- Title
- Patrick Hayes. JM Coetzee and the Novel: writing and politics after Beckett
- Creator
- Marais, Mike
- Date Issued
- 2012
- Date
- 2012
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144220
- Identifier
- vital:38322
- Identifier
- DOI: 10.1093/res/hgs014
- Description
- According to Patrick Hayes, J. M. Coetzee's fiction, on a thematic level, ‘repeatedly suggests that the condition of modernity is made up of competing, equally important, and yet incommensurate ways of imagining the good community’ (p. 4). The first of these imaginings is grounded in the Kantian notion that the human individual is a rational and autonomous agent, and that it is precisely his or her rational autonomy, and capacity to direct life through neutral principles that commands the respect and recognition of other individuals. As is evident in its emphasis on rationality, this politic of equal dignity and recognition is universalistic in its claims. In contrast, the second imagining of community is based on the recognition of cultural specificity, and the argument that freedom and equal recognition are only possible through a revision of deleterious cultural stereotypes. In its terms, the good community ‘must be founded on the recognition, and active fostering of cultural particularity’ (p. 12). This politic of difference is highly suspicious of the universalizing claims of the politic of dignity, arguing that its appeal to equal dignity is itself a form of particularism masquerading as universalism.
- Format
- 3 pages
- Format
- Language
- English
- Relation
- The Review of English Studies
- Relation
- Mike Marais, PATRICK HAYES. J. M. Coetzee and the Novel: Writing and Politics after Beckett., The Review of English Studies, Volume 63, Issue 261, September 2012, Pages 706–708, https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1093/res/hgs014
- Relation
- The Review of English Studies volume 63 number 261 706 708 September 2012 1471-6968
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Oxford Academic Rights and permissions statement (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/access_purchase/rights_and_permissions)
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Marais, Mike (Prof)
RU Department of Literary Studies in English
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| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Patrick Hayes.pdf | 632 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |