care?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030441579
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	05/16/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	111
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Heather H. Yeung is Lecturer in English and Creative Writing in the School of Humanities, University of Dundee, UK. She is also the author of Spatial Engagement with Poetry (Palgrave 2015).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Plastic’s Long Reach

i Plastic / Literature

ii Plastic / Ground

iii Plastic / Form

Chapter 2: Odradek, or Non-Biodegradable Object-Life

i Invocation

ii Morphology

iii Tipping Point

Chapter 3: Kurzprosa as Plastic Art

i Architecture

ii Comparison

iii Mobility

Chapter 4: The Hausvater’s Lyric Hauntology

i Formation

ii Control

iii Vocalization

Chapter 5: Coda

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“On Literary Plasticity: Readings with Kafka in Ecology, Voice, and Object-Life is incredibly well-researched and clearly written, structured such that Kafka becomes a compelling way of thinking through plasticity. Yeung offers a new theory of the literary object, creating a study that is ultimately a work of literary and cultural theory as much as it is a book on Kafka.”

—Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA

“The experience of reading this short monograph is discovering a plastic oikos that is fervent, fierce, and fecund. Drop in Kafka, plastic imagination, entanglement, the non-linearity of thinking, and the teeming possibilities emerging from a plastic milieu, the space sets up an enthralling journey in literary plasticity. The plastic hauntings are deep and pervasive.”

—Ranjan Ghosh, University of North Bengal, India, and co-author (with J. Hillis Miller) of Thinking Literature across Continents (2016) and author of The Plastic Turn (forthcoming)

Editorial Reviews

This book dwells with Kafka’s Kurzprosa to elucidate the plastic processes of reading and encourage a deeper understanding of ‘the hold that plastic exerts on us’ … . On Literary Plasticity offers an elegant contribution to German studies and ecocriticism alike. … Yeung’s study offers rich content to kafka scholars searching for new readings of Die sorge des Hausvaters and to critics fascinated by literary plasticity.” (Paul Sutherland Sherban, Modern Language Review, Vol. 117 (2), April, 2022)

From the Publisher