Universal Abandon was first published in 1989. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
In recent years, the debate about postmodernism has become a full-blown, global discussion about the nature and future of society: it has challenged and redefined the cultural and sexual politics of the last two decades, and is increasingly shaping tomorrow's agenda. Postmodernist culture is a medium in which we all live, no matter how unevenly its effects are felt across the jagged spectrum of color, gender, class, sexual, orientation, region, and nationality. But it is also a culture that proclaims its abandonment of the universalist foundations of Enlightenment thought in the West. At a time when interests can no longer be universalized, the question arises: Whose interests are served by this "universal abandon"?
Universal Abandon is the first volume in a new series entitled Cultural Politics, edited by the Social Text collective. This collection tackles a wider range of cultural and political issues than are usually addressed in the debates about postmodernism—color, ethnicity, and neocolonialism; feminism and sexual difference; popular culture and the question of everyday life—as well as some political and philosophical matters that have long been central to the Western tradition. Together, the contributors provide no consensus about the politics of postmodernism; they insist, rather, that "universal abandon?" remain a question and not an answer.
The contributors: Anders Stephanson, Chantal Mouffe, Stanley Aronowitz, Ernesto Laclau, Nancy Fraser, Linda Nicholson, Meaghan Morris, Paul Smith, Laura Kipnis, Lawrence Grossberg, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, George Yudice, Jacqueline Rose, and Hal Foster.
Andrew Ross teaches English at Princeton University and is the author of The Failure of Modernism.
The work and times of the Black writer, editor, and intellectual
John Cullen Gruesser edits essays that explore the literary and journalistic career of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins. A Black woman writer at the turn of the twentieth century, Hopkins worked as the unacknowledged editor-in-chief of the Colored American Magazine but also wrote short fiction, novels, nonfiction articles, and a play believed to be the first by a Black woman. Versatile and politically committed, she was fired when her strong editorial stands and non-conciliatory politics offended the new owner of Colored American Magazine.
A rare examination of an overlooked figure in Black letters, The Unruly Voice explores Hopkins’s writing and her significance for contemporary readers.
Contributors: Elizabeth Ammons; Kristina Brooks; Lois Lamphere Brown; C. K. Doreski; John Cullen Gruesser; Jennie A. Kassanoff; Kate McCullough; Nelly Y. McKay; and Cynthia D. Schrager
Avelar starts by offering new readings of works produced before the dictatorship era, in what is often considered the boom of Latin American fiction. Distancing himself from previous celebratory interpretations, he understands the boom as a manifestation of mourning for literature’s declining aura. Against this background, Avelar offers a reassessment of testimonial forms, social scientific theories of authoritarianism, current transformations undergone by the university, and an analysis of a number of novels by some of today’s foremost Latin American writers—such as Ricardo Piglia, Silviano Santiago, Diamela Eltit, João Gilberto Noll, and Tununa Mercado. Avelar shows how the ‘untimely’ quality of these narratives is related to the position of literature itself, a mode of expression threatened with obsolescence.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of Latin American literature and politics, cultural studies, and comparative literature, as well as to all those interested in the role of literature in postmodernity.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press